There is a lot of news buzzing about today regarding the so-called ‘mineral deal’ and the tiresome retreads of US ‘pulling out of mediations’ in Ukraine.
When I got the polio vaccine when It was first developed, it was delivered by a drop on a sugar cube. A nice nurse put a drop of a purple liquid on the cube and gave it us, one by one of a long line of kids. So, a food-born vaccine is possible, but logistically problematic.
There was a great opportunity in the first three months of Trump’s presidency to bring the war to an end. But the window of this opportunity seems to have been closed. Diplomatic institutionalists like Vice President J.D. Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff seems to being sidelined by hawkish neocons and the ‘business as usual’ bureaucrats. Whenever I hear Lindsey graham name coming back again with regards to foreign policy, It feels like this war will be fought to its conclusion,,
But not by US boots. This much is clear. The US admin thinks (or thought) it can (could) bomb Russia into submission (as it is so successfully doing against ansar allah!) acting from some remote safe place. Or blast it with economic sanctions. (Yawn). But no one in the US government or opposition, political or media, is advocating any US citizens actually be obliged to go out and die there.
So the US involvement will dwindle into noise. Trump does noise. You might think we are here already, but there is still some depth of Ukraine fighting force bolstered by mercs who have to paid (hence that 50 million quid hastily transferred) to be funded, fuelled and burned through. Which is why Russia is pressing on and may have to go beyond its minimum new boundaries, to establish its own security- if the west continues to flog this war.
I dont think any US admin, ever, since shortly after WW2 (with "Unthinkable" etc), thought it could "bomb Russia into submission". That's technically impossible against the world's premier nuclear superpower (with by far the best AD and ABM in the world).
The plan was always subversion, over-extension, sanctions, color revolution etc. Only that it failed quite miserably this time around, as well.
Sounds like jewish state mentality indeed. The same glee of exterminating the “others.”
“This safety, i.e. the complete impossibility of the people being killed to even spit at the killers, caused a particularly acute delight. No, it was not the thrill of battle, where the enemy had a chance - it was the thrill of a sadist who tortures a helpless victim in complete safety. And finally, the opportunity to kill maimed and burned people, who are no longer capable of any resistance, not even begging for help - this is the last, the sweetest note that touches a Ukrainian's soul.”
That was a precursor of the ongoing Gaza slaughter. Zionists and Banderites are indistinguishable.
There are documented stories of Jewish Zionists collaborating with the Nazis for release of just the Zionist Jews for deportation. In terms of ideology, Zionism matches Nazism for xenophobia and racism, just as Ukraine's Banderites. Fascism always does this targeting of a vulnerable minority or people for the purpose of political unity.
"It Would Take Russia Centuries And Tens Of Millions Of Casualties To Capture Ukraine"
It would seem a large percentage of dupes have only this type of propaganda to examine. If google, microsoft and facebook run your phone, how are you gonna make sense of the conflicting details?
You cannot piece together the events of Maidan and the UA title pleading Dignity. Your only option is unrestrained hate. What tyrannical devices make such brain washing so powerful?
Still Billions can not face the disaster of Covid Truth. They instead find comfort blaming Putin for, well everything that the media proposes. No matter how jarring the lack of accurate predictions or warnings. Just like Covid! How does one overlook Biden's declared intention for Nordstream?
Meanwhile the most feeble of bloggers crank out one accurate prediction after another, for decades now, with pathetically small followings and no serious traction with the demented mass of shameful sheep.
Please be more clear who a 'Jew' is. I have known Jews all my life, some intimately, and none have been a problem. Those Jews who adopted Christian Zionism are indeed a problem, and when I write of them, I will always say, "Jewish Zionists" or just "Zionists." This distinction is important as the Jewish Zionists get much of their mojo from the Christian Zionists (like Joe "I am a Zionist" Biden). Jewish Zionism is a heresy of Judaism and is an abomination, just as Christian Zionism is a heresy of Christianity.
I would say the most miserable outcome yet. Here they wind up facing a barely subdued foe, (N Korea) they thought they had vanquished. Joining forces with a country they held as an important ally and regular cohabitate the ISS with. It's ridiculous.
Should we revisit the outcome of our US civil war based on who the Confederacy allied with, UK? Or who the USSR stood up for, the Union?
Now because they won't submit, a trait the USA used to admire, we condemn the Russians. Just like the Palestinians. How dare they insinuate they have any claim to dignity or their own country? Sovereignty is only the purvey of elite oligarchs, get used to it!
Don't forget France. In 1863, Tsar Alexander II sent Russian Navy to protect SF and NYC harbors against invasion by Britain and France with an ultimatum that if the above would interfere in the internal affairs of the US, they'd find themselves @war with Russia. It's really sad that Americans don't even know their own history
To me it's fascinating now, but in HS I only studied girls. Duh! University was worse after 3 years on a nuke sub. Two of my sisters have PhDs and then there is the rich one! My claim to fame? HS dropout.
Cool how the Canadians sided with the South as well. So without Russia we'd all be whistling Dixie.
Could it be said that really Russia is our most consistent ally?
How much of Germany's economic domination was fueled by cheap, hi quality, reliable Russian energy? Not much gratitude trying Kursk all over again!
Yup fickle idiots. We'll just go over and stomp em! Just like Napoleon!
Usually, any country that attacks Russia tends to lose its status of a great power, like Sweden in 1708 (in current Ukraine), when Tsar Peter the Great defeated the armies of Swedish King Charles XII in a battle @ Poltava. King Charles fled to Turkey. Sweden never regained its prior status as a great power.
LOL "successfully bombing ansar allah!". You mean USA is killing civillians in Yemen and being humilliated by Yemen armed forces, that destroy USA drones and planes and forcing air craft carriers to run away ?
Also, there are plenty of USA troops in Ukraine. They handle HIMARS, ATACMS strikes and also handle Patriot air defenses, many of which have been destroyed by the russians, and hundreds if not thousands have already been killed in Ukraine and those are great news. The more USA terrorists are killed, the better. If USA ever makes the mistake to put even more USA terrorists in Ukrain, more will be killed.
USA's involvement will not dwindle at all. The "peace" attempts happened because USA is getting its ass kicked in Ukraine and to re-arm its nazi force in Ukraine, it needed time. Time the russians won't give them. So as the supremacists they are, USA will just continue what it's doing, because of hubris / arrogance and will be crushed nonetheless.
And if they continue trying to do to Taiwan, what they did to Ukraine, China will humiliate USA into submission. Once again remember that ansar allah! by itself, with much less sophisticated weapons and capabilities, than China or Russia, is making USA run away...so imagine what a real army can do to USA. Also remember that USA doesn't even have hypersonic missiles nor the ability to defend against them. If USA ever thinks of pushing toward nuclear war, the planet will suffer for sure, but USA will be completely wiped out, which in the end is the only way for peace to come to this planet: making USA a wasteland.
Well put. There is also the fact, that if one puts aside the hyperbole of Yankee supremacy, its military has a lot of queers, cross-dressing queers, weak the wimmins and other assorted shit. Yankland's strategy has always been to go against lesser forces, bomb the shit out of them and then march triumphal over the ruins and claim to be brave.
lol. Recent f-18 crash with dei (diversity equity and isreal) women ‘pilots’ and an f-18 fall off the uss Truman. Hope the houthis hit one of the floating ghettos soon.
Oh wait. The Yemeni's now have to face the UK's Aircraft Carrier:
Robert Stevens 27 April 2025
The Prince of Wales aircraft carrier left its Portsmouth, England base on Tuesday this week for an eight month deployment to the Indo-Pacific. Dubbed Operation Highmast, the carrier is the lead ship in the UK’s Carrier Strike Group 25 (UKCSG).
Well, that will be a real threat to the Houthis ? The UK was happy the Aircraft Carrier made it even out ot the Port in Portsmouth without being swallowed right there.
No, please no. She serves the world much better if she's kept floating. Royal Navy will waste massive amounts of resources because they can't let their carriers go.
If someone sinks her, Brits might suddenly have enough money to fix their second submarine.
If the Americans were suffering all these casualties, where are the American POWs, where are the hospitals clogged with American wounded, where are the American combat amputees, where are the wives, girlfriends and mothers of missing Americans demanding answers as to where Johnny went and why has nobody heard from him.
I am willing to believe that there are plenty of American troops in combat. But they are not suffering many casualties. Inwish they were.
You are clearly a western media consumer and thus are extremely badly informed. In fact, you're not informed at all. First of all, the USA casualties are in the hundreds at the very least, considering "mercenaries" (read USA troops) only. All the others in HIMARS, ATACMS, Patriot ADs, etc are killed / wounded and are taken to european hospitals / morgues, namely in Germany, where then there are a lot of "sudden deaths" and/or "death during training" certificates created by the military. There will never be an official acknowledgement of these USA terrorists being in Ukraine. Remember those 3 or 4 USA troops (read terrorists) that "drowned in a swamp" in Romania recently ? Given what you just wrote, I'm sure you believe that without questions...
Your premise is entirely wrong. I was thinking, actually about how the Soviets unsuccessfully tried to keep the populace from finding out about casualties in Afghanistan.
Three or four troops is one thing. But not the casualties that people here are talking about , casualties on any scale.
But whatever you have to tell yourself to avoid facing unpleasant facts.
The casualties are being concealed as training accidents. There have been more of these fatal "training accidents" in the last 3 years than in the previous 30 years.
Didn't we have a general and some colonels dying supposedly "here" but in the accidents able to produce bits and pieces? So they might be brought in from Ukraine
I am willing to believe that a liaison party or two got whacked, but that does not, for the reasons I have given, mean that combat troops are present in material numbers.
Yes, the occasional body bags, but certainly not a steady stream, how it inescapably would be if substantial numbers of the "boots on the ground" were present In Ukraine. Plus, I don't think they're actually at the front front.
Trump had to give the appearance of trying fulfill his campaign promise, I'll grant you that.
Most people misread his faux "devils advocacy" for the acceptance of many of Russia's terms as either the musings of a deranged lunatic (his enemies) or as a sincere attempt at mediation (his supporters). Trump is not a mediator. The observer class, like Helmer, etc., saw it for what it was, Kabuki Theatre.
The outrage of the European and Ukrainian political class was predictable, Trump's team must have calculated that in advance and can now say to Europe; "you handle a bigger share of it.". The US will continue to support Ukraine if others do more.
As for sentiments of the "common folk" in Ukraine, they just want it to end so they can get on with life, even if it means surrendering territory. Partner was on the bus in Canada this week and overheard a man, fit, 35ish, talking (in Russian) to his parents back home. They were saying how much they missed each other and looking forward to being together again. They discussed the recent public Russian proposals for a settlement vs the hardline official position of Ukraine and were completely baffled by Kyiv's "logic".
Though I can't help but wonder what kind of reception those who evaded mobilization are going to get if and when they return. The ultra-nationalists that remain will not be kind to them.
It’s easy for Zelensky and friends to fight till the end, because either way they’ll be living in multi-million dollar houses/apartments in NYC, Paris, or London.
That’s the real logic to understand about Ukrainian leadership.
Zelensky is a dead man walking. The Israelis would never let such an enemy of theirs to continue on, unaffected - and there are signs that Putin and the Kremlin think much the same way (cf. plonium-210 poisonings, done to deliberately send a message since only a handful of breeder reactors in the world can even manufacture the material).
Russia produces the sole supply, 4 to 5 grams per year;
Actually, the whole "poisoning by polonium-210" is a canard.
The guy poisoned was a freelancer trying to smuggle some to Muslim Brotherhood agents; he and his clothes, his luggage, were irridated as the nitwit couldn't use proper hazmat for such a lethal material.
I didn't mean that Zelensky is an enemy of the Israelis. Just that the Israelis are the most consistent and relentless about pursuing enemies of the Jewish people, no matter what, and Russia shows some signs of being of a similar orientation on the matter in their own sphere.
Zelensky is a classic example of a man who knows too much to live. He knows the facts about the Biden family's deep involvement in Ukrainian corruption, US biolabs and their research, the torture and murder of POWs instigated by UK advisors, mass trade in children and their organs, the role of the UK and US planners in civilian massacres, the turning over of all Ukrainian natural resources, farmland, and infrastructure to Western corporations such as BlackRock, the funding of nazi organizations by jewish funds, and much, much more. And he can likely document most of that. The CIA, MI6 and Mossad cannot allow him to survive, a potential leak and source of blackmail and kompromat of epic proportion. He will never reach his villa in Florida; most likely he will be killed by "the Russians", who else.
Yet he has been living in such a deluded bubble that he doesn't get such a basic fact. If he has any smarts, he would be cutting a deal with the Russians to save his neck.... but nope, he's still giving the west enough to hang him whenever they want. Aka his actions are no longer rational, and thus all the decisions that are made, don't have to make sense from any real-politik angle.
True... but people with any street smarts would want to have an out at all times. He doesn't seem to have any, maybe that's why he was chosen to be the U Prez in the first place...
There was never any real intention to end the war.
This is a project that goes back 80 years for the US and another century further back for Europe.
No individual can turn that sort of institutional momentum around in a couple months, even if he sincerely wished it.
And he didn't. The intention here was to do an Idlib on steroids. Knowing that the Kremlin fell for MinskI/II and Astana. And we know what happened in the end. Assad, the Russians, and the Iranians were ready to finish it off but then the order came to halt, and eventually Syria was no more after the Jihadi International had been allowed to prepare for the final battle for years.
It may well not stop at official Russian borders this time. We already saw what happened in Kursk. But if you have watched videos of Ukronazi youth training camps from way before 2022, before 2014 even, you may have noticed how their rallying cries often feature calls for taking the Kuban region (around 1918 "Ukraine" was claiming it). That is presumably still in the minds of some people. In fact, it might have been the reason Putin finally did the extremely unusual for him thing and took some kind of proactive action in 2022 -- had the Donbass been overrun quickly as expected given the size of the Ukronazi force there, he would have received several million refugees and a huge stain on his reputation, already destabilizing enough, but there is no guarantee that force would have stopped at the border. Rostov would have there for the taking too.
There is also the matter of sequencing the wars and China being more of a priority for this current ruling clique.
But presumably in their plans is that once they have dealt with China, they will return to the Russia question.
The question here is why Putin is doing negotiations at all. Thus undermining internal morale within Russia once again, instead of seriously preparing for permanently ending the Ukrainian problem.
This time I agree with you, just the question why Russia is doing negotiating has been discussed many times already.
Talking is in any case better than killing, at least to make an effort and the killing will happen anyway if the negotiations lead to nowhere as it seems to be the case at the moment.
The collective west wants Russia to break apart, to be robbed and raped again and the ideology of the 1930's has only been hiding but feels strong enough to raise it's head now again in plain sight, led by the fathers of German darkest times, the USA.
Putin, as I keep saying, has to keep his own allies on board. That involves talking. But that is all Russia is doing. It has not agreed to do anything detrminental to the objectives of the SMO.
China is keeping allies and friends inboard by resolutely standing up to the attempt of the trump regime to destroy its economy. The kremlin could learn alot from china's way of dealing with American imperialism
Vovan&Lexus just exposed the covert plan to eventually ”Balkanize” Russia. Yes. The British strategy was inheritated by US and they follow it decades after decades.
It has been public knowledge since the end of Glasnost in 1990 that American Mexicana controlled NATO plus later the E.U. as well have planned to Balkanise Ukraine and Russia.
This was put in motion in 1945. Occupied Germany, (80 years), has been instrumental in destroying Western Europe under Yankland guidance.
Kike owned and operated Yankland hates White people , really hates European Whites and especially hates German and Russian Whites.
All this shite is organised by the only really organised tribe on the planet.
Trump periodically lets the truth slip i.e. "Russia is a war machine," "Russia can take the entire Ukraine," etc., I think, to Trump, Iran might appear a "safer" choice.
The irony is that China is showing the way how to deal with the Americans much more successfully than the kremlin. By standing up to trumps attempt at destroying the Chinese economy the Beijing government is not only winning the trade war but helping to accelerate the dedollarisation trend going on in the world. If the trade war continues China will step up its export controls of rare earth metals further undermining the US /EU military industrial Complexes.
First, there are many reasons to "do or fake" negotiations, not least of which being simple info-gathering. Jerk-around the adversary a bit for fun &/or profit. Also, the Kremlin and Foreign Ministry officials have stated that there is no trust for the West. Second, it is very naive to believe that RU is not "seriously preparing for permanently ending the Ukrainian problem.".
There won't be overt, transparent "evidence" cuz said preparations/methodologies would obviously be "top secret". At any rate, the onus of proof is on YOU for YOUR claim.
Witkoff is a kike, he has wet dreams about Russians being burned alive. The entirety of the upper echelons of the American Mexicana government, all branches, are kikes or have sworn allegiance to serve kikes.
The many machinations globally are a fight between good and evil.
The good news is that American Mexicana is in its death throws, Western Europe has been deliberately destroyed by Yankland and the E.U. The 'Global South' is rising and barring Yankland or its owner Israel going nuclear humanity will survive and prosper when the global communists are annihilated
The war is already won, just the idiot dead men walking in the Western collective haven't realised it yet.
Zion Don Trump the turncoat has merely accelerated de-dollarisation and the collapse of American Mexicana. Western Europe is as said, already destroyed.
What proof do you have that (Jewish) Witkoff "has wet dreams about Russians being burned alive"? Any specific example will do, even just one. Otherwise, you're just talking out of your ass.
I am not sure that there was a 'great opportunity' in the past three months to bring the war to an end. I think there was 'an opportunity' -- maybe, if we are being realistic, only a 'remote opportunity', but it was tried and that effort has been unsuccessful. There can be a lot of theories as to why it the effort was unsuccessful (e.g. Trump never really wanted peace, Trump wanted peace but managed the effort incorrectly, UK/Europe/Ukraine are not ready for peace, etc), but bottomline, the war will continue through the summer or longer.
That said, I am not sure what Trump could have realistically done differently given the context, history, domestic and international politics, etc.
For example, the belief that Trump could have realistically just 'walked away from Ukraine on Day 1' is appealing -- but it's hard to see how that could have been done by any leader in the US in practice. Trump didn't take office until later January. From that time until the Munich Security Conference in mid February, official Washington DC (the Congressmen, Senators, military & intelligence figures inside and outside of the US government, the media, the think tanks, and the donors) all were pushing for 'more Ukraine aid', sanctions on Russia, and escalation.
Munich was a 'bombshell' to that US political establishment in DC, to Europe, to the press, and to Ukraine because US policy officially became 1) no more substantial aid to Ukraine, 2) no support for European forces in Ukraine under NATO Article V protections, 3) no condition peace talks with Russia, 4) transference of the 'burden' of 'defense of Europe' to Europe, and 5) warnings about 'freedom of the press' and 'elections' in Europe.
The 'bombshell' of Munich was then accentuated with the 'bombshell' Zelensky meeting in the White House on Feb 28th. It wasn't until Zelensky's disastrous visit to the White House that Republican Senator support for him and Ukraine really started to shake. The 'outrage' in the US created by that PR debacle really took the energy out of the old 'support Ukraine' strategy in Congress and the media. That leaves two months (March and April) to get to where we are at the moment: a series of Ukraine/US and Russia/US talks that pushed many (but not all) of the tabu topics and got no where in the end.
It's hard to see how a different 'peace process' (as defined by number and type of meetings, number and type of negotiators, etc) would have made any difference to the current outcome. In some sense, Trump (and others who might seek peace) couldn't really tell just 'how hard and obstinate' certain players would be until 'something' was tried and 'pressure' was applied.
Furthermore, it's hard to see how Trump could have used his domestic political capital differently to 'force a peace' or 'abandon Ukraine' any earlier than right now. Yes, Trump could have declared Day 1 that he accepts all of Putin's terms, but then what? Would he have gotten his cabinet picks for CIA, Director of Intelligence, or Defense (or other controversial domestic appointees) through the US Senate approval process? Almost certainly 'no', because he depended on so many pro-Ukraine US Senators for their votes on his nominees. And a Trump who 'accepts Putin's terms' without a national security staff to implement that policy would have been useless for peace and for everything else.
Not only that, a Day 1 'abandon Ukraine Trump' would he have kicked off a 'firestorm of revolt' of Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans that would have attacked him / impeached him again to the detriment of his other national and international agenda items. And even if Trump had foregone all of his other agenda items except peace in Ukraine and dared the Washington establishment to 'bring him down', would that have made any difference in terms of Europe's or Ukraine acceptance of the Putin/Trump agreement? No. Most likely, he would be in the same spot he is right now (no deal), but without any of his other agenda items / team intact.
Seen in that context, and assuming for the moment that Trump is sincere in wanting peace (which I believe is true but admit can be debated), then I would argue that Trump did what he could with what he had to work with, given his other competing priorities (e.g. immigration, tariffs, Iran, woke, foreign aid, 'making America healthy again', etc).
Trying for peace was 'worth the try', even if it was unlikely -- and maybe, just maybe, his efforts might make peace a little more achievable in 6 months (or whenever) because certain barriers have been broken (e.g. the de-demonization of Russia in the West) and certain possibilities talked about (e.g. ceding territories and maybe new governments in Ukraine).
Trump may be walking away from the peace process for now (although that is not certain). Trump may choose to aggressively back Ukraine (the Washington DC establishment would love that) or he may get sucked into that course of action despite his intentions -- or he may get sidelined by any number of other international and domestic crises -- but, hopefully, his efforts have laid some kind of groundwork for progress and peace later, once conditions on the battlefield and in the home countries have further 'changed'.
I question your premise that Trump was ever trying to 'end the war' in Ukraine. I have only seen and heard reports of US negotiators trying to establish a ceasefire, never an actual peace treaty. Russia said at the outset, and has continued to say, that they are not interested in a ceasefire (been there, done that, got the T-shirt). While one side is looking for a ceasefire while the other is looking for a stable peace treaty, there will never be a resolution.
A couple of points in response. The first problem is that both you and I have to go on 'reports' (and don't have access to what was actually said and done). Often 'reports' equals 'real' -- but not always, and on certain topics, Ukraine in particular, I think that there is a lot of 'spin', 'narrative management', and in fact, 'lying' going on by politicians, by 'journalists', by pundits, etc. It's a lot of smoke and mirrors, so it's hard to know what is actually being discussed by whom and when..
Second, I think it is very likely that certain 'players' involved in this drama are / were in fact going for a 'freeze in the conflict' and not a 'peace treaty' -- but that certain other players are 'looking for a stable peace treat'. Ukraine and all of the European leaders would be in that category of a 'freeze' (so that Ukraine can reman, rearm, and re-train for Round 4 or 5). Kellogg and 90% of the Congressional (and think tank and ex-military and donor) stakeholders would be in that category as well (they largely want Russian regime change or isolation at a minimum and a pro-West heavily armed Ukraine). Probably former National Security Advisor Walz and Secretary of State Rubio are in that category as well, although they both are probably not as hard-line as Kellogg et al. The Trump envoy Witkoff is pretty clearly not in that category and both Trump and Vance have brought up the 'root causes' and 'peace treaty based on fundamental issues' several times (which shows that they recognize the importance of a peace treaty and not just a ceasefire, although whether they are willing to put their prestige on the line to push for it is another matter). The position of Intelligence chiefs Gabbard and Radcliffe are not clear, although prior comments would suggest that Gabbard is firmly in the lasting peace category.
My guess is that several factors are in play. The first is that Trump and his team are very aware that the willingness of Europe and Ukraine to agree to Russian terms is much much less than Trump's willingness to agree to Putin's terms. Congress and the media's willingness is also much much less than Trump's willingness as well. This makes Trumps' 'play of the cards' complicated. Get too far out ahead of Congress or Europe or Ukraine and he ends up with all of the 'bad' of compromise but none of the 'good' of peace (because his allies 'balk' and stop a deal but expose Trump once again to claims that he is 'Putin's puppet'). Offering Putin something much less than Putin has asked for publicly was probably not likely to succeed (and it didn't succeed), but it was probably worth the try (note: Putin is happy that Trump engaged and is not 'mad' at the offer). If Putin took the offer, Trump still had his work cut out for him trying to get Congress, Ukraine, and Europe on board. However, if Putin mostly agrees (or more accurately very politely disagrees with provisions for modification), Trump loses relatively little with Russia but gains a much better understanding of the opposition he has to overcome in Europe/Ukraine/Congress. Furthermore, Europe and Ukraine's flagrant disagreement to the Trump plan (e.g. the repeated violations of the ceasefire) further undermine US public support for Ukraine / Europe as well (they look bad, just like they looked bad at the White House meeting and at the Munich conference, etc.). Making Ukraine and Europe 'look bad' (and even 'insulting' to the US) helps undermine Europe and Ukraine support back in the US and in Congress (thus giving Trump maneuver room for backing away or making another attempt at a more comprehensive peace later).
That leads to me to two conclusions -- either this was a 'one-off' 'low risk' 'try' that was worth it if it succeeded and useful for distancing the US from the whole Ukraine effort henceforth (even though Ukraine will therefore collapse) -- or, this 'peace process' was stage 1 of a much longer term project that will take months (but that needed this failed effort as a first step). Of course, what do I know? (just some guy with a keyboard).
Martin, my only quibble is with your use of verb tense when you wrote "Trying for peace was 'worth the try'". I believe Trump and Witkoff and Putin are trying and will try for as long as Trump is President. For all the reasons you mention it will not be easy...or quick.
Can you provide 1 example of the Trump regime acknowledging, let alone offering a reasonable proposal to even 1 of Russia's "root causes" or Russia's stated terms as outlined by Putin in his speech in June 2024?
I follow this American proxy war as close as anyone and I have not seen even 1.
Ever since Trump 2.0 started it has been the "American plan". At no point did they recognize even 1 of Russia's demands.
Why? Because Trump, his clique and many Americans think America rules the world. Is there any evidence that team Trump ever considered Russia's demands? I doubt they even heard or saw them.
Nick, I'll offer the 'one example' that you asked for (although there are more) and that is Trump and Vance stating that 'offering Ukraine a path to NATO in 2008 was fundamentally the cause of the war and that Ukraine in NATO cannot be allowed to occur in the future' (that is one of Russia's stated 'root causes' and 'key demands').
It's totally cool to think that Trump/Vance's statements on that matter are insincere or not enough or irrelevant because they ignore other Russian concerns -- i.e. it's ok to not agree with the drift of my analysis. But as a point of evidence, at least recognize that things are not 'literally' as you present them in your comment 'at no point ...'.
I am not trying to argue with you on what you said or didn't say or whether you are right overall -- just trying to call 'balls and strikes' for the record and for the general readership and point out that there appears (to me at least) to be public evidence that 'Russia asked for x to be recognized' and that Trump publicly recognized 'x'. It may not be everything or enough, but it is something.
While they did make that statement, it is not accurate. It is a deliberate attempt to minimize the role America has played in this American proxy war against Russia.
The Trump team has done this at every opportunity- attempting to portray themselves as “mediators”, when in fact America is the primary antagonist.
Of course NATO cannot be in Ukraine, nor Ukraine in NATO.
Reality is the only way to achieve this with 100% certainty is for Russia to control all of Ukraine.
But back to your point- an even bigger & more important “root cause" was the American led coup in 2014 and the subsequent build up of the Ukrainian military in the lead up to 2022.
Did Trump or Vance make any proposal that would definitively end the NATO threat?
Acknowledging is one thing, actually proposing a potentialsolution is quite another.
"Because Trump, his clique and many Americans think America rules the world."
Well, certainly there are many Americans, possibly the majority, who think that. But there is also a significant, and I think growing, number of Americans who realize the US does not rule the world.
There also certainly are people in Trump's clique who think that, but there also are likely people in his clique who don't. Vance and Gabbard, for example, seem to have a better grasp of reality. Now whether they have to hide that grasp of reality to retain influence is an open question.
With Trump I don't think you can say whether he does think that, or whether he knows that's not the case but given his style of advancing his interests he is certain he as to act as though of course every sane person knows the US runs the world because without pushy advancement of the narrative he wants he'll never get the reality of it.
And there's also the middle ground that it's not insane to believe the US continues to have massive influence on what goes on in the world and even if it does not rule the world in any absolute sense, it sure as heck has enough influence to sway other countries into doing its bidding. I get the feeling that plenty of people in the Trump administration would say sure, the US doesn't rule the world but it doesn't need to rule the world to get its way. It just needs to be able to apply enough pressure to sway key sets of countries to do what it wants.
Trump's juggling with a lot of propaganda narratives at once to try to get his way with a variety of interest groups despite the various narratives conflicting. For example, he keeps saying this isn't his war despite his key role during his first term in starting and escalating the war. He's the guy who trained and armed Kiev's nazi armies to the teeth and who put 20 CIA bases in Ukraine to run covert operations (including killing) against Russians. He's bragged about sending Kiev lethal weaponry during his first term and now he says it's somebody else's war like he didn't do anything but hand out cookies and call for peace in his first term.
His narrative today trying to position himself as a neutral third party instead of the obvious co-belligerent the US is (obvious to everybody but the population of the US, it seems) isn't going to work when it confronts the reality, a reality which Russia insists cannot be ignored, of what really happened in Ukraine, what the US, including Trump in his first term did there, and the foul reality of the monstrous puppet regime the US, including Trump, first put into power in Kiev and then supported in conquering those large portions of the former Ukraine that had no interest in being ruled by an unelected nazi minority.
I think awareness is dawning in Trump that he has nothing to offer Russia that would convince it to toss away Russia's win in Ukraine and accept a viciously anti-Russian nazi state on its borders.
As stated previously many times, Putin doesn't operate on some keyboard warrior in here's timetable, and Trump is not operating on anyone's timetable but his own.
I'm not overly keen on predicting what he might do, but everything so far is consistent with the goal from day 1 being isolating Ukraine so they can be dispensed with. People who don't see his yo-yo negotiating tactics for what they are...well, they can suffer from their induced TDS.
Everything said is for domestic consumption and should not be believed. You'll be able to parse out the true bits after something happens. Some of what is said is true, but you can't predict which parts.
I think that the fact that there are so many “think-tank” policy papers outlining exactly the strategy that the trump administration has followed, as did his predecessors, is a strong argument that Trump nor his administration were ever looking for lasting peace with Russia, in Ukraine or anywhere else.
I would love to be wrong, but I do not think I am.
LJ -- you, in your current comment, are not differentiating between the current Trump presidency and its predecessors -- and that distinction is important to your original comment "that Trump never was / is serious about real peace and not a ceasefire' (to paraphrase your original comment). I am not trying to argue with you here, but to point out something in your argument that you should consider (or re-consider).
The fact that the established US foreign policy establishment (those in government, those in think tanks, those in the media, etc.) have argued for a certain 'no-peace' position since the early 1990's is pretty clear (and something you point out). It's also clear that US policy -- particularly under Biden but before that in the first Trump administration and Obama and Bush administrations were following this 'game plan' (or at least not reversing it). The question, however, is whether the current Trump administration (or more correctly, Trump himself) is trying to do something different. Reference to the past, in this context, does not confirm whether or not this is his current 'direction of travel' (it merely confirms that the past direction of travel was consistent for several decades). In fact, Trump -- with the 'freedom' his second term provides him (freedom in the sense of much stronger popular mandate, his 'choice' of better non-or-less-deep-state advisors, etc.) does appear to be 'trying' to change the direction of US policy in general (and with Russia and Ukraine in particular) -- for evidence, look to what he is doing on trade, immigration, the Mid-East, China, Canada/Greenland/Panama, etc. So, there is evidence that US policy change (on a variety of issues) is both desired and being pursued by Trump in his second term.
Now, it is a legitimate question to ask whether his change is sincere or 'good' or whether the possible change in approach will work against the certain, strong resistance from the US foreign policy establishment or against powerful foreign interests -- I just don't think that referencing past administrations and think tanks can give you answers to those types of questions (since they get to questions of past intent and direction and not success going forward on a potentially new path). Yes, those prior organizations would not be sincere or successful in doing what Trump may be trying to do -- but Trump is different in many ways, and that then becomes the crux of the problem. How skilled / lucky will Trump be if he is in fact trying to do something different?
My two cents, for what they are worth, is that Trump does desire a different path (whether for altruistic or purely selfish reasons does not matter) and that his challenge is navigating the minefield of trips / traps placed in his way by those very think tanks / advisors / foreign interest / corruption. If he succeeds, it will be because he 'finds a way' through that mess. I personally also believe that Putin (who faces similar challenges and constraints of his own) understands both that intent and difficulty, and is working with him (in a sense) so that both can find a way out of a very bad situation. The fact that Trump uses (in fact has to use) certain deep-state or shallow-state actors and advisors (Graham, Rubio, Waltz, etc) and that he apparently runs different, incompatible approaches in parallel to his objective (Kellogg versus Witkoff) to me is evidence of 'politics' (he needs to keep certain political players on-side for this and other issues) and subterfuge (it is not to his advantage to be too clearly outside of the 'mainstream' and the 'go back and forth' so as to create the actual 'wiggle' in his 'wiggle room').
So in conclusion, I share your hope (that you are wrong and Trump is trying to go for actual peace). I can't prove that you are wrong -- but can point out that, in at least this situation, you can't use the path of the past (or the desires of the deep state) as the only predictor of path ahead. Best wishes.
I know that a lot of people sincerely wish/hope that Trump is “different” and that his various moves and personnel decisions reflect his desire to change long established US foreign policy. So far, everything he is doing in relation to Europe, Russia, and Asia is laid out in those previous think-tank policy papers.
He may have “left the reservation” in terms of trade policy and economics, but foreign relations seems to be following those pre-laid plans. The very fact that Trump is looking for a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, while his secretary of defense tells the European NATO members that they have to “take over” the conflict with Russia is just following the plan.
Certainly you are right that Trump can not just ignore the long-standing policy even if he was inclined to do so. I just do not see any sign that he is so inclined :-( If you are right, and Trump surprises me (and most of the world), and actually tries (never mind succeeds) to negotiate a peace treaty leading to a lasting peace with Russia, I will be first to rejoice!
Trump is just going through a diplomatic song & dance, almost a charade. Ironically, when it comes to this war, it's not Trump/Vance who hold the cards, but Putin, who is successfully defending the Russkiy Mir from the Empire of Lies.
I think we still to must wait on Trump getting critical legislation through congress: Budget and Debt Ceiling before we for certain know if he is the "More War" or "No War" President. Until then, he cant afford to offend either camp in congress. Therefore his best strategy is to keep everyone guessing with gestures that both sides can claim for themselves.
I think it is the institutionalization of NATO, our commitment to NATO, our commitment to the Wolfowitz Doctrine that we will not let Russia or China threaten our hegemony. They have a plan that includes Israel, and the plan goes on with us as unproductive eaters, or Social Security recipients. Michael Jackson was killed for singing the song, "They don't care about us" to our master class. Michael lives, our masters face their end.
A window of opportunity has closed on Trump, despite his denial of this being his war, "Joe Trump" has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and with his hand full of cookies ( mineral deals ) can't extract his hand, and now he jointly owns this war.
If ,, unlikely as it is Russia would ultimately lose against the West, we European, American ,Australian Canadian etc. would be doomed. As a German I vote for Russia to win and cement a true multipolar world order together with China and the BRICS states. We're already well down the Road to Totalitarian slavery.
Th AFD is almost certainly going to be banned now, and free speech silenced in the name of protecting democracy. Totalitarian slavery isn't far away, it's in the building.
"The AFD is almost certainly going to be banned now..." True, but no worries. The day after, a new party will be born. That happened elsewhere in Europe as well.
Sorry but the AfD is simply the other faction of the same capital clique, build up to take over when the current faction is not longer sustainable against the population.
It's been build up to secure the same politics can be made and the working class can be squeezed into submission with more vigor.
Look where they come from in the AfD - the most right wing people out of the CDU and others are united there and they don't even deny it.
The AFD are outright admirers and defenders of the German genocidal Wehrmacht in WW2 and perpetuate the myth of the clean Wehrmacht. Never mind it's odious neo Nazi philosophy
Aw, geez. You're saying AfD is like the UK Reform Party led by that gatekeeping fraud Nigel Farange- bleeding off the pressure and deliberately stopping short.
That's exactly what Reform and AfD are, the oligarch backstop if the usual oligarch parties are rejected. The real alternative in the UK (Corbyn) was already destroyed and the German oligarchy is working hard to disappear the BSW.
So you don't think that even being "the other faction of the same capital clique" it could possess enough of common sense to try to fix the situation vs. letting Germany fall off the cliff? It's not like these people like mushrooms can just burst from "nowhere." They're bound to come from some political environment and they have a right to crystalize into something that doesn't support the "environment" they came from.
I've read their election program, it's as neo con as you can think of in economics and their foreign politics are - except from marching on Moscow yet - aligned with the Trump way, so thanks but no thanks.
That they will end the green apocalypse and bring back russian gas to Germany sounds nice but I don't see how they will manage to do so once they are in office.
Russian gas has been sabotaged by the USA since the 1970 and the AFD will not go against US interests - or why do you think they get the constant loud approval of the US officials?
"a trans-gay man in private and also a ruthless, mean man that ruined many lifes of innocent people and had fun doing so" - Why do you see this as a paradox?
Doctors in all of the 5 eyes are still being prosecuted for doing the right thing in 2020 and 2021. Doctors who profited by participating in a globalist scheme to poison humanity - and succeeded with 70% of the world population - continue to enjoy wealth and status. What could be more totalitarian than that?
Are you aware that Israel secured Pfizer mRNA vaccine (when there were not enough doses and vaccines were given per urgency/age) for Israel's entire population, in return promising Pfizer the results/follow up of the AEs? I seriously doubt that Israel just decided to eradicate own population. I seriously doubt that most doctors set out to "poison humanity."
Healthcare and the connected Pharma is a stateobligation towards its citizens.
Every life has the same worth!
Such thing as Pfizer and the others plus the private owned insurances should not even exist as private owned companies, since we all know that profit beats anything in capitalism.
Or why do you think the contracts of Pfizer and Biontech and others include that they cannot be held responsible for negative effects of their junk "medicine"?
All lovers of menkind and not looking out for their own interests, right?
Never waste a lovely crisis since it let's you buy the next 130m yacht of the tax payers money- well done!
You'd have to take my word for it, but between the two of us, I know much more about experimental medicine.
You tend to contradict yourself - on the one hand, you want the major things (like StarLink, etc.) be owned/handled by the government, but on the other hand, you don't seem to get to the roots of what happened. It was President Reagan who gave carte blanche and full immunity from liability to the vaccine manufacturers. You can sue any drug developer for anything, but a vaccine - thanks to the government. Do you have any idea how rigidly and long term the drugs are being tested, but for vaccines there are hardly any standards at all, and no liability - it's like printing money :-)
My issue with BioNTech/Pfizer is very different than yours. BioNTech/Pfizer since Oct 2019 in their annual SEC filings state that the "FDA & the EU regulatory authorities classify mRNA-based products as gene therapy." BioNTech/Pfizer know very well that if they misrepresent their product to SEC, they can be criminally prosecuted, however Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials C4591001/C4591031 didn't put the very same lingo in the Informed Consent, as they must put any crucial info, and that is on the FDA, which is again - government. Allowing Pfizer/BioNTech to change Covid-19 vaccine trial protocol and eliminate the placebo group just after what, a couple of month of the trial, instead of 1 year, as it was originally planned? Again, it's on the FDA to ensure that Covid-19 vaccine protocols were rigid enough. To allow vaccination of pregnant women with Covid-19 vaccine - WTH?! In any clinical trials, pregnant women, soldiers, prisoners, children are classified as vulnerable/protected populations! Again, it's on the government to let something like that happen. That the FDA was mocking Ivermectin, other well established drugs, terrorizing physicians who used them? Again, it's on the government!
Are you aware that President Clinton permitted the big pharma to advertise their drugs directly to the "consumers," which resulted nearly all the revenue of the NEWS channels coming from the big pharma it's again on the government. Ever heard an adage, "who pays for the music, orders the music?"
It all starts with the GOVERNMENT, the every same government, you see as some panacea, and striving for the "common good" vs. big corporations - big corporations can be brought to heel, by again, a proper, incorruptible government. The question is where to get such a government - it's probably possible if establish some serious prison terms, executions, etc., for corruption/damage of public health/benefit. We just need to get some incorruptibles to take the governments over :-) Fish always rots from the head!
I see no contradictions here, I said nowhere that your or my government should own anything, responsibility long has left the building anyway.
A government that is owned or in perpetuation circling with big money people is never a government for the people - we now here get Mr. Friedrich Merz as a chancellor, former head of Black Rock Germany who owns a private jet, is a multi millionaire but he considers himself "middle class", you can't make that shit up.
Your contradiction is in looking at the situation through a prism of idealism, when it should be looked at with pragmatism. We're discussing Musk and StarLink. You didn't want Musk to own Starlink since things of such magnitude should be owned by the government vs. private hands. From a pragmatist's point of view - my internet provider Xfinity charges pretty much the same as StarLink but with more restrictions, less speed and no portability. So, I welcome Musk as a competitor to Xfininty by price/services. Do I want that there be more competitors driving prices down/services up - of course. But I'm talking from the point of realism given the current situation - I'd Musk rather go for the smaller and smaller portals with more speed vs. banning Musk from owning StarLink. Am I terrified that again, something so important is in one pair of hands - yes, but I currently see no other options.
Your Mr. Friedrich Merz obviously knows someone who downgrades him in his own eyes into thinking himself as "middle class," in the face of a much bigger wealth:-)
We barrack for Russia because they are right and the West is wrong.
And we know the west is wrong in heinous ways. Deeply wrong.
So Russia is really fighting for us. We have a stake in it.
By our own declaration of rights and wrongs and the reality of the situation.
We have a stake.
So it would do us well to begin enumerating and evaluating all the losses we will suffer if the West, all those lunatics in nato and usa and kiev get their way.
List them. Contemplate them. Understand their significances. Spread the word.
They are spreading the converse word. They claim we all stand to lose if Russia wins. (Donbas Ukraine/Ukrainians, of course, don't get a mention. It's all about 'russia v the west' and we stupidly go along with the narrative).
We need to fight back and now's the time to start. The time to start was years ago and we didn't. So we need to start now.
It truly is not about what Donbas and Russia lose if they lose. It is about what we lose.
I don't have it all listed and well understand. Nope. Not at all.
But i can make a start by saying we lose bigtime in such a case in that our current 'leaders' and systems will be cemented in place then. We will be stuck with them ever much more firmly.
They will be emboldened and strengthened. They already couldn't give a damn for their populations, the western leaders, let them succeed in this and they'll do less than not give a damn they'll probably concentrate on really pushing us around.
I think of the things that got cemented in place post covid: their right to order us under house arrest at a whim, to make us wear useless, pointless masks, to make us fear human company and mandate with do not mix and mingle. to isolate our sick and old and subject them to lethal treatments and kill them. To mandate lethal treatments in hospital. To outlaw therapeutic measures and drugs. ALL of these still on their books, still in their armoury, now in many cases enshrined in recent legislation which streamlines it for them: they do not need a proven 'state of emergency' any more: they just do it when they feel like it.
I can contribute that much quite confidently.
But more knowledgeable persons than I should be helping to delineate just what peril we are in and let's get it up and visible and spread around everywhere.
Many very smart, very well informed people have been shouting from the rooftops since 2021 that what is taking place is a full on war on humanity, and for the survivors, what little remains of human freedom. And that is just the beginning. After the depopulation, they intend to utilise AI and robotics to replace most human labour including intellectual labour. The humans they keep around are to be treated like farm animals, with chips in their brains and capable of being reprogrammed wirelessly. Other than divine intervention, the odds of deeply disunited humanity responding effectively are slim. But, all thinking people should resist domination. After all, who would want to live in the hellscape these monsters intend to create?
Yes, I know. Don't you think the trouble with that is that it is too extreme? Too off the wall? Everyone who reads it just sees more alarmist oddball stuff.
Enslave the whole human race and so on...
Far fetched even if true inasmuch as it won't happen overnight.
We need dangers delineated, shown, exposed, that exist here and now.
After the kind perhaps that I listed.
It's going to be hard enough to get people to believe those.
Agree arthur. Lot's of buzz on Media control, but no action. We need an end to media figures presenting one side of the argument as the full and only story.
Related, a crackdown on Monopolies, of any kind. Microsoft has generated entirely too much disposable income. Who haven't they bought?
Again intertwined. I grew up in Mafia territory. The expansion and consolidation of criminal influence has surpassed those days in every way. It's as if they are universally in charge now.
They, being of no particular ethnicity. Simply, the culture of crime, not only pays, it is the only way forward. All the solutions offered to any problem, involve honoring decadence.
More egregiously, stripping the productive portions of society of all agency and giving it to ignorant bums, classic divide and conquer.
They are mainly american problems? Or the crime is? Or you think universal throughout the western world?
Would the West 'losing' in Ukraine put an end to them is the point?
Or any of the things I listed myself, the hangovers from covid?
Actually I don't think so.
The situation is not that good.
It is, to me, more a question of whether or not an alternative exists, whether or not they see any limitations on their conduct, whether or not their 'enslaved' masses see any limitations on their conduct.
If Russia and North Korea and the 'in principle' support of China etc and the intrinsic desire of the Donbas oblasts for freedom and self determination, if all of these lose then the western lunatics will see no limitations on what they can do.
They will engage in an orgy of plunder and browbeating, coercion, domination.
This will manifest down on the street level where i live as a government, my own government, browbeaten into acceding to all kinds of demands.
Such it was, with its own willing consent, at the time of covid.
But we will be told how much to 'spend on defence' ( i.e. send money to america for the weapons they want to sell us ). As has already happened and we've bought very expensive junk.
We will be told what medicines we can and can't have. As has already happened.
We will be told what medical procedures to adopt.
We will be told to inject our babies.
Our companies will be bought out by them whenever they see fit.
If your crime thing is right then inevitably as a concomitant of the influence of the us govt will come manifestations of that criminal aspect.
Probably we have a kind of example of that already with the Biden family in Ukraine.
Our govt. will be pressed to put our sovereign wealth into US Treasury bonds and forbidden to support any other avenue.
Wars and such strife will be fomented at a redoubled rate around the world and my govt will be pressed to send support here and there wherever the usa decides it wants it. We will in fact become a satrapy of the usa.
Our trade will be curtailed and directed as they see fit. Meaning what I pay for goods in my nation will be decided in Washington, from motor cars to a bar of soap in the supermarket.
Talking crime we can expect that the american model of private prisons will be forced on us and big usa money will move in and build them and that foul operation will begin. So that really, in effect, every one of our prisoners is a prisoner of the usa.
The americans ('the west' is, of course 'the americans', that's who/what we are talking about here. the uk is a bit of a wildcard, I'm not sure about, but for our purposes we can imagine we're looking at american success in ukraine or not) will not only tell us who we can trade with but also who we can meet with, talk with.
Individuals, like for instance David Irving, will be declared persona non grata at their discretion and we will have to follow suit. Their arguments, their speeches, their ideas will be closed book for us.
People will be locked up for years like Julian Assange simply because of american hatred of the truth being seen. We will be powerless to help our own.
Social media that reveals what they don't want revealed will be banned.
We will live in a cocoon of trade, commerce, information, legalities all decided by america.
Those things all exist now, I think.
If Russia loses then they will all increase in intensity.
If Russia wins they will not immediately go away. Not at all.
For them to go away we will need national consciousness of them, everyone to see them clearly, know about them, and then a popular demand of our governments that we refute them.
Which will need governments controlled by the people doing the will of the people and not the will of america.
So that's how it is important, to my mind, to have these things clearly described and instanced and promulgated so that we all know what is at stake here.
Seems crime spree is global. Fiat money driving corruption.
Well the national consciousness you speak of may never return. The evil ramifications of the big pharma mandates are many and truly discouraging. As is the level of US immigration.
Have they already replaced the herd with a generation that may actually be completely against the existing citizens who offered their sons to endlessly destroy vast stretches of the world with any resource to plunder. Now we naively accept immigrants from countries we destroyed.
In short I don't think the ancient royalty care who wins ww3, as long as they pocket the profit and power to continue their mandates, harvesting and culling as they see fit.
Many "smart", "well-informed" people are batshit crazy..Musk and Bezos, for example. Nobody is going to live on Mars, and nobody is going to be transformed into a cow (which are just athletic horses, really)..
Or claim to be. If they have shares in Moderna, say, then it is simply policy for them to claim such isn't it?
Many are recipients, possibly ( I really don't know ) of teenage blood transfusions in the hopes of rejuvenation. They are not going to tell us of that are they?
How could they keep such a secret?
Well they kept/keep the secret of Epstein's island didn't they/don't they?
And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
So which will you follow, ancient fairy tales or science? You lost me at Heidi Klum 🤷♂️ If Prince Harry can dress as a Nazi she can do whatever she wants, I suppose.
They will not see with their eyes and not hear with their ears. Sadly true.
” For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them”
hard to understand that assertion. everything has to be done 'right' to get to where you 'win', succeed, in anything.
in struggles to make progress for the human race there's none until the 'right', the correct and the best, is achieved: making it everything to do with winning.
I think perhaps you mean something after the style of a good person can lose against a bad person and so on. Being the army of the 'good' doesn't automatically mean you will win on the battlefield.
Well of course not. But that's the battle, not the war.
We have a couple of vivid examples before us now don't we?
Kiev Ukraine and Israel.
Both deeply wrong, children of hate.
Will the people of those states ever have 'won' if they manage to perpetuate those states in those forms?
Would you live in those states? Would you have your children go to schools in those states with those children and for that education?
Be them ever so prosperous, curse the thought, I'd deem them failed states still, losers, total losers.
There is a hell of a lot of not caring isn't there? You probably mean 'no one that matters' and that's true but it's even worse than that isn't it? No one at all seems to care about thousands of people in gaza being killed in the cruelest of ways.
That's one that disturbs me most. I can't get it out of my head that bombing and shelling don't just kill you like a bullet to the head. No. Those women and kids - let's be totally callous the way the world is and forget the men, call them all 'terrorists' - those women and kids die in bombed and shelled buildings and what sort of death is that likely to be? In apartment buildings, multi storey? Death by crushing from falling concrete blocks. Impalement from flying splinters, wood, steel, glass. Trapped beneath a mountain of rubble unable to move, to slowly die. Perhaps not just trapped but impaled or crushed somewhere at the same time.. dying in protracted agony.
No Arabs come to their help. Isn't that amazing? But nor do we come to their help. Isn't that more amazing? But not only that: we actually send help to Israel !! Isn't that filthily astounding?
Yep. No one seems to care. No one.
That's a measure of how failed we are, too. How 'failed state' we are.
And we won't get better until we start doing the right thing. Our nations won't improve, the world won't improve. Until the right thing is supreme there is no victory for anyone.
Human beings en masse don't seem to have any instinct for self preservation. They seem to prefer to bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything is alright.
That's what we are seeing everywhere isn't it? That's the 'not caring'.
My own nation is deteriorating as the years go by before my eyes. Freedoms removed, standards eroded, all manner of things. Generally no one seems to care.
You're right. No one cares. But that doesn't change the essential truth does it - there'll be no victory until the right is seen, known, done.
We just got to keep moving in that direction. Set our children on that path, don't we? All of use. And you know, millions of us are trying to do just that. I'd say it is actually the commonest thing in the world: parents trying to set their children's feet on the right path. All over the world
So that's a bit of a game changer maybe, isn't it? For looking from that perspective we can see that really everyone cares. Everyone.
Is it the voices saying that China is progressing that terrify you or is it that China is progressing? Isn't China doing things well better for the whole world than them doing things badly?
Hating it when others grow stronger and richer is just bitterness and anti-human.
And supremacist, which is very common among peoples in the west. They think they are better than everyone else and cannot accept they are surpassed by others. That spanish piece of trash from the EU even said "Europe is a garden, while everywhere else is a jungle".
Maybe you do, when you are terrified of those saying China is a bastion of progress, especially when compared to the west.
You clearly don't know what's going on in the west and like most people in western countries themselves, ignore what's around them and stay silent, sticking their head in the sand so that they don't know about those that do not stay silent, that are being arrested, silenced, killed, have their bank accounts frozen, lives threatened, etc, etc...Perhaps we can agree that if China isn't the bastion of progress, the western countries certainly aren't either, not even close.
Well, yes and no. Materially, no question. I'm writing this on a high speed train going through a tunnel under a mountain in Yunnan: the infrastructure is impressive, definitely.
Meanwhile "9-6-6" is common. That's the 72-hour workweek. Well-roundedness, work/life balance, individuality are values we in the West cherish but which are largely absent here. Of course a lot can be achieved in a more authoritarian society, especially when most people seem to be relatively bought in. But that's some of the reality.
For example if the government decided this very conversation was unacceptable, it could simply be disallowed. Would you accept that in return for a safer country where you live? It's a package deal, which btw not all Chinese accept, as expats in Thailand tell me.
Interested in the percentage accepting and not accepting. If the great majority accepts, why change. Change that often will affect the great majority in a negative way. I feel it is always a small minority that wants change and mostly for their own benefit.
And in the meanwhile here in Germany they kill the 8 hour workday after having raised the age of right for retirement.
Also, if the government decides here that your conversations are not acceptable, you get imprisoned, losing your job and/or your bank account is cancelled - or you get a visit from the police before dawn with 10-12 men invading your home and searching it.
In the US, the age of right for retirement is 67, and nobody made a sound to protest. We need to outsource protests/rioting to the French - they burned half-Paris when retirement age went to 64, and we must outsource to China the execution of our corrupt politicians/bankers. That's the only outsourcing, I'm ok with :-)
Why not include the robber barons of taxpayer money who prevent the people from early retirement?
Relevant protest has been killed in the US a long, long time ago.
An atomized, individualized society that exists by TikToc wisdom and refuses to read books is unable even to comprehend what's done to them.
Soon robots will make sure that millions are out of work/income and the US will not be able to handle this transition without civil war or going to war outside the US so the people can be slaughtered instead of taken care of by the then cheap produced wealth.
So you are terrified of reality or is that a simple supremacist / racist / xenophobic fear that no country, especially non-white, can be better than any western country ?
Either way, you are wrong to be terrified. Any rational being should view progress as a good thing, doesn't matter from where it came from.
I lived and worked in Peking in 1984 (nothing grand). My father was my country's 4th ever Ambassador to China. Back then he was warning our government about various aspects which were ignored. One of them was pollution.
If you think being critical of the CCP and the real, practical nature of Chinese economic expansion(ism) is OTT then you may well live in a part of the world that is not yet fully conversant with same or be in thrall to comical BYD salesmen like Professor Richard Wolff or that little Swiss ex-pat from the mis-titled "Neutrality Studies".
People in my part of the world are very, very aware of the rapacious and destructive aspects of the aforementioned so perhaps, calm down.
Don't know about your country. Last time I worked in Beijing was late summer 2010, and compared to my first visits in the early 1980s the air was remarkably clean, no comparison to, say, Mumbai, or Kampala. Still not perfect, and Chinese microblogs complained and mocked a lot.
Remarkable as tech and economic progress of China is, the extent of grassroot participation of the populace is even more. But go on with "ruthless tyranny of the CCP", so boring.
I believe it is CPC and not CCP. The later is used by anti-china media. So, you probably anti-china or you didn’t pay attention when you lived and worked there. There could ofc be another possibility.
Member parties of the international were usually named "Communist Party of *insert country here*", tho there were some exceptions (usually parties which didn't intend to join, but joined, or parties using languages with incompatible sentence composition).
It's because the idea of early communists was, that all of them are essentially local arms of the same thing working to achieve the same communism everywhere (sounds familiar, doesn't it?).
Eventually, those arms couldn't agree on how the socialist phase should look like and there went the international 😅😅😅
That's all well and dandy, but what you seem to ignore is that in the western world, things are getting worse, never better. Voices are silenced, elections are cancelled, censorship is rampant, control is pretty much complete, with food, energy, water and money almost completely centralized. People being arrested for posts on social media. Bank accounts being frozen because someone said something the western government doesn't like. And assassinations / terrorism against those that oppose the official narrative is also rising. Among many other authoritarian and fascist things that are happening every single day in the western world. And let's not forget Ukraine, the largest concentration camp in the world, where people are kidnapped off the streets to go fight in a war that the west wants to continue, against Russia. All of it, sponsored, financed, armed by western countries, actively supporting nazism, without a doubt the most disgusting and violent ideology on the planet. Not exactly sure what in China is worse than what the west is doing. Seems to me that at most, the west is as bad in all these things, as China is. However, at least we see China developing new technologies that actually can improve human societies. Meanwhile the west charges more taxes and worsens living conditions, to build weapons and create wars to kill people, in order to conserve its power and influence. If you asked me, the west is worse in every metric because of everything I highlighted here and that is getting worse every day.
Also, it's CPC, not CCP. CCP is used by western propaganda, which you clearly consume.
So your ideas and understanding about China are 40 years out of date? You should talk about the USSR too, it was contemporaneous with your knowledge...
Rupert, firstly I would be VERY VERY cautious about putting ANY personal or family details out on the open internet, even seemly minor details. Enough said.
Secondly, about the more substantive matter, the current and future state of China. That discussion requires hard facts and conclusions logically drawn from those facts,
"People in my part of the world are very, very aware of the rapacious and destructive aspects..." isn't that, it isn't even an opinion it's an opinion about the opinions of some other people.
Start with facts that can be openly seen and discussed.
Then we can have that discussion.
(Although perhaps not here, another forum might be more suitable)
Progress is by the people for the people, like in China now - noticing that your life improves year by year and you are able to build a brighter future for your children.
I lived in the time when Soviet Russia was the Evil Empire, a totalitarian state that was striving for world hegemony, while the USA was the white knight fighting the evil dragon. Now the situation has turned 180 degrees. It is the US and its vassals that constitute the new Evil Empire, striving for world hegemony, while Russia is the new white knight fighting the western degenerates. How things can change!
Anyway, you are right, exexpat, Russia must win, otherwise our civilization is doomed.
Which goes to show, the PR has always been total projection, through and through. US was always 'fighting the commies'.... while indiscriminately bombing civilians and destroying entire countries (Cambodia / Laos).
Don't forget North Korea. Whether he is a communist or not, any honest individual understands the politics of this country better when he knows how that land was bombed to smithereens by the Americans. North Korea doesn't want to experience this nightmare another time. That's why they have built their nuclear deterrence force... There's a reason for everything.
You mistake the propaganda of that time for reality of that time. The situation has not changed at all, because today's propaganda tells you exactly the same. If anything has changed - it is your understanding what reality is and what propaganda. May be you should start to reevaluate your childhood's believe?
I lived then too (in the U.S.). Now that I've lived in Russia for a few decades (due to marriage) and have had a chance to read through old Pravda issues from the 60s onward - all I can say is, average Soviets were much better informed about world events and what was happening in their country than we were about ours.
The most shocking thing to me to learn was that there were Radio Shack-like stores in cities, and building shortwave radios wasn't any problem - it was common for people to do, completely legal, and didn't put you on any watch list or anything like that. We were told Russians were repressed and kept in the dark about the world. But that's exactly why VoA existed and broadcast on shortwave - to get included in the large number of western stations Russians had full access to listening to.
Our ideas about the Soviet Union back in the 80s and before were frozen in time with Stalin and never changed. The livery cab drivers in NYC had a lot of good stories - all Russian expats in the early to mid 90s. A lot of long rides from Manhattan to my place in Jersey after the trains stopped running. They mostly missed home. Sold my parents' Lincoln Town Car to some dude who was exporting it to St. Petersburg. Apparently those big boxy cars were popular in Russia.
I also had a number of expats from the old SU in my geek circle during that era. The one I knew best was an ethnic Russian who had grown up in Tajikistan. He appreciated the greater access to better chips and such in the West, but within the technological and supply limitations of the Soviet state, he was able to build a lot of stuff.
So yeah, our ideas were warped by propaganda. The conclusion I came to was that during the early 1970s, living standards started to approach parity in Russia, across the board. They diverged afterwards due to the deluge of consumer goods in the West.
"Roses Have Thorns" is an incredible documentary. Undeniably hard to watch at points (the episode linked in this article is particularly brutal) but undeniably necessary viewing.
When you cut through the media noise and propaganda theatrics, what’s happening on the ground tells the real story: it’s one of slow, calculated dominance. While the West obsesses over optics and narrative control, Russia is grinding forward with discipline and strategic coherence, reshaping the map kilometer by kilometer.
This isn’t about flashy breakthroughs or grand speeches; it’s about willpower, attrition, and an understanding that victory belongs not to those who shout the loudest but to those who stay the course when others exhaust themselves chasing headlines.
It is also about fighting the entire western alliance, NATO+, not just Ukraine, which those who hammer Russia for being too slow, forget. Russia has not just had to take, but to hold and secure each kilometre of land- for ever, not as some bargaining point, as the Ukkies claimed was the point of their failed Kursk offensive, amongst so many other ex post facto rationales! It was supposed to be worth all those men dying for some negotiating chip which Russia had already rejected outright.
But it wasn't about that, of course. It was about a nutty British James Bond plan to take the Kursk NPP and hole up there with some real leverage. That went as well as this entire NATO operation to grab Russian resources.
I think virtually all of Harvard's Journalism School graduates would disagree with you; an entire strata of AUKUS and European society believes that "victory belongs to those who shout the loudest".
Plus Russia is slowly training a population with real combat experience, anf promoting the veterans to civic duties. They will become an unstoppable nation, while we fall apart in apathy and disgust at our western so-called democracy.
To my surprise there French fighting with…Russians, just leaked on a F broadcast, they say 30. How many others from EU countries? Probably not battalions but small units and aren’t they small Trojan horses perhaps well trained in handling drones at their return?
And Russia would be happy to have you. Decree №702 of the Russian Federation (signed by Putin last year) grants foreign citizens and stateless persons the right to move to Russia and obtain a temporary residence permit (TRP) in a simplified manner — without considering the established quota and without undergoing testing for knowledge of the Russian language, history, and legislation.
All that's necessary is talking to consular staff at a Russian embassy or consulate, and obtaining a 90-day tourist visa:
Granted, you wouldn't be a Russian man - that's about ethnicity. There's a guy whose great grandfather ended up in the village my Dacha is in who was from Sweden - and he's still called "the Swede" by everyone, generations later. But a Russian *citizen*, yes.
Meanwhile the West is quite literally falling apart. Forget those tiny votes in the UK yesterday, where so few people turn out in local elections you can get in on the back of a handful of family and friends loyally showing up for you.
The peoples of the west, as evidenced in elections in Canada and Australia, have decided that they prefer life on the old never-never to facing reality. None of them want to go off and die for any cause, just stay at home lost in the dream of a consumer paradise they never earned and which some one else has to pay for, oh, and ideally die for too- which is where Russia came in as the last low slung pocket to pick, with the value of the nutty new europeans in the borderlands fingered as the ones to die for this 'cause'. The great reserve and the ballast.
So far, beyond Ukraine, and not even all of its people as Z keeps trying to tell his western masters, the handy nutters have dug in their heels and refused to go over the top, at any rate, not without rotten old europe and the US coming in on the ground and in the air, flesh and blood that is, too. That was never the plan!
Here is the western mantra- find someone else to pay for our lifestyle, and in due course to die for it as and when required. Easy peasy.
Best of luck with this model of civilisation going forward.
It's working for about more or less 500 years and even the in-fight between the old European powers has not broken this system of rape, plunder and find others who pay for their life style.
The western world just starts ending noticeably for who wants to see, it just will drag many into misery and death on it's way into history.
Nah, Frank, western ordinary folks used to get thrown on the fire along with the officer class, and even the king who was expected to lead from the front. Blood sacrifice. Where is that now? One way or another, what you get, you 'earn'.
The King dying in battle is a long long time ago, blood sacrifice is expected from the commoner since time and time again.
In that brief period of my life that I had to be in contact with the more wealthy people of the part that we know as west-Europe I have experienced so much disdain and inhuman talk about the common man, it's mind boggling.
They really feel entitled to their 'earned' place in society and see the rest of us as disposable, human trash that is simply to serve and follow orders.
And what do we see among the west plus the USA? Common people compare their oligarchs, who has the biggest private island, the latest gulf stream jet, the biggest yacht and so on. They celebrate an Elon Musk that is robbing them blind, vote for a billionaire Trump that this time for sure will honor their interests.
Stupidity & Ignorance has taken over, celebrated and encouraged, started with Ophra and Jerry Springer and has now degenerated to TikToc wisdom and 'influencers'.
There is no end in sight of this madness in the west and I fear that this will lead us into a bloody mess amongst ourself and a unprecedented wide spread hatred against the more intelligent and developed cultures as the chinese & russians.
In what universe is Elon Musk robbing the US blind? By making cars people want to drive? Creating a world-wide internet that people want to use? By tracking down the incredible amount of waste that is the US govt? I'm not saying Musk is a messiah, but robbing us blind?
He's robbing you blind by extracting huge amounts of public money from the government to transfer it into his own pockets to do with as he pleases.
His cars 'people want to drive' have never ever made profit for more than 10 years, his starlink is a public founded private show that no one has asked for.
Elon Musk is a no one from South Africa, born into a racist, wealthy family and build up by the black funds of the CIA plus redirected public money.
That's what I mean by people in the west celebrate their oppressors and kissing their behinds for the chance to look up to them, feeling good about themself to have such mighty idiots amongst them - you mean you can't make billions by being an idiot?
With the right connections and the lack of scruple and being on the right time at the right place, everyone can become a billionaire, just not all ;-)
Touched a nerve, eh? Obviously you have a visceral dislike of Musk, and I would say likely every magnate in the world. Of course, without his ilk we'd still be in caves. Billionaire or not, somebody has to have the vision and put all the pieces together with absolutely no guarantees of success. Workers don't spontaneously come together and create factories and industries. We don't hear much about most of the losers, but there are many for every major success. They had dreams, too. But they had bad planning, bad product, bad timing, bad luck -- any or all of the above. And they either lost everything or barely eked by. In the US we do celebrate the winners. And we should, because without them we'd be using horse-drawn plows and starving every time the weather turned against us. In additino, many of the winners were also losers for a long time. Like many musicians have said, "after ten years in the business I was an overnight success."
As for Musk, one of his car models was the single best selling car in the US (before the hate machine took over; don't know where it is now). I would suspect that means that somebody wished to purchase them.
For a fraction of the NASA budget he created a space program that puts them to shame. Boeing as well, obviously. Nobody asked for them? Well, a whole lot of people are using them. Besides, what is this 'asked for' thing you bring up. He wanted to do it and did it, hoping that the gamble would pay off. There were certainly no guarantees that his rockets would work -- and for a long time they failed. I remember his early attempts to land boosters on the ship. They crashed. They landed -- in the sea. But eventually, he got them to work and quite reliably, too. No, he didn't do it personally, but without Musk it doesn't happen. And he and his investors would have lost a whole lot of money chasing a wild goose.
Some of his ventures did not work out. That is life. But if you aren't willing to fail you'll never succeed.
With regards to his DOGE venture, he takes no pay and it has cost him a huge amount of money personally. He went from the darling of the left to public enemy number 2 (after Trump). He didn't have to do this. US gov't spending (and thus the debt) is totally out of control. He really doesn't want his adopted country to crash and burn. It may anyway, but he's trying.
You mentioned elsewhere that you had dealings with the uppercrust types and were dismayed by the contempt they had for the working man. In Britain you have all the hereditary class stuff. In the US that position is taken by the bureaucrats.
StarLink vs. Xfinity - you get more speed/better reception with Starlink vs. Xfinity. Elon didn't need to buy X. He bought it at a loss. He also didn't have to make public the FBI/Gov intrusion into Twitter, on the contrary. X is not ideal, but Elon stated he'd pay for the legal fees for anybody who lost a job for something they said on Twitter/X. Don't see Instagram, FB doing anything like that. Zuck only "saw the light" and bend the knee when Trump was winning. Elon risked by backing Trump at a crucial moment, I'm pretty sure it would end ugly for him, if Trump lost. Musk also runs/staffs the schools for the kids of his workers, to ensure that sciences properly taught, vs. like in my Dem-run state, with all IT HQs, Boeing, biotechs, but the hard-core sciences are being replaced with social sciences and... choir. Is Musk perfect? Hell, no! But I don't see him as the devil you try to paint him to be.
People like you make the perfect slaves because you allow your oppressors to completely blind you. But don't feel bad because you are part of the majority.
What cause should a Canadian veteran such as I be dying for? Sorry, but whose army did YOU serve in and what was YOUR role?
Do you imagine that because we elected a competent manager to counter Trump in lieu of a rabid populist (who has spent 20 years in government accomplishing nothing and whose over arching goal seems to be to bring back plastic straws) that we don't know which way is up? 🤔 Check yourself, ma'am.
You clowns voted for Brexit out of ignorance and fear, and you can't blame Carney for trying to get you out of your own shit..looks good on Britain, frankly. You need to sit down and stop making noises about Ukraine that you can't back up, because you're not an empire anymore thanks to Thatcher, et al..
Carney's damage came before brexit, PP, as did the entire global financial crisis. I think this would be a good time for you to give the keyboard a rest.
By the by, I have a no brief for a shameful little self important kingdom whose wealth was founded on slavery. I don't mean Canada.
You want me to give the keyboard a rest before you run out of vapid slogans, I'll wager 🙄 What "damage" did Carney do, then..be very specific, if you please, no more of this boiler-plate gibberish and vague insinuation.
I am not going to retread common knowledge. He was a disaster for the UK economy, damage he wantonly inflicted that was then magically shifted to covid, as he beat a hasty retreat. Covid, remember, that overblown affair that provided cover for some truly stupendous bailouts of messes generated in the grand QE experiment which Carney recklessly expanded with covid providing cover for the bail outs of the existing mess, which mess included auto-loans and the commercial property sector (REITs to you). I could go on and on but what is the point?
Were you not on the planet at the time? He was a bad joke. But as I said, this is for you Canadian born-yesterdays to find out now he is your boss-man. Why would I want to spoil the surprise? We can both watch it unfold in real time and then you can come back, if this board is still running, and doff your cap to my foresight. He can certainly print money so watch out for your Canadian dollars.
Wow, thanks for such poetic words about the evil ritual that took the lives of peaceful protesters in Odessa. I'll just add here for posterity's sake that something almost identical happened back in 1941 when Romanian fascist forces, after their HQ was blown up by mines left behind by the retreating Soviets, took a number of innocent civilians, locked them in a building, and burned them to death in reprisal.
There is some dark blood that's been spilled in Odessa over the years, and it's not for nothing that its most enduring visual legacy is a baby helplessly bouncing its way to its death down the stairs leading to the port.
The Romanians doing it was only a very small part of what happened back then.
The German Nazis in WWII, and their Ukronazi collaborators, used to do this on an industrial scale -- round up all the inhabitants of a village, usually in the local church (and those were often wooden churches in the villages), set it on fire, shoot whoever tried to crawl out, thus doing both physical and cultural genocide (population plus Orthodox church both gone)
That is how thousands of villages were completely destroyed, all around Belarus, western Russia and Ukraine.
And that has been deeply imprinted on the minds of Russians. Classic movies like Come and See feature exactly such scenes.
The Odessa case was a reenactment of the same pattern, sending a clear message. Round up the Russians, in the very symbolic Trade Union House building (Russians in Ukraine are all commies under the Ukronazi narrative), set it on fire, finish off whoever tried to crawl out.
Very symbolic.
Crocus City was the same kind of operation too, BTW.
What was an absolute must after that was for Putin to mobilize a million men and march on Kiev and then Lvov. But he didn't because reasons. And even he now acknowledges that was a mistake.
There is more weight to your argument than many might admit. I tend to give Putin the benefit of the doubt because what is playing out with Russia and Ukraine is really part of a global conflict/ reordering. There are a lot of moving parts and not all of Ruusia's leadership was aligned with Russian interests having been compromised back in the 1990s.
But the comments about Odessa-style shashlik are not hyperbole. Demyan Ganul one time member of Right Sector and orchestrator of the fires / deaths annually posted pictures of himself grilling shish-kebabs on the anniversary of the massacre.
Not all Ukrainians are facists but facism has so embedded itself in Ukraine with Western support that the only way to remove it it is to take the country.
You're right the US has 80+ years manipulating the conditions for this outcome and West Europe has over a century invested in developing the conditions in Ukraine and in their own countries to support this Machiavellian endeavor.
The grotesque anti-Russian ideology will not go away as long as part of the nation of Ukraine remains. It is based on deep seated dehumanization. For Ukrainian fascists (Banderaists) Russians are not human. I've been told this many times. There is no room for diplomacy with that perspective.
When someone says, "You're not human and have no right to live" at the same time they assert they are the only truly human civilization, they have created an irreconcilable impasse.
Correction: back in the 1980s the latest. Starting a couple decades earlier.
>Not all Ukrainians are facists but facism has so embedded itself in Ukraine with Western support that the only way to remove it it is to take the country.
Exactly. Nazism and the very idea of Ukraine are so inextricably linked that there can be no non-Nazi Ukraine. And that meand Ukraine has to end.
But the current Kremlin posture is anything but what it has to be for that to be a realistic prospect.
And here lies the crux, even after Ukraine has ended, there will be a ratline again, the west will rescue those who should be prosecuted and judged like back in 1945 when the US made sure that many escaped their well deserved punishment.
Then they will build them up again like they keep doing in the USA and Canada since WWII has ended.
In Germany they have hidden in plain sight, taught their children to hate Russia plus all the less worthy people on the planet and that it is their birth right to own Russians and the countries wealth.
Meaning going over to the Polish border and then doing **de-Ukrainization**. With absolute ruthlessness and conviction, to successful completion.
Nothing of the sort was done after WWII.
I am not sure how Stalin was feeling about that idea, if it ever crossed his mind, but one would think that was the time to take away the right to secession of the republics from the constitution, and to even abolish some of them. Ukraine being a prime candidate. It was done on other occasions -- Karelia was subsumed into the RSFSR in the 1950s.
But he didn't do it.
Then Khrushchev amnestied the Banderites in the mid-1950s. And their equivalents in the Baltics too. It is how you the infamous sequence of:
Nazi grand-grandfather --> grandfather in GULAG --> father a high ranking member of the Estonian communist party --> Kaja Kallas.
Same thing happened in Ukraine, of course.
Russia must:
1) End Ukrainian statehood
2) Get to the current Polish border (don't leave anything to the Poles, that territory will be used against Russia eventually)
3) De-Ukrainize. Those who want to be Russian again stay, those who have Nazi tattoos or social media history of glorifying Bandera are physically disposed of, those who want to go to Canada or wherever can flee west.
4) Build up a new Iron Curtain to defend against NATO.
There will be nothing to build up then, unless Europe wants to go to war directly. In which case a sufficient quantity of mushroom clouds should quickly dissuade them from that idea.
Technology is on Russia's side now. Back in the 1940s and 1950s OUN could hide in the mountains and in various basements for years. Today with all electronic communications being under surveillance it will not be possible to maintain partisan activity for very long once the territory is firmly occupied.
Except the mushroom talking I am in preference for a more true and harsh approach against the Nazis this time.
Russia needs to assure the collective West in clear terms that marching east will be their end, physically as state entities and population wise.
Compromise with Na*ies leads only to an endless war, hybrid and by terrorist actions.
In the end it will be up to the western societies, want to go on like this=Oligarchs against the people or want to embrace the China-system, by the people for the people.
(1) In the Sumy direction, RF army continues puts pressure, developing offensive from Zhuravka to Belovody, advancing in the Loknya area and in the border forest belts.
(2) Russian snipers destroyed more than 50 Ukrainian "Baba Yaga"-type hexacopters near Pokrovsk
I am in Thailand and on Buddhas eight fold path. And also sending many Thai girls thru hair and nail colleges. I have unplugged but I return to the USA shortly, so I exposed myself to a limited amount of news. And of course, our esteemed host is a must.
Many find it odd that an American combat veteran holds the following view. But I saw it. And I bear the stains.
My country is evil. A longer and more complete reign of terror than Hitler.
Ernest, you'll risk to be ïnvited for an interview once you touch ground in your homeland. Things and procedures have changed a lot. But on the Positive side you may get free accomodation, free food and some limited Health Care while sitting in a Cell with shackles. I know what i'm talking about. Very similar experience upon arrival in Krautland last year.
Perhaps you know Krautland, but my brothers have wives in Thailand and spend a lot of time there. No issues whatsoever coming back into the US. Why should there be? I spend half the year in our house in Ireland. Likewise, I get nothing more than a 'welcome home' from immigration upon my return to the US.
As an aspiring Buddhist, you have the example of King Ashoka who, when he truly grasped his contribution to dukkha through his lust for power and land won through warfare, repented of these things, and did his best to advance knowledge of the Eightfold Path in his realm. Sincerity is all. We’re all doing what we can based upon that.
Still see you occasionally over at Larry Johnson’s place. Keep on keepin’ on, Wolf.
Sorry but I am beginning to suspect that Russia will lose this war. There seems to be no limit to the amount of meat Ukraine can press gang to their inevitable deaths and I am beginning to suspect most if not all Ukrainian casualties in this war are essentially press ganged Russian slaves while the true blue Ukrainian patriots shake their butts in Kiev, excuse me, KYUVVEEF. Add to this one trillion drones and Ukrane might literally hold out for decades if not generations, especially with pesky mercs plugging gaps.
It troubles me greatly that China is not flooding Russia with hundreds of millions of artillery shells. I don't know why they hesitate. Do they suspect that hesitation will earn them a reprieve when its time to Ukranianify Taiwan? It won't.
The fact that China is currently being rattled by traffifs shows a truth - the USGAY, despite its ten trillion unforced and degenerate errors, possesses a vast economic and financial power that dwarfs everything on earth combined and while they may not have have China or Russian's pure military industrial complex base there is nothing stopping the US from pumping out tens of trillions of d cheap plastic drones a month and flooding them into Ukraine, or simply paying someone else to do this for them with their infinite money hack. Russia is strong and China is strong but they aren't fighting together, only North Korea is doing the right thing whereas the USA can call upon a continent of dickless slaves (Europe) to do whatever it wants.
I hope I'm wrong, I'd LOVE to be wrong, maybe I'm just depressed today, but guys, I've been waiting for VICTORY for three years now and all I see is an endless pile of dead Russians, Russian Russians and Ukranian Russians and the American MIC counting their blood soaked money readying for the next round. There will be no ceasefire, there will be no quarter, there will be no diplomacy, there will be an endless flood of bone, blood and metal until one side shatters and I'm not sure that side won't be Russia. I think it was a grave mistake to not go nuclear during the Kherson and Zhaphoriza counteroffensives and i think it's a grave mistake not to go nuclear today.
Russia says a world without Russia is not worth living in - I agree - so prove it - incinerate those with hellifre that are trying to eliminate Russia - today!!!
Maybe you were tired when you wrote this comment. Didn't you see the footage of a Russian drone taking out a half-dozen soldiers as they were about to leave an AFV, in this very article? Did you think that was a lucky strike and that this doesn't happen often and even worse for them? Russia's drone production is not behind Ukraine's and can be said that is potentially even superior. Just see the recent massive attacks done in Odessa recently, plus what they are using daily on other front lines.
Who are "they"?
Oi, vei, antisemitism!
More spam again and always a 'like'. Please give up.
True said
Who is they ?
When I got the polio vaccine when It was first developed, it was delivered by a drop on a sugar cube. A nice nurse put a drop of a purple liquid on the cube and gave it us, one by one of a long line of kids. So, a food-born vaccine is possible, but logistically problematic.
ok boomer
There was a great opportunity in the first three months of Trump’s presidency to bring the war to an end. But the window of this opportunity seems to have been closed. Diplomatic institutionalists like Vice President J.D. Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff seems to being sidelined by hawkish neocons and the ‘business as usual’ bureaucrats. Whenever I hear Lindsey graham name coming back again with regards to foreign policy, It feels like this war will be fought to its conclusion,,
But not by US boots. This much is clear. The US admin thinks (or thought) it can (could) bomb Russia into submission (as it is so successfully doing against ansar allah!) acting from some remote safe place. Or blast it with economic sanctions. (Yawn). But no one in the US government or opposition, political or media, is advocating any US citizens actually be obliged to go out and die there.
So the US involvement will dwindle into noise. Trump does noise. You might think we are here already, but there is still some depth of Ukraine fighting force bolstered by mercs who have to paid (hence that 50 million quid hastily transferred) to be funded, fuelled and burned through. Which is why Russia is pressing on and may have to go beyond its minimum new boundaries, to establish its own security- if the west continues to flog this war.
I dont think any US admin, ever, since shortly after WW2 (with "Unthinkable" etc), thought it could "bomb Russia into submission". That's technically impossible against the world's premier nuclear superpower (with by far the best AD and ABM in the world).
The plan was always subversion, over-extension, sanctions, color revolution etc. Only that it failed quite miserably this time around, as well.
As always the Jew is the problem.
Sounds like jewish state mentality indeed. The same glee of exterminating the “others.”
“This safety, i.e. the complete impossibility of the people being killed to even spit at the killers, caused a particularly acute delight. No, it was not the thrill of battle, where the enemy had a chance - it was the thrill of a sadist who tortures a helpless victim in complete safety. And finally, the opportunity to kill maimed and burned people, who are no longer capable of any resistance, not even begging for help - this is the last, the sweetest note that touches a Ukrainian's soul.”
That was a precursor of the ongoing Gaza slaughter. Zionists and Banderites are indistinguishable.
There are documented stories of Jewish Zionists collaborating with the Nazis for release of just the Zionist Jews for deportation. In terms of ideology, Zionism matches Nazism for xenophobia and racism, just as Ukraine's Banderites. Fascism always does this targeting of a vulnerable minority or people for the purpose of political unity.
"It Would Take Russia Centuries And Tens Of Millions Of Casualties To Capture Ukraine"
It would seem a large percentage of dupes have only this type of propaganda to examine. If google, microsoft and facebook run your phone, how are you gonna make sense of the conflicting details?
You cannot piece together the events of Maidan and the UA title pleading Dignity. Your only option is unrestrained hate. What tyrannical devices make such brain washing so powerful?
Still Billions can not face the disaster of Covid Truth. They instead find comfort blaming Putin for, well everything that the media proposes. No matter how jarring the lack of accurate predictions or warnings. Just like Covid! How does one overlook Biden's declared intention for Nordstream?
Meanwhile the most feeble of bloggers crank out one accurate prediction after another, for decades now, with pathetically small followings and no serious traction with the demented mass of shameful sheep.
Please be more clear who a 'Jew' is. I have known Jews all my life, some intimately, and none have been a problem. Those Jews who adopted Christian Zionism are indeed a problem, and when I write of them, I will always say, "Jewish Zionists" or just "Zionists." This distinction is important as the Jewish Zionists get much of their mojo from the Christian Zionists (like Joe "I am a Zionist" Biden). Jewish Zionism is a heresy of Judaism and is an abomination, just as Christian Zionism is a heresy of Christianity.
Well said Tedder.
I would say the most miserable outcome yet. Here they wind up facing a barely subdued foe, (N Korea) they thought they had vanquished. Joining forces with a country they held as an important ally and regular cohabitate the ISS with. It's ridiculous.
Should we revisit the outcome of our US civil war based on who the Confederacy allied with, UK? Or who the USSR stood up for, the Union?
Now because they won't submit, a trait the USA used to admire, we condemn the Russians. Just like the Palestinians. How dare they insinuate they have any claim to dignity or their own country? Sovereignty is only the purvey of elite oligarchs, get used to it!
Don't forget France. In 1863, Tsar Alexander II sent Russian Navy to protect SF and NYC harbors against invasion by Britain and France with an ultimatum that if the above would interfere in the internal affairs of the US, they'd find themselves @war with Russia. It's really sad that Americans don't even know their own history
To me it's fascinating now, but in HS I only studied girls. Duh! University was worse after 3 years on a nuke sub. Two of my sisters have PhDs and then there is the rich one! My claim to fame? HS dropout.
Cool how the Canadians sided with the South as well. So without Russia we'd all be whistling Dixie.
Could it be said that really Russia is our most consistent ally?
How much of Germany's economic domination was fueled by cheap, hi quality, reliable Russian energy? Not much gratitude trying Kursk all over again!
Yup fickle idiots. We'll just go over and stomp em! Just like Napoleon!
Usually, any country that attacks Russia tends to lose its status of a great power, like Sweden in 1708 (in current Ukraine), when Tsar Peter the Great defeated the armies of Swedish King Charles XII in a battle @ Poltava. King Charles fled to Turkey. Sweden never regained its prior status as a great power.
LOL "successfully bombing ansar allah!". You mean USA is killing civillians in Yemen and being humilliated by Yemen armed forces, that destroy USA drones and planes and forcing air craft carriers to run away ?
Also, there are plenty of USA troops in Ukraine. They handle HIMARS, ATACMS strikes and also handle Patriot air defenses, many of which have been destroyed by the russians, and hundreds if not thousands have already been killed in Ukraine and those are great news. The more USA terrorists are killed, the better. If USA ever makes the mistake to put even more USA terrorists in Ukrain, more will be killed.
USA's involvement will not dwindle at all. The "peace" attempts happened because USA is getting its ass kicked in Ukraine and to re-arm its nazi force in Ukraine, it needed time. Time the russians won't give them. So as the supremacists they are, USA will just continue what it's doing, because of hubris / arrogance and will be crushed nonetheless.
And if they continue trying to do to Taiwan, what they did to Ukraine, China will humiliate USA into submission. Once again remember that ansar allah! by itself, with much less sophisticated weapons and capabilities, than China or Russia, is making USA run away...so imagine what a real army can do to USA. Also remember that USA doesn't even have hypersonic missiles nor the ability to defend against them. If USA ever thinks of pushing toward nuclear war, the planet will suffer for sure, but USA will be completely wiped out, which in the end is the only way for peace to come to this planet: making USA a wasteland.
Well put. There is also the fact, that if one puts aside the hyperbole of Yankee supremacy, its military has a lot of queers, cross-dressing queers, weak the wimmins and other assorted shit. Yankland's strategy has always been to go against lesser forces, bomb the shit out of them and then march triumphal over the ruins and claim to be brave.
lol. Recent f-18 crash with dei (diversity equity and isreal) women ‘pilots’ and an f-18 fall off the uss Truman. Hope the houthis hit one of the floating ghettos soon.
Yeah gays like Alexander the Great, Charles XII and Frederick the Great. What did they know about War?
Meanwhile the British General Staff, male, Public School and Caucasian to a man has done a sterling job of running the Ukrainian war effort.
Well said!
Oh wait. The Yemeni's now have to face the UK's Aircraft Carrier:
Robert Stevens 27 April 2025
The Prince of Wales aircraft carrier left its Portsmouth, England base on Tuesday this week for an eight month deployment to the Indo-Pacific. Dubbed Operation Highmast, the carrier is the lead ship in the UK’s Carrier Strike Group 25 (UKCSG).
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/27/lcrv-a27.html
Well, that will be a real threat to the Houthis ? The UK was happy the Aircraft Carrier made it even out ot the Port in Portsmouth without being swallowed right there.
I'm sure the Yemen armed forces are trembling.....;D
Wouldn't mind seeing that one being sunk for good.
No, please no. She serves the world much better if she's kept floating. Royal Navy will waste massive amounts of resources because they can't let their carriers go.
If someone sinks her, Brits might suddenly have enough money to fix their second submarine.
Some (expensively repairable) damage then?
Would bolster reputations all round.
Has it run aground yet? ;o)
Is this the one UK fixed with superglue?
The Houthis will die - of laughter
Houthis will tremble @ the thought of all that rum, the lash & sodomy coming their way!
Is it armed? I know it has "rum, the lash & sodomy".
I suggest a new populist movement: Make America Last
It is already hard at work and seems to be making good progress👍
Make America Shaddup For Once!
Unfortunately, you are right. We always get bamboozled. "End the war in 24 hours"
If the Americans were suffering all these casualties, where are the American POWs, where are the hospitals clogged with American wounded, where are the American combat amputees, where are the wives, girlfriends and mothers of missing Americans demanding answers as to where Johnny went and why has nobody heard from him.
I am willing to believe that there are plenty of American troops in combat. But they are not suffering many casualties. Inwish they were.
You are clearly a western media consumer and thus are extremely badly informed. In fact, you're not informed at all. First of all, the USA casualties are in the hundreds at the very least, considering "mercenaries" (read USA troops) only. All the others in HIMARS, ATACMS, Patriot ADs, etc are killed / wounded and are taken to european hospitals / morgues, namely in Germany, where then there are a lot of "sudden deaths" and/or "death during training" certificates created by the military. There will never be an official acknowledgement of these USA terrorists being in Ukraine. Remember those 3 or 4 USA troops (read terrorists) that "drowned in a swamp" in Romania recently ? Given what you just wrote, I'm sure you believe that without questions...
Your premise is entirely wrong. I was thinking, actually about how the Soviets unsuccessfully tried to keep the populace from finding out about casualties in Afghanistan.
Three or four troops is one thing. But not the casualties that people here are talking about , casualties on any scale.
But whatever you have to tell yourself to avoid facing unpleasant facts.
100.000 are hard to hide.
The casualties are being concealed as training accidents. There have been more of these fatal "training accidents" in the last 3 years than in the previous 30 years.
Didn't we have a general and some colonels dying supposedly "here" but in the accidents able to produce bits and pieces? So they might be brought in from Ukraine
I am willing to believe that a liaison party or two got whacked, but that does not, for the reasons I have given, mean that combat troops are present in material numbers.
Yes, the occasional body bags, but certainly not a steady stream, how it inescapably would be if substantial numbers of the "boots on the ground" were present In Ukraine. Plus, I don't think they're actually at the front front.
"Trump does noise"- I often wish I could Trumpet outta my fat ass as well as The Donald does!
Trump had to give the appearance of trying fulfill his campaign promise, I'll grant you that.
Most people misread his faux "devils advocacy" for the acceptance of many of Russia's terms as either the musings of a deranged lunatic (his enemies) or as a sincere attempt at mediation (his supporters). Trump is not a mediator. The observer class, like Helmer, etc., saw it for what it was, Kabuki Theatre.
The outrage of the European and Ukrainian political class was predictable, Trump's team must have calculated that in advance and can now say to Europe; "you handle a bigger share of it.". The US will continue to support Ukraine if others do more.
As for sentiments of the "common folk" in Ukraine, they just want it to end so they can get on with life, even if it means surrendering territory. Partner was on the bus in Canada this week and overheard a man, fit, 35ish, talking (in Russian) to his parents back home. They were saying how much they missed each other and looking forward to being together again. They discussed the recent public Russian proposals for a settlement vs the hardline official position of Ukraine and were completely baffled by Kyiv's "logic".
Though I can't help but wonder what kind of reception those who evaded mobilization are going to get if and when they return. The ultra-nationalists that remain will not be kind to them.
It’s easy for Zelensky and friends to fight till the end, because either way they’ll be living in multi-million dollar houses/apartments in NYC, Paris, or London.
That’s the real logic to understand about Ukrainian leadership.
Hmm, perhaps. I think there has been more than enough terrorism against individual Russians to guarantee Zelensky some lethal payback in due course.
That’s probably correct. They’ll be killed in Europe.
So whatnhas Russia been waiting for?
Zelensky is a dead man walking. The Israelis would never let such an enemy of theirs to continue on, unaffected - and there are signs that Putin and the Kremlin think much the same way (cf. plonium-210 poisonings, done to deliberately send a message since only a handful of breeder reactors in the world can even manufacture the material).
Are all those "handful of breeder reactors" in Russia?
Russia produces the sole supply, 4 to 5 grams per year;
Actually, the whole "poisoning by polonium-210" is a canard.
The guy poisoned was a freelancer trying to smuggle some to Muslim Brotherhood agents; he and his clothes, his luggage, were irridated as the nitwit couldn't use proper hazmat for such a lethal material.
How is the Z-comic an enemy of the Izzies?
I didn't mean that Zelensky is an enemy of the Israelis. Just that the Israelis are the most consistent and relentless about pursuing enemies of the Jewish people, no matter what, and Russia shows some signs of being of a similar orientation on the matter in their own sphere.
Zelensky's parents live in Israel. One would hardly deposit own parents there while being " an enemy of the Israelis."
In the RU case, I see it as a corollary to their NAZI-crushing crusade/fetish.
Move my reply to your last comment, pleeeze.
Zelensky is a classic example of a man who knows too much to live. He knows the facts about the Biden family's deep involvement in Ukrainian corruption, US biolabs and their research, the torture and murder of POWs instigated by UK advisors, mass trade in children and their organs, the role of the UK and US planners in civilian massacres, the turning over of all Ukrainian natural resources, farmland, and infrastructure to Western corporations such as BlackRock, the funding of nazi organizations by jewish funds, and much, much more. And he can likely document most of that. The CIA, MI6 and Mossad cannot allow him to survive, a potential leak and source of blackmail and kompromat of epic proportion. He will never reach his villa in Florida; most likely he will be killed by "the Russians", who else.
Solid points
Yet he has been living in such a deluded bubble that he doesn't get such a basic fact. If he has any smarts, he would be cutting a deal with the Russians to save his neck.... but nope, he's still giving the west enough to hang him whenever they want. Aka his actions are no longer rational, and thus all the decisions that are made, don't have to make sense from any real-politik angle.
He doesn't have the agency - the Brits are up his ass 25/8.
True... but people with any street smarts would want to have an out at all times. He doesn't seem to have any, maybe that's why he was chosen to be the U Prez in the first place...
No they won't be.
Most of the Zelensky regime will be worm food inside fancy buried boxes- if they can scrape up enough pieces.
Alas, logic will not aid those returning* but . . . I can't help note that it is the ultra nationalist who are themselves hiding from combat.
*If Russia lets people come back.
Nobody cares what Ukrainians think.
And Ukrainians still can't get it that the West doesn't give a damn.
There was never any real intention to end the war.
This is a project that goes back 80 years for the US and another century further back for Europe.
No individual can turn that sort of institutional momentum around in a couple months, even if he sincerely wished it.
And he didn't. The intention here was to do an Idlib on steroids. Knowing that the Kremlin fell for MinskI/II and Astana. And we know what happened in the end. Assad, the Russians, and the Iranians were ready to finish it off but then the order came to halt, and eventually Syria was no more after the Jihadi International had been allowed to prepare for the final battle for years.
It may well not stop at official Russian borders this time. We already saw what happened in Kursk. But if you have watched videos of Ukronazi youth training camps from way before 2022, before 2014 even, you may have noticed how their rallying cries often feature calls for taking the Kuban region (around 1918 "Ukraine" was claiming it). That is presumably still in the minds of some people. In fact, it might have been the reason Putin finally did the extremely unusual for him thing and took some kind of proactive action in 2022 -- had the Donbass been overrun quickly as expected given the size of the Ukronazi force there, he would have received several million refugees and a huge stain on his reputation, already destabilizing enough, but there is no guarantee that force would have stopped at the border. Rostov would have there for the taking too.
There is also the matter of sequencing the wars and China being more of a priority for this current ruling clique.
But presumably in their plans is that once they have dealt with China, they will return to the Russia question.
The question here is why Putin is doing negotiations at all. Thus undermining internal morale within Russia once again, instead of seriously preparing for permanently ending the Ukrainian problem.
This time I agree with you, just the question why Russia is doing negotiating has been discussed many times already.
Talking is in any case better than killing, at least to make an effort and the killing will happen anyway if the negotiations lead to nowhere as it seems to be the case at the moment.
The collective west wants Russia to break apart, to be robbed and raped again and the ideology of the 1930's has only been hiding but feels strong enough to raise it's head now again in plain sight, led by the fathers of German darkest times, the USA.
Putin, as I keep saying, has to keep his own allies on board. That involves talking. But that is all Russia is doing. It has not agreed to do anything detrminental to the objectives of the SMO.
There is no SMO. And you better talk with J Galtsky about the objectives…
China is keeping allies and friends inboard by resolutely standing up to the attempt of the trump regime to destroy its economy. The kremlin could learn alot from china's way of dealing with American imperialism
Yes, but China isn't in a kinetic war with US/NATO proxy forces. Nor is there a large enemy military alliance on its border.
"why Russia is doing the negotiating has been discussed..."
More likely that Russia, like the USA, is only appearing to negotiate while playing the long game.
Yup!
Vovan&Lexus just exposed the covert plan to eventually ”Balkanize” Russia. Yes. The British strategy was inheritated by US and they follow it decades after decades.
It has been public knowledge since the end of Glasnost in 1990 that American Mexicana controlled NATO plus later the E.U. as well have planned to Balkanise Ukraine and Russia.
This was put in motion in 1945. Occupied Germany, (80 years), has been instrumental in destroying Western Europe under Yankland guidance.
Kike owned and operated Yankland hates White people , really hates European Whites and especially hates German and Russian Whites.
All this shite is organised by the only really organised tribe on the planet.
Documented history proves this.
Yes, Yugoslavia was the demo run, this is the real business now.
Mikey that plan has been common knowledge for decades mate.
I didn't need Lexus or Vovan to tell me that.
That the neocons continue to go full speed ahead shows that things are going according to plan.
Not really, the hysterical peace agreement they beg now for is a far cry from the "defeat Russia on the battlefield," don't you remember?
The only question is whether the War On Iran is going to take priority for now.
Trump periodically lets the truth slip i.e. "Russia is a war machine," "Russia can take the entire Ukraine," etc., I think, to Trump, Iran might appear a "safer" choice.
Quote: The question here is why Putin is doing negotiations at all. Well he's simply a top chess player and not a school bully like Trump
His armies are also advancing while he negotiates.
JawJaw AND WarWar.
The irony is that China is showing the way how to deal with the Americans much more successfully than the kremlin. By standing up to trumps attempt at destroying the Chinese economy the Beijing government is not only winning the trade war but helping to accelerate the dedollarisation trend going on in the world. If the trade war continues China will step up its export controls of rare earth metals further undermining the US /EU military industrial Complexes.
"China is showing the way how to deal with the Americans much more successfully than the kremlim" - not true: A different reality in many ways.
First, there are many reasons to "do or fake" negotiations, not least of which being simple info-gathering. Jerk-around the adversary a bit for fun &/or profit. Also, the Kremlin and Foreign Ministry officials have stated that there is no trust for the West. Second, it is very naive to believe that RU is not "seriously preparing for permanently ending the Ukrainian problem.".
>it is very naive to believe that RU is not "seriously preparing for permanently ending the Ukrainian problem
It is Year 4 of (not)war after 30 years of completely not paying attention.
Where is the evidence the Kremlin is seriously preparing for anything?
There won't be overt, transparent "evidence" cuz said preparations/methodologies would obviously be "top secret". At any rate, the onus of proof is on YOU for YOUR claim.
The amazing build-up of their war-making capacity in vast scope & scale, including technological advancement in this field.
Witkoff is a kike, he has wet dreams about Russians being burned alive. The entirety of the upper echelons of the American Mexicana government, all branches, are kikes or have sworn allegiance to serve kikes.
The many machinations globally are a fight between good and evil.
The good news is that American Mexicana is in its death throws, Western Europe has been deliberately destroyed by Yankland and the E.U. The 'Global South' is rising and barring Yankland or its owner Israel going nuclear humanity will survive and prosper when the global communists are annihilated
The war is already won, just the idiot dead men walking in the Western collective haven't realised it yet.
Zion Don Trump the turncoat has merely accelerated de-dollarisation and the collapse of American Mexicana. Western Europe is as said, already destroyed.
Sorry but what are kikes?
Jews.
Yids.
😂
Hebes.
What proof do you have that (Jewish) Witkoff "has wet dreams about Russians being burned alive"? Any specific example will do, even just one. Otherwise, you're just talking out of your ass.
The Jew whitkoff -Zion dons golfing buddy is not a diplomatic Institutionalist - he’s just a Jew who cares only about his illegal Jew state.
Vance is just a weirdo peter theil puppet.
Your last sentence deserved the "LIKE"!
I'll buy that Witty-kopf only cares about his Balance Sheet, P/L Statement, status, favours-to-swap, & ego.
I am not sure that there was a 'great opportunity' in the past three months to bring the war to an end. I think there was 'an opportunity' -- maybe, if we are being realistic, only a 'remote opportunity', but it was tried and that effort has been unsuccessful. There can be a lot of theories as to why it the effort was unsuccessful (e.g. Trump never really wanted peace, Trump wanted peace but managed the effort incorrectly, UK/Europe/Ukraine are not ready for peace, etc), but bottomline, the war will continue through the summer or longer.
That said, I am not sure what Trump could have realistically done differently given the context, history, domestic and international politics, etc.
For example, the belief that Trump could have realistically just 'walked away from Ukraine on Day 1' is appealing -- but it's hard to see how that could have been done by any leader in the US in practice. Trump didn't take office until later January. From that time until the Munich Security Conference in mid February, official Washington DC (the Congressmen, Senators, military & intelligence figures inside and outside of the US government, the media, the think tanks, and the donors) all were pushing for 'more Ukraine aid', sanctions on Russia, and escalation.
Munich was a 'bombshell' to that US political establishment in DC, to Europe, to the press, and to Ukraine because US policy officially became 1) no more substantial aid to Ukraine, 2) no support for European forces in Ukraine under NATO Article V protections, 3) no condition peace talks with Russia, 4) transference of the 'burden' of 'defense of Europe' to Europe, and 5) warnings about 'freedom of the press' and 'elections' in Europe.
The 'bombshell' of Munich was then accentuated with the 'bombshell' Zelensky meeting in the White House on Feb 28th. It wasn't until Zelensky's disastrous visit to the White House that Republican Senator support for him and Ukraine really started to shake. The 'outrage' in the US created by that PR debacle really took the energy out of the old 'support Ukraine' strategy in Congress and the media. That leaves two months (March and April) to get to where we are at the moment: a series of Ukraine/US and Russia/US talks that pushed many (but not all) of the tabu topics and got no where in the end.
It's hard to see how a different 'peace process' (as defined by number and type of meetings, number and type of negotiators, etc) would have made any difference to the current outcome. In some sense, Trump (and others who might seek peace) couldn't really tell just 'how hard and obstinate' certain players would be until 'something' was tried and 'pressure' was applied.
Furthermore, it's hard to see how Trump could have used his domestic political capital differently to 'force a peace' or 'abandon Ukraine' any earlier than right now. Yes, Trump could have declared Day 1 that he accepts all of Putin's terms, but then what? Would he have gotten his cabinet picks for CIA, Director of Intelligence, or Defense (or other controversial domestic appointees) through the US Senate approval process? Almost certainly 'no', because he depended on so many pro-Ukraine US Senators for their votes on his nominees. And a Trump who 'accepts Putin's terms' without a national security staff to implement that policy would have been useless for peace and for everything else.
Not only that, a Day 1 'abandon Ukraine Trump' would he have kicked off a 'firestorm of revolt' of Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans that would have attacked him / impeached him again to the detriment of his other national and international agenda items. And even if Trump had foregone all of his other agenda items except peace in Ukraine and dared the Washington establishment to 'bring him down', would that have made any difference in terms of Europe's or Ukraine acceptance of the Putin/Trump agreement? No. Most likely, he would be in the same spot he is right now (no deal), but without any of his other agenda items / team intact.
Seen in that context, and assuming for the moment that Trump is sincere in wanting peace (which I believe is true but admit can be debated), then I would argue that Trump did what he could with what he had to work with, given his other competing priorities (e.g. immigration, tariffs, Iran, woke, foreign aid, 'making America healthy again', etc).
Trying for peace was 'worth the try', even if it was unlikely -- and maybe, just maybe, his efforts might make peace a little more achievable in 6 months (or whenever) because certain barriers have been broken (e.g. the de-demonization of Russia in the West) and certain possibilities talked about (e.g. ceding territories and maybe new governments in Ukraine).
Trump may be walking away from the peace process for now (although that is not certain). Trump may choose to aggressively back Ukraine (the Washington DC establishment would love that) or he may get sucked into that course of action despite his intentions -- or he may get sidelined by any number of other international and domestic crises -- but, hopefully, his efforts have laid some kind of groundwork for progress and peace later, once conditions on the battlefield and in the home countries have further 'changed'.
I question your premise that Trump was ever trying to 'end the war' in Ukraine. I have only seen and heard reports of US negotiators trying to establish a ceasefire, never an actual peace treaty. Russia said at the outset, and has continued to say, that they are not interested in a ceasefire (been there, done that, got the T-shirt). While one side is looking for a ceasefire while the other is looking for a stable peace treaty, there will never be a resolution.
A couple of points in response. The first problem is that both you and I have to go on 'reports' (and don't have access to what was actually said and done). Often 'reports' equals 'real' -- but not always, and on certain topics, Ukraine in particular, I think that there is a lot of 'spin', 'narrative management', and in fact, 'lying' going on by politicians, by 'journalists', by pundits, etc. It's a lot of smoke and mirrors, so it's hard to know what is actually being discussed by whom and when..
Second, I think it is very likely that certain 'players' involved in this drama are / were in fact going for a 'freeze in the conflict' and not a 'peace treaty' -- but that certain other players are 'looking for a stable peace treat'. Ukraine and all of the European leaders would be in that category of a 'freeze' (so that Ukraine can reman, rearm, and re-train for Round 4 or 5). Kellogg and 90% of the Congressional (and think tank and ex-military and donor) stakeholders would be in that category as well (they largely want Russian regime change or isolation at a minimum and a pro-West heavily armed Ukraine). Probably former National Security Advisor Walz and Secretary of State Rubio are in that category as well, although they both are probably not as hard-line as Kellogg et al. The Trump envoy Witkoff is pretty clearly not in that category and both Trump and Vance have brought up the 'root causes' and 'peace treaty based on fundamental issues' several times (which shows that they recognize the importance of a peace treaty and not just a ceasefire, although whether they are willing to put their prestige on the line to push for it is another matter). The position of Intelligence chiefs Gabbard and Radcliffe are not clear, although prior comments would suggest that Gabbard is firmly in the lasting peace category.
My guess is that several factors are in play. The first is that Trump and his team are very aware that the willingness of Europe and Ukraine to agree to Russian terms is much much less than Trump's willingness to agree to Putin's terms. Congress and the media's willingness is also much much less than Trump's willingness as well. This makes Trumps' 'play of the cards' complicated. Get too far out ahead of Congress or Europe or Ukraine and he ends up with all of the 'bad' of compromise but none of the 'good' of peace (because his allies 'balk' and stop a deal but expose Trump once again to claims that he is 'Putin's puppet'). Offering Putin something much less than Putin has asked for publicly was probably not likely to succeed (and it didn't succeed), but it was probably worth the try (note: Putin is happy that Trump engaged and is not 'mad' at the offer). If Putin took the offer, Trump still had his work cut out for him trying to get Congress, Ukraine, and Europe on board. However, if Putin mostly agrees (or more accurately very politely disagrees with provisions for modification), Trump loses relatively little with Russia but gains a much better understanding of the opposition he has to overcome in Europe/Ukraine/Congress. Furthermore, Europe and Ukraine's flagrant disagreement to the Trump plan (e.g. the repeated violations of the ceasefire) further undermine US public support for Ukraine / Europe as well (they look bad, just like they looked bad at the White House meeting and at the Munich conference, etc.). Making Ukraine and Europe 'look bad' (and even 'insulting' to the US) helps undermine Europe and Ukraine support back in the US and in Congress (thus giving Trump maneuver room for backing away or making another attempt at a more comprehensive peace later).
That leads to me to two conclusions -- either this was a 'one-off' 'low risk' 'try' that was worth it if it succeeded and useful for distancing the US from the whole Ukraine effort henceforth (even though Ukraine will therefore collapse) -- or, this 'peace process' was stage 1 of a much longer term project that will take months (but that needed this failed effort as a first step). Of course, what do I know? (just some guy with a keyboard).
"Of course, what do I know? (just some guy with a keyboard)."
Way beyond that, Martin, you're a guy who is thinking clearly and analytically about the influences on Trump.
Very good analysis. I hope we see more of your contributions in this sub.
@Martin and Galtsky
+1
Martin, my only quibble is with your use of verb tense when you wrote "Trying for peace was 'worth the try'". I believe Trump and Witkoff and Putin are trying and will try for as long as Trump is President. For all the reasons you mention it will not be easy...or quick.
Can you provide 1 example of the Trump regime acknowledging, let alone offering a reasonable proposal to even 1 of Russia's "root causes" or Russia's stated terms as outlined by Putin in his speech in June 2024?
I follow this American proxy war as close as anyone and I have not seen even 1.
Ever since Trump 2.0 started it has been the "American plan". At no point did they recognize even 1 of Russia's demands.
Why? Because Trump, his clique and many Americans think America rules the world. Is there any evidence that team Trump ever considered Russia's demands? I doubt they even heard or saw them.
Nick, I'll offer the 'one example' that you asked for (although there are more) and that is Trump and Vance stating that 'offering Ukraine a path to NATO in 2008 was fundamentally the cause of the war and that Ukraine in NATO cannot be allowed to occur in the future' (that is one of Russia's stated 'root causes' and 'key demands').
It's totally cool to think that Trump/Vance's statements on that matter are insincere or not enough or irrelevant because they ignore other Russian concerns -- i.e. it's ok to not agree with the drift of my analysis. But as a point of evidence, at least recognize that things are not 'literally' as you present them in your comment 'at no point ...'.
I am not trying to argue with you on what you said or didn't say or whether you are right overall -- just trying to call 'balls and strikes' for the record and for the general readership and point out that there appears (to me at least) to be public evidence that 'Russia asked for x to be recognized' and that Trump publicly recognized 'x'. It may not be everything or enough, but it is something.
You've earned "Tenure"!
While they did make that statement, it is not accurate. It is a deliberate attempt to minimize the role America has played in this American proxy war against Russia.
The Trump team has done this at every opportunity- attempting to portray themselves as “mediators”, when in fact America is the primary antagonist.
Of course NATO cannot be in Ukraine, nor Ukraine in NATO.
Reality is the only way to achieve this with 100% certainty is for Russia to control all of Ukraine.
But back to your point- an even bigger & more important “root cause" was the American led coup in 2014 and the subsequent build up of the Ukrainian military in the lead up to 2022.
Did Trump or Vance make any proposal that would definitively end the NATO threat?
Acknowledging is one thing, actually proposing a potentialsolution is quite another.
"Because Trump, his clique and many Americans think America rules the world."
Well, certainly there are many Americans, possibly the majority, who think that. But there is also a significant, and I think growing, number of Americans who realize the US does not rule the world.
There also certainly are people in Trump's clique who think that, but there also are likely people in his clique who don't. Vance and Gabbard, for example, seem to have a better grasp of reality. Now whether they have to hide that grasp of reality to retain influence is an open question.
With Trump I don't think you can say whether he does think that, or whether he knows that's not the case but given his style of advancing his interests he is certain he as to act as though of course every sane person knows the US runs the world because without pushy advancement of the narrative he wants he'll never get the reality of it.
And there's also the middle ground that it's not insane to believe the US continues to have massive influence on what goes on in the world and even if it does not rule the world in any absolute sense, it sure as heck has enough influence to sway other countries into doing its bidding. I get the feeling that plenty of people in the Trump administration would say sure, the US doesn't rule the world but it doesn't need to rule the world to get its way. It just needs to be able to apply enough pressure to sway key sets of countries to do what it wants.
Trump's juggling with a lot of propaganda narratives at once to try to get his way with a variety of interest groups despite the various narratives conflicting. For example, he keeps saying this isn't his war despite his key role during his first term in starting and escalating the war. He's the guy who trained and armed Kiev's nazi armies to the teeth and who put 20 CIA bases in Ukraine to run covert operations (including killing) against Russians. He's bragged about sending Kiev lethal weaponry during his first term and now he says it's somebody else's war like he didn't do anything but hand out cookies and call for peace in his first term.
His narrative today trying to position himself as a neutral third party instead of the obvious co-belligerent the US is (obvious to everybody but the population of the US, it seems) isn't going to work when it confronts the reality, a reality which Russia insists cannot be ignored, of what really happened in Ukraine, what the US, including Trump in his first term did there, and the foul reality of the monstrous puppet regime the US, including Trump, first put into power in Kiev and then supported in conquering those large portions of the former Ukraine that had no interest in being ruled by an unelected nazi minority.
I think awareness is dawning in Trump that he has nothing to offer Russia that would convince it to toss away Russia's win in Ukraine and accept a viciously anti-Russian nazi state on its borders.
Lot of good stuff in what you wrote here
As stated previously many times, Putin doesn't operate on some keyboard warrior in here's timetable, and Trump is not operating on anyone's timetable but his own.
I'm not overly keen on predicting what he might do, but everything so far is consistent with the goal from day 1 being isolating Ukraine so they can be dispensed with. People who don't see his yo-yo negotiating tactics for what they are...well, they can suffer from their induced TDS.
Everything said is for domestic consumption and should not be believed. You'll be able to parse out the true bits after something happens. Some of what is said is true, but you can't predict which parts.
I think that the fact that there are so many “think-tank” policy papers outlining exactly the strategy that the trump administration has followed, as did his predecessors, is a strong argument that Trump nor his administration were ever looking for lasting peace with Russia, in Ukraine or anywhere else.
I would love to be wrong, but I do not think I am.
LJ -- you, in your current comment, are not differentiating between the current Trump presidency and its predecessors -- and that distinction is important to your original comment "that Trump never was / is serious about real peace and not a ceasefire' (to paraphrase your original comment). I am not trying to argue with you here, but to point out something in your argument that you should consider (or re-consider).
The fact that the established US foreign policy establishment (those in government, those in think tanks, those in the media, etc.) have argued for a certain 'no-peace' position since the early 1990's is pretty clear (and something you point out). It's also clear that US policy -- particularly under Biden but before that in the first Trump administration and Obama and Bush administrations were following this 'game plan' (or at least not reversing it). The question, however, is whether the current Trump administration (or more correctly, Trump himself) is trying to do something different. Reference to the past, in this context, does not confirm whether or not this is his current 'direction of travel' (it merely confirms that the past direction of travel was consistent for several decades). In fact, Trump -- with the 'freedom' his second term provides him (freedom in the sense of much stronger popular mandate, his 'choice' of better non-or-less-deep-state advisors, etc.) does appear to be 'trying' to change the direction of US policy in general (and with Russia and Ukraine in particular) -- for evidence, look to what he is doing on trade, immigration, the Mid-East, China, Canada/Greenland/Panama, etc. So, there is evidence that US policy change (on a variety of issues) is both desired and being pursued by Trump in his second term.
Now, it is a legitimate question to ask whether his change is sincere or 'good' or whether the possible change in approach will work against the certain, strong resistance from the US foreign policy establishment or against powerful foreign interests -- I just don't think that referencing past administrations and think tanks can give you answers to those types of questions (since they get to questions of past intent and direction and not success going forward on a potentially new path). Yes, those prior organizations would not be sincere or successful in doing what Trump may be trying to do -- but Trump is different in many ways, and that then becomes the crux of the problem. How skilled / lucky will Trump be if he is in fact trying to do something different?
My two cents, for what they are worth, is that Trump does desire a different path (whether for altruistic or purely selfish reasons does not matter) and that his challenge is navigating the minefield of trips / traps placed in his way by those very think tanks / advisors / foreign interest / corruption. If he succeeds, it will be because he 'finds a way' through that mess. I personally also believe that Putin (who faces similar challenges and constraints of his own) understands both that intent and difficulty, and is working with him (in a sense) so that both can find a way out of a very bad situation. The fact that Trump uses (in fact has to use) certain deep-state or shallow-state actors and advisors (Graham, Rubio, Waltz, etc) and that he apparently runs different, incompatible approaches in parallel to his objective (Kellogg versus Witkoff) to me is evidence of 'politics' (he needs to keep certain political players on-side for this and other issues) and subterfuge (it is not to his advantage to be too clearly outside of the 'mainstream' and the 'go back and forth' so as to create the actual 'wiggle' in his 'wiggle room').
So in conclusion, I share your hope (that you are wrong and Trump is trying to go for actual peace). I can't prove that you are wrong -- but can point out that, in at least this situation, you can't use the path of the past (or the desires of the deep state) as the only predictor of path ahead. Best wishes.
I know that a lot of people sincerely wish/hope that Trump is “different” and that his various moves and personnel decisions reflect his desire to change long established US foreign policy. So far, everything he is doing in relation to Europe, Russia, and Asia is laid out in those previous think-tank policy papers.
He may have “left the reservation” in terms of trade policy and economics, but foreign relations seems to be following those pre-laid plans. The very fact that Trump is looking for a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, while his secretary of defense tells the European NATO members that they have to “take over” the conflict with Russia is just following the plan.
Certainly you are right that Trump can not just ignore the long-standing policy even if he was inclined to do so. I just do not see any sign that he is so inclined :-( If you are right, and Trump surprises me (and most of the world), and actually tries (never mind succeeds) to negotiate a peace treaty leading to a lasting peace with Russia, I will be first to rejoice!
That was NOT Martin's premise.
Excellent comment. Best summary we've had of Trump's situation for a long time. Thank you!
Trump is just going through a diplomatic song & dance, almost a charade. Ironically, when it comes to this war, it's not Trump/Vance who hold the cards, but Putin, who is successfully defending the Russkiy Mir from the Empire of Lies.
I think we still to must wait on Trump getting critical legislation through congress: Budget and Debt Ceiling before we for certain know if he is the "More War" or "No War" President. Until then, he cant afford to offend either camp in congress. Therefore his best strategy is to keep everyone guessing with gestures that both sides can claim for themselves.
I think it is the institutionalization of NATO, our commitment to NATO, our commitment to the Wolfowitz Doctrine that we will not let Russia or China threaten our hegemony. They have a plan that includes Israel, and the plan goes on with us as unproductive eaters, or Social Security recipients. Michael Jackson was killed for singing the song, "They don't care about us" to our master class. Michael lives, our masters face their end.
Beat It with the Mikey Jackson reference!
A window of opportunity has closed on Trump, despite his denial of this being his war, "Joe Trump" has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and with his hand full of cookies ( mineral deals ) can't extract his hand, and now he jointly owns this war.
Trump remains weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
If ,, unlikely as it is Russia would ultimately lose against the West, we European, American ,Australian Canadian etc. would be doomed. As a German I vote for Russia to win and cement a true multipolar world order together with China and the BRICS states. We're already well down the Road to Totalitarian slavery.
Th AFD is almost certainly going to be banned now, and free speech silenced in the name of protecting democracy. Totalitarian slavery isn't far away, it's in the building.
"The AFD is almost certainly going to be banned now..." True, but no worries. The day after, a new party will be born. That happened elsewhere in Europe as well.
Sorry but the AfD is simply the other faction of the same capital clique, build up to take over when the current faction is not longer sustainable against the population.
It's been build up to secure the same politics can be made and the working class can be squeezed into submission with more vigor.
Look where they come from in the AfD - the most right wing people out of the CDU and others are united there and they don't even deny it.
Frank you're a voice of reason on here mate.
Thank you John but others are much better and smarter.
I only know that I know nothing for sure.
The AFD are outright admirers and defenders of the German genocidal Wehrmacht in WW2 and perpetuate the myth of the clean Wehrmacht. Never mind it's odious neo Nazi philosophy
Aw, geez. You're saying AfD is like the UK Reform Party led by that gatekeeping fraud Nigel Farange- bleeding off the pressure and deliberately stopping short.
Well, spit, now what?
That's exactly what Reform and AfD are, the oligarch backstop if the usual oligarch parties are rejected. The real alternative in the UK (Corbyn) was already destroyed and the German oligarchy is working hard to disappear the BSW.
the bsw disappeared themselves when they coalited w/ the bloc parties cdu/spd.
So you don't think that even being "the other faction of the same capital clique" it could possess enough of common sense to try to fix the situation vs. letting Germany fall off the cliff? It's not like these people like mushrooms can just burst from "nowhere." They're bound to come from some political environment and they have a right to crystalize into something that doesn't support the "environment" they came from.
I've read their election program, it's as neo con as you can think of in economics and their foreign politics are - except from marching on Moscow yet - aligned with the Trump way, so thanks but no thanks.
That they will end the green apocalypse and bring back russian gas to Germany sounds nice but I don't see how they will manage to do so once they are in office.
Russian gas has been sabotaged by the USA since the 1970 and the AFD will not go against US interests - or why do you think they get the constant loud approval of the US officials?
How can any party led by a liberal lesbian ever be considered nationalist in any regard?
Because it is totally irrelevant what sexual preference or gender someone has regarding to their politics.
Edgar Hoover was a trans-gay man in private and also a ruthless, mean man that ruined many lifes of innocent people and had fun doing so.
"a trans-gay man in private and also a ruthless, mean man that ruined many lifes of innocent people and had fun doing so" - Why do you see this as a paradox?
who said so? it was a response to Nick
The people demand to be ruled by others, not governed by themselves.
Doctors in all of the 5 eyes are still being prosecuted for doing the right thing in 2020 and 2021. Doctors who profited by participating in a globalist scheme to poison humanity - and succeeded with 70% of the world population - continue to enjoy wealth and status. What could be more totalitarian than that?
While israeli doctors are applying en masse to positions in OECD countries as their vicious Talmudic ethno-state becomes slightly less comfortable...
Are you aware that Israel secured Pfizer mRNA vaccine (when there were not enough doses and vaccines were given per urgency/age) for Israel's entire population, in return promising Pfizer the results/follow up of the AEs? I seriously doubt that Israel just decided to eradicate own population. I seriously doubt that most doctors set out to "poison humanity."
Healthcare and the connected Pharma is a stateobligation towards its citizens.
Every life has the same worth!
Such thing as Pfizer and the others plus the private owned insurances should not even exist as private owned companies, since we all know that profit beats anything in capitalism.
Or why do you think the contracts of Pfizer and Biontech and others include that they cannot be held responsible for negative effects of their junk "medicine"?
All lovers of menkind and not looking out for their own interests, right?
Never waste a lovely crisis since it let's you buy the next 130m yacht of the tax payers money- well done!
You'd have to take my word for it, but between the two of us, I know much more about experimental medicine.
You tend to contradict yourself - on the one hand, you want the major things (like StarLink, etc.) be owned/handled by the government, but on the other hand, you don't seem to get to the roots of what happened. It was President Reagan who gave carte blanche and full immunity from liability to the vaccine manufacturers. You can sue any drug developer for anything, but a vaccine - thanks to the government. Do you have any idea how rigidly and long term the drugs are being tested, but for vaccines there are hardly any standards at all, and no liability - it's like printing money :-)
My issue with BioNTech/Pfizer is very different than yours. BioNTech/Pfizer since Oct 2019 in their annual SEC filings state that the "FDA & the EU regulatory authorities classify mRNA-based products as gene therapy." BioNTech/Pfizer know very well that if they misrepresent their product to SEC, they can be criminally prosecuted, however Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials C4591001/C4591031 didn't put the very same lingo in the Informed Consent, as they must put any crucial info, and that is on the FDA, which is again - government. Allowing Pfizer/BioNTech to change Covid-19 vaccine trial protocol and eliminate the placebo group just after what, a couple of month of the trial, instead of 1 year, as it was originally planned? Again, it's on the FDA to ensure that Covid-19 vaccine protocols were rigid enough. To allow vaccination of pregnant women with Covid-19 vaccine - WTH?! In any clinical trials, pregnant women, soldiers, prisoners, children are classified as vulnerable/protected populations! Again, it's on the government to let something like that happen. That the FDA was mocking Ivermectin, other well established drugs, terrorizing physicians who used them? Again, it's on the government!
Are you aware that President Clinton permitted the big pharma to advertise their drugs directly to the "consumers," which resulted nearly all the revenue of the NEWS channels coming from the big pharma it's again on the government. Ever heard an adage, "who pays for the music, orders the music?"
It all starts with the GOVERNMENT, the every same government, you see as some panacea, and striving for the "common good" vs. big corporations - big corporations can be brought to heel, by again, a proper, incorruptible government. The question is where to get such a government - it's probably possible if establish some serious prison terms, executions, etc., for corruption/damage of public health/benefit. We just need to get some incorruptibles to take the governments over :-) Fish always rots from the head!
I see no contradictions here, I said nowhere that your or my government should own anything, responsibility long has left the building anyway.
A government that is owned or in perpetuation circling with big money people is never a government for the people - we now here get Mr. Friedrich Merz as a chancellor, former head of Black Rock Germany who owns a private jet, is a multi millionaire but he considers himself "middle class", you can't make that shit up.
Your contradiction is in looking at the situation through a prism of idealism, when it should be looked at with pragmatism. We're discussing Musk and StarLink. You didn't want Musk to own Starlink since things of such magnitude should be owned by the government vs. private hands. From a pragmatist's point of view - my internet provider Xfinity charges pretty much the same as StarLink but with more restrictions, less speed and no portability. So, I welcome Musk as a competitor to Xfininty by price/services. Do I want that there be more competitors driving prices down/services up - of course. But I'm talking from the point of realism given the current situation - I'd Musk rather go for the smaller and smaller portals with more speed vs. banning Musk from owning StarLink. Am I terrified that again, something so important is in one pair of hands - yes, but I currently see no other options.
Your Mr. Friedrich Merz obviously knows someone who downgrades him in his own eyes into thinking himself as "middle class," in the face of a much bigger wealth:-)
Yep, that's the point. Almost totally ignored.
We barrack for Russia because they are right and the West is wrong.
And we know the west is wrong in heinous ways. Deeply wrong.
So Russia is really fighting for us. We have a stake in it.
By our own declaration of rights and wrongs and the reality of the situation.
We have a stake.
So it would do us well to begin enumerating and evaluating all the losses we will suffer if the West, all those lunatics in nato and usa and kiev get their way.
List them. Contemplate them. Understand their significances. Spread the word.
They are spreading the converse word. They claim we all stand to lose if Russia wins. (Donbas Ukraine/Ukrainians, of course, don't get a mention. It's all about 'russia v the west' and we stupidly go along with the narrative).
We need to fight back and now's the time to start. The time to start was years ago and we didn't. So we need to start now.
It truly is not about what Donbas and Russia lose if they lose. It is about what we lose.
I don't have it all listed and well understand. Nope. Not at all.
But i can make a start by saying we lose bigtime in such a case in that our current 'leaders' and systems will be cemented in place then. We will be stuck with them ever much more firmly.
They will be emboldened and strengthened. They already couldn't give a damn for their populations, the western leaders, let them succeed in this and they'll do less than not give a damn they'll probably concentrate on really pushing us around.
I think of the things that got cemented in place post covid: their right to order us under house arrest at a whim, to make us wear useless, pointless masks, to make us fear human company and mandate with do not mix and mingle. to isolate our sick and old and subject them to lethal treatments and kill them. To mandate lethal treatments in hospital. To outlaw therapeutic measures and drugs. ALL of these still on their books, still in their armoury, now in many cases enshrined in recent legislation which streamlines it for them: they do not need a proven 'state of emergency' any more: they just do it when they feel like it.
I can contribute that much quite confidently.
But more knowledgeable persons than I should be helping to delineate just what peril we are in and let's get it up and visible and spread around everywhere.
Many very smart, very well informed people have been shouting from the rooftops since 2021 that what is taking place is a full on war on humanity, and for the survivors, what little remains of human freedom. And that is just the beginning. After the depopulation, they intend to utilise AI and robotics to replace most human labour including intellectual labour. The humans they keep around are to be treated like farm animals, with chips in their brains and capable of being reprogrammed wirelessly. Other than divine intervention, the odds of deeply disunited humanity responding effectively are slim. But, all thinking people should resist domination. After all, who would want to live in the hellscape these monsters intend to create?
Yes, I know. Don't you think the trouble with that is that it is too extreme? Too off the wall? Everyone who reads it just sees more alarmist oddball stuff.
Enslave the whole human race and so on...
Far fetched even if true inasmuch as it won't happen overnight.
We need dangers delineated, shown, exposed, that exist here and now.
After the kind perhaps that I listed.
It's going to be hard enough to get people to believe those.
And we can demonstrate those in the here and now.
Agree arthur. Lot's of buzz on Media control, but no action. We need an end to media figures presenting one side of the argument as the full and only story.
Related, a crackdown on Monopolies, of any kind. Microsoft has generated entirely too much disposable income. Who haven't they bought?
Again intertwined. I grew up in Mafia territory. The expansion and consolidation of criminal influence has surpassed those days in every way. It's as if they are universally in charge now.
They, being of no particular ethnicity. Simply, the culture of crime, not only pays, it is the only way forward. All the solutions offered to any problem, involve honoring decadence.
More egregiously, stripping the productive portions of society of all agency and giving it to ignorant bums, classic divide and conquer.
OK. Crime and monopolies.
They are mainly american problems? Or the crime is? Or you think universal throughout the western world?
Would the West 'losing' in Ukraine put an end to them is the point?
Or any of the things I listed myself, the hangovers from covid?
Actually I don't think so.
The situation is not that good.
It is, to me, more a question of whether or not an alternative exists, whether or not they see any limitations on their conduct, whether or not their 'enslaved' masses see any limitations on their conduct.
If Russia and North Korea and the 'in principle' support of China etc and the intrinsic desire of the Donbas oblasts for freedom and self determination, if all of these lose then the western lunatics will see no limitations on what they can do.
They will engage in an orgy of plunder and browbeating, coercion, domination.
This will manifest down on the street level where i live as a government, my own government, browbeaten into acceding to all kinds of demands.
Such it was, with its own willing consent, at the time of covid.
But we will be told how much to 'spend on defence' ( i.e. send money to america for the weapons they want to sell us ). As has already happened and we've bought very expensive junk.
We will be told what medicines we can and can't have. As has already happened.
We will be told what medical procedures to adopt.
We will be told to inject our babies.
Our companies will be bought out by them whenever they see fit.
If your crime thing is right then inevitably as a concomitant of the influence of the us govt will come manifestations of that criminal aspect.
Probably we have a kind of example of that already with the Biden family in Ukraine.
Our govt. will be pressed to put our sovereign wealth into US Treasury bonds and forbidden to support any other avenue.
Wars and such strife will be fomented at a redoubled rate around the world and my govt will be pressed to send support here and there wherever the usa decides it wants it. We will in fact become a satrapy of the usa.
Our trade will be curtailed and directed as they see fit. Meaning what I pay for goods in my nation will be decided in Washington, from motor cars to a bar of soap in the supermarket.
Talking crime we can expect that the american model of private prisons will be forced on us and big usa money will move in and build them and that foul operation will begin. So that really, in effect, every one of our prisoners is a prisoner of the usa.
The americans ('the west' is, of course 'the americans', that's who/what we are talking about here. the uk is a bit of a wildcard, I'm not sure about, but for our purposes we can imagine we're looking at american success in ukraine or not) will not only tell us who we can trade with but also who we can meet with, talk with.
Individuals, like for instance David Irving, will be declared persona non grata at their discretion and we will have to follow suit. Their arguments, their speeches, their ideas will be closed book for us.
People will be locked up for years like Julian Assange simply because of american hatred of the truth being seen. We will be powerless to help our own.
Social media that reveals what they don't want revealed will be banned.
We will live in a cocoon of trade, commerce, information, legalities all decided by america.
Those things all exist now, I think.
If Russia loses then they will all increase in intensity.
If Russia wins they will not immediately go away. Not at all.
For them to go away we will need national consciousness of them, everyone to see them clearly, know about them, and then a popular demand of our governments that we refute them.
Which will need governments controlled by the people doing the will of the people and not the will of america.
So that's how it is important, to my mind, to have these things clearly described and instanced and promulgated so that we all know what is at stake here.
Seems crime spree is global. Fiat money driving corruption.
Well the national consciousness you speak of may never return. The evil ramifications of the big pharma mandates are many and truly discouraging. As is the level of US immigration.
Have they already replaced the herd with a generation that may actually be completely against the existing citizens who offered their sons to endlessly destroy vast stretches of the world with any resource to plunder. Now we naively accept immigrants from countries we destroyed.
In short I don't think the ancient royalty care who wins ww3, as long as they pocket the profit and power to continue their mandates, harvesting and culling as they see fit.
Many "smart", "well-informed" people are batshit crazy..Musk and Bezos, for example. Nobody is going to live on Mars, and nobody is going to be transformed into a cow (which are just athletic horses, really)..
Many "smart and well-informed people" are quadruple-vaxxed.
One supposes that their life experience and independent research led to different conclusions than yours..why does that bother you so?
Doesn't bother me one wit, Pally. I'm not vaxxed. If they took the jab, their research wasn't independent.
Or claim to be. If they have shares in Moderna, say, then it is simply policy for them to claim such isn't it?
Many are recipients, possibly ( I really don't know ) of teenage blood transfusions in the hopes of rejuvenation. They are not going to tell us of that are they?
How could they keep such a secret?
Well they kept/keep the secret of Epstein's island didn't they/don't they?
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
As for strong delusion, neuralink would qualify. As for pleasure in unrighteousness, does wearing a costume with Baphomet on it playing a character called the 'Devil's Champion' qualify? https://www.gettyimages.co.nz/detail/news-photo/elon-musk-attends-heidi-klums-21st-annual-halloween-party-news-photo/1438059362
So which will you follow, ancient fairy tales or science? You lost me at Heidi Klum 🤷♂️ If Prince Harry can dress as a Nazi she can do whatever she wants, I suppose.
You'd be surprised at how much faith-based reasoning there is in science, Pal.
I think I'd sooner believe the horse to be an athletic cow...
Agree. But you know the saying in the Bible.
They will not see with their eyes and not hear with their ears. Sadly true.
” For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them”
Yep, but that's not everyone and the test is to try telling them. There's precious little of that goes on right now.
Must be speaking of Israelis
Right has nothing to do with winning.
hard to understand that assertion. everything has to be done 'right' to get to where you 'win', succeed, in anything.
in struggles to make progress for the human race there's none until the 'right', the correct and the best, is achieved: making it everything to do with winning.
I think perhaps you mean something after the style of a good person can lose against a bad person and so on. Being the army of the 'good' doesn't automatically mean you will win on the battlefield.
Well of course not. But that's the battle, not the war.
We have a couple of vivid examples before us now don't we?
Kiev Ukraine and Israel.
Both deeply wrong, children of hate.
Will the people of those states ever have 'won' if they manage to perpetuate those states in those forms?
Would you live in those states? Would you have your children go to schools in those states with those children and for that education?
Be them ever so prosperous, curse the thought, I'd deem them failed states still, losers, total losers.
Nobody cares about our judgment.
There is a hell of a lot of not caring isn't there? You probably mean 'no one that matters' and that's true but it's even worse than that isn't it? No one at all seems to care about thousands of people in gaza being killed in the cruelest of ways.
That's one that disturbs me most. I can't get it out of my head that bombing and shelling don't just kill you like a bullet to the head. No. Those women and kids - let's be totally callous the way the world is and forget the men, call them all 'terrorists' - those women and kids die in bombed and shelled buildings and what sort of death is that likely to be? In apartment buildings, multi storey? Death by crushing from falling concrete blocks. Impalement from flying splinters, wood, steel, glass. Trapped beneath a mountain of rubble unable to move, to slowly die. Perhaps not just trapped but impaled or crushed somewhere at the same time.. dying in protracted agony.
No Arabs come to their help. Isn't that amazing? But nor do we come to their help. Isn't that more amazing? But not only that: we actually send help to Israel !! Isn't that filthily astounding?
Yep. No one seems to care. No one.
That's a measure of how failed we are, too. How 'failed state' we are.
And we won't get better until we start doing the right thing. Our nations won't improve, the world won't improve. Until the right thing is supreme there is no victory for anyone.
Human beings en masse don't seem to have any instinct for self preservation. They seem to prefer to bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything is alright.
That's what we are seeing everywhere isn't it? That's the 'not caring'.
My own nation is deteriorating as the years go by before my eyes. Freedoms removed, standards eroded, all manner of things. Generally no one seems to care.
You're right. No one cares. But that doesn't change the essential truth does it - there'll be no victory until the right is seen, known, done.
We just got to keep moving in that direction. Set our children on that path, don't we? All of use. And you know, millions of us are trying to do just that. I'd say it is actually the commonest thing in the world: parents trying to set their children's feet on the right path. All over the world
So that's a bit of a game changer maybe, isn't it? For looking from that perspective we can see that really everyone cares. Everyone.
Unless and until you get power, power will simply ignore and neutralize us.
I'm terrified of the legion alternative voices amplifying China as a glowing bastion of progress.
But why?
Is it the voices saying that China is progressing that terrify you or is it that China is progressing? Isn't China doing things well better for the whole world than them doing things badly?
Hating it when others grow stronger and richer is just bitterness and anti-human.
And supremacist, which is very common among peoples in the west. They think they are better than everyone else and cannot accept they are surpassed by others. That spanish piece of trash from the EU even said "Europe is a garden, while everywhere else is a jungle".
I'm well aware of that revolting Kibbutz era comment of utter racism so do not need a lecture on morality.
Maybe you do, when you are terrified of those saying China is a bastion of progress, especially when compared to the west.
You clearly don't know what's going on in the west and like most people in western countries themselves, ignore what's around them and stay silent, sticking their head in the sand so that they don't know about those that do not stay silent, that are being arrested, silenced, killed, have their bank accounts frozen, lives threatened, etc, etc...Perhaps we can agree that if China isn't the bastion of progress, the western countries certainly aren't either, not even close.
See below.
Well, yes and no. Materially, no question. I'm writing this on a high speed train going through a tunnel under a mountain in Yunnan: the infrastructure is impressive, definitely.
Meanwhile "9-6-6" is common. That's the 72-hour workweek. Well-roundedness, work/life balance, individuality are values we in the West cherish but which are largely absent here. Of course a lot can be achieved in a more authoritarian society, especially when most people seem to be relatively bought in. But that's some of the reality.
For example if the government decided this very conversation was unacceptable, it could simply be disallowed. Would you accept that in return for a safer country where you live? It's a package deal, which btw not all Chinese accept, as expats in Thailand tell me.
No easy answers at this point.
I meant 9-9-6
Interested in the percentage accepting and not accepting. If the great majority accepts, why change. Change that often will affect the great majority in a negative way. I feel it is always a small minority that wants change and mostly for their own benefit.
And in the meanwhile here in Germany they kill the 8 hour workday after having raised the age of right for retirement.
Also, if the government decides here that your conversations are not acceptable, you get imprisoned, losing your job and/or your bank account is cancelled - or you get a visit from the police before dawn with 10-12 men invading your home and searching it.
So again, what are you talking about?!
In the US, the age of right for retirement is 67, and nobody made a sound to protest. We need to outsource protests/rioting to the French - they burned half-Paris when retirement age went to 64, and we must outsource to China the execution of our corrupt politicians/bankers. That's the only outsourcing, I'm ok with :-)
Why not include the robber barons of taxpayer money who prevent the people from early retirement?
Relevant protest has been killed in the US a long, long time ago.
An atomized, individualized society that exists by TikToc wisdom and refuses to read books is unable even to comprehend what's done to them.
Soon robots will make sure that millions are out of work/income and the US will not be able to handle this transition without civil war or going to war outside the US so the people can be slaughtered instead of taken care of by the then cheap produced wealth.
So you are terrified of reality or is that a simple supremacist / racist / xenophobic fear that no country, especially non-white, can be better than any western country ?
Either way, you are wrong to be terrified. Any rational being should view progress as a good thing, doesn't matter from where it came from.
I lived and worked in Peking in 1984 (nothing grand). My father was my country's 4th ever Ambassador to China. Back then he was warning our government about various aspects which were ignored. One of them was pollution.
If you think being critical of the CCP and the real, practical nature of Chinese economic expansion(ism) is OTT then you may well live in a part of the world that is not yet fully conversant with same or be in thrall to comical BYD salesmen like Professor Richard Wolff or that little Swiss ex-pat from the mis-titled "Neutrality Studies".
People in my part of the world are very, very aware of the rapacious and destructive aspects of the aforementioned so perhaps, calm down.
Don't know about your country. Last time I worked in Beijing was late summer 2010, and compared to my first visits in the early 1980s the air was remarkably clean, no comparison to, say, Mumbai, or Kampala. Still not perfect, and Chinese microblogs complained and mocked a lot.
Remarkable as tech and economic progress of China is, the extent of grassroot participation of the populace is even more. But go on with "ruthless tyranny of the CCP", so boring.
I believe it is CPC and not CCP. The later is used by anti-china media. So, you probably anti-china or you didn’t pay attention when you lived and worked there. There could ofc be another possibility.
It is indeed CPC and not CCP.
Member parties of the international were usually named "Communist Party of *insert country here*", tho there were some exceptions (usually parties which didn't intend to join, but joined, or parties using languages with incompatible sentence composition).
It's because the idea of early communists was, that all of them are essentially local arms of the same thing working to achieve the same communism everywhere (sounds familiar, doesn't it?).
Eventually, those arms couldn't agree on how the socialist phase should look like and there went the international 😅😅😅
It's "latter" not "later" and "anti-China" (with a capital C). Best watch the details.
That's all well and dandy, but what you seem to ignore is that in the western world, things are getting worse, never better. Voices are silenced, elections are cancelled, censorship is rampant, control is pretty much complete, with food, energy, water and money almost completely centralized. People being arrested for posts on social media. Bank accounts being frozen because someone said something the western government doesn't like. And assassinations / terrorism against those that oppose the official narrative is also rising. Among many other authoritarian and fascist things that are happening every single day in the western world. And let's not forget Ukraine, the largest concentration camp in the world, where people are kidnapped off the streets to go fight in a war that the west wants to continue, against Russia. All of it, sponsored, financed, armed by western countries, actively supporting nazism, without a doubt the most disgusting and violent ideology on the planet. Not exactly sure what in China is worse than what the west is doing. Seems to me that at most, the west is as bad in all these things, as China is. However, at least we see China developing new technologies that actually can improve human societies. Meanwhile the west charges more taxes and worsens living conditions, to build weapons and create wars to kill people, in order to conserve its power and influence. If you asked me, the west is worse in every metric because of everything I highlighted here and that is getting worse every day.
Also, it's CPC, not CCP. CCP is used by western propaganda, which you clearly consume.
So your ideas and understanding about China are 40 years out of date? You should talk about the USSR too, it was contemporaneous with your knowledge...
Whoosh!
Rupert, firstly I would be VERY VERY cautious about putting ANY personal or family details out on the open internet, even seemly minor details. Enough said.
Secondly, about the more substantive matter, the current and future state of China. That discussion requires hard facts and conclusions logically drawn from those facts,
"People in my part of the world are very, very aware of the rapacious and destructive aspects..." isn't that, it isn't even an opinion it's an opinion about the opinions of some other people.
Start with facts that can be openly seen and discussed.
Then we can have that discussion.
(Although perhaps not here, another forum might be more suitable)
Do you feel better after your little sermon?
That was some friendly advice, but your OPSEC isn't my responsibility.
However, when I engage with a topic online I follow rules dictated, as much as possible, by logic and prudence, not emotion.
Define progress…
You need to ask that to the OP, to which I replied to. He's the one terrified about the possibility of China being the bastion of progress.
It's tiresome that you continue to misrepresent what I initially wrote. Slightly hysterical.
Progress is by the people for the people, like in China now - noticing that your life improves year by year and you are able to build a brighter future for your children.
Hard to deny in comparison with USA and EU..they aren't wrong.
China should be the least of US worries.
I lived in the time when Soviet Russia was the Evil Empire, a totalitarian state that was striving for world hegemony, while the USA was the white knight fighting the evil dragon. Now the situation has turned 180 degrees. It is the US and its vassals that constitute the new Evil Empire, striving for world hegemony, while Russia is the new white knight fighting the western degenerates. How things can change!
Anyway, you are right, exexpat, Russia must win, otherwise our civilization is doomed.
Which goes to show, the PR has always been total projection, through and through. US was always 'fighting the commies'.... while indiscriminately bombing civilians and destroying entire countries (Cambodia / Laos).
Don't forget North Korea. Whether he is a communist or not, any honest individual understands the politics of this country better when he knows how that land was bombed to smithereens by the Americans. North Korea doesn't want to experience this nightmare another time. That's why they have built their nuclear deterrence force... There's a reason for everything.
You mistake the propaganda of that time for reality of that time. The situation has not changed at all, because today's propaganda tells you exactly the same. If anything has changed - it is your understanding what reality is and what propaganda. May be you should start to reevaluate your childhood's believe?
Ok, you have a point, but I think you understand what I mean to say.
I lived then too (in the U.S.). Now that I've lived in Russia for a few decades (due to marriage) and have had a chance to read through old Pravda issues from the 60s onward - all I can say is, average Soviets were much better informed about world events and what was happening in their country than we were about ours.
The most shocking thing to me to learn was that there were Radio Shack-like stores in cities, and building shortwave radios wasn't any problem - it was common for people to do, completely legal, and didn't put you on any watch list or anything like that. We were told Russians were repressed and kept in the dark about the world. But that's exactly why VoA existed and broadcast on shortwave - to get included in the large number of western stations Russians had full access to listening to.
Interesting bit of information. Thank you.
Our ideas about the Soviet Union back in the 80s and before were frozen in time with Stalin and never changed. The livery cab drivers in NYC had a lot of good stories - all Russian expats in the early to mid 90s. A lot of long rides from Manhattan to my place in Jersey after the trains stopped running. They mostly missed home. Sold my parents' Lincoln Town Car to some dude who was exporting it to St. Petersburg. Apparently those big boxy cars were popular in Russia.
I also had a number of expats from the old SU in my geek circle during that era. The one I knew best was an ethnic Russian who had grown up in Tajikistan. He appreciated the greater access to better chips and such in the West, but within the technological and supply limitations of the Soviet state, he was able to build a lot of stuff.
So yeah, our ideas were warped by propaganda. The conclusion I came to was that during the early 1970s, living standards started to approach parity in Russia, across the board. They diverged afterwards due to the deluge of consumer goods in the West.
"Russia must win, otherwise our civilization is doomed."
Then Russia needs to get cracking.
Too late.
"Roses Have Thorns" is an incredible documentary. Undeniably hard to watch at points (the episode linked in this article is particularly brutal) but undeniably necessary viewing.
It is this abomination..... which Trump and his minions refuse to acknowledge....
Which the Euro Countries relish with glee.....
All the while salivating over Russian resources....
Not to be theirs...
INDY
The spiritual revolution continues. Alas, carry on we must. For the Mother/Fatherland 💙🇷🇺❤️
When you cut through the media noise and propaganda theatrics, what’s happening on the ground tells the real story: it’s one of slow, calculated dominance. While the West obsesses over optics and narrative control, Russia is grinding forward with discipline and strategic coherence, reshaping the map kilometer by kilometer.
This isn’t about flashy breakthroughs or grand speeches; it’s about willpower, attrition, and an understanding that victory belongs not to those who shout the loudest but to those who stay the course when others exhaust themselves chasing headlines.
It is also about fighting the entire western alliance, NATO+, not just Ukraine, which those who hammer Russia for being too slow, forget. Russia has not just had to take, but to hold and secure each kilometre of land- for ever, not as some bargaining point, as the Ukkies claimed was the point of their failed Kursk offensive, amongst so many other ex post facto rationales! It was supposed to be worth all those men dying for some negotiating chip which Russia had already rejected outright.
But it wasn't about that, of course. It was about a nutty British James Bond plan to take the Kursk NPP and hole up there with some real leverage. That went as well as this entire NATO operation to grab Russian resources.
I think virtually all of Harvard's Journalism School graduates would disagree with you; an entire strata of AUKUS and European society believes that "victory belongs to those who shout the loudest".
Plus Russia is slowly training a population with real combat experience, anf promoting the veterans to civic duties. They will become an unstoppable nation, while we fall apart in apathy and disgust at our western so-called democracy.
Yes, after the Maidan, for the first time, I looked in the mirror and saw a Russian man
To my surprise there French fighting with…Russians, just leaked on a F broadcast, they say 30. How many others from EU countries? Probably not battalions but small units and aren’t they small Trojan horses perhaps well trained in handling drones at their return?
One can hope...
And Russia would be happy to have you. Decree №702 of the Russian Federation (signed by Putin last year) grants foreign citizens and stateless persons the right to move to Russia and obtain a temporary residence permit (TRP) in a simplified manner — without considering the established quota and without undergoing testing for knowledge of the Russian language, history, and legislation.
All that's necessary is talking to consular staff at a Russian embassy or consulate, and obtaining a 90-day tourist visa:
https://mid.ru/upload/medialibrary/aef/94mfg4ehws6kav1nk8btstf0t4h0e5xt/%D0%9F%D0%90%D0%9C%D0%AF%D0%A2%D0%9A%D0%90-IG1_1%20ENG.pdf
Granted, you wouldn't be a Russian man - that's about ethnicity. There's a guy whose great grandfather ended up in the village my Dacha is in who was from Sweden - and he's still called "the Swede" by everyone, generations later. But a Russian *citizen*, yes.
Actually I am born in . Moscow, USSR.
I am Russian.
But they haven't had a consulate in SF for some time
Dasvidanya
Meanwhile the West is quite literally falling apart. Forget those tiny votes in the UK yesterday, where so few people turn out in local elections you can get in on the back of a handful of family and friends loyally showing up for you.
The peoples of the west, as evidenced in elections in Canada and Australia, have decided that they prefer life on the old never-never to facing reality. None of them want to go off and die for any cause, just stay at home lost in the dream of a consumer paradise they never earned and which some one else has to pay for, oh, and ideally die for too- which is where Russia came in as the last low slung pocket to pick, with the value of the nutty new europeans in the borderlands fingered as the ones to die for this 'cause'. The great reserve and the ballast.
So far, beyond Ukraine, and not even all of its people as Z keeps trying to tell his western masters, the handy nutters have dug in their heels and refused to go over the top, at any rate, not without rotten old europe and the US coming in on the ground and in the air, flesh and blood that is, too. That was never the plan!
Here is the western mantra- find someone else to pay for our lifestyle, and in due course to die for it as and when required. Easy peasy.
Best of luck with this model of civilisation going forward.
It's working for about more or less 500 years and even the in-fight between the old European powers has not broken this system of rape, plunder and find others who pay for their life style.
The western world just starts ending noticeably for who wants to see, it just will drag many into misery and death on it's way into history.
Nah, Frank, western ordinary folks used to get thrown on the fire along with the officer class, and even the king who was expected to lead from the front. Blood sacrifice. Where is that now? One way or another, what you get, you 'earn'.
The King dying in battle is a long long time ago, blood sacrifice is expected from the commoner since time and time again.
In that brief period of my life that I had to be in contact with the more wealthy people of the part that we know as west-Europe I have experienced so much disdain and inhuman talk about the common man, it's mind boggling.
They really feel entitled to their 'earned' place in society and see the rest of us as disposable, human trash that is simply to serve and follow orders.
And what do we see among the west plus the USA? Common people compare their oligarchs, who has the biggest private island, the latest gulf stream jet, the biggest yacht and so on. They celebrate an Elon Musk that is robbing them blind, vote for a billionaire Trump that this time for sure will honor their interests.
Stupidity & Ignorance has taken over, celebrated and encouraged, started with Ophra and Jerry Springer and has now degenerated to TikToc wisdom and 'influencers'.
There is no end in sight of this madness in the west and I fear that this will lead us into a bloody mess amongst ourself and a unprecedented wide spread hatred against the more intelligent and developed cultures as the chinese & russians.
In what universe is Elon Musk robbing the US blind? By making cars people want to drive? Creating a world-wide internet that people want to use? By tracking down the incredible amount of waste that is the US govt? I'm not saying Musk is a messiah, but robbing us blind?
He's robbing you blind by extracting huge amounts of public money from the government to transfer it into his own pockets to do with as he pleases.
His cars 'people want to drive' have never ever made profit for more than 10 years, his starlink is a public founded private show that no one has asked for.
Elon Musk is a no one from South Africa, born into a racist, wealthy family and build up by the black funds of the CIA plus redirected public money.
That's what I mean by people in the west celebrate their oppressors and kissing their behinds for the chance to look up to them, feeling good about themself to have such mighty idiots amongst them - you mean you can't make billions by being an idiot?
With the right connections and the lack of scruple and being on the right time at the right place, everyone can become a billionaire, just not all ;-)
Touched a nerve, eh? Obviously you have a visceral dislike of Musk, and I would say likely every magnate in the world. Of course, without his ilk we'd still be in caves. Billionaire or not, somebody has to have the vision and put all the pieces together with absolutely no guarantees of success. Workers don't spontaneously come together and create factories and industries. We don't hear much about most of the losers, but there are many for every major success. They had dreams, too. But they had bad planning, bad product, bad timing, bad luck -- any or all of the above. And they either lost everything or barely eked by. In the US we do celebrate the winners. And we should, because without them we'd be using horse-drawn plows and starving every time the weather turned against us. In additino, many of the winners were also losers for a long time. Like many musicians have said, "after ten years in the business I was an overnight success."
As for Musk, one of his car models was the single best selling car in the US (before the hate machine took over; don't know where it is now). I would suspect that means that somebody wished to purchase them.
For a fraction of the NASA budget he created a space program that puts them to shame. Boeing as well, obviously. Nobody asked for them? Well, a whole lot of people are using them. Besides, what is this 'asked for' thing you bring up. He wanted to do it and did it, hoping that the gamble would pay off. There were certainly no guarantees that his rockets would work -- and for a long time they failed. I remember his early attempts to land boosters on the ship. They crashed. They landed -- in the sea. But eventually, he got them to work and quite reliably, too. No, he didn't do it personally, but without Musk it doesn't happen. And he and his investors would have lost a whole lot of money chasing a wild goose.
Some of his ventures did not work out. That is life. But if you aren't willing to fail you'll never succeed.
With regards to his DOGE venture, he takes no pay and it has cost him a huge amount of money personally. He went from the darling of the left to public enemy number 2 (after Trump). He didn't have to do this. US gov't spending (and thus the debt) is totally out of control. He really doesn't want his adopted country to crash and burn. It may anyway, but he's trying.
You mentioned elsewhere that you had dealings with the uppercrust types and were dismayed by the contempt they had for the working man. In Britain you have all the hereditary class stuff. In the US that position is taken by the bureaucrats.
Do you have an accounting of this "public money" that you imagine Musk is hoovering up anywhere handy?
Something?
Anything?
Oh that's right, you're just spouting MSM fabricated bullshit.
Again.
StarLink vs. Xfinity - you get more speed/better reception with Starlink vs. Xfinity. Elon didn't need to buy X. He bought it at a loss. He also didn't have to make public the FBI/Gov intrusion into Twitter, on the contrary. X is not ideal, but Elon stated he'd pay for the legal fees for anybody who lost a job for something they said on Twitter/X. Don't see Instagram, FB doing anything like that. Zuck only "saw the light" and bend the knee when Trump was winning. Elon risked by backing Trump at a crucial moment, I'm pretty sure it would end ugly for him, if Trump lost. Musk also runs/staffs the schools for the kids of his workers, to ensure that sciences properly taught, vs. like in my Dem-run state, with all IT HQs, Boeing, biotechs, but the hard-core sciences are being replaced with social sciences and... choir. Is Musk perfect? Hell, no! But I don't see him as the devil you try to paint him to be.
People like you make the perfect slaves because you allow your oppressors to completely blind you. But don't feel bad because you are part of the majority.
I don't feel bad at all, and I totally disagree with your assessment of the situation. See my reply to Frank.
Even I know Leon gets an absurd amount of funding from the US Government.
Since every other supplier robs them blind, is it so unlikely to assume he does too?
You "know" but can't prove... because the proof doesn't exist.
"A source inside the Whitehouse says"
Same level of reality.
So true!
” Here is the western mantra- find someone else to pay for our lifestyle, and in due course to die for it as and when required. Easy peasy.”
What cause should a Canadian veteran such as I be dying for? Sorry, but whose army did YOU serve in and what was YOUR role?
Do you imagine that because we elected a competent manager to counter Trump in lieu of a rabid populist (who has spent 20 years in government accomplishing nothing and whose over arching goal seems to be to bring back plastic straws) that we don't know which way is up? 🤔 Check yourself, ma'am.
"Competent manager". !!!!! Don't bother talking up Carney to a Brit. We know all about his economic competence. Best of luck.
You clowns voted for Brexit out of ignorance and fear, and you can't blame Carney for trying to get you out of your own shit..looks good on Britain, frankly. You need to sit down and stop making noises about Ukraine that you can't back up, because you're not an empire anymore thanks to Thatcher, et al..
Carney's damage came before brexit, PP, as did the entire global financial crisis. I think this would be a good time for you to give the keyboard a rest.
By the by, I have a no brief for a shameful little self important kingdom whose wealth was founded on slavery. I don't mean Canada.
You want me to give the keyboard a rest before you run out of vapid slogans, I'll wager 🙄 What "damage" did Carney do, then..be very specific, if you please, no more of this boiler-plate gibberish and vague insinuation.
I am not going to retread common knowledge. He was a disaster for the UK economy, damage he wantonly inflicted that was then magically shifted to covid, as he beat a hasty retreat. Covid, remember, that overblown affair that provided cover for some truly stupendous bailouts of messes generated in the grand QE experiment which Carney recklessly expanded with covid providing cover for the bail outs of the existing mess, which mess included auto-loans and the commercial property sector (REITs to you). I could go on and on but what is the point?
Were you not on the planet at the time? He was a bad joke. But as I said, this is for you Canadian born-yesterdays to find out now he is your boss-man. Why would I want to spoil the surprise? We can both watch it unfold in real time and then you can come back, if this board is still running, and doff your cap to my foresight. He can certainly print money so watch out for your Canadian dollars.
Wow, thanks for such poetic words about the evil ritual that took the lives of peaceful protesters in Odessa. I'll just add here for posterity's sake that something almost identical happened back in 1941 when Romanian fascist forces, after their HQ was blown up by mines left behind by the retreating Soviets, took a number of innocent civilians, locked them in a building, and burned them to death in reprisal.
There is some dark blood that's been spilled in Odessa over the years, and it's not for nothing that its most enduring visual legacy is a baby helplessly bouncing its way to its death down the stairs leading to the port.
The Romanians doing it was only a very small part of what happened back then.
The German Nazis in WWII, and their Ukronazi collaborators, used to do this on an industrial scale -- round up all the inhabitants of a village, usually in the local church (and those were often wooden churches in the villages), set it on fire, shoot whoever tried to crawl out, thus doing both physical and cultural genocide (population plus Orthodox church both gone)
That is how thousands of villages were completely destroyed, all around Belarus, western Russia and Ukraine.
And that has been deeply imprinted on the minds of Russians. Classic movies like Come and See feature exactly such scenes.
The Odessa case was a reenactment of the same pattern, sending a clear message. Round up the Russians, in the very symbolic Trade Union House building (Russians in Ukraine are all commies under the Ukronazi narrative), set it on fire, finish off whoever tried to crawl out.
Very symbolic.
Crocus City was the same kind of operation too, BTW.
What was an absolute must after that was for Putin to mobilize a million men and march on Kiev and then Lvov. But he didn't because reasons. And even he now acknowledges that was a mistake.
There is more weight to your argument than many might admit. I tend to give Putin the benefit of the doubt because what is playing out with Russia and Ukraine is really part of a global conflict/ reordering. There are a lot of moving parts and not all of Ruusia's leadership was aligned with Russian interests having been compromised back in the 1990s.
But the comments about Odessa-style shashlik are not hyperbole. Demyan Ganul one time member of Right Sector and orchestrator of the fires / deaths annually posted pictures of himself grilling shish-kebabs on the anniversary of the massacre.
Not all Ukrainians are facists but facism has so embedded itself in Ukraine with Western support that the only way to remove it it is to take the country.
You're right the US has 80+ years manipulating the conditions for this outcome and West Europe has over a century invested in developing the conditions in Ukraine and in their own countries to support this Machiavellian endeavor.
The grotesque anti-Russian ideology will not go away as long as part of the nation of Ukraine remains. It is based on deep seated dehumanization. For Ukrainian fascists (Banderaists) Russians are not human. I've been told this many times. There is no room for diplomacy with that perspective.
When someone says, "You're not human and have no right to live" at the same time they assert they are the only truly human civilization, they have created an irreconcilable impasse.
>having been compromised back in the 1990s
Correction: back in the 1980s the latest. Starting a couple decades earlier.
>Not all Ukrainians are facists but facism has so embedded itself in Ukraine with Western support that the only way to remove it it is to take the country.
Exactly. Nazism and the very idea of Ukraine are so inextricably linked that there can be no non-Nazi Ukraine. And that meand Ukraine has to end.
But the current Kremlin posture is anything but what it has to be for that to be a realistic prospect.
And here lies the crux, even after Ukraine has ended, there will be a ratline again, the west will rescue those who should be prosecuted and judged like back in 1945 when the US made sure that many escaped their well deserved punishment.
Then they will build them up again like they keep doing in the USA and Canada since WWII has ended.
In Germany they have hidden in plain sight, taught their children to hate Russia plus all the less worthy people on the planet and that it is their birth right to own Russians and the countries wealth.
Not if the job is finished this time.
Meaning going over to the Polish border and then doing **de-Ukrainization**. With absolute ruthlessness and conviction, to successful completion.
Nothing of the sort was done after WWII.
I am not sure how Stalin was feeling about that idea, if it ever crossed his mind, but one would think that was the time to take away the right to secession of the republics from the constitution, and to even abolish some of them. Ukraine being a prime candidate. It was done on other occasions -- Karelia was subsumed into the RSFSR in the 1950s.
But he didn't do it.
Then Khrushchev amnestied the Banderites in the mid-1950s. And their equivalents in the Baltics too. It is how you the infamous sequence of:
Nazi grand-grandfather --> grandfather in GULAG --> father a high ranking member of the Estonian communist party --> Kaja Kallas.
Same thing happened in Ukraine, of course.
Russia must:
1) End Ukrainian statehood
2) Get to the current Polish border (don't leave anything to the Poles, that territory will be used against Russia eventually)
3) De-Ukrainize. Those who want to be Russian again stay, those who have Nazi tattoos or social media history of glorifying Bandera are physically disposed of, those who want to go to Canada or wherever can flee west.
4) Build up a new Iron Curtain to defend against NATO.
There will be nothing to build up then, unless Europe wants to go to war directly. In which case a sufficient quantity of mushroom clouds should quickly dissuade them from that idea.
Technology is on Russia's side now. Back in the 1940s and 1950s OUN could hide in the mountains and in various basements for years. Today with all electronic communications being under surveillance it will not be possible to maintain partisan activity for very long once the territory is firmly occupied.
Except the mushroom talking I am in preference for a more true and harsh approach against the Nazis this time.
Russia needs to assure the collective West in clear terms that marching east will be their end, physically as state entities and population wise.
Compromise with Na*ies leads only to an endless war, hybrid and by terrorist actions.
In the end it will be up to the western societies, want to go on like this=Oligarchs against the people or want to embrace the China-system, by the people for the people.
The system question is back on the table.
"used to do this on an industrial scale -- round up all the inhabitants " citations needed- stop with the jew propaganda....
some adds to the article
(1) In the Sumy direction, RF army continues puts pressure, developing offensive from Zhuravka to Belovody, advancing in the Loknya area and in the border forest belts.
(2) Russian snipers destroyed more than 50 Ukrainian "Baba Yaga"-type hexacopters near Pokrovsk
More details at: https://dzen.ru/a/aBRrWnrDiSdKkIpk
50 Baba Yagas destroyed. Champagne!
I am in Thailand and on Buddhas eight fold path. And also sending many Thai girls thru hair and nail colleges. I have unplugged but I return to the USA shortly, so I exposed myself to a limited amount of news. And of course, our esteemed host is a must.
Many find it odd that an American combat veteran holds the following view. But I saw it. And I bear the stains.
My country is evil. A longer and more complete reign of terror than Hitler.
I cannot believe I killed for them.
Your country is not evil. It is ruled by evil people, however.
Well, then it's been ruled by evil people for 200 years..same thing, really. Who elects "the evil"? From what population does "the evil" spring?
it has been subverted by the jew.
The Founding Fathers came from masonic lodges (take a historic tour of the DC), already a tool of the jew. But at that time it was less obvious.
Ernest, you'll risk to be ïnvited for an interview once you touch ground in your homeland. Things and procedures have changed a lot. But on the Positive side you may get free accomodation, free food and some limited Health Care while sitting in a Cell with shackles. I know what i'm talking about. Very similar experience upon arrival in Krautland last year.
Perhaps you know Krautland, but my brothers have wives in Thailand and spend a lot of time there. No issues whatsoever coming back into the US. Why should there be? I spend half the year in our house in Ireland. Likewise, I get nothing more than a 'welcome home' from immigration upon my return to the US.
the more white men that wake up and refuse to fight for the ZOG that hates them the sooner this jew problem is solved...
As an aspiring Buddhist, you have the example of King Ashoka who, when he truly grasped his contribution to dukkha through his lust for power and land won through warfare, repented of these things, and did his best to advance knowledge of the Eightfold Path in his realm. Sincerity is all. We’re all doing what we can based upon that.
Still see you occasionally over at Larry Johnson’s place. Keep on keepin’ on, Wolf.
From a Christian perspective, cut yourself some slack.
https://i0.wp.com/www.barnhardtmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/img_4048-1.jpg?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1
Excellent. At the end it gets into what is really going on. Gives me some material I can point to.
Not Russia v Ukraine but Kiev Ukraine v Donbas.
Last sentence: ”This abomination has been allowed to molt into a terrible seething dragon, which must forthwith be lanced at all costs.”
With more thousand cuts?
Sorry but I am beginning to suspect that Russia will lose this war. There seems to be no limit to the amount of meat Ukraine can press gang to their inevitable deaths and I am beginning to suspect most if not all Ukrainian casualties in this war are essentially press ganged Russian slaves while the true blue Ukrainian patriots shake their butts in Kiev, excuse me, KYUVVEEF. Add to this one trillion drones and Ukrane might literally hold out for decades if not generations, especially with pesky mercs plugging gaps.
It troubles me greatly that China is not flooding Russia with hundreds of millions of artillery shells. I don't know why they hesitate. Do they suspect that hesitation will earn them a reprieve when its time to Ukranianify Taiwan? It won't.
The fact that China is currently being rattled by traffifs shows a truth - the USGAY, despite its ten trillion unforced and degenerate errors, possesses a vast economic and financial power that dwarfs everything on earth combined and while they may not have have China or Russian's pure military industrial complex base there is nothing stopping the US from pumping out tens of trillions of d cheap plastic drones a month and flooding them into Ukraine, or simply paying someone else to do this for them with their infinite money hack. Russia is strong and China is strong but they aren't fighting together, only North Korea is doing the right thing whereas the USA can call upon a continent of dickless slaves (Europe) to do whatever it wants.
I hope I'm wrong, I'd LOVE to be wrong, maybe I'm just depressed today, but guys, I've been waiting for VICTORY for three years now and all I see is an endless pile of dead Russians, Russian Russians and Ukranian Russians and the American MIC counting their blood soaked money readying for the next round. There will be no ceasefire, there will be no quarter, there will be no diplomacy, there will be an endless flood of bone, blood and metal until one side shatters and I'm not sure that side won't be Russia. I think it was a grave mistake to not go nuclear during the Kherson and Zhaphoriza counteroffensives and i think it's a grave mistake not to go nuclear today.
Russia says a world without Russia is not worth living in - I agree - so prove it - incinerate those with hellifre that are trying to eliminate Russia - today!!!
tldr - I miss Prigohzin
"hundreds of millions of artillery shells"
FFS are you a child? Do you have any idea of how much time it would take to manufacture 'hundreds of millions'?
Maybe you were tired when you wrote this comment. Didn't you see the footage of a Russian drone taking out a half-dozen soldiers as they were about to leave an AFV, in this very article? Did you think that was a lucky strike and that this doesn't happen often and even worse for them? Russia's drone production is not behind Ukraine's and can be said that is potentially even superior. Just see the recent massive attacks done in Odessa recently, plus what they are using daily on other front lines.
I did write that at 2:00 am on a bender, but I stand by it mostly. I sincerely hope you are correct my good man.