The FT headlined this plan, in an increasingly frequent show of desperation
Adept at selling other people’s futures back to them, this proposal takes the current windfall tax applied to Eurcolear’s profits made from the management of frozen CBR assets
This plan is just that, not voted through- faces a number of objections, by their nature this EUC tax windfall must be a one off, Euroclear’s profits according to the market are their’s, profits from assets belong to the asset holder, and so on
The US wrinkle is to scavenge a bond issue backed by the future profits – but these are incalculable, liable to be interrupted by the end of war, plus would get in way of any future cease fire or peace arrangements
– who would wish to guarantee these bonds ? and why would any prospective buyers believe this guarantee ?
According to Politico’s anonymous likely EUC sources this is due to RF pleading for pressure, although the article has to spend a lot of roundabout space trying to figure out how to plead this
According to Pravda, this is the other way round : this is the EUC shoring up support for resisting US pressure – a mix of pleading ‘you’re next’, and threatening ‘you’re next’
Pravda’s explanation is the more convincing – RF is aware that any confiscation would be disastrous for the EU, euro and banking systems, the EU banks are not ignorant of this
Not to say RF would be delighted, but this confiscation would do immeasurably more harm to the EU than to the RF, like every sanction/assym-hybrid
And how about that Indonesia joining such major countries at such a high level
Even the Brits appear to have given up trying to steal the CBR assets in the UK – despite yes we can Lord Cameron at Davos
The Russians would likely nationalise Western assets (two to three hundred billion?) in Russia if the West steals. Would appear as losses on Western corporation balance sheets. If I recall correctly one French corporation is seriously exposed.
They must respond 2X if it happens. Or just take ALL that they can take. I believe Putin needs to stop with the soft glove approach. They already label him and Russia as the "Evil" in the world.
The Russians are waiting patiently for the EU to fall into the trap, not that the Russians set the trap, the EU (with help from the US) set the trap for themselves
All the banks and bankers warn against any confiscation, for the catastrophic effects on the Euros and on overseas investments in the EU
Christine Lagarde thought it necessary the other day to warn once again, look her up in the FT
It is also thought that the Russians would set off bankruptcy scale legal actions by actions against Euroclear world wide, Euroclear is everywhere, not only in Russia
Thus jeopardising the EU Euroclear €37T, and then some
The target is not Russia but the US continuing their war against Europe (EU) by destroying competition and the euro. Note that 90 % of the money is in the EU, very little in both UK/US..some people are starting to understand the real purpose of the Brexit(not migration or economy), but this War with the anglo or judeo protestants goal to 'fuck the EU'.
Natoistan - that was the whole point of my comment - the EU pols are playing propaganda, but their bankers are not
The US is only interested in this war insofar as it weakens the EU, having realised that this is their perfect prey and that Russia is too big a bite for their small mouth
The Russians do not care eitherway - one might say they have written off this €300B, they have equivalent EU/Western company assets in RF anyway - and this is a very useful bargaining point, if confiscated, if not confiscated, in war end negotiations
Confiscation suits them better - and so to BRICS and Co can point to the inherent failure of the Western financial system, and it will cause some great mess for the Euro
But surely, if the U.S./U.K. destroys the E.U. the knock-on effects on the whole World will be massive. Are we saying that they are attempting some type of steeplejackery? Because demolishing a tower without hitting yourself is very hard.
The Europeans can just as well sieze the Russian central bank assets, as just the fact that it was considered should be enough to destroy the West's financial systems credibility. Will it be enough to now say, see we thought about it but we did not seize the money this time?
'just the fact it was considered should be enough'
Now you are in thought crime dimensions - the people doing the considering are the grunts, hardly to be taken seriously, although used to test the waters perhaps, 'float an idea', engage in some diplomatic chitchat
In a democracy, such as the whole world wide loves, people must be allowed....etc, so X or Y (junior) Central Banker in South America, Asia, or Africa, what do you think about this idea.....
Talking turns out to be a hell of lot easier - it's free- than doing, even when it comes to stealing - most of the world's ruling class know this
Look at the article cited in my comment, some of the rest of the world is saying out loud to the EU, don't do it - the rest of the world would not be aware that the EU was quite this stupid unless the EU had not taken the care to tell RoW they indeed we are quite that stupid
A thought crime is something yet not revealed, the fact that the idea has been clearly articulated into public statement create a situation of intent or attempt. Thinking you will steal my money and public saying you intend to steal my money is on a whole different level.
Every move by the Western cabal to stay its course and, in this case, seize Russian assets is a further plunge into zugzwang, i.e., being forced to make a decisively disadvantageous move. The monetary systemic contradictions involved in pursuing what appear to be economic advantages suffer the paradox that every such move invites and incentivizes Russia to deploy its comparative advantages to best effect. The trade arrangements amongst the Brics nations are made more efficient, the exchanges that set prices (the Chinese owned London Metal Exchange, the Shanghai Gold Exchange, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (oil:INE) and the proposed Brics grain exchange) capture increased commodity price-setting while confidence in the US dollar reserve currency declines faster that under any other conditions.
I agree - if one follows the arguments closely by various Deep Staters and well paid lawyers, the inititial confiscation ideas were all conditional on a failure to understand the UNGA Nov 22 vote, supposedly authorising reparations and setting in motion a mechanism - a register of claims, which then turned out to be only receivable once verified, this only possible after cessation of hostilities
The UNGA vote then turned out to be not authorisational, and the mechanism extremely long winded and fragile
It then turned out that all attempts to change or subvert the 'law' would inherently affect the law breakers, to a degree & in ways they were not capable of imagining, but not the law keepers - this came as a surprise to the desperate EU pols desperate to steal some money so they did not have to face up to their electorates and ask for it
>> The fourth bill is expected to be called a "national security" law that includes a TikTok ban and gives the president the power to sell off frozen Russian assets and transfer the money to Ukraine.
I hope someone could help me with some pointers as this looks to me more important then anything else that's present in these 4 bills. Because it would dump the euro and dollar faster than anything else. (got gold?)
There's been a bill in congress since last June 15 to confiscate CBR assets in the US 'in co ordination with the EU', reporting to Congress on ways and means, and how this money will be spent
Very hesitant, comparable to the recent Israeli little boy 'attack' on Iran
The US holds approx $4.6B of CBR assets
Any unliateral action is going to go off like a damp poney, the sum of money is too insignificant, and the US has be very outspoken in the need to strike the demon Russian a damaging body blow
I do not think, I have not read through the Congress bill forawhile, that the money is transferred to Ukraine
I do understand that. However, the precedent will be set. And the "reserve currency" that should "follow the international rules" will be dealt a huge blow. Being exposed as mere thieves. (if the gold action is any indicator, it seems that people think it's likely to happen).
The amount of money is insignificant. But the lost in trust... That's huge.
What happens to a paper currency that is build on trust in the government looses that trust?
The FT notes that Ukraine owes c $100B in sovereign debt and probably much more in private sector foreign debt. The IMF moritorium on the soveriegn debt expires in August when $20B comes into default. There are efforts to equate private sector debt to the soveriegn debt position. However this is being resisted by the debt holders, and if in default they will presumably try to call in their security/collateral. ie All those assets in Ukraine which they sincerely hope Russia will not control/destroy. I judge that when Russia's $300B of CBR assets are being considered, it is not to "rebuild Ukraine" but to fill the hole in various balance sheets around the West - all those firms and nations that have lent money to Ukraine and now won't be repaid unless they steal Russia's moeny.
>The point being, given the somewhat questionable shootdown ability against the ATACMs demonstrated thus far, it could pose a bit of a problem if provided in much larger quantity, particularly at a time when Russia will be gearing up for a large offensive, which means huge stores of munitions will be laid up at brigade HQs, as well as large manpower concentrations, etc.
Nobody has strong defenses against ballistic missiles. This has been quite clearly demonstrated these last two years, especially now with the Iran strike on Israel.
The only somewhat reliable defenses are:
1) Area denial
2) Deterrence.
Russia has been failing abysmally on both.
It remains a mystery why the Polish and Romanian borders have not been sealed.
And it remains a mystery why weapons transfer is allowed in the first place.
Until those things change, there will be many more such painful hits. And eventually NATO might sneak in some nukes too.
P.S. Same applies to the Belgorod shelling. Never in history previously has a nuclear superpower allowed its own cities to be terror bombed daily without really doing anything to stop it. Loud promises were made that if such attacks occur, there will be retaliatory strikes on those who produced the weapons. Well, we are still waiting for mushroom clouds in Prague...
And people in Belgorod are really pissed, don't mistake the fact that you have not seen any reports on what the mood is there for evidence for absence of resentment. Which is achieving precisely what the West intended with these strikes -- to cause resentment towards Putin by showing regular Russians that he doesn't care about their lives. The problem is it indeed very hard to argue that the Kremlin cares about Belgorod based on the events of the last four months, the evidence is in exactly the opposite direction.
>talking so idly about using nuclear weapons is un useful
Doesn't have to be nuclear, a dozen conventional missiles would have taken out the Czech weapons factory plus their MoD, and that would have been enough to make the point
>Your sources for the 'really pissed' in Belgorod?
It appears that Westerners think their own information bubble is all that there is out there on both sides in this war.
>VVP does not 'care about their lives'? - do you have any evidence for this?
Yes, the fact that he has allowed Donetsk to be shelled daily for two years without lifting a finger to stop it (and it isn't just Donetsk now in the new regions -- the other day there was a HIMARS attack in the center of Tokmak with 20+ civilians dead, but of course you were too busy ingesting The Duran's long winded vomit on how the Russians are overwhelmingly winning the war to notice such events), it has been non-stop shelling of the pre-War Russian villages along the border for two years too, after the first "goodwill gesture" left them on the frontline (because nobody could have possibly expected that once that happens, Ukrainians won't just sit there and won't go on a terror rampage), and now there is daily shelling of a 500K regional capital of Russia, and Putin is just shrugging it off with "what can we do"?
What more evidence do you need for Putin not caring about his own citizens' lives? More importantly, it really doesn't matter what you consider evidence, what really matters is what people on the ground in Belgorod (and now increasingly in Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, Lipetsk, Rostov, etc., because the geography of daily terror is expanding) are thinking.
If Putin actually cared, there was a very simple thing he could have done - eye for an eye, but with a twist, i.e. for each Russian civilian who is hurt, we take out one of the Ukrainian elite. Not regular Ukrainians, the elite. That is very important because nobody cares about Ukrainian civilians. Then the terror should stop immediately. If it doesn't, then you move to taking out the Western elites.
But Putin is completely excluding that as even an option. It was very telling a few weeks ago when he was interviewed and he said "We could do terror bombing on Ukrainian cities, but what is that going to achieve? So we are not going to do it". Yeah, he got that part right - terror bombing is not going to achieve anything. But, of course, it's a false dichotomy that this is the only choice, because there are other much more potent options. Such as going after the elites. However, for him that is not even an option.
Why? Because he cares about elites, no matter what despicable acts they have committed towards Russian non-elites, and he does not care sufficiently about Russian non-elites to go after the elites on the other side (which would also create the danger of retaliatory action on the Russian oligarchic elite). It's as simple as that.
P.S. This sort of thing is precisely how 1917 happened. We are a long way off from that, but slowly bit by bit we are going there. Which is precisely the West's goal, and Putin is facilitating it.
An excellent opportunity for Russia that allows it to develop its society and its relationship with its geopolitical environment. Multipolarity is an ambitious… and complex project
Was just thinking exactly that. I am reading Robert Massie's wonderful "Nicholas and Alexandra" and am constantly being struck by the similarities between now and then: a bloody war that is being lost, weak rulers, perversion and frivolity in the highest circles, delusional thinking, and above the endless ranks of utter mediocrities all jockeying for power as the whole system collapses.
That's why you will never be a successful military commander.
How much does Ukrainian shelling of civilians diminish Russia's war fighting capability? The effects are negligible.
You don't win a war by focusing on things that are irreverent to winning a war.
Attacking Czechia with missiles will drag NATO into the war, the cost of that war outweighs the benefits of destroying one factory.
You have your fancy explanation of Russia's actions based on your mind reading of Putin, not based on logic of fighting a war with the aim of winning it, you seem to be projecting too much. Try not to be so emotional. Are you a woman or a homosexual, by any chance? It is not normal for a man to be this emotional.
Let's just ignore all the strikes on precious military assets that happened because of not enforcing deterrence.
Did you miss the fact that Ukraine just tried to take out (and may well have, we have no reliable information) the main Russian OTH radar in Mordovia?
And it really doesn't even matter if they succeeded, the very fact this was attempted is a catastrophic event. We all know it isn't really Ukraine doing this, and in fact this particular radar doesn't play much of a role in this war anyway. This is NATO softening Russia for a strategic first strike.
This is an absolutely critical installation strikes against which, precisely because they can only be carried out as preparation for a surprise strategic nuclear attack, warrant a preventative first nuclear strike against the other side. Because the other side has clearly shown its intent by even attempting it.
This is the worst thing that has happened so far in this war - worse than the attacks on the strategic bombers, worse than Nord Stream, worse than the attacks on the NPPs, etc.
Yet NATO went there. Because they know Putin won't do anything.
This is what not enforcing deterrence results in.
Again, by doctrine and protocol, Europe should have been a pile of radioactive rubble already on Thursday night, because this is where the attack with aviation and cruise missiles would have come from and it has to be pre-empted. Who is responsible for allowing things to get to this point?
That's true the OTH radar strike would be a grave red-line crosser. Problem is, there's zero evidence such a thing actually was even attempted, much less actually happened. Satellite pics on Twitter seem to show no damage, and there's no evidence any attempt was even made, which means it may have just been some fake Tsipso propaganda.
Either way, a tiny one way drone can't do anything to such a massive complex so it's a moot point. That's like sending an FPV to hit HAARP. Pointless.
What Czech weapons factory? They just broke ground on it
What The RF does is to wait until it's built, until it's in production, then allow them to ship some over so's RF can test them, see if there's anything new and special
Then - if necessary, you blow it up, via saboteurs, Ukrainian nationals ids left lying around, or....
Like all westies you are furious for the instant smash and grab, as if playing a video game
Stop! Examine the evidence, investigate, above all think - do not behave as a troll
>What Czech weapons factory? They just broke ground on it
The one that produces the RM-70s.
And no, you don't take out out by sabotage. The idea here is to enforce deterrence. So you do it as publicly and demonstrative as possible, with Putin making a public address on the issue as the missiles are exploding in Prague.
GM is a doomer. He posts this shit regularly (ie" It remains a mystery why the Polish and Romanian borders have not been sealed. And it remains a mystery why weapons transfer is allowed in the first place").
Considering he must read what we do I'd say he is actually a troll.
The world is a wonderful place - trolls have probably been around since A&Eve, but the net has made them them troll-ier than ever : Mao was critical, and spoke of the need to use critical thinking...
6th column, strelkovite, hurrah patriot as Saker used to say.In fact anti Russia. If he is not Russian logical statement of a UK Nato troll.
No country ever demilitarized nato to that point(1 billion people) since nato exists.
US + NATO are financed by QE and trillions of debts of their members. Even with such massive amount of money and weapons they don't manage a lot except terror acts and P R for narrative and jornos. EU just said yesterday they lost one TRILLION euros(probably more) due to sanctions and energy costs.
But I only agree on one point: the West only understands force, a credible force, though some decapitation of the Ze crowd must happen. How is it possible that Budanov is still alive? Secret infiltration and assassination cells must be activated, if SBU can do it must be easy to do for some kind of RU special forces even more that many former ukrainians from the 4 oblasts (and even from Kharkov and co) are now living in Russia just recruit some commandos with top training ex ukies (now russians)who see their future in Russia. For exemple extremely motivated people against the ZE crowd for some reasons(relative, family killed since 2014 or more recently, home destroyed etc..). Those who have little to lose and are hungry for vengeance...just one small suggestion. They speak ukrainian and russian with ukie accent ideal for plausible deniability and cover.
To kill the P R flux, stop the never ending circus 'defile' of politicos coming in Kiev like in Lourdes, Vatican or Fatima. Every time ZE is travelling to a meeting or is 'on tour' in the West he must be an easy target to kill when leaving Kiev. May seems a small detail but P R is important as well on RU side to destroy west narrative.
Maria statements and Medvedev one are nice to hear or read but almost nobody in the West ever listened to or read them (except Medvedev on X because they like bad cop).
Re assassinations of the Ukie puppets; Russia wants and needs to be seen as following Int. Law. Sure they knock off some low profile (in West's eyes) filth, like the traitor pilot killed in Spain recently.
The high profile scum are too visible. And easily replaceable. They are order takers only, killing them would be the same as shooting the server at your local cafe; the very next day a new face would be there to take your order.
Exactly - these comments are purely western imagination - it's the very structure of the régime the RF wishes to destroy, perhaps with a very minor secondary goal of exporting the Neo Nazis into the EU
The idea kill a 'leader' or two is futile, it is the both ideology and the popular support, whatever popular support the Bandera has, which is to be destroyed
How many strikes against the ideology have you seen?
They bombed Shukhevych's museum in Lvov on January 1st 2024. That's the whole extent of it.
Not on January 1st 2023 (it's annual - Bandera's birthday), and not on any January 1st previously, and only the museum, not the torch processions celebrating Bandera, which would have directly eliminated a lot of hardcore Nazis (although arguably they should have already been doing that starting in the early 2000s)
Plus when you have a known idiot/narcotics addict penis pianist playing the president and brain damage injured moron pretending as intel chief + others just as incompetent as the guys taking and commencing the western elite's orders, you already know their tendencies and vulnerabilities, better to keep the confirmed mush for brains puppets in play rather than risking to take them out and somehow someone with even a minimal bit of competence replacing them.
The U.S. finances/sells Debt into an ever shrinking customer base. The VAST MAJORITY of New Debt plus the refinancing of Old Debt is done in the 30 day to 1 year term. In other words, holders of U.S. Debt don't want to hold the Hot Potato of U.S. promises. For the U.S. Treasury this is like financing your house, car and consumption on your Credit Card.
The alternative ( their beaks were wetted during the Covid Monetary fiasco of printing money to buy Government Debt to spend foolishly) is to go back to money printing. Inflation worse than it already is.
Western GDP is akin to a party balloon. Shove in more air (money printing into Fractional Reserve/Leveraged Banks), gin up your press clippings of the "growing" economy (of hot air) and hope the balloon doesn't burst.
Price Discovery has been destroyed, Faith has been strangled, and Mediocrities/Vacuous Leaders proliferate like mushrooms in the forest after a gentle rain.
"plus the refinancing of Old Debt is done in the 30 day to 1 year term." Well, this is a basic income investor trick as well. Why go longer when you damn well know rates are moving up (and secondarily when the curve's inverted).
Firstly, Dzhankoi is a relatively minor helicopter base that was already said by some UA sources to have mostly been abandoned previously with helis relocated to farther FARPs after the ATACMs hit on Berdiansk long ago. There's not much else of value there so the fact UA chose to waste their precious ATACMs on it seems to indicate a PR strike because they knew the ATACMs can't penetrate AD net of actual important areas like Sevastapol, Yevpatoria, and others.
It means Ukraine knows its capabilities and continues to strike relatively weak/undefended targets for PR purposes.
The strike wasn't that "painful" given that Russia took out 5 times more AD assets of Ukraine in the same week. Not only multiple Iris-Ts hit, but the whole S-300 battery blown away in Aviatorskoye AB in the Dnepropetrovsk region.
Those are some things to consider. If ATACMs was really that unstoppable, it would be raining down 24/7 on all Russia's most important positions/bases and probably would have taken out the Kerch bridge long ago already. But of course it avoids well defended areas and keeps picking off sites that the pesky RQ-4 identifies as being lightly guarded.
As for Belgorod, well I can't argue too much with that take. It is pretty sad what's happening with all that, but in reality most of it is due to there not really being much that Russia can do.
What should they do, nuke Kiev to stop a few Grads from being fired there?
Maybe it's true a nuclear power has never allowed such a thing, but no nuclear power has ever been humiliated like the U.S. is currently experiencing at the hands of Russia wiping the floor with all of NATO while demilitarizing the alliance in Ukraine, so while I agree Russia is suffering many different slaps and humiliations in this conflict, the U.S. is suffering just as many, so it's sort of a race to the bottom and U.S. is 'winning' the dubious distinction of this race.
>As for Belgorod, well I can't argue too much with that take. It is pretty sad what's happening with all that, but in reality most of it is due to there not really being much that Russia can do. What should they do, nuke Kiev to stop a few Grads from being fired there?
Enforce deterrence by going after the elites. Simple as that. Missile strikes on an Ukrainian oligarch's mansion (while he is there) and on people in Zelensky's close circle for every civilian hurt in Belgorod. Then it should stop very quickly. If it doesn't, move on to taking out Western elites, on an eye-for-an-eye basis.
You really think striking some CEOs mansion is going to stop AFU's attacks on Belgorod? Not a chance. You may overestimate the conspiracy tropes about 'oligarchs controlling Ukraine'. That's not the case anymore, as you've seen with Kolomoisky pretty much being a punching bag at this point.
I didn't mention only oligarchs, I also pointed to Zelensky and his circle.
There are always people on top responsible for these things.
Those RM-70 MRLSs were not manufactured and brought to the border by rabid Nazi Banderites in Ivano-Frankovsk on their own initiative. That happened as a result of the actions of elites -- minimally Ukrainian and Czech ones in this case.
Russian intelligence knows who should be optimally targeted much better than us, the point is that there are such people, and they are not being touched.
Well in that case we can probably agree to an extent. Either way the response is not the most impressive I've seen. Russia/Putin will not be ace at all times for everything.
But will Belgorod strikes lead to Russian 1917? Not in the slightest. Quite the opposite. While you're right there are many angry people on the ground, but there are even MORE people being radicalized against Ukraine than those 'turning against Putin'. So if anything it's only crystallizing the citizenry's maximalism against Ukraine militarily. Any ill effects against Putin/Russia is just wishful thinking. But does that mean Putin's responses have been ideal/good? No.
Yes, I know there are many people radicalized against Ukraine and the West. This is even more dangerous -- at some point those people may reach a critical mass, decide that Putin has to go because he is not protecting the motherland, and launch a coup. Which will destabilize the internal situation because they will not have the same support by local elites that Putin has, even though they would be running the war better than Putin.
In 1917 the Bolsheviks were kind of in a similar situation -- they indeed ended up running the place much better, but getting there involved a civil war, much devastation, and major long-term geostrategic losses (Finland and Poland were never recovered, and the seeds of the eventual USSR collapse and the loss of half of the country were sown back then; of the current war too).
I am not the only one who is thinking along these lines. Putin clearly does too. Because notice who the Kremlin is openly repressing the last year. It is not the liberals, it is the angry patriots.
Zelensky and his circle have their mansions in Miami, Egypt, Israel and other countries. No amount of destruction of the Ukraine is of any significance for the Ukrainian elites. They will all escape to the West just before the war is lost. They are a bunch of grifters who couldn't care less what happens to the Ukraine.
Yes, and that is one of the reasons why that 60 B aid bill is so important to those evil people who want the war to continue as long as possible. Sure - US is using most of it in their own MIC grifts, but couple billion is urgently needed to keep paying bribes for these disgusting creatures aka the so called leadership in Ukronazistan so that they'll keep sending more of their citizens to be liquidated in the front.
If a country like Russia takes out elements of the enemy leadership then the enemy leadership will start taking out elements of the Russian leadership. It's an unwritten rule that you don't do that. 'I won't assassinate you because I know your people would then assassinate me'
Yes, and this is why Russian elites are not doing it -- they don't want that risk on themselves.
But who is paying the price? The people in Donetsk and Belgorod.
True leaders who care about their people would have taken the risk and enforced deterrence.
Also, remember two things:
1) Russia has total dominance in the ability to carry out such actions, so this is a game Ukrainians have no chance of winning.
2) A lot could have been done to strengthen domestic security in order to minimize the chances of such acts being successful. It wasn't because for Putin maintaining "normalcy" was much more important than preparing for war. That continues to this very day, BTW, right as British jet kazmikaze drones are hitting deep into core Russian territory (look at what happened last night). Compare and contrast with what Stalin did in the 1930s
History repeats itself, what we are witnessing is a strange echo of other historical moments.
The most recent being the cold war, only the chessboard has been reversed and the RF is now sitting in the Western chair and the west in the USSRs one.
Remember going into the 80s the cost of the arms race was severely harming the USSR - a parallel can be seen with the EU right now.
Most analysts still repeated the myth of the great soviet military at the time, but in truth it had already become by the mid 80s itself a paper tiger (parallels with NATO now anyone?)
Ultimately the USSR couldn't sustain it's empire economically and it all came tumbling down, with Russia having to jettison the entire Warsaw pact and various satellite entities of the USSR in order to try to maintain something of the empire, what now we see as the RF, likewise the US empire is creaking and close to breaking (whist being portrayed as stronger than ever - similar statements were parroted in the 80s by the soviets btw)
Now the only question how hard Europe crashes when the US switches as it must into self preservation of its core existential interests.
Unlike the cold war though, I don't see Russia stepping in to economically prop up Europe like the US did (albeit for control over Europe) but rather Europe will crash without any soft landing provided, and that's a scary prospect if you live in Europe as old divisions will resurface as soon as the veneer of being part of the American hegemonic empire evaporates.
I can see certain countries being aided by Russia to help them ride out this period, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia and several others (depending how their internal political situations develop) but for the large part you'll see certain grouping of countries develop across Europe to try to maintain strength and various isolated countries will be one chess pawns in what will become a race for survival in a very changed world.
The Ukraine was NEVER about the Ukraine, it was always about establishing the role Europe and Eurasia would play in the future global order.
Russia will emerge as the sole European global power, European countries will determine their roles and importance by how quickly they realise this and accept the new reality (no I'm not talking Russia conquering Europe, but rather Russia controlling energy and trade for Europe as the gatekeeper for the 'global south'
"The Ukraine was NEVER about the Ukraine, it was always about establishing the role Europe and Eurasia would play in the future global order." The definition of a pawn, an expendable unit meant to reconfigure the other pieces on the chessboard.
VVP has taken nukes off the table quite literally by not reaching for them, regardless of Bad Cop Medvedev's public Struggle Sessions on 'X'
BRICS colleage nations & those in the Shanghai Cooperation Org see VVP's ethic, his leadership by example--how to prosecute a war using conventional weaponry--and remain calmly by his side.
If you recall last June, the Ukrainians were shelling the ZNPP in attempted False Flags & whiinging about 'mines' which they said Russia had placed on the ZNPP's rooftop. In the midst of that Janet Yellen visited China in an unheralded hastily thrown together trip. This was in advance of the U.S.'s need to settle its Debt Ceiling issues. Premier Xi agreed to purchase Treasury Bonds [in the billions], thus bailing the U.S. out of its Debt Ceiling woes, only if Ukraine quit shelling the ZNPP or prepping it for a False Flag.
Premier Xi: no nukes.
He bought the Bonds Yellen was peddling & Ukraine ceased its addled perseveration on the ZNPP.
My point is that VVP's partners in leadership also share his ethic & weltanschaung. By virtue of 'how' he is prosecuting this war, VVP is able to keep allies/friendly nations on his side.
How much virtue is there is slaughtering half of a million of your own people and being scheduled to slaughter another half a million at least when you have the most powerful military-technical tools in the world and those were supposed to make such a tragedy impossible? Because if you are claiming that Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians are really the same thing (and they indeed are), then every death on other side is a death of your own people too. It's really a civil war after all.
Meanwhile the people who are truly responsible for this are safe and sound and will today spend another $60B on killing Russians.
How much sense does that make?
If NATO had dropped 200 kt on Pskov and Belgorod each, should Putin have used the nukes to stop it/revenge it? And what would happen if he doesn't? NATO would be free to do more of the same.
Well, in effect that already has happened (when you tally up all the death and destruction in Ukraine, and now increasingly in Russia itself to), just not in a single spectacular strike. And Putin hasn't done anything to stop it/retaliate for it.
It's an ethic, the way VVP is prosecuting this war. I'm not sure the ethic it has much frisson in the West.
The people who are 'safe & sound,' who have just now authorized the $60bn, are killing more Ukrainians than they are Russians. Commensurately, it's a colossal devastation.
Ukrainians are trapped in a firebag--which is their own country. They are kettled-in; the $60bn means they will stay in the cauldron
You still don't get it - those Ukrainians in the firebag are actually Russians. Not just according to me - VVP wrote that article back in 2021 claiming it himself.
So VVP, if he was to follow those principles, cannot be doing war of attrition against them featuring WWI-style industrial slaughter (plus, of course, a lot of people are dying on the Russian side too).
The whole plot is to force Russia to exhaust itself on a large-scale civil war (for that is what this is).
The correct way out of that trap is to not play the game and turn the tables, by implementing the kind of military-technical measures that will block NATO's involvement in it.
This may seem a little off the specific points being discussed but I think it relevant to the overall situation.
It’s from the introduction to The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order, Glenn Diesen, Clarity Press (15 Feb. 2024). I think the last paragraph is especially on point.
Under a balance of power, states must be prudent and make rational priorities to survive, whereas a dominant state is vulnerable to hubris and delusions about its own superiority and invincibility. While the costs of the mistakes it makes can be absorbed, the hegemon incrementally overextends itself as the accumulation of the costs of misadventure eventually grows towards a breaking point. Resources are transferred from the core to the periphery to preserve the empire, and domestic issues are insufficiently addressed, with economic inequality fuelling social and political instability. On the other hand, economically weaker states become increasingly willing to endure economic hardship in order to shed dependence on the hegemon.45 In the “imperial lifecycle,” empires become wealthy and powerful as they expand and extract wealth from the wider world; although in the process they contribute to the development of new centres of power which eventually challenge their empire.
When people are born into wealth they tend to be deprived of a sense of necessity, often resulting in their complacency. Affluence also tends to decouple power and authority from competence, which produces systemic distrust and anti-intellectualism among the public. Economic determinism makes money the core indicator of value, and society becomes subservient to the economy. Nationalism and culture are degraded from an instrument of unity and shared purpose to a mere tool by the powerful to obtain and prolong their power, calling for the return to a glorious past or an unattainable future.
In the study of civilisations, the “universal state” is commonly associated with decadence. The “universal state” or “universal empire” denotes political supremacy or hegemony like Rome in which the dominant state is subverting efforts by others to collectively balance. In his important work on civilisations, Quigley (C.Quigley, The evolution of civilizations: A historical analysis, Indianapolis, Liberty Press, 1961) observed that like a star, the hegemon shines the brightest when it has already begun to die:
“When a universal empire is established in a civilisation, the society enters upon a “golden age.” At least this is what it seems to the periods that follow it. Such a golden age is a period of peace and of relative prosperity. Peace arises from the absence of any competing political unity within the area of the civilization itself, and from the remoteness or even absence of struggles with other societies outside. Prosperity arises from the ending of internal belligerent destruction, the reduction of internal trade barriers, the establishment of a common system of weights, measures, and coinage, and from the extensive government spending associated with the establishment of a universal empire. But this appearance of prosperity is deceptive. Little real economic expansion is possible because no real instrument of expansion exists. New inventions are rare, and real economic investment is lacking… A period of acute economic depression, declining standards of living, civil wars between the various vested interests, and growing illiteracy. The society grows weaker and weaker.”
I think that we are in a unique global empire as it is largely a commercial empire, not driven by geographic conquest or looting, but by co-option of national elites and commercial exploitation through trade, natural resource extraction, and the subjugation of labor. At this point the trans-national global capitalist elite may be able to de-link from any national base; and cannibalizing the 'core' civilization (host nation) begins to look similar to how the empire exploits other nation states. I fully expect NATO and the USA led global empire to de-couple from the British, French, German, and USA nation states and continue to rule most of the world while those nations endure decline and submission to the demands of Empire. The levers of power- information, narratives, digital services, banking, currency, terms of trade, energy, and military force can continue to be sustained while the actual core nations decline, even percipitously.
"And people in Belgorod are really pissed, don't mistake the fact that you have not seen any reports on what the mood is there for evidence for absence of resentment. Which is achieving precisely what the West intended with these strikes -- to cause resentment towards Putin by showing regular Russians that he doesn't care about their lives. The problem is it indeed very hard to argue that the Kremlin cares about Belgorod based on the events of the last four months, the evidence is in exactly the opposite direction."
Respectfully, I realize you mean the above sincerely, but all the same it is typical Western misunderstanding of what Russians think. Russians aren't imbeciles like Westerners, so making inferences about what they think as if they were Western imbeciles leads to false conclusions like you write above.
I live in Russia and I know people in Belgorod. Yes, they are really pissed. In fact, they're out for blood. But that anger is not in the least directed at the administration (which is the correct way to phrase their feelings toward the government, not falling into the Western cretin trap of demonizing Putin and thus failing to understand the many levels and complexity of Russian government). That anger is directed toward the West.
As with so many other things the West gets completely, counterproductively, wrong about their attacks on Russia, the US/NATO/nazi terror attacks on civilians in Belgorod only achieve greater unity and greater support for the administration. The unity and patriotic support of the administration in Belgorod is phenomenal to behold. Contrary to what you write, there is fanatic support for Putin and other leaders, like the governor.
Unlike Western imbeciles, Russians actually bother to learn something about the military events which impact their lives. Although there are many exemptions for students and such, nonetheless basically all Russian men have served the required year or two in the army, so it's hard to find a Russian man who is not personally familiar with military matters. Everybody knows how to handle an "aftomat" (what Russians call AK assault rifles), with most women also picking up an understanding of military matters as their fathers, sons, and brothers have served.
They understand that the sort of attacks carried out on Belgorod can only be stopped by US-style carpet bombing of huge swaths of Ukrainian territory, basically depopulating a large enough buffer zone that even a single launcher cannot get within range of Belgorod. They are unwilling to do that, just like the administration is unwilling to do that, because their own relatives live just across the border in the region in which all life would have to be exterminated.
A hallmark of Western cretinism when it comes to Ukraine is the way the West likes to forget that most people in Ukraine have relatives in Russia. That's such a prevailing demographic effect that it is hard to find people even in the nazi leadership who do not have relatives in Russia. When it comes to border towns, like Belgorod, the effect is even greater.
Russians understand that a quick "solution" to the nazi problem would kill their own relatives who are being used as human shields by the nazis, so instead of a quick solution, most Russians are willing to go the extra mile, and sacrifice some of their own lives, to protect their kin as Russia methodically defeats the US, NATO and the nazis in Ukraine.
That's questionable. It's more likely that "decisive action" if by that you mean full on war in Ukraine would have killed hundreds of thousands of Russia's kin right away.
Instead of carpet bombing Kharkov or Kiev, which would kill massive numbers of civilians (exactly as US carpet bombing of civilian population centers in the US's wars killed so many civilians or as Israel's flattening of Gaza has killed so many Palestinians), the Russian strategy to attack in highly limited ways gives civilians a chance to escape with their lives from high intensity conflict zones.
If by "decisive action" you mean strikes on the Western powers, either "surgical" strikes using conventional weapons to kill Western decision makers who support the nazi regime or nuclear strikes to take "decisive action" on a bigger scale, well, the judgment call from people with the best information (and best judgement) is that such actions would also result in more deaths of Russians, but in Russia itself.
>It's more likely that "decisive action" if by that you mean full on war in Ukraine would have killed hundreds of thousands of Russia's kin right away.
That is absurd.
Ukraine in February 2022 had 250K people in the army and had Russia gone in just 2-3x harder, it would have been over quickly. Then had Russia done decapitation strikes that would have kneecapped the initial Ukrainian mobilization effort, and had it enforced deterrence on NATO to block the flood of weapons, it would all have been over with <50,000 deaths on both sides.
Now we have a million dead guaranteed.
Also, the whole invasion plan was completely strategically botched. The top priority should have been to quickly and immediately take over Western Ukraine to cut off NATO interference. But that would have required a serious force of initially 100-200K to burst south from Brest, followed by anther 100-200K to occupy and pacify the region. But Putin somehow thought he will be able to make a deal by bluffing, his bluff was called, so here we are...
Respectfully disagree. As you no doubt have noticed, the invasion was no bluff. Let me address some of the points you raise:
"Ukraine in February 2022 had 250K people in the army and had Russia gone in just 2-3x harder, it would have been over quickly."
In point of fact, Ukraine had over 500K people in the army, and that army was the beneficiary of massive NATO training, billions in Western money, and enjoyed the support of thousands of Western personnel in Ukraine and tens of thousands of US and NATO military personnel working "back office" tasks like AWACs and satellite overwatch. The US/Kiev coalition had massed 130,000 men on the border of Donbass to invade and once and for all ethnically cleanse and subdue what they called "rebel" provinces. There's no "over quickly" about defeating such a military power.
Russia in early 2022 had a much smaller, peacetime army. Russia did not invade in 2014 against the US's overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine because Russia was not strong enough in 2014 to fight the US, not economically and not militarily. February 2022 was the absolute earliest date that Russia felt it could fight the US and win, but even so that was a very close call. The best Russia could muster in February 2022 was about 80,000 men for the invasion force. It wasn't a "bluff" but a desperate, risky move forced by the proximity of Kiev's plan to invade Donbass.
There simply weren't the resources available on-scene to go in "2-3x harder." Had there been the resources, there's also the issue that "decapitation strikes" to "kneecap" the Ukrainian mobilization effort is not a match to the reality on the ground: in February of 2022 Ukraine was already mobilized with a huge army trained and equipped during the prior eight years.
Add to that any "decapitation" would have meant launching a full-on war and not the limited intervention Russia intended to protect Donbass and to show the US it was done with talk about Minsk and had moved on to military means.
Cutting off "NATO interference" and general war throughout Ukraine would have required a massive bombing campaign that would have harmed hundreds of thousands of civilians, not to mention the casualties caused by launching a general war against NATO.
"that would have required a serious force of initially 100-200K to burst south from Brest, followed by anther 100-200K "
Those are forces Russia did not have in position ready for action in February of 2022. Russia had to make do with what it had available, a mere 80,000 men.
As it turned out, Russia played a weak hand remarkably well. Sending 15,000 or so troops in a feint attack against Kiev worked brilliantly to draw off Kiev's invasion force that was positioned to strike Donbass, and it bought time for Russia to move more troops into Donbass, getting to 100,000 total relatively quickly. The operation succeeded at its initial goal, protecting Donbass and then it exceeded that initial goal by taking two additional provinces in the South. That many mistakes happened is nothing unexpected, as nobody familiar with military matters expects a peacetime army to swing into action in the first serious, peer military conflict it has undertaken in many decades without encountering a brutal learning curve.
Russia is now well past the brutal peak of that learning curve, having built a successful, well-trained, well-equipped and well-led army that has become expert in the art of defeating the US and its proxies. Logistics issues have been ironed out, hundreds of thousands of new combat forces have been raised and trained and equipped, and the country's industry is pumping out massive amounts of armaments in anticipation of a direct war with the US and its vassals. Russia is defeating the US in Ukraine, while at the same time the Russian economy is growing in real terms much faster than the US economy or any of the US's vassal countries.
Russians feel they still have a lot to learn, with plenty of mistakes to fix and lots of work ahead, but thus far in the "so here we are" department, the results to date have vindicated Russian strategy and tactics in Ukraine.
Why this focus on a fake Nazi problem and no mention of the Jew who truly run the west and want to break up Russia. At some point this becomes laughable. Bandera was put in a concentration camp by the Germans. This is all distraction and it is annoying that Putin does it too. Name the Jew and their power evaporates.
"fake Nazi problem " That's vicious nonsense. The nazis that provided muscle for the 2014 coup and then took controlling positions in the junta government given power by the US are genuine nazis, the real deal, right down to their swastika tattoos and tattooed portraits of Hitler.
When the infamous nazi Azov Battalion was mostly eradicated and their remnants trapped in Mariupol under the steel works, they tried to escape during their negotiated surrender by changing into civilian clothes and blending into the stream of refugees and former human shields. As a first filter to immediately identify most of them, Russian forces simply required all military age men to remove their shirts as they left the encircled surrender sites. Those with nazi tattoos (the majority of Azov) were immediately set aside as high risk.
Bandera too was a nazi. That he had a falling out with his German nazi allies and former employers was his problem, not any evidence that he was anything other than despicable nazi scum himself.
You'll see how Russia will not be distracted from a key element of its mission in Ukraine: to denazify the place, whatever that takes.
You mean the azov that was founded by a Jew and then went to Israel to kiss Jew ass ? That azov?
What exactly does ‘Nazi’ even mean to you other than just a witch word that Jews try to make ‘scary’ so the goyim don’t use their strategy of ethnic nationalism. America would be a ‘leave it to beaver’paradise if the Germans would have won instead of this multicultural hell hole.
>When the infamous nazi Azov Battalion was mostly eradicated and their remnants trapped in Mariupol under the steel works
I distinctly remember Azov being released and sent to Turkey, then Erdogan releasing them back to Ukraine, as well as Azov still being in the daily war reports all the way to (checks notes), yesterday.
"I distinctly remember Azov being released and sent to Turkey,"
Not so. Russia sent only ten or so of its Azov captives to Turkey, at Erdogan's request. That was a mistake, as Erdogan broke his word and released them back to Ukraine. It was a stupid mistake, as now Russia will never trust Erdogan's word on such matters.
Azov was indeed "mostly eradicated" in Mariupol, losing tens of thousands killed, including their most experienced and most hard-core fighters. The final remnants holed up for a last stand underground at the steel works, with around a thousand of them surviving to finally surrender and being taken captive by Russia. Except for the ten or so senior Azov members who were sent to wait out the war in Turkey, all the rest were imprisoned in Russia.
As for Azov still being in war reports, that's the "new" Azov that was reconstituted as part of the Ukrainian regular army after the catastrophic defeat and eradication of most of Azov in Mariupol. Not all Azov members were fighting in Mariupol and more than enough of the leadership was left to recruit new Azov members. However, those new Azov members do not have anywhere near the experience of the Azov troops that were eradicated in Mariupol. The new "Azov" is basically a marketing word for a regular Ukrainian army formation that is riding on the old-time, hard-core nazi vibe still attached to that name. But even if they survive their current slaughter at the hands of Russia it will take years to rebuild as effective a new Azov as the original.
How many Tochka-U strikes has Ukraine managed to score? That ship in Berdyansk early in the war? I think something got through to Rostov too on one occasion. Anything else? Not really.
And Ukraine had hundreds of those, but Russia shot down almost every single one of them.
The ATACMS? Not so much, they have scored several very painful hits now.
Because it is not a simple ballistic missile, it maneuvers too.
Well, it is newer, but it's 1991 missile. This is the reason why USA is developing replacement. It is old borderline Soviet-era stuff.
We'll see how situation develops, but in my mind USA is simply sending old junk to Ukraine. So US military will get new stuff and Kiev regime will use up the old stuff and everyone will get paid for it too.
Regarding Tochka-U, Ukraine did hit some targets with it. From what i've heard, they did hit a square in Donetsk killing a lot of civilians. Railroad station in Kramatorsk with a lot of civialians too.
You're just seeing war propaganda where Ukraine is successfully hitting only military targets, the story repeats with ATACMS, but eventually they are going to be used to carry out more mass murders.
Ukraine is going to send them where they can send them, to the least protected places.
No or bad training + zero motivation except a few fanatics.Many under 26 were already present in the war as 'volontaries', many killed or wounded, even saw on TG a baby face azovite of...19 years old (kia)looking more like he is 14.
The wings on the T-80BVM make it look Formula 1 ready.
Looks like nobody is stepping back from the dial on the oven, 'cause the heat keeps coming up and up. Israel and Iran slinging explosive at each other seems to have gotten the hawks in gear.
Hey, isn't that Hamish guy the one who proclaimed that the sight of the Challengers would make the orc hordes flee in terror without firing a shot? He should command a Challenged into the teeth of Russian arty and drones, see how that works for him.
I'm still waiting on real confirmation. Everyone's claiming Lyudmila "confirmed" his death but in actuality some sources are saying she never confirmed any such thing anywhere. Now all sorts of rumors are spreading from the echo chamber but there is no actual proof/confirmation from any authoritative source other than people reposting the same thing.
The effect of the new Ukraine conscription law, with absence of the 36 month limit, will be to increase Ukrainian surrenders.
Doesn't matter whether a soldier is near 36 months or not, the message from the regime is that you will fight until you are killed, with no other possibility. That's a simple message that everyone can understand. Now there's no downside to trying to surrender.
Very possible, though the UAF grunts continue to fight and hold the line. I had thought by now we would start to see more and larger groups surrendering but there is not so much evidence of that. Morale is holding up that far at least. Absent a funding package and restocks of ammo they must realise the jig is up. But the end will be characterised by mass surrenders IMHO.
"I had thought by now we would start to see more and larger groups surrendering but there is not so much evidence of that. " A major problem for Ukrainians who want to surrender is that the nazi regime is getting better at killing anyone who attempts to surrender. The high density of drones makes it easier to kill those who try to lay down their arms.
An additional problem is that the increased intensity of Russian attacks, such as the increased use of many-hundred kilogram glide bombs (FABs) which kill anyone within hundreds of meters, makes it technically difficult to surrender. If you're sitting a kilometer from the ill-defined front wishing you could surrender as the FABs rain down around you, it's not so easy to pick up and walk through that hail of death and destruction to get to Russian lines.
I do agree that as the breaking point is reached we'll see more mass surrenders.
Yes, Volga is still up. Calling on Volga simplifies part of the surrender process by reducing the possibility that valid surrenders are inadvertently targeted by Russian forces. But that does not eliminate the two issues I mentioned. The regime still does its best to kill surrendering troops and it is still difficult to pick your way through a very dangerous gray zone to safety.
The vast majority literally pay income taxes to support their own oppression, then complain about their consequences. There's a reason why the parasites came up with the 'cattle' meme.
"I don't understand why they haven't already." The simple answer is that the Kiev regime is not a democracy. It is a lawless nazi regime where opponents are killed without trial. The vast majority are doing their best to escape destruction through conscription, and otherwise keeping their head down so they don't get shot or beaten as a "Russian collaborator."
In the aftermath of the US/nazi coup in 2014 the regime consolidated its power in the territories it had seized by arresting and killing over 15,000 people. It banned all opposition groups, seized control of all media, and arrested or simply shot on the street any journalist or blogger that opposed it. 47 people were burned to death in Odessa by nazi thugs, the police standing by or participating, when local opponents of the coup marched in protest.
The great majority of "Ukrainians" are ethnic Russians who speak Russian as their native language. They've been speaking that language, the language they invented one thousand years ago in the region around Kiev when their people were known as the "Rus," for a thousand years. They're not foreign imports but the original "Russians," having exported their culture and language North and East all the way to the Northern seas and to the Pacific Ocean.
The Ukrainian speaking nazis are a fairly small minority in Ukraine, but during their coup they seized the vast majority of Ukraine's Soviet era arsenal, including the air force, and they immediately received mountains of weapons, billions in funds, and the direct assistance of thousands of US personnel. So it doesn't matter if genuine, swastika-tattooed nazis are around ten percent of the population if they have the guns and the support of a corrupt additional twenty percent of the population that had enjoyed the fruits of looting the country after the US's prior, softer coup in 2004. As they say, one guy with a machine gun can control 100 unarmed people.
So sure, what the majority in Ukraine wants doesn't matter in the face of force. The Yanukovich administration that the US overthrew was elected in 2010 when in a free and fair election Ukrainian voters elected him by a much bigger majority than any US president has won in decades. Rather than wait for elections in 2015 that the nazi coalition was sure to lose the US chose to take by force what their proxies could not win in an election.
Eight Ukrainian regions opposed the coup, but five of them were crushed by the junta with US assistance. Only three, Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk managed to stay free. Crimea leveraged its unique geography and the pre-existing presence of massive Russian forces to stay free while Donetsk and Lugansk fought the US/nazi coalition to a draw, with Donetsk losing half its territory.
The more complex answer is that in the ten years since the 2014 coup the nazi regime has had a free hand in the territories it did conquer to both liquidate opponents and to impose a forced regime of indoctrination. The eight years up to Russia's intervention in 2022 are a long time in the life of a new generation of children. The regime burned all the history books and instead force-fed kids on propaganda, banning the use of Russian and marinating them in hate. Despite the very big ethnic Russian majority, that has definitely skewed perceptions within Ukraine.
Nobody in Ukraine could hear on media about the US/Kiev plan to keep hostilities with Donbass going in a slow burn by shelling civilian centers in Donetsk and Lugansk every day, killing just enough people every day to keep the war going but not so many that Russia would lose patience with fake claims of intending to support the Minsk peace deal and invade. So many Ukrainians genuinely felt that Russia invaded for no reason but to seize the country. They were also told Ukraine was winning, and winning big.
When as part of the March, 2022, peace deal the West and Kiev lied and said that Russia should withdraw its forces from around Kiev as a good faith move and Russia complied, Kiev pitched that to its captive population (as did the West to their captive audiences) as a huge military success by Kiev, not as a good faith, voluntary move by Russia.
At the same time, Azov and other units moved into the territories that Russia had given up as a good faith move to ethnically cleanse them of anybody they claimed had welcomed Russian forces. They killed people who had accepted food or medicine from Russian forces.
So that's where Ukraine is today. Most people have realized their government has lied to them, but the fear element remains strong that anybody who speaks out against the regime risks death. At the same time, there remains a hard-core nazi and nationalist element that is funded with billions by the US. That hard core is drenched in riches and power and has the luxury of the wealthy in that they can continue barking extremist bile and support for the regime, the more the better when it comes to ensuring a steady flow of US money. In between those two extremes are those people who have not yet fled the country (about half of Ukraine's population has migrated either to Russia or to the West) but who are just trying to live a normal life. Since Russia doesn't target civilian populations that's surprisingly easy to do, especially in the West of the country.
Just as the Jews want - everyone to leave or die so they can occupy Ukraine. The US is run by Israel as well. Or so it seems. Who knows, both Israel and the US are run by thugs.
Not to take anything away from Russia in terms of its military industrial output, but that video shows that neither Shoigu, nor any of the accompanying military and industrial officials is going short of meals.
Johnson seems to have succumbed to the viruganda. This will cost him like that chumpy from killafornia, whatsa his fuck Kevin crappalot, the last fallen speaker in what can become a long line of them
The V2 was like these missiles and were used in the same way after the allies captured some Dutch city the Germans dropped a V2 on a theater with 500 people inside.
Compare the cost of a modern missile to a glide bomb millions for the former thousands for the latter. Reminds me of the old false adage a billion dollars to save one life.
The chart looks like it's from the prewar "population pyramid" data such a found below, which itself was reckoned from birth rates due to lack of census, and subject to out-migration.
The block of males age 18-28 = born 1996-2006 was about 2 million prewar. Rough guess is, cut this to half or less due to refugee flows, and then adjust more for military casualties to date. But there's probably still enough for another half a million to be sacrificed, and skim off a few thousand $$ in aid for each one.
The major difference between western attitudes and that of the average Russian is- for the Russian- a belief in a cause greater than him/herself in which he is/she is proud to serve, and for which he/she is proud to give his/her life. The average Russian fights for a supremely powerful egregore- 'Mother Russia', in whom a deep pride has been reawakened by his/her own shamanistic leader, one Vladimir Putin.
The average westerner, who doesn't even think any such higher entities exist, is his own highest cause, a little centre of self importance and self indulgence in the cause of which he/she has become risibly enfeebled. Which is why no western state wants to test their people in active bloody combat, either on the ground or in the air. Who or what would they be fighting for? Emmanuel Macron (widely detested)? Lord Cameron (recently caught with his hands on marked money and about to be booted out of office in a forthcoming election)? Jens Stoltenberg (the chap in the cardigan who keeps trying to walk away from the whole mess)? It gets worse the deeper you plunge into these over-promoted non entities.
The desire of a cosseted elite that never sees a ballot box, to maintain a self serving status quo, is not going to fuel a wider european war although it could signal the collapse of this laughable self styled 'international community' of posers who have got their hands on the money tree and are busy stripping it of its fruit and undermining its roots. No one else needs to be worried about Russia who has never been interested in territory but security, and the longer the west fights back the more of Ukraine Russia is going to have to swallow to achieve secure boundaries.
That said, a new europe centred on Russian resources would be a powerful bloc indeed, and is precisely what the US fears, and why it has kept NATO going since WWII.
If you watch the final 3 minutes of Tucker's interview w/ VVP, we find the Russian president describing the spiritual facet of this war--and it's truly riveting how natural it is for VVP to reference the Divine & apply it to the SMO.
Tucker's reaction makes obvious that the earth shifted @ that moment.
[ VVP going all Yaroslav the Brave on Tucker earlier in the interview did not quite do it ]
No U.S. leader/politician can evince such authentic piety.
For them, piety is PR
It's a gear the U.S. leaders/politicians don't have
You've missed out massively on one fact that all western politicians & media. Will never mention about the man you describe as "shamastic". Where was Russia financially & a host of many other negative problems when Putin became the leader of Russia? Now compare that to all of the situations of the western countries at that time. What Putin has achieved for his country & more importantly for his people over the past 20 years. While navigating every single hurdle the West could place against him & his country. Is nothing short of a miracle. I don't know what the situation is in your country, but in my country we are in recession. We have the highest taxes in Europe, the highest energy bills in Europe, inflation. A whole host of negative policies aimed at the civilians by our own politicians. Like every other western country. 99.9% of the civilians have steadily watched our standards of living drop. We've watched poverty grow massively & investment in our own country drop like a ton of hot snot. While the Vermin who rule us & their associates become more wealthy. We have been lied to constantly on top of everything else. Putin isn't Shamastic, he has a fantastic team of professionals around him doing their job professionally. This was reflected in the recent vote.
Oh, I don't doubt the secular sophistication of his rule but without the captivating power of the shaman to go with it, he is just another politician. He is not that.
He is much more than a politician, he us Russia's modern day savior. Love him or loathe him facts are facts. From a western point of view to be called a politician is an insult. It is for the treasonous lying corrupt vermin that rule in my country. I'll give you a quick example, the PM of my country announced last week he was targeting the disabled & those who claim benefits for being unfit for work. The payments they receive now are pathetic. His party has been in power 14 years. Over this period they've created record numbers of placing my fellow citizens into anject poverty. Yesterday it was announced his government are sending a record package of military & financial aid to Ukraine taking the financial aid to 3 billion this year already. That's without the costs of the military equipment. Ukraine has never been an ally of my country, it openly & brazenly has a Nazi war criminal as their national hero. Everything everyone in my country including my both grandfather's fought against in WW2. My government is financing & giving weapons to commit war crimes. They're doing exactly the same for Israel. The very same country that has attacked my ellie citizens & my countries military & is anything but an ally. This is what the politicians have & are dojng in my country today. No President Putin isn't just a politician. He is a true representative of his country & citizens, a world renowned statesman & diplomat. Who has his own citizens & his own countries interests as his core beliefs. Today in the West I honestly don't know of any politicians who represent the civilians they're employed to do so. In fact their policies have a negative impact in their own citizens. To class President Putin in the very same bracket, for me personally us an insult.
Mikhail Nesterov's painting "Holy Rus" from 1905 comes to mind. [ It hangs in the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg--link below ]
Also the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome, after Constantinople fell, comes to mind.
St. Basil's cathedral on Red Square was called "Jerusalem." Ivan the Terrible [ Grozny] had it built to commemorate the liberation of Kazan from the Tatar-Turkic Khanate.
It's neither sentimental nor overweening to recognize a living spiritual dimension to Russia, a dynamic presence which is part & parcel of the place, as if radiating from it. This living spiritual dimension is not at odds with the presence of crime, trafficking, social ills, murder, poverty; this living spiritual dimension encompasses them.
Russia holds out the awareness that 'this living spiritual dimension' is always available to us--just an eye-blink away.
As Goethe said, it is simply an 'energetic fact'. We can argue about how to define this power, what words to attach to it, how to 'style' it, but we cannot deny it.
Russia has the best central banker, the best defense minister, the best diplomat and more. The growth in the economy is set to outpace the G7 according to the IMF parasitic rentier extraction people. Oh, did I forget, the best President.
This version of western man that you describe is a modern construction. We weren't always like this, in fact prior to the 1980s most of us weren't like this. It pisses me off how people make all these glowing romantic descriptions of Russians while shitting on Europeans, as if there was no list for power and money, no corruption, no human trafficking, drug deals, murders, or other nasty things in Russia. I'm a Russophile too, but give me a break.
You need to go back to before the western welfare state. That is what corrupted 'the working classes'. I agree that there was always a drone class.
The greatest surprise to the west was how the Russian monied class suddenly rediscovered its loyalty to mother Russia. Biden et al assumed it could be bought/bullied to bring Putin down. That went well. It is busy now doing what it can for 'the cause', especially the front line one.
The Deep State always gets to feed. It won't make much difference for Ukraine. Soon the Congressman will be ousted, but will have secured his place on the board of some MIC corporation.
Great article Simplicius. I have shared the link on A Skeptic War Reports
Such a contrast between the US and Russia when it comes down to what actually is gonna win this war. The US congress pumping their chests talking about how their collective votes are some how gonna stop russia's massive war machine. There's no factory anywhere in the US that even remotely compares to that tank factory shoigu was touring. That's far more convincing than a money printing machine which is all America really has
20 April 2024 Zombie CBR Confiscation Rises from the Dead
US desperate for money for Ukraine
« US proposes debt to fund Ukraine using profits from frozen Russian assets’
https://www.ft.com/content/6cb21054-ccfc-4cb9-ab58-516d80be94de
The FT headlined this plan, in an increasingly frequent show of desperation
Adept at selling other people’s futures back to them, this proposal takes the current windfall tax applied to Eurcolear’s profits made from the management of frozen CBR assets
This plan is just that, not voted through- faces a number of objections, by their nature this EUC tax windfall must be a one off, Euroclear’s profits according to the market are their’s, profits from assets belong to the asset holder, and so on
The US wrinkle is to scavenge a bond issue backed by the future profits – but these are incalculable, liable to be interrupted by the end of war, plus would get in way of any future cease fire or peace arrangements
– who would wish to guarantee these bonds ? and why would any prospective buyers believe this guarantee ?
Theft is a lot harder than you think
Annexe
Besides there is pressure from third party countries on the EU to not takes any action regarding the assets, China, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-frozen-assets-europe-confiscation-china-saudi-arabia/
https://english.pravda.ru/world/159297-europe-asia-frozen-russian-assets/
According to Politico’s anonymous likely EUC sources this is due to RF pleading for pressure, although the article has to spend a lot of roundabout space trying to figure out how to plead this
According to Pravda, this is the other way round : this is the EUC shoring up support for resisting US pressure – a mix of pleading ‘you’re next’, and threatening ‘you’re next’
Pravda’s explanation is the more convincing – RF is aware that any confiscation would be disastrous for the EU, euro and banking systems, the EU banks are not ignorant of this
Not to say RF would be delighted, but this confiscation would do immeasurably more harm to the EU than to the RF, like every sanction/assym-hybrid
And how about that Indonesia joining such major countries at such a high level
Even the Brits appear to have given up trying to steal the CBR assets in the UK – despite yes we can Lord Cameron at Davos
https://www.politico.eu/article/londongrad-forever-uk-never-seize-russia-assets-ukraine-war-sanctions/
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/17/uk-urges-west-to-use-frozen-russian-assets-to-rebuild-ukraines-economy
The Russians would likely nationalise Western assets (two to three hundred billion?) in Russia if the West steals. Would appear as losses on Western corporation balance sheets. If I recall correctly one French corporation is seriously exposed.
https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1945182/
They must respond 2X if it happens. Or just take ALL that they can take. I believe Putin needs to stop with the soft glove approach. They already label him and Russia as the "Evil" in the world.
The Russians are waiting patiently for the EU to fall into the trap, not that the Russians set the trap, the EU (with help from the US) set the trap for themselves
All the banks and bankers warn against any confiscation, for the catastrophic effects on the Euros and on overseas investments in the EU
Christine Lagarde thought it necessary the other day to warn once again, look her up in the FT
It is also thought that the Russians would set off bankruptcy scale legal actions by actions against Euroclear world wide, Euroclear is everywhere, not only in Russia
Thus jeopardising the EU Euroclear €37T, and then some
The target is not Russia but the US continuing their war against Europe (EU) by destroying competition and the euro. Note that 90 % of the money is in the EU, very little in both UK/US..some people are starting to understand the real purpose of the Brexit(not migration or economy), but this War with the anglo or judeo protestants goal to 'fuck the EU'.
Paradise Lost, Book I, Lines 221-270
John Milton
Says Satan, regrouping in Hell after being expelled from Heaven
"Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,"
Said then the lost Arch-Angel, "this the seat
That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th' associates and copartners of our loss
Lye thus astonisht on th' oblivious Pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy Mansion, or once more
With rallied Arms to try what may be yet
Regaind in Heav'n, or what more lost in Hell?"
Natoistan - that was the whole point of my comment - the EU pols are playing propaganda, but their bankers are not
The US is only interested in this war insofar as it weakens the EU, having realised that this is their perfect prey and that Russia is too big a bite for their small mouth
The Russians do not care eitherway - one might say they have written off this €300B, they have equivalent EU/Western company assets in RF anyway - and this is a very useful bargaining point, if confiscated, if not confiscated, in war end negotiations
Confiscation suits them better - and so to BRICS and Co can point to the inherent failure of the Western financial system, and it will cause some great mess for the Euro
Aren’t their bankers at root the same as US and UK bankers?
The real purpose of Brexit was sovereignty…
But surely, if the U.S./U.K. destroys the E.U. the knock-on effects on the whole World will be massive. Are we saying that they are attempting some type of steeplejackery? Because demolishing a tower without hitting yourself is very hard.
The Europeans can just as well sieze the Russian central bank assets, as just the fact that it was considered should be enough to destroy the West's financial systems credibility. Will it be enough to now say, see we thought about it but we did not seize the money this time?
'just the fact it was considered should be enough'
Now you are in thought crime dimensions - the people doing the considering are the grunts, hardly to be taken seriously, although used to test the waters perhaps, 'float an idea', engage in some diplomatic chitchat
In a democracy, such as the whole world wide loves, people must be allowed....etc, so X or Y (junior) Central Banker in South America, Asia, or Africa, what do you think about this idea.....
Talking turns out to be a hell of lot easier - it's free- than doing, even when it comes to stealing - most of the world's ruling class know this
Look at the article cited in my comment, some of the rest of the world is saying out loud to the EU, don't do it - the rest of the world would not be aware that the EU was quite this stupid unless the EU had not taken the care to tell RoW they indeed we are quite that stupid
A thought crime is something yet not revealed, the fact that the idea has been clearly articulated into public statement create a situation of intent or attempt. Thinking you will steal my money and public saying you intend to steal my money is on a whole different level.
Every move by the Western cabal to stay its course and, in this case, seize Russian assets is a further plunge into zugzwang, i.e., being forced to make a decisively disadvantageous move. The monetary systemic contradictions involved in pursuing what appear to be economic advantages suffer the paradox that every such move invites and incentivizes Russia to deploy its comparative advantages to best effect. The trade arrangements amongst the Brics nations are made more efficient, the exchanges that set prices (the Chinese owned London Metal Exchange, the Shanghai Gold Exchange, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (oil:INE) and the proposed Brics grain exchange) capture increased commodity price-setting while confidence in the US dollar reserve currency declines faster that under any other conditions.
I agree - if one follows the arguments closely by various Deep Staters and well paid lawyers, the inititial confiscation ideas were all conditional on a failure to understand the UNGA Nov 22 vote, supposedly authorising reparations and setting in motion a mechanism - a register of claims, which then turned out to be only receivable once verified, this only possible after cessation of hostilities
The UNGA vote then turned out to be not authorisational, and the mechanism extremely long winded and fragile
It then turned out that all attempts to change or subvert the 'law' would inherently affect the law breakers, to a degree & in ways they were not capable of imagining, but not the law keepers - this came as a surprise to the desperate EU pols desperate to steal some money so they did not have to face up to their electorates and ask for it
I read here (https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/new-amendment-would-force-reps-who-support-ukraine-aid-to-join-kievs-military/) that in the 4 bills present to Congress atm, the 4th being purported as "national security" bill - and most people looking at the fancy shiny tiktok ban in there. That in this 4th bill there is the possibility for the president to allow confiscation of Russian assets.
>> The fourth bill is expected to be called a "national security" law that includes a TikTok ban and gives the president the power to sell off frozen Russian assets and transfer the money to Ukraine.
I hope someone could help me with some pointers as this looks to me more important then anything else that's present in these 4 bills. Because it would dump the euro and dollar faster than anything else. (got gold?)
There's been a bill in congress since last June 15 to confiscate CBR assets in the US 'in co ordination with the EU', reporting to Congress on ways and means, and how this money will be spent
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4175
Very hesitant, comparable to the recent Israeli little boy 'attack' on Iran
The US holds approx $4.6B of CBR assets
Any unliateral action is going to go off like a damp poney, the sum of money is too insignificant, and the US has be very outspoken in the need to strike the demon Russian a damaging body blow
I do not think, I have not read through the Congress bill forawhile, that the money is transferred to Ukraine
I do understand that. However, the precedent will be set. And the "reserve currency" that should "follow the international rules" will be dealt a huge blow. Being exposed as mere thieves. (if the gold action is any indicator, it seems that people think it's likely to happen).
The amount of money is insignificant. But the lost in trust... That's huge.
What happens to a paper currency that is build on trust in the government looses that trust?
In the US the precedent was set long ago for both private and sovereign assets, Iraq, Afghanistan for example
It's the weight of the dollar in international use which provides protection
This time, if ever they bite after so much bark it will be less easy - the past few years have undermined both the $ and trust
"Bad cop Blinken to deliver ultimatum to China"
4-23-24
~19 min
I imagine that the
4:54
Chinese they're going to actually be
4:58
even more in incentivized or motivated
5:01
to work with Russia if if [the US] does
5:04
deliver these terms it's going to have
5:06
the opposite effect of of what uh of
5:09
what he's [Blinken’s] hoping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhpaw0SoLXw
The FT notes that Ukraine owes c $100B in sovereign debt and probably much more in private sector foreign debt. The IMF moritorium on the soveriegn debt expires in August when $20B comes into default. There are efforts to equate private sector debt to the soveriegn debt position. However this is being resisted by the debt holders, and if in default they will presumably try to call in their security/collateral. ie All those assets in Ukraine which they sincerely hope Russia will not control/destroy. I judge that when Russia's $300B of CBR assets are being considered, it is not to "rebuild Ukraine" but to fill the hole in various balance sheets around the West - all those firms and nations that have lent money to Ukraine and now won't be repaid unless they steal Russia's moeny.
Well, yes....they are getting in first claim before those Ukrainians get even more demanding
The Federal Reserve buys shit like this all the time. The debt will be hidden in some server in the Nevada desert.
Your knowledge of the frozen asset issue is deep. I appreciate you.
>The point being, given the somewhat questionable shootdown ability against the ATACMs demonstrated thus far, it could pose a bit of a problem if provided in much larger quantity, particularly at a time when Russia will be gearing up for a large offensive, which means huge stores of munitions will be laid up at brigade HQs, as well as large manpower concentrations, etc.
Nobody has strong defenses against ballistic missiles. This has been quite clearly demonstrated these last two years, especially now with the Iran strike on Israel.
The only somewhat reliable defenses are:
1) Area denial
2) Deterrence.
Russia has been failing abysmally on both.
It remains a mystery why the Polish and Romanian borders have not been sealed.
And it remains a mystery why weapons transfer is allowed in the first place.
Until those things change, there will be many more such painful hits. And eventually NATO might sneak in some nukes too.
P.S. Same applies to the Belgorod shelling. Never in history previously has a nuclear superpower allowed its own cities to be terror bombed daily without really doing anything to stop it. Loud promises were made that if such attacks occur, there will be retaliatory strikes on those who produced the weapons. Well, we are still waiting for mushroom clouds in Prague...
And people in Belgorod are really pissed, don't mistake the fact that you have not seen any reports on what the mood is there for evidence for absence of resentment. Which is achieving precisely what the West intended with these strikes -- to cause resentment towards Putin by showing regular Russians that he doesn't care about their lives. The problem is it indeed very hard to argue that the Kremlin cares about Belgorod based on the events of the last four months, the evidence is in exactly the opposite direction.
With respect - talking so idly about using nuclear weapons is un useful
If anything history teaches that Russia is extremely patient
Your comments appear to expect less, not only of the Russia ruling class but of their people
Your sources for the 'really pissed' in Belgorod?
VVP does not 'care about their lives'? - do you have any evidence for this?
You seem to know so much, based on so little
>talking so idly about using nuclear weapons is un useful
Doesn't have to be nuclear, a dozen conventional missiles would have taken out the Czech weapons factory plus their MoD, and that would have been enough to make the point
>Your sources for the 'really pissed' in Belgorod?
It appears that Westerners think their own information bubble is all that there is out there on both sides in this war.
>VVP does not 'care about their lives'? - do you have any evidence for this?
Yes, the fact that he has allowed Donetsk to be shelled daily for two years without lifting a finger to stop it (and it isn't just Donetsk now in the new regions -- the other day there was a HIMARS attack in the center of Tokmak with 20+ civilians dead, but of course you were too busy ingesting The Duran's long winded vomit on how the Russians are overwhelmingly winning the war to notice such events), it has been non-stop shelling of the pre-War Russian villages along the border for two years too, after the first "goodwill gesture" left them on the frontline (because nobody could have possibly expected that once that happens, Ukrainians won't just sit there and won't go on a terror rampage), and now there is daily shelling of a 500K regional capital of Russia, and Putin is just shrugging it off with "what can we do"?
What more evidence do you need for Putin not caring about his own citizens' lives? More importantly, it really doesn't matter what you consider evidence, what really matters is what people on the ground in Belgorod (and now increasingly in Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, Lipetsk, Rostov, etc., because the geography of daily terror is expanding) are thinking.
If Putin actually cared, there was a very simple thing he could have done - eye for an eye, but with a twist, i.e. for each Russian civilian who is hurt, we take out one of the Ukrainian elite. Not regular Ukrainians, the elite. That is very important because nobody cares about Ukrainian civilians. Then the terror should stop immediately. If it doesn't, then you move to taking out the Western elites.
But Putin is completely excluding that as even an option. It was very telling a few weeks ago when he was interviewed and he said "We could do terror bombing on Ukrainian cities, but what is that going to achieve? So we are not going to do it". Yeah, he got that part right - terror bombing is not going to achieve anything. But, of course, it's a false dichotomy that this is the only choice, because there are other much more potent options. Such as going after the elites. However, for him that is not even an option.
Why? Because he cares about elites, no matter what despicable acts they have committed towards Russian non-elites, and he does not care sufficiently about Russian non-elites to go after the elites on the other side (which would also create the danger of retaliatory action on the Russian oligarchic elite). It's as simple as that.
P.S. This sort of thing is precisely how 1917 happened. We are a long way off from that, but slowly bit by bit we are going there. Which is precisely the West's goal, and Putin is facilitating it.
You're right we're headed to a 1917 scenario, and we are getting closer to it each day, but for U.S. and Europe...not Russia.
An excellent opportunity for Russia that allows it to develop its society and its relationship with its geopolitical environment. Multipolarity is an ambitious… and complex project
What would that look like. People are fired for calling out the Jew or calling a nigger a nigger.
Was just thinking exactly that. I am reading Robert Massie's wonderful "Nicholas and Alexandra" and am constantly being struck by the similarities between now and then: a bloody war that is being lost, weak rulers, perversion and frivolity in the highest circles, delusional thinking, and above the endless ranks of utter mediocrities all jockeying for power as the whole system collapses.
That's why you will never be a successful military commander.
How much does Ukrainian shelling of civilians diminish Russia's war fighting capability? The effects are negligible.
You don't win a war by focusing on things that are irreverent to winning a war.
Attacking Czechia with missiles will drag NATO into the war, the cost of that war outweighs the benefits of destroying one factory.
You have your fancy explanation of Russia's actions based on your mind reading of Putin, not based on logic of fighting a war with the aim of winning it, you seem to be projecting too much. Try not to be so emotional. Are you a woman or a homosexual, by any chance? It is not normal for a man to be this emotional.
Yeah, sure.
Let's just ignore all the strikes on precious military assets that happened because of not enforcing deterrence.
Did you miss the fact that Ukraine just tried to take out (and may well have, we have no reliable information) the main Russian OTH radar in Mordovia?
And it really doesn't even matter if they succeeded, the very fact this was attempted is a catastrophic event. We all know it isn't really Ukraine doing this, and in fact this particular radar doesn't play much of a role in this war anyway. This is NATO softening Russia for a strategic first strike.
This is an absolutely critical installation strikes against which, precisely because they can only be carried out as preparation for a surprise strategic nuclear attack, warrant a preventative first nuclear strike against the other side. Because the other side has clearly shown its intent by even attempting it.
This is the worst thing that has happened so far in this war - worse than the attacks on the strategic bombers, worse than Nord Stream, worse than the attacks on the NPPs, etc.
Yet NATO went there. Because they know Putin won't do anything.
This is what not enforcing deterrence results in.
Again, by doctrine and protocol, Europe should have been a pile of radioactive rubble already on Thursday night, because this is where the attack with aviation and cruise missiles would have come from and it has to be pre-empted. Who is responsible for allowing things to get to this point?
Let's say Europe becomes a pile of radioactive rubble. What's next? What happens after that?
The question is what will not have happened, and it is that Russia will not have become such pile.
Had Russia acted decisively from the outset, the war would be over, Europe vowed and not emboldened, and nobody would be talking about nuclear war.
That's true the OTH radar strike would be a grave red-line crosser. Problem is, there's zero evidence such a thing actually was even attempted, much less actually happened. Satellite pics on Twitter seem to show no damage, and there's no evidence any attempt was even made, which means it may have just been some fake Tsipso propaganda.
Either way, a tiny one way drone can't do anything to such a massive complex so it's a moot point. That's like sending an FPV to hit HAARP. Pointless.
The fact is that Ukrainians are bragging about taking it out. So probably it was attempted.
What Czech weapons factory? They just broke ground on it
What The RF does is to wait until it's built, until it's in production, then allow them to ship some over so's RF can test them, see if there's anything new and special
Then - if necessary, you blow it up, via saboteurs, Ukrainian nationals ids left lying around, or....
Like all westies you are furious for the instant smash and grab, as if playing a video game
Stop! Examine the evidence, investigate, above all think - do not behave as a troll
>What Czech weapons factory? They just broke ground on it
The one that produces the RM-70s.
And no, you don't take out out by sabotage. The idea here is to enforce deterrence. So you do it as publicly and demonstrative as possible, with Putin making a public address on the issue as the missiles are exploding in Prague.
You are carefully restricted to Western notions - these do not apply
As for sabotage - Do you mean to refer to the Scranton factory fires or those at BAE in Brit?
Missiles exploding in Prague' is a westie wet dream
Stop! Investigate! Read Chairman Mao
Yep, and far more valuable blowing up highly trained engineers than construction workers
Both arguments are rather well put; thanks for commenting.
Israelis acting like you propose. They are basically done. Goog god, I am happy that Putin have no advisors like you
GM is a doomer. He posts this shit regularly (ie" It remains a mystery why the Polish and Romanian borders have not been sealed. And it remains a mystery why weapons transfer is allowed in the first place").
Considering he must read what we do I'd say he is actually a troll.
Thanks Grr - I do not think I have noticed him before - so I gave him a chance, but his second comment reveals the troll, very long winded troll
Do you know what Chairman Mao said about trolls? I'll post a comment later! (World Exclusive)
Yeah, he's been in and out forever.
Internet trolls existed in Mao's days? Abraham Lincoln warned about them.
The world is a wonderful place - trolls have probably been around since A&Eve, but the net has made them them troll-ier than ever : Mao was critical, and spoke of the need to use critical thinking...
Posting on MOA as well.
Trolls like to travel.
MOA?
Lincoln the homo
Also, gamma detected
6th column, strelkovite, hurrah patriot as Saker used to say.In fact anti Russia. If he is not Russian logical statement of a UK Nato troll.
No country ever demilitarized nato to that point(1 billion people) since nato exists.
US + NATO are financed by QE and trillions of debts of their members. Even with such massive amount of money and weapons they don't manage a lot except terror acts and P R for narrative and jornos. EU just said yesterday they lost one TRILLION euros(probably more) due to sanctions and energy costs.
But I only agree on one point: the West only understands force, a credible force, though some decapitation of the Ze crowd must happen. How is it possible that Budanov is still alive? Secret infiltration and assassination cells must be activated, if SBU can do it must be easy to do for some kind of RU special forces even more that many former ukrainians from the 4 oblasts (and even from Kharkov and co) are now living in Russia just recruit some commandos with top training ex ukies (now russians)who see their future in Russia. For exemple extremely motivated people against the ZE crowd for some reasons(relative, family killed since 2014 or more recently, home destroyed etc..). Those who have little to lose and are hungry for vengeance...just one small suggestion. They speak ukrainian and russian with ukie accent ideal for plausible deniability and cover.
To kill the P R flux, stop the never ending circus 'defile' of politicos coming in Kiev like in Lourdes, Vatican or Fatima. Every time ZE is travelling to a meeting or is 'on tour' in the West he must be an easy target to kill when leaving Kiev. May seems a small detail but P R is important as well on RU side to destroy west narrative.
Maria statements and Medvedev one are nice to hear or read but almost nobody in the West ever listened to or read them (except Medvedev on X because they like bad cop).
Re assassinations of the Ukie puppets; Russia wants and needs to be seen as following Int. Law. Sure they knock off some low profile (in West's eyes) filth, like the traitor pilot killed in Spain recently.
The high profile scum are too visible. And easily replaceable. They are order takers only, killing them would be the same as shooting the server at your local cafe; the very next day a new face would be there to take your order.
Exactly - these comments are purely western imagination - it's the very structure of the régime the RF wishes to destroy, perhaps with a very minor secondary goal of exporting the Neo Nazis into the EU
The idea kill a 'leader' or two is futile, it is the both ideology and the popular support, whatever popular support the Bandera has, which is to be destroyed
How many strikes against the ideology have you seen?
They bombed Shukhevych's museum in Lvov on January 1st 2024. That's the whole extent of it.
Not on January 1st 2023 (it's annual - Bandera's birthday), and not on any January 1st previously, and only the museum, not the torch processions celebrating Bandera, which would have directly eliminated a lot of hardcore Nazis (although arguably they should have already been doing that starting in the early 2000s)
Plus when you have a known idiot/narcotics addict penis pianist playing the president and brain damage injured moron pretending as intel chief + others just as incompetent as the guys taking and commencing the western elite's orders, you already know their tendencies and vulnerabilities, better to keep the confirmed mush for brains puppets in play rather than risking to take them out and somehow someone with even a minimal bit of competence replacing them.
Perhaps Biden after retirement from the Oval Office...and perhaps his son? They have Ukie experience.
yep, don't interrupt the enemy when they are making mistakes.
Absolutely, 'elensky has been a wonderful representative for Ukraine. Even his supporters cannot but feel the cringe.
The U.S. finances/sells Debt into an ever shrinking customer base. The VAST MAJORITY of New Debt plus the refinancing of Old Debt is done in the 30 day to 1 year term. In other words, holders of U.S. Debt don't want to hold the Hot Potato of U.S. promises. For the U.S. Treasury this is like financing your house, car and consumption on your Credit Card.
The alternative ( their beaks were wetted during the Covid Monetary fiasco of printing money to buy Government Debt to spend foolishly) is to go back to money printing. Inflation worse than it already is.
Western GDP is akin to a party balloon. Shove in more air (money printing into Fractional Reserve/Leveraged Banks), gin up your press clippings of the "growing" economy (of hot air) and hope the balloon doesn't burst.
Price Discovery has been destroyed, Faith has been strangled, and Mediocrities/Vacuous Leaders proliferate like mushrooms in the forest after a gentle rain.
Seems China is the only customer out there sufficiently deep-in-the-pockets to get into the High Stakes room & buy U.S. debt.
Beyond that, can anyone say Quantitative Easing--?!!?
"plus the refinancing of Old Debt is done in the 30 day to 1 year term." Well, this is a basic income investor trick as well. Why go longer when you damn well know rates are moving up (and secondarily when the curve's inverted).
Well, a couple things:
Firstly, Dzhankoi is a relatively minor helicopter base that was already said by some UA sources to have mostly been abandoned previously with helis relocated to farther FARPs after the ATACMs hit on Berdiansk long ago. There's not much else of value there so the fact UA chose to waste their precious ATACMs on it seems to indicate a PR strike because they knew the ATACMs can't penetrate AD net of actual important areas like Sevastapol, Yevpatoria, and others.
It means Ukraine knows its capabilities and continues to strike relatively weak/undefended targets for PR purposes.
The strike wasn't that "painful" given that Russia took out 5 times more AD assets of Ukraine in the same week. Not only multiple Iris-Ts hit, but the whole S-300 battery blown away in Aviatorskoye AB in the Dnepropetrovsk region.
Those are some things to consider. If ATACMs was really that unstoppable, it would be raining down 24/7 on all Russia's most important positions/bases and probably would have taken out the Kerch bridge long ago already. But of course it avoids well defended areas and keeps picking off sites that the pesky RQ-4 identifies as being lightly guarded.
As for Belgorod, well I can't argue too much with that take. It is pretty sad what's happening with all that, but in reality most of it is due to there not really being much that Russia can do.
What should they do, nuke Kiev to stop a few Grads from being fired there?
Maybe it's true a nuclear power has never allowed such a thing, but no nuclear power has ever been humiliated like the U.S. is currently experiencing at the hands of Russia wiping the floor with all of NATO while demilitarizing the alliance in Ukraine, so while I agree Russia is suffering many different slaps and humiliations in this conflict, the U.S. is suffering just as many, so it's sort of a race to the bottom and U.S. is 'winning' the dubious distinction of this race.
>As for Belgorod, well I can't argue too much with that take. It is pretty sad what's happening with all that, but in reality most of it is due to there not really being much that Russia can do. What should they do, nuke Kiev to stop a few Grads from being fired there?
Enforce deterrence by going after the elites. Simple as that. Missile strikes on an Ukrainian oligarch's mansion (while he is there) and on people in Zelensky's close circle for every civilian hurt in Belgorod. Then it should stop very quickly. If it doesn't, move on to taking out Western elites, on an eye-for-an-eye basis.
You really think striking some CEOs mansion is going to stop AFU's attacks on Belgorod? Not a chance. You may overestimate the conspiracy tropes about 'oligarchs controlling Ukraine'. That's not the case anymore, as you've seen with Kolomoisky pretty much being a punching bag at this point.
I didn't mention only oligarchs, I also pointed to Zelensky and his circle.
There are always people on top responsible for these things.
Those RM-70 MRLSs were not manufactured and brought to the border by rabid Nazi Banderites in Ivano-Frankovsk on their own initiative. That happened as a result of the actions of elites -- minimally Ukrainian and Czech ones in this case.
Russian intelligence knows who should be optimally targeted much better than us, the point is that there are such people, and they are not being touched.
Well in that case we can probably agree to an extent. Either way the response is not the most impressive I've seen. Russia/Putin will not be ace at all times for everything.
But will Belgorod strikes lead to Russian 1917? Not in the slightest. Quite the opposite. While you're right there are many angry people on the ground, but there are even MORE people being radicalized against Ukraine than those 'turning against Putin'. So if anything it's only crystallizing the citizenry's maximalism against Ukraine militarily. Any ill effects against Putin/Russia is just wishful thinking. But does that mean Putin's responses have been ideal/good? No.
Yes, I know there are many people radicalized against Ukraine and the West. This is even more dangerous -- at some point those people may reach a critical mass, decide that Putin has to go because he is not protecting the motherland, and launch a coup. Which will destabilize the internal situation because they will not have the same support by local elites that Putin has, even though they would be running the war better than Putin.
In 1917 the Bolsheviks were kind of in a similar situation -- they indeed ended up running the place much better, but getting there involved a civil war, much devastation, and major long-term geostrategic losses (Finland and Poland were never recovered, and the seeds of the eventual USSR collapse and the loss of half of the country were sown back then; of the current war too).
I am not the only one who is thinking along these lines. Putin clearly does too. Because notice who the Kremlin is openly repressing the last year. It is not the liberals, it is the angry patriots.
Don't you think that Vladimir Vladimirovich is far ahead of the situation, perhaps a few years ahead...?
Z and his "circle" are puppets, easily replaced. You know that, everyone knows that. Trolling again.
Yermak is the 'real thing' now not really ZE (only for tv).
Whoever. Take him out
Zelensky and his circle have their mansions in Miami, Egypt, Israel and other countries. No amount of destruction of the Ukraine is of any significance for the Ukrainian elites. They will all escape to the West just before the war is lost. They are a bunch of grifters who couldn't care less what happens to the Ukraine.
Yes, and that is one of the reasons why that 60 B aid bill is so important to those evil people who want the war to continue as long as possible. Sure - US is using most of it in their own MIC grifts, but couple billion is urgently needed to keep paying bribes for these disgusting creatures aka the so called leadership in Ukronazistan so that they'll keep sending more of their citizens to be liquidated in the front.
Yes. Start hitting the head of the snake. Occupied Palestine. Drone war against individual Jews who are pushing all this. Start with kagan and nuland.
If a country like Russia takes out elements of the enemy leadership then the enemy leadership will start taking out elements of the Russian leadership. It's an unwritten rule that you don't do that. 'I won't assassinate you because I know your people would then assassinate me'
Yes, and this is why Russian elites are not doing it -- they don't want that risk on themselves.
But who is paying the price? The people in Donetsk and Belgorod.
True leaders who care about their people would have taken the risk and enforced deterrence.
Also, remember two things:
1) Russia has total dominance in the ability to carry out such actions, so this is a game Ukrainians have no chance of winning.
2) A lot could have been done to strengthen domestic security in order to minimize the chances of such acts being successful. It wasn't because for Putin maintaining "normalcy" was much more important than preparing for war. That continues to this very day, BTW, right as British jet kazmikaze drones are hitting deep into core Russian territory (look at what happened last night). Compare and contrast with what Stalin did in the 1930s
History repeats itself, what we are witnessing is a strange echo of other historical moments.
The most recent being the cold war, only the chessboard has been reversed and the RF is now sitting in the Western chair and the west in the USSRs one.
Remember going into the 80s the cost of the arms race was severely harming the USSR - a parallel can be seen with the EU right now.
Most analysts still repeated the myth of the great soviet military at the time, but in truth it had already become by the mid 80s itself a paper tiger (parallels with NATO now anyone?)
Ultimately the USSR couldn't sustain it's empire economically and it all came tumbling down, with Russia having to jettison the entire Warsaw pact and various satellite entities of the USSR in order to try to maintain something of the empire, what now we see as the RF, likewise the US empire is creaking and close to breaking (whist being portrayed as stronger than ever - similar statements were parroted in the 80s by the soviets btw)
Now the only question how hard Europe crashes when the US switches as it must into self preservation of its core existential interests.
Unlike the cold war though, I don't see Russia stepping in to economically prop up Europe like the US did (albeit for control over Europe) but rather Europe will crash without any soft landing provided, and that's a scary prospect if you live in Europe as old divisions will resurface as soon as the veneer of being part of the American hegemonic empire evaporates.
I can see certain countries being aided by Russia to help them ride out this period, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia and several others (depending how their internal political situations develop) but for the large part you'll see certain grouping of countries develop across Europe to try to maintain strength and various isolated countries will be one chess pawns in what will become a race for survival in a very changed world.
The Ukraine was NEVER about the Ukraine, it was always about establishing the role Europe and Eurasia would play in the future global order.
Russia will emerge as the sole European global power, European countries will determine their roles and importance by how quickly they realise this and accept the new reality (no I'm not talking Russia conquering Europe, but rather Russia controlling energy and trade for Europe as the gatekeeper for the 'global south'
"The Ukraine was NEVER about the Ukraine, it was always about establishing the role Europe and Eurasia would play in the future global order." The definition of a pawn, an expendable unit meant to reconfigure the other pieces on the chessboard.
VVP has taken nukes off the table quite literally by not reaching for them, regardless of Bad Cop Medvedev's public Struggle Sessions on 'X'
BRICS colleage nations & those in the Shanghai Cooperation Org see VVP's ethic, his leadership by example--how to prosecute a war using conventional weaponry--and remain calmly by his side.
If you recall last June, the Ukrainians were shelling the ZNPP in attempted False Flags & whiinging about 'mines' which they said Russia had placed on the ZNPP's rooftop. In the midst of that Janet Yellen visited China in an unheralded hastily thrown together trip. This was in advance of the U.S.'s need to settle its Debt Ceiling issues. Premier Xi agreed to purchase Treasury Bonds [in the billions], thus bailing the U.S. out of its Debt Ceiling woes, only if Ukraine quit shelling the ZNPP or prepping it for a False Flag.
Premier Xi: no nukes.
He bought the Bonds Yellen was peddling & Ukraine ceased its addled perseveration on the ZNPP.
My point is that VVP's partners in leadership also share his ethic & weltanschaung. By virtue of 'how' he is prosecuting this war, VVP is able to keep allies/friendly nations on his side.
How much virtue is there is slaughtering half of a million of your own people and being scheduled to slaughter another half a million at least when you have the most powerful military-technical tools in the world and those were supposed to make such a tragedy impossible? Because if you are claiming that Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians are really the same thing (and they indeed are), then every death on other side is a death of your own people too. It's really a civil war after all.
Meanwhile the people who are truly responsible for this are safe and sound and will today spend another $60B on killing Russians.
How much sense does that make?
If NATO had dropped 200 kt on Pskov and Belgorod each, should Putin have used the nukes to stop it/revenge it? And what would happen if he doesn't? NATO would be free to do more of the same.
Well, in effect that already has happened (when you tally up all the death and destruction in Ukraine, and now increasingly in Russia itself to), just not in a single spectacular strike. And Putin hasn't done anything to stop it/retaliate for it.
It's an ethic, the way VVP is prosecuting this war. I'm not sure the ethic it has much frisson in the West.
The people who are 'safe & sound,' who have just now authorized the $60bn, are killing more Ukrainians than they are Russians. Commensurately, it's a colossal devastation.
Ukrainians are trapped in a firebag--which is their own country. They are kettled-in; the $60bn means they will stay in the cauldron
You still don't get it - those Ukrainians in the firebag are actually Russians. Not just according to me - VVP wrote that article back in 2021 claiming it himself.
So VVP, if he was to follow those principles, cannot be doing war of attrition against them featuring WWI-style industrial slaughter (plus, of course, a lot of people are dying on the Russian side too).
The whole plot is to force Russia to exhaust itself on a large-scale civil war (for that is what this is).
The correct way out of that trap is to not play the game and turn the tables, by implementing the kind of military-technical measures that will block NATO's involvement in it.
In important ways too the people who are 'safe & sound,' who have just now authorized the $60bn, are themselves trapped in a firebag.
They can't not supply the $60bn
If you sit in a SKIF for a couple hours, you come out w/ that 100-mile stare: they have six ways from Sunday to get back @ you
Curiously, Russia has put the U.S. just where China wants them: what is happening is working well for China
Game respect game: mutually beneficial to both VVP & Premier Xi
This may seem a little off the specific points being discussed but I think it relevant to the overall situation.
It’s from the introduction to The Ukraine War and the Eurasian World Order, Glenn Diesen, Clarity Press (15 Feb. 2024). I think the last paragraph is especially on point.
Under a balance of power, states must be prudent and make rational priorities to survive, whereas a dominant state is vulnerable to hubris and delusions about its own superiority and invincibility. While the costs of the mistakes it makes can be absorbed, the hegemon incrementally overextends itself as the accumulation of the costs of misadventure eventually grows towards a breaking point. Resources are transferred from the core to the periphery to preserve the empire, and domestic issues are insufficiently addressed, with economic inequality fuelling social and political instability. On the other hand, economically weaker states become increasingly willing to endure economic hardship in order to shed dependence on the hegemon.45 In the “imperial lifecycle,” empires become wealthy and powerful as they expand and extract wealth from the wider world; although in the process they contribute to the development of new centres of power which eventually challenge their empire.
When people are born into wealth they tend to be deprived of a sense of necessity, often resulting in their complacency. Affluence also tends to decouple power and authority from competence, which produces systemic distrust and anti-intellectualism among the public. Economic determinism makes money the core indicator of value, and society becomes subservient to the economy. Nationalism and culture are degraded from an instrument of unity and shared purpose to a mere tool by the powerful to obtain and prolong their power, calling for the return to a glorious past or an unattainable future.
In the study of civilisations, the “universal state” is commonly associated with decadence. The “universal state” or “universal empire” denotes political supremacy or hegemony like Rome in which the dominant state is subverting efforts by others to collectively balance. In his important work on civilisations, Quigley (C.Quigley, The evolution of civilizations: A historical analysis, Indianapolis, Liberty Press, 1961) observed that like a star, the hegemon shines the brightest when it has already begun to die:
“When a universal empire is established in a civilisation, the society enters upon a “golden age.” At least this is what it seems to the periods that follow it. Such a golden age is a period of peace and of relative prosperity. Peace arises from the absence of any competing political unity within the area of the civilization itself, and from the remoteness or even absence of struggles with other societies outside. Prosperity arises from the ending of internal belligerent destruction, the reduction of internal trade barriers, the establishment of a common system of weights, measures, and coinage, and from the extensive government spending associated with the establishment of a universal empire. But this appearance of prosperity is deceptive. Little real economic expansion is possible because no real instrument of expansion exists. New inventions are rare, and real economic investment is lacking… A period of acute economic depression, declining standards of living, civil wars between the various vested interests, and growing illiteracy. The society grows weaker and weaker.”
I think that we are in a unique global empire as it is largely a commercial empire, not driven by geographic conquest or looting, but by co-option of national elites and commercial exploitation through trade, natural resource extraction, and the subjugation of labor. At this point the trans-national global capitalist elite may be able to de-link from any national base; and cannibalizing the 'core' civilization (host nation) begins to look similar to how the empire exploits other nation states. I fully expect NATO and the USA led global empire to de-couple from the British, French, German, and USA nation states and continue to rule most of the world while those nations endure decline and submission to the demands of Empire. The levers of power- information, narratives, digital services, banking, currency, terms of trade, energy, and military force can continue to be sustained while the actual core nations decline, even percipitously.
"And people in Belgorod are really pissed, don't mistake the fact that you have not seen any reports on what the mood is there for evidence for absence of resentment. Which is achieving precisely what the West intended with these strikes -- to cause resentment towards Putin by showing regular Russians that he doesn't care about their lives. The problem is it indeed very hard to argue that the Kremlin cares about Belgorod based on the events of the last four months, the evidence is in exactly the opposite direction."
Respectfully, I realize you mean the above sincerely, but all the same it is typical Western misunderstanding of what Russians think. Russians aren't imbeciles like Westerners, so making inferences about what they think as if they were Western imbeciles leads to false conclusions like you write above.
I live in Russia and I know people in Belgorod. Yes, they are really pissed. In fact, they're out for blood. But that anger is not in the least directed at the administration (which is the correct way to phrase their feelings toward the government, not falling into the Western cretin trap of demonizing Putin and thus failing to understand the many levels and complexity of Russian government). That anger is directed toward the West.
As with so many other things the West gets completely, counterproductively, wrong about their attacks on Russia, the US/NATO/nazi terror attacks on civilians in Belgorod only achieve greater unity and greater support for the administration. The unity and patriotic support of the administration in Belgorod is phenomenal to behold. Contrary to what you write, there is fanatic support for Putin and other leaders, like the governor.
Unlike Western imbeciles, Russians actually bother to learn something about the military events which impact their lives. Although there are many exemptions for students and such, nonetheless basically all Russian men have served the required year or two in the army, so it's hard to find a Russian man who is not personally familiar with military matters. Everybody knows how to handle an "aftomat" (what Russians call AK assault rifles), with most women also picking up an understanding of military matters as their fathers, sons, and brothers have served.
They understand that the sort of attacks carried out on Belgorod can only be stopped by US-style carpet bombing of huge swaths of Ukrainian territory, basically depopulating a large enough buffer zone that even a single launcher cannot get within range of Belgorod. They are unwilling to do that, just like the administration is unwilling to do that, because their own relatives live just across the border in the region in which all life would have to be exterminated.
A hallmark of Western cretinism when it comes to Ukraine is the way the West likes to forget that most people in Ukraine have relatives in Russia. That's such a prevailing demographic effect that it is hard to find people even in the nazi leadership who do not have relatives in Russia. When it comes to border towns, like Belgorod, the effect is even greater.
Russians understand that a quick "solution" to the nazi problem would kill their own relatives who are being used as human shields by the nazis, so instead of a quick solution, most Russians are willing to go the extra mile, and sacrifice some of their own lives, to protect their kin as Russia methodically defeats the US, NATO and the nazis in Ukraine.
Thanks for this informative comment!
Their relatives already are being slaughtered by the thousands. Decisive action from.the outset probably would have spared many of them.
That's questionable. It's more likely that "decisive action" if by that you mean full on war in Ukraine would have killed hundreds of thousands of Russia's kin right away.
Instead of carpet bombing Kharkov or Kiev, which would kill massive numbers of civilians (exactly as US carpet bombing of civilian population centers in the US's wars killed so many civilians or as Israel's flattening of Gaza has killed so many Palestinians), the Russian strategy to attack in highly limited ways gives civilians a chance to escape with their lives from high intensity conflict zones.
If by "decisive action" you mean strikes on the Western powers, either "surgical" strikes using conventional weapons to kill Western decision makers who support the nazi regime or nuclear strikes to take "decisive action" on a bigger scale, well, the judgment call from people with the best information (and best judgement) is that such actions would also result in more deaths of Russians, but in Russia itself.
Except I didn't call for carpet bombing Kiev or Kharkov, nor did I say anything about strikes on western countries.
>It's more likely that "decisive action" if by that you mean full on war in Ukraine would have killed hundreds of thousands of Russia's kin right away.
That is absurd.
Ukraine in February 2022 had 250K people in the army and had Russia gone in just 2-3x harder, it would have been over quickly. Then had Russia done decapitation strikes that would have kneecapped the initial Ukrainian mobilization effort, and had it enforced deterrence on NATO to block the flood of weapons, it would all have been over with <50,000 deaths on both sides.
Now we have a million dead guaranteed.
Also, the whole invasion plan was completely strategically botched. The top priority should have been to quickly and immediately take over Western Ukraine to cut off NATO interference. But that would have required a serious force of initially 100-200K to burst south from Brest, followed by anther 100-200K to occupy and pacify the region. But Putin somehow thought he will be able to make a deal by bluffing, his bluff was called, so here we are...
Respectfully disagree. As you no doubt have noticed, the invasion was no bluff. Let me address some of the points you raise:
"Ukraine in February 2022 had 250K people in the army and had Russia gone in just 2-3x harder, it would have been over quickly."
In point of fact, Ukraine had over 500K people in the army, and that army was the beneficiary of massive NATO training, billions in Western money, and enjoyed the support of thousands of Western personnel in Ukraine and tens of thousands of US and NATO military personnel working "back office" tasks like AWACs and satellite overwatch. The US/Kiev coalition had massed 130,000 men on the border of Donbass to invade and once and for all ethnically cleanse and subdue what they called "rebel" provinces. There's no "over quickly" about defeating such a military power.
Russia in early 2022 had a much smaller, peacetime army. Russia did not invade in 2014 against the US's overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine because Russia was not strong enough in 2014 to fight the US, not economically and not militarily. February 2022 was the absolute earliest date that Russia felt it could fight the US and win, but even so that was a very close call. The best Russia could muster in February 2022 was about 80,000 men for the invasion force. It wasn't a "bluff" but a desperate, risky move forced by the proximity of Kiev's plan to invade Donbass.
There simply weren't the resources available on-scene to go in "2-3x harder." Had there been the resources, there's also the issue that "decapitation strikes" to "kneecap" the Ukrainian mobilization effort is not a match to the reality on the ground: in February of 2022 Ukraine was already mobilized with a huge army trained and equipped during the prior eight years.
Add to that any "decapitation" would have meant launching a full-on war and not the limited intervention Russia intended to protect Donbass and to show the US it was done with talk about Minsk and had moved on to military means.
Cutting off "NATO interference" and general war throughout Ukraine would have required a massive bombing campaign that would have harmed hundreds of thousands of civilians, not to mention the casualties caused by launching a general war against NATO.
"that would have required a serious force of initially 100-200K to burst south from Brest, followed by anther 100-200K "
Those are forces Russia did not have in position ready for action in February of 2022. Russia had to make do with what it had available, a mere 80,000 men.
As it turned out, Russia played a weak hand remarkably well. Sending 15,000 or so troops in a feint attack against Kiev worked brilliantly to draw off Kiev's invasion force that was positioned to strike Donbass, and it bought time for Russia to move more troops into Donbass, getting to 100,000 total relatively quickly. The operation succeeded at its initial goal, protecting Donbass and then it exceeded that initial goal by taking two additional provinces in the South. That many mistakes happened is nothing unexpected, as nobody familiar with military matters expects a peacetime army to swing into action in the first serious, peer military conflict it has undertaken in many decades without encountering a brutal learning curve.
Russia is now well past the brutal peak of that learning curve, having built a successful, well-trained, well-equipped and well-led army that has become expert in the art of defeating the US and its proxies. Logistics issues have been ironed out, hundreds of thousands of new combat forces have been raised and trained and equipped, and the country's industry is pumping out massive amounts of armaments in anticipation of a direct war with the US and its vassals. Russia is defeating the US in Ukraine, while at the same time the Russian economy is growing in real terms much faster than the US economy or any of the US's vassal countries.
Russians feel they still have a lot to learn, with plenty of mistakes to fix and lots of work ahead, but thus far in the "so here we are" department, the results to date have vindicated Russian strategy and tactics in Ukraine.
Quite correct,
as in, yes, this is what actually happened
Thank you for your thoughtful and informative comment.
Interesting. You should write more. Or at least if you do already point me to it.
Why this focus on a fake Nazi problem and no mention of the Jew who truly run the west and want to break up Russia. At some point this becomes laughable. Bandera was put in a concentration camp by the Germans. This is all distraction and it is annoying that Putin does it too. Name the Jew and their power evaporates.
"fake Nazi problem " That's vicious nonsense. The nazis that provided muscle for the 2014 coup and then took controlling positions in the junta government given power by the US are genuine nazis, the real deal, right down to their swastika tattoos and tattooed portraits of Hitler.
When the infamous nazi Azov Battalion was mostly eradicated and their remnants trapped in Mariupol under the steel works, they tried to escape during their negotiated surrender by changing into civilian clothes and blending into the stream of refugees and former human shields. As a first filter to immediately identify most of them, Russian forces simply required all military age men to remove their shirts as they left the encircled surrender sites. Those with nazi tattoos (the majority of Azov) were immediately set aside as high risk.
Bandera too was a nazi. That he had a falling out with his German nazi allies and former employers was his problem, not any evidence that he was anything other than despicable nazi scum himself.
You'll see how Russia will not be distracted from a key element of its mission in Ukraine: to denazify the place, whatever that takes.
lol. See Hitler under every bed much jew ?
You mean the azov that was founded by a Jew and then went to Israel to kiss Jew ass ? That azov?
What exactly does ‘Nazi’ even mean to you other than just a witch word that Jews try to make ‘scary’ so the goyim don’t use their strategy of ethnic nationalism. America would be a ‘leave it to beaver’paradise if the Germans would have won instead of this multicultural hell hole.
https://preview.redd.it/photo-of-the-day-a-member-of-the-azov-brigade-embraces-his-v0-2gmep9ncdsob1.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=3ac4c940600259147863ec2f7c742d61ddcc12ec
>When the infamous nazi Azov Battalion was mostly eradicated and their remnants trapped in Mariupol under the steel works
I distinctly remember Azov being released and sent to Turkey, then Erdogan releasing them back to Ukraine, as well as Azov still being in the daily war reports all the way to (checks notes), yesterday.
Doesn't sound like "mostly eradicated" to me.
"I distinctly remember Azov being released and sent to Turkey,"
Not so. Russia sent only ten or so of its Azov captives to Turkey, at Erdogan's request. That was a mistake, as Erdogan broke his word and released them back to Ukraine. It was a stupid mistake, as now Russia will never trust Erdogan's word on such matters.
Azov was indeed "mostly eradicated" in Mariupol, losing tens of thousands killed, including their most experienced and most hard-core fighters. The final remnants holed up for a last stand underground at the steel works, with around a thousand of them surviving to finally surrender and being taken captive by Russia. Except for the ten or so senior Azov members who were sent to wait out the war in Turkey, all the rest were imprisoned in Russia.
As for Azov still being in war reports, that's the "new" Azov that was reconstituted as part of the Ukrainian regular army after the catastrophic defeat and eradication of most of Azov in Mariupol. Not all Azov members were fighting in Mariupol and more than enough of the leadership was left to recruit new Azov members. However, those new Azov members do not have anywhere near the experience of the Azov troops that were eradicated in Mariupol. The new "Azov" is basically a marketing word for a regular Ukrainian army formation that is riding on the old-time, hard-core nazi vibe still attached to that name. But even if they survive their current slaughter at the hands of Russia it will take years to rebuild as effective a new Azov as the original.
Bravo, a truly accurate description of the considerations in play.
I believe ATACMS is not very different from Tochka-U missiles Ukraine had before they ran out of them.
Your belief is incorrect.
How many Tochka-U strikes has Ukraine managed to score? That ship in Berdyansk early in the war? I think something got through to Rostov too on one occasion. Anything else? Not really.
And Ukraine had hundreds of those, but Russia shot down almost every single one of them.
The ATACMS? Not so much, they have scored several very painful hits now.
Because it is not a simple ballistic missile, it maneuvers too.
Well, it is newer, but it's 1991 missile. This is the reason why USA is developing replacement. It is old borderline Soviet-era stuff.
We'll see how situation develops, but in my mind USA is simply sending old junk to Ukraine. So US military will get new stuff and Kiev regime will use up the old stuff and everyone will get paid for it too.
Regarding Tochka-U, Ukraine did hit some targets with it. From what i've heard, they did hit a square in Donetsk killing a lot of civilians. Railroad station in Kramatorsk with a lot of civialians too.
You're just seeing war propaganda where Ukraine is successfully hitting only military targets, the story repeats with ATACMS, but eventually they are going to be used to carry out more mass murders.
Ukraine is going to send them where they can send them, to the least protected places.
Even if the Ukraine mobilised (forced) many hundreds of thousands into the front they would be ineffective.
No or bad training + zero motivation except a few fanatics.Many under 26 were already present in the war as 'volontaries', many killed or wounded, even saw on TG a baby face azovite of...19 years old (kia)looking more like he is 14.
The wings on the T-80BVM make it look Formula 1 ready.
Looks like nobody is stepping back from the dial on the oven, 'cause the heat keeps coming up and up. Israel and Iran slinging explosive at each other seems to have gotten the hawks in gear.
Hey, isn't that Hamish guy the one who proclaimed that the sight of the Challengers would make the orc hordes flee in terror without firing a shot? He should command a Challenged into the teeth of Russian arty and drones, see how that works for him.
One of the many resident clowns who write for the DT.
The 14 C2s were going to sweep the field.
nothing about Russell Bentley
His wife on his tg channel reports he was arrested. Now reports state he's dead. Hard to know.
See G Lira.
I'm still waiting on real confirmation. Everyone's claiming Lyudmila "confirmed" his death but in actuality some sources are saying she never confirmed any such thing anywhere. Now all sorts of rumors are spreading from the echo chamber but there is no actual proof/confirmation from any authoritative source other than people reposting the same thing.
If he's dead then who killed him? Pro Ukie Russians or pro Russian Russians? Or even Putin did it.
thanks Simplicius - for everything - I just saw this - https://sputnikglobe.com/20240419/sputnik-donbass-correspondent-russel-bentley-dies-in-donetsk-1117914011.html
https://t.me/RWApodcast/1236
The effect of the new Ukraine conscription law, with absence of the 36 month limit, will be to increase Ukrainian surrenders.
Doesn't matter whether a soldier is near 36 months or not, the message from the regime is that you will fight until you are killed, with no other possibility. That's a simple message that everyone can understand. Now there's no downside to trying to surrender.
Very possible, though the UAF grunts continue to fight and hold the line. I had thought by now we would start to see more and larger groups surrendering but there is not so much evidence of that. Morale is holding up that far at least. Absent a funding package and restocks of ammo they must realise the jig is up. But the end will be characterised by mass surrenders IMHO.
"I had thought by now we would start to see more and larger groups surrendering but there is not so much evidence of that. " A major problem for Ukrainians who want to surrender is that the nazi regime is getting better at killing anyone who attempts to surrender. The high density of drones makes it easier to kill those who try to lay down their arms.
An additional problem is that the increased intensity of Russian attacks, such as the increased use of many-hundred kilogram glide bombs (FABs) which kill anyone within hundreds of meters, makes it technically difficult to surrender. If you're sitting a kilometer from the ill-defined front wishing you could surrender as the FABs rain down around you, it's not so easy to pick up and walk through that hail of death and destruction to get to Russian lines.
I do agree that as the breaking point is reached we'll see more mass surrenders.
In important ways Ukraine itself, the actual physical borders of the country, constitute a cauldron.
Azov, Right Sector & Svoboda guys kettle UAF grunts from the rear, liquidating those who try to retreat.
The whole country is a firebag.
Is code word "Volga" at freq 149.200 still up for Bandera units to call when they decide to surrender?
Yes, Volga is still up. Calling on Volga simplifies part of the surrender process by reducing the possibility that valid surrenders are inadvertently targeted by Russian forces. But that does not eliminate the two issues I mentioned. The regime still does its best to kill surrendering troops and it is still difficult to pick your way through a very dangerous gray zone to safety.
I don't understand why they haven't already. When the elites say the plebes are stupid; there is your proof.
The vast majority literally pay income taxes to support their own oppression, then complain about their consequences. There's a reason why the parasites came up with the 'cattle' meme.
"I don't understand why they haven't already." The simple answer is that the Kiev regime is not a democracy. It is a lawless nazi regime where opponents are killed without trial. The vast majority are doing their best to escape destruction through conscription, and otherwise keeping their head down so they don't get shot or beaten as a "Russian collaborator."
In the aftermath of the US/nazi coup in 2014 the regime consolidated its power in the territories it had seized by arresting and killing over 15,000 people. It banned all opposition groups, seized control of all media, and arrested or simply shot on the street any journalist or blogger that opposed it. 47 people were burned to death in Odessa by nazi thugs, the police standing by or participating, when local opponents of the coup marched in protest.
The great majority of "Ukrainians" are ethnic Russians who speak Russian as their native language. They've been speaking that language, the language they invented one thousand years ago in the region around Kiev when their people were known as the "Rus," for a thousand years. They're not foreign imports but the original "Russians," having exported their culture and language North and East all the way to the Northern seas and to the Pacific Ocean.
The Ukrainian speaking nazis are a fairly small minority in Ukraine, but during their coup they seized the vast majority of Ukraine's Soviet era arsenal, including the air force, and they immediately received mountains of weapons, billions in funds, and the direct assistance of thousands of US personnel. So it doesn't matter if genuine, swastika-tattooed nazis are around ten percent of the population if they have the guns and the support of a corrupt additional twenty percent of the population that had enjoyed the fruits of looting the country after the US's prior, softer coup in 2004. As they say, one guy with a machine gun can control 100 unarmed people.
So sure, what the majority in Ukraine wants doesn't matter in the face of force. The Yanukovich administration that the US overthrew was elected in 2010 when in a free and fair election Ukrainian voters elected him by a much bigger majority than any US president has won in decades. Rather than wait for elections in 2015 that the nazi coalition was sure to lose the US chose to take by force what their proxies could not win in an election.
Eight Ukrainian regions opposed the coup, but five of them were crushed by the junta with US assistance. Only three, Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk managed to stay free. Crimea leveraged its unique geography and the pre-existing presence of massive Russian forces to stay free while Donetsk and Lugansk fought the US/nazi coalition to a draw, with Donetsk losing half its territory.
The more complex answer is that in the ten years since the 2014 coup the nazi regime has had a free hand in the territories it did conquer to both liquidate opponents and to impose a forced regime of indoctrination. The eight years up to Russia's intervention in 2022 are a long time in the life of a new generation of children. The regime burned all the history books and instead force-fed kids on propaganda, banning the use of Russian and marinating them in hate. Despite the very big ethnic Russian majority, that has definitely skewed perceptions within Ukraine.
Nobody in Ukraine could hear on media about the US/Kiev plan to keep hostilities with Donbass going in a slow burn by shelling civilian centers in Donetsk and Lugansk every day, killing just enough people every day to keep the war going but not so many that Russia would lose patience with fake claims of intending to support the Minsk peace deal and invade. So many Ukrainians genuinely felt that Russia invaded for no reason but to seize the country. They were also told Ukraine was winning, and winning big.
When as part of the March, 2022, peace deal the West and Kiev lied and said that Russia should withdraw its forces from around Kiev as a good faith move and Russia complied, Kiev pitched that to its captive population (as did the West to their captive audiences) as a huge military success by Kiev, not as a good faith, voluntary move by Russia.
At the same time, Azov and other units moved into the territories that Russia had given up as a good faith move to ethnically cleanse them of anybody they claimed had welcomed Russian forces. They killed people who had accepted food or medicine from Russian forces.
So that's where Ukraine is today. Most people have realized their government has lied to them, but the fear element remains strong that anybody who speaks out against the regime risks death. At the same time, there remains a hard-core nazi and nationalist element that is funded with billions by the US. That hard core is drenched in riches and power and has the luxury of the wealthy in that they can continue barking extremist bile and support for the regime, the more the better when it comes to ensuring a steady flow of US money. In between those two extremes are those people who have not yet fled the country (about half of Ukraine's population has migrated either to Russia or to the West) but who are just trying to live a normal life. Since Russia doesn't target civilian populations that's surprisingly easy to do, especially in the West of the country.
Just as the Jews want - everyone to leave or die so they can occupy Ukraine. The US is run by Israel as well. Or so it seems. Who knows, both Israel and the US are run by thugs.
Not to take anything away from Russia in terms of its military industrial output, but that video shows that neither Shoigu, nor any of the accompanying military and industrial officials is going short of meals.
Yes. Organizational culture starts at the top.
This a discussion about the appearance of physical fitness rather than the availability of rations.
If it isn’t obvious that physical fitness is an integral aspect of military culture, then this conversation thread is probably not for you.
Shoigu's very thorough, he tests all the MREs for quality control personally.
Isn't that what Fatima prophesized?
The future is Russia, thank God. That means both melody, harmony, and likely rhythm too, and lots of consonants with a few vowels
Also Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet
Johnson seems to have succumbed to the viruganda. This will cost him like that chumpy from killafornia, whatsa his fuck Kevin crappalot, the last fallen speaker in what can become a long line of them
Simple solution is for Russia to just sit back and let FAB-1500 speaks. Save lifes and vapourise Nazis.
Not an option while the other side is flooding the area with increasingly long-range weapons.
The main reason the Kremlin was forced (dragging and screaming and very much against its wishes) into the SMO was precisely that imminent prospect.
LOL
The V2 was like these missiles and were used in the same way after the allies captured some Dutch city the Germans dropped a V2 on a theater with 500 people inside.
Compare the cost of a modern missile to a glide bomb millions for the former thousands for the latter. Reminds me of the old false adage a billion dollars to save one life.
And how many of those 25&26 yo were born in Donbas?
And how many remain in ukraine?
The chart looks like it's from the prewar "population pyramid" data such a found below, which itself was reckoned from birth rates due to lack of census, and subject to out-migration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine
The block of males age 18-28 = born 1996-2006 was about 2 million prewar. Rough guess is, cut this to half or less due to refugee flows, and then adjust more for military casualties to date. But there's probably still enough for another half a million to be sacrificed, and skim off a few thousand $$ in aid for each one.
The major difference between western attitudes and that of the average Russian is- for the Russian- a belief in a cause greater than him/herself in which he is/she is proud to serve, and for which he/she is proud to give his/her life. The average Russian fights for a supremely powerful egregore- 'Mother Russia', in whom a deep pride has been reawakened by his/her own shamanistic leader, one Vladimir Putin.
The average westerner, who doesn't even think any such higher entities exist, is his own highest cause, a little centre of self importance and self indulgence in the cause of which he/she has become risibly enfeebled. Which is why no western state wants to test their people in active bloody combat, either on the ground or in the air. Who or what would they be fighting for? Emmanuel Macron (widely detested)? Lord Cameron (recently caught with his hands on marked money and about to be booted out of office in a forthcoming election)? Jens Stoltenberg (the chap in the cardigan who keeps trying to walk away from the whole mess)? It gets worse the deeper you plunge into these over-promoted non entities.
The desire of a cosseted elite that never sees a ballot box, to maintain a self serving status quo, is not going to fuel a wider european war although it could signal the collapse of this laughable self styled 'international community' of posers who have got their hands on the money tree and are busy stripping it of its fruit and undermining its roots. No one else needs to be worried about Russia who has never been interested in territory but security, and the longer the west fights back the more of Ukraine Russia is going to have to swallow to achieve secure boundaries.
That said, a new europe centred on Russian resources would be a powerful bloc indeed, and is precisely what the US fears, and why it has kept NATO going since WWII.
If you watch the final 3 minutes of Tucker's interview w/ VVP, we find the Russian president describing the spiritual facet of this war--and it's truly riveting how natural it is for VVP to reference the Divine & apply it to the SMO.
Tucker's reaction makes obvious that the earth shifted @ that moment.
[ VVP going all Yaroslav the Brave on Tucker earlier in the interview did not quite do it ]
No U.S. leader/politician can evince such authentic piety.
For them, piety is PR
It's a gear the U.S. leaders/politicians don't have
You've missed out massively on one fact that all western politicians & media. Will never mention about the man you describe as "shamastic". Where was Russia financially & a host of many other negative problems when Putin became the leader of Russia? Now compare that to all of the situations of the western countries at that time. What Putin has achieved for his country & more importantly for his people over the past 20 years. While navigating every single hurdle the West could place against him & his country. Is nothing short of a miracle. I don't know what the situation is in your country, but in my country we are in recession. We have the highest taxes in Europe, the highest energy bills in Europe, inflation. A whole host of negative policies aimed at the civilians by our own politicians. Like every other western country. 99.9% of the civilians have steadily watched our standards of living drop. We've watched poverty grow massively & investment in our own country drop like a ton of hot snot. While the Vermin who rule us & their associates become more wealthy. We have been lied to constantly on top of everything else. Putin isn't Shamastic, he has a fantastic team of professionals around him doing their job professionally. This was reflected in the recent vote.
Oh, I don't doubt the secular sophistication of his rule but without the captivating power of the shaman to go with it, he is just another politician. He is not that.
He is much more than a politician, he us Russia's modern day savior. Love him or loathe him facts are facts. From a western point of view to be called a politician is an insult. It is for the treasonous lying corrupt vermin that rule in my country. I'll give you a quick example, the PM of my country announced last week he was targeting the disabled & those who claim benefits for being unfit for work. The payments they receive now are pathetic. His party has been in power 14 years. Over this period they've created record numbers of placing my fellow citizens into anject poverty. Yesterday it was announced his government are sending a record package of military & financial aid to Ukraine taking the financial aid to 3 billion this year already. That's without the costs of the military equipment. Ukraine has never been an ally of my country, it openly & brazenly has a Nazi war criminal as their national hero. Everything everyone in my country including my both grandfather's fought against in WW2. My government is financing & giving weapons to commit war crimes. They're doing exactly the same for Israel. The very same country that has attacked my ellie citizens & my countries military & is anything but an ally. This is what the politicians have & are dojng in my country today. No President Putin isn't just a politician. He is a true representative of his country & citizens, a world renowned statesman & diplomat. Who has his own citizens & his own countries interests as his core beliefs. Today in the West I honestly don't know of any politicians who represent the civilians they're employed to do so. In fact their policies have a negative impact in their own citizens. To class President Putin in the very same bracket, for me personally us an insult.
I agree with all that.
Mikhail Nesterov's painting "Holy Rus" from 1905 comes to mind. [ It hangs in the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg--link below ]
Also the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome, after Constantinople fell, comes to mind.
St. Basil's cathedral on Red Square was called "Jerusalem." Ivan the Terrible [ Grozny] had it built to commemorate the liberation of Kazan from the Tatar-Turkic Khanate.
It's neither sentimental nor overweening to recognize a living spiritual dimension to Russia, a dynamic presence which is part & parcel of the place, as if radiating from it. This living spiritual dimension is not at odds with the presence of crime, trafficking, social ills, murder, poverty; this living spiritual dimension encompasses them.
Russia holds out the awareness that 'this living spiritual dimension' is always available to us--just an eye-blink away.
https://en.rusmuseum.ru/collections/painting-of-the-second-half-of-the-xix-century-beginning-of-xxi-century/artworks/svyataya-rus/
As Goethe said, it is simply an 'energetic fact'. We can argue about how to define this power, what words to attach to it, how to 'style' it, but we cannot deny it.
Russia has the best central banker, the best defense minister, the best diplomat and more. The growth in the economy is set to outpace the G7 according to the IMF parasitic rentier extraction people. Oh, did I forget, the best President.
This version of western man that you describe is a modern construction. We weren't always like this, in fact prior to the 1980s most of us weren't like this. It pisses me off how people make all these glowing romantic descriptions of Russians while shitting on Europeans, as if there was no list for power and money, no corruption, no human trafficking, drug deals, murders, or other nasty things in Russia. I'm a Russophile too, but give me a break.
You need to go back to before the western welfare state. That is what corrupted 'the working classes'. I agree that there was always a drone class.
The greatest surprise to the west was how the Russian monied class suddenly rediscovered its loyalty to mother Russia. Biden et al assumed it could be bought/bullied to bring Putin down. That went well. It is busy now doing what it can for 'the cause', especially the front line one.
Everything is relative.
So global homo neo-liberalism isnt worth fighting for? Who knew.
We’ve heard “interests of national security!” a few too many times over the past 35 years
NATO = negro and tranny organization
Please refrain from such juvenile, knuckle-dragging comments; they demean the page.
Who do you think you are Jew ?
Special forces in an armored car!
The old God died and new sociopathic and narcissistic gods have arisen. Guessing around a billion of us new gods.
With "friends and allies" (the west) such as ourselves, who needs enemies?
The Deep State always gets to feed. It won't make much difference for Ukraine. Soon the Congressman will be ousted, but will have secured his place on the board of some MIC corporation.
Great article Simplicius. I have shared the link on A Skeptic War Reports
https://askeptic.substack.com/
As for the arrival of a new tranche of wonder weapons now with a much longer range, all this will do is widen the war- in BOTH directions.
Is that really what NATO wants?
Russia is loathe to escalate, which only encourages West to escalate further.
Like telling a barroom.asshole politely to stop when he slaps you or quoting Bible verses. It won't work.
A lead pipe blow to the temple, a .357 magnum through the hesrt delivers better results.
Such a contrast between the US and Russia when it comes down to what actually is gonna win this war. The US congress pumping their chests talking about how their collective votes are some how gonna stop russia's massive war machine. There's no factory anywhere in the US that even remotely compares to that tank factory shoigu was touring. That's far more convincing than a money printing machine which is all America really has
Purpose is only to avoid total collapse of Ukies before potus elections, nothing else.