I do believe I touched a nerve there. I made a simple observation and I have just as much right to do it as you did to post your rambling screed. If you don't want replies, don't post. As to the bullying, read your comments and mine and see which best fits that description. At least I know how to use capital letters properly.
I gave up after three lines. My only disagreement with bemused is that the random capitalisation makes your post almost impossible to read, not just difficult. I considered cutting and pasting it into Word and applying "sentence case" to make it legible, but decided not to bother.
How do you spell troll? Pretty much anyone looking for a reaction. After close to 40 years of this crap starting on FidoNET in the 80s, I just ignore them. I recommend this.
It's been quite a while now. I think the 'fence sitters' and the 'play both sides' actors and the fearful of american retribution people (nations) are now seeing something quite different to what you see.
I think they saw Russia holding its own to the vast surprise of perhaps nearly everyone.
And then they saw it forging ahead.
On the battlefield.
And then in Trade.
And then in politics.
And even slowly, slowly despite not even trying, in the public consciousness in the west..
So, impressed and heartened and educated on a few previously unappreciated realities they begin to come forward with more and more tangible help for Russia.
China already has said, I think, it will not let Russia lose.
That goes beyond Ukraine.
If Russia 'lost' in Ukraine what would that be? Fail to help the secessionists in their secession?
It may take years but i could envisage a war going this way and that until eventually the front line was somewhere near the black sea again and the secessionists were captured again by the Nazis.
And I can see China even 'letting that happen'.
But that's not defeating Russia.
It would still have all its territory, all its wealth and all its new found Trade and alliances across the world.
To break in Russia and try to destroy all that: that's 'defeating Russia'.
Russia has said it will not happen. Nuclear war first. And China has said it will not happen. You can bet your boots North Korea would frown on it.
"Well—one supposes, then, that the Europeans are deserving of their lot, and their leadership."
There are still a lot of Europeans who neither deserve their lot, nor the leadership we have to undergo, and who are trying to change things, in challenging circumstances. A bit of respect and sympathy for these Europeans would be appropriate, I would say.
Don't tar everybody with the same brush, please! Thank you.
Think of that 14 year old Scottish "Braveheart" girl in Dundee, who defended her friend with tooth and nail against migrants. Does she "deserve" her lot?
Yeah, well, the Scottish girl. Hahaha, in a time of corruption everything is just confusion. I watched the video and I don’t have a clue what’s going on, only what others are telling me is going on. I keep my mind open. What I find hilarious is that followers of this blog see a child with holes in her trousers holding a huge knife and an axe and nod in approval, “yeah bud, Europeans taking control back”. Hahaha, don’t make me laugh. Europeans of the sort this girl represents would be unable (literally) to take a cow on a rope to drink in the river.
A migrant, a migrant, I hear you say. What migrant? I heard another British voice on the video. Is that the migrant? For all I know this guy might be challenging the girl precisely for being armed and then her lot made up the harassment story. Pure racism. Lumpenproletarians who unfortunately are even lower down that your average Briton, in understanding, politics, culture, everything.
Unfortunately, I see that this class is now being used to man the frontline of the new nationalism. A nationalism that does not understand anything of what’s going on in the world or in their own country.
There was a demonstration against immigration in my city yesterday and I went to have a look to see what it was about. It’s hopeless, full of alcoholics wrapped in Union jacks and St George’s flags. There’s no quality popular centre to the anger. Hopeless.
And the continuous picking of this kind of mess like this video in order to stir up not anti immigration but anti-immigrant sentiment. Again, more division, more ignorance and more mindless violence.
Another one. Traitors to what my boy? All “this class” is doing is carrying forward the ruling class’s narrative. You come here but nothing goes into that head of yours.
There must be a reason that in the UK 14 year old girls feel the need to carry weapons. The reason is that the UK, like the rest of Europe, is governed by individuals like you, who hate and despise their own people.
Jesus Herman. Where the fuck do you live? You never saw the likes of that girl shoplifting, fighting in the street, stabbing each other, drunk, drugged? I don’t hate them, don’t despise them. I quite understand how they got where they are. But I’m not blind. I know their sense of the country’s problems and mine are not even near. They’re not “my” people.
The landslide into genocidal globalist tyranny will accelerate until the individual senior police, Judiciary, MSM propagandists, & treasonous politicians directly feel the brunt of forceful & effective vigilante action against them for their treasonous support of their broad spectrum of eugenics against western populations. The failure to make the abusive globalist puppets fearful of vigilante justice is the soul reason the globalist attacks on essential civil liberty continues unrestrained. In essence, the Karen's and the Weasels within the West's corrupt establishment, must be made deeply fearful of necessarily harsh consequences for their betrayal. The French Resistance to Nazis collaborators comes to mind as heroic acts needed to reestablish the rational boundaries these weasels have been ignoring without consequence.
it is hard to bear in mind that we all suffer today under behemoth governments that wish to own us body and soul and that getting them off our backs is one tough job. The governments we have create our national image. The US image is horrific -- a man who probably wasn't even a US citizen being president and then setting up a "soft coup" against his successor in the hopes of derailing his candidacy and then spoiling his presidency. Then a brain-dead man. And now a man who thinks everything in life is a deal, money talks, decency walks, etc etc. And allt he while the US feeding wars, creating divisions, bombing and threatening and coercing. What a nice "shining city on a hill."
For sure, they are led by captured politicians. They do, however, continue to elect these politicians. Which means at some level, they're asking for what they get.
Of course I'm playing to the gallery. Every single commentator here is playing to the gallery. I.e. that he/she hopes to make a point and to be proven right by the jury - the "gallery "as you put it.
As for your recommendation that I leave this stack, I suggest to leave this to Simplicius, if you don't mind.
I do not agree with your position that President Trump does not understand what it going on. He has been in business for a long time, and as everyone knows in the startup world, you can not just say ok we lost. Sometimes you just need to keep people talking and let the situation evolve.
Trump is already succeeding by working down support for the war. Just by talking to both sides he is succeeding. Calling both sides names he is succeeding. This is complex stuff and wont be solved over night. Some players need to be moved around and some taken out of the play.
I think its clear that Trump has no love for the dictator of Ukraine and former dancing in leather and heels. I am surprised Zelensky is still alive let alone still a player.
Posturing to show he is willing to offend them both. Trying to stand between two parties and not pick sides. Bringing about Peace in this situation is not an easy thing to do and he does not have the power to force everyone either.
Trump will do two things: support continuity of US foreign policy agenda (the wars will contiunue) and line his families pockets with billions and billions of dollars. Beyond that, his "successes" are lucky by-products of an ego maniac at play in the fields of Murica.
The man lost money as a President. If he made money I have every confidence the team the Biden DOJ, CIA, FBI, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc would have told us about it. They had to resort to saying he was a Russian spy working for Putin. I would rather be lucky than good.
Nothing against President DJT., but the fact is that he is a clever street-smart New Yorker .
But this time, he is way out-matched, VVP. of Russia, and Xi Jinping of China are highly cultured individuals. Huffing and puffing, grabbing onto various ideas won't help him any. He most definitely needs better advisers. This is the game he has never played before.
I voted for him in 2024 (not in 2016,2020) out of desperation, because Kamala was looming. I ran into an Uber guy from NYC in AZ. who told me Trump got his father broke. His father owned a construction company, and Trump didn't pay for the work done, declared bankruptcy, and even when the banks bailed Trump out, and he could pay, he still didn't pay the people.
Vinny, imho, there are two unspoken aspirations held by DJT. 1. The Nobel Peace prize because O'Bomber got one. 2. To make more $$$ for his family than Joe made for his family (actually quite a challenge due to the time factor. Joe had years, lucrative years at that, and his dodgy Son on board too. Burisma etc)
Don't underestimate "$50 million for the head of President Maduro" - Venezuela has the largest so far oil supply in the world, beating Saudis, so Trump will make a killing no pan intended.
Which shows he either doesn't have a clue as to the why the SMO started or he is being deliberately obtuse. This is the guy who said he could stop the war in 24 hours. Only way to do that is to completely walk away. Blame it all on Biden and the Europeans. But he won't because he is controlled by the Juuz and Neocons who want perpetual war. The moron even sent a flotilla of warships to sit off the coast of Venezuela.
"Trying to stand between two parties and not pick sides. "
Nonsense. This is a war between the US and Russia that the US started and the US is losing. Ukraine is just expendable ammo. Trump is just trying to leverage the bottomless credulity and ignorance of Americans to pretend a) the US didn't start a war against Russia and b) the US isn't losing that war, and losing it badly. Trump wants to get out of that war before it gets catastrophically lost on his watch.
It's really funny watching the Western commentariat for imbeciles running around in their echo chamber repeating the same idiotic narrative at each other while barking nonsense about meetings between Zelensky and Putin. Not a one of them has the common sense that if you've got a fat and ugly neighbor who sets his vicious dog on your kids you don't talk to the dog, you deal with the fat and ugly neighbor. So no, Putin isn't going to pretend it makes sense to talk to the US's dog.
Yeah you nailed it. You said its a war the US started led by State Department Pro Victoria Nuland. Then the administration changed and a new one that was not part of the old one wants to do something different. The problem is we have so many people here in teh US that want a war with the Russians or whoever. Just a war so they can make mass money.
Trump is as beholden to this neocon consensus as anyone else; he might try to work around them, but he can't directly defy them. At least not yet. So he has to puff up and look like God-Emperor of America the hegemon.
Again..."Everything Trump says is for domestic consumption". None of it is targeted elsewhere. Those elsewhere reading it for meaning are entirely missing the point. The neocon consensus apparently _WOULD_ start a nuclear war. That's the scary part. It's kind of like the Nixon/Reagan madman strategy except the executive isn't the madman, the policy consensus is. It's an interesting twist on that old game. I'm not sure it is game this time, though.
Truth be told, though, when he says everyone is posturing and it's all bullshit, he has a point. A single glimmer of truth in all the piles of excrement.
Respectfully, when you write "Those elsewhere reading it for meaning are entirely missing the point. The neocon consensus apparently _WOULD_ start a nuclear war. That's the scary part. " just after commenting that Trump is beholden to the neocon consensus you weaken your own argument, that what he says can be safely discounted as not having meaning since it is purely for domestic consumption.
In reality you are 100% right that he is beholden to the hate machine and all the peril that brings to other countries. When Trump threatens attacks and war on others those threats should not be discounted based on the idea that Trump personally doesn't really want to do that and is only posturing, because that "beholden" bit in reality does compel him to put the hate machine's wishes into action by killing people, like he's doing in Gaza, in Yemen, in Lebanon, in Iran and in Ukraine.
John Mitchell, the consummate insider of the Nixon years, once remarked "Watch what we do, not what we say." That's very good advice for standard-issue politicians.
But Trump isn't standard issue. He's an outsider who has become a very powerful insider despite his outlier characteristic of often saying what he intends to do. Of course with Trump there's the predictive problem that he may change his mind the next minute, but taking his threats seriously, especially when they have to do with war against Russia, is something Russia must do.
After all, he's not dialed back a single one of the US's acts of war against Russia: US forces are still helping Kiev kill Russian people, the US has not returned a single dollar of the Russian assets it has stolen, the US has not paid reparations for destroying Russia's Nord Stream pipeline, the US has not returned any of Russia's diplomatic properties it seized, the US has not removed any of the nuclear weapons it has placed on Russia's border, and the US continues to try to destroy the Russian economy and state.
"Truth be told, though, when he says everyone is posturing and it's all bullshit, he has a point. A single glimmer of truth in all the piles of excrement."
That's only the truth when you apply it to the US and its stooges, but far less so to many other countries and absolutely not at all true for Russia. Russia doesn't bluff, and it doesn't posture. It doesn't bullshit when it lays down ultimatums.
We're soon going to find out just how much real war the US is willing to undertake in order to try to force Russia to accept the US's style of geopolitical relationships, to posture and to bullshit and to bow down to the US, because Russia isn't going to do any of that and the only lever the US has to try to compel Russia is military action.
I do think most of what he says can be safely discounted. I've shared before that I avoid listening to him myself. It's a waste of time in most cases. However, I do not think he's supporting Ukraine in the same ways that Biden's administration would have. Mostly because his own base is not willing to tolerate the continual escalation. But I think he's conscious of what the neocon consensus could do to him. This is how political assassinations in the US happen. Which is why he continues to play ball with them.
Russians can negotiate the same as anyone else. I don't think to this point anything has been offered that would be enticing, and also if you can't trust that any agreement will be kept, there isn't much reason to negotiate. But Trump is correct fundamentally that everything is a starting position for negotiation. I think Trump himself is strangely trustworthy - that's the basis of his whole career of acting as a dealmaker. But if he can't maintain power, then that is meaningless.
I think he has a plan. I don't think he is really changing his mind except tactically to take best advantage of the media cycle. There's a reason why i've been relistening to the Third Reich trilogy. Last time I (read) it was pre-degree, part of my work for a paper on the internal resistance to the Nazis, which is an interesting topic in its own right. This time I am listening to what they did then to gain power, how they ultimately defanged the various other parties in Germany, then outlawed them (KPD/SPD/Centre/Democrats(People's)/Nationalists). Each had its own logic and was done in a premeditated fashion. The usual beliefs about how the Enabling Act that created the dictatorship was a direct outgrowth of the Reichstag fire is not entirely correct. Also, Hindenburg retained the ability and perhaps the will to overturn the Nazi takeover until his death in 1934. Hitler and his team had a careful series of actions they had to undertake to gain the ultimate power in Germany.
I am feeling the same thing about Trump and his team. Anywho, to your direct concern, Trump will do nothing to stop Russia from trouncing the Ukraine. The noise is about how he will accomplish this. I even think Putin understands.
It's hard to understand things when you don't read books; Trump relies on an almost neo-reptilian sense of weakness, fear, ego and greed. Personally, I think he perfectly represents the true American spirit of success through slavery, stolen land, murder and grift.
Trump has learned "business" from NYC jewry; he exemplifies this approach, where doing business invariably means suckering, pressuring, or outright cheating the other side into a loss. This is all these grifters are capable of: you must strong-arm, blackmail, or con whoever you do "business" with, or else there is no business. Neither Trump nor his hoodlum mentors are even capable of conceiving of any other way; the Russian attempts at working out an honest solution are and will continue to be rejected. Any agreement must necessarily involve tricking the other side into submitting to defeat. That is "the art of the deal", and Trump firmly believes himself to be a superbly skillful "artist".
Now, if the business partner were to declare in outrage: "you are a con, I will not do any business with you" and break negotiations, the con artist would apologize, and come up with a slightly less outrageous con as a way of luring the partner back to the table. But the Russians do not do this; on the contrary, they declare that they are always open to further negotiations, no matter what. The grifter interprets this to mean that the sucker is not aware of being suckered, has no spine, and is "asking for it". So, rather than toning down, he continues with ever more outrageous demands.
Add the Italian mob, which was strill very strong in Trump's formative years, and which he no doubt had to deal with a lot being in the real estate business, as a key influence.
There is less of a difference than you have been led to believe. Like the NYC "Russian" mafia, the Italian mafia in the US is not quite Italian (unlike on the old continent).
>But the Russians do not do this; on the contrary, they declare that they are always open to further negotiations, no matter what. The grifter interprets this to mean that the sucker is not aware of being suckered, has no spine, and is "asking for it"
Well, in this case he interprets it correctly, because if nearly a thousand years of as in-your-face as it gets evidence have not disabused the Russians of the notion that there can be any negotiations with the West, then they indeed are suckers.
Russia should be gearing up for total annihilation of the West, for nothing else will ensure its security, not now, not ever, and certainly not in the coming era of acutre resource scarcity. Not for negotiations.
The only possible excuse for negotiations is buying time to prepare better
Well, the US has global hegemony, where world leaders must bow and scrape like Renaissance courtiers (but without the classical learning or the colorful getups) before a boorish clown like Trump, simply because he is The Head Clown In Charge.
I don't see the current state of affairs and the probable trajectory "working" except in the most callous and self-serving sense. Rather short term, as well.
Trump's just a stooge for Israel and the MIC. He's an actor, a pompous buffoon, A failed businessman, who almost lost his shirt and was bailed out by the Russian mob early in his career in New York real estate. Trump specializes in staged theatrics, just like World Wrestling, which he was part of. That never changed. And, he always dances to the tune of his handlers. He owes them.
Research shows it was the Russian mob. The top mobster lived right across from Trump—favour for favour. But there could be others. I'll post you the info sometime, Grrr. I need to find it.
Nearly all "Russians" in NYC are actually emigre Russian Jews. There are hardly any actual Russians. Source: lived there, went to school with these "Russians".
Reminds me of Oksana Baiul, a figure skater, trained in the USSR, got an Olympic gold in 1994 as a "Ukrainian figure skater," then in the US, got drunk, wracked her car, went on Oprah to "rehabilitate" her image.
Beauty (sic) contests too I believe. Recently heard allegations that he regularly barged into the "girls" changing rooms, to make sure they were errrr "safe", no doubt from elderly pervs like him.
I think I heard Trump himself boasting on barging into their dressing rooms. It's like letting a goat into a cabbage field - Trump and beauty pageants.
Had Trump simply taken the money he borrowed from his father and sunk that money into an S&P500 index fund and reinvested most of the returns, he would be richer than he is today.
there's a reason for having a separate Secretary of State. combining business interests with Foreign Affairs is a terrifying idea. indeed, kindergarten level.
If you are trying to hint that Under Secretary Nuland is who should be running State right now forgive me if I dont agree. She is the one that started this whole mess.
No one seemed to care much about it under the Biden or Obama regime. I am not even sure what kind of business he and his son were doing.
Joe Biden in Ukraine before the war: "If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money" You know the Prosecutor investigating his son?
Dave...it's a sad sign of both the times and just how far we have fallen; morally and ethically that when Joe recounted that anecdote his audience laughed and found it funny. Same as when Pompous Mike Pompeo gave his "we burgled, we cheated, we stole etc" speech. The moral compass of our Elites' hasn't just gone awry, it got thrown in the bin a long time ago.
Trump should never have allowed Zelensky back in DC (much less the White House), after Zelensky was openly dismissive and argumentative earlier this year. But he did and his EU goons to boot. The longer Trump backs Ukraine to whatever extent, the less credible his complaint that this "isn't my war" echoes. And I'm a 3X Trump voter.
Trump and his team have an agenda, and it's nothing to do with ensuring Russia has security in Europe. He's working an end goal, and shucking/jiving to get there.
without question. Dont listen to the Commies in the west Trump has his own agenda and it has been clearly stated. America First. He does not even hide it.
In 2024 — that is, during the "Biden war", to use Trump's terminology — Kiev received $50 billion worth of weapons from NATO. In less than 8 months of 2025 — with "peacemaker" Trump in the White House — Kiev has already received $33 billion worth of weapons. And by the end of the year, it will receive no less than in 2024, as reported by the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone."
Trump ~ "Everybody's posturing... it's all bullshit"
I believe the psychological term for this is "Projection"
"Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which an individual unconsciously attributes their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, impulses, or traits to another person, group, or object to avoid confronting internal conflict or anxiety. This process allows the individual to distance themselves from unpleasant aspects of the self, such as anger, jealousy, or dishonesty, by perceiving them as originating from someone else."
Yes, Donnie is a diminutive or nickname form of the masculine given name Donald, which has Scottish Gaelic origins. (His mom was Scottish.)
Simplicius also uses the diminutive form of Donald: "The world’s a stage for silver-spooned Donnie, and its ‘inconvenient’ conflicts mere sideshows to be quickly dispensed with for the prize of accolades."
Older UK readers may recall the 60s/70s talent show of the same name; Opportunity Knocks and it's host Hughie Green with his much used catchphrase "and i mean that most sincerely folks ! "
Donnie is simply projecting his own state of mind where the 'Art of the Deal' concept substitute for most normal mental functions. Western politicians simply lost the Art of Normal.
He is very spontaneous and often so. I kind of like that as it is rare from politicians and allows for an easier evaluation of their brain activities. He is kind of an original thinker but certainly carries the golden pager with the mandatory C4 load, very close to his private parts.
I kind of like it that often when Trump opens his mouth - you don't know what he'll blurt out:-) I hate the same - when he blurts out total nonsense.
I'm suspicious of a person who "doesn't like to read" - because if you don't read the first hand sources you are left with other "interpreting" them for you.
The US had never faced major conflict on their soil in modern history. Trump will never understand the history that Putin takes responsibility over for Russia which has been invaded many times. Invasion and militarism has to be ingrained in Russian culture as for them war is reality not Hollywood.
At this point why should Russians care what the western world thinks? The Western world live in their own made up reality devoid of true reality. The only thing Russians should concern themselves with is the consequence of western delusions. In the words of Tzar Alexander "Russia has only two allies, her army and her navy"
That's much more accurate than saying he is "projecting". He likes the people he deals with (except Zelensky). Putin, the NK leader, etc. He does not understand what Putin is saying. he does not grant Putin his reality. He is right that communication brings about understanding and agreement, but he's not listening - instead he gets "reality" from the neocons surrounding him.
Although the historical reasons brought up by Putin make sense, the material economic reasons based on now ostracised good old Marx prove to be much more telling. What we call “the west” is living through an existencial crisis which leads to a consolidation process, politically, economically and militarily speaking. The lines between the historical western powers are increasingly blurring, presenting itself to the world as a single, incorporated Leviathan (the biblical marine monster). Unable to further expand their operations to continental Asia or Africa, the “western” corporations are gobbling internal middle class wealth. Currency debasement, hidden inflation, rocketing prices, fake stats, political bribery, post-truth spectacle, mercenary media, digitalisation, climate policies, rigged elections... you name it... are all manifestations of this consolidation process by which the voting circus is losing facial flesh layers to show its ugly skull. The contradictions of such a process should be at the core of any serious analysis.
As an example, I will say a word about the Spanish case. Currently, the country is in a military production spree of fusions and acquisitions in the fields of IFV production, electronic warfare, drones, satellital and software imagery, aerospace components and naval shipyards to name a few. Most of these companies belong to international pools, participated by General Dynamics, Thyssen, Airbus, et al. Their stocks are soaring, directly connected to hedge funds and banks, being the political circus just a fraction of their activities.
Take Indra Sistemas, one of the biggest companies, heavily participated by the goverment. In 2018 and 2019 Indra was fined for participating in a 14-year cartel rigging the contracts for Spanish railway infrastructure and leading a 15-year cartel rigging the offers of IT services to several public administrations in Spain. Of course nothing happened and the plebs media didnt even grasp the affair. Coincidentaly, Indra is also in charge of the Spanish elections scrutiny, with growing concerns about the "accuracy" of their counting.
Far from "panic" as the usual Youtube doomers claim, there is a feeling of excited enthusiasm among the financial and the military press. New plants are being built, the money is flowing unabated. A virtuous circle among the banks, the MIC, the politicians and the war in Ukraine has been created. Calls for war against Morocco are increasingly heard. Polarisation is gaining momentum globally. The west is becoming a consolidated core under the lead of the US. 50 % Tarifs against Brazil and India have been confirmed, indicating that this process is meant to be upgraded to a larger global scale. But the material grounds for such a scheme are increasingly thin. Everything could spin with a finger snap if the background financial grounds for this new colonial spree, such us climate change, crypto and digital currencies, or precious metals revaluations fail.
Interestingly the PBoC pegged the RMB higher this week as the USD continues to slide. The shape of capital markets is morphing. If capital begins exiting the US equity markets, as is happening in the bond markets, then a catastrophic meltdown is a reasonable possibility. At the same time Trump is pushing for Miran to join the Fed board. What could possibly go wrong?
merz - what an idiot.. i hope blackrock is paying him a lot for his devotion to the banking complex... germans ought to be right pissed off with this con man..
I just came across an article by Alastair Crooke from June 2023 in which he says the following, which I hadn't heard before:
"Much of Europe, including Germany and the EU, had undergone ‘BlackRock financialisation’ from the 2000s, which has notably weakened EU real economies in favour of the services economy."
Gisele, yes "brainwashed" is a good description of what's happening in Germany and it may indeed be true. I find it shocking though that they can all, without exception swallow the Nordstream tripe hook, line and sinker. For me that is beyond all credulity, and perhaps it's just because their impotence is the same as that faced by us all..the damage is done and there's sweet FA we can do about it.
It goes to show how well brainwashing works. Of course there is Goebbel's mantra " Repeat a lie a hundred times and it becomes the truth", which can be applied to all Western MSM.
Nice comment and true for that matter. Enough circumstantial evidence to point all fingers, hands and other bodily parts to the USA. The trick was let the police investigators look every’no’where and make the search near eternal. Arrest a few scapegoats, forget about them and let it all be forgotten because of other ‘more’ important news events (what’s on the other channel). After a few years post an article on a msm channel like Reddit or game app and on page 13 left under so no-one will notice or give it the attention it should need. The respective responsible politicians are long gone. The new elites, handpicked, trained and corrupted by the usual gangs like WEF continue their ways, remote from all reality, delayed responsibility (till many years after their political careers ended), extracting personal wealth and influence with very mediocre skills. Look for example at the function of the undemocratic chosen leaders of the EU, like Von der Leyen and her cronies or NATO Secretary Rutte. No diplomatic heavyweight, bureaucratic experience mastered, well skilled deceiver, proven liar and his devote adoration for his paymaster Trump.
The damage brought to fairytale Europe cannot be overcome anymore. Subservient to our colonial master USA the ancient wealth from Europe wii be forcibly extracted at will by the USA (remember statements of Bessent in this regard). Europe will start to make gigantic loans for a nutcase projects like rearmament (5% of GDP) because of the so called, programmed and propagandized enemy Russia. It is the pinnacle of lies and absurdity of the near 300 years hegemon hatred from the UK projected on Russia. The Brits ruled the waives hegemon changed in the Brits waived the rules (borrowed comparison!). Empowered by colonial booty wealth, grotesque social injustice and lies hidden under a fat layer of stolen aristocratic politeness. Still directing and as far as possible orchestrating this game-plan, but now under the uninspired leadership from the ‘new’ hegemon the USA with spokesman boogeyman Führer Trump. A historian wrote that the era we are witnessing is the creation of a massive European rearmament with Germany’s Merz as bureaucratic warmongering mouthpiece. Of course everything shall be integrated in NATO where we meet utterly powerless anti charismatic champion Rutte taking orders from papa Trump. Weapons we have to buy in the US, thus enriching that country with the most despicable corrupt politicians. Impoverishing Europe with a Germany that’s de-industrializing but still the most powerful country in Europe and thus dictating war or diplomaticallyand politically wrestling the other EU countries down with the goal of war with Russia. The Fourth Reich is born (quote, not mine, but very adequately put). Merz will be voted away without accountability and another Bratwurst without backbone will accept the marching orders from the UK/Us and start something so technically advanced that everyone believes that losing is no impossible. All contrarian thoughts and opinions will be ridiculously dangerous. As already happening the censors control the news outlets. Palantir will take care of the diverting opinions and journalists who needs them! Nice target practice for the IOF/IDF.
My five cents on the probable, better, highly likely consequences of the ‘chosen’ irresponsible leadership of Europe and in the US. Total financial and maybe physical destructing will be the European reward for so-called US allied friendship.
I pray some sound politicians will revolt and avoid this looming disaster.
And today, German TV reported that Merz, at the CDU/SPD party conference yesterday, expressed the wish that Germany needed a new flag and a new national anthem.
And no one in the German mob noticed that we're headed toward the Fourth Reich.
If only you were headed towards a Fourth Reich. If only that was the worst scenario, no, that would be too good of a path for Germany. What you will have is the logical conclusion of the Neues Deutschland für Neue Deutsche in the same delusional model as you have had since 2014-15, only backed with more state enforcement and punishment, und noch größere gehirnwäsche-umerziehung. Was haben Sie schließlich für Ihre genetische kollektivschuld am Holocaust sonst verdient? Nie wieder!
So that is what you will actually get: the final erasure of what it means to be German, and a human being with any kind of dignity or autonomy. After all, history shows that the good guys won, so shut up if you know what's good for you.
Hastening fast angry written on my mobile with some typos like an annoying one: “losing is no impossible”, should “be not possible” or “losing is impossible”.
I am living outside Europe now and after many years absence, different newsfeeds and analytical skills i have concluded that very dark times are coming to Europe. If the electoral and original democratic principles were implemented and executed, then the electorate or citizens of all the respective EU nation would and should endure this provoked self destruction. Luckily this is not the case and Europe might save itself. Alas, i do not belong to this class of believers. The deluge of huge amounts of budgetary reserved EU money with the goal of enhancing and propagandizing EU ‘idealistic’, hence unrealistic goals, like one market and army, will wash away all critics and dissenting opinions. The EU will prevail and all inhabitants will experience increased taxation, eradication of social equality, decrease in healthcare, the cost of education will dramatically increase or the quality of education will go down and so on. My optimistic view is that social inequality will exponentially grow and at the same time impoverishment superimposed by the resp. EU governments due to an untenable increase in government debts and that will be optical polished or disguised by the debasement of 5-10% annually of the Euro. Basically following the US financial disaster scenario where the interest payments can be maintained with money printing till the house of cards collapses. But the US$ has internationally more historic credentials compared to the € euro. Bleak picture for European finances!
Pessimistic scenario is that the “coalition of the willing” insist on a war with Russia. The fake unity agreement is already in place.
Now it’s on the cool thinkers to dismiss this eschatological stupidity. All bets are of in that scenario. No place to hide.
The goal is to adopt capitalism in the form it exists in the USA.
An end to social capitalism, which is no longer competitive and not profit-oriented enough precisely because of its social aspects. American companies in Europe (e.g., Tesla in Germany) attribute their failures and revenue losses to the social regulations AND COSTS in Germany. For all other companies in Europe, it would be a dream to be able to run their companies without any social considerations AND COSTS = higher profits, and Blackrock is at the table in EVERY major company in Europe.
A better way to put it, germans are the most obedient, rule-following, authority-trusting sheep on the continent that is populated by the most obedient, rule-following, authority-trusting fools on the planet.
How will they get russian land and resourses? Only in their wet dreams mate! Western societies are too corrupt, incompetent to ever couse a real threat, RF is five steps ahead of western elites at all times. BRICS is the future, Von der Liar and her likes are irrelevant
And remember that there was talk about Russian denuclearization already back then.
The scheme is:
1) regime change
2) the new regime repents for all the Russian sins that it will equate to those of Nazi Germany, and "voluntarily" denuclearizes and demilitarizes
3) then you move in heavy with some combination of constant air strikes and Balkanization of the now defanged Russia
4) the end game is Lebanization and Syranization and then eventually the Gaza treatment (which Lebanon and Syria will get too, they are just not far enough along the trajectory yet).
A failure of the school system and education. In the East, about 45% "still" experienced the Russians live. I write "STILL" because these people, mostly over 65, will soon be extinct.
Just as the live witnesses from 1937 to 1945 have died out, and only for this reason do the warmongers have a chance again.
Once the eyewitnesses are gone, every door is open for new Gobelins.
Yeah entire European Union was under huge anti Russia propaganda for last 30 years. Its was literally dehumanization of evrything Russian from state to history and people themselves (just look how Hollywood portraits Russian people). Even most anti-Russia Polish people i met in 2010-2017 were saying they are not pro-Russian in any mean but they TIRED to live in this constant Russophobia propaganda, and they didnt understand what is going on. They wanted normal life and not this pshycotic degeneracy, literally hate cult. Obviously, it says a lot and shapes human minds especially of younger generation.
Ask any youngsters in the West about Russia or Russian people what association is. They say Dictator Gulag Bandit Crime Inhumanity Opression Dictatorship etc etc.
Its colonial racism. Its dehumanization.
And then they launch attack against "evil RASHANS".
Here in eastern Germany, I even hear such garbage about the Russians and Putin from East Germans over 55 years old.
Years of media barrage have done it.
Anyone who never understood how Adolf Hitler got the Germans to march joyfully into war will get a lesson in the present!
In about another 2-3 years, the Germans will march in lockstep again, first toward Lithuania, where they will be JOYFULLY greeted with raised arms, then toward Moscow.
That is, if they haven't been burned to ash by then.
But don't worry, you Anglo-Saxons in England and the USA will march with them...and die, because YOU are just as much victims of the propaganda of your elites.
" ... Anyone who never understood how Adolf Hitler got the Germans to march joyfully into war will get a lesson in the present! ....."
The National Socialist era was highly beneficial for the Germans - 6 million ( that number again ) were returned to productive work in less than 5 years, and massive internal improvements began, eg the autobahn system, the yearly paid holiday, the social and cultural programme, the interest-free loans to buy farms, cancelled if the family then went on to have four children, and pro rata for fewer, the VW for the people, the rebuilding of Berlin as Germania, etc.
That anybody can say Hitler was preparing for war as his first priority is exceptionally naiive.
War was forced upon him - and them - because he had the audacity to institute a new financial system based on work done ( see above ) instead of gold borrowed from jews - so the jews, including the one who got the reins of power in Britain, and who took £40,000 to start a war against Germany, mobilized to destroy him.
The 1933 Daily Express headline, "Judea declares war on Germany," says it all.
Don't be deceived. The entire "Nazi Germany" project was Jewish.(Like the Bandera Ukraine project, it is 100% Jewish). From the very beginning, from the time when Hitler was a painter. (Artists. Just lke Zelensky lol. Just like Trump, LOL)
It was the British (London Sephards) who created biological Nazism. And they started measuring the Irish skulls. Then they taught the Germans to do the same thing.
Karl Max was Jewish and worked for the City. He wrote about problems of the British working class, but the revolution happened everywhere except the UK, LOL, coincidence.
The entire project of Nazi Germany was created against the USSR and used against the USSR(and against Germany). It was funded, sponsored, AND ARMED (Wehrmacht was created by the Americans and their military technology. You can try to find a great video about it on YT. The Jews of the USA built army for the war.) Stalin and some Russian politicians tried to find normal German politicians and explain what would happen and find a way out of it. But unfortunately, what happened happened. And many Germans were brainwashed, and they happily marched to build death camps in Russia.
No, modern Germany or EU not going march anywhere. Russia can destroy evryone. So no worries here. But hate cult inflicted by jewish media will be bigger every year (ALL mainstream media is controlled by them. Even many blogers and podcasters are the same MSM)
Only advice is turn off all this propaganda. Its bad for your nerves.
Quite a lot of Nazi Whitewashing. As to the 6 million unemployed in 1932/33, most were not anymore in 1939, ok. Yet, about 2m were in Reichsarbeitsdienst, poorly paid forced labour, 900,000 were in concentration camps, roughly 400k exiled, The "boom" was mainly rearmament, and 1 million were in the army. Wage average was below the 1929 level, "Betriebsführer" quelling every protest, the "Deutsche Arbeitsfront" a mockup of a union.
The excessive number of concentration camp inmates (per populace more than Stalinist or recent US gulag) tells a lot about the happiness of Germans. In fact, they were efficiently subdued, like Ukrainians (and Westerners) nowadays.
They will stop supporting him once he bankrupts their fat German prosperity. That will hurt them where it matters the most, and suddenly they will wake up; but it will be too late to do anything anymore. And then someone will promise them a return of that prosperity, at the cost of fighting a war. And Germans will fall for that con again, just like the last time.
No, I wish that were true. Seeing their daughters raped and murdered hasn't been enough of a motivator. It hasn't even been enough of a motivator for German women who will all have been intimidated and groped on the street and in one of the Hauptbanhof across the country by feckless and dangerous mongrels who shouldn't even be in the country.
In the past, I would have doubted that, but looking at the current situation, you may be right. Still, I can’t see Merz making much of a Wehrmacht out of the nation of Sitzpinklers and stabby migrant sex pests his SPD/ CSU Uniparty has created.
Why would you hope that "Blackrock is paying him a lot?" BR should not be paying the Chancellor of Germany anything. He is not a con man. He has a goal to remilitarize Germany and bring back the glory of the Third Reich. People that call him an idiot, or like Trump, enjoy what they think is his humiliation, are woefully underestimating him. You do not want to see another German re-militarization. At least I do not.
you are talking about a world free of bribery... it is a very idealistic world, and i too would love to live in it, but alas, these politicial losers thrive on bribery... that is the con man part of his wanting to spend money that germany doesn't have on a possible direct war with russia..
germany is a colony and vassal of the usa.. that is why the need to support nato is a basic requirement.. usa says jump and germany says how high.. at least with sholz, he wasn't as blatant as merz about it..
i don't underestimate tyrants who have the support of less then 25% of the public vote, but i call a spade a spade... has he spoken about about how the biggest terrorist attack in europe - nordstream - is causing germany to kiss it's economic strength goodbye? no, because he's a con man for the financial elites who want war, or prep for war, with the threat of war always on the horizon.. yes - he wants to bring back toe glory of the third reich... self serving politicians are idiots.. i stand by my description of him..
I don't think that I agree that Germany is a colony or a vassal of the USA. A colony implies that Germany is run by American administrators. That is not true. A "vassal" implies that Germans are servants of the US. I have worked the last 40 years as an American with many German professionals. They are not American servants. Your language in your response is loose. Calling him a "tyrant", or a con man, or self serving, is not going to get to a precise description of what he is doing. What is he doing that is self serving? Or a conman wanting to bring back glory? I do not doubt that he wants to be the Reichsfuhrer of the 4th Reich. He's German. It is a part of their genes. I don't think we should underestimate him. He is not an idiot.
ham - lets say we see it differently then and as to mine or your use of language - it's subjective... the biggest tomfoolery is to think it is objective.. bottom line - merz is another disaster for germany and indeed he gets his walking orders from the usa and friends in high places, who pull the strings behind the curtain... just like the wizard of oz in fact!
This is the stupidest take of all time. It's so profoundly ignorant, even wilfully so, of how completely cucked Germany and Germans have been for decades. Two million plus neue Deutsche für ein neues Deutschland just because Mutti Merkel said so, and the willing participation by the media and every sphere of "good" society.
Why do you call him an idiot? Because he doesn't give a fuck about Germans and the future of Germany? That's not whom he represents. He serves the desires of his actual masters quite effectively.
Enough it with post-hoc rationalization copium, please.
If Russia had done its job properly in February-March 2022 or if it had done what had to be done to prevent NATO involvement in this mess later on, there would be no 120,000 dead on its side, with no end in sight, as the war would have been over a long time ago with a decisive victory and very little destruction.
But it didn't, because the imbecile/traitor in charge vetoed all the strikes that would have ensured quick victory, and then prevented the military from stopping NATO involvement.
And those conditions are still in place -- there continues to be a firm political veto on striking the targets that would defeat Ukraine and stop NATO from attacking Russia from behind Ukraine's back.
It speaks volumes to how broken the Russian people are that they continue to tolerate and even support such leadership.
Sorry for the delayed response, but I have been traveling.
Tovarishka, please cry me a river, tell me all about your disappointment with the Russian approach to the current conflict. It seems that all of your pretended concern is because the Russians don't charge heedlessly into the trap that has been set up by the Western bankster hyenas. I myself have a terrible temper, and would like to smash the dishonorable, conniving sarlatans in the face with the bony hammer of my fist. Or send over a few dozen Oresniks just to teach them a lesson. But remember, we are just armchair warriors on the Simplicious blog. We have no idea what information the Russians have, that cautioning them to go slow. Don't worry yourself too much, just calm down, have some vodka, maybe take up a hobby like knitting. I heard that it really works for anxiety. But if you have any further confusion, please call on me. I don't mind counseling you.
Are they perhaps being deliberately sent into the fire for no reason, because who is really commanding the Ukrainians? Certainly not Syrsky, he's just a puppet.
Azov troops destroyed in active warfare are good dead for Putin after the war. Azov is one of the biggest problems ALSO for Trump and especially for Europe after the war. Where will these Nazi refugees go, to Berlin, Paris, or London? The Poles will be very quick to dispose of the refugees.
AND
Have you ever considered that a Trump wants/needs to offer Putin the opportunity to dispose of the Azov Nazis on the battlefield, so that after the war, EVERYONE isn't confronted with thousands of well-trained, combat-experienced system opponents?
"So for Russia to keep them going for 3 years has been a lose/lose."
So wrong it's like you've never read a word Simplicius has published.
If Russia *had* dropped those bridges, Ukraine wouldn't have been able to feed men and machines into the maw of the Russian De-militarisation grinder, and instead retained or increased its armed strength.
An additional factor is that the fighting, for the most part, has been on what Russia considers its own territory, so they'd eventually have to rebuild what they destroyed. The same logic applies when attacking the power grid. You take out the substations, which are cheap to rebuild compared to hitting a power plant or transmission lines.
I've never found that argument remotely convincing. Most of that NATO junk was obsolete anyway. The game changer weapons are drones and missiles. If you want to argue that blowing up bridges doesn't stop airborne weapons, fair enough.
It would have made going up to the Dneiper relatively straightforward. And prevented the Russian speaking population being hurled into the meat grinder to fight a war they never wanted.
>If Russia *had* dropped those bridges, Ukraine wouldn't have been able to feed men and machines into the maw of the Russian De-militarisation grinder, and instead retained or increased its armed strength.
Only a complete imbecile can believe this.
If Ukraine had not been able to move men and machines across the river, Russia would have taken the whole east of the river territory with at most 10% of the casualties it has suffered so far.
And it would have also taken over the ten million or so Ukrainians who live on that territory.
Millions of Ukrainians who then would not be available to press gang into fighting Russia.
Plus it would have taken over most of the key Ukrainian MIC industrial enterprises.
Then you have a rump Ukraine with half the population, and a quarter of the industrial capacity to finish off. Which would be much easier.
Clearly the better option was to strike the bridges (which Ukraine will eventually demolish itself anyway, the moment there is any realistic threat of Russia crossing over them) than to engage in the current insanity.
Also, the argument that NATO has been somehow demilitarized is so idiotic that I don't know where to even begin.
Not a single MIC complex facility in the US or Europe has been struck, so there has been zero impact on their ability to regenerate. The opposite in fact -- they are building new factories everywhere.
And tanks, IFVs and artillery will play the same role in a Russia-NATO war as they did in the Iran-Israel war. Zero, that is. It will be fought with missiles, navies, submarines and aviation. And there has been zero attrition of those assets on the NATO side. Meanwhile Russia has been taking increasingly deep hits on its MIC, it lost a quarter of its strategic aviation, dozens of fighter jets, a quarter of the Black Sea Fleet, and it was fully surrounded by NATO's forward deployment.
Well, if it's NATO's preferred scenario, then NATO has the upper hand in military-technical terms, and Russia is cowering in fear of striking NATO even slightly, preferring to take hit after hit after hit in the vague hope that some "compromise" solution might be found.
In which case all the experts who have been telling us that Russia is boldly and confidently defeating all of NATO combined in Ukraine are lying ignoramuses.
It is either that or Russia does in fact have the military might to strike NATO, but Putin refuses to use it for reasons other than the protection of his people and soldiers.
There are no other options.
But if it's the latter, then the question naturally comes up what those reasons are, doesn't it? Because Putin has never bothered to communicate anything clearly on the matter. And that opens up a lot of space for very nasty speculations. Which, given what we know about Russia of the last 40 years, are a bit more than just speculations...
Depends on how much disarray they're in when they retreat. It's not easy to destroy bridges actually, especially in the USSR where, drawing on experience, they built to survive the attempt. Same with their apartment blocks, which are massively overbuilt and situated on wide boulevards to provide fire positions against approaching tanks. Mariupol for example, where even after major tank and artillery fire, most of the Soviet era buildings are still standing.
Not saying it can't be done, but that's an awful lot of concrete and the consequences downstream would be devastating. Bear in mind that the Kakhovka Dam in Kherson was the last in the chain. No telling what might happen if you destroyed the upstream dams, but I'm sure it wouldn't be pretty.
I'm not disputing those arguments. I am disputing the "Russia wants that gear to reach the front line to blow it up there" argument. And the "Russia wants to use those bridges to cross the Dneiper" claims. There are more convincing arguments as you mention.
Because the Kremlin is run by traitors who work for the Russian oligarchy, and it is not in the interests of the Russian oligarchy to win the war.
That has been explained many times:
1) Russia can win the war totally, decisively, and quickly, but that will require military-technical measures of the kind that will ensure a permanent separation of Russia from the West. But the power and wealth of the Russian oligarchy rest on it being the middlemen between Russian resources and the West. If there is a permanent total split from the West, that power base erodes
2) There would have to also be an internal restructuring of the Russian economy in order to win the war and then survive after that. Meaning more state control and more investment into local industry. That automatically hurts most of the current oligarchy.
3) Somebody will have to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine, even if no further destruction occurs. Because the Ukrainian oligarchy is even more rapacious and short sighted than the Russian one and there has been practically no investment in infrastructure and general welfare there for 35 years. Who will pay for that? Well, the Russian people have been squeezed completely dry by decades of neoliberalism, there isn't much to take from them, so it will have to be the Russian oligarchy that foots most of the bill. They do that in the Donbass already because the Donbass is resource rich and they hope to get something out of it, but the further west you go, the poorer it gets and the fewer of those opportunities.
4) They want to be allowed back in the West on a purely human level too.
The essence of the SMO is a giant bluff by the Kremlin, which was immediately called. The bluff being an attempt to negotiate better terms on the arrangement in which Russian resources are handed over to the West for a fraction of their real worth, in exchange for which the Russian oligarchy gets a cut, while the Russian people get some trickle-down crumbs at the cost of permanent deindustrialization and stunted development as an independent civilization.
The arrangement itself, however, was never in question. Which is the part that people still don't understand, even though Putin said it clearly in that infamous meeting with the oligarchs on the first day of the SMO -- "What is happening now is desperate measures, they left us with no choice. But rest assured, there will be no fundamental changes, Russia's place in the world system will remain the same" were roughly his words.
For all of those reasons Russia has been turned into a giant Syria, a place anyone can bomb whenever and wherever they fell like, while there is nothing flying the other way, and certainly nothing that would make the aggressors stop.
Trump has no real values at all, he thinks everything is just a negotiation (devoid of any moral considerations) and he projects this mentality on to every situation, irrespective of the context. He has no understanding of a broader moral or civilisational context.
The civilisational perspective is the default view for Putin and Lavrov. Given such a gap in views, which is obvious only to one of the parties, the only option for Russia is to humour Trump, who from their perspective can only ever at best be a useful idiot, and likely not even that.
Trump has shown true consistency on only one thing - creating opportunities for making money - nothing matters to Trump like making money, regardless of the cost in human lives and livelihoods.
Trump does have a view, but it is one which he cannot publicly state - that view is the view of those dozens of zionist jews who make up his administration, whose viewpoint is never "America First."
Donnie has successfully brainwashed the US into believing things are done for American benefit, when in fact they are done for Donnie's ego benefit, and the benefit of the jews - whose neocon fraternity started the war because they believe Russia betrayed Israel at the time of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when the terrorist state was within an inch of total destruction.
Donnie, despite his "Scottish mother" is a jew, so everything is done for their benefit, not the Gentile benefit.
Seems like zionists own the kucks who “run” western “democracies” , thats why the west needs to collapse.No jews in china, virtually none in India(tho Nuttyyahoo is sucking up to Modi). The Russian jews seem to be on pretty tight leash(ignoring conspiracy theorists). I grew up in the west, but it is in terminal decline, partly due to Zionist influence. The rats usually go down with the ship.
I think that part of the Russian loss aversion is that they know how weak Ukraine is, and it is much easier to wipe out the remaining Ukrainian elite troops by creating a ready kill zone for their counter-attacks which they are let in to. While also sucking others into defending already substantially surrounded positions.
The events of the next few months will be telling for the Russians with respect to Pokrovs'ke (on the south east front cutting off a major supply line), Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka, Siversk/Lyman, and Kupyansk. Any major collapses could quickly spread.
You hit it. Russia has no reason to negotiate. They can and are slow rolling Ukraine, NATO and the EU. Everyone else outside is looking at this realising they have no stomach and are not prepared for this new battle field. All Trump is doing is keeping the talks going and hoping for a change he can move on. Lets not forget President Trump is a Russian spy working for Putin.
I dunno Dr. Simplicicus, seems a little like you’re putting your thumb on the scale here pretty hard here with selecting one guys line of bullshit in a negotiation as being somehow really off the charts stupid while proposing that the other guys bullshit was delivered from the Ortodox heavens. Everyone views his national history as The Truth. So what. All national histories are fiction, including the U.S.
After six months of watching Trumps “stupidity” turn into actual salubrious results most of the time, even if short term, I’m not sure I’m willing to go along with the still common idea that he has no idea what he is doing. Moreover he is up against the most intelligent, informed and experienced geo politician extant. Give a NY ready estate guy a break! What was it he was supposed to say in this negotiation? Great point Vlad, why didn’t I think of that? Face it, he doesn’t have a lot to work with on a point to point debate. Looks to me more like he is giving Putin a long open field to freaking get this over with. How he stalls or postures with some girlie reporter in the peanut gallery doesn’t bother me much.
Trump seems to have gotten really good at leveraging Trump Derangement Syndrome to his own benefit. The great thing about TDS sufferers is that they seem to have an infinite capacity to exacerbate their own disease, which just makes them more and more easily misdirected.
Well, what should he do? Keeping the ubiquitous War Party in check without provoking it into a JFK-style overreaction is about as tough as it gets—and hardly far-fetched, as the attempts on his life have shown. Against that backdrop, Trump is doing just fine. It’s far too early to agree—let alone sign—anything, and Putin knows it too. Before that, we may well see Bolton getting roasted in a televised committee hearing by Tulsi and MTG. Bolton: the poster boy for an entire generation of failed geopolitics!
Oh, is he? Bolton and his ilk would love to see German and French boots with 50-times as many Leopards on ancient Russian soil right now to take back Crimea and shove the Baltics down Putin's throat. Oh, you might say, reality stands in-between! Maybe it just happens to be accompanied by a semi-failed NY real estate dude in the Oval Office who tries to resist the temptation of running Operation Barbarossa 2.0 while simultaneously attempting to appease the War Party by letting it have their Gaza concentration camp.
A couple articles ago Simplicius presented a map of Ukraine showing the line of fortifications primarily along the northeren edges of Donetsk and Luhansk built up during Minsk 2 - a veritable honeycomb of hardened structures and lines of defense. This is the problem Russia has had to deal with - it requires extremely slow progress individually dealing with destroying each of these many, many fortifications. They could be attacked en masse but that would involve huge losses of Russian manpower, as with Bakhmut. It is obvious that Russia, utilising a combination of drone warfare (think the Rubicon project), small unit assault teams backed by armour, air munitions and encircling tactics, have discovered a highly effective means of attacking these lines - but it's slow and those of us who are impatient for the Big Arrow to develop twist in the wind crying out for a faster end to this operation. These tactics produce an ever increasing tension all along the line of contact producing fractures, demoralising the enemy, and ultimately a final collapse. At that point Russia has the opportunity to advance at will in whatever direction that suits them and to demand peace terms involving unconditional surrender.
My opinion only, not being of a military mind or competent strategist.
You seem to have more common sense than the "expert" Rebecca Grant who is considered some kind of warfare strategist. I mean, after all, she has a Bachelor of Arts degree, and then got a PHD at London School of Economics in International Relations.
Doesn't that qualify her as a national security consultant? I didn't think so either, but she did work for RAND and is probably a salesperson for the MIC.
Personally, I'd rather take your opinion than hers.
These RAND corporation types seem to be stuck in the distant past. When did RAND develop their "grand Russian strategy playbook"? (What was the title of that document? I forget now.) IIRC it is going on twenty years old now. They don't seem interested in adapting their approach to modern reality--or at least that's the way they are behaving in public. Maybe they have a secret agenda that we don't know about, and their posturing and arrogance is simply a distraction.
Or, maybe they are actually just as arrogant and out of touch with reality as they seem.
You should use your influence to direct those questions to Russia's General Staff, Mikey. They've likely been waiting patiently for your feedback on their strategy decisions...😉
If you know where the toughest nut to crack is located it makes sense to deal with it first. Spreading your forces out over the vast area east of the Dniepr while leaving a massive job undone behind those lines would be less than optimal.
Russia is fighting across a 1000 km front. It's longer than the Allied western front in WW2, which was prosecuted by dozens of nations against just one. In this case it's one nation against dozens, effectively, across a much longer territory. I note too that Russia has fought over exactly the same ground before. It's not as if they don't know what they're doing.
The Germans did not go head first into the Maginot Line, rather they bypassed it. Indeed, this is standard warfare tactics as described by Sun Tzu back in the day
The history of war is a long one and you can always find counter-examples.
Note that the Maginot Line proper was just 250 km compared to the 1000 km long Ukrainian front. Nor where there any important cities in it, as we see in the Donbas. Why not go around, especially as Germany had 3 million soldiers in the field to secure all the territory behind the Line? However just a few years later, the Allies invaded Europe and didn't try to go around the Germans. They attacked them head-on. Every situation is different, it's all about the circumstances for each particular campaign.
I believe Sun Tzu would agree that if you try to fight the war you're in according to someone else's strategy in a different war, you are setting yourself up for a defeat.
>Note that the Maginot Line proper was just 250 km compared to the 1000 km long Ukrainian front.
In June 2022 the fortified line in the Donbass was no more than 200 km.
The static front became 1000 km only when that 200 km fortified line was not bypassed and encircled.
I am old enough to remember how in March 2022 people were drawing maps showing precisely a large scale encirclement of the whole Donbass from the south and from the north.
The copium about "demilitarizing them close to us" started only when it became clear how divorced from reality that idea was. And it was divorced from reality because Putin went in with a fraction of the necessary forces while having a firm veto on strikes on pretty much anything the destruction of which would actually trigger an AFU collapse, then refused to mobilize until his own lines were collapsing, after six months of military bloggers inside Russia screaming about the dire need for mobilization and about the strange way the way was being (not) fought.
P.S. They no longer do that, once Strelkov was jailed, several others were arrested, and the rest had a series of meetings with the Kremlin in which it was clearly communicated what is expected of them moving forward. Which tells us a lot about the priorities in Moscow, doesn't it?
>If you know where the toughest nut to crack is located it makes sense to deal with it first. Spreading your forces out over the vast area east of the Dniepr while leaving a massive job undone behind those lines would be less than optimal.
But you don't have to crack any nuts. You cut it off from supplies, it will eventually fall.
>Russia is fighting across a 1000 km front. It's longer than the Allied western front in WW2, which was prosecuted by dozens of nations against just one.
Russia fought on a 4,000-km front in 1941-1943.
And it has the power to make it a one-on-one fight at any moment of its choosing.
If Putin finds a pair of balls and a shred of loyalty to the Russian people tonight, Poland and Romania will have sealed the borders and invited Russian troops to police them by the end of the week.
You "forget" that back then it was not Russia but the Soviet Union, with 200 million people, and a birth rate of 4 per woman compared to 145m and 1.6 .The blood loss was extreme, though, justified that it was a fight for survival, btw. enforced by a fairly tough state apparatus. Those were the times, and they are not comparable with today.
Though 44% of the Russians prefer living in socialism over capitalism (14%), and even Stalin is in higher reputation, I doubt they want NKVD and Gulag back.
The fertility hardly matters in this case, unless the war will drag on for 20 years (a possibility).
200 million people hardly matters as well, when you aren't making it a "People's War" and aren't mobilizing every Male over age 15 and Female over age 17.
“But you don't have to crack any nuts. You cut it off from supplies, it will eventually fall.”
That’s a simplistic notion that might realistically work against an isolated outpost. But Russia would have to cut off a dozen cities just in the Donbas alone. And somehow patrol the vast lands west of them to interdict supplies.
And how long would it take that strategy to come to fruition, I wonder? Are the Ukrainians in those cities going to give up the moment they’re surrounded? More likely they will fight on and/or fight their way out. So you’re left dealing with them anyway.
Aren’t you the guy that condemns Russia for its slow pace in this war? Now you’re recommending a siege strategy that’s likely to add years to it.
And yet, during WW2 the Donbass was no less well fortified. Perhaps more so. And Operation Bagration was able to crack the entire front line in a very short time, advancing to Berlin from Kharkov in about 9 months.
"If you know where the toughest nut to crack is located it makes sense to deal with it first." That's not just wrong; it's Rebecca Grant level of stupid. You do not attack the enemy where he is strongest, you attack his weak points. That is so basic, even kindergartners are aware of it.
It's as if you were in a duel, and intentionally focused your attacks on your opponent's shield. The only time things are done like this is in cinematic, choreographed combat; which is why GM's arguments are starting to convince me.
Its not about being impatient - WW2 lasted 4 years on the Eastern Front and entailed millions of men. Operation Bagration happened in months - the RKKA was standing at the gates of Berlin in 9-10 months.
The operation in Manchuria against the Japanese took weeks - progress was about 500km/day, stopping only for refuelling.
Each of these operations, happened against no less hardened lines and experienced soldiers. One can argue - technology, but that itself is a moot point when there is no political will to fight. This is why Putler is negotiating with the enemy.
>A couple articles ago Simplicius presented a map of Ukraine showing the line of fortifications primarily along the northeren edges of Donetsk and Luhansk built up during Minsk 2 - a veritable honeycomb of hardened structures and lines of defense. This is the problem Russia has had to deal with
????
Why does Russia have to deal with this problem?
Was there such a line of fortifications in Chernigov, Sumy and Kharkov? There wasn't. It was wide open terrain in the first year of the war. And largely still is in terms of fortifications.
So why are no large Russian armies taking Chernigov and Sumy, sieging Kiev (and severing the logistics route that goes from there), streaming towards Poltava, and thus cutting off the whole Donbass from supplies? Who made that decision?
Worse, we have now seen Russia repeatedly being completely unable to break through just across the border, first in Volchansk last year, then in Sumy this year. Even though there are no decades worth of fortifications there.
It very much looks like fortifications no longer matter that much in the era of drones.
Which makes the missed window of opportunity in 2022 all the more catastrophic of a disaster.
In a country that functions properly, given such cataclysmic failures, heads would be literally rolling, and leadership would be replaced by people who don't make such mistakes. Why the Russian leadership continues to be praised for its "wisdom", "restraint", etc. given the empirical facts of non-stop strategic failure, I don't understand.
Would you want to drop into the middle of a drone swarm? Imagine how easy they can get decimated if there are nothing to stop the drones from landing on your troops...
Russia was foolish in not rapidly mobilizing and ending Ukraine fast - when it became clear that negotiations were futile, maybe even before. Had they done a shock and awe campaign, struck Bankovaya/Presidential residences before he had the opportunity to enter his bunker - perhaps things would've been different.
In addition, since Russia fears to strike Polish/German territory with warnings that further support for Ukraine will cause more strikes, we have the current situation. Russian government is too concerned with escalation management, when it should not be.
Even with an aggressive SEAD campaign, the West will always supply enough systems to make it impossible to safely fly over.
If you are looking for a solution, the only one that will achieve meaningful results is sealing the borders.
That means a nuclear ultimatum issued to Poland and Romania (Hungary and Slovakia will presumably do it with much less persuasion needed). Which, given that gravity of the situation, is precisely what was an absolute must to do a very long time ago. But it is Putin in the Kremlin, so...
Why would the west take Russia or its interests seriously? Russia has allowed one red line after another to be crossed. We still don't have clear answers as to why officials in the Kremlin are dragging their feet in the annihilation of the regime in Kiev. To protect civilian lives?
So yes, Trump is right that there is bs. He just left out the part that what his regime does and says is also bs.
Those red lines you mention are *your* red lines being crossed without a response, which you attribute to Putin. The Russians are winning with relatively minimal losses. The Ukrainians losing with massive losses to their military, economy, society and even the existence of what was always regarded as Ukraine. What better response to crossing hypothetical red lines in Ukraine can you imagine?
Shall we perhaps ask the Russian people on the ground what their red lines are?
Does the red line of people in Belgorod allow for their Christmas market being shelled by NATO with cluster munitions on New Year's eve and apartment blocks being leveled by French AASM Hammer bombs?
The Kremlin clearly sees that as perfectly acceptable because it did nothing in response when those things were done.
But I kind of doubt people in Belgorod see it the same way, they just have no power to influence the Kremlin.
And that is a big problem that nobody pays any attention to.
Well the Russians did bomb and destroy the hotel where the French technical *advisors* were staying, killing most if not all of them.
But you are correct. The Russian military did not let Ukraine's individual attacks cause them to deviate from their winning strategy and instead maintained their own combat tempo.
Wait. Let me get this straight. You assert that there are multiple crossed red lines that Russia has not responded to. When I say that I don't see any such things, rather than you tell me what those red lines you are talking about actually are, you say I should go on google to find them.
I can find hundreds if not thousands of people like you on the web, who identify some absent course of action for Russia as being their notion of the only appropriate response to some claimed noteworthy NATO provocation.
Russia has put a half million troops into Ukraine where it is slowly destroying not just Ukraine's army but its military capability. In addition, it is helping most NATO countries to slowly slide into bankruptcy while eating up their military capability.
Overall, that seems like a pretty effective response to violations of any claimed red lines set by Russia.
Re-read what I wrote and your first reply. I wrote Russia's red lines. These are comments senior officials such as Lavrov for example have made during interviews. And then when the west proceeded to cross said red lines, Russia did not retaliate in a manner that makes the west think Russia has red lines. I never mentioned my red lines. My red lines are irrelevant. You accused me of that. I then suggested you do a simple search for official statements made by Russian officials. Why would I do your homework for you?
*You* say Russia announced what *you* believe are red lines, that they were crossed and that Russia's response does not meet *your* notion of what would be commensurate.
When I ask you to tell me which red lines you are referring to, you say I should check on the web. How can I possibly figure out what the processes you are referring to if even you can't tell me what they are?
I can tell you some serious red lines for Russia. No NATO troops or foreign troops with a presence in Ukraine. Only a small defensive Ukrainian military that can't pose a threat to Russia in any way. A return of the constitutional guarantees accorded to the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine. Ukraine to be neutral, non aligned and non nuclear as per its constitution when it received independence.
After years of argy bargy it became clear to Putin that the west was just stringing him along. Since it was clear the West wouldn't ever agree to uncross the red lines, he sent his military in.
The response was to uncross those red lines by force.
2) You should add most of the Ukrainian dead to the Russian losses too, because they are ethnic Russians. Then it becomes really catastrophic
3) How many Russian cities in the Donbass have been destroyed?
4) How much Russian land all over Ukraine has been covered with mines and DU?
And with all that damage, Russia is not winning at all, because this is not a war between Ukraine and Russia, it is a world war between the West and Russia, and Russia has totally lost on all other fronts other than in Georgia, as a direct consequences of it being bogged down in Ukraine.
By your own account, the Russian losses are about 120,000. Given approx. 400,000 troops in the Ukrainian theater in a three year conflict, that works out to about about forty thousand per year average or ten per cent. Since the Russian army is about one million two hundred thousand, that is a fatality rate of about three percent using your number. In other words a ninety seven percent survival rate which falls to ninety percent if you spend a full year in the active combat zone.
Most of that combat is in the the most heavily defended part of Ukraine with massive natural fortifications and eight years of intensely focused Ukrainian defense construction. (financed by and under NATO supervision) Given that Russia is actually fighting a war against NATO, I call that *relatively* minimal casualties.
The people of Russia believe (correctly) that they are winning on their terms and are not surprised. The people of the West believe (correctly) they are losing on their terms and they don't understand how this can be.
As for Georgia, even the western leadership acknowledge that their attempt at a color revolution there has failed and they now are going to punish Georgia for failing to at least support if not join a coalition of the willing to fight Russia. The people of Georgia well remember when at NATO's behest their military tried to mess with the Russian forces on their border. In response, the Russians came in and gave their military a big bitch slap and then left voluntarily after a week. All that before NATO could even talk about what to do in response,, forget figuring out what to actually do.
Look, 120,000 is a mid-sized city. More than that in fact, because these are people in their prime mostly, there are no elderly and women among them. To them you have to add the permanently maimed, which are about that much too.
And the destruction of the cities and land in Ukraine -- some 100,000 km^2 of historic Russian land are now contaminated with land mines and DU and it will take decades, if it ever happens, for that to be cleaned up.
If NATO was to nuke a random Russian city of population 100-150,000, wiping it out completely, what would the Kremlin's reaction be? Given what has happened so far, that is no longer just a rhetorical question, but a rather real one with a very uncertain answer, but the answer to it a few years ago was totally unambiguous.
Well, more damage than that has already been done. Just not all at once. Where is the reaction?
The reaction is muted because considering the scale of the war, the fatalities both civilian and military are minor in comparison to previous conflicts. EG: the Soviets lost forty thousand troops just in the battle to take Berlin. They lost forty thousand at least defending Sebastopol. They lost twenty million civilian and military overall in their three year plus conflict with Germany. What's more the damage to the cities is less and less now as time goes by because the Russian forces are starting to completely overwhelm the Ukrainian military.
A better question is why is there so much reaction to the situation in Ukraine but not Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar etc.
Correct. Russia has been so busy pussy-footing in the Ukraine that it could not even control two relatively easy states in the Caucasus, particularly Armenia, which still remains very dependent on economic ties with Russia. And now we have the US and turkey moving in. Sooner or later Russia will be forced to fight a war in the Caucasus, especially since the regime in baku thinks it can get away with giving the finger to both Iran and Russia.
" the Kremlin are dragging their feet in the annihilation of the regime in Kiev"
Russia is fighting NATO, not Ukraine. Ukraine is a proxy, a puppet.
The mind is like a parachute, it works very well only when open. Try it, you may be surprised. But then again ignorance is a personal lifestyle choice.
I have seen enough of his posts and his 'Kremlin can do no wrong' to know that he is often full of hot air. If you enjoy his kool-aid keep drinking it. The rest of us who can think for ourselves will call him and others out when they are wrong. Humility is a virtue. He does not have any.
My question was simple and you never answered it because you're probably just a typical American smart aleck with no credentials. He's a Russian/American military engineer that can put his money where his mouth is and Russian culture is far removed from ours so most Americans just think we are smarter than they are. He has written 4 books on the state of our military that you would do well to read before making stupid comments that just show your arrogance. He could outsmart most American military "experts" with half his brain tied behind his back.
I think you misunderstand what has been happening. The west has persistently threatened Russia with its own (western) escalations if Russia doesn't pull back. We can go through the list but don't need to. On each occasion Russia has shrugged, and then the west, its bluff called, has had to respond, most risibly with the odd F16 no one in Ukraine could actually fly and which the west knew was useless in that war. Look how brilliant the ATACMs were!
The west has not been crossing Russian red lines with impunity. That is just the spin they have put on their blushes. They have been suckered into a steady depletion of weaponry and funds, a slow demilitarisation and shameful display of their own shortcomings on the battle field. I don't know what you call that apart from being outsmarted to terrible cost.
The west thinks it has and they continue to push the envelope. Meanwhile there are still elites in Russia who think a deal with washington can be made. That is the major issue. The Kremlin thinks there is something to be gained from a deal. Any deal with Trump will just be replaced come 2029 with something that will again aim to harm Russia.
Putin has to play nicely to keep his own allies on side. Meanwhile Russia continues to advance the objectives of SMO. That is all that is going on. The rest is just the usual rolling propaganda still hoping to undermine Putin's position in Russia. It certainly has its proponents on this board. In Russia? Give me a break.
On the other hand there will be a US Russia rapprochement the other side of this war. Such big players resource wise, have to trade with each other on the world stage. Trump does know this. And so does Putin. As for what the west will have any taste for come 2029 with the war by then won and done and Ukraine shut down one way or another, I would not be so quick to assume that the real movers and shakers, as opposed to any of your boogeymen, will have any desire to kick that off again.
Of course the nutters in western europe will still be raging away at Russia as they have on Baltic fringe since the cold war ended. But they will back to the insulation of their own padded cells. The current front men for diseased western regimes will be gone by then, and their replacements will have got power on promises to shut this down and save their own economies. Its over, Andy bar all the dying Ukraine seems determined still to do with the yellow bellied europeans hiding behind it and egging it on. If you are worried about what will be left of Ukraine to fight back again, down the line, don't be. It is running on merc power already and that requires huge continuing external funds. Money is already drying up despite lurid promises and rash bungs by dead men walking in the west with nothing left to lose. Russia will however take no chances here.
Do you think that Russia really lost, by capture, all those tanks and IFVs and Artillery in the first part of the war? It looks like they must have lost most of their vehicles in 2022!
Is it just propaganda or a clever use of numbers or something?
At the beginning Ukrainian and Russian equipment were basically the same, dating back to USSR days with standard designs such as the T-72 tank used by both sides. There are subtle differences if you know what to look for, and I've seen a few photos of allegedly destroyed Russian tanks that were actually Ukrainian. Really all it takes to make a Ukrainian tank look Russian is a can of spray paint to put a "Z' on the side. I've even seen photos where the "Z" was sprayed over top of accumulated dirt which is a dead giveaway.
Simplicious is using the Oryx numbers in a very ironic way.
If you care to read the (now substantial) archive of articles, you'll see a debunking of the Oryx team methodology, which is *heavily* pro-Ukrainian (there were early instances of Oryx counting four Russia tank "losses", when it was just four pictures of the same tank, from different angles).
The irony in using Oryx is that these numbers *are* inflated, so reality, for Russia, looks even better.
There was no kiddie porn.
Random capitalization makes your post hard to read and doesn't add anything.
I do believe I touched a nerve there. I made a simple observation and I have just as much right to do it as you did to post your rambling screed. If you don't want replies, don't post. As to the bullying, read your comments and mine and see which best fits that description. At least I know how to use capital letters properly.
Having read your reply to Bemused, I am glad I did not persevere with your original post.
Paragraphs are required to break up a wall of text.
Unless you want to use that wall as a road block?
No one bullied you. Advice was offered and you took it personally.
If you want your ramblings to be read have the courtesy of using paragraphs and no random capitalisation. It is not about "grammar policing" at all.
I gave up after three lines. My only disagreement with bemused is that the random capitalisation makes your post almost impossible to read, not just difficult. I considered cutting and pasting it into Word and applying "sentence case" to make it legible, but decided not to bother.
How do you spell troll? Pretty much anyone looking for a reaction. After close to 40 years of this crap starting on FidoNET in the 80s, I just ignore them. I recommend this.
Good one Marko. Keep the comedy coming.
It's been quite a while now. I think the 'fence sitters' and the 'play both sides' actors and the fearful of american retribution people (nations) are now seeing something quite different to what you see.
I think they saw Russia holding its own to the vast surprise of perhaps nearly everyone.
And then they saw it forging ahead.
On the battlefield.
And then in Trade.
And then in politics.
And even slowly, slowly despite not even trying, in the public consciousness in the west..
So, impressed and heartened and educated on a few previously unappreciated realities they begin to come forward with more and more tangible help for Russia.
China already has said, I think, it will not let Russia lose.
That goes beyond Ukraine.
If Russia 'lost' in Ukraine what would that be? Fail to help the secessionists in their secession?
It may take years but i could envisage a war going this way and that until eventually the front line was somewhere near the black sea again and the secessionists were captured again by the Nazis.
And I can see China even 'letting that happen'.
But that's not defeating Russia.
It would still have all its territory, all its wealth and all its new found Trade and alliances across the world.
To break in Russia and try to destroy all that: that's 'defeating Russia'.
Russia has said it will not happen. Nuclear war first. And China has said it will not happen. You can bet your boots North Korea would frown on it.
It is not going to happen.
Illusion. The Facts are different.
Thank you.
Thank you, yes, but not for your final remark:
"Well—one supposes, then, that the Europeans are deserving of their lot, and their leadership."
There are still a lot of Europeans who neither deserve their lot, nor the leadership we have to undergo, and who are trying to change things, in challenging circumstances. A bit of respect and sympathy for these Europeans would be appropriate, I would say.
Don't tar everybody with the same brush, please! Thank you.
Think of that 14 year old Scottish "Braveheart" girl in Dundee, who defended her friend with tooth and nail against migrants. Does she "deserve" her lot?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/scottish-girl-arrested-using-knife-and-axe-ward-migrant-stalker
Yeah, well, the Scottish girl. Hahaha, in a time of corruption everything is just confusion. I watched the video and I don’t have a clue what’s going on, only what others are telling me is going on. I keep my mind open. What I find hilarious is that followers of this blog see a child with holes in her trousers holding a huge knife and an axe and nod in approval, “yeah bud, Europeans taking control back”. Hahaha, don’t make me laugh. Europeans of the sort this girl represents would be unable (literally) to take a cow on a rope to drink in the river.
A migrant, a migrant, I hear you say. What migrant? I heard another British voice on the video. Is that the migrant? For all I know this guy might be challenging the girl precisely for being armed and then her lot made up the harassment story. Pure racism. Lumpenproletarians who unfortunately are even lower down that your average Briton, in understanding, politics, culture, everything.
Unfortunately, I see that this class is now being used to man the frontline of the new nationalism. A nationalism that does not understand anything of what’s going on in the world or in their own country.
There was a demonstration against immigration in my city yesterday and I went to have a look to see what it was about. It’s hopeless, full of alcoholics wrapped in Union jacks and St George’s flags. There’s no quality popular centre to the anger. Hopeless.
And the continuous picking of this kind of mess like this video in order to stir up not anti immigration but anti-immigrant sentiment. Again, more division, more ignorance and more mindless violence.
What you call "this class" needs to understand only one thing: People like you are traitors.
Another one. Traitors to what my boy? All “this class” is doing is carrying forward the ruling class’s narrative. You come here but nothing goes into that head of yours.
And, Jim, you clearly have never had a conversation with these people about Russia and Gaza have you?
There must be a reason that in the UK 14 year old girls feel the need to carry weapons. The reason is that the UK, like the rest of Europe, is governed by individuals like you, who hate and despise their own people.
Jesus Herman. Where the fuck do you live? You never saw the likes of that girl shoplifting, fighting in the street, stabbing each other, drunk, drugged? I don’t hate them, don’t despise them. I quite understand how they got where they are. But I’m not blind. I know their sense of the country’s problems and mine are not even near. They’re not “my” people.
the kid with the knife was afraid because she was confronted by thugs. England does not arrest thugs. It arrests dissidents.
England arrests those that it sees as threats to the established order.
Same as it ever was.
From the Pakistani accent, I don't think the man was a migrant, if by that you mean one of the hordes who have come ashore recently.
His English skills were quite good - clearly, he had been living in or around Lochee for quite a while.
I believe that the individual in question was from Bulgaria, but feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
The landslide into genocidal globalist tyranny will accelerate until the individual senior police, Judiciary, MSM propagandists, & treasonous politicians directly feel the brunt of forceful & effective vigilante action against them for their treasonous support of their broad spectrum of eugenics against western populations. The failure to make the abusive globalist puppets fearful of vigilante justice is the soul reason the globalist attacks on essential civil liberty continues unrestrained. In essence, the Karen's and the Weasels within the West's corrupt establishment, must be made deeply fearful of necessarily harsh consequences for their betrayal. The French Resistance to Nazis collaborators comes to mind as heroic acts needed to reestablish the rational boundaries these weasels have been ignoring without consequence.
Deserve has nothing to do with it. Do the cows you eat or the mice I eat deserve to be eaten?
it is hard to bear in mind that we all suffer today under behemoth governments that wish to own us body and soul and that getting them off our backs is one tough job. The governments we have create our national image. The US image is horrific -- a man who probably wasn't even a US citizen being president and then setting up a "soft coup" against his successor in the hopes of derailing his candidacy and then spoiling his presidency. Then a brain-dead man. And now a man who thinks everything in life is a deal, money talks, decency walks, etc etc. And allt he while the US feeding wars, creating divisions, bombing and threatening and coercing. What a nice "shining city on a hill."
For sure, they are led by captured politicians. They do, however, continue to elect these politicians. Which means at some level, they're asking for what they get.
This does however assume that voting is legit.
Not ALL Europeans continue to elect these politicians. A substantial part doesn't and is trying to change things. That's the point.
So? They get ignored or canceled. Europeans raise barely a peep in protest.
If you are talking about voters at elections, then you are ignoring wide spread electoral fraud throughout the majority of Western Nations.
That remark was a very cheap instance of playing to the gallery. As well as a recommendation to leave this Stack (if one isn't part of the gallery).
Of course I'm playing to the gallery. Every single commentator here is playing to the gallery. I.e. that he/she hopes to make a point and to be proven right by the jury - the "gallery "as you put it.
As for your recommendation that I leave this stack, I suggest to leave this to Simplicius, if you don't mind.
The only way anyone of influence and authrity will care what europeans think or want is if they are forced to do so.
As it is, europeans can't even fight off schoolgirls.
I do not agree with your position that President Trump does not understand what it going on. He has been in business for a long time, and as everyone knows in the startup world, you can not just say ok we lost. Sometimes you just need to keep people talking and let the situation evolve.
Trump is already succeeding by working down support for the war. Just by talking to both sides he is succeeding. Calling both sides names he is succeeding. This is complex stuff and wont be solved over night. Some players need to be moved around and some taken out of the play.
I think its clear that Trump has no love for the dictator of Ukraine and former dancing in leather and heels. I am surprised Zelensky is still alive let alone still a player.
https://youtu.be/9FNDKdptBRY?si=_55sM5aJCdELAY-O
" Calling both sides names he is succeeding" - in kindergarten?
Posturing to show he is willing to offend them both. Trying to stand between two parties and not pick sides. Bringing about Peace in this situation is not an easy thing to do and he does not have the power to force everyone either.
Trump will do two things: support continuity of US foreign policy agenda (the wars will contiunue) and line his families pockets with billions and billions of dollars. Beyond that, his "successes" are lucky by-products of an ego maniac at play in the fields of Murica.
The man lost money as a President. If he made money I have every confidence the team the Biden DOJ, CIA, FBI, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc would have told us about it. They had to resort to saying he was a Russian spy working for Putin. I would rather be lucky than good.
Nothing against President DJT., but the fact is that he is a clever street-smart New Yorker .
But this time, he is way out-matched, VVP. of Russia, and Xi Jinping of China are highly cultured individuals. Huffing and puffing, grabbing onto various ideas won't help him any. He most definitely needs better advisers. This is the game he has never played before.
"...grabbing onto various ideas won't help him any"
Much like grabbing pussy hasn't helped him.
I voted for him in 2024 (not in 2016,2020) out of desperation, because Kamala was looming. I ran into an Uber guy from NYC in AZ. who told me Trump got his father broke. His father owned a construction company, and Trump didn't pay for the work done, declared bankruptcy, and even when the banks bailed Trump out, and he could pay, he still didn't pay the people.
Perhaps in his first term. This term so far he is making a killing.
Trump was new to politics in 2016. He learned his lesson well.
Vinny, imho, there are two unspoken aspirations held by DJT. 1. The Nobel Peace prize because O'Bomber got one. 2. To make more $$$ for his family than Joe made for his family (actually quite a challenge due to the time factor. Joe had years, lucrative years at that, and his dodgy Son on board too. Burisma etc)
Don't underestimate "$50 million for the head of President Maduro" - Venezuela has the largest so far oil supply in the world, beating Saudis, so Trump will make a killing no pan intended.
If anybody thinks Trump is about "Peace" then they are almost as deluded as Trump himself.
Which shows he either doesn't have a clue as to the why the SMO started or he is being deliberately obtuse. This is the guy who said he could stop the war in 24 hours. Only way to do that is to completely walk away. Blame it all on Biden and the Europeans. But he won't because he is controlled by the Juuz and Neocons who want perpetual war. The moron even sent a flotilla of warships to sit off the coast of Venezuela.
With the price of $50 million for the head of President Maduro - surreal.
"Trying to stand between two parties and not pick sides. "
Nonsense. This is a war between the US and Russia that the US started and the US is losing. Ukraine is just expendable ammo. Trump is just trying to leverage the bottomless credulity and ignorance of Americans to pretend a) the US didn't start a war against Russia and b) the US isn't losing that war, and losing it badly. Trump wants to get out of that war before it gets catastrophically lost on his watch.
It's really funny watching the Western commentariat for imbeciles running around in their echo chamber repeating the same idiotic narrative at each other while barking nonsense about meetings between Zelensky and Putin. Not a one of them has the common sense that if you've got a fat and ugly neighbor who sets his vicious dog on your kids you don't talk to the dog, you deal with the fat and ugly neighbor. So no, Putin isn't going to pretend it makes sense to talk to the US's dog.
Yeah you nailed it. You said its a war the US started led by State Department Pro Victoria Nuland. Then the administration changed and a new one that was not part of the old one wants to do something different. The problem is we have so many people here in teh US that want a war with the Russians or whoever. Just a war so they can make mass money.
You miss the nuance.
Trump is as beholden to this neocon consensus as anyone else; he might try to work around them, but he can't directly defy them. At least not yet. So he has to puff up and look like God-Emperor of America the hegemon.
Again..."Everything Trump says is for domestic consumption". None of it is targeted elsewhere. Those elsewhere reading it for meaning are entirely missing the point. The neocon consensus apparently _WOULD_ start a nuclear war. That's the scary part. It's kind of like the Nixon/Reagan madman strategy except the executive isn't the madman, the policy consensus is. It's an interesting twist on that old game. I'm not sure it is game this time, though.
Truth be told, though, when he says everyone is posturing and it's all bullshit, he has a point. A single glimmer of truth in all the piles of excrement.
Respectfully, when you write "Those elsewhere reading it for meaning are entirely missing the point. The neocon consensus apparently _WOULD_ start a nuclear war. That's the scary part. " just after commenting that Trump is beholden to the neocon consensus you weaken your own argument, that what he says can be safely discounted as not having meaning since it is purely for domestic consumption.
In reality you are 100% right that he is beholden to the hate machine and all the peril that brings to other countries. When Trump threatens attacks and war on others those threats should not be discounted based on the idea that Trump personally doesn't really want to do that and is only posturing, because that "beholden" bit in reality does compel him to put the hate machine's wishes into action by killing people, like he's doing in Gaza, in Yemen, in Lebanon, in Iran and in Ukraine.
John Mitchell, the consummate insider of the Nixon years, once remarked "Watch what we do, not what we say." That's very good advice for standard-issue politicians.
But Trump isn't standard issue. He's an outsider who has become a very powerful insider despite his outlier characteristic of often saying what he intends to do. Of course with Trump there's the predictive problem that he may change his mind the next minute, but taking his threats seriously, especially when they have to do with war against Russia, is something Russia must do.
After all, he's not dialed back a single one of the US's acts of war against Russia: US forces are still helping Kiev kill Russian people, the US has not returned a single dollar of the Russian assets it has stolen, the US has not paid reparations for destroying Russia's Nord Stream pipeline, the US has not returned any of Russia's diplomatic properties it seized, the US has not removed any of the nuclear weapons it has placed on Russia's border, and the US continues to try to destroy the Russian economy and state.
"Truth be told, though, when he says everyone is posturing and it's all bullshit, he has a point. A single glimmer of truth in all the piles of excrement."
That's only the truth when you apply it to the US and its stooges, but far less so to many other countries and absolutely not at all true for Russia. Russia doesn't bluff, and it doesn't posture. It doesn't bullshit when it lays down ultimatums.
We're soon going to find out just how much real war the US is willing to undertake in order to try to force Russia to accept the US's style of geopolitical relationships, to posture and to bullshit and to bow down to the US, because Russia isn't going to do any of that and the only lever the US has to try to compel Russia is military action.
I do think most of what he says can be safely discounted. I've shared before that I avoid listening to him myself. It's a waste of time in most cases. However, I do not think he's supporting Ukraine in the same ways that Biden's administration would have. Mostly because his own base is not willing to tolerate the continual escalation. But I think he's conscious of what the neocon consensus could do to him. This is how political assassinations in the US happen. Which is why he continues to play ball with them.
Russians can negotiate the same as anyone else. I don't think to this point anything has been offered that would be enticing, and also if you can't trust that any agreement will be kept, there isn't much reason to negotiate. But Trump is correct fundamentally that everything is a starting position for negotiation. I think Trump himself is strangely trustworthy - that's the basis of his whole career of acting as a dealmaker. But if he can't maintain power, then that is meaningless.
I think he has a plan. I don't think he is really changing his mind except tactically to take best advantage of the media cycle. There's a reason why i've been relistening to the Third Reich trilogy. Last time I (read) it was pre-degree, part of my work for a paper on the internal resistance to the Nazis, which is an interesting topic in its own right. This time I am listening to what they did then to gain power, how they ultimately defanged the various other parties in Germany, then outlawed them (KPD/SPD/Centre/Democrats(People's)/Nationalists). Each had its own logic and was done in a premeditated fashion. The usual beliefs about how the Enabling Act that created the dictatorship was a direct outgrowth of the Reichstag fire is not entirely correct. Also, Hindenburg retained the ability and perhaps the will to overturn the Nazi takeover until his death in 1934. Hitler and his team had a careful series of actions they had to undertake to gain the ultimate power in Germany.
I am feeling the same thing about Trump and his team. Anywho, to your direct concern, Trump will do nothing to stop Russia from trouncing the Ukraine. The noise is about how he will accomplish this. I even think Putin understands.
It's hard to understand things when you don't read books; Trump relies on an almost neo-reptilian sense of weakness, fear, ego and greed. Personally, I think he perfectly represents the true American spirit of success through slavery, stolen land, murder and grift.
settler colonialism, just making the original inhabitants "disappear". great legacy.
“It’s hard to understand things when you don't read books…”. Never a truer word was spoken.
Trump has learned "business" from NYC jewry; he exemplifies this approach, where doing business invariably means suckering, pressuring, or outright cheating the other side into a loss. This is all these grifters are capable of: you must strong-arm, blackmail, or con whoever you do "business" with, or else there is no business. Neither Trump nor his hoodlum mentors are even capable of conceiving of any other way; the Russian attempts at working out an honest solution are and will continue to be rejected. Any agreement must necessarily involve tricking the other side into submitting to defeat. That is "the art of the deal", and Trump firmly believes himself to be a superbly skillful "artist".
Now, if the business partner were to declare in outrage: "you are a con, I will not do any business with you" and break negotiations, the con artist would apologize, and come up with a slightly less outrageous con as a way of luring the partner back to the table. But the Russians do not do this; on the contrary, they declare that they are always open to further negotiations, no matter what. The grifter interprets this to mean that the sucker is not aware of being suckered, has no spine, and is "asking for it". So, rather than toning down, he continues with ever more outrageous demands.
Add the Italian mob, which was strill very strong in Trump's formative years, and which he no doubt had to deal with a lot being in the real estate business, as a key influence.
There is less of a difference than you have been led to believe. Like the NYC "Russian" mafia, the Italian mafia in the US is not quite Italian (unlike on the old continent).
I was talking about the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Trump was born in 1946.
>But the Russians do not do this; on the contrary, they declare that they are always open to further negotiations, no matter what. The grifter interprets this to mean that the sucker is not aware of being suckered, has no spine, and is "asking for it"
Well, in this case he interprets it correctly, because if nearly a thousand years of as in-your-face as it gets evidence have not disabused the Russians of the notion that there can be any negotiations with the West, then they indeed are suckers.
Russia should be gearing up for total annihilation of the West, for nothing else will ensure its security, not now, not ever, and certainly not in the coming era of acutre resource scarcity. Not for negotiations.
The only possible excuse for negotiations is buying time to prepare better
"Personally, I think he perfectly represents the true American spirit of success through slavery, stolen land, murder and grift."
It works.
Does it now? If it works"- how exactly did we end up where we are?
Well, the US has global hegemony, where world leaders must bow and scrape like Renaissance courtiers (but without the classical learning or the colorful getups) before a boorish clown like Trump, simply because he is The Head Clown In Charge.
Don't see China, Russia bow much.
Even Putin came to Alaska when summoned.
I don't see the current state of affairs and the probable trajectory "working" except in the most callous and self-serving sense. Rather short term, as well.
So, what do you know that the largest, most liquid and sophisticated securities market in the world does not?
Please elaborate.
Look at long term treasury yields. They are hardly signaling crisis.
Trump's just a stooge for Israel and the MIC. He's an actor, a pompous buffoon, A failed businessman, who almost lost his shirt and was bailed out by the Russian mob early in his career in New York real estate. Trump specializes in staged theatrics, just like World Wrestling, which he was part of. That never changed. And, he always dances to the tune of his handlers. He owes them.
When you say the Russian mob you actually refer to NYC Jewish bankers.
Research shows it was the Russian mob. The top mobster lived right across from Trump—favour for favour. But there could be others. I'll post you the info sometime, Grrr. I need to find it.
The Russian mob were mainly Jewish though
That makes sense.
To elaborate; the top tier were, foot soldiers etc were of course non Jewish Russian thugs.
Here's something.
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2019/09/trumps-mob-connections/176871/
Nearly all "Russians" in NYC are actually emigre Russian Jews. There are hardly any actual Russians. Source: lived there, went to school with these "Russians".
Reminds me of Oksana Baiul, a figure skater, trained in the USSR, got an Olympic gold in 1994 as a "Ukrainian figure skater," then in the US, got drunk, wracked her car, went on Oprah to "rehabilitate" her image.
Oprah: "What did you drink, Oksana?"
Oksana: "Long Island ice tea"
Oprah: "And how many?"
Oksana: " 3... 4..."
Oprah: "You didn't think it was too much?"
Oksana: "Oprah, I'm Russian"
Beauty (sic) contests too I believe. Recently heard allegations that he regularly barged into the "girls" changing rooms, to make sure they were errrr "safe", no doubt from elderly pervs like him.
I think I heard Trump himself boasting on barging into their dressing rooms. It's like letting a goat into a cabbage field - Trump and beauty pageants.
Had Trump simply taken the money he borrowed from his father and sunk that money into an S&P500 index fund and reinvested most of the returns, he would be richer than he is today.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2021/10/11/its-official-trump-would-be-richer-if-he-had-just-invested-his-inheritance-into-the-sp500/
Note that the article was written in 2021, and the stock market has boomed since then.
Oh he could have lost it all in the market. It's called speculation for a reason...
Index funds are a lot less speculative than real estate development.
I would say 'yes' and 'no.' Real estate can be very lucrative if the time is right.
Nobody said differently. Otherwise, nobody would develop real estate. However, Trump’s track record underperformed the market average.
there's a reason for having a separate Secretary of State. combining business interests with Foreign Affairs is a terrifying idea. indeed, kindergarten level.
If you are trying to hint that Under Secretary Nuland is who should be running State right now forgive me if I dont agree. She is the one that started this whole mess.
No one seemed to care much about it under the Biden or Obama regime. I am not even sure what kind of business he and his son were doing.
Joe Biden in Ukraine before the war: "If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money" You know the Prosecutor investigating his son?
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=797504800724150
Dave...it's a sad sign of both the times and just how far we have fallen; morally and ethically that when Joe recounted that anecdote his audience laughed and found it funny. Same as when Pompous Mike Pompeo gave his "we burgled, we cheated, we stole etc" speech. The moral compass of our Elites' hasn't just gone awry, it got thrown in the bin a long time ago.
Or Hilary's "we came, we saw, he died."
Trump should never have allowed Zelensky back in DC (much less the White House), after Zelensky was openly dismissive and argumentative earlier this year. But he did and his EU goons to boot. The longer Trump backs Ukraine to whatever extent, the less credible his complaint that this "isn't my war" echoes. And I'm a 3X Trump voter.
Otherwise the banking cartel would “cream” Trump and his family.
Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
most likely
Trump and his team have an agenda, and it's nothing to do with ensuring Russia has security in Europe. He's working an end goal, and shucking/jiving to get there.
The goal: Full spectrum Talmudic dominance aka Wolfowitz-Strauss doctrine of Jewish dictatorship
without question. Dont listen to the Commies in the west Trump has his own agenda and it has been clearly stated. America First. He does not even hide it.
In 2024 — that is, during the "Biden war", to use Trump's terminology — Kiev received $50 billion worth of weapons from NATO. In less than 8 months of 2025 — with "peacemaker" Trump in the White House — Kiev has already received $33 billion worth of weapons. And by the end of the year, it will receive no less than in 2024, as reported by the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone."
Stop kidding yourself.
While Tony Blair and Jared Kushner discuss post-genocide Gaza….
Trump ~ "Everybody's posturing... it's all bullshit"
I believe the psychological term for this is "Projection"
"Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which an individual unconsciously attributes their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, impulses, or traits to another person, group, or object to avoid confronting internal conflict or anxiety. This process allows the individual to distance themselves from unpleasant aspects of the self, such as anger, jealousy, or dishonesty, by perceiving them as originating from someone else."
Busted (again) Donnie.
Yes, Donnie is a diminutive or nickname form of the masculine given name Donald, which has Scottish Gaelic origins. (His mom was Scottish.)
Simplicius also uses the diminutive form of Donald: "The world’s a stage for silver-spooned Donnie, and its ‘inconvenient’ conflicts mere sideshows to be quickly dispensed with for the prize of accolades."
After all - When Opport(tunity) Knocks > Donnie listens.
Older UK readers may recall the 60s/70s talent show of the same name; Opportunity Knocks and it's host Hughie Green with his much used catchphrase "and i mean that most sincerely folks ! "
Donnie is simply projecting his own state of mind where the 'Art of the Deal' concept substitute for most normal mental functions. Western politicians simply lost the Art of Normal.
including the Art of international diplomacy.
And the Art of Geopolitics as well.
I really wonder if he knows what comes out of his mouth, or just fires.
He is very spontaneous and often so. I kind of like that as it is rare from politicians and allows for an easier evaluation of their brain activities. He is kind of an original thinker but certainly carries the golden pager with the mandatory C4 load, very close to his private parts.
I kind of like it that often when Trump opens his mouth - you don't know what he'll blurt out:-) I hate the same - when he blurts out total nonsense.
I'm suspicious of a person who "doesn't like to read" - because if you don't read the first hand sources you are left with other "interpreting" them for you.
Good point
The US had never faced major conflict on their soil in modern history. Trump will never understand the history that Putin takes responsibility over for Russia which has been invaded many times. Invasion and militarism has to be ingrained in Russian culture as for them war is reality not Hollywood.
Nobody cares about the Russian mentality, unless they are made to care.
Russia has failed to do this.
Russia has failed to do what? The only people who should care about the Russian mindset are Russians and the people who attempt to destroy Russia.
The only way the West will care about what Russians think or want is if they are forced to do so.
That is where Russia has failed.
At this point why should Russians care what the western world thinks? The Western world live in their own made up reality devoid of true reality. The only thing Russians should concern themselves with is the consequence of western delusions. In the words of Tzar Alexander "Russia has only two allies, her army and her navy"
Because the western world is making war on them and Russia is unable to stop them.
That's much more accurate than saying he is "projecting". He likes the people he deals with (except Zelensky). Putin, the NK leader, etc. He does not understand what Putin is saying. he does not grant Putin his reality. He is right that communication brings about understanding and agreement, but he's not listening - instead he gets "reality" from the neocons surrounding him.
Although the historical reasons brought up by Putin make sense, the material economic reasons based on now ostracised good old Marx prove to be much more telling. What we call “the west” is living through an existencial crisis which leads to a consolidation process, politically, economically and militarily speaking. The lines between the historical western powers are increasingly blurring, presenting itself to the world as a single, incorporated Leviathan (the biblical marine monster). Unable to further expand their operations to continental Asia or Africa, the “western” corporations are gobbling internal middle class wealth. Currency debasement, hidden inflation, rocketing prices, fake stats, political bribery, post-truth spectacle, mercenary media, digitalisation, climate policies, rigged elections... you name it... are all manifestations of this consolidation process by which the voting circus is losing facial flesh layers to show its ugly skull. The contradictions of such a process should be at the core of any serious analysis.
As an example, I will say a word about the Spanish case. Currently, the country is in a military production spree of fusions and acquisitions in the fields of IFV production, electronic warfare, drones, satellital and software imagery, aerospace components and naval shipyards to name a few. Most of these companies belong to international pools, participated by General Dynamics, Thyssen, Airbus, et al. Their stocks are soaring, directly connected to hedge funds and banks, being the political circus just a fraction of their activities.
Take Indra Sistemas, one of the biggest companies, heavily participated by the goverment. In 2018 and 2019 Indra was fined for participating in a 14-year cartel rigging the contracts for Spanish railway infrastructure and leading a 15-year cartel rigging the offers of IT services to several public administrations in Spain. Of course nothing happened and the plebs media didnt even grasp the affair. Coincidentaly, Indra is also in charge of the Spanish elections scrutiny, with growing concerns about the "accuracy" of their counting.
Far from "panic" as the usual Youtube doomers claim, there is a feeling of excited enthusiasm among the financial and the military press. New plants are being built, the money is flowing unabated. A virtuous circle among the banks, the MIC, the politicians and the war in Ukraine has been created. Calls for war against Morocco are increasingly heard. Polarisation is gaining momentum globally. The west is becoming a consolidated core under the lead of the US. 50 % Tarifs against Brazil and India have been confirmed, indicating that this process is meant to be upgraded to a larger global scale. But the material grounds for such a scheme are increasingly thin. Everything could spin with a finger snap if the background financial grounds for this new colonial spree, such us climate change, crypto and digital currencies, or precious metals revaluations fail.
Interestingly the PBoC pegged the RMB higher this week as the USD continues to slide. The shape of capital markets is morphing. If capital begins exiting the US equity markets, as is happening in the bond markets, then a catastrophic meltdown is a reasonable possibility. At the same time Trump is pushing for Miran to join the Fed board. What could possibly go wrong?
I cant find my comment nor yours on the Substack mobile app. Can you?
I don't use the app. Working fine on Mozilla mobile:)
>Far from "panic" as the usual Youtube doomers claim, there is a feeling of excited enthusiasm among the financial and the military press.
Why would they panic?
As there any missiles with the appropriate medicine measured in megatons coming their way to cure them of their frenzied madness?
There aren't.
So what is there to cause panic?
All the ruling classes of the "West" are SJWs, very much including the putative conservatives. What do SJWs always do? Lie, double down and PROJECT.
No need to over-complicate the thing.
What does SJW stand for?
It stands for “social justice warrior”. Social justice is the officially unofficial ideology of clown world.
The left-right farses ignored, it all makes a perfect perverted sense. We live in a totalitarianism disguised by lies.
vampires have no self reflection
"Everybody' (and that includes me) is posturing... it's all (and that includes what I say/tweet) bullshit" sounds reasonable enough to me.
Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frere
merz - what an idiot.. i hope blackrock is paying him a lot for his devotion to the banking complex... germans ought to be right pissed off with this con man..
I just came across an article by Alastair Crooke from June 2023 in which he says the following, which I hadn't heard before:
"Much of Europe, including Germany and the EU, had undergone ‘BlackRock financialisation’ from the 2000s, which has notably weakened EU real economies in favour of the services economy."
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/the-fourth-turning-that-will-define-our-century
blackrock is a plague on the planet at this point.. along the same lines as the wef and definitely in bed with the wef..
Unfortunately, Germans are too brainwashed to even realize that this guy will hasten the downfall of their country.
one can hope the same applies to Canadian sheeple with elbows up
No hope for Canada as well, one look at that walking question mark and his gender confused son should tell the story of Canada's rapid deterioration.
Gisele, yes "brainwashed" is a good description of what's happening in Germany and it may indeed be true. I find it shocking though that they can all, without exception swallow the Nordstream tripe hook, line and sinker. For me that is beyond all credulity, and perhaps it's just because their impotence is the same as that faced by us all..the damage is done and there's sweet FA we can do about it.
It goes to show how well brainwashing works. Of course there is Goebbel's mantra " Repeat a lie a hundred times and it becomes the truth", which can be applied to all Western MSM.
Nice comment and true for that matter. Enough circumstantial evidence to point all fingers, hands and other bodily parts to the USA. The trick was let the police investigators look every’no’where and make the search near eternal. Arrest a few scapegoats, forget about them and let it all be forgotten because of other ‘more’ important news events (what’s on the other channel). After a few years post an article on a msm channel like Reddit or game app and on page 13 left under so no-one will notice or give it the attention it should need. The respective responsible politicians are long gone. The new elites, handpicked, trained and corrupted by the usual gangs like WEF continue their ways, remote from all reality, delayed responsibility (till many years after their political careers ended), extracting personal wealth and influence with very mediocre skills. Look for example at the function of the undemocratic chosen leaders of the EU, like Von der Leyen and her cronies or NATO Secretary Rutte. No diplomatic heavyweight, bureaucratic experience mastered, well skilled deceiver, proven liar and his devote adoration for his paymaster Trump.
The damage brought to fairytale Europe cannot be overcome anymore. Subservient to our colonial master USA the ancient wealth from Europe wii be forcibly extracted at will by the USA (remember statements of Bessent in this regard). Europe will start to make gigantic loans for a nutcase projects like rearmament (5% of GDP) because of the so called, programmed and propagandized enemy Russia. It is the pinnacle of lies and absurdity of the near 300 years hegemon hatred from the UK projected on Russia. The Brits ruled the waives hegemon changed in the Brits waived the rules (borrowed comparison!). Empowered by colonial booty wealth, grotesque social injustice and lies hidden under a fat layer of stolen aristocratic politeness. Still directing and as far as possible orchestrating this game-plan, but now under the uninspired leadership from the ‘new’ hegemon the USA with spokesman boogeyman Führer Trump. A historian wrote that the era we are witnessing is the creation of a massive European rearmament with Germany’s Merz as bureaucratic warmongering mouthpiece. Of course everything shall be integrated in NATO where we meet utterly powerless anti charismatic champion Rutte taking orders from papa Trump. Weapons we have to buy in the US, thus enriching that country with the most despicable corrupt politicians. Impoverishing Europe with a Germany that’s de-industrializing but still the most powerful country in Europe and thus dictating war or diplomaticallyand politically wrestling the other EU countries down with the goal of war with Russia. The Fourth Reich is born (quote, not mine, but very adequately put). Merz will be voted away without accountability and another Bratwurst without backbone will accept the marching orders from the UK/Us and start something so technically advanced that everyone believes that losing is no impossible. All contrarian thoughts and opinions will be ridiculously dangerous. As already happening the censors control the news outlets. Palantir will take care of the diverting opinions and journalists who needs them! Nice target practice for the IOF/IDF.
My five cents on the probable, better, highly likely consequences of the ‘chosen’ irresponsible leadership of Europe and in the US. Total financial and maybe physical destructing will be the European reward for so-called US allied friendship.
I pray some sound politicians will revolt and avoid this looming disaster.
And today, German TV reported that Merz, at the CDU/SPD party conference yesterday, expressed the wish that Germany needed a new flag and a new national anthem.
And no one in the German mob noticed that we're headed toward the Fourth Reich.
If only you were headed towards a Fourth Reich. If only that was the worst scenario, no, that would be too good of a path for Germany. What you will have is the logical conclusion of the Neues Deutschland für Neue Deutsche in the same delusional model as you have had since 2014-15, only backed with more state enforcement and punishment, und noch größere gehirnwäsche-umerziehung. Was haben Sie schließlich für Ihre genetische kollektivschuld am Holocaust sonst verdient? Nie wieder!
So that is what you will actually get: the final erasure of what it means to be German, and a human being with any kind of dignity or autonomy. After all, history shows that the good guys won, so shut up if you know what's good for you.
I pray some sound politicians will revolt and avoid this looming disaster.
and I fear that should such a heroic figure emerge that they will meet with a very sudden, fatal accident or a bullet :-(
Politicians will never get the job done. Ever. A leader, sure, but a politician?
Hastening fast angry written on my mobile with some typos like an annoying one: “losing is no impossible”, should “be not possible” or “losing is impossible”.
I am living outside Europe now and after many years absence, different newsfeeds and analytical skills i have concluded that very dark times are coming to Europe. If the electoral and original democratic principles were implemented and executed, then the electorate or citizens of all the respective EU nation would and should endure this provoked self destruction. Luckily this is not the case and Europe might save itself. Alas, i do not belong to this class of believers. The deluge of huge amounts of budgetary reserved EU money with the goal of enhancing and propagandizing EU ‘idealistic’, hence unrealistic goals, like one market and army, will wash away all critics and dissenting opinions. The EU will prevail and all inhabitants will experience increased taxation, eradication of social equality, decrease in healthcare, the cost of education will dramatically increase or the quality of education will go down and so on. My optimistic view is that social inequality will exponentially grow and at the same time impoverishment superimposed by the resp. EU governments due to an untenable increase in government debts and that will be optical polished or disguised by the debasement of 5-10% annually of the Euro. Basically following the US financial disaster scenario where the interest payments can be maintained with money printing till the house of cards collapses. But the US$ has internationally more historic credentials compared to the € euro. Bleak picture for European finances!
Pessimistic scenario is that the “coalition of the willing” insist on a war with Russia. The fake unity agreement is already in place.
Now it’s on the cool thinkers to dismiss this eschatological stupidity. All bets are of in that scenario. No place to hide.
You summarized my own thoughts. Europe will foretell that the times of economic reckoning have arrived.
That's right!
The goal is to adopt capitalism in the form it exists in the USA.
An end to social capitalism, which is no longer competitive and not profit-oriented enough precisely because of its social aspects. American companies in Europe (e.g., Tesla in Germany) attribute their failures and revenue losses to the social regulations AND COSTS in Germany. For all other companies in Europe, it would be a dream to be able to run their companies without any social considerations AND COSTS = higher profits, and Blackrock is at the table in EVERY major company in Europe.
Only somewhat honest people appreciate honesty in others. We are few in number.
A better way to put it, germans are the most obedient, rule-following, authority-trusting sheep on the continent that is populated by the most obedient, rule-following, authority-trusting fools on the planet.
What downfall?
The way things are going, they will finally get their hands on Russian land and resources, after centuries of dreaming about it.
Sure, there will be short-term pain, but the payoff at the end is worth it.
Because nobody in Moscow will press that button and they know that it Berlin, so what is the risk here?
How will they get russian land and resourses? Only in their wet dreams mate! Western societies are too corrupt, incompetent to ever couse a real threat, RF is five steps ahead of western elites at all times. BRICS is the future, Von der Liar and her likes are irrelevant
They had quite a bit of control in the 1990s.
And remember that there was talk about Russian denuclearization already back then.
The scheme is:
1) regime change
2) the new regime repents for all the Russian sins that it will equate to those of Nazi Germany, and "voluntarily" denuclearizes and demilitarizes
3) then you move in heavy with some combination of constant air strikes and Balkanization of the now defanged Russia
4) the end game is Lebanization and Syranization and then eventually the Gaza treatment (which Lebanon and Syria will get too, they are just not far enough along the trajectory yet).
Germans hate Russian people and they support Merz a lot. Its only Eastern Germany GDR doesnt support this proxy war.
A failure of the school system and education. In the East, about 45% "still" experienced the Russians live. I write "STILL" because these people, mostly over 65, will soon be extinct.
Just as the live witnesses from 1937 to 1945 have died out, and only for this reason do the warmongers have a chance again.
Once the eyewitnesses are gone, every door is open for new Gobelins.
Yeah entire European Union was under huge anti Russia propaganda for last 30 years. Its was literally dehumanization of evrything Russian from state to history and people themselves (just look how Hollywood portraits Russian people). Even most anti-Russia Polish people i met in 2010-2017 were saying they are not pro-Russian in any mean but they TIRED to live in this constant Russophobia propaganda, and they didnt understand what is going on. They wanted normal life and not this pshycotic degeneracy, literally hate cult. Obviously, it says a lot and shapes human minds especially of younger generation.
Ask any youngsters in the West about Russia or Russian people what association is. They say Dictator Gulag Bandit Crime Inhumanity Opression Dictatorship etc etc.
Its colonial racism. Its dehumanization.
And then they launch attack against "evil RASHANS".
Now, anti-Russian propaganda is having an effect.
Here in eastern Germany, I even hear such garbage about the Russians and Putin from East Germans over 55 years old.
Years of media barrage have done it.
Anyone who never understood how Adolf Hitler got the Germans to march joyfully into war will get a lesson in the present!
In about another 2-3 years, the Germans will march in lockstep again, first toward Lithuania, where they will be JOYFULLY greeted with raised arms, then toward Moscow.
That is, if they haven't been burned to ash by then.
But don't worry, you Anglo-Saxons in England and the USA will march with them...and die, because YOU are just as much victims of the propaganda of your elites.
" ... Anyone who never understood how Adolf Hitler got the Germans to march joyfully into war will get a lesson in the present! ....."
The National Socialist era was highly beneficial for the Germans - 6 million ( that number again ) were returned to productive work in less than 5 years, and massive internal improvements began, eg the autobahn system, the yearly paid holiday, the social and cultural programme, the interest-free loans to buy farms, cancelled if the family then went on to have four children, and pro rata for fewer, the VW for the people, the rebuilding of Berlin as Germania, etc.
That anybody can say Hitler was preparing for war as his first priority is exceptionally naiive.
War was forced upon him - and them - because he had the audacity to institute a new financial system based on work done ( see above ) instead of gold borrowed from jews - so the jews, including the one who got the reins of power in Britain, and who took £40,000 to start a war against Germany, mobilized to destroy him.
The 1933 Daily Express headline, "Judea declares war on Germany," says it all.
Don't be deceived. The entire "Nazi Germany" project was Jewish.(Like the Bandera Ukraine project, it is 100% Jewish). From the very beginning, from the time when Hitler was a painter. (Artists. Just lke Zelensky lol. Just like Trump, LOL)
It was the British (London Sephards) who created biological Nazism. And they started measuring the Irish skulls. Then they taught the Germans to do the same thing.
Karl Max was Jewish and worked for the City. He wrote about problems of the British working class, but the revolution happened everywhere except the UK, LOL, coincidence.
The entire project of Nazi Germany was created against the USSR and used against the USSR(and against Germany). It was funded, sponsored, AND ARMED (Wehrmacht was created by the Americans and their military technology. You can try to find a great video about it on YT. The Jews of the USA built army for the war.) Stalin and some Russian politicians tried to find normal German politicians and explain what would happen and find a way out of it. But unfortunately, what happened happened. And many Germans were brainwashed, and they happily marched to build death camps in Russia.
No, modern Germany or EU not going march anywhere. Russia can destroy evryone. So no worries here. But hate cult inflicted by jewish media will be bigger every year (ALL mainstream media is controlled by them. Even many blogers and podcasters are the same MSM)
Only advice is turn off all this propaganda. Its bad for your nerves.
Was Churchill actually part-Jewish, rather than merely in the pay of Bernard Baruch et al?
Quite a lot of Nazi Whitewashing. As to the 6 million unemployed in 1932/33, most were not anymore in 1939, ok. Yet, about 2m were in Reichsarbeitsdienst, poorly paid forced labour, 900,000 were in concentration camps, roughly 400k exiled, The "boom" was mainly rearmament, and 1 million were in the army. Wage average was below the 1929 level, "Betriebsführer" quelling every protest, the "Deutsche Arbeitsfront" a mockup of a union.
The excessive number of concentration camp inmates (per populace more than Stalinist or recent US gulag) tells a lot about the happiness of Germans. In fact, they were efficiently subdued, like Ukrainians (and Westerners) nowadays.
and look where it is getting them... being friends with the usa is a much worse fate, which they have chosen here..
Doesn't matter. It works.
They will stop supporting him once he bankrupts their fat German prosperity. That will hurt them where it matters the most, and suddenly they will wake up; but it will be too late to do anything anymore. And then someone will promise them a return of that prosperity, at the cost of fighting a war. And Germans will fall for that con again, just like the last time.
No, I wish that were true. Seeing their daughters raped and murdered hasn't been enough of a motivator. It hasn't even been enough of a motivator for German women who will all have been intimidated and groped on the street and in one of the Hauptbanhof across the country by feckless and dangerous mongrels who shouldn't even be in the country.
Germans are not noted for independent thinking. They seem to prefer following their leader.
A stereotype? Well, yes; Germans aren't all alike, any more than the people of any other country. But I think there's a grain of truth in it.
In the past, I would have doubted that, but looking at the current situation, you may be right. Still, I can’t see Merz making much of a Wehrmacht out of the nation of Sitzpinklers and stabby migrant sex pests his SPD/ CSU Uniparty has created.
Why would you hope that "Blackrock is paying him a lot?" BR should not be paying the Chancellor of Germany anything. He is not a con man. He has a goal to remilitarize Germany and bring back the glory of the Third Reich. People that call him an idiot, or like Trump, enjoy what they think is his humiliation, are woefully underestimating him. You do not want to see another German re-militarization. At least I do not.
you are talking about a world free of bribery... it is a very idealistic world, and i too would love to live in it, but alas, these politicial losers thrive on bribery... that is the con man part of his wanting to spend money that germany doesn't have on a possible direct war with russia..
germany is a colony and vassal of the usa.. that is why the need to support nato is a basic requirement.. usa says jump and germany says how high.. at least with sholz, he wasn't as blatant as merz about it..
i don't underestimate tyrants who have the support of less then 25% of the public vote, but i call a spade a spade... has he spoken about about how the biggest terrorist attack in europe - nordstream - is causing germany to kiss it's economic strength goodbye? no, because he's a con man for the financial elites who want war, or prep for war, with the threat of war always on the horizon.. yes - he wants to bring back toe glory of the third reich... self serving politicians are idiots.. i stand by my description of him..
I don't think that I agree that Germany is a colony or a vassal of the USA. A colony implies that Germany is run by American administrators. That is not true. A "vassal" implies that Germans are servants of the US. I have worked the last 40 years as an American with many German professionals. They are not American servants. Your language in your response is loose. Calling him a "tyrant", or a con man, or self serving, is not going to get to a precise description of what he is doing. What is he doing that is self serving? Or a conman wanting to bring back glory? I do not doubt that he wants to be the Reichsfuhrer of the 4th Reich. He's German. It is a part of their genes. I don't think we should underestimate him. He is not an idiot.
ham - lets say we see it differently then and as to mine or your use of language - it's subjective... the biggest tomfoolery is to think it is objective.. bottom line - merz is another disaster for germany and indeed he gets his walking orders from the usa and friends in high places, who pull the strings behind the curtain... just like the wizard of oz in fact!
This is the stupidest take of all time. It's so profoundly ignorant, even wilfully so, of how completely cucked Germany and Germans have been for decades. Two million plus neue Deutsche für ein neues Deutschland just because Mutti Merkel said so, and the willing participation by the media and every sphere of "good" society.
Why do you call him an idiot? Because he doesn't give a fuck about Germans and the future of Germany? That's not whom he represents. He serves the desires of his actual masters quite effectively.
exactimundo...
All good - but why, despite huge losses, Ukrainian still often go on offensive, why frontlines look like a frozen stalemate?
Why Oreshniks are not used to destroy anchor points of key bridges across Dnjepar?
Wars are extremely expensive - to victory….
The Russians are forced to exhaust all the NATO optimists first.
Yes, it is expensive for both sides, but it is for survival.
Enough it with post-hoc rationalization copium, please.
If Russia had done its job properly in February-March 2022 or if it had done what had to be done to prevent NATO involvement in this mess later on, there would be no 120,000 dead on its side, with no end in sight, as the war would have been over a long time ago with a decisive victory and very little destruction.
But it didn't, because the imbecile/traitor in charge vetoed all the strikes that would have ensured quick victory, and then prevented the military from stopping NATO involvement.
And those conditions are still in place -- there continues to be a firm political veto on striking the targets that would defeat Ukraine and stop NATO from attacking Russia from behind Ukraine's back.
It speaks volumes to how broken the Russian people are that they continue to tolerate and even support such leadership.
Tovarish GM, how are you?
Sorry for the delayed response, but I have been traveling.
Tovarishka, please cry me a river, tell me all about your disappointment with the Russian approach to the current conflict. It seems that all of your pretended concern is because the Russians don't charge heedlessly into the trap that has been set up by the Western bankster hyenas. I myself have a terrible temper, and would like to smash the dishonorable, conniving sarlatans in the face with the bony hammer of my fist. Or send over a few dozen Oresniks just to teach them a lesson. But remember, we are just armchair warriors on the Simplicious blog. We have no idea what information the Russians have, that cautioning them to go slow. Don't worry yourself too much, just calm down, have some vodka, maybe take up a hobby like knitting. I heard that it really works for anxiety. But if you have any further confusion, please call on me. I don't mind counseling you.
It would eliminate Ukro-Nazi resupply and mark the natural borders - except for Odessa
Are they perhaps being deliberately sent into the fire for no reason, because who is really commanding the Ukrainians? Certainly not Syrsky, he's just a puppet.
Azov troops destroyed in active warfare are good dead for Putin after the war. Azov is one of the biggest problems ALSO for Trump and especially for Europe after the war. Where will these Nazi refugees go, to Berlin, Paris, or London? The Poles will be very quick to dispose of the refugees.
AND
Have you ever considered that a Trump wants/needs to offer Putin the opportunity to dispose of the Azov Nazis on the battlefield, so that after the war, EVERYONE isn't confronted with thousands of well-trained, combat-experienced system opponents?
If he wants the war to continue, he should keep his nose out of it - in the same way he keeps his nose out of Gaza, because he wants it to continue.
"Get it done," as he said to satanyahu.
The commanders are all US/UK safely siting outside Ukraine (most in Wiesbaden - stated by US sources soo many times)
"Why Oreshniks are not used to destroy anchor points of key bridges across Dnjepar?"
Why destroy a bridge you plan on using later? Also, some of the crossings are more than just bridges, they're flood control and power dams.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Kakhovka_Dam
The Ukranians will demolish those bridges when they retreat, to benefit themselves. So for Russia to keep them going for 3 years has been a lose/lose.
"So for Russia to keep them going for 3 years has been a lose/lose."
So wrong it's like you've never read a word Simplicius has published.
If Russia *had* dropped those bridges, Ukraine wouldn't have been able to feed men and machines into the maw of the Russian De-militarisation grinder, and instead retained or increased its armed strength.
THAT would have been a lose/lose....
An additional factor is that the fighting, for the most part, has been on what Russia considers its own territory, so they'd eventually have to rebuild what they destroyed. The same logic applies when attacking the power grid. You take out the substations, which are cheap to rebuild compared to hitting a power plant or transmission lines.
With millions of mines and optical fiber cables all over Russian land
I've never found that argument remotely convincing. Most of that NATO junk was obsolete anyway. The game changer weapons are drones and missiles. If you want to argue that blowing up bridges doesn't stop airborne weapons, fair enough.
You're just the poster child for ignorance, aren't you?
What, in your tiny mind, would dropping the bridges in 2022 have achieved.
Detailed answer please, this forum needs some comedy....
It would have made going up to the Dneiper relatively straightforward. And prevented the Russian speaking population being hurled into the meat grinder to fight a war they never wanted.
Resupply to Ukro-nazi army and natural borders….
>If Russia *had* dropped those bridges, Ukraine wouldn't have been able to feed men and machines into the maw of the Russian De-militarisation grinder, and instead retained or increased its armed strength.
Only a complete imbecile can believe this.
If Ukraine had not been able to move men and machines across the river, Russia would have taken the whole east of the river territory with at most 10% of the casualties it has suffered so far.
And it would have also taken over the ten million or so Ukrainians who live on that territory.
Millions of Ukrainians who then would not be available to press gang into fighting Russia.
Plus it would have taken over most of the key Ukrainian MIC industrial enterprises.
Then you have a rump Ukraine with half the population, and a quarter of the industrial capacity to finish off. Which would be much easier.
Clearly the better option was to strike the bridges (which Ukraine will eventually demolish itself anyway, the moment there is any realistic threat of Russia crossing over them) than to engage in the current insanity.
Also, the argument that NATO has been somehow demilitarized is so idiotic that I don't know where to even begin.
Not a single MIC complex facility in the US or Europe has been struck, so there has been zero impact on their ability to regenerate. The opposite in fact -- they are building new factories everywhere.
And tanks, IFVs and artillery will play the same role in a Russia-NATO war as they did in the Iran-Israel war. Zero, that is. It will be fought with missiles, navies, submarines and aviation. And there has been zero attrition of those assets on the NATO side. Meanwhile Russia has been taking increasingly deep hits on its MIC, it lost a quarter of its strategic aviation, dozens of fighter jets, a quarter of the Black Sea Fleet, and it was fully surrounded by NATO's forward deployment.
Only a complete imbecile believes any of your mindless drivel. You are either a troll or an idiot (but I repeat myself).
That's your ignorance speaking again, Generally Moronic.
Now do what would REALLY have happened...
HINT: It's one of NATO's PREFERRED scenarios.
Well, if it's NATO's preferred scenario, then NATO has the upper hand in military-technical terms, and Russia is cowering in fear of striking NATO even slightly, preferring to take hit after hit after hit in the vague hope that some "compromise" solution might be found.
In which case all the experts who have been telling us that Russia is boldly and confidently defeating all of NATO combined in Ukraine are lying ignoramuses.
It is either that or Russia does in fact have the military might to strike NATO, but Putin refuses to use it for reasons other than the protection of his people and soldiers.
There are no other options.
But if it's the latter, then the question naturally comes up what those reasons are, doesn't it? Because Putin has never bothered to communicate anything clearly on the matter. And that opens up a lot of space for very nasty speculations. Which, given what we know about Russia of the last 40 years, are a bit more than just speculations...
Depends on how much disarray they're in when they retreat. It's not easy to destroy bridges actually, especially in the USSR where, drawing on experience, they built to survive the attempt. Same with their apartment blocks, which are massively overbuilt and situated on wide boulevards to provide fire positions against approaching tanks. Mariupol for example, where even after major tank and artillery fire, most of the Soviet era buildings are still standing.
Controlled demolition is easy. And fast. Much harder with missiles.
I believe this topic has been widely discussed in Russia for the duration of the SMO, and generates plenty of controversy and arguments.
My assumption is that it will be the Ukranians who end up doing it upon retreat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper_reservoir_cascade
an example of what you'd be dealing with:
https://pixabay.com/photos/dam-the-dnieper-hydroelectric-3369500/
Not saying it can't be done, but that's an awful lot of concrete and the consequences downstream would be devastating. Bear in mind that the Kakhovka Dam in Kherson was the last in the chain. No telling what might happen if you destroyed the upstream dams, but I'm sure it wouldn't be pretty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakhovka_Dam
Which was also destroyed by the USSR in 1941 and again by Germans in 1944.
(sorry for the massive URL but this is a very detailed account of that event)
https://babel.ua/en/texts/68397-in-1941-ussr-blew-up-the-dnipro-hpp-dam-to-stop-the-germans-instead-of-this-thousands-of-soviet-soldiers-were-killed-how-the-station-was-destroyed-and-restored-during-the-wwii-a-story-in-photos
I'm not disputing those arguments. I am disputing the "Russia wants that gear to reach the front line to blow it up there" argument. And the "Russia wants to use those bridges to cross the Dneiper" claims. There are more convincing arguments as you mention.
That is why I wrote - Oreshnikovs
Exactly.
There is absolutely no excuse here.
Eliminate Ukro-Nazi army resupply… and mark the natural borders
>Why destroy a bridge you plan on using later?
Do you also plan to use the broder crossings with Poland?
The bridges won't solve the problem, because Ukraine can fire long-range drones and missiles from behind the river too.
Permanently disabling border crossings with Poland, on the other hand, will solve it.
Good points - but remember the Russian goal, ie to "denazify" and "demilitarize" Ukraine.
They want all that materiel and soldiery to keep coming so it can be smashed and rendered permanently neutered.
Because the Kremlin is run by traitors who work for the Russian oligarchy, and it is not in the interests of the Russian oligarchy to win the war.
That has been explained many times:
1) Russia can win the war totally, decisively, and quickly, but that will require military-technical measures of the kind that will ensure a permanent separation of Russia from the West. But the power and wealth of the Russian oligarchy rest on it being the middlemen between Russian resources and the West. If there is a permanent total split from the West, that power base erodes
2) There would have to also be an internal restructuring of the Russian economy in order to win the war and then survive after that. Meaning more state control and more investment into local industry. That automatically hurts most of the current oligarchy.
3) Somebody will have to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine, even if no further destruction occurs. Because the Ukrainian oligarchy is even more rapacious and short sighted than the Russian one and there has been practically no investment in infrastructure and general welfare there for 35 years. Who will pay for that? Well, the Russian people have been squeezed completely dry by decades of neoliberalism, there isn't much to take from them, so it will have to be the Russian oligarchy that foots most of the bill. They do that in the Donbass already because the Donbass is resource rich and they hope to get something out of it, but the further west you go, the poorer it gets and the fewer of those opportunities.
4) They want to be allowed back in the West on a purely human level too.
The essence of the SMO is a giant bluff by the Kremlin, which was immediately called. The bluff being an attempt to negotiate better terms on the arrangement in which Russian resources are handed over to the West for a fraction of their real worth, in exchange for which the Russian oligarchy gets a cut, while the Russian people get some trickle-down crumbs at the cost of permanent deindustrialization and stunted development as an independent civilization.
The arrangement itself, however, was never in question. Which is the part that people still don't understand, even though Putin said it clearly in that infamous meeting with the oligarchs on the first day of the SMO -- "What is happening now is desperate measures, they left us with no choice. But rest assured, there will be no fundamental changes, Russia's place in the world system will remain the same" were roughly his words.
For all of those reasons Russia has been turned into a giant Syria, a place anyone can bomb whenever and wherever they fell like, while there is nothing flying the other way, and certainly nothing that would make the aggressors stop.
I hear you but I think you are not correct
"That has been explained many times" should be changed to "I have claimed that many times"
Trump has no real values at all, he thinks everything is just a negotiation (devoid of any moral considerations) and he projects this mentality on to every situation, irrespective of the context. He has no understanding of a broader moral or civilisational context.
The civilisational perspective is the default view for Putin and Lavrov. Given such a gap in views, which is obvious only to one of the parties, the only option for Russia is to humour Trump, who from their perspective can only ever at best be a useful idiot, and likely not even that.
Trump has shown true consistency on only one thing - creating opportunities for making money - nothing matters to Trump like making money, regardless of the cost in human lives and livelihoods.
Trump does have a view, but it is one which he cannot publicly state - that view is the view of those dozens of zionist jews who make up his administration, whose viewpoint is never "America First."
Donnie has successfully brainwashed the US into believing things are done for American benefit, when in fact they are done for Donnie's ego benefit, and the benefit of the jews - whose neocon fraternity started the war because they believe Russia betrayed Israel at the time of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when the terrorist state was within an inch of total destruction.
Donnie, despite his "Scottish mother" is a jew, so everything is done for their benefit, not the Gentile benefit.
Seems like zionists own the kucks who “run” western “democracies” , thats why the west needs to collapse.No jews in china, virtually none in India(tho Nuttyyahoo is sucking up to Modi). The Russian jews seem to be on pretty tight leash(ignoring conspiracy theorists). I grew up in the west, but it is in terminal decline, partly due to Zionist influence. The rats usually go down with the ship.
I think that part of the Russian loss aversion is that they know how weak Ukraine is, and it is much easier to wipe out the remaining Ukrainian elite troops by creating a ready kill zone for their counter-attacks which they are let in to. While also sucking others into defending already substantially surrounded positions.
The events of the next few months will be telling for the Russians with respect to Pokrovs'ke (on the south east front cutting off a major supply line), Pokrovsk, Kostyantynivka, Siversk/Lyman, and Kupyansk. Any major collapses could quickly spread.
You hit it. Russia has no reason to negotiate. They can and are slow rolling Ukraine, NATO and the EU. Everyone else outside is looking at this realising they have no stomach and are not prepared for this new battle field. All Trump is doing is keeping the talks going and hoping for a change he can move on. Lets not forget President Trump is a Russian spy working for Putin.
What's that quote again ? Slowly...then all at once !
We've been hearing that one for years now....
I dunno Dr. Simplicicus, seems a little like you’re putting your thumb on the scale here pretty hard here with selecting one guys line of bullshit in a negotiation as being somehow really off the charts stupid while proposing that the other guys bullshit was delivered from the Ortodox heavens. Everyone views his national history as The Truth. So what. All national histories are fiction, including the U.S.
After six months of watching Trumps “stupidity” turn into actual salubrious results most of the time, even if short term, I’m not sure I’m willing to go along with the still common idea that he has no idea what he is doing. Moreover he is up against the most intelligent, informed and experienced geo politician extant. Give a NY ready estate guy a break! What was it he was supposed to say in this negotiation? Great point Vlad, why didn’t I think of that? Face it, he doesn’t have a lot to work with on a point to point debate. Looks to me more like he is giving Putin a long open field to freaking get this over with. How he stalls or postures with some girlie reporter in the peanut gallery doesn’t bother me much.
Trump seems to have gotten really good at leveraging Trump Derangement Syndrome to his own benefit. The great thing about TDS sufferers is that they seem to have an infinite capacity to exacerbate their own disease, which just makes them more and more easily misdirected.
It's actually getting fun to watch.
Keep those excuses coming!
Well, what should he do? Keeping the ubiquitous War Party in check without provoking it into a JFK-style overreaction is about as tough as it gets—and hardly far-fetched, as the attempts on his life have shown. Against that backdrop, Trump is doing just fine. It’s far too early to agree—let alone sign—anything, and Putin knows it too. Before that, we may well see Bolton getting roasted in a televised committee hearing by Tulsi and MTG. Bolton: the poster boy for an entire generation of failed geopolitics!
Start by you not assuming facts not in evidence.
Kindly elaborate?
You are, for example, assuming that Trump would be killed for not giving the war party the war that Trump is well on the way to giving them.
Oh, is he? Bolton and his ilk would love to see German and French boots with 50-times as many Leopards on ancient Russian soil right now to take back Crimea and shove the Baltics down Putin's throat. Oh, you might say, reality stands in-between! Maybe it just happens to be accompanied by a semi-failed NY real estate dude in the Oval Office who tries to resist the temptation of running Operation Barbarossa 2.0 while simultaneously attempting to appease the War Party by letting it have their Gaza concentration camp.
How about, be ready to die for your country?
Chasov Yar and Ugledar are nothing to scoff at.
Ugledar especially after multiple rounds and many losses since late 2022.
These were tough nuts to crack.
Yes they were. It took longer to take Chasov Yar than Avdeevka.
A couple articles ago Simplicius presented a map of Ukraine showing the line of fortifications primarily along the northeren edges of Donetsk and Luhansk built up during Minsk 2 - a veritable honeycomb of hardened structures and lines of defense. This is the problem Russia has had to deal with - it requires extremely slow progress individually dealing with destroying each of these many, many fortifications. They could be attacked en masse but that would involve huge losses of Russian manpower, as with Bakhmut. It is obvious that Russia, utilising a combination of drone warfare (think the Rubicon project), small unit assault teams backed by armour, air munitions and encircling tactics, have discovered a highly effective means of attacking these lines - but it's slow and those of us who are impatient for the Big Arrow to develop twist in the wind crying out for a faster end to this operation. These tactics produce an ever increasing tension all along the line of contact producing fractures, demoralising the enemy, and ultimately a final collapse. At that point Russia has the opportunity to advance at will in whatever direction that suits them and to demand peace terms involving unconditional surrender.
My opinion only, not being of a military mind or competent strategist.
You seem to have more common sense than the "expert" Rebecca Grant who is considered some kind of warfare strategist. I mean, after all, she has a Bachelor of Arts degree, and then got a PHD at London School of Economics in International Relations.
Doesn't that qualify her as a national security consultant? I didn't think so either, but she did work for RAND and is probably a salesperson for the MIC.
Personally, I'd rather take your opinion than hers.
These RAND corporation types seem to be stuck in the distant past. When did RAND develop their "grand Russian strategy playbook"? (What was the title of that document? I forget now.) IIRC it is going on twenty years old now. They don't seem interested in adapting their approach to modern reality--or at least that's the way they are behaving in public. Maybe they have a secret agenda that we don't know about, and their posturing and arrogance is simply a distraction.
Or, maybe they are actually just as arrogant and out of touch with reality as they seem.
Here's the link to the 2019 Rand report, Extending Russia: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html
"Or, maybe they are actually just as arrogant and out of touch with reality as they seem."
Bingo.
Why not take all of the East of Dnieper then?
Strike from Zaporozhye and Sumy.
Why headbang at the hardened bulge?
You should use your influence to direct those questions to Russia's General Staff, Mikey. They've likely been waiting patiently for your feedback on their strategy decisions...😉
I have tried in vain…
It is the obvious discrepancy between the objectives for the SMO and what they are doing I question. Kramatorsk will not win the War.
If you know where the toughest nut to crack is located it makes sense to deal with it first. Spreading your forces out over the vast area east of the Dniepr while leaving a massive job undone behind those lines would be less than optimal.
Russia is fighting across a 1000 km front. It's longer than the Allied western front in WW2, which was prosecuted by dozens of nations against just one. In this case it's one nation against dozens, effectively, across a much longer territory. I note too that Russia has fought over exactly the same ground before. It's not as if they don't know what they're doing.
The Germans did not go head first into the Maginot Line, rather they bypassed it. Indeed, this is standard warfare tactics as described by Sun Tzu back in the day
The history of war is a long one and you can always find counter-examples.
Note that the Maginot Line proper was just 250 km compared to the 1000 km long Ukrainian front. Nor where there any important cities in it, as we see in the Donbas. Why not go around, especially as Germany had 3 million soldiers in the field to secure all the territory behind the Line? However just a few years later, the Allies invaded Europe and didn't try to go around the Germans. They attacked them head-on. Every situation is different, it's all about the circumstances for each particular campaign.
I believe Sun Tzu would agree that if you try to fight the war you're in according to someone else's strategy in a different war, you are setting yourself up for a defeat.
>Note that the Maginot Line proper was just 250 km compared to the 1000 km long Ukrainian front.
In June 2022 the fortified line in the Donbass was no more than 200 km.
The static front became 1000 km only when that 200 km fortified line was not bypassed and encircled.
I am old enough to remember how in March 2022 people were drawing maps showing precisely a large scale encirclement of the whole Donbass from the south and from the north.
The copium about "demilitarizing them close to us" started only when it became clear how divorced from reality that idea was. And it was divorced from reality because Putin went in with a fraction of the necessary forces while having a firm veto on strikes on pretty much anything the destruction of which would actually trigger an AFU collapse, then refused to mobilize until his own lines were collapsing, after six months of military bloggers inside Russia screaming about the dire need for mobilization and about the strange way the way was being (not) fought.
P.S. They no longer do that, once Strelkov was jailed, several others were arrested, and the rest had a series of meetings with the Kremlin in which it was clearly communicated what is expected of them moving forward. Which tells us a lot about the priorities in Moscow, doesn't it?
Allied went in under the soft belly of Italy 1943. They didnt crash head on Calais, they invaded Normandie, a weak spot.
>If you know where the toughest nut to crack is located it makes sense to deal with it first. Spreading your forces out over the vast area east of the Dniepr while leaving a massive job undone behind those lines would be less than optimal.
But you don't have to crack any nuts. You cut it off from supplies, it will eventually fall.
>Russia is fighting across a 1000 km front. It's longer than the Allied western front in WW2, which was prosecuted by dozens of nations against just one.
Russia fought on a 4,000-km front in 1941-1943.
And it has the power to make it a one-on-one fight at any moment of its choosing.
If Putin finds a pair of balls and a shred of loyalty to the Russian people tonight, Poland and Romania will have sealed the borders and invited Russian troops to police them by the end of the week.
You "forget" that back then it was not Russia but the Soviet Union, with 200 million people, and a birth rate of 4 per woman compared to 145m and 1.6 .The blood loss was extreme, though, justified that it was a fight for survival, btw. enforced by a fairly tough state apparatus. Those were the times, and they are not comparable with today.
Though 44% of the Russians prefer living in socialism over capitalism (14%), and even Stalin is in higher reputation, I doubt they want NKVD and Gulag back.
But the USSR had no cruise and ballistic missiles and no nukes, while Russia does.
>I doubt they want NKVD and Gulag back.
Maybe they don't want them, but they need them.
Plus SMERSH, of course.
The popular "при мне такой х... не было" is a thing for a reason.
The fertility hardly matters in this case, unless the war will drag on for 20 years (a possibility).
200 million people hardly matters as well, when you aren't making it a "People's War" and aren't mobilizing every Male over age 15 and Female over age 17.
“But you don't have to crack any nuts. You cut it off from supplies, it will eventually fall.”
That’s a simplistic notion that might realistically work against an isolated outpost. But Russia would have to cut off a dozen cities just in the Donbas alone. And somehow patrol the vast lands west of them to interdict supplies.
And how long would it take that strategy to come to fruition, I wonder? Are the Ukrainians in those cities going to give up the moment they’re surrounded? More likely they will fight on and/or fight their way out. So you’re left dealing with them anyway.
Aren’t you the guy that condemns Russia for its slow pace in this war? Now you’re recommending a siege strategy that’s likely to add years to it.
And yet, during WW2 the Donbass was no less well fortified. Perhaps more so. And Operation Bagration was able to crack the entire front line in a very short time, advancing to Berlin from Kharkov in about 9 months.
Of course they know what they are doing. Liberating Donetsk. Thats it.
It is the ”doing” I am questioning because a liberated Donetsk will not fullfill the SMO:s objectives nor win the War.
"If you know where the toughest nut to crack is located it makes sense to deal with it first." That's not just wrong; it's Rebecca Grant level of stupid. You do not attack the enemy where he is strongest, you attack his weak points. That is so basic, even kindergartners are aware of it.
It's as if you were in a duel, and intentionally focused your attacks on your opponent's shield. The only time things are done like this is in cinematic, choreographed combat; which is why GM's arguments are starting to convince me.
Its not about being impatient - WW2 lasted 4 years on the Eastern Front and entailed millions of men. Operation Bagration happened in months - the RKKA was standing at the gates of Berlin in 9-10 months.
The operation in Manchuria against the Japanese took weeks - progress was about 500km/day, stopping only for refuelling.
Each of these operations, happened against no less hardened lines and experienced soldiers. One can argue - technology, but that itself is a moot point when there is no political will to fight. This is why Putler is negotiating with the enemy.
>A couple articles ago Simplicius presented a map of Ukraine showing the line of fortifications primarily along the northeren edges of Donetsk and Luhansk built up during Minsk 2 - a veritable honeycomb of hardened structures and lines of defense. This is the problem Russia has had to deal with
????
Why does Russia have to deal with this problem?
Was there such a line of fortifications in Chernigov, Sumy and Kharkov? There wasn't. It was wide open terrain in the first year of the war. And largely still is in terms of fortifications.
So why are no large Russian armies taking Chernigov and Sumy, sieging Kiev (and severing the logistics route that goes from there), streaming towards Poltava, and thus cutting off the whole Donbass from supplies? Who made that decision?
Worse, we have now seen Russia repeatedly being completely unable to break through just across the border, first in Volchansk last year, then in Sumy this year. Even though there are no decades worth of fortifications there.
It very much looks like fortifications no longer matter that much in the era of drones.
Which makes the missed window of opportunity in 2022 all the more catastrophic of a disaster.
In a country that functions properly, given such cataclysmic failures, heads would be literally rolling, and leadership would be replaced by people who don't make such mistakes. Why the Russian leadership continues to be praised for its "wisdom", "restraint", etc. given the empirical facts of non-stop strategic failure, I don't understand.
Now that Ukrainian air defences are almost non-existent, why doesn't Russia do a mass parachute drop into the thick of the action and end it all?
Probably still too costly in human life and machines.
"drop into the thick of the action" - where might that be?
Would you want to drop into the middle of a drone swarm? Imagine how easy they can get decimated if there are nothing to stop the drones from landing on your troops...
*If* Ukrainian air defenses are almost non-existent, why do we not see Russian aircraft flying around Ukraine at will, looking for things to kill?
Simple - because Ukrainian air defenses are not as degraded as we may wish. Russia was foolish not to have started with a merciless SEAD campaign.
Russia was foolish in not rapidly mobilizing and ending Ukraine fast - when it became clear that negotiations were futile, maybe even before. Had they done a shock and awe campaign, struck Bankovaya/Presidential residences before he had the opportunity to enter his bunker - perhaps things would've been different.
In addition, since Russia fears to strike Polish/German territory with warnings that further support for Ukraine will cause more strikes, we have the current situation. Russian government is too concerned with escalation management, when it should not be.
But excuses we hear, o the creative excuses!
Facts
Even with an aggressive SEAD campaign, the West will always supply enough systems to make it impossible to safely fly over.
If you are looking for a solution, the only one that will achieve meaningful results is sealing the borders.
That means a nuclear ultimatum issued to Poland and Romania (Hungary and Slovakia will presumably do it with much less persuasion needed). Which, given that gravity of the situation, is precisely what was an absolute must to do a very long time ago. But it is Putin in the Kremlin, so...
Why would the west take Russia or its interests seriously? Russia has allowed one red line after another to be crossed. We still don't have clear answers as to why officials in the Kremlin are dragging their feet in the annihilation of the regime in Kiev. To protect civilian lives?
So yes, Trump is right that there is bs. He just left out the part that what his regime does and says is also bs.
Andy Francis
Those red lines you mention are *your* red lines being crossed without a response, which you attribute to Putin. The Russians are winning with relatively minimal losses. The Ukrainians losing with massive losses to their military, economy, society and even the existence of what was always regarded as Ukraine. What better response to crossing hypothetical red lines in Ukraine can you imagine?
You're coping. Shall we look up the Kremlin stating what their red lines were over the course of the last 3 years? Go ahead. Do a google search.
Shall we perhaps ask the Russian people on the ground what their red lines are?
Does the red line of people in Belgorod allow for their Christmas market being shelled by NATO with cluster munitions on New Year's eve and apartment blocks being leveled by French AASM Hammer bombs?
The Kremlin clearly sees that as perfectly acceptable because it did nothing in response when those things were done.
But I kind of doubt people in Belgorod see it the same way, they just have no power to influence the Kremlin.
And that is a big problem that nobody pays any attention to.
GM
Well the Russians did bomb and destroy the hotel where the French technical *advisors* were staying, killing most if not all of them.
But you are correct. The Russian military did not let Ukraine's individual attacks cause them to deviate from their winning strategy and instead maintained their own combat tempo.
Good point. But people don't have much say anywhere in the world. So, this isn't just a Russian problem, it is nearly universal.
Andy Francis
Wait. Let me get this straight. You assert that there are multiple crossed red lines that Russia has not responded to. When I say that I don't see any such things, rather than you tell me what those red lines you are talking about actually are, you say I should go on google to find them.
I can find hundreds if not thousands of people like you on the web, who identify some absent course of action for Russia as being their notion of the only appropriate response to some claimed noteworthy NATO provocation.
Russia has put a half million troops into Ukraine where it is slowly destroying not just Ukraine's army but its military capability. In addition, it is helping most NATO countries to slowly slide into bankruptcy while eating up their military capability.
Overall, that seems like a pretty effective response to violations of any claimed red lines set by Russia.
Re-read what I wrote and your first reply. I wrote Russia's red lines. These are comments senior officials such as Lavrov for example have made during interviews. And then when the west proceeded to cross said red lines, Russia did not retaliate in a manner that makes the west think Russia has red lines. I never mentioned my red lines. My red lines are irrelevant. You accused me of that. I then suggested you do a simple search for official statements made by Russian officials. Why would I do your homework for you?
This is pointless.
*You* say Russia announced what *you* believe are red lines, that they were crossed and that Russia's response does not meet *your* notion of what would be commensurate.
When I ask you to tell me which red lines you are referring to, you say I should check on the web. How can I possibly figure out what the processes you are referring to if even you can't tell me what they are?
I can tell you some serious red lines for Russia. No NATO troops or foreign troops with a presence in Ukraine. Only a small defensive Ukrainian military that can't pose a threat to Russia in any way. A return of the constitutional guarantees accorded to the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine. Ukraine to be neutral, non aligned and non nuclear as per its constitution when it received independence.
After years of argy bargy it became clear to Putin that the west was just stringing him along. Since it was clear the West wouldn't ever agree to uncross the red lines, he sent his military in.
The response was to uncross those red lines by force.
>winning with relatively minimal losses
1) 120K dead is not minimal losses
2) You should add most of the Ukrainian dead to the Russian losses too, because they are ethnic Russians. Then it becomes really catastrophic
3) How many Russian cities in the Donbass have been destroyed?
4) How much Russian land all over Ukraine has been covered with mines and DU?
And with all that damage, Russia is not winning at all, because this is not a war between Ukraine and Russia, it is a world war between the West and Russia, and Russia has totally lost on all other fronts other than in Georgia, as a direct consequences of it being bogged down in Ukraine.
But is it not even really winning there...
GM
By your own account, the Russian losses are about 120,000. Given approx. 400,000 troops in the Ukrainian theater in a three year conflict, that works out to about about forty thousand per year average or ten per cent. Since the Russian army is about one million two hundred thousand, that is a fatality rate of about three percent using your number. In other words a ninety seven percent survival rate which falls to ninety percent if you spend a full year in the active combat zone.
Most of that combat is in the the most heavily defended part of Ukraine with massive natural fortifications and eight years of intensely focused Ukrainian defense construction. (financed by and under NATO supervision) Given that Russia is actually fighting a war against NATO, I call that *relatively* minimal casualties.
The people of Russia believe (correctly) that they are winning on their terms and are not surprised. The people of the West believe (correctly) they are losing on their terms and they don't understand how this can be.
As for Georgia, even the western leadership acknowledge that their attempt at a color revolution there has failed and they now are going to punish Georgia for failing to at least support if not join a coalition of the willing to fight Russia. The people of Georgia well remember when at NATO's behest their military tried to mess with the Russian forces on their border. In response, the Russians came in and gave their military a big bitch slap and then left voluntarily after a week. All that before NATO could even talk about what to do in response,, forget figuring out what to actually do.
Look, 120,000 is a mid-sized city. More than that in fact, because these are people in their prime mostly, there are no elderly and women among them. To them you have to add the permanently maimed, which are about that much too.
And the destruction of the cities and land in Ukraine -- some 100,000 km^2 of historic Russian land are now contaminated with land mines and DU and it will take decades, if it ever happens, for that to be cleaned up.
If NATO was to nuke a random Russian city of population 100-150,000, wiping it out completely, what would the Kremlin's reaction be? Given what has happened so far, that is no longer just a rhetorical question, but a rather real one with a very uncertain answer, but the answer to it a few years ago was totally unambiguous.
Well, more damage than that has already been done. Just not all at once. Where is the reaction?
The reaction is muted because considering the scale of the war, the fatalities both civilian and military are minor in comparison to previous conflicts. EG: the Soviets lost forty thousand troops just in the battle to take Berlin. They lost forty thousand at least defending Sebastopol. They lost twenty million civilian and military overall in their three year plus conflict with Germany. What's more the damage to the cities is less and less now as time goes by because the Russian forces are starting to completely overwhelm the Ukrainian military.
A better question is why is there so much reaction to the situation in Ukraine but not Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar etc.
But there is no need for such casualties.
This is what nukes exist for -- to prevent such bloodletting.
And they can be safely used to solve Russia's problems here, with practically zero risk to the Russian people.
The only ones hurt will be the Russian oligarchy, which is what makes this situation so scandalous and infuriating.
And yet there is total complaceny on that matter in the pro-Russian Western alternative media space.
In Russia itself there is a growing resentment, but the Kremlin has a firm grip on the media, so it is still far from what it should be there too,
Correct. Russia has been so busy pussy-footing in the Ukraine that it could not even control two relatively easy states in the Caucasus, particularly Armenia, which still remains very dependent on economic ties with Russia. And now we have the US and turkey moving in. Sooner or later Russia will be forced to fight a war in the Caucasus, especially since the regime in baku thinks it can get away with giving the finger to both Iran and Russia.
Another doomer that just will not open it's mind.
" the Kremlin are dragging their feet in the annihilation of the regime in Kiev"
Russia is fighting NATO, not Ukraine. Ukraine is a proxy, a puppet.
The mind is like a parachute, it works very well only when open. Try it, you may be surprised. But then again ignorance is a personal lifestyle choice.
It looks like Tovarish GM brought his brothers and sisters to muddy the waters even further.
"The mind is like a parachute; it works very well only when open."
Masterpiece.
Lol did Martyanov let you off the reservation to parrot his bs here?
That was a truly ignorant comment. Have you read any of his books?
I have seen enough of his posts and his 'Kremlin can do no wrong' to know that he is often full of hot air. If you enjoy his kool-aid keep drinking it. The rest of us who can think for ourselves will call him and others out when they are wrong. Humility is a virtue. He does not have any.
My question was simple and you never answered it because you're probably just a typical American smart aleck with no credentials. He's a Russian/American military engineer that can put his money where his mouth is and Russian culture is far removed from ours so most Americans just think we are smarter than they are. He has written 4 books on the state of our military that you would do well to read before making stupid comments that just show your arrogance. He could outsmart most American military "experts" with half his brain tied behind his back.
Grow up.
I don’t deal with sycophants. That is what you are. Get back on Martyanov’s reservation where you belong.
I think you misunderstand what has been happening. The west has persistently threatened Russia with its own (western) escalations if Russia doesn't pull back. We can go through the list but don't need to. On each occasion Russia has shrugged, and then the west, its bluff called, has had to respond, most risibly with the odd F16 no one in Ukraine could actually fly and which the west knew was useless in that war. Look how brilliant the ATACMs were!
The west has not been crossing Russian red lines with impunity. That is just the spin they have put on their blushes. They have been suckered into a steady depletion of weaponry and funds, a slow demilitarisation and shameful display of their own shortcomings on the battle field. I don't know what you call that apart from being outsmarted to terrible cost.
The west thinks it has and they continue to push the envelope. Meanwhile there are still elites in Russia who think a deal with washington can be made. That is the major issue. The Kremlin thinks there is something to be gained from a deal. Any deal with Trump will just be replaced come 2029 with something that will again aim to harm Russia.
Putin has to play nicely to keep his own allies on side. Meanwhile Russia continues to advance the objectives of SMO. That is all that is going on. The rest is just the usual rolling propaganda still hoping to undermine Putin's position in Russia. It certainly has its proponents on this board. In Russia? Give me a break.
On the other hand there will be a US Russia rapprochement the other side of this war. Such big players resource wise, have to trade with each other on the world stage. Trump does know this. And so does Putin. As for what the west will have any taste for come 2029 with the war by then won and done and Ukraine shut down one way or another, I would not be so quick to assume that the real movers and shakers, as opposed to any of your boogeymen, will have any desire to kick that off again.
Of course the nutters in western europe will still be raging away at Russia as they have on Baltic fringe since the cold war ended. But they will back to the insulation of their own padded cells. The current front men for diseased western regimes will be gone by then, and their replacements will have got power on promises to shut this down and save their own economies. Its over, Andy bar all the dying Ukraine seems determined still to do with the yellow bellied europeans hiding behind it and egging it on. If you are worried about what will be left of Ukraine to fight back again, down the line, don't be. It is running on merc power already and that requires huge continuing external funds. Money is already drying up despite lurid promises and rash bungs by dead men walking in the west with nothing left to lose. Russia will however take no chances here.
>Putin has to play nicely to keep his own allies on side.
They are not real allies if they are preventing him from winning the war.
Are the Americans and the Europeans imposing similar constraints on Israel?
>Meanwhile Russia continues to advance the objectives of SMO.
None of the SMO objectives has been achieved or has any even remote prospect of being achieved under the current rules of engagement.
Worse, on most of them the trend is in the exact opposite direction.
Ukraine is much more nazified and much more militarized than it has ever been.
Objective facts
Great report!
Do you think that Russia really lost, by capture, all those tanks and IFVs and Artillery in the first part of the war? It looks like they must have lost most of their vehicles in 2022!
Is it just propaganda or a clever use of numbers or something?
At the beginning Ukrainian and Russian equipment were basically the same, dating back to USSR days with standard designs such as the T-72 tank used by both sides. There are subtle differences if you know what to look for, and I've seen a few photos of allegedly destroyed Russian tanks that were actually Ukrainian. Really all it takes to make a Ukrainian tank look Russian is a can of spray paint to put a "Z' on the side. I've even seen photos where the "Z" was sprayed over top of accumulated dirt which is a dead giveaway.
This.
Thanks.
Simplicious is using the Oryx numbers in a very ironic way.
If you care to read the (now substantial) archive of articles, you'll see a debunking of the Oryx team methodology, which is *heavily* pro-Ukrainian (there were early instances of Oryx counting four Russia tank "losses", when it was just four pictures of the same tank, from different angles).
The irony in using Oryx is that these numbers *are* inflated, so reality, for Russia, looks even better.
Thanks.