I go a lot of respect for Burns, in fact I yield to noone , but his new scramble in sand in the Horn is much more promising
The deal is the pesky dialects they yabber down there makes being his regular crystal clear a problem, unlike as per his QTR Yaley princelings
I'd say, only a wild guess, that of all the people in the world out side the Northern part of the peninsula; the SK are the most, despite the bla bla, aware of the consequences of theatening Kim, bless him
Somaliland is not an independence movement in any of the generally possible descriptions
I(s a swirl of contesting groups tribes interests militias pirates which defy
If Dead Joe thinks that clasping someone there to his cadaver is not the kiss of death
The Haaretz article has the sense to point out there is a very easy solution to the current problem, the port, and this mini mart is merely a cash grap
Little known fact - Boko, who to this day are the prototype of a successful 'terrorist or 'independence' etc, spent a very long time provoking Obama, remember our girls, Obama was a sentimental sucker but even he was not duped
(There is no sucker like a rich sucker far from home)
Burns knows all this, he's preparing the cash flow, paying off the right people now, these things do not happen overnight
Read about Bearbock visiting China in the Global Times of China! If a report is long, then there are real problems, which must be masked with beautful words, compliments and things where both agree. The ice breaking visit of Fico in China was hailed for three days, with short reports, the report on Bearbock is longer than long. Read it yourself!
Do not care how much the 'enemy' laughs. Those who do are largely liberal, decadent, culturally self hating ignorants. They are already destroying their countries and cultures from within. Purposefully. These are the same people who are reconfiguring their armies to become transsexual loving and worry free, with safe spaces and praise for perversions.
I feel you, but I do see Russia and something bigger. People don't defend what is theirs for the sake of any politician but because anything else would be unthinkable. Russia is today one of the last beacons of hope for humanity. And even if it loses the war, at least it went down in a fight, not like those pathetic clowns in the West who deserve to transition into God knows what gender en masse.
Hey, I completely agree and I am thinking about this all the time. Also, as a Serb, I understand more than you can imagine. But honestly, what is left to us but faith and zeal to fight back? I honestly cannot bear living in their Orwellian world, even thinking Russia would fold. And believe me, I lived in the West, tried to adjust, my husband is Western, and I had to go back to Serbia eventually. Covid opened my eyes. I figured something in me is broken. Once you have taken your red pill, you can't untake it anymore. You simply can’t live like a senseless godless consumer cow. So there is no surrender. I will not go live in the West and be a merry idiot, happy in my cul-de-sac plywood home, driving an SUV, having all the entrapments of a senseless godless cattle life that their system secures for the masses. All I can say now is, one day at a time. I am very worried about what Putin might do, but as long as someone fights there is hope. The alternative is even bigger death, if that makes any sense.
Serbia is a NATO satrapy. You do understand what that means? They maintain a superficial veneer of a pro-Russian stance because the whole population is pro-Russian, but this country is 100% run and administered by NATO. Every aspect of our political life is arranged in the embassies. The price of that is not only humiliation and desperation; the price is an ever-shrinking population. There is no feasible prospect for any meaningful development because we will never be trusted (little Russians), which means we will be permanently undermined at every corner. Also, the system is arranged in such a way that only the CORE countries in the West can have a modicum of prosperity. They will pillage and loot our resources, place dirty industries in our backyards, mines, and waste, and use us as a location for drug trafficking and money laundering, a dump for unwanted peoples, and dubious business dealings. And as a cherry on top, they will constantly preach us about environment, corruption and the lack of democracy, the very things they arrange for us, making sure we feel every but the UNTERMENSH they think we are. Eventually, this will destroy us societally and biologically more than any wars (and we fought more than a few). So, if you needed a cautionary tale, look no further.
P.S. I know it's selfish that we pin all our hopes on Russia fighting to save all of us, while we can’t do much on our end. Also, I can’t say that I am not dreaming about Oreshniks flying depending on my hormones.
Also remember that our war with NATO ended with a "ceasefire", a demilitarized zone, and some UN guarantees (UN Resolution 1244 guaranteeing our sovereignty over Kosovo and territorial integrity). Not a mere year has passed since the Kumanovo agreements, and the West has orchestrated a color revolution against Milosevic (largely thanks to the imperfect peace he signed which disillusioned the Serbian population with similar emotions that you just shared). When we finally surrendered to the West (October revolution), we foolishly thought that meant we could now just switch to being Western, do as they please, and become one of them. Little did we know.
Also, I believe Putin must be aware of all of this. There is no one who can guarantee his own security and survival if he surrenders to the Western demands. Milosevic also thought he had made a deal. And as we mentioned many times over, West doesn’t respect any deals. Not only that they didn’t respect what they agreed, they helped Kosovo proclaim independence and to this day they keep them as a Damocles sword over Serbia’s head. Like a bad dream you can never wake up from. Same will happen in Ukraine if Putin accepts imperfect peace
You put all this very well. However, there is a wider context: "...everything we have is being stolen from us."
What do you think has happened to Western populations since the 1980s? Let me tell you: the fabric of their cultures, their communities, their economies et al have been picked apart bit by bit; by the same people who are trying to break up Russia to control them and take all their stuff. If they defeat Russia, next will be China and then the whole globe will be under the control of these perverse ghouls and the words of great writers such as Orwell, Huxley and Wells will be fully realised.
What you are writing is universally true and I have nothing but empathy for it.
However, there are billions of people around the world praying for Russian to give these cunts what they deserve, even praying they help topple this globalist group of alien perverts from the grip they have on the West. The Western populations are already defeated and controlled: and now look at Germany.
You may well say that why should Russian's pay the price and I have no reply but brotherly love other than to say to you: what will happen to Russia if you don't fight these relentless psychopaths? You appear, along with groups such as the Houthis the only people to have the means or the guts to stop them.
This is so well put with such acute understanding you must keep educating fellow Eastern Europeans whenever you can. I understand fully because I have spent much time with people from both the former USSR and Yugoslavia and who quickly became as enlightened as you are after time in the West. It is glittery but shallow. A Bright Shining Lie.
Coming from the West, this was heartening and like conversing with older generations here (now gone) who still had some solidarity like you do and understanding of what is important outside consumer culture.
Understanding US history in it's economic, political. social and technological development is key to understanding how the globe has been poisoned; including their own supposed Citizens and the First Nations. The consumer culture you write of poisons every part of the brain and soul until all that's left is a vacuum for a soul and knee-jerk robotic habituations.
The people behind this don't behave like your and Titus' tyrants do; despite being brutal, actually being more honest and giving you something to push back against in solidarity. No, the fuckers we have are like paedophiles: they groom you, ply you with sweeties and goodies and convenience until your addicted/brainwashed/hooked/dependant then tear you a new arsehole until you're subservient or used up; these are disgusting ghouls with armies of media servants who are passively aggressively at you 24 seven. When you understand US history you see it as a 250 year old test laboratory, turned Stanford Experiment where these ideas of control gestated and are now pushed around the globe in the same manner by other pieces of shit they have corrupted and co-opted: there are numerous plays and examples of how these ghoulish sacks of shit crushed resistance and their populaces into submission and now use these ideas around the globe to do the same.
Ironically, it is those older and good Americans that are also trying to resist this and are at the forefront of it on these boards - indeed, the great Simplicius who I assume is American among others. They did not sign up for this either. They don't want it. The can see they've been conned and taken over by these aliens. Many of the best and bravest people I've known are American and Jewish, only the wrong kind, if you get my drift.
Anyway, I've taken up too much space on this board but as with Titus I want to thank you for writing and articulating what I struggle with despite English being my first language. You are both a credit to humanity.😊👏🤞👌🙏
My thinking exactly. He is harping on the supposed 1 million Russian dead, which is a total fabrication of Ukie propaganda, a desperate move to justify their own losses to their bereaved population. Not even the MSM stands by this ridiculous number the Hohols pulled out of their collective arse. The most reliable estimates are of 70 thousand dead or fewer---this was discussed by Simplicius on more than one occasion. Begone whiny cope troll!
I think he has said elsewhere that he sees the Ukrainian casualties as also being Russian. (Almost all of them being either press-ganged or brain-washed.)
Their hatred of Russia and its people goes back long before the Soviet era. Lenin and Trotsky received a large sum of money from western backers. Wall Street robber-barons were intent on toppling the Tsar even before that. Look at China's 'century of humiliation' starting with the opium wars fought on behalf of the Sassoons and others of their ilk to get an inkling of how those who call the shots in the west operate.
"If Russia disrespects its own sons, if it once again agrees to a treasonous peace, if it betrays their blood yet again, then I will take that job. If Russia doesn’t care for itself, then I will no longer care for Russia"
I appreciate what you said, I understand your heartfelt sentiments, but you have a lot to learn.
Start with this - power always ends up in the hands of sociopaths, because sociopaths are precisely the ones who will do whatever it takes to gain power.
This is the kernel of The Iron Law Of Oligarchy. Learn it well. Take it to heart.
"Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed." C. Wright Mills
Sounds like you're a Western shill posing as a Russian. The "one million dead" you write about is nonsense. I live in Russia (and have for many years) and know many people in the military, including medical staff in the military hospitals, and Russian casualties aren't remotely near a million dead. It's only about 70,000 dead at most. That's not anywhere near the level of casualties Russians tend to associate with a real war.
Yes, about 700,000 Ukrainians have been killed and many of them have been ethnic Russians. That's tragic, but Russians lay the blame for those deaths on the satanic US and the US's vassals, not on Russia. Everybody knows Russia didn't start this war, the US did.
Likewise, anybody who really has money in Russia (obviously, that's not you) knows this isn't about sanctions. Sanctions have had the net effect of dramatically increasing the wealth of rich Russians. There have been a few who were caught wrong-footed by changes in markets, but there are always a few of those. The great majority of Russia's oligarchs have gotten phenomenally richer, literally many billions richer. That's a result of two factors: first, the dramatic rise in the export prices achieved for oil, gas, food, and resource exports, and second, the phenomenal rise in Russia's real economy.
A good example of the latter is how the lady who founded and owns Wildberries, a hugely successful Internet online marketplace, has added billions more to her net worth since the start of the special op. A booming economy means even more online shopping, which has made her even richer.
As for elites enjoying the good life in the West, billionaires always enjoy the good life pretty much wherever they darn want. The reality in Russia is that patriotism has become even stronger than before and many of the superrich have pulled resources out of the West and have reinvested them into Russia. If you were rich, or knew rich people, you'd know the running joke for the last few years is that the US has managed to achieve what the Russian government could not: to convince the richest oligarchs to move hundreds of billions of their dollars out of investments in the West and into investments in Russia.
By the way, if you approach your relationship with Russia by trying to strike deals with Russia in return for your patriotism, you're not really a patriot. You're an opportunist, and the sooner you leave our fine country the better. Adios, and don't let the door hit you on your way out.
In the meantime, true patriots know that Russia is fighting a hundred years' war against a satanic, corrupt, immeasurably evil West and the path to winning that war depends on building a superior, strong economy while not getting sucked into losing strategies like killing 100 million Russians in an easily avoided mutually destructive war. Those patriots all know that when Russia wins that war they will extract plenty of revenge, with interest, for the Russians the US and its vassals have killed.
As a Westerner living in the belly of the beast, I found John's last paragraph straightforward and true. The West now really is Satanic in the way that it attacks every virtue, every form of rationality, in the name of the very thing that it is attacking. Many of us now feel that if what was good in Western civilization survives at all, it will be as an element in the civilization of Russia.
(But I did not upvote his comment as I do not agree with his accusation that you are a Western shill.)
Looks like the situation in Austria. We had elections, the strongest party is pro peace, against sanctions, against NATO membership, so they try to form a coalition without this party. We have a caretaker government, but they are steering all the pro EU, pro war, pro sanctions course that leads streight into NATO. To make things worse, we see a big economic decline, a massive hole in the national budget, a collapsing school system, the mass migration leads to a housing crisis, massive problems with paying the pensions and so on. But the discussions around forming a working government are with no hurry.
Will it believe in Trump's peacemaking efforts or as i would describe them deception or will it put the squeeze on the neo-Nazis and achieve peace from them in the form of their unconditional surrender.
Comrade Putin signed the budget for 2025. The new budget is 32.5% defense spending. This is an absolute record I believe. The country is betting on war.
In fact that same thing worries me. It means the revenue is not growing enough so the current proportion is good enough. It is a sign of strain. Of trouble.
Putin is fighting this war on levels and with people, factors, forces we don't even know about. Is the problem. We have a simplistic battlefield view even though we shouldn't - we know damn well the battlefield is fed from outside and subject to economic and political considerations - christ, that's what Kiev Ukraine is all about.
But we ignore that and tend to think entirely in battlefield terms.
Well I know that's not good enough.
But for lack of better knowledge - and they don't tell us much do they? not even the 'best' of our 'analysts', 'observers' etc - I reckon Russia needs to step in big time right now and blitzkreig west to Odessa. Switch the lights off in Ukraine totally and do it.
Because if they're cranking up spending to those levels its getting serious and worrying.
It's not a sign of trouble. It's very doable, especially when you have Belousov working obsessively to dual-purpose the economy. The Russians understand this type of thing better than anyone. The decision to allocate 32.5% indicates an ability to be brave, bold and decisive and to fully commit to what is dear to one's heart. Few can do this. I find it impressive. The leadership will keep a beady eye on how the war is affecting the population and the national stability. They look like they know what they're doing. Moscow is demonstrating calculated courage.
Well said. Respectfully, this bit is completely off: "It means the revenue is not growing enough so the current proportion is good enough. It is a sign of strain. Of trouble."
Fighting a world war with a power the size of the US requires far more investment than routine military expenditures. Russia's military expenditure was being reduced year after year until the US decided to start hot war with Russia by destroying the democratically elected government of Ukraine and installing a nazi junta in Kiev. Russia then responded.
That Russia can fight a military and economic war with the US and be winning, despite the huge expenditure involved is a sign of tremendous strength and a sign of the extreme durability and depth of the Russian economy.
Putin threw the gauntlet down in Munich 2008. Russia began preparing for an inevitable war. In 2022 they took on a coalition of over 50 countries on their own and up until now have shown they can prevail. Many countries have been destroyed by NATO since 1991, but the Russians are not one of them. Did you notice they are now the 4th largest economy on the planet?
Perhaps your priorities are ignored by the Kremlin?
You're missing the main point that Russia didn't start this shitshow. You seem to blame Putin. He turned Russia from a Yeltsin basket case to a resergent superpower thereby triggering a Brzezinskiesque containment strategy. It was always going to end this way in Ukraine.
How many you think will die when this whole thing goes BOOOOOOOOOMMMMM. A million, very sad for those who are left behind, could be ‘peanuts’ compared to the number of casualties
Good point. Btw. according to a Lancet study, the "decade of democracy" in Russia after the end of the USSR has cost the country about 15 million deaths.
And the Russian KIA are 77k according to Mediazona/BBC, not a million. Even adding ukrainian losses you would still end under 1m
"Again and again, he has made the wrong choices, leading Russia down a path of failure and humiliation."
Abject nonsense. The people who led Russia down a path of failure and humiliation were those fools who through brain-dead ideology and war destroyed the Russian economy from 1917 onward.
Failure and humiliation are not being able to feed yourself, and being reduced to handouts from successful economies, like "Bush's legs," the donation of chicken legs from the US. Failure and humiliation are a slobbering, drunken Yeltsin, begging to be a vassal of the US. Failure and humiliation are such a crippled economy and such a miserable existence that your children sell themselves, and sell themselves cheaply at that, to rich Westerners for a pair of jeans. That was Russia before Putin.
There is no success and no dignity in this world of nations if you are poor. Russia has achieved both success and dignity by becoming the world's largest energy exporter, the world's largest food exporter, and the world's largest resource exporter. Half of the world's countries depend on Russian food or other Russian exports (energy and resources) to avoid food insecurity. Russia has blown past Germany and Japan to become the world's fourth largest real economy.
Russian youth today are golden youth, knowing no life other than shopping malls where everything they could possibly want or imagine is at their fingertips, or delivered to them in minutes by couriers. Our cities are modern and full of truly superior infrastructure, a quality of life that in Soviet times existed only in dreams about the fabled West.
Putin achieved all that, and he has achieved a profound rise in Russia's economy even while defeating everything the US and the US's vassals have been able to throw at Russia in the last ten years of the West's war on Russia.
Thank God Russia has a wise and patient leadership that not only is defeating the combined, satanic West on the battlefield but also in a massive economic war. That is the path to success and dignity, not destroying Russia's people and Russia's economy because foolish imbeciles do not have the patience to wage and to win the world war with the US in all of its dimensions, both military and economic.
What are private attitudes among that golden youth, and other civilians, towards "peace" negotiations with the perfidious West? I am asking you, because you're on location :-)
Whether or not the Ставка finds the balls to refuse a disastrous Minsk 3 depends to some extent on these attitudes.
" Instead, he’s talking about the young liberal crowd who party in the nightclubs of Moscow and St. Petersburg."
I should know better than to reply to a shill for the West, but what the heck...
Ah, no, I was using small-cap "golden youth" to refer to *all* young people, who are the beneficiaries of the dazzling wealth people now have as compared to Soviet times. When I refer to rich, spoiled children of the rich and powerful I capitalize the term, as in "Golden Youth." It's true I use the "small cap" version of the term to refer to all youth in sly evocation of the "big cap" term to emphasize how fabulously rich pretty much all youth are today compared to what they had in Soviet times, at least materially.
To continue my reply to Titus Hoholius:
You keep showing your lack of familiarity with real wealth in Russia, because the hallmark of the Golden Youth (note the caps) is not that they are in favor of ending the war at any cost, but that they don't give a shit about anything but themselves, and they have the money not to have to care. Whether the war continues or not has absolutely no effect on them. They don't care whether it continues or not, and they don't care who dies anywhere. They're safe no matter what happens and that's all they care about.
There is, of course, some overlap between the classic Golden Youth population and crazed liberals, and also between them and ultra patriots, and, of course, with the overwhelming majority of people who support the government. But the biggest overlap is with the "don't give a shit about anything" segment.
As for young people in general, sure, they tend to skew more liberal. But by overwhelming margins they also support the government. I hate to bad mouth Moscow because the majority of Muscovites are honest, sensible, decent people who love their country and support the government, but there is indeed a slight correlation that the further you get from Moscow the greater the support for the country and government. It's just that the tiny percentage of Russians who are crazed liberals tend to be concentrated in large cities, so they're more visible in a *very* large city like Moscow.
As frequent readers of this substack know, I always stand by my record. Before you believe what some hohol writes about what I say, get the link and read what I said for yourself.
"What are private attitudes among that golden youth, and other civilians, towards "peace" negotiations with the perfidious West?"
Russia's youth today as regards war and peace falls into pretty much the same four classes as the population in general, with slight skewing for age. The largest group supports the administration. People in the West refer to "Putin" but in reality the government is a fairly large and cohesive group, and most people, both youth and other age groups, support that government. Roughly 80% to 85% of the population supports the government.
The second largest group are people who don't give a shit about anything so long as they can continue on cruise control through life. By default, they're fine with the government. They don't vote so their lack of giving a shit doesn't really matter.
A third group are ultra patriots, a term I'll use to cover people who think Russia should immediately use nuclear weapons to make sure darned near 140 million Russians should die along with a billion other people in the West and around the world. They're the kooks who criticize Putin for having common sense and a longer term perspective.
A fourth and final group are crazed liberals. They tend to adore the West and to hate Russia. They also are a very small percentage of the population. It's hard to tell whether crazed liberals or ultra patriots represent larger, but still tiny, minorities. But given the profoundly larger percentage of people who support the government or who don't give a shit, it's irrelevant what either ultra patriots or crazed liberals think.
Russia's youth in my experience tend to have a larger percentage of "don't give a shit" in them than the average, with a slightly smaller percentage of "support the government" in them. They seem to have about the same percentages of ultra patriots and crazed liberals, with perhaps some skewing towards the crazed liberal side. That's hard to tell because out in the regions the youth are more likely to kick the shit out of you if you bark liberal nonsense as compared to urban youth in places like Moscow, but all those region youth don't get coverage by narcissistic liberal journalists in places like Moscow (who seem unaware there's any Russia out beyond Moscow's outer ring road).
There's no way any sort of Minsk 3 will happen. Nobody in the leadership has any interest in such idiocy. That's in keeping with what the very high percentage of the population, the 80% to 85%, that supports the government wants. As mentioned before, nobody cares what the "don't give a shit" segment wants and, of course, nobody cares what the tiny minority ultra patriot and crazed liberal segments want.
"you aren't suggesting the Tsarist government didn't richly deserve what happened to it, are you?" No, I'm not suggesting that. :-)
There are times when a benevolent monarchy has been good for societies and, I suppose, there might even have been times (although I can't recall any off the top of my head) when an aristocracy may have been good for a society, but for sure Tsarist Russia under the last, foolish, and incompetent Tsar wasn't one of them.
That he so totally mismanaged everything he touched to the degree that as foul and evil a group of people as the Bolsheviks could have seized power is yet another reason to curse him. My comment about 1917 was aimed against them, not in defense of the Tsar.
It's a tragedy that when Russia needed a competent autocrat the last Tsar was such a disaster. If he had the competence to manage a transition to almost any system other than dictatorial rule by murderous Marxist fanatics (who themselves were incompetent at nearly everything but dictatorial terror) the history of Europe could have been very different.
A transition to a figurehead monarchy with a democratic parliament would have preserved the basic, and rising, economic strength of an industrializing Russia. That would have avoided much failure and humiliation.
Agreed. Nicholas II was ...not a stellar anything, and about the last thing the Russian state needed at that critical moment. I don't think he could have been convinced to do anything more effective for Russia, unfortunately. Every step toward the end of autocracy had to be dragged out of him kicking and screaming. And having someone like Lenin around assured there was going to be no democratic parliament for long, regardless.
The Bolsheviks did turn around enough of Russia's economic backwardness via industrialization to stop the Nazis. I'll give them that at least. US and Brit economic assistance sped up the Eastern Front by providing logistical support, they did nothing about winning the war there. Which is something the current complainers about the speed of Russian efforts in Ukraine should consider. The Eastern Front took a bit under four years to come to completion. Envision a world with no Western spam and gasoline additives and trucks and telephone equipment. How much longer would the push back of the Nazis taken? 6 years? That is my ballpark guess. And that was with scant attention to minimizing casualties.
I think Putin has played this as well as he reasonably could.
If you ask the people there is no war. I mean ask the people 'you want to make war?' and they'll say no.
But no one wants to ask the people. No one even suggests it. This is a bit mystery to me but it is true isn't it?
Yep, I think Russia needs to take everything if it is going to be a world ruled by lunatic 'leaders' instead of the people by 'regimes' not the people who supposedly 'elected' them.
And it looks like it is.going to be for as I say; no one even suggests any kind of turning towards the people. Cripes: even the people don't seem to ask for it.
So okay. It's going to be business as usual. Regimes rule. In which case Russia can never get Odessa back. But neither can Russia ever live without getting Odessa back.
Even if we got the political 'gain' of the place by referendum which would be the most bloodless and sensible the regimes would not let it be a functional reality. They would not allow free traffic to and fro the Russian Federation. They would do everything and anything they could to make it an impossible situation.
Russia must take Mikolaiv, seems to me and, of course, Odessa. Stop messing about. Mikolaiv gives the defence in depth there, then, too. I don't know what the population would think about it. Are they Russian oriented or Banderites?
I think they should go all out and do that, soonest. And pressure their 'allies' NK, China, whatever, to actually put up or shut up... at least voice a commitment or something... and power on all across west from Kherson and take Mikolaiv and Odessa. Don't worry about reclaiming all of Donetsk. When they sue for peace you can make them withdraw from Donetsk. They invaded remember?
Just take Mikolaiv and rejoin Odessa - that would be a happy reunion I think? The people want that? Well then we've got West to East a solid line of Russian States and that'll do.
The ethnic Banderans now claim they are from stolid Nordic stock.
I am pretty sure Russia is going to stay out of administering Lviv and Ivano-Frank. The two oblasts are reverting back to Poland. Making the Banderans a Polish problem again.
As long as "NATO" and "Ukraine" are mentioned in the same sentence by the elected and appointed divets (sic) running NATO and the EU, Russia is going to continue destroying Lenin's gift to the ethnic Banderans.
Thanks Titus, I agree with everything you wrote. I write this as a 73 y/o retired American who has spent some time reading history. After the horrific losses the Soviets endured in WW2 and to be treated like this. Disgusting. When the English decimated the native North American peoples they referred to the original inhabitants as "savages". When they kidnapped blacks in Africa and stole their labor (and raped their women) they were called n*ggers. Well the US Civil War never really ended and WW2 never ended either. These fascists need a healthy and permanent beat down. We're groomed here to hate on Putin and the Russian people. I for one am having none of it. Trump? New boss is same as the old boss. Bigly sad...
I would guess that most of the American (US) readers here understand that and agree. Trump's proposal is mostly noteworthy as a slight deviation away from what our military state has been offering up so far.
Russia may end up having to solve it all on the ground, but we can at least take hope for diplomacy.
When the shattered remains of Lemburg are annexed by Poland : "UKRAINE FINALLY ENTERS NATO - HUGE VICTORY, PUTIN HUMILIATED" will be all over the mainstream media.
"Nearly 1 million Russian men have died in the last three years of this civil war. (For the American readers: Ukrainian people are Russians too—they are not a completely different people. I know this might shock you, given the brainwashing of your mainstream media"
Russian is here. Stop spreading garbage nonsense that Ukranians are Russians. Hohols NEVER were Russians and never will be. Putting aside Russian ethnic people in South East Ukraine.
When some IDIOTS saying hohols are Russians they are either retarded or want comlete destrution of Russia. Saying Ukranias are Russian same as Polish people are Russians.
If ukraine was part of Russian Empire. Well Tatarstan and Buryatia are parts of Russian Empire. Tatars are not russians.
zourabichvili - quick fact - "She joined Columbia University in 1972–1973 where Zbigniew Brzezinski, at the time director of the Trilateral Commission, trained her on Soviet politics and Cold War diplomacy." and we know the agenda brzezinski had, don't we?? she is doing all she can to keep up the tradition!
It strikes me that all these warhawks are women... I can remember a time when feminists claimed that if women were to rule the world, there would be peace and kumbaya for ever... (LOL)
I think they feel they have something to prove to all the men, that they can be violent sadists as much as the guys can. "Look guys, I just strangled a baby with a lamp cord and you said we can't be leaders".
Senior female here:- exactly what I said a month ago to younger family.
Also it was said .. that if we could have seen the horror of the concentration camps, etc … it would NEVER have been able to happen…… yet now its being seen all over the world - and yet it’s still business as usual!
I don't think the camps for Japanese during WWII in the U.S. compare to similar efforts anywhere else in the world, ever. Most people involved strongly believed they were an unfortunate preventative measure that most of the people in the camps didn't deserve. That affected how the prisoners were treated.
Illinois Governor Pritzker's family fortune is based on wealth stolen from those people, as are many other Jewish fortunes. There probably wouldn't have been an opioid epidemic otherwise - the Pritzkers wouldn't have had the capital to start their drug trafficking empire.
Hell has no fury like a woman scorned… in general men fight and afterwards drink together. In general women are not capable of doing the same. In general women tend to react emotionally, but unfortunate as a consequence the rational and logical thinking goes out the window. I was always of the opinion that women would create a more peaceful and just world until I came accross Albright, Clinton, Nuland, KK, Gauleiter von der Lügen, Baerbock, Harris and most other women in power (Moldova, Georgia, Denmark, …). I haven’t seen such rabid warmongers in my life. I mean men are a-holes, but women aren’t much better and both are not going to safe the world I am afraid.
Women always escalate a crisis because they're certain they won't take any physical consequences. Men grow up with the knowledge that if they fuck around they're going to find out and get the same treatment right back so they're cautious.
Women are skilled at getting their own way any way they can.
I am a guy so I don't experience this except occasionally on the receiving end but apparently women get a thrill out of controlling or having power over men. Certainly that appears to be the case in romance, so I'm not surprised that they also experience a thrill in sending male soldiers to beat each other to death on their command. Many love violent bad guys too, which I never figured out. Must be evolutionary, for protection.
Most, or likely all, of these women are YGL graduates. Their unfortunate blundering presence in politics speaks more of Klaus Schwab's personal tastes than of their abilities. And remember that incompetence was one of the criterions these "leaders" were selected for in the first place, so that they must turn to their handlers for guidance.
In Georgia it is getting cold. Spray water on the protesters and they will go home COLD.
I think Andrei's figures of a million dead Ukies better than Simplicius' estimate, with a million more broken and mangled, but alive. The EU makes up numbers and why rely on them? That's pretty much because it seems like Russia's defense department knows the number of tanks and other weapons they shoot down, so why not their estimate of dead and incapacitated? It's like counting body bags in Vietnam, but if you are fighting a war of attrition it's the most important number, and this is the reason why everyone is deserting and running away.
kk is not a brilliant strategist.. in fact she is a very good example of the exact opposite... for all her warmongering credentials, she is a real loser on all fronts.. the fact ursala von leyen has to work with her, is just great.. that is like a double anchor especially designed to sink the european union much quicker then the germans figuring out who sabotaged nordstream.... these 2 will sink germany and the rest of europe much quicker!
Well look who she represents. If I had to hold up an example of why we in Canada should leave NATO, it would be Estonia. Like they are going to save our asses if we got attacked ?? No, but we have to travel the world away to defend them with permanent troops. Obviously in letting these postamp sized nations with non existent militaries into NATO, the plan has always been to put nukes on their borders with Russia. Obviously nuclear proliferation is Americas foreign policy goal.
Same with Fond of Lying, one would expect her to have been fired after her first fib, but no, she gets a standing ovation and the audiences clamouring for more and more.
Having read his dispatches back in the days when he used the moniker Nightvision, I can affirm that Simplicius has always been a fine writer. That being said, in the last few months he's definitely upped his game a few notches. One of the top authors on Substack, IMHO.
I caught that too. Maybe he was suggesting Scholtz is an amorphous androgenous blob without any apparent gender. Heretics often are. Don't tell me Satan doesn't have a great sense of humor and a kinky dimension.
If memory serves he used to post on the Saker site, which had a fantastic forum. News of the Saker's fate would be appreciated. Simplicius always shined.
Swell of World War 2 Red Herrings was a great piece ... "... Rob Bauer, head of the ‘NATO Military Committee’. ,,,, The irrelevant pipsqueak mewled something along these lines to powder on the phony fear-porn:" That tops the best of Shakespheres insults.
Feel tired over all these ’clowns’ not caring about their own citizens. Germany is going ”kaputt” big time. Scholtz is carrying a aluminium case as he was guarding something important. The open secret is that he let Germany slip into the abyss - screwed by Deep State US. As a Socialdemocrat he should be ashamed of himself.
Bareback is talking about ”peace process”…she who declared that she didnt care of her own citizens concerns about the War.
And how come Stoltenberg acting? He is no longer NATO Overlord.
As for Trump/Kellogg peaceplan…flawed. And we dont know how crazy Trump is. Someone heard his threat against Mid-East? ” We will crush them harder than anything in our glorious history”
Any peaceplan must include the fact that Russianspeaking people living in Ukraine oblasts must have a safe future. It also seems as Putin will withhold his forces to just include the new Oblasts. The others are propably deemed ”anti-russian” so whats the point of taking them?
As for dreaming about Charkov and Odessa or any other big city. Keep dreaming.
Russia is not able to take them by force.
Good write, Simplicius, but your are struggling as much as we others with all these narratives floating. Anything can happen. Suddenly.
Dreaming about Kharkow and Odessa without taking them by force is very realistic.
Just think about the prospect of the Russian held new territories start reviving, as Mariopol
does. While the rest of Ukraine will suffer because the so-called allies won't care about the people of the remaining part of the country. No prospect, just empty stomachs and empty words by the lying elites. That would lead to a popular vote, as to where to belong soon enough. It is just human nature.
How many times have you heard Russia is preparing a new offensive?
Have you seen how little progress they have done in Donbass during last two years despite the ”insufferable” Ukrainian losses and the enormous advantage Russia has in bombs and artillery?
As for your popular vote…did you see what happened in Romania? In Georgia? Whenever the popular vote is against West interests it will be countered.
My only hope, say wishful thinking, is that Zelensky&Yermak are strung up in Kiew by angered citizens and military when they realize that 3 years War led to even less than the Istanbul peace offer.
Just now many people dream of Trump and his masterplan to bring World peace. Good luck. It is going to be beyond our beliefs of how bad things can go.
The fact is that Kharkhow and Odessa is leaning toward Russia, and if it weren't for the repressive Banderites they would be able to speak up. If the Banderitas are discredited as they are heading in that direction, things can change quickly. Especially if, as you wish Zelensky&Yermak are strung up by the angered citizens and military when they realize that 3 years of war led to even less than the Istambul peace offer.
I agree that if Russia continues as present, they are months away. But the Russians aren't hitting the people CAUSING THE WAR. Maybe hazelnut changes the calculus internally in the Ukraine and there is no rear to call back to for reinforcements. What if there was no draft boards to kidnap people? There is enormous technology overhang here that hasn't been used, by both sides. Hazelnut is between here and nuclear war, and that ain't much. I think there is a non-nuclear EMP generator, but I'm not sure. In Ocean's 11 they used a "Pinch." I've seen videos where they shoot down drones using an EMP burst just like in the Matrix.
They have a serious chunk of their navy and marines, pretty much next door and an awesome airforce. Plus I'm sure they already have cells operating there.
Most importantly, once the dominos really start falling and the central government collapses with battle fatigued soldiers exhausted and limping home, what's left of them, Vlad could probably make a few phone calls to get Odessa. There won't be any fight left in Ukraine soon.
For me the Hazelnut is the sort of thing you come up with when you have a good reason to feel threatened.
The go slow approach has many advantages. Since everything in the West is done with credit here, we will slowly, but inevitably, strangle ourselves.
Another advantage comes from minimizing casualties. The cost benefit is obvious, but troop loyalty is not earned by throwing away patriots for leadership ego gratification.
The Western approach to imperial adventure features fascist profit and torturing the middle class patriots with empty promises and valueless equipment.
The Ukraine has proven the Russian approach to arms works. What do we have to show for it? Huge profits for the corrupt few and empty coffers and a whole generation or two of Ukrainians that won't come back.
I share much of your deep thoughts. I also understand Simplicius gospel about ”the thousand cuts”. Strictly logical in a cynical way it is plausible that it is the best way.
But I despise War and people who instigate, manipulate and force deadly confrontations. I want them killed instantly (or rather scared back to their dungeons).
We have a lot of generations killed in Ukraine, both Russians and Ukrainians. Hundreds of thousands familys are shattered and traumatized for rest of their life.
If there is a possibility to end the War in a favourable matter - why not try it.
The sad truth is that West has applied the right amount of pressure everytime Russia seems to gain to much speed. And if I am wrong and Kremlin by purpose is doing a slow cook of Ukraine and their puppetmasters in the West I feel sorry for the Russian people (and all others) who must endure this War.
Oh we agree more than you might realize. As an ex USN submariner the technical aspects both fascinate and disgust me. The waste of resources and extreme trauma is inexcusable.
The only reason we fight wars is so TPTB can maintain power and control. Given the openly declared goals and abundantly transparent actions of NATO, through it's whole history, what choice did Putin have in Ukraine?
For me the opportunity to carefully analyze Putin's words and actions has been there right along. When he said you will not get a better peace deal than this, he was not bullshitting anyone. Now Minsk 1 or 2 would be a dream come true for Zelenskyy, it was not Russia's fault those deals fell through. All the Western predictions have proven wrong.
"The right amount of pressure" For me those have been mostly escalatory acts of terror, designed to get Putin to raise the stakes and then NATO launches ww3. Had he gone full tilt 3 years ago, the resources and inspiration to deploy Hazelnuts would not be there. All we get from our MIC is hype and broken promises.
Yeah you made a prediction here and it came true. The recent Syrian invasion by Israel, Turkey, US supported Al Qaeda proxies was the right amount of pressure. Massive tactical loss for Syria.
It is sad to see. And it is like a Horrorfilm a la Bodysnatchers when you realize you have first experienced western media with hard eyes on you declare that anything Israel has done in Gaza&Lebanon is strictly defensive measures and now with the same chutzpah declaring former ISIS and Al-Quida fighting to free Syrian people from Assad. Same people who slashed and still is slashing throats…
I think the Sunnis is taking home the game. The last Shia will be Iran. Is it good or bad? All I know that it was not Irianians flying planes 9/11 or bombed London, Madrid, Brussel or Paris.
If Russia now lose Tartus Naval base and Khmemim Airbase there will be Champagne popping in Pentagon. And knifes would be sharpened in Kremlin. Next step for West is to declare Danish Strait closed for Russian Naval ships (they will explain it as due to the increasing threats from Russias hybrid warfare in Baltic Sea).
Yep I think you're right about what Russia must do
But I don't think it can do it alone.
I think it needs China and NK and whoever else, anyone else, to come on board right now openly and flagrantly on any pretext whatever and pour troops and munitions and whatever into the conflict on the Russian side.
So that it is immediately a done deal. Hand down, finished, fait accompli.
Nothing to do but deal with it, lap it up.
No use rattling nuclear swords now, too late.
If China, home of the 'rights of the People', remember? glorious 'Chinese People's Republic' were to get 'people oriented' and declare loudly that they find it intolerable that after 10 years Kiev and Washington et al are still totally bent on invading, occupying, oppression, ethnic punishing the people of Donbas and now even at the clear cost of the people of Kiev Ukraine and now even at the clear cost of the people of the whole of Europe - find it intolerable.. sickening.. won't stand for it... declare themselves wholly on the side of the People of Donbas, people of Ukraine, people of Europe and will therefore help Russia and Donbas put a stop to it - and started to send in thousands and thousands...
It would all be over.
They would not even have to do it. Just announce the attitude.
They are not doing that.
I suspect them of playing cat and mouse.
I don't trust them. Any more than you can trust Erdogan.
Or any politician most especially in the West.
But what i mean is: if they'd get up and speak for the People.
Because no one else will, does. No one. Not a one.
Not even Putin though he has done in the past of course.
But even he is full of 'The State' and historical imperatives.
So too is China: totally authoritarian State, isn't it?
But hypocrisy reigns supreme.
And we could use some right now.
Let them all start piously pleading what in fact is the only just cause: peace for the people and step up and bring it all to an end.
China isn't an idealist nation though. They are strategically oriented. They are after resources first and foremost and they have to fight some imminent wars over Iran and Taiwan, if Trump makes good on his war threats, which I think he will. He a pathological narcisist. He will never accept a humiliating loss.
well I don't know the ins and outs of it all. but strategically china profits, surely, from the elimination of america from europe and that's what effective subduing of nato would be I think.
Or put it another way: strategically which way is better for china: American hegemony or Brics?
They seem to have made it clear, very clear, with their public humiliations of american envoys to china what they think.
China, unlike Russia, is deathly afraid of sanctions. Their economy is based on exports to the US and EU. If this were pulled out from under them, they would go bankrupt---there would be massive unrest, and the Party would throw Xi under the bus. So he will not dare, and will not be allowed, to make a clean break with the Hegemony.
The US would suffer even worse from a divorce like that, but there would be no upheaval there---the chain there is shorter and stronger than in communism, who would have thunk? And the Deep State already pre-controls their own social subversives.
The Russian government never talked about Odessa or Charkov, they want the four regions and Crimea. It is us talking about this. Maybe the Russians want a strong Russian Speaking minority in the rump state of Ukraine? A Minority which is protected by Moskow and therefore gives the Russians a lot of leverage in Ukraine. A Minority which keeps Ukraine permanent unstable.
Exactly. It is easier to control/govern people who actually has the desire to be Russians. An unfriendly population requires a lot of unpopular measures.
But problem is that Odessa in NATO-hands is a thorn in the side ande deadly threat against Russias Black Sea fleet.
Charkov likewise, filled with Tomahawks, would represent a never ending threat to Russia.
Moldova is just behind Odessa. Maybe 40 to 50 km. Not a big deal for drones. Charkov will be in the rump state of Ukraine, and the Russian government started the war with one big wish: No NATO. Every commend since the start of the SMO is: No NATO. I think Russia will more likely give up some of the Donbass Oblasts, than allowing NATO into whatever is left of Ukraine.
>Exactly. It is easier to control/govern people who actually has the desire to be Russians.
Last week there were messages from Odessa posted on Telegram expressing fear that the Kremlin will sell them out and leave them in the hands of the Ukronazis.
In fact I see such messages even from places like Zhytomyr on occasions.
Most of Ukraine (see Simplicius map) have Russian-speaking/liking citizens to some extent or even majority. Exception is westernmost part of the country. And exactly what your are describing is the tragedy with Ukraine. Population shouldnt have let the Russian-haters take over. But easy to say for me. Living under these conditions and corruption is not light.
Russia has no choice but to take control over most of Ukraine.
They will not have to fight across Ukraine as they have through Donbass.
Russia has massively attritted Ukraine & NATO.
In the past few months they have been taking control of square km daily.
They no longer confront large urban areas like they did in Mariupol & Bahkmut.
They outflank them, forming a cauldron that they squeeze shut- killing or capturing most.
Russian military production is vastly bigger than it was when the conflict started- and continuing to expand. Ukraines is completely destroyed & America/NATO is as pathetic as when the conflict started.
Russian military is approaching 2.5 million total. Ukraines likely less than 500,000 by now.
At any point Russia could turn off the electricity in Ukraine and it won't come back on until Russian crews fix it.
You don't seem to realize how many Ukrainians have really been killed. Likely 1,000,000+ by now. How many more seriously injured? No male left in Ukraine will join the military.
By the time Russia reaches the Dneiper how many more will be dead or surrendered?
Who exactly is going to resist the Russians west of the Dneiper?
There is simply no way Russia is going to allow America/NATO to be on Ukrainian territory. The only way they can achieve this is to control it.
I am sure Russia will cut deals with Hungary, Romania, Slovakia & maybe even Poland to trade western regions to them in return for non-aggression agreements.
I could make many more compelling arguments why Russia will take over Ukraine and why most Ukrainians will ultimately welcome this.
I speak as I do because I was an expat living in Ukraine when the SMO started. I have followed this American/NATO proxy war as closely as anyone.
Your will is strong. And I dont disagree with you over the necessity for Russia to take the most of Ukraine. I agree in most ukrainian citizens dont care if Russia is governing Ukraine - they just want living a good life.
I just cant see that happen, either in slowmotion or fast forward.
Odessa is a historically Russian city and packed with glorious Russian archetecture. Russia won't want to blow it to pieces to take it back, like they did to the other industrial shit holes, up to this point. I'm sure they will want it. It is a threat to their navy in NATO's hands. It gives them absolute control over ukraine and the Black Sea. I'll bet Vlad keeps some paintings of Catherine the Great, in various stages of undress, under his pillow.
I think Odessa is what Russia will be having for dessert myself. Of course they will take it !! That was founded by Russian Empress Catherine The Great in 1794, which isn't that long ago. VP will take whatever he has to to keep the missiles off his doorstep. He may go all the way to Poland. Odessa is too close to their naval fleet at Sovastopol, whose seizure started this war.
It's amazing what loyalties can be bought with food, water and utilities when the people being bought are otherwise, starving and freezing to death. Consider when the Russians raped and slaughterd their way through Germany, all that was soon forgotten when they occupied half of it for 50 years. I was in East Germany 10 years after the wall came down and the people were still fanatically proRussian and despised anyone who came from a Nato country. Ever polite and generous I was, but they still made sure they burnt every meal I ordered in restaurants.
It is amazing how Russia can win the hearts of the people they conquered, unlike any other recent empire I know of. Look at Chechnya, for instance. I guess that is because they are sincere, not the lying bastards in the West.
>Feel tired over all these ’clowns’ not caring about their own citizens
We should start with the clown in the Kremlin when it comes to not caring.
He is the one who has his own citizens being bombed daily while having the power to stop it with a snap of his fingers, and who has effectively implicitly promised them that this is the new normal in perpetuity, like in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
I don't see Germany being bombed, regardless of the economic situation.
Putin is the least clownish but it is no wonder there is critiscism of Russias way of handling the War. But who are we to judge? We dont know have difficult it most have been to find themselves against the whole NATO/US/UK-cabal eager to slit their throats. Europe and NATO has nothing to do with Ukraine.
If you read my comments you could easily see that i explained why it is so difficult for Russia. You could also see that I despise NATO. What is your recipe then to conquer Odessa?
"“If the ceasefire line means that Russia continues to control all the territories, this does not mean that Ukraine should give up these territories forever,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with Table."
Actually, it means exactly that - the territories are gone from Ukraine forever.
I doubt it. I suspect OTAN partners will subsist as agricultural states by then, having lost their industries to the US which by then will have been renamed United Jewish States of Israel. Welcome! (IF you are a Jew, of course - otherwise, Fuck Off or Die)
yep. the territories should belong to the people who live there, work there, own the land there. they have right to self determination. the kiev mob and the washington mob and the eu mob and the nato mob and all bigtime bigtalking self styled superior mobs claim this is a big thing. the kiev mob often claim they have this right.
but when it come to the donbas territories suddenly it's all forgotten and it's all about 'if russia controls' and 'if kiev loses' etc. i.e it is all talk about The State or The Regime and not talk about people at all.
Hello Simplicius - interesting as always. I was hoping for a little tidbit about Syria. Maybe its too early to make a commentary - but some reports say they're losing badly and other reports say they're winning magnificently- there were huge celebrations in Lebanon I heard...because in Lebanon they REALLY think they won and Israel ran away with its tail between its legs. What do you think ? Would love to hear.
Agree 100%, the timing of the Syria reboot is very suspicious to say the least.
Suppose the new "The Art of the Steal" President says to Putin (shades of Stalin/Churchill at Yalta); "You get what you want in Ukraine, only if we get what we want in Syria."
Syria has not yet stabilized but everything has not completely fallen apart either. The Militant offensive has ended for now as they seemingly consolidate their positions.
The only good thing to come out of the debacle has been the success of the Russian air force.
T&C is, thy say, the most refined and exclusive of the US offshore banking centres, one where thr USUK jurisdictions intertwine
But, merci pour les petites grâces, refused to send arms and armour and troops and Burns was tryi,ing to get them to do
I go a lot of respect for Burns, in fact I yield to noone , but his new scramble in sand in the Horn is much more promising
The deal is the pesky dialects they yabber down there makes being his regular crystal clear a problem, unlike as per his QTR Yaley princelings
I'd say, only a wild guess, that of all the people in the world out side the Northern part of the peninsula; the SK are the most, despite the bla bla, aware of the consequences of theatening Kim, bless him
Somaliland is not an independence movement in any of the generally possible descriptions
I(s a swirl of contesting groups tribes interests militias pirates which defy
If Dead Joe thinks that clasping someone there to his cadaver is not the kiss of death
The Haaretz article has the sense to point out there is a very easy solution to the current problem, the port, and this mini mart is merely a cash grap
Little known fact - Boko, who to this day are the prototype of a successful 'terrorist or 'independence' etc, spent a very long time provoking Obama, remember our girls, Obama was a sentimental sucker but even he was not duped
(There is no sucker like a rich sucker far from home)
Burns knows all this, he's preparing the cash flow, paying off the right people now, these things do not happen overnight
Why do you even read this irrelevant garbage?
Read about Bearbock visiting China in the Global Times of China! If a report is long, then there are real problems, which must be masked with beautful words, compliments and things where both agree. The ice breaking visit of Fico in China was hailed for three days, with short reports, the report on Bearbock is longer than long. Read it yourself!
Do not care how much the 'enemy' laughs. Those who do are largely liberal, decadent, culturally self hating ignorants. They are already destroying their countries and cultures from within. Purposefully. These are the same people who are reconfiguring their armies to become transsexual loving and worry free, with safe spaces and praise for perversions.
Hohol detected
I feel you, but I do see Russia and something bigger. People don't defend what is theirs for the sake of any politician but because anything else would be unthinkable. Russia is today one of the last beacons of hope for humanity. And even if it loses the war, at least it went down in a fight, not like those pathetic clowns in the West who deserve to transition into God knows what gender en masse.
Hey, I completely agree and I am thinking about this all the time. Also, as a Serb, I understand more than you can imagine. But honestly, what is left to us but faith and zeal to fight back? I honestly cannot bear living in their Orwellian world, even thinking Russia would fold. And believe me, I lived in the West, tried to adjust, my husband is Western, and I had to go back to Serbia eventually. Covid opened my eyes. I figured something in me is broken. Once you have taken your red pill, you can't untake it anymore. You simply can’t live like a senseless godless consumer cow. So there is no surrender. I will not go live in the West and be a merry idiot, happy in my cul-de-sac plywood home, driving an SUV, having all the entrapments of a senseless godless cattle life that their system secures for the masses. All I can say now is, one day at a time. I am very worried about what Putin might do, but as long as someone fights there is hope. The alternative is even bigger death, if that makes any sense.
Serbia is a NATO satrapy. You do understand what that means? They maintain a superficial veneer of a pro-Russian stance because the whole population is pro-Russian, but this country is 100% run and administered by NATO. Every aspect of our political life is arranged in the embassies. The price of that is not only humiliation and desperation; the price is an ever-shrinking population. There is no feasible prospect for any meaningful development because we will never be trusted (little Russians), which means we will be permanently undermined at every corner. Also, the system is arranged in such a way that only the CORE countries in the West can have a modicum of prosperity. They will pillage and loot our resources, place dirty industries in our backyards, mines, and waste, and use us as a location for drug trafficking and money laundering, a dump for unwanted peoples, and dubious business dealings. And as a cherry on top, they will constantly preach us about environment, corruption and the lack of democracy, the very things they arrange for us, making sure we feel every but the UNTERMENSH they think we are. Eventually, this will destroy us societally and biologically more than any wars (and we fought more than a few). So, if you needed a cautionary tale, look no further.
P.S. I know it's selfish that we pin all our hopes on Russia fighting to save all of us, while we can’t do much on our end. Also, I can’t say that I am not dreaming about Oreshniks flying depending on my hormones.
Also remember that our war with NATO ended with a "ceasefire", a demilitarized zone, and some UN guarantees (UN Resolution 1244 guaranteeing our sovereignty over Kosovo and territorial integrity). Not a mere year has passed since the Kumanovo agreements, and the West has orchestrated a color revolution against Milosevic (largely thanks to the imperfect peace he signed which disillusioned the Serbian population with similar emotions that you just shared). When we finally surrendered to the West (October revolution), we foolishly thought that meant we could now just switch to being Western, do as they please, and become one of them. Little did we know.
Also, I believe Putin must be aware of all of this. There is no one who can guarantee his own security and survival if he surrenders to the Western demands. Milosevic also thought he had made a deal. And as we mentioned many times over, West doesn’t respect any deals. Not only that they didn’t respect what they agreed, they helped Kosovo proclaim independence and to this day they keep them as a Damocles sword over Serbia’s head. Like a bad dream you can never wake up from. Same will happen in Ukraine if Putin accepts imperfect peace
Vucic was given an offer he could not refuse. He just doesn't have to own up to it in public.
That is so bloody well put and spot on about the West. Thank you.
Very good write and completely true!
You put all this very well. However, there is a wider context: "...everything we have is being stolen from us."
What do you think has happened to Western populations since the 1980s? Let me tell you: the fabric of their cultures, their communities, their economies et al have been picked apart bit by bit; by the same people who are trying to break up Russia to control them and take all their stuff. If they defeat Russia, next will be China and then the whole globe will be under the control of these perverse ghouls and the words of great writers such as Orwell, Huxley and Wells will be fully realised.
What you are writing is universally true and I have nothing but empathy for it.
However, there are billions of people around the world praying for Russian to give these cunts what they deserve, even praying they help topple this globalist group of alien perverts from the grip they have on the West. The Western populations are already defeated and controlled: and now look at Germany.
You may well say that why should Russian's pay the price and I have no reply but brotherly love other than to say to you: what will happen to Russia if you don't fight these relentless psychopaths? You appear, along with groups such as the Houthis the only people to have the means or the guts to stop them.
This is so well put with such acute understanding you must keep educating fellow Eastern Europeans whenever you can. I understand fully because I have spent much time with people from both the former USSR and Yugoslavia and who quickly became as enlightened as you are after time in the West. It is glittery but shallow. A Bright Shining Lie.
Coming from the West, this was heartening and like conversing with older generations here (now gone) who still had some solidarity like you do and understanding of what is important outside consumer culture.
Understanding US history in it's economic, political. social and technological development is key to understanding how the globe has been poisoned; including their own supposed Citizens and the First Nations. The consumer culture you write of poisons every part of the brain and soul until all that's left is a vacuum for a soul and knee-jerk robotic habituations.
The people behind this don't behave like your and Titus' tyrants do; despite being brutal, actually being more honest and giving you something to push back against in solidarity. No, the fuckers we have are like paedophiles: they groom you, ply you with sweeties and goodies and convenience until your addicted/brainwashed/hooked/dependant then tear you a new arsehole until you're subservient or used up; these are disgusting ghouls with armies of media servants who are passively aggressively at you 24 seven. When you understand US history you see it as a 250 year old test laboratory, turned Stanford Experiment where these ideas of control gestated and are now pushed around the globe in the same manner by other pieces of shit they have corrupted and co-opted: there are numerous plays and examples of how these ghoulish sacks of shit crushed resistance and their populaces into submission and now use these ideas around the globe to do the same.
Ironically, it is those older and good Americans that are also trying to resist this and are at the forefront of it on these boards - indeed, the great Simplicius who I assume is American among others. They did not sign up for this either. They don't want it. The can see they've been conned and taken over by these aliens. Many of the best and bravest people I've known are American and Jewish, only the wrong kind, if you get my drift.
Anyway, I've taken up too much space on this board but as with Titus I want to thank you for writing and articulating what I struggle with despite English being my first language. You are both a credit to humanity.😊👏🤞👌🙏
Well put.
Hohol detected
My thinking exactly. He is harping on the supposed 1 million Russian dead, which is a total fabrication of Ukie propaganda, a desperate move to justify their own losses to their bereaved population. Not even the MSM stands by this ridiculous number the Hohols pulled out of their collective arse. The most reliable estimates are of 70 thousand dead or fewer---this was discussed by Simplicius on more than one occasion. Begone whiny cope troll!
I think he has said elsewhere that he sees the Ukrainian casualties as also being Russian. (Almost all of them being either press-ganged or brain-washed.)
More of that thinking should emerge in the brains of all involved Leaders.
Why on Earth did we sacrifice all these lives? For what.
Their hatred of Russia and its people goes back long before the Soviet era. Lenin and Trotsky received a large sum of money from western backers. Wall Street robber-barons were intent on toppling the Tsar even before that. Look at China's 'century of humiliation' starting with the opium wars fought on behalf of the Sassoons and others of their ilk to get an inkling of how those who call the shots in the west operate.
Their needs to be changed to the UK
"If Russia disrespects its own sons, if it once again agrees to a treasonous peace, if it betrays their blood yet again, then I will take that job. If Russia doesn’t care for itself, then I will no longer care for Russia"
I appreciate what you said, I understand your heartfelt sentiments, but you have a lot to learn.
Start with this - power always ends up in the hands of sociopaths, because sociopaths are precisely the ones who will do whatever it takes to gain power.
This is the kernel of The Iron Law Of Oligarchy. Learn it well. Take it to heart.
"Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed." C. Wright Mills
You too
You are good enough to get a day job
Sounds like you're a Western shill posing as a Russian. The "one million dead" you write about is nonsense. I live in Russia (and have for many years) and know many people in the military, including medical staff in the military hospitals, and Russian casualties aren't remotely near a million dead. It's only about 70,000 dead at most. That's not anywhere near the level of casualties Russians tend to associate with a real war.
Yes, about 700,000 Ukrainians have been killed and many of them have been ethnic Russians. That's tragic, but Russians lay the blame for those deaths on the satanic US and the US's vassals, not on Russia. Everybody knows Russia didn't start this war, the US did.
Likewise, anybody who really has money in Russia (obviously, that's not you) knows this isn't about sanctions. Sanctions have had the net effect of dramatically increasing the wealth of rich Russians. There have been a few who were caught wrong-footed by changes in markets, but there are always a few of those. The great majority of Russia's oligarchs have gotten phenomenally richer, literally many billions richer. That's a result of two factors: first, the dramatic rise in the export prices achieved for oil, gas, food, and resource exports, and second, the phenomenal rise in Russia's real economy.
A good example of the latter is how the lady who founded and owns Wildberries, a hugely successful Internet online marketplace, has added billions more to her net worth since the start of the special op. A booming economy means even more online shopping, which has made her even richer.
As for elites enjoying the good life in the West, billionaires always enjoy the good life pretty much wherever they darn want. The reality in Russia is that patriotism has become even stronger than before and many of the superrich have pulled resources out of the West and have reinvested them into Russia. If you were rich, or knew rich people, you'd know the running joke for the last few years is that the US has managed to achieve what the Russian government could not: to convince the richest oligarchs to move hundreds of billions of their dollars out of investments in the West and into investments in Russia.
By the way, if you approach your relationship with Russia by trying to strike deals with Russia in return for your patriotism, you're not really a patriot. You're an opportunist, and the sooner you leave our fine country the better. Adios, and don't let the door hit you on your way out.
In the meantime, true patriots know that Russia is fighting a hundred years' war against a satanic, corrupt, immeasurably evil West and the path to winning that war depends on building a superior, strong economy while not getting sucked into losing strategies like killing 100 million Russians in an easily avoided mutually destructive war. Those patriots all know that when Russia wins that war they will extract plenty of revenge, with interest, for the Russians the US and its vassals have killed.
As a Westerner living in the belly of the beast, I found John's last paragraph straightforward and true. The West now really is Satanic in the way that it attacks every virtue, every form of rationality, in the name of the very thing that it is attacking. Many of us now feel that if what was good in Western civilization survives at all, it will be as an element in the civilization of Russia.
(But I did not upvote his comment as I do not agree with his accusation that you are a Western shill.)
Looks like the situation in Austria. We had elections, the strongest party is pro peace, against sanctions, against NATO membership, so they try to form a coalition without this party. We have a caretaker government, but they are steering all the pro EU, pro war, pro sanctions course that leads streight into NATO. To make things worse, we see a big economic decline, a massive hole in the national budget, a collapsing school system, the mass migration leads to a housing crisis, massive problems with paying the pensions and so on. But the discussions around forming a working government are with no hurry.
Nobody of influence and authority cares what european voters want.
You have nailed Pringles.
Oreshnik is mobile launched not silo based.
You tell nice stories, you should become a writer. Will buy your book😀
Cheetos talking about Pringles! "I'm loving it..."
Yo be fair, I have friends from Lvov who hate the junta in Kiev even more than I do.
You know what there are people in Oklahoma who hate your junta even more tha.....
Agree!
Seems reasonable.
You misspelled Lemberg 😅
LOL
Russia has a choice:
Will it believe in Trump's peacemaking efforts or as i would describe them deception or will it put the squeeze on the neo-Nazis and achieve peace from them in the form of their unconditional surrender.
I think Putin has made his decision?
Comrade Putin signed the budget for 2025. The new budget is 32.5% defense spending. This is an absolute record I believe. The country is betting on war.
In fact that same thing worries me. It means the revenue is not growing enough so the current proportion is good enough. It is a sign of strain. Of trouble.
Putin is fighting this war on levels and with people, factors, forces we don't even know about. Is the problem. We have a simplistic battlefield view even though we shouldn't - we know damn well the battlefield is fed from outside and subject to economic and political considerations - christ, that's what Kiev Ukraine is all about.
But we ignore that and tend to think entirely in battlefield terms.
Well I know that's not good enough.
But for lack of better knowledge - and they don't tell us much do they? not even the 'best' of our 'analysts', 'observers' etc - I reckon Russia needs to step in big time right now and blitzkreig west to Odessa. Switch the lights off in Ukraine totally and do it.
Because if they're cranking up spending to those levels its getting serious and worrying.
It's not a sign of trouble. It's very doable, especially when you have Belousov working obsessively to dual-purpose the economy. The Russians understand this type of thing better than anyone. The decision to allocate 32.5% indicates an ability to be brave, bold and decisive and to fully commit to what is dear to one's heart. Few can do this. I find it impressive. The leadership will keep a beady eye on how the war is affecting the population and the national stability. They look like they know what they're doing. Moscow is demonstrating calculated courage.
Well said. Respectfully, this bit is completely off: "It means the revenue is not growing enough so the current proportion is good enough. It is a sign of strain. Of trouble."
Fighting a world war with a power the size of the US requires far more investment than routine military expenditures. Russia's military expenditure was being reduced year after year until the US decided to start hot war with Russia by destroying the democratically elected government of Ukraine and installing a nazi junta in Kiev. Russia then responded.
That Russia can fight a military and economic war with the US and be winning, despite the huge expenditure involved is a sign of tremendous strength and a sign of the extreme durability and depth of the Russian economy.
Agree. Spending over 30% on arms is not good for any country. They should use Oreshnik on GCHQ in little britain and the NATO HQ in Bryssel.
Very good write from Aurelien:
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-missile-will-always-get-through
Foolish not to, in the circumstances
Putin threw the gauntlet down in Munich 2008. Russia began preparing for an inevitable war. In 2022 they took on a coalition of over 50 countries on their own and up until now have shown they can prevail. Many countries have been destroyed by NATO since 1991, but the Russians are not one of them. Did you notice they are now the 4th largest economy on the planet?
Perhaps your priorities are ignored by the Kremlin?
You're missing the main point that Russia didn't start this shitshow. You seem to blame Putin. He turned Russia from a Yeltsin basket case to a resergent superpower thereby triggering a Brzezinskiesque containment strategy. It was always going to end this way in Ukraine.
It doesn't matter who starts it.
Putin’s “wrong choices” may have avoided a nuclear war.
How many you think will die when this whole thing goes BOOOOOOOOOMMMMM. A million, very sad for those who are left behind, could be ‘peanuts’ compared to the number of casualties
Good point. Btw. according to a Lancet study, the "decade of democracy" in Russia after the end of the USSR has cost the country about 15 million deaths.
And the Russian KIA are 77k according to Mediazona/BBC, not a million. Even adding ukrainian losses you would still end under 1m
easy to sit at home running a war however President Putin has to do it for real.
Seems he's not doing so bad. Let's leave this to the grown ups and simmer down a bit
The same logic could be just as easily applied to Biden or the US State Department.
"easy to sit at home running a war however President Biden has to do it for real.
Seems he's not doing so bad. Let's leave this to the grown ups and simmer down a bit"
Somehow, I doubt many here would do that, myself included.
"Again and again, he has made the wrong choices, leading Russia down a path of failure and humiliation."
Abject nonsense. The people who led Russia down a path of failure and humiliation were those fools who through brain-dead ideology and war destroyed the Russian economy from 1917 onward.
Failure and humiliation are not being able to feed yourself, and being reduced to handouts from successful economies, like "Bush's legs," the donation of chicken legs from the US. Failure and humiliation are a slobbering, drunken Yeltsin, begging to be a vassal of the US. Failure and humiliation are such a crippled economy and such a miserable existence that your children sell themselves, and sell themselves cheaply at that, to rich Westerners for a pair of jeans. That was Russia before Putin.
There is no success and no dignity in this world of nations if you are poor. Russia has achieved both success and dignity by becoming the world's largest energy exporter, the world's largest food exporter, and the world's largest resource exporter. Half of the world's countries depend on Russian food or other Russian exports (energy and resources) to avoid food insecurity. Russia has blown past Germany and Japan to become the world's fourth largest real economy.
Russian youth today are golden youth, knowing no life other than shopping malls where everything they could possibly want or imagine is at their fingertips, or delivered to them in minutes by couriers. Our cities are modern and full of truly superior infrastructure, a quality of life that in Soviet times existed only in dreams about the fabled West.
Putin achieved all that, and he has achieved a profound rise in Russia's economy even while defeating everything the US and the US's vassals have been able to throw at Russia in the last ten years of the West's war on Russia.
Thank God Russia has a wise and patient leadership that not only is defeating the combined, satanic West on the battlefield but also in a massive economic war. That is the path to success and dignity, not destroying Russia's people and Russia's economy because foolish imbeciles do not have the patience to wage and to win the world war with the US in all of its dimensions, both military and economic.
What are private attitudes among that golden youth, and other civilians, towards "peace" negotiations with the perfidious West? I am asking you, because you're on location :-)
Whether or not the Ставка finds the balls to refuse a disastrous Minsk 3 depends to some extent on these attitudes.
I wasn't asking you, hohol.
" Instead, he’s talking about the young liberal crowd who party in the nightclubs of Moscow and St. Petersburg."
I should know better than to reply to a shill for the West, but what the heck...
Ah, no, I was using small-cap "golden youth" to refer to *all* young people, who are the beneficiaries of the dazzling wealth people now have as compared to Soviet times. When I refer to rich, spoiled children of the rich and powerful I capitalize the term, as in "Golden Youth." It's true I use the "small cap" version of the term to refer to all youth in sly evocation of the "big cap" term to emphasize how fabulously rich pretty much all youth are today compared to what they had in Soviet times, at least materially.
To continue my reply to Titus Hoholius:
You keep showing your lack of familiarity with real wealth in Russia, because the hallmark of the Golden Youth (note the caps) is not that they are in favor of ending the war at any cost, but that they don't give a shit about anything but themselves, and they have the money not to have to care. Whether the war continues or not has absolutely no effect on them. They don't care whether it continues or not, and they don't care who dies anywhere. They're safe no matter what happens and that's all they care about.
There is, of course, some overlap between the classic Golden Youth population and crazed liberals, and also between them and ultra patriots, and, of course, with the overwhelming majority of people who support the government. But the biggest overlap is with the "don't give a shit about anything" segment.
As for young people in general, sure, they tend to skew more liberal. But by overwhelming margins they also support the government. I hate to bad mouth Moscow because the majority of Muscovites are honest, sensible, decent people who love their country and support the government, but there is indeed a slight correlation that the further you get from Moscow the greater the support for the country and government. It's just that the tiny percentage of Russians who are crazed liberals tend to be concentrated in large cities, so they're more visible in a *very* large city like Moscow.
As frequent readers of this substack know, I always stand by my record. Before you believe what some hohol writes about what I say, get the link and read what I said for yourself.
"What are private attitudes among that golden youth, and other civilians, towards "peace" negotiations with the perfidious West?"
Russia's youth today as regards war and peace falls into pretty much the same four classes as the population in general, with slight skewing for age. The largest group supports the administration. People in the West refer to "Putin" but in reality the government is a fairly large and cohesive group, and most people, both youth and other age groups, support that government. Roughly 80% to 85% of the population supports the government.
The second largest group are people who don't give a shit about anything so long as they can continue on cruise control through life. By default, they're fine with the government. They don't vote so their lack of giving a shit doesn't really matter.
A third group are ultra patriots, a term I'll use to cover people who think Russia should immediately use nuclear weapons to make sure darned near 140 million Russians should die along with a billion other people in the West and around the world. They're the kooks who criticize Putin for having common sense and a longer term perspective.
A fourth and final group are crazed liberals. They tend to adore the West and to hate Russia. They also are a very small percentage of the population. It's hard to tell whether crazed liberals or ultra patriots represent larger, but still tiny, minorities. But given the profoundly larger percentage of people who support the government or who don't give a shit, it's irrelevant what either ultra patriots or crazed liberals think.
Russia's youth in my experience tend to have a larger percentage of "don't give a shit" in them than the average, with a slightly smaller percentage of "support the government" in them. They seem to have about the same percentages of ultra patriots and crazed liberals, with perhaps some skewing towards the crazed liberal side. That's hard to tell because out in the regions the youth are more likely to kick the shit out of you if you bark liberal nonsense as compared to urban youth in places like Moscow, but all those region youth don't get coverage by narcissistic liberal journalists in places like Moscow (who seem unaware there's any Russia out beyond Moscow's outer ring road).
There's no way any sort of Minsk 3 will happen. Nobody in the leadership has any interest in such idiocy. That's in keeping with what the very high percentage of the population, the 80% to 85%, that supports the government wants. As mentioned before, nobody cares what the "don't give a shit" segment wants and, of course, nobody cares what the tiny minority ultra patriot and crazed liberal segments want.
Thx
Pleased to see you again!
Pardon the irrelevancy, but you aren't suggesting the Tsarist government didn't richly deserve what happened to it, are you?
I don't disagree about the rest.
"you aren't suggesting the Tsarist government didn't richly deserve what happened to it, are you?" No, I'm not suggesting that. :-)
There are times when a benevolent monarchy has been good for societies and, I suppose, there might even have been times (although I can't recall any off the top of my head) when an aristocracy may have been good for a society, but for sure Tsarist Russia under the last, foolish, and incompetent Tsar wasn't one of them.
That he so totally mismanaged everything he touched to the degree that as foul and evil a group of people as the Bolsheviks could have seized power is yet another reason to curse him. My comment about 1917 was aimed against them, not in defense of the Tsar.
It's a tragedy that when Russia needed a competent autocrat the last Tsar was such a disaster. If he had the competence to manage a transition to almost any system other than dictatorial rule by murderous Marxist fanatics (who themselves were incompetent at nearly everything but dictatorial terror) the history of Europe could have been very different.
A transition to a figurehead monarchy with a democratic parliament would have preserved the basic, and rising, economic strength of an industrializing Russia. That would have avoided much failure and humiliation.
Agreed. Nicholas II was ...not a stellar anything, and about the last thing the Russian state needed at that critical moment. I don't think he could have been convinced to do anything more effective for Russia, unfortunately. Every step toward the end of autocracy had to be dragged out of him kicking and screaming. And having someone like Lenin around assured there was going to be no democratic parliament for long, regardless.
The Bolsheviks did turn around enough of Russia's economic backwardness via industrialization to stop the Nazis. I'll give them that at least. US and Brit economic assistance sped up the Eastern Front by providing logistical support, they did nothing about winning the war there. Which is something the current complainers about the speed of Russian efforts in Ukraine should consider. The Eastern Front took a bit under four years to come to completion. Envision a world with no Western spam and gasoline additives and trucks and telephone equipment. How much longer would the push back of the Nazis taken? 6 years? That is my ballpark guess. And that was with scant attention to minimizing casualties.
I think Putin has played this as well as he reasonably could.
Agree
If you ask the people there is no war. I mean ask the people 'you want to make war?' and they'll say no.
But no one wants to ask the people. No one even suggests it. This is a bit mystery to me but it is true isn't it?
Yep, I think Russia needs to take everything if it is going to be a world ruled by lunatic 'leaders' instead of the people by 'regimes' not the people who supposedly 'elected' them.
And it looks like it is.going to be for as I say; no one even suggests any kind of turning towards the people. Cripes: even the people don't seem to ask for it.
So okay. It's going to be business as usual. Regimes rule. In which case Russia can never get Odessa back. But neither can Russia ever live without getting Odessa back.
Even if we got the political 'gain' of the place by referendum which would be the most bloodless and sensible the regimes would not let it be a functional reality. They would not allow free traffic to and fro the Russian Federation. They would do everything and anything they could to make it an impossible situation.
Russia must take Mikolaiv, seems to me and, of course, Odessa. Stop messing about. Mikolaiv gives the defence in depth there, then, too. I don't know what the population would think about it. Are they Russian oriented or Banderites?
I think they should go all out and do that, soonest. And pressure their 'allies' NK, China, whatever, to actually put up or shut up... at least voice a commitment or something... and power on all across west from Kherson and take Mikolaiv and Odessa. Don't worry about reclaiming all of Donetsk. When they sue for peace you can make them withdraw from Donetsk. They invaded remember?
Just take Mikolaiv and rejoin Odessa - that would be a happy reunion I think? The people want that? Well then we've got West to East a solid line of Russian States and that'll do.
I've been saying this for 2 years, take Odesa and the war ends.
The ethnic Banderans now claim they are from stolid Nordic stock.
I am pretty sure Russia is going to stay out of administering Lviv and Ivano-Frank. The two oblasts are reverting back to Poland. Making the Banderans a Polish problem again.
As long as "NATO" and "Ukraine" are mentioned in the same sentence by the elected and appointed divets (sic) running NATO and the EU, Russia is going to continue destroying Lenin's gift to the ethnic Banderans.
He didn’t realize how dirty politics is first time around. He knows he has to get out of Ukraine …
Thanks Titus, I agree with everything you wrote. I write this as a 73 y/o retired American who has spent some time reading history. After the horrific losses the Soviets endured in WW2 and to be treated like this. Disgusting. When the English decimated the native North American peoples they referred to the original inhabitants as "savages". When they kidnapped blacks in Africa and stole their labor (and raped their women) they were called n*ggers. Well the US Civil War never really ended and WW2 never ended either. These fascists need a healthy and permanent beat down. We're groomed here to hate on Putin and the Russian people. I for one am having none of it. Trump? New boss is same as the old boss. Bigly sad...
I would guess that most of the American (US) readers here understand that and agree. Trump's proposal is mostly noteworthy as a slight deviation away from what our military state has been offering up so far.
Russia may end up having to solve it all on the ground, but we can at least take hope for diplomacy.
When the shattered remains of Lemburg are annexed by Poland : "UKRAINE FINALLY ENTERS NATO - HUGE VICTORY, PUTIN HUMILIATED" will be all over the mainstream media.
"Nearly 1 million Russian men have died in the last three years of this civil war. (For the American readers: Ukrainian people are Russians too—they are not a completely different people. I know this might shock you, given the brainwashing of your mainstream media"
Russian is here. Stop spreading garbage nonsense that Ukranians are Russians. Hohols NEVER were Russians and never will be. Putting aside Russian ethnic people in South East Ukraine.
When some IDIOTS saying hohols are Russians they are either retarded or want comlete destrution of Russia. Saying Ukranias are Russian same as Polish people are Russians.
If ukraine was part of Russian Empire. Well Tatarstan and Buryatia are parts of Russian Empire. Tatars are not russians.
Western Ukraine are ethnically polish so that part should become Poland.
zourabichvili - quick fact - "She joined Columbia University in 1972–1973 where Zbigniew Brzezinski, at the time director of the Trilateral Commission, trained her on Soviet politics and Cold War diplomacy." and we know the agenda brzezinski had, don't we?? she is doing all she can to keep up the tradition!
It strikes me that all these warhawks are women... I can remember a time when feminists claimed that if women were to rule the world, there would be peace and kumbaya for ever... (LOL)
Yep, and that’s what some “feminists” still say. But like the idea of “the west” all concepts can mutate.
I think they feel they have something to prove to all the men, that they can be violent sadists as much as the guys can. "Look guys, I just strangled a baby with a lamp cord and you said we can't be leaders".
Senior female here:- exactly what I said a month ago to younger family.
Also it was said .. that if we could have seen the horror of the concentration camps, etc … it would NEVER have been able to happen…… yet now its being seen all over the world - and yet it’s still business as usual!
It is heartbreaking.
concentration camps like the ones the japanease were put in in the USA?
I don't think the camps for Japanese during WWII in the U.S. compare to similar efforts anywhere else in the world, ever. Most people involved strongly believed they were an unfortunate preventative measure that most of the people in the camps didn't deserve. That affected how the prisoners were treated.
Illinois Governor Pritzker's family fortune is based on wealth stolen from those people, as are many other Jewish fortunes. There probably wouldn't have been an opioid epidemic otherwise - the Pritzkers wouldn't have had the capital to start their drug trafficking empire.
Hell has no fury like a woman scorned… in general men fight and afterwards drink together. In general women are not capable of doing the same. In general women tend to react emotionally, but unfortunate as a consequence the rational and logical thinking goes out the window. I was always of the opinion that women would create a more peaceful and just world until I came accross Albright, Clinton, Nuland, KK, Gauleiter von der Lügen, Baerbock, Harris and most other women in power (Moldova, Georgia, Denmark, …). I haven’t seen such rabid warmongers in my life. I mean men are a-holes, but women aren’t much better and both are not going to safe the world I am afraid.
Women always escalate a crisis because they're certain they won't take any physical consequences. Men grow up with the knowledge that if they fuck around they're going to find out and get the same treatment right back so they're cautious.
Women are skilled at getting their own way any way they can.
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains..." -Rudyard Kipling
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -Lord Acton
Yeah 👍, I believed that too but I've had a rude awakening.
Then there was Hillary the imperialist who changed all that. What an ugly person she is, and how ugly are her followers inside.
I am a guy so I don't experience this except occasionally on the receiving end but apparently women get a thrill out of controlling or having power over men. Certainly that appears to be the case in romance, so I'm not surprised that they also experience a thrill in sending male soldiers to beat each other to death on their command. Many love violent bad guys too, which I never figured out. Must be evolutionary, for protection.
Not for protection, for the tingles.
Most, or likely all, of these women are YGL graduates. Their unfortunate blundering presence in politics speaks more of Klaus Schwab's personal tastes than of their abilities. And remember that incompetence was one of the criterions these "leaders" were selected for in the first place, so that they must turn to their handlers for guidance.
In Georgia it is getting cold. Spray water on the protesters and they will go home COLD.
I think Andrei's figures of a million dead Ukies better than Simplicius' estimate, with a million more broken and mangled, but alive. The EU makes up numbers and why rely on them? That's pretty much because it seems like Russia's defense department knows the number of tanks and other weapons they shoot down, so why not their estimate of dead and incapacitated? It's like counting body bags in Vietnam, but if you are fighting a war of attrition it's the most important number, and this is the reason why everyone is deserting and running away.
Lock her up!
kk is not a brilliant strategist.. in fact she is a very good example of the exact opposite... for all her warmongering credentials, she is a real loser on all fronts.. the fact ursala von leyen has to work with her, is just great.. that is like a double anchor especially designed to sink the european union much quicker then the germans figuring out who sabotaged nordstream.... these 2 will sink germany and the rest of europe much quicker!
Dream Team.
Good one
Well look who she represents. If I had to hold up an example of why we in Canada should leave NATO, it would be Estonia. Like they are going to save our asses if we got attacked ?? No, but we have to travel the world away to defend them with permanent troops. Obviously in letting these postamp sized nations with non existent militaries into NATO, the plan has always been to put nukes on their borders with Russia. Obviously nuclear proliferation is Americas foreign policy goal.
Yes, and Romanin election also ”went wrong”. So the solution is to recount the votes so it gets right.
It’s almost unbelievable that a nut job like KK could be in the position she is in. But that’s Europe for you.
Same with Fond of Lying, one would expect her to have been fired after her first fib, but no, she gets a standing ovation and the audiences clamouring for more and more.
First!
Be kind and take your message to an appropriate forum.
Be kind and courteous and fuck off now.
This is my favorite site. Simplicius rules!
Great writer too for studying English literature and gaining word power. I wish I knew who he was and where he learned to write so well.
Having read his dispatches back in the days when he used the moniker Nightvision, I can affirm that Simplicius has always been a fine writer. That being said, in the last few months he's definitely upped his game a few notches. One of the top authors on Substack, IMHO.
This has been one of his better writings of late.
Was his reference to Scholz as "herself" an error or a dig?
I caught that too. Maybe he was suggesting Scholtz is an amorphous androgenous blob without any apparent gender. Heretics often are. Don't tell me Satan doesn't have a great sense of humor and a kinky dimension.
If memory serves he used to post on the Saker site, which had a fantastic forum. News of the Saker's fate would be appreciated. Simplicius always shined.
I thought it was just me. He used two words here in ways I'd never seen before.
Swell of World War 2 Red Herrings was a great piece ... "... Rob Bauer, head of the ‘NATO Military Committee’. ,,,, The irrelevant pipsqueak mewled something along these lines to powder on the phony fear-porn:" That tops the best of Shakespheres insults.
Feel tired over all these ’clowns’ not caring about their own citizens. Germany is going ”kaputt” big time. Scholtz is carrying a aluminium case as he was guarding something important. The open secret is that he let Germany slip into the abyss - screwed by Deep State US. As a Socialdemocrat he should be ashamed of himself.
Bareback is talking about ”peace process”…she who declared that she didnt care of her own citizens concerns about the War.
And how come Stoltenberg acting? He is no longer NATO Overlord.
As for Trump/Kellogg peaceplan…flawed. And we dont know how crazy Trump is. Someone heard his threat against Mid-East? ” We will crush them harder than anything in our glorious history”
Any peaceplan must include the fact that Russianspeaking people living in Ukraine oblasts must have a safe future. It also seems as Putin will withhold his forces to just include the new Oblasts. The others are propably deemed ”anti-russian” so whats the point of taking them?
As for dreaming about Charkov and Odessa or any other big city. Keep dreaming.
Russia is not able to take them by force.
Good write, Simplicius, but your are struggling as much as we others with all these narratives floating. Anything can happen. Suddenly.
I hope Putin will behave steadfast and wise.
Dreaming about Kharkow and Odessa without taking them by force is very realistic.
Just think about the prospect of the Russian held new territories start reviving, as Mariopol
does. While the rest of Ukraine will suffer because the so-called allies won't care about the people of the remaining part of the country. No prospect, just empty stomachs and empty words by the lying elites. That would lead to a popular vote, as to where to belong soon enough. It is just human nature.
Dreaming is ok. Realistic it is not.
How many times have you heard Russia is preparing a new offensive?
Have you seen how little progress they have done in Donbass during last two years despite the ”insufferable” Ukrainian losses and the enormous advantage Russia has in bombs and artillery?
As for your popular vote…did you see what happened in Romania? In Georgia? Whenever the popular vote is against West interests it will be countered.
My only hope, say wishful thinking, is that Zelensky&Yermak are strung up in Kiew by angered citizens and military when they realize that 3 years War led to even less than the Istanbul peace offer.
Just now many people dream of Trump and his masterplan to bring World peace. Good luck. It is going to be beyond our beliefs of how bad things can go.
The fact is that Kharkhow and Odessa is leaning toward Russia, and if it weren't for the repressive Banderites they would be able to speak up. If the Banderitas are discredited as they are heading in that direction, things can change quickly. Especially if, as you wish Zelensky&Yermak are strung up by the angered citizens and military when they realize that 3 years of war led to even less than the Istambul peace offer.
Personally believe Russia will have Odesa, at the very least under siege, by the end of 2025.
It is 200km from where Russian is standing now. On the wrong side of Dniepr…
Then they have to take Cherson, overcome Mykolaiev, cross Bug, take Berovka. Eventually they could storm Lisky and then besiege Odessa.
Good luck.
You seem to be a bit of a pessimist, not really an unfamiliar emotion for me:-)
But I guess being realistic sounds better😀
I agree that if Russia continues as present, they are months away. But the Russians aren't hitting the people CAUSING THE WAR. Maybe hazelnut changes the calculus internally in the Ukraine and there is no rear to call back to for reinforcements. What if there was no draft boards to kidnap people? There is enormous technology overhang here that hasn't been used, by both sides. Hazelnut is between here and nuclear war, and that ain't much. I think there is a non-nuclear EMP generator, but I'm not sure. In Ocean's 11 they used a "Pinch." I've seen videos where they shoot down drones using an EMP burst just like in the Matrix.
They have a serious chunk of their navy and marines, pretty much next door and an awesome airforce. Plus I'm sure they already have cells operating there.
Most importantly, once the dominos really start falling and the central government collapses with battle fatigued soldiers exhausted and limping home, what's left of them, Vlad could probably make a few phone calls to get Odessa. There won't be any fight left in Ukraine soon.
For me the Hazelnut is the sort of thing you come up with when you have a good reason to feel threatened.
The go slow approach has many advantages. Since everything in the West is done with credit here, we will slowly, but inevitably, strangle ourselves.
Another advantage comes from minimizing casualties. The cost benefit is obvious, but troop loyalty is not earned by throwing away patriots for leadership ego gratification.
The Western approach to imperial adventure features fascist profit and torturing the middle class patriots with empty promises and valueless equipment.
The Ukraine has proven the Russian approach to arms works. What do we have to show for it? Huge profits for the corrupt few and empty coffers and a whole generation or two of Ukrainians that won't come back.
I share much of your deep thoughts. I also understand Simplicius gospel about ”the thousand cuts”. Strictly logical in a cynical way it is plausible that it is the best way.
But I despise War and people who instigate, manipulate and force deadly confrontations. I want them killed instantly (or rather scared back to their dungeons).
We have a lot of generations killed in Ukraine, both Russians and Ukrainians. Hundreds of thousands familys are shattered and traumatized for rest of their life.
If there is a possibility to end the War in a favourable matter - why not try it.
The sad truth is that West has applied the right amount of pressure everytime Russia seems to gain to much speed. And if I am wrong and Kremlin by purpose is doing a slow cook of Ukraine and their puppetmasters in the West I feel sorry for the Russian people (and all others) who must endure this War.
Oh we agree more than you might realize. As an ex USN submariner the technical aspects both fascinate and disgust me. The waste of resources and extreme trauma is inexcusable.
The only reason we fight wars is so TPTB can maintain power and control. Given the openly declared goals and abundantly transparent actions of NATO, through it's whole history, what choice did Putin have in Ukraine?
For me the opportunity to carefully analyze Putin's words and actions has been there right along. When he said you will not get a better peace deal than this, he was not bullshitting anyone. Now Minsk 1 or 2 would be a dream come true for Zelenskyy, it was not Russia's fault those deals fell through. All the Western predictions have proven wrong.
"The right amount of pressure" For me those have been mostly escalatory acts of terror, designed to get Putin to raise the stakes and then NATO launches ww3. Had he gone full tilt 3 years ago, the resources and inspiration to deploy Hazelnuts would not be there. All we get from our MIC is hype and broken promises.
Well spoken! Yes , all the actions from US/UK/NATO points directly to WW3.
Putin has done what is possible with these types of adversaries.
And of course his enemies is doing all they can to distort his words and even flatly deny us the possibility to hear or read it for ourselves.
What I meant with ”pressure” was that Russias enemies want to prolong the War as long as is possible.
Yeah you made a prediction here and it came true. The recent Syrian invasion by Israel, Turkey, US supported Al Qaeda proxies was the right amount of pressure. Massive tactical loss for Syria.
It is sad to see. And it is like a Horrorfilm a la Bodysnatchers when you realize you have first experienced western media with hard eyes on you declare that anything Israel has done in Gaza&Lebanon is strictly defensive measures and now with the same chutzpah declaring former ISIS and Al-Quida fighting to free Syrian people from Assad. Same people who slashed and still is slashing throats…
I think the Sunnis is taking home the game. The last Shia will be Iran. Is it good or bad? All I know that it was not Irianians flying planes 9/11 or bombed London, Madrid, Brussel or Paris.
If Russia now lose Tartus Naval base and Khmemim Airbase there will be Champagne popping in Pentagon. And knifes would be sharpened in Kremlin. Next step for West is to declare Danish Strait closed for Russian Naval ships (they will explain it as due to the increasing threats from Russias hybrid warfare in Baltic Sea).
is odessa primarily russia aligned?
50/50
I think it's more than that, but most are justifiably afraid to let it show.
Yep I think you're right about what Russia must do
But I don't think it can do it alone.
I think it needs China and NK and whoever else, anyone else, to come on board right now openly and flagrantly on any pretext whatever and pour troops and munitions and whatever into the conflict on the Russian side.
So that it is immediately a done deal. Hand down, finished, fait accompli.
Nothing to do but deal with it, lap it up.
No use rattling nuclear swords now, too late.
If China, home of the 'rights of the People', remember? glorious 'Chinese People's Republic' were to get 'people oriented' and declare loudly that they find it intolerable that after 10 years Kiev and Washington et al are still totally bent on invading, occupying, oppression, ethnic punishing the people of Donbas and now even at the clear cost of the people of Kiev Ukraine and now even at the clear cost of the people of the whole of Europe - find it intolerable.. sickening.. won't stand for it... declare themselves wholly on the side of the People of Donbas, people of Ukraine, people of Europe and will therefore help Russia and Donbas put a stop to it - and started to send in thousands and thousands...
It would all be over.
They would not even have to do it. Just announce the attitude.
They are not doing that.
I suspect them of playing cat and mouse.
I don't trust them. Any more than you can trust Erdogan.
Or any politician most especially in the West.
But what i mean is: if they'd get up and speak for the People.
Because no one else will, does. No one. Not a one.
Not even Putin though he has done in the past of course.
But even he is full of 'The State' and historical imperatives.
So too is China: totally authoritarian State, isn't it?
But hypocrisy reigns supreme.
And we could use some right now.
Let them all start piously pleading what in fact is the only just cause: peace for the people and step up and bring it all to an end.
You are King, Arthur!
I feel like a demented loon in a desert, Mikey... :)
You are never alone.
China isn't an idealist nation though. They are strategically oriented. They are after resources first and foremost and they have to fight some imminent wars over Iran and Taiwan, if Trump makes good on his war threats, which I think he will. He a pathological narcisist. He will never accept a humiliating loss.
well I don't know the ins and outs of it all. but strategically china profits, surely, from the elimination of america from europe and that's what effective subduing of nato would be I think.
Or put it another way: strategically which way is better for china: American hegemony or Brics?
They seem to have made it clear, very clear, with their public humiliations of american envoys to china what they think.
So let them tip the scales now.
China, unlike Russia, is deathly afraid of sanctions. Their economy is based on exports to the US and EU. If this were pulled out from under them, they would go bankrupt---there would be massive unrest, and the Party would throw Xi under the bus. So he will not dare, and will not be allowed, to make a clean break with the Hegemony.
The US would suffer even worse from a divorce like that, but there would be no upheaval there---the chain there is shorter and stronger than in communism, who would have thunk? And the Deep State already pre-controls their own social subversives.
The Russian government never talked about Odessa or Charkov, they want the four regions and Crimea. It is us talking about this. Maybe the Russians want a strong Russian Speaking minority in the rump state of Ukraine? A Minority which is protected by Moskow and therefore gives the Russians a lot of leverage in Ukraine. A Minority which keeps Ukraine permanent unstable.
Exactly. It is easier to control/govern people who actually has the desire to be Russians. An unfriendly population requires a lot of unpopular measures.
But problem is that Odessa in NATO-hands is a thorn in the side ande deadly threat against Russias Black Sea fleet.
Charkov likewise, filled with Tomahawks, would represent a never ending threat to Russia.
Moldova is just behind Odessa. Maybe 40 to 50 km. Not a big deal for drones. Charkov will be in the rump state of Ukraine, and the Russian government started the war with one big wish: No NATO. Every commend since the start of the SMO is: No NATO. I think Russia will more likely give up some of the Donbass Oblasts, than allowing NATO into whatever is left of Ukraine.
>Exactly. It is easier to control/govern people who actually has the desire to be Russians.
Last week there were messages from Odessa posted on Telegram expressing fear that the Kremlin will sell them out and leave them in the hands of the Ukronazis.
In fact I see such messages even from places like Zhytomyr on occasions.
Most of Ukraine (see Simplicius map) have Russian-speaking/liking citizens to some extent or even majority. Exception is westernmost part of the country. And exactly what your are describing is the tragedy with Ukraine. Population shouldnt have let the Russian-haters take over. But easy to say for me. Living under these conditions and corruption is not light.
Russia has no choice but to take control over most of Ukraine.
They will not have to fight across Ukraine as they have through Donbass.
Russia has massively attritted Ukraine & NATO.
In the past few months they have been taking control of square km daily.
They no longer confront large urban areas like they did in Mariupol & Bahkmut.
They outflank them, forming a cauldron that they squeeze shut- killing or capturing most.
Russian military production is vastly bigger than it was when the conflict started- and continuing to expand. Ukraines is completely destroyed & America/NATO is as pathetic as when the conflict started.
Russian military is approaching 2.5 million total. Ukraines likely less than 500,000 by now.
At any point Russia could turn off the electricity in Ukraine and it won't come back on until Russian crews fix it.
You don't seem to realize how many Ukrainians have really been killed. Likely 1,000,000+ by now. How many more seriously injured? No male left in Ukraine will join the military.
By the time Russia reaches the Dneiper how many more will be dead or surrendered?
Who exactly is going to resist the Russians west of the Dneiper?
There is simply no way Russia is going to allow America/NATO to be on Ukrainian territory. The only way they can achieve this is to control it.
I am sure Russia will cut deals with Hungary, Romania, Slovakia & maybe even Poland to trade western regions to them in return for non-aggression agreements.
I could make many more compelling arguments why Russia will take over Ukraine and why most Ukrainians will ultimately welcome this.
I speak as I do because I was an expat living in Ukraine when the SMO started. I have followed this American/NATO proxy war as closely as anyone.
Your will is strong. And I dont disagree with you over the necessity for Russia to take the most of Ukraine. I agree in most ukrainian citizens dont care if Russia is governing Ukraine - they just want living a good life.
I just cant see that happen, either in slowmotion or fast forward.
We are in a stalement.
Odessa is a historically Russian city and packed with glorious Russian archetecture. Russia won't want to blow it to pieces to take it back, like they did to the other industrial shit holes, up to this point. I'm sure they will want it. It is a threat to their navy in NATO's hands. It gives them absolute control over ukraine and the Black Sea. I'll bet Vlad keeps some paintings of Catherine the Great, in various stages of undress, under his pillow.
"No time to grieve for roses when the forests are burning."
Fuck the glorious architecture. C'est la guerre. They will build back better.
I think Odessa is what Russia will be having for dessert myself. Of course they will take it !! That was founded by Russian Empress Catherine The Great in 1794, which isn't that long ago. VP will take whatever he has to to keep the missiles off his doorstep. He may go all the way to Poland. Odessa is too close to their naval fleet at Sovastopol, whose seizure started this war.
Then you also know whats is needed from Russias armed forces?
It's amazing what loyalties can be bought with food, water and utilities when the people being bought are otherwise, starving and freezing to death. Consider when the Russians raped and slaughterd their way through Germany, all that was soon forgotten when they occupied half of it for 50 years. I was in East Germany 10 years after the wall came down and the people were still fanatically proRussian and despised anyone who came from a Nato country. Ever polite and generous I was, but they still made sure they burnt every meal I ordered in restaurants.
Haha, yes I know what you mean and experienced it myself.
It is amazing how Russia can win the hearts of the people they conquered, unlike any other recent empire I know of. Look at Chechnya, for instance. I guess that is because they are sincere, not the lying bastards in the West.
More time spent on the basics and less time spent on making sure little johnny can become little mary by cutting his peepee off.
>Feel tired over all these ’clowns’ not caring about their own citizens
We should start with the clown in the Kremlin when it comes to not caring.
He is the one who has his own citizens being bombed daily while having the power to stop it with a snap of his fingers, and who has effectively implicitly promised them that this is the new normal in perpetuity, like in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
I don't see Germany being bombed, regardless of the economic situation.
Putin is the least clownish but it is no wonder there is critiscism of Russias way of handling the War. But who are we to judge? We dont know have difficult it most have been to find themselves against the whole NATO/US/UK-cabal eager to slit their throats. Europe and NATO has nothing to do with Ukraine.
"Russia is not able to take them by force."
Nice Nato talking points you got there
If you read my comments you could easily see that i explained why it is so difficult for Russia. You could also see that I despise NATO. What is your recipe then to conquer Odessa?
I guess you only urge is to upset people.
For fun only: Russian steamroller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brpMytaqxYE
I have just gone through it very quickly. Not a mention of Georgia, where a Maidan-style coup attempt is going on? If any of your readers is interested, here is my latest article on it: https://geopolitiq.substack.com/p/atlanticist-coup-against-the-georgian?r=25fc37
"“If the ceasefire line means that Russia continues to control all the territories, this does not mean that Ukraine should give up these territories forever,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with Table."
Actually, it means exactly that - the territories are gone from Ukraine forever.
Are you Ukrainian? You write such nonsense. OTAN now has missiles with nuclear warheads. And whats next?? Do they somehow affect Russia? No way.
The thing is, Oreshnik is a demonstrated technology. Nukes, on the other hand…
I doubt it. I suspect OTAN partners will subsist as agricultural states by then, having lost their industries to the US which by then will have been renamed United Jewish States of Israel. Welcome! (IF you are a Jew, of course - otherwise, Fuck Off or Die)
"...because it worked in 2014."
Add the Istanbul preamble that BoJo insists he didn't stomp on; I don't think that they will fall for it a 3rd time.
"Peace Agreement. You keep using that word and I don't think that it means what you think it means."
yep. the territories should belong to the people who live there, work there, own the land there. they have right to self determination. the kiev mob and the washington mob and the eu mob and the nato mob and all bigtime bigtalking self styled superior mobs claim this is a big thing. the kiev mob often claim they have this right.
but when it come to the donbas territories suddenly it's all forgotten and it's all about 'if russia controls' and 'if kiev loses' etc. i.e it is all talk about The State or The Regime and not talk about people at all.
Which is wrong.
Hello Simplicius - interesting as always. I was hoping for a little tidbit about Syria. Maybe its too early to make a commentary - but some reports say they're losing badly and other reports say they're winning magnificently- there were huge celebrations in Lebanon I heard...because in Lebanon they REALLY think they won and Israel ran away with its tail between its legs. What do you think ? Would love to hear.
I think it is to much to write in these short articles. Half the WORLD is now in chaos. Syria is another restarted proxy war.
Agree 100%, the timing of the Syria reboot is very suspicious to say the least.
Suppose the new "The Art of the Steal" President says to Putin (shades of Stalin/Churchill at Yalta); "You get what you want in Ukraine, only if we get what we want in Syria."
What will Putin do?
He will take the offer. But the Military brass in Russia would not leave Khmeimim Airbase and the Port of Tartus. 50/50
Here you are (Desperate Escalations in Middle East & Ukraine - Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD9ZD0DLUHQ
Syria has not yet stabilized but everything has not completely fallen apart either. The Militant offensive has ended for now as they seemingly consolidate their positions.
The only good thing to come out of the debacle has been the success of the Russian air force.
Another good thing: The Russian general of the Syrian theatre was removed and the general responsible for the Allepo battles in 2016 is back.
Yes would like more on Syria please
Germany to China : If you do not stop your trade with Russia we will sanction you.
China : And if we stop?
Germany : We will still sanction you, but using different excuses.
That about sums up their whole trip to China.
They say this as their industries are melting and all their automotive engineers are moving to the PRC lawl.
Even Siemens is moving production to China. The terrible energy policies that Germany made will be it's downfall.
Downfall II
Some to China, some to the USA. BMW is already the biggest car exporter in the USA!
German sanctions = “We will piss on your parade.”
French sanctions, "we fart in your general direction".