Supported by the Soviet Union, do not forget. Moscow also was the first (FIRST) state to recognize ›Israel‹ de jure—a settler colonial regime based on cleansing and killing the owners of the land! I know, this was based on the misconception that the settler-colonialists will set up a socialist state which then would go against the British/U.S. This support, therefore, was based on realpolitik pure. In theory. Practically Stalin’s calculus was wrong, the U.S. influence always was much stronger.
As they are still there and did not emigrate to the Zionist project, they are no Zionists, I think, just Jews. Stalin and Lenin were obsessed with the »national question« and thus created these Soviet Republics. Out of nothing almost. Then a »national history« was taught to them along with the language (and an alphabet!) until in 1991 these Soviet-created elites of 15 of these »republics« declared themselves »nation states« and broke off. Today they draw their legitimacy from tales of »Russian oppression and exploitation«. Look what is going on in the Azerbaijian, soon in the Kazachstan, and—in the extreme—in the Ukraine.
Yess! Iirc, even Rosa Luxembourg in some correspondence warned Lenin to stop playing these idiotic “decolonization of the Russian Empire” games and concentrate on first building a stable an propsperous ussr.
One possible solution might be the referendum system. I read an analysis focused on the U.S., where many—if not all—states have such a system: Let the People Rule: How Direct Democracy Can Meet the Populist Challenge by John G. Matsusaka. It's an interesting read. Although he uses the (arguably unjustly) negatively connoted term "populist" in the title, he presents substantial empirical evidence showing that the masses tend to be quite reasonable when deciding on communal matters—a striking contrast to the elites, by the way.
On my blog, Dear Scotland (https://dearscotland.substack.com), I write a great deal about decentralised direct democracy as practiced in Switzerland, where the People are in control through a quarterly system of referendums and popular initiatives. Power is devolved down to the lowest level possible. Each of the 27 cantons (regions) has their own constitution. The principle of subsidiarity means whatever can be done at a lower level, should not be done at a higher one. My group, Respect Scottish Sovereignty (https://respectscottishsovereignty.scot), argues that an independent Scotland would do well to adopt a similar system. In the meantime, we are behind a petition, PE2135 (https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE2135), asking the Scottish Parliament to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) into Scots law. It would give the Scottish People the right to launch referendums on any issue and the right to self-determination. But the devolved Scottish Administration (it's not a government) it balking because they are creatures of the Westminster system and are more concerned with their pay and pensions than liberating the Scottish People from London's colonial control.
Here's a piece I did last year, comparing Switzerland to Scotland, which is trapped in the highly undemocratic and centralised failing UK.
Was thinking the same as Leah Gunn below: modeled like the swiss model (although I believe it has moved away from its original, but have to verify for myself). However it is still very important that the media landscape is ‘controlled’, not that powerful oligarchs own most of it (Bezos family: father and son, but from Jeff’s position probably God and Jezus)
None of the States have direct-democracy. Some of the smaller counties and towns are set up so voters can participate in substantial decisions, usually regarding budgets.
The small state of New Hampshire, both in territory and population, being probably the most well known for it's number of representatives.
Fun fact; North Dakota is about twice the size of Portugal in land with a population about 1/13th the size.
I was hiking with a French journalist in Virginia last July. After two months of hiking the Appalachian Trail he was still astonished by the diversity of wildlife he observed, usually able to camp where he wanted and sometimes not see another person for a day.
Right after the end of WWII, still in 1945, the Red Army transferred substantial quantities of military hardware to Israel from Czechoslovakia. That event could have ONLY taken place under direct orders from Stalin after a likely request from the US.
There is little evidence that the USSR supplied significant military equipment to the zionsts in Palestine in the 1945. Please present any evidence you might have. Also, one might be reminded that israel did not exist in 1945.
Kennewick Man is right, what he says aligns with what I know. The motivation is important here: Stalin believed the settlers will establish a socialist state which then would go (or could be utilized) against the British and U.S. in the Middle East. At that time the British influence there was enormous (Iran’s oil) so was the U.S.’ (Saudi). Plus: the British and the Zionists were very much at odds with each other (many British officials etc. were killed in Zionist terror attacks). So, there certainly was reason for this sort of realpolitik. It backfired quickly, of course, as the Zionists were (also) deeply aligned with the British elites (remember Balfour and his buddy Weizman). And the U.S. — Truman.
You are correct - from Stalin's PoV support for the zoinists was grounded in geopolitics, not sympathy for zionism. My contention is with the supposition that Stalin sent significant military aid to the zionists in 1945 - there is little or no evidence behind this that I know of. If you know of any, please present it.
I read about that in a couple of sources. I think Ilan Pappe also mentions it in his really ground breaking analysis »The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine« which I recommend as he went through all the Zionist documents and lays bare in great detail how they proceeded. That is probably the most interesting part in his analysis, e.g. how they renamed the Arab villages with Hebrew names (same as they did with their own, mostly Polish names).
Robert Maxwells was involved in transferring military equipment from Czechoslovakia to Israel , among it I suspect the Czech copy of Me-109 that Israel was flying in 1948. Hard to see how this equipment could be transferred without Stalin approval .
I clearly recall a discussion during one of my university courses where the 1945 arms transfers from Czechoslovakia to Israel were a subject. This means that the issue had to be supported by primary sources as this was a written, recorded conversation. I actually received some brownie points from the Prof. for pointing out that the 1945 late summer transfers had to be decided by Stalin as no local military commander would have initiated the act on his own unless he desired a one-way ticket to Vorkuta. I did a search of my own records but was unable to locate the relevant discussion. As far as I recall it was actually the Prof. who introduced the subject. My conclusion at the time was actual superpower cooperation. The US administration was uncomfortable with the weapon transfers just a few months after the war so they just picked up the phone and asked the Soviets. Or sent in their Moscow ambassador with the request. The compensation might have even came from the USA. It is also a fact that internet and US Congressional Library records suffer from a constant cleansing of records of all politically relevant issues to this day. Issues connected to Israel and WWII, even WWI are sensitive points.
The possible source might be the text book: Cleveland, W., & Bunton, M. (2013). A history of the Modern Middle East (5th ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
I paste a few sites concerning these arms transfers, 1947 and after.
Cleveland, W., & Bunton, M. (2013). A history of the Modern Middle East (5th ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press
Arms shipments from Czechoslovakia to Israel, June 1947 and October 31, 1949
No - truman, nrecognized the illegal State of Israel first. Truman granted de facto recognition to the just 11 minutes after its declaration of independence on May 14, 1948
The USSR, like the European countries, wanted to get rid of the Jews in their countries, and the USA wanted to stop the wave of immigration. They all agreed to create a state of Israel to send their Jews there, to stop their arrival. The USSR because religious communities had no place in communism, the European states because they had remained fundamentally fascist. The rewriting of history tells us that Westerners knew neither the plan nor the facts of the Reich concerning the Jews, but the story is different, everyone wanted to get rid of them, and the German plan was a means.
This is all belief and not fact. Nobody knows, there are no documents, as to why the Soviet leaders supported the Zionist state. However, I believe )(I do not know) that the Soviets were very sympathetic to the Zionist cause, and to the plight of European Jewry in the aftermath of WW2. The Soviets were the chief source of holocaust evidence, which some (not I) have used to create suspicions of the holocaust as an actual event. So I suspect (I do not know) that the Soviet leadership, being mainly Jewish (Stalin was Jewish, and most of the top Soviet leadership was Jewish up until after WW2), was sympathetic to the Zionist cause. If anything (again belief, not knowledge), the Jewish leadership of the Soviet Union recognized the danger of Jewish agitation within the USSR, and so had a dual motivation to remove troublesome Jews from the USSR while at the same time promoting a Zionist State in the Middle East.
The Zionists have their own unique political goal, which is the "recovery" of their "homeland", which they lost 2000 years ago because God said plainly that if they rejected their King, they would be removed from the land God gave them to wander Homeless for the rest of time across the face of the globe. The Jews, who stubbornly refuse to accept their Messiah, have decided that their rebellion against God will continue, even if it embroils the entire world in a global war. They care not for anything, except what they desire, and they are willing to perish in a national Masada, to gain their land and temple back, even if for only five minutes. This is the obsession of the Jews, and no Gentile can fully grasp this without an understanding of Scripture. The grip of Jewish power on the financial and media worlds is simply a mans to this end. Communism is nothing more than Jewish ideology with God removed.
The Jew state was created by Jew terrorists and their goy puppets. Uncle A did not want a Jew state because he knew it would be a criminal hq for the Jew.
🇺🇸🇸🇾 - Syrian ‘ President’ Ahmad al-Sharaa met World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder at the Syrian mission in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
It's no surprise that terrorist groups, created by the West, are also proxies for Israel. They share the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, pampered by the West. Let's not forget the terrorists from various groups treated in Israeli hospitals during the conflict with Assad. The fascist West can only get along well with terrorists.
My grandfather, a British Tory businessman, supported the creation of a Jewish state. Perhaps the Russians, like my grandfather, quietly hoped they would all move there and leave their country alone.
Stalin, at least, seemed to be very suspicious of them in his final years. If so, his reason, most probably, I think, was the same that lead so many early nationalists all over Europe to discuss a »question of the Jews«. Including Karl Marx: »Zur Judenfrage« (1843). The Jews were suspected to have no national loyalty. Stalin, in addition, knew that there was au »Jewish state«. So he doubted their loyalty to the Soviet Union. Might be.
>The stakes in the Moldovan case are truly higher than ever. There are rumors that various NATO troops, particularly those from France, have arrived to Odessa for various provocations:
Yeah, and what is the Kremlin going to do about it?
Issue another stern warning?
Or nuke Romania, which is the only kinetic measure that could stop it?
Given what has been done to Russia itself so far, we can be certain it will be the former.
And Russians in the PMR will meet the same fate as Armenians in Karabakh (which the Kremlin also didn't do anything to stop). Or that of the Russians in eastern Kharkov who either foolishly chose to not flee or physically could not do it back in September 2022....
My sympathy for Lira stopped when he foolishly posted that he was 5kms from the Poland border and then captured. Fool had to know his mobile phone would be tracked and he couldn't wait until he was in Poland to post where he was.
The stakes in the Moldovan affair are truly higher than ever. Rumors are circulating that several NATO troops, notably French, have arrived in Odessa for various provocations:
Yeah, and what will the Kremlin do about it?
The SVR isn't stating a fact; it's talking about a plan. If European troops were in Odessa, local intelligence would have already passed the information on to the SVR, and they would have been destroyed. This is already the case with instructors.
Russia can’t do anything and won’t have to to anything. This EU gangrene can’t be stopped, at first amputation of the foot but it climbs to the leg, the heart and this rotten body will fall on its own. Macron, Starmer, Zel and Donald all agree, but first the rigours of the corps.
Nobody’s asking what will happen to Euro children and innocent citizens when the great EU Empire has emptied all of its power talk, propaganda and terrorist acts facing terrorists of the other side.
I agree with you, it is not Russia’s responsibility to ›safe‹ other states. If the peoples in Moldavia, Romania, Czech … Germany UI have to add here) cannot succeed, then they will have to suffer from their weakness until … Also, Russia’s war against NATO in Ukraine seriously weakens its resources and thus options for international action. That is why the West/U.S. can avail itself of that and stir up lots of trouble. You can see that clearly in West Asia, Georgia, Azerbaijian, soon in Kazachstan …
Xi doesn’t agree, he already mentioned it through a spokesman, we cannot tolerate NATO or Washington’s neocons to win, N. Korea fully backing this statement. I already see where it is going, no wars of armies not even drones but terrorist assaults never ending. Just wait and see what’s gonna happen to Gaza, once emptied terrorist wars beginning, Netanyahu created them that’s what he didn’t mention at the UN assembly.
I have no idea how the Russian government will deal with their repression which seems to be in sight. Their geographic position is quite different from the Donbas Russians. We’ll see, I guess.
The PMR itself is Russian, but the last thing it was is a "Russian project", as in something orchestrated from Moscow.
The PMR seceded from Moldova in 1990, BEFORE Moldova itself seceded from the USSR. Gorbachev was not at all happy about it, and tried very hard to push it back inside Moldova.
The Kremlin then kept trying to get rid of that problem well into Putin's rule.
Partly because at the time the Kremlin was still trying to cozy up to the West, and were ready to give away everything to be accepted.
Partly because the PMR is the last remnant of the USSR, and the main goal of Putinism has always been making sure the USSR never comes back. But what do we have in the PMR? Sure, they survive primarily on smuggling and various other shady business there, which is not very communist, but aside from that hammers and sickles are everywhere, they kept the old Moldavian SSR flag (not even Belarus did that -- Lukashenko quickly returned the Byelorussian SSR flag but without the hammer and sickle) and all the other Soviet symbols.
The latter is also why the Ukrainian/NATO Nazis have such a hard-on about slaughtering the people there -- that is where they can play out their WWII revanchist fantasies to the fullest in a way they can't even in Russia.
But that sorry history of the Kremlin trying repeatedly to get rid of the PMR the same way Pashinyan did with Karabakh is what makes me very afraid that they will indeed stand watch as the people there are slaughtered.
Don't for a second make the mistake of thinking that Putin launched the SMO in 2022 in order to save the Russians in the DNR and the LNR. No, the real problem for him was that the Nazi hordes were imminently going to enter the DNR and LNR and start slaughtering everybody, which would have driven millions of refugees into Rostov and Voronezh, and then who knows, the Nazi hordes may not have stopped at the official border. Which would have triggered absolute outrage inside Russia and seriously threatened Putin's rule. That's the real motivation behind launching the SMO in 2022. Had Putin ever cared about the Russian people, there would an end to Ukrainian statehood would have been put even before 2014.
Moreover, Russia's war against NATO in Ukraine seriously weakens its resources and therefore its options for international action. Russia succeeds because Westerners are saying the same thing you are. In fact, you're talking about yourself and transposing it to Russia.
How did Caesar defeat Pompey, when he was outnumbered? It will take centuries, millennia, for Russia to exhaust its resources. Hey, it's just blown its reserves, $700 billion+.
I am very much looking forward to Russia destroying NATO and the EU. Still, as someone who does not believe in Russian exceptionalism, it seems obvious for me that there are limits. They have to deal with a lot, and I cannot see any reliable (!) ally except for North Korea.
1) Why should the Kremlin care about "Euro children and innocent citizens" when Russian children and innocent citizens are about to be slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands?
2) Why should the Kremlin care when there is an Operation Barbarossa 2.0 in the works, it's not even hidden at this point, and the previous one killed 27M Russians?
3) How many "innocent citizens" are there really in Europe? Sure, you have sincerely Russophilic countries such as Serbia and Bulgaria, where only the elites are captured, and you probably don't want to nuke those. But Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, etc.? Given the history, and given what you see online today? How many innocents as a proportion really?
Who's an innocent and who's not is indeed a huge issue, especially in alleged democracies.
(I'm just tossing this out there. My views are more than I can tap out on my tablet late at night. But I will add that my suggestions about this issue did not go over well with the peanut gallery in the comments section of National Review.)
3) 90% innocent! Who would want any kind of war or conflict with another people, when humanity is technically at a point where there is an overproduction of food and everything else? Why? We no longer have to go and steal the wealth of the neighboring country so that our people can eat. Although this setup was only true at the beginning, because after that the bored parasites only fought for "glory", and they were not interested in the lives of the plebs, if they still had their princely lives through them.
Look at which ethnicity the "leaders" of the EU and other countries belong to! The DS Freemason is stirring up trouble through these peoples and inciting the peoples, turning them against each other! Elections? Here is the secret pact of the Hungarian regime change:
Rose Valley Pact
Pact 1 (1988-89)
Pact 2 (2003)
(liberalized version)
1.
Peaceful and friendly withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary.
Providing a base and adequate military force for NATO and the future EU army.
2.
Compensating the Soviet Union for the buildings and assets left behind.
Taking additional loans from the IMF and the World Bank to ensure the continuous impoverishment of the population.
3.
Building friendly political and economic relations between the Soviet Union and Hungary.
Supporting all activities of Israel and the USA, as EU subordinates (member states), promoting world colonization.
4.
Preventing all anti-Soviet (Russian) activities.
Preventing all activities aimed at overthrowing the Zionist (globalist) dictatorship.
5.
Reciprocal opening of the borders between the Soviet Union and Hungary.
Consistently complying with EU anti-discrimination and "free settlement" laws.
6.
Exempting former communist party members from all punishment.
The accountability of the political and economic elite (hereinafter: VIP members) must be based on the principles of fairness and non-discrimination.
7.
Protecting the former communist secret service, border guard and police from possible reprisals.
Protecting VIP members and those who have been members of parliament for (any) government party since 1990 from possible reprisals.
8.
Nominating reliable former communists in other parties in the elections.
VIP members exempted from liability under point 6 will run in the elections as members of the "new opposition".
9.
Saving state property in the hands of former communists.
Ensuring the acquisition and retention of wealth by multinational companies by all means.
10.
Keeping the administration of justice in the hands of former communists.
Keeping the administration of justice in the hands of persons exempted from liability under point 6.
11.
Retaliation against all anti-Jewish statements, movements and organizations.
All anti-Zionist organizations, statements and movements must be classified as inciting hatred by being labeled as anti-Semitic, and the participants must be condemned with exemplary severity on this basis.
12.
Preventing the establishment and organization of right-wing or extreme-right parties.
The establishment of all social organizations and parties that … aim to overthrow the Zionist (globalist) dictatorship must be prevented.
13.
Continuous emphasis that the Hungarian borders are final and cannot be changed.
Continuous emphasis that the Hungarian borders are virtualized in the EU, so neither citizenship nor the location of the borders is of any importance.
14.
The new Hungarian government may not maintain contact with right-wing émigré individuals, organizations and groups.
The new Hungarian government may not maintain contact with Hungarian or émigré organizations and individuals that are opponents of the Zionist (globalist) dictatorship.
15.
Only friendly statements can be made towards the Romanians, Yugoslavs and Slovaks.
Relations with the successor states of Trianon (and their successor states) must in all cases be based on the principle of unilateral concessions.
16.
The Hungarian army must be reduced by one third.
The aim of the Hungarian military is to serve NATO and the EU army, and therefore it must meet the conditions they demand. All national defense tasks - therefore the term "honvéd" - must be banned.
17.
The events of 1956 must be presented as a movement aimed at repairing communism, and only those who interpret it in this way must be given free speech.
The events of 1848 and 1956 must be presented as the ideological predecessors of the new government.
18.
The Soviet Union maintains its political influence in Hungary through the rescued communists, while the United States strengthens its economic influence in Hungarian life.
The Zionist, globalist dictatorship exercises its political influence in Hungary through the rescued VIP members.
19.
Hungary gives a full guarantee for the exercise of the linguistic, folk, cultural, political and economic rights of the Hungarian nationalities.
According to the EU Constitution, Hungary advocates the development of a “European” type of person. It ensures the linguistic, folk, cultural and traditional preservation of Hungarians and Hungarian nationalities “liberally” in the spirit of cosmopolitanism.
20.
Hungary fully compensates Hungarian Jews for the losses they suffered during World War II.
Hungary accepts and readsmits and, in accordance with the EU Constitution's laws on "third country" settlement, grants the right to the Jewish people to consider Hungary, as the founding state, as their homeland.
Budapest, May 28-July 9, 2003 (+KGB, CIA)
You can be sure that every country has such a pact!
Ask the deaths in Naga and Hiroshima if they were guilty or innocent? Ask all those Islanders in the Pacific who had to be transported because they saw their islands nuked because of the tests? Ask all those still suffering from thyroid tumors? Ask 30 million Russians spent in WWIi if it really was their war, or those sacrificed in Diem Bien Phu, or the 30 million Chinese during the great March and ask them for what and if they really had a notion of what the purpose would be? Finally ask yourself what you’re living for, is it only to see and experience what it’s like to be nuked?
Did you miss the point about the hundreds of thousands dead Russians already and the daily constant bombing of the country?
And about the West preparing for much bigger aggression.
The only way to stop it is to nuke Europe. It is just not possible conventionally. Maybe China could, but Russia has neither the population nor the industrial capacity (industrial capacity that will be degraded by constant unanswered air strikes) to fight against a billion people.
Russian people have suffered enough from Western aggression historically, over many centuries, and the duty of a Russian leader is to protect them. If that means exterminating 300-400 million, so be it. There is no other way.
The big scandal here is why Putin hasn't already done it.
Of course, if GM was in charge, the PEOPLE of Romania, Poland and Eastern Europe would also be "very happy and not at all worried about what will happen to them", right?
Unless they had a deep bunker and lots of iodine to hand, obv.
You accurately see a problem, and then want to "nuke" it as a 'solution'.
Playing Civ against you would be a nightmare, Gandhi.
Bollocks! Even a moribund empire can last for a long time if not one comes to push it over. Considering the sad state of EUpeon populations, that might very well be the case.
It's hard to see Ukrainian or NATO troops intervening in Moldova in case Sandu loses the election. That would be too obvious and bad public relations. "Keeping up appearances" is of paramount importance for the elite running the West. Rest "assured": Sandu will win.
They are way past giving a fuck about public relations.
What did they do in Romania with their elections?
Then you had the blatant unprovoked attack on Iran, and now bombing their own vassals (Qatar), etc. etc. etc.
We are way way way past the point of anyone caring about appearances.
The last time anyone was this unhinged was Hitler in the 1940s.
Also, they will move troops and attack the PMR if Sandu wins. That is not in any way contingent on her not winning and them intervening. It's more of the opposite.
They are way past any very basic principle. It means that the other way around at some point others doing the same can not be accused of violating principles and when war will start for good, anyone and her mother will want to jump rope with American guts.
Akshually, the latest Romanian election fiasco makes now more sense. NATO knew it required a friendly Romanian regime for any operation against Moldovan/ Transnistria for moving to the next step of the escalation ladder…
Not to suggest Hitler was a saint, but even he didn't actively and openly support and conduct a genocide while it was being live streamed. You are quite correct, they are way past giving a fuck about public relations.
Much of the Eastern border of Moldavia in between itself and Ukraine, is actually Russian occupied territory, Transnistria. Basically a heavily armed redoubt of 350,000 Russian speaking people,
I don't think any Ukro troops are going to plow through it to get into Moldova. There's 40k Russians there now plus 50k locals ready to defend it.
Once Russia hooks up to it, at the request of local referendums, it'll be annexed by the RF.
There may be as many as 50k Uke draft dodgers and uke army awols taking refuge there. The river that separates it from Ukraine is easily fordable, and is the only way out of Ukraine now without going through an armed checkpoint or concertina wire and mines.
sharing an eastern border w/Ukraine, Hungary too is putting up a stink: "...Budapest has resisted pressure from Brussels and Washington to provide weapons to Kiev or support EU sanctions against Russia [...and] Prime Minister Viktor Orban has also accused Ukraine of discriminating against the Hungarian minority in its Transcarpathia Region..." - https://www.rt.com/news/625353-zelensky-losing-mind-szijjarto/
Damn, all seems to go back to 2016 when Hillary Clinton and the Democrats screamed foul!! First was Russian election interference with stolen emails given to Wikileaks. Then it was Russia collusion. The Russians have been the fall guy ever since.
As I finished the article it was clear that my earlier comment was not where the similarities with US Democrats stop. Their tactics sound eerily familiar.
Funny how a country with a per capita GDP and population not much more than Mexico can afford to interfere with so many elections, while the country that can print unlimited amounts of the world's reserve currency and its mighty European vassals can't adequately support the good guys in response.
“As many and as strong as your weapons are, so much is your country, and so much is your bread!” If you think about it, can you argue with that?
By the way, unlimited currency requires the sale of real products that someone has to work for. And if governments deliberately destroy the economy, there will be no place to produce these saleable products. The enemy is not outside, but within countries!
"By the way, unlimited money requires the sale of real products." Incorrect. Money no longer represents traded goods but government securities, in other words, debts.
GDP is a fiction in which the same dollar is counted in multiples; otherwise, how can we explain why states have to resort to borrowing? As Solovyov says, "why invade Europe? What resources would encourage Russia to do so?" Debt is not a resource.
There are certainly people who eat government bonds, gold, money, etc. and dress in them, live in them, light things with them, etc. Therefore, they don't really need such obsolete things as products, but there are those who take them on debt because they haven't been able to switch to consuming them yet... If they switch to eating sunlight, then money as a debt could disappear too, because its value is only as much as I can consume with it. I mean, hopefully they don't ban the sun if that's the case...
In brief it was a fake letter created by the British Secret Service alleging collusion between the Bolsheviks and the British Labour Party. Zinoviev was the USSR's foreign Minister.
It worked to discredit Labour and win the Election for the Conservatives.
There are always gas lines in the boonies of Russia at this time of the year as people get their last bit of travel in before the weather turns. It is definitely worse this year though because even the cities were affected for a few days. The Russian government blocked the export of gasoline by those seeking higher international prices. That has resolved the issue in the cities and the boonies problem will resolve itself organically as it always does now that the weather is starting to play a role in reducing driving.
Gasoline deliveries are down about ten percent. What the Ukrainians do is strike at the storage facilities which are really big and really easy to hit. The refineries themselves are massive with multiple production trains producing different refined products as needed. There is no golden beebee shot that can disable a refinery. But blowing up the storage tanks that facilitate switching from one product output to another in an efficient manner is doable. Also it makes for great photos in the Western media where they can claim that it is visible proof the entire refinery is in flames.
Fires in western refineries are not routine but they are fairly common. The refinery is shut down for a few hours while the fire is actually put out and then operations resume as per normal except for possibly the one production train directly affected by the fire.
Thank you do much for that comment. You put it very succinctly. I said much the same thing days ago and the trolls came unglued all over me. They don't like the narrative of "Russia's a burning gas station" broken.. thanks.
I don't want to make is sound like it is not an inconvenience for Russia. If nothing else, the Russian general public couldn't help but notice that Ukraine was causing them personal difficulties even if it turns out to be for a short time and relatively minor.
Of course, there is the issue of the loss of tax revenue resulting from forgoing gasoline export sales. On the other hand the surplus crude left over from the reduced gasoline production resulted in a spike in Russian crude exports. Mostly to India and China where *they* turned it into gasoline. So while there was some loss of tax revenue it wasn't particularly damaging.
"Gasoline deliveries are down about ten percent. What the Ukrainians are doing is hitting storage facilities, which are really large and very easy to hit." This temporarily disrupts local fuel availability, but not at the national level, because the entire fuel stockpile covers years of needs. Being delivered fuel from the reserve 50 km away is not the same as being delivered from the reserve 600 km away. And then there's the reaction of worried consumers, who are building their own reserves and depleting the stockpile. Russia may be the only nation with mobile reserves, but the logistics still take a little time. Hitting a refinery or a storage center isn't complicated; these are large industrial complexes that a drone can't miss, and we know there are so many of them that they can't all be protected. Finally, there are exports, which companies favor because the price is higher than the domestic one, which is why the government prohibits exports from time to time.
If the contradictions of the system become too large to handle, they'll take you to war. The economics of capitalism need a reset every time the profit rate is turning down and the debt becomes ridiculously. Authoritarian take-overs are just the pretext to martial law and then war.
well, you make it sound like its a circle, but I think this time we need to break free of the oligarchs. Somehow. This digital ID and CBDCs are something we cannot let them take us into. I don't understand why the citizens of Germany don't vote for Sahra Wegennacht. Seems like at least half of humanity doesnt ' get it ' about the oligarchs and the Rot Queen of Europe etc.
Sahra Wagenknecht is the second alternative in Germany. Since she turned away from the woke identity nonsense of 'die Linke' and started her own movement, she's the "evil red queen" again who want's to bring back the socialist times before 1989.
Hopelessly underfunded and with almost no media presence, she was excluded from the Bundestag because she missed he 5% hurdle by a statistical error of about 2000 votes, or around that Number.
It's the ultra liberal AfD who has the funding and the media presence to take over first.
Only after people will realize that a "Miley approach" will weaken Germany further, only then the time will be ripe for Sahra Wagenknecht. If she's still around at that time. There is no strong 'Left' in Germany anymore, their spine was broken since 1990 under relentless beating of the media, infiltration with woke identitarian subjects and the indoctrination of the people that 'Left' = Evil.
yes, but that's what I mean. The people in Germany seem to be stupid. I know they're not - they're a great people and although I haven't been there. But the propaganda is strong everywhere - and yet I'm not succumbed to it. So what's their excuse except stupidity ? I suppose Canadians are the same but we don't have an alternative. Even that guy Maxine Bernier is not like Sahra.
Dear Ann, I am sorry to say so but my fellow Germans are stupid, afraid and more and more ignorant. The main focus of today's academia is to use a gender correct language. People losing their jobs en masse and blaming Russia, because Russia capped the natural gas delivery, what is not true.
Anything bad comes from Putin/Putler and around 70% of Germans are proud now that they have never read a book in their life. Times are bad and getting worse in good old Germany and many flee the country, seeing no future there anymore and don't want to go to war.
i don't think people are stupid (though many are) but they're unthinking conformists, who clutch to their "own" beliefs and you can turn blue trying to convince them that water is wet...
Dear Frank, one thing I just can't understand about your country is their apparent supine acceptance of Nordstream being destroyed, with barely a squeak of protest. It was a "golden ticket" of affordable, fixed price Gas for two generations at least. I just hope the people on the street know they were shafted and are as impotent as pretty much everybody else under their own corrupt, captured and compromised leadership. Btw, I think my fellow English citizens are equally, if not more stupid than you Germans.
Frank, oh that is so sad. I am an avid reader of Rudolf Steiner and his message was to the German people. They are the best and yet the worst. Its complex what he says but I think that there are initiatives in Germany that are the best in the world - cooperative living and even small banking initiatives - also agricultural initiatives. But then there is the worst. Merz. How could they have voted him in with Sahra right there ? I never can figure it out. And where do they go I wonder ? Its hard to find another place in these times. I bet some of the quiet ones go to Russia. There they will find themselves.
The application of terms like »stupid« or »evil«, which happens often, is not helpful when talking politics. In fact, it leads into a wrong direction. C. Wright Mills in his »Power Elite« analysis’ last chapter talks about the people whom he calls »the masses« (Orwell: »proles«). These are never responsible for the deeds of the elite—corporate leaders, warlords and state directors (Mills). Of course, the latter, if things went south, always make them responsible. That worked brilliantly in Germany post 1945. Today almost nobody doubts that »the Germans« were responsible »for Hitler«, whereas it is quite easy to find out who really was: the German elite, the Thyssens, Krupps, Abs et al. So, Thucydides was right: »The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.« Always the case, at home and in international relations. I believe.
I'd say it was a multi-decade long effort to make most of the people stupid and dumb across the board. The schooling, the media, the movies, the captured politicians etc. Avg german is probably still a genius compared to the avg american though... if that's any consolation.
The censorship complex publicly pillories dissidents, ruins their reputation, enforces dismissals and de facto professional bans, destroys livelihoods. Journalists and representatives of aid organizations are placed on sanctions lists beyond the law.
These processes add up to an anti-democratic “censorship industry” through which governments, with the help of secret services, digital companies, transatlantic think tanks, the so-called GONGOS – government organized nongovernment organizations -, media and associations, control and monitor their citizens and combat undesirable opinions.
Why is Germany destroying the remnants of its parliamentary democracy and, orchestrated by NATO and its leading power, the United States, running into new wars after the devastating wars of annihilation that started on German soil in the 20th century?
In twelve theses, I outline an overall picture that shows Germany as an example of the decline of the West.
Status Quo
Thesis 1: Economically, Germany is on the brink of collapse.
Thesis 2: Berlin’s political self-enslavement to the U.S. is now taking its revenge.
Thesis 3: In military terms, Germany and NATO have lost the war in Ukraine.
Thesis 4: Germany is experiencing a process of civilizational decline and cultural neglect.
Thesis 5: The decline of the German economy stems from long lines of self-destruction.
Thesis 6: German policy follows the primacy of the financial industry and thus destroys its industrial foundations.
Thesis 7: NATO’s eastward expansion is the main cause of the war in Ukraine. Germany could have prevented it.
Thesis 8: The Ukraine war is the most brazen propaganda lie that has been fed to the Germans since 1945.
Thesis 9: Economically, Germany – like Europe – is on the brink of collapse.
Thesis 10: Most European leaders have no chance but to prolong the war militarily.
Thesis 11: The war is a war against its own population and against democracy.
Thesis 12: Germany – a country without opposition.
thank you - I'll have a look - I've revently been banned from X for just making comments - I don't even mantain a page there. So I'm now having to go to websites and read more aticles instead of sound bites. I will bookmark Consortium News. I guess my questioning really is - why is it that we didn't fall for all this bullshit ( about Sahra and everything ) and yet so many peole in Germany have.
Seems to me the ' leaders ' that Germany has are arsonists. And the world definitely needs Germany and Germans to be free of this darkness that has overtaken its ' leadership ' What an awful word.
yes. I agree - especially Germans. I like them, but I worked at a lumberyard in a tourist town in Canada and I would ask German tourists if they liked Madam Merkel and all of them did.
As the German economy is slowly going doooown, I am wondering what they are going to do with the millions of immigrants who receive all those welfare benefits there.
Actually, it's very like the situation in your own America. With a declining birthrate, Germany is banking on the immigrants and their descendants to keep the lights on in the future.
Without H-1B visas and migrant labour, I look forward to the shrinking of the American economy.
let's also remember its merger w/East Germany (Fall of the Wall). in retrospect a great move on the geopolitical chessboard bringing NATO and the UE closer to Russia.
The AfD cou8ld toss migrant children alive and screaming into piranha tanks, and the german media would sing hosannas, as long as the AfD supported American hegemony in general and the War On Russia in particular.
The AfD will either get banned or they will get the message, presumably choosing to sell out for the highest price.
Capitalism thrives on competition. There is no competition per se in the US, there are few monopolies in every industry absorbing the rest. Even the job market has shrunk significantly - instead of a multitude of employers, just a very few left.
The billionaire elites in the US are increasing at a rate of 17% annually. This creates an irresistible urge and imperative for the US regime to go to war. If not clipped in the bud somehow, these billionaires will be our masters and we their serfs, by 2030. The Elites are racing at breakneck speed to make agenda 2030 happen, and it is happening.
"If the contradictions of the system become too great to manage, they will lead you to war. The capitalist economy needs to be reset every time the rate of profit falls and debt becomes ridiculous. Authoritarian power grabs are only a pretext for martial law and then war."
No, not for Third Worldization. The rest of the world, for its own protection, will isolate you and cease all trade with you; you will die economically.
Hi Smita - which country were you thinking of ? India ? I agree with you - its almost like India is a part of the west as far as its government - I suppose its zionism. Wherever that has become a parasite it makes the country western. But perhaps you were meaning another country ?
No. You are right. Many decisions have recently been taken which benefit the West. There is also support for Israel to our utter horror. We have been campaigning for years for a measure of space for industrial/ tech policy but recently the boulder has rolled back to its Sisyphean default level.
so sad. I wonder how the population of the earth will overcome this horror. Do you think if somehow zionism was outlawed, everything would become normal as it was before zionism ? I suppose the people behind zionism would still exist. The british masons and oligarchs. Money is the root of all evil perhaps.
The whole world is turning against Zionism, younger Americans included. But Big Tech has formed an alliance with Zionists and all States including democracies have become surveillance States, (https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-world-is-following-the-china-model-10267422: unfortunately paywalled). So there is and there isn't hope. And people over here arent well informed so still support Israel despite its government's genocidal actions.
are the people over there pro Israel or is it just the Hindus. I don't know the stats on how many Hindus there are to Muslims. Surely the Muslims aren't pro-zionist/Israel. I have friends here in Canada ( they own the local grocery store ) who are Hindu and I always ask about India but they don't want to talk about it too much. They are anti-Muslim because they say Muslims are terrorists. Such nonsense, but possibly in India too, you have the Takfiris - ISIS types. But possibly these folks in my neighbourhood are waking up now, because of the Tariffs. The food prices here are skyrocketing. The owner of the store said to me ' Its the politicians " Hopefully all this prevelant evil wakes people up. And then I suppose the path will present itself over time - as to how to overcome these oligarchs and their evil plans.
Honestly, our animal emotions concerning such madness and stupidity can lead us to great frustration and irrational responses. I confess, after reading about the horrors of EU digital totalitarianism - and personally having experienced the same at home - I have moments when I feel like I would almost welcome global thermonuclear armageddon. It is not only the existence of agents of pure evil which rankles, it is the even more depressing spectacle of the vast majority of humanity submitting to the evil without a fight.
Agree 💯%. Let it end, humans cannot be saved. The small group of evil exploiting all human weaknesses of the majority of the crowd. There is no miracle solution. But then again, maybe you and I don’t want to live in such world, but the other 7 billion will just be living fine.
My 2 cents... Spiritually. It's our Soul wrestling with what it "sees" in this material world. We are born into a system built on no morals. usury, lies, deception etc. I call it "the cage." Similar to one who gets a puppy. Trained to, for good behavior rewards, bad behavior retreat to the kennel (cage). A place of the "big lie" of safety, comfort etc.
For most the lie is all they know. For a very few in tuned with their soul, the "gut feeling" saying this all stinks.
You confirm that the Westerner has mutated into a vagina and prefers death to freedom, pride, honor, etc. You are free, don't wait for others to rid you of this, sacrificing others in the process.
I confess, I do have a vagina. Are you suggesting it is necessary for elderly women to become warriors because (most) young western men will not? Or are you suggesting I should commit suicide, which is a sin. Either way, your statement makes no sense to me.
Speaking of vaginas, I'm thinking of the Amazons, those men who no longer have anything masculine and everything fearful woman. Regarding suicide, that's your business, your decision; it's also a sin to ask others to end you with nuclear fire, even if it means taking others with you.
If I sit on the other side of the table, the EU/globalist/NATO side, I'm thinking "this is what winning looks like"
No argument with anything you're saying Simplicious, but none of these actions have consequences. Most Europeans don't even argue the point anymore, yes democracy is gone but life just isn't bad enough. The people drink their medicine and simply carry on with their lives. And, waiting for a "collapse" of EU economies and whatnot will be a long wait indeed.
Not really. Throughout most human societies for most of history, you have the oligarchs, the rulers, enjoying lives of virtually unlimited wealth and power, and then there are the peons, that is, everyone else.
It is becoming very clear to the world why the West promoted the idea of "Freedumb and Democrazy" to developing nations, though almost none of the western states started out as democracies. Forcing countries to adopt the most corruptible form of government will hinder development with corrupt officials who will do the bidding of their corruptors at expense of nationhood. Considering that the western nations controlled the paper which was accepted as value they always had the power to keep their boots on the neck of the developing world while eliminating patriots who had their nations best interest at heart. The only freedom in today's world is "economic/financial" from a national or personal level. if you have it or live in it, you are free if you don't you are not. As Europeans lose their wealth so will go their freedoms. Maybe in a distant future, if there is one to have, people will speak of the despotic dictators in Europe or maybe they will go back to having despotic monarchs.
Maybe worth adding the brutal exploitation of their own "poor, peasant, serf" class. Life for the underclass in Victorian Industrial Britain was tough and often short lived.
the Industrial Revolution... urbanisation... full of unintended consequences: abolishing past communities, barely addressing poverty, still waging for-ever wars, wealth flowing upwards into the clutches of Big Business. it's been a miserable development in human culture.
It was full of INTENTIONAL consequences. None of what happened was unplanned.
Most normal people would think that impoverishing entire communities would surely be a mistake. But to sociopaths and bean-counters, it can and is often a goal.
in 1784 (only 5 years before the outbreak of French Revolution) when Samuel Greg's Quarry Bank Mill Weaving Shed was founded as well as many more factories using steam powered machines neither labourers nor factory/business owners could foresee what the massive draining of the country side (agricultural communities) and the irreversible shift in production would bring about. did governments and 'industrialists' (or, according to Marx, them pesky "capitalists") have a better understanding? perhaps. yet here we are, with advancements in public health and an attainable degree of prosperity for many. humanity needs more than that to sustain it. we'll see.
Yet the poorest in the US today live like kings compared to the conditions they faced back then. People didn't flock to the cities because they thought it would be fun -- just better than what they had back on the land. They weren't stupid. And as with all things, you pays your money and you takes your bets.
Actually, in terms of free time, life enjoyment, social relations, and even local democracy, life for 'commoners' was generally better back then. If you remove all the technology, and the productivity that burning billions of barrels of oil gives, conditions today are pretty miserable.
Now immigration has become the new Colonialism. How many clandestine factories are there, not only in the UK where illegal Indian, Pakistani and Afghans are working, eating and sleeping next to their knitting machines and producing much cheaper as imported from their countries. Father Daems the movie gives a real view, how it was living and working in the mines and factories. Men became too expensive they were replaced by their women, raped and abused during work, then they became too expensive also replaced by the children, even beaten everyday and girls 5, 6 years raped and killed. Anno 2025 we have a modern version of this slavery, imported in the ex colonial counties; Immigration favourable clandestine works.
I laughed when von der Leyen announced the "global health blah blah initiative". Does she really think the rest of the world is dependent on Europe saving their health? The Imperial arrogance is so embedded they can't see it.
Probably a handout to the EU pharmaceutical companies hit by the 100% Trump tariffs.
Nostalgia for 2020. The whole world was scared and cowered in their houses for a virus that only killed the vulnerable, as viruses will do. And then they got almost everyone to comply with taking an experimental drug. Good times
Well Russia made it clear since 2023 that an attack on Transnistria would result in a declaration of war against Ukraine. Even though the enclave is geographically separated from Russia, the cowardly Ukrainian leadership did not attempt an offensive as they know a declaration of war would enable Russia to target them. With the desperation now at fever pitch in the west all options are open so all is a wait and see if Moldovans will follow in the steps of the Ukrainians. The over used Ukrainian sympathy and demonizing Russia campaign is running out of global support. What will happen when or if the Russians actually start commiting the crimes Russia has been accused of commiting since the SMO commenced? There is always a consequence to crying wolf too many times.
It's not 2023 anymore though, the degenerates in Kiev have serious weapons themselves now
Or rather, NATO has moved into Ukraine with serious weapons, and the drug addicts in Kiev are disposable, but that only makes the situation much more difficult.
Run the decision tree.
First, they move in from the north into the PMR
What does Russia do? Let's say it takes out Zelensky, then what?
Well, now it's open season for strikes on the Kremlin, but in addition to that NATO moves in from the south.
What does Russia do then?
It either has to fold and let the people in the PMR be slaughtered, or it will have to nuke Romania. Likely Poland too. There is no other move left.
I would nuke Romania with zero hesitation, but does Putin look like someone who does not hesitate and does not ultimately fail to act decisively in critical moments?
Yeah you would niuke the whole planet everyone knows that, you would nuke nuke nuke then nuke some more.
I just have questions what are the serious weapons that Kien now have? NATO will come from the north with what and where is the North? NATO/US whole military doctrine is based on air power which air bases will they use to project that airpower? Any build up of air craft on NATO bases will be spotted by Russian space based surveillance and air bases are huge immovable facilities impossible to disguise. How will NATO logistically support any major force in Odessa if Russia does declare war on Ukraine? Yes there is no way Russia can defend the Transnistrian but they are not defenseless. Plus any attacking force against Transnistria would be targeted by every available Geran, Gerbera, ballistic cruise and hypersonic missile in Russia's arsenal. The Russians have probably planned in everyway for this scenario. In a sense, a major push again Transnistria would expose a high concentration of Ukrainian military personnel making it a very high cost even if there is success.
>Any build up of air craft on NATO bases will be spotted by Russian space based surveillance and air bases are huge immovable facilities impossible to disguise.
Yes, huge immovable facilities that are impossible to fully take out without using nukes. How many hundreds of cruise missiles, dozens of Kinzhals, and probably thousands of Gerans have hit just Starokonstantinov? And yet it is still operating...
>How will NATO logistically support any major force in Odessa if Russia does declare war on Ukraine?
How can Russia disrupt logistics through Romania and Ukraine without using nukes?
See how it always comes back to the nukes.
Because it is not 1944 anymore, and you cannot send a couple hundred four-engine bombers on a single sortie to drop 1500 tons of bombs over the enemy's deep rear. There is air defense these days and that has been largely impossible against a peer enemy since the 1960s.
Then you are left with missiles and drones. But nothing has changed, no, scratch that, a lot has in fact changed regarding the nature of all those targets in the rear that you need to take out -- they have been hardened in a major way with an eye towards a big war for decades during the Cold War. Sure, PGMs mitigate against that a bit, but the fundamental math does not change all that much -- you have large-footprint targets, both linear ones and stuff like airfields, so you need a huge amount of explosives to disable them conventionally. And nobody has that many missiles (OK, maybe the Chinese do; maybe).
Modern war against a peer adversary is largely impossible to win without using nukes. That is the ultimate consequence of advanced air defense, the super high cost (thus low volumes) of modern military aircraft, everyone having hardened their valuables, etc.
<<<<<<How can Russia disrupt logistics through Romania and Ukraine without using nukes?<<<<<
Who will move what through Romania and Ukraine?
By who, I mean specifically who? By what, I mean specifically what will they move that they aren't already moving into Ukraine? Exactly what is it that Russia has to fear so much in your scenario that their only choice is to use nukes?
Well it is not 1944, yes but you are still stuck on 1950s technology. Russia demonstrated the Oreshnic, basically a medium range missile with multiple reentry vehicles just not armed with nuclear warheads. We are living in the 21st century only the Russian general staff know what options are available to them. NATO in the meantime may not know until they end up on the receiving end. I guess you should advance to discussing the neutron bomd as that technology is a little more modern than the 1950s atomic bonds you are so fascinated with.
The issue with your assertion is you don't know the type of explosive that would be used in a deployed Oreshnic warhead. You don't know the yield of those explosive warheads. The reality is yield is not based on the weight of the explosive but on the explosive magnitude measured in the equivalent TNT blast. The Oreshnic strike on the Yushmesh industrial plant were with inert warheads, as reported by the Russians. Yet for some reason the Ukrainian refuse to disclose the damage. Imagine if those war heads are armed with the aluminium based explosive the Russians rumor the Oreshnic warheads would be armed with? Unlike you I don't know so I rarely assume I generally ask questions mostly.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Amazingly enough there are other tools -- but you can't get past your fixation on hammers (nukes).
The view of their own backyard by our troubled political frontmen and women is increasingly a projection of their own night terrors, not the real world. They are descending into madness, not us. They are getting sicker and it shows. What next for them? It will not be war, an objective phenomenon curiously resilient to wishful thinking, or hysterical imaginings (some voices in the independent media need to remember that).
Our managers are losing their marbles. Soon they will gone and we will look back on this time as evidence of their own degradation, not a globe in crisis. Other fear projections are on the way out. Climate change (eeek, the climate is changing, who knew!), covid-babble.
Cheer up folks. It is darkest before the dawn. 'AI' is our friend, not theirs (and they fear the truth of this too). Not all paranoia is delusion. Something is coming for them. They sweat out this fear each night. There is an old name for it. Nemesis.
Maybe, Perhaps, Hopefully; 3i Atlas will zap the baddies in some kind of wrath of God, divine retribution and thus deliver us from evil at the very last minute ;-).
Btw: anyone find it suspiciously disturbing and very convenient for some, that Venezuela gets hit by two big Earthquakes just now ?
Begging for peace? How so?
yep, that is why Ukrainians are flocking to sign up for the military and the videos of them dragooning men off the street are purely propaganda.
Nuland and her husband are War Criminals, along with those supporters of the U.N. Resolution 181
Supported by the Soviet Union, do not forget. Moscow also was the first (FIRST) state to recognize ›Israel‹ de jure—a settler colonial regime based on cleansing and killing the owners of the land! I know, this was based on the misconception that the settler-colonialists will set up a socialist state which then would go against the British/U.S. This support, therefore, was based on realpolitik pure. In theory. Practically Stalin’s calculus was wrong, the U.S. influence always was much stronger.
Well, Stalin also created Jewish Autonomous Oblast in 1934.
As they are still there and did not emigrate to the Zionist project, they are no Zionists, I think, just Jews. Stalin and Lenin were obsessed with the »national question« and thus created these Soviet Republics. Out of nothing almost. Then a »national history« was taught to them along with the language (and an alphabet!) until in 1991 these Soviet-created elites of 15 of these »republics« declared themselves »nation states« and broke off. Today they draw their legitimacy from tales of »Russian oppression and exploitation«. Look what is going on in the Azerbaijian, soon in the Kazachstan, and—in the extreme—in the Ukraine.
Yess! Iirc, even Rosa Luxembourg in some correspondence warned Lenin to stop playing these idiotic “decolonization of the Russian Empire” games and concentrate on first building a stable an propsperous ussr.
Sad. Most of the population don’t benefit. Like always it is a small group of people that profit.
One possible solution might be the referendum system. I read an analysis focused on the U.S., where many—if not all—states have such a system: Let the People Rule: How Direct Democracy Can Meet the Populist Challenge by John G. Matsusaka. It's an interesting read. Although he uses the (arguably unjustly) negatively connoted term "populist" in the title, he presents substantial empirical evidence showing that the masses tend to be quite reasonable when deciding on communal matters—a striking contrast to the elites, by the way.
On my blog, Dear Scotland (https://dearscotland.substack.com), I write a great deal about decentralised direct democracy as practiced in Switzerland, where the People are in control through a quarterly system of referendums and popular initiatives. Power is devolved down to the lowest level possible. Each of the 27 cantons (regions) has their own constitution. The principle of subsidiarity means whatever can be done at a lower level, should not be done at a higher one. My group, Respect Scottish Sovereignty (https://respectscottishsovereignty.scot), argues that an independent Scotland would do well to adopt a similar system. In the meantime, we are behind a petition, PE2135 (https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE2135), asking the Scottish Parliament to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) into Scots law. It would give the Scottish People the right to launch referendums on any issue and the right to self-determination. But the devolved Scottish Administration (it's not a government) it balking because they are creatures of the Westminster system and are more concerned with their pay and pensions than liberating the Scottish People from London's colonial control.
Here's a piece I did last year, comparing Switzerland to Scotland, which is trapped in the highly undemocratic and centralised failing UK.
https://dearscotland.substack.com/p/what-scotland-can-learn-from-swiss?utm_source=publication-search
I've written many more - just search using the key words Direct Democracy.
Was thinking the same as Leah Gunn below: modeled like the swiss model (although I believe it has moved away from its original, but have to verify for myself). However it is still very important that the media landscape is ‘controlled’, not that powerful oligarchs own most of it (Bezos family: father and son, but from Jeff’s position probably God and Jezus)
While true to a decent extent, the MASS media can also play an outsized, short-term role in pushing atrocious decision-making on the Many.
Still, it's the only antidote to the networked 'elite' control which is nearly universal in bad decision-making (From the POV of the Many).
None of the States have direct-democracy. Some of the smaller counties and towns are set up so voters can participate in substantial decisions, usually regarding budgets.
The small state of New Hampshire, both in territory and population, being probably the most well known for it's number of representatives.
Fun fact; North Dakota is about twice the size of Portugal in land with a population about 1/13th the size.
I was hiking with a French journalist in Virginia last July. After two months of hiking the Appalachian Trail he was still astonished by the diversity of wildlife he observed, usually able to camp where he wanted and sometimes not see another person for a day.
Probably where Epstein and Kirk are at the moment.
The oblast is as unpopular today as it was when it was formed. Far, far away.
Yeh, not many Jews living there, but it is on the border with China. the future is in Asia ;)
Right after the end of WWII, still in 1945, the Red Army transferred substantial quantities of military hardware to Israel from Czechoslovakia. That event could have ONLY taken place under direct orders from Stalin after a likely request from the US.
There is little evidence that the USSR supplied significant military equipment to the zionsts in Palestine in the 1945. Please present any evidence you might have. Also, one might be reminded that israel did not exist in 1945.
Kennewick Man is right, what he says aligns with what I know. The motivation is important here: Stalin believed the settlers will establish a socialist state which then would go (or could be utilized) against the British and U.S. in the Middle East. At that time the British influence there was enormous (Iran’s oil) so was the U.S.’ (Saudi). Plus: the British and the Zionists were very much at odds with each other (many British officials etc. were killed in Zionist terror attacks). So, there certainly was reason for this sort of realpolitik. It backfired quickly, of course, as the Zionists were (also) deeply aligned with the British elites (remember Balfour and his buddy Weizman). And the U.S. — Truman.
You are correct - from Stalin's PoV support for the zoinists was grounded in geopolitics, not sympathy for zionism. My contention is with the supposition that Stalin sent significant military aid to the zionists in 1945 - there is little or no evidence behind this that I know of. If you know of any, please present it.
I read about that in a couple of sources. I think Ilan Pappe also mentions it in his really ground breaking analysis »The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine« which I recommend as he went through all the Zionist documents and lays bare in great detail how they proceeded. That is probably the most interesting part in his analysis, e.g. how they renamed the Arab villages with Hebrew names (same as they did with their own, mostly Polish names).
Robert Maxwells was involved in transferring military equipment from Czechoslovakia to Israel , among it I suspect the Czech copy of Me-109 that Israel was flying in 1948. Hard to see how this equipment could be transferred without Stalin approval .
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/czech-knife-180972958/
I clearly recall a discussion during one of my university courses where the 1945 arms transfers from Czechoslovakia to Israel were a subject. This means that the issue had to be supported by primary sources as this was a written, recorded conversation. I actually received some brownie points from the Prof. for pointing out that the 1945 late summer transfers had to be decided by Stalin as no local military commander would have initiated the act on his own unless he desired a one-way ticket to Vorkuta. I did a search of my own records but was unable to locate the relevant discussion. As far as I recall it was actually the Prof. who introduced the subject. My conclusion at the time was actual superpower cooperation. The US administration was uncomfortable with the weapon transfers just a few months after the war so they just picked up the phone and asked the Soviets. Or sent in their Moscow ambassador with the request. The compensation might have even came from the USA. It is also a fact that internet and US Congressional Library records suffer from a constant cleansing of records of all politically relevant issues to this day. Issues connected to Israel and WWII, even WWI are sensitive points.
The possible source might be the text book: Cleveland, W., & Bunton, M. (2013). A history of the Modern Middle East (5th ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
I paste a few sites concerning these arms transfers, 1947 and after.
Cleveland, W., & Bunton, M. (2013). A history of the Modern Middle East (5th ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press
Arms shipments from Czechoslovakia to Israel, June 1947 and October 31, 1949
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_shipments_from_Czechoslovakia_to_Israel#:~:text=to%20Haganah%20intervention.-,Deliveries,immediate%20impact%20or%20historical%20significance.%22
https://www.machal.org.il/1947-49/the-wingmen-a-story-of-czechoslovak/
https://en.interaffairs.ru/article/czechoslovak-material-and-technical-assistance-to-the-state-of-israel/
https://www.palyam.org/English/ArmsShips/mainpage.php
No - truman, nrecognized the illegal State of Israel first. Truman granted de facto recognition to the just 11 minutes after its declaration of independence on May 14, 1948
Ye, de facto. But the USSR did so de jure. Whatever the difference. So we have, in this case, may be two number ones?
What the hell is your point ?
They were very eager together that state project going. Why? Because of the national interest.
No. Because the big 3 empires are controlled by the Jew. It is in my national interest to remove all Jew from power.
The USSR, like the European countries, wanted to get rid of the Jews in their countries, and the USA wanted to stop the wave of immigration. They all agreed to create a state of Israel to send their Jews there, to stop their arrival. The USSR because religious communities had no place in communism, the European states because they had remained fundamentally fascist. The rewriting of history tells us that Westerners knew neither the plan nor the facts of the Reich concerning the Jews, but the story is different, everyone wanted to get rid of them, and the German plan was a means.
This is all belief and not fact. Nobody knows, there are no documents, as to why the Soviet leaders supported the Zionist state. However, I believe )(I do not know) that the Soviets were very sympathetic to the Zionist cause, and to the plight of European Jewry in the aftermath of WW2. The Soviets were the chief source of holocaust evidence, which some (not I) have used to create suspicions of the holocaust as an actual event. So I suspect (I do not know) that the Soviet leadership, being mainly Jewish (Stalin was Jewish, and most of the top Soviet leadership was Jewish up until after WW2), was sympathetic to the Zionist cause. If anything (again belief, not knowledge), the Jewish leadership of the Soviet Union recognized the danger of Jewish agitation within the USSR, and so had a dual motivation to remove troublesome Jews from the USSR while at the same time promoting a Zionist State in the Middle East.
The Zionists have their own unique political goal, which is the "recovery" of their "homeland", which they lost 2000 years ago because God said plainly that if they rejected their King, they would be removed from the land God gave them to wander Homeless for the rest of time across the face of the globe. The Jews, who stubbornly refuse to accept their Messiah, have decided that their rebellion against God will continue, even if it embroils the entire world in a global war. They care not for anything, except what they desire, and they are willing to perish in a national Masada, to gain their land and temple back, even if for only five minutes. This is the obsession of the Jews, and no Gentile can fully grasp this without an understanding of Scripture. The grip of Jewish power on the financial and media worlds is simply a mans to this end. Communism is nothing more than Jewish ideology with God removed.
Well, Loch Wade, this might better be a piece for »The Onion«. Not?
The Soviet was primarily a jew project.
The Jew is not a religious community it is an ethnic racquet. The Jew controlled the Soviet.
The Jew state was created by Jew terrorists and their goy puppets. Uncle A did not want a Jew state because he knew it would be a criminal hq for the Jew.
The Jew is a sin merchant parasite. No nation should have to suffer them.
🇺🇸🇸🇾 - Syrian ‘ President’ Ahmad al-Sharaa met World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder at the Syrian mission in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
@thewarreporterr
It's no surprise that terrorist groups, created by the West, are also proxies for Israel. They share the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, pampered by the West. Let's not forget the terrorists from various groups treated in Israeli hospitals during the conflict with Assad. The fascist West can only get along well with terrorists.
Stop with the ‘fascist’ nonsense. You don’t even know what it means. The ‘west’ is Jewish bc it is controlled by the Jew.
My grandfather, a British Tory businessman, supported the creation of a Jewish state. Perhaps the Russians, like my grandfather, quietly hoped they would all move there and leave their country alone.
Stalin, at least, seemed to be very suspicious of them in his final years. If so, his reason, most probably, I think, was the same that lead so many early nationalists all over Europe to discuss a »question of the Jews«. Including Karl Marx: »Zur Judenfrage« (1843). The Jews were suspected to have no national loyalty. Stalin, in addition, knew that there was au »Jewish state«. So he doubted their loyalty to the Soviet Union. Might be.
Bigger cheque book
The Soviet Jews’ »checkbook«, I presume, was modest. Not?
JEW Nuland and her husband
So, who is going to do anything about it? Nuland and Kagan walk around, free as a couple of birds.
Wish the Russians would start having a Luigi campaign wherever these kikes are.
>The stakes in the Moldovan case are truly higher than ever. There are rumors that various NATO troops, particularly those from France, have arrived to Odessa for various provocations:
Yeah, and what is the Kremlin going to do about it?
Issue another stern warning?
Or nuke Romania, which is the only kinetic measure that could stop it?
Given what has been done to Russia itself so far, we can be certain it will be the former.
And Russians in the PMR will meet the same fate as Armenians in Karabakh (which the Kremlin also didn't do anything to stop). Or that of the Russians in eastern Kharkov who either foolishly chose to not flee or physically could not do it back in September 2022....
along with Gonzalo Lira
My sympathy for Lira stopped when he foolishly posted that he was 5kms from the Poland border and then captured. Fool had to know his mobile phone would be tracked and he couldn't wait until he was in Poland to post where he was.
The stakes in the Moldovan affair are truly higher than ever. Rumors are circulating that several NATO troops, notably French, have arrived in Odessa for various provocations:
Yeah, and what will the Kremlin do about it?
The SVR isn't stating a fact; it's talking about a plan. If European troops were in Odessa, local intelligence would have already passed the information on to the SVR, and they would have been destroyed. This is already the case with instructors.
"This is a dangerous escalation and measures will be taken" and other insomnia-curing edicts
Russia can’t do anything and won’t have to to anything. This EU gangrene can’t be stopped, at first amputation of the foot but it climbs to the leg, the heart and this rotten body will fall on its own. Macron, Starmer, Zel and Donald all agree, but first the rigours of the corps.
I am sure that makes people in Tiraspol very happy and not at all worried about what will happen to them
Nobody’s asking what will happen to Euro children and innocent citizens when the great EU Empire has emptied all of its power talk, propaganda and terrorist acts facing terrorists of the other side.
I agree with you, it is not Russia’s responsibility to ›safe‹ other states. If the peoples in Moldavia, Romania, Czech … Germany UI have to add here) cannot succeed, then they will have to suffer from their weakness until … Also, Russia’s war against NATO in Ukraine seriously weakens its resources and thus options for international action. That is why the West/U.S. can avail itself of that and stir up lots of trouble. You can see that clearly in West Asia, Georgia, Azerbaijian, soon in Kazachstan …
Xi doesn’t agree, he already mentioned it through a spokesman, we cannot tolerate NATO or Washington’s neocons to win, N. Korea fully backing this statement. I already see where it is going, no wars of armies not even drones but terrorist assaults never ending. Just wait and see what’s gonna happen to Gaza, once emptied terrorist wars beginning, Netanyahu created them that’s what he didn’t mention at the UN assembly.
Yes, but Transnistria has been indeed a Russian project from the very beginning. So the comparison with Armenian/N-K is valid.
I have no idea how the Russian government will deal with their repression which seems to be in sight. Their geographic position is quite different from the Donbas Russians. We’ll see, I guess.
Incorrect.
The PMR itself is Russian, but the last thing it was is a "Russian project", as in something orchestrated from Moscow.
The PMR seceded from Moldova in 1990, BEFORE Moldova itself seceded from the USSR. Gorbachev was not at all happy about it, and tried very hard to push it back inside Moldova.
The Kremlin then kept trying to get rid of that problem well into Putin's rule.
Partly because at the time the Kremlin was still trying to cozy up to the West, and were ready to give away everything to be accepted.
Partly because the PMR is the last remnant of the USSR, and the main goal of Putinism has always been making sure the USSR never comes back. But what do we have in the PMR? Sure, they survive primarily on smuggling and various other shady business there, which is not very communist, but aside from that hammers and sickles are everywhere, they kept the old Moldavian SSR flag (not even Belarus did that -- Lukashenko quickly returned the Byelorussian SSR flag but without the hammer and sickle) and all the other Soviet symbols.
The latter is also why the Ukrainian/NATO Nazis have such a hard-on about slaughtering the people there -- that is where they can play out their WWII revanchist fantasies to the fullest in a way they can't even in Russia.
But that sorry history of the Kremlin trying repeatedly to get rid of the PMR the same way Pashinyan did with Karabakh is what makes me very afraid that they will indeed stand watch as the people there are slaughtered.
Don't for a second make the mistake of thinking that Putin launched the SMO in 2022 in order to save the Russians in the DNR and the LNR. No, the real problem for him was that the Nazi hordes were imminently going to enter the DNR and LNR and start slaughtering everybody, which would have driven millions of refugees into Rostov and Voronezh, and then who knows, the Nazi hordes may not have stopped at the official border. Which would have triggered absolute outrage inside Russia and seriously threatened Putin's rule. That's the real motivation behind launching the SMO in 2022. Had Putin ever cared about the Russian people, there would an end to Ukrainian statehood would have been put even before 2014.
Moreover, Russia's war against NATO in Ukraine seriously weakens its resources and therefore its options for international action. Russia succeeds because Westerners are saying the same thing you are. In fact, you're talking about yourself and transposing it to Russia.
How did Caesar defeat Pompey, when he was outnumbered? It will take centuries, millennia, for Russia to exhaust its resources. Hey, it's just blown its reserves, $700 billion+.
I am very much looking forward to Russia destroying NATO and the EU. Still, as someone who does not believe in Russian exceptionalism, it seems obvious for me that there are limits. They have to deal with a lot, and I cannot see any reliable (!) ally except for North Korea.
1) Why should the Kremlin care about "Euro children and innocent citizens" when Russian children and innocent citizens are about to be slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands?
2) Why should the Kremlin care when there is an Operation Barbarossa 2.0 in the works, it's not even hidden at this point, and the previous one killed 27M Russians?
3) How many "innocent citizens" are there really in Europe? Sure, you have sincerely Russophilic countries such as Serbia and Bulgaria, where only the elites are captured, and you probably don't want to nuke those. But Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Czechia, etc.? Given the history, and given what you see online today? How many innocents as a proportion really?
Who's an innocent and who's not is indeed a huge issue, especially in alleged democracies.
(I'm just tossing this out there. My views are more than I can tap out on my tablet late at night. But I will add that my suggestions about this issue did not go over well with the peanut gallery in the comments section of National Review.)
Most people are neither innocent nor guilty.
They just go along with the prevailing narrative they are fed nonstop by a fully corporatised media.
3) 90% innocent! Who would want any kind of war or conflict with another people, when humanity is technically at a point where there is an overproduction of food and everything else? Why? We no longer have to go and steal the wealth of the neighboring country so that our people can eat. Although this setup was only true at the beginning, because after that the bored parasites only fought for "glory", and they were not interested in the lives of the plebs, if they still had their princely lives through them.
Look at which ethnicity the "leaders" of the EU and other countries belong to! The DS Freemason is stirring up trouble through these peoples and inciting the peoples, turning them against each other! Elections? Here is the secret pact of the Hungarian regime change:
Rose Valley Pact
Pact 1 (1988-89)
Pact 2 (2003)
(liberalized version)
1.
Peaceful and friendly withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary.
Providing a base and adequate military force for NATO and the future EU army.
2.
Compensating the Soviet Union for the buildings and assets left behind.
Taking additional loans from the IMF and the World Bank to ensure the continuous impoverishment of the population.
3.
Building friendly political and economic relations between the Soviet Union and Hungary.
Supporting all activities of Israel and the USA, as EU subordinates (member states), promoting world colonization.
4.
Preventing all anti-Soviet (Russian) activities.
Preventing all activities aimed at overthrowing the Zionist (globalist) dictatorship.
5.
Reciprocal opening of the borders between the Soviet Union and Hungary.
Consistently complying with EU anti-discrimination and "free settlement" laws.
6.
Exempting former communist party members from all punishment.
The accountability of the political and economic elite (hereinafter: VIP members) must be based on the principles of fairness and non-discrimination.
7.
Protecting the former communist secret service, border guard and police from possible reprisals.
Protecting VIP members and those who have been members of parliament for (any) government party since 1990 from possible reprisals.
8.
Nominating reliable former communists in other parties in the elections.
VIP members exempted from liability under point 6 will run in the elections as members of the "new opposition".
9.
Saving state property in the hands of former communists.
Ensuring the acquisition and retention of wealth by multinational companies by all means.
10.
Keeping the administration of justice in the hands of former communists.
Keeping the administration of justice in the hands of persons exempted from liability under point 6.
11.
Retaliation against all anti-Jewish statements, movements and organizations.
All anti-Zionist organizations, statements and movements must be classified as inciting hatred by being labeled as anti-Semitic, and the participants must be condemned with exemplary severity on this basis.
12.
Preventing the establishment and organization of right-wing or extreme-right parties.
The establishment of all social organizations and parties that … aim to overthrow the Zionist (globalist) dictatorship must be prevented.
13.
Continuous emphasis that the Hungarian borders are final and cannot be changed.
Continuous emphasis that the Hungarian borders are virtualized in the EU, so neither citizenship nor the location of the borders is of any importance.
14.
The new Hungarian government may not maintain contact with right-wing émigré individuals, organizations and groups.
The new Hungarian government may not maintain contact with Hungarian or émigré organizations and individuals that are opponents of the Zionist (globalist) dictatorship.
15.
Only friendly statements can be made towards the Romanians, Yugoslavs and Slovaks.
Relations with the successor states of Trianon (and their successor states) must in all cases be based on the principle of unilateral concessions.
16.
The Hungarian army must be reduced by one third.
The aim of the Hungarian military is to serve NATO and the EU army, and therefore it must meet the conditions they demand. All national defense tasks - therefore the term "honvéd" - must be banned.
17.
The events of 1956 must be presented as a movement aimed at repairing communism, and only those who interpret it in this way must be given free speech.
The events of 1848 and 1956 must be presented as the ideological predecessors of the new government.
18.
The Soviet Union maintains its political influence in Hungary through the rescued communists, while the United States strengthens its economic influence in Hungarian life.
The Zionist, globalist dictatorship exercises its political influence in Hungary through the rescued VIP members.
19.
Hungary gives a full guarantee for the exercise of the linguistic, folk, cultural, political and economic rights of the Hungarian nationalities.
According to the EU Constitution, Hungary advocates the development of a “European” type of person. It ensures the linguistic, folk, cultural and traditional preservation of Hungarians and Hungarian nationalities “liberally” in the spirit of cosmopolitanism.
20.
Hungary fully compensates Hungarian Jews for the losses they suffered during World War II.
Hungary accepts and readsmits and, in accordance with the EU Constitution's laws on "third country" settlement, grants the right to the Jewish people to consider Hungary, as the founding state, as their homeland.
Budapest, May 28-July 9, 2003 (+KGB, CIA)
You can be sure that every country has such a pact!
Ask the deaths in Naga and Hiroshima if they were guilty or innocent? Ask all those Islanders in the Pacific who had to be transported because they saw their islands nuked because of the tests? Ask all those still suffering from thyroid tumors? Ask 30 million Russians spent in WWIi if it really was their war, or those sacrificed in Diem Bien Phu, or the 30 million Chinese during the great March and ask them for what and if they really had a notion of what the purpose would be? Finally ask yourself what you’re living for, is it only to see and experience what it’s like to be nuked?
What is the purpose of this idiotic comment?
Did you miss the point about the hundreds of thousands dead Russians already and the daily constant bombing of the country?
And about the West preparing for much bigger aggression.
The only way to stop it is to nuke Europe. It is just not possible conventionally. Maybe China could, but Russia has neither the population nor the industrial capacity (industrial capacity that will be degraded by constant unanswered air strikes) to fight against a billion people.
Russian people have suffered enough from Western aggression historically, over many centuries, and the duty of a Russian leader is to protect them. If that means exterminating 300-400 million, so be it. There is no other way.
The big scandal here is why Putin hasn't already done it.
Of course, if GM was in charge, the PEOPLE of Romania, Poland and Eastern Europe would also be "very happy and not at all worried about what will happen to them", right?
Unless they had a deep bunker and lots of iodine to hand, obv.
You accurately see a problem, and then want to "nuke" it as a 'solution'.
Playing Civ against you would be a nightmare, Gandhi.
Because everyone knows that there are two and only two answers to any question - nuclear weapons or surrender.
How are you doing, mascot x? So, have you had any requests for relief from participants here?
Bollocks! Even a moribund empire can last for a long time if not one comes to push it over. Considering the sad state of EUpeon populations, that might very well be the case.
Except that the successors are at best equivalent. The EU is a natural reserve of mongols (cerebral).
Fake democracy isn't a threat to anything. It seals its own fate. But trying to use this to have another go at the Kremlin?? You surpass yourself, GM.
And the troll mentions nukes....again.
He must love the sweet smell of the burning human flesh in the morning.
Hmmm.....cheering for the end of the possibility of free elections in Moldova because Russia can't do anything about it!
And I'm supposed to conclude .....oh that nasty Russia foiled again.........
It's hard to see Ukrainian or NATO troops intervening in Moldova in case Sandu loses the election. That would be too obvious and bad public relations. "Keeping up appearances" is of paramount importance for the elite running the West. Rest "assured": Sandu will win.
They are way past giving a fuck about public relations.
What did they do in Romania with their elections?
Then you had the blatant unprovoked attack on Iran, and now bombing their own vassals (Qatar), etc. etc. etc.
We are way way way past the point of anyone caring about appearances.
The last time anyone was this unhinged was Hitler in the 1940s.
Also, they will move troops and attack the PMR if Sandu wins. That is not in any way contingent on her not winning and them intervening. It's more of the opposite.
They are way past any very basic principle. It means that the other way around at some point others doing the same can not be accused of violating principles and when war will start for good, anyone and her mother will want to jump rope with American guts.
Akshually, the latest Romanian election fiasco makes now more sense. NATO knew it required a friendly Romanian regime for any operation against Moldovan/ Transnistria for moving to the next step of the escalation ladder…
That, and Romania is important for logistics to Ukraine.
Plus it is first in line to be nuked together with Poland, for that very reason.
So a totally obediant government is necessary there.
Not to suggest Hitler was a saint, but even he didn't actively and openly support and conduct a genocide while it was being live streamed. You are quite correct, they are way past giving a fuck about public relations.
You seem as disturbed as him except that you don't have balls but a mussel, otherwise you would post on TikTok from the back front.
"the last time anyone was this unhinged was.."
...GM starting every post with expletives and f-bombs.
There, fixed it for you.
Much of the Eastern border of Moldavia in between itself and Ukraine, is actually Russian occupied territory, Transnistria. Basically a heavily armed redoubt of 350,000 Russian speaking people,
I don't think any Ukro troops are going to plow through it to get into Moldova. There's 40k Russians there now plus 50k locals ready to defend it.
Once Russia hooks up to it, at the request of local referendums, it'll be annexed by the RF.
There may be as many as 50k Uke draft dodgers and uke army awols taking refuge there. The river that separates it from Ukraine is easily fordable, and is the only way out of Ukraine now without going through an armed checkpoint or concertina wire and mines.
sharing an eastern border w/Ukraine, Hungary too is putting up a stink: "...Budapest has resisted pressure from Brussels and Washington to provide weapons to Kiev or support EU sanctions against Russia [...and] Prime Minister Viktor Orban has also accused Ukraine of discriminating against the Hungarian minority in its Transcarpathia Region..." - https://www.rt.com/news/625353-zelensky-losing-mind-szijjarto/
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has also accused Ukraine of discriminating against the Hungarian minority in its Transcarpathia Region..." -
That is a century old story and Orban is a latecomer to the party.
at some point any old excuse will do...
<<There are rumors that various NATO troops, particularly those from France, have arrived to Odessa for various provocations:>>
https://youtu.be/RZGw-o3JIlc?si=UUGIROYM27g6L10H
According to a rumor, the man is a woman and can get pregnant. What do the rumors say about you, about me, about all of us?
Thanks for your great work Simplicius!
We've shared this link on 'The Stacks'
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/the-stacks
Damn, all seems to go back to 2016 when Hillary Clinton and the Democrats screamed foul!! First was Russian election interference with stolen emails given to Wikileaks. Then it was Russia collusion. The Russians have been the fall guy ever since.
Someone should remind other nations of this!
As I finished the article it was clear that my earlier comment was not where the similarities with US Democrats stop. Their tactics sound eerily familiar.
Funny how a country with a per capita GDP and population not much more than Mexico can afford to interfere with so many elections, while the country that can print unlimited amounts of the world's reserve currency and its mighty European vassals can't adequately support the good guys in response.
“As many and as strong as your weapons are, so much is your country, and so much is your bread!” If you think about it, can you argue with that?
By the way, unlimited currency requires the sale of real products that someone has to work for. And if governments deliberately destroy the economy, there will be no place to produce these saleable products. The enemy is not outside, but within countries!
"By the way, unlimited money requires the sale of real products." Incorrect. Money no longer represents traded goods but government securities, in other words, debts.
GDP is a fiction in which the same dollar is counted in multiples; otherwise, how can we explain why states have to resort to borrowing? As Solovyov says, "why invade Europe? What resources would encourage Russia to do so?" Debt is not a resource.
There are certainly people who eat government bonds, gold, money, etc. and dress in them, live in them, light things with them, etc. Therefore, they don't really need such obsolete things as products, but there are those who take them on debt because they haven't been able to switch to consuming them yet... If they switch to eating sunlight, then money as a debt could disappear too, because its value is only as much as I can consume with it. I mean, hopefully they don't ban the sun if that's the case...
Plentiful and powerful weapons are necessary for safety in a dangerous world, no doubt.
Unlimited money printing is a privilege that lasts only until it doesn't.
And they can only print unlimited money because they are backed by powerful weapons and an army.
Ever heard of the Zinoviev Letter, Luke?
This bollocks has a LONG history.
No, I haven’t heard of it. Will google it unless you have a good link.
In brief it was a fake letter created by the British Secret Service alleging collusion between the Bolsheviks and the British Labour Party. Zinoviev was the USSR's foreign Minister.
It worked to discredit Labour and win the Election for the Conservatives.
Can anybody talk to me about this allegation that Ukraine has hit so many oil industry sites that there are now gas lines in Russia?
Robert Lindsay
There are always gas lines in the boonies of Russia at this time of the year as people get their last bit of travel in before the weather turns. It is definitely worse this year though because even the cities were affected for a few days. The Russian government blocked the export of gasoline by those seeking higher international prices. That has resolved the issue in the cities and the boonies problem will resolve itself organically as it always does now that the weather is starting to play a role in reducing driving.
Gasoline deliveries are down about ten percent. What the Ukrainians do is strike at the storage facilities which are really big and really easy to hit. The refineries themselves are massive with multiple production trains producing different refined products as needed. There is no golden beebee shot that can disable a refinery. But blowing up the storage tanks that facilitate switching from one product output to another in an efficient manner is doable. Also it makes for great photos in the Western media where they can claim that it is visible proof the entire refinery is in flames.
Fires in western refineries are not routine but they are fairly common. The refinery is shut down for a few hours while the fire is actually put out and then operations resume as per normal except for possibly the one production train directly affected by the fire.
Thank you do much for that comment. You put it very succinctly. I said much the same thing days ago and the trolls came unglued all over me. They don't like the narrative of "Russia's a burning gas station" broken.. thanks.
I don't want to make is sound like it is not an inconvenience for Russia. If nothing else, the Russian general public couldn't help but notice that Ukraine was causing them personal difficulties even if it turns out to be for a short time and relatively minor.
Of course, there is the issue of the loss of tax revenue resulting from forgoing gasoline export sales. On the other hand the surplus crude left over from the reduced gasoline production resulted in a spike in Russian crude exports. Mostly to India and China where *they* turned it into gasoline. So while there was some loss of tax revenue it wasn't particularly damaging.
"Gasoline deliveries are down about ten percent. What the Ukrainians are doing is hitting storage facilities, which are really large and very easy to hit." This temporarily disrupts local fuel availability, but not at the national level, because the entire fuel stockpile covers years of needs. Being delivered fuel from the reserve 50 km away is not the same as being delivered from the reserve 600 km away. And then there's the reaction of worried consumers, who are building their own reserves and depleting the stockpile. Russia may be the only nation with mobile reserves, but the logistics still take a little time. Hitting a refinery or a storage center isn't complicated; these are large industrial complexes that a drone can't miss, and we know there are so many of them that they can't all be protected. Finally, there are exports, which companies favor because the price is higher than the domestic one, which is why the government prohibits exports from time to time.
Is your request motivated by a passion for collecting rumors and fakes?
WTF Chat Control mass surveillance? It's out of Orwell's 1984. The EU is folding in on itself like a black hole.
E tu, EU?
Never expected you to drop your "akins" and call a spade a spade:-)
Soon they will teach a few lessons to Orwell himself.
Huxley too.
Cloned VDL's and Kallas's in charge for eternity. What a dream... ;')
I don't see how war is any solution to all these authoritarian take-overs all over the western world, but it seems like its on its way. I hope not
If the contradictions of the system become too large to handle, they'll take you to war. The economics of capitalism need a reset every time the profit rate is turning down and the debt becomes ridiculously. Authoritarian take-overs are just the pretext to martial law and then war.
well, you make it sound like its a circle, but I think this time we need to break free of the oligarchs. Somehow. This digital ID and CBDCs are something we cannot let them take us into. I don't understand why the citizens of Germany don't vote for Sahra Wegennacht. Seems like at least half of humanity doesnt ' get it ' about the oligarchs and the Rot Queen of Europe etc.
Sahra Wagenknecht is the second alternative in Germany. Since she turned away from the woke identity nonsense of 'die Linke' and started her own movement, she's the "evil red queen" again who want's to bring back the socialist times before 1989.
Hopelessly underfunded and with almost no media presence, she was excluded from the Bundestag because she missed he 5% hurdle by a statistical error of about 2000 votes, or around that Number.
It's the ultra liberal AfD who has the funding and the media presence to take over first.
Only after people will realize that a "Miley approach" will weaken Germany further, only then the time will be ripe for Sahra Wagenknecht. If she's still around at that time. There is no strong 'Left' in Germany anymore, their spine was broken since 1990 under relentless beating of the media, infiltration with woke identitarian subjects and the indoctrination of the people that 'Left' = Evil.
yes, but that's what I mean. The people in Germany seem to be stupid. I know they're not - they're a great people and although I haven't been there. But the propaganda is strong everywhere - and yet I'm not succumbed to it. So what's their excuse except stupidity ? I suppose Canadians are the same but we don't have an alternative. Even that guy Maxine Bernier is not like Sahra.
Dear Ann, I am sorry to say so but my fellow Germans are stupid, afraid and more and more ignorant. The main focus of today's academia is to use a gender correct language. People losing their jobs en masse and blaming Russia, because Russia capped the natural gas delivery, what is not true.
Anything bad comes from Putin/Putler and around 70% of Germans are proud now that they have never read a book in their life. Times are bad and getting worse in good old Germany and many flee the country, seeing no future there anymore and don't want to go to war.
i don't think people are stupid (though many are) but they're unthinking conformists, who clutch to their "own" beliefs and you can turn blue trying to convince them that water is wet...
Dear Frank, one thing I just can't understand about your country is their apparent supine acceptance of Nordstream being destroyed, with barely a squeak of protest. It was a "golden ticket" of affordable, fixed price Gas for two generations at least. I just hope the people on the street know they were shafted and are as impotent as pretty much everybody else under their own corrupt, captured and compromised leadership. Btw, I think my fellow English citizens are equally, if not more stupid than you Germans.
Frank, oh that is so sad. I am an avid reader of Rudolf Steiner and his message was to the German people. They are the best and yet the worst. Its complex what he says but I think that there are initiatives in Germany that are the best in the world - cooperative living and even small banking initiatives - also agricultural initiatives. But then there is the worst. Merz. How could they have voted him in with Sahra right there ? I never can figure it out. And where do they go I wonder ? Its hard to find another place in these times. I bet some of the quiet ones go to Russia. There they will find themselves.
Frank, it's very similar here in the UK.
The application of terms like »stupid« or »evil«, which happens often, is not helpful when talking politics. In fact, it leads into a wrong direction. C. Wright Mills in his »Power Elite« analysis’ last chapter talks about the people whom he calls »the masses« (Orwell: »proles«). These are never responsible for the deeds of the elite—corporate leaders, warlords and state directors (Mills). Of course, the latter, if things went south, always make them responsible. That worked brilliantly in Germany post 1945. Today almost nobody doubts that »the Germans« were responsible »for Hitler«, whereas it is quite easy to find out who really was: the German elite, the Thyssens, Krupps, Abs et al. So, Thucydides was right: »The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.« Always the case, at home and in international relations. I believe.
I'd say it was a multi-decade long effort to make most of the people stupid and dumb across the board. The schooling, the media, the movies, the captured politicians etc. Avg german is probably still a genius compared to the avg american though... if that's any consolation.
The censorship complex publicly pillories dissidents, ruins their reputation, enforces dismissals and de facto professional bans, destroys livelihoods. Journalists and representatives of aid organizations are placed on sanctions lists beyond the law.
These processes add up to an anti-democratic “censorship industry” through which governments, with the help of secret services, digital companies, transatlantic think tanks, the so-called GONGOS – government organized nongovernment organizations -, media and associations, control and monitor their citizens and combat undesirable opinions.
Why is Germany destroying the remnants of its parliamentary democracy and, orchestrated by NATO and its leading power, the United States, running into new wars after the devastating wars of annihilation that started on German soil in the 20th century?
In twelve theses, I outline an overall picture that shows Germany as an example of the decline of the West.
Status Quo
Thesis 1: Economically, Germany is on the brink of collapse.
Thesis 2: Berlin’s political self-enslavement to the U.S. is now taking its revenge.
Thesis 3: In military terms, Germany and NATO have lost the war in Ukraine.
Thesis 4: Germany is experiencing a process of civilizational decline and cultural neglect.
Thesis 5: The decline of the German economy stems from long lines of self-destruction.
Thesis 6: German policy follows the primacy of the financial industry and thus destroys its industrial foundations.
Thesis 7: NATO’s eastward expansion is the main cause of the war in Ukraine. Germany could have prevented it.
Thesis 8: The Ukraine war is the most brazen propaganda lie that has been fed to the Germans since 1945.
Thesis 9: Economically, Germany – like Europe – is on the brink of collapse.
Thesis 10: Most European leaders have no chance but to prolong the war militarily.
Thesis 11: The war is a war against its own population and against democracy.
Thesis 12: Germany – a country without opposition.
Patrik Baab: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/09/15/quo-vadis-deutschland-an-obituary-in-twelve-theses/
thank you - I'll have a look - I've revently been banned from X for just making comments - I don't even mantain a page there. So I'm now having to go to websites and read more aticles instead of sound bites. I will bookmark Consortium News. I guess my questioning really is - why is it that we didn't fall for all this bullshit ( about Sahra and everything ) and yet so many peole in Germany have.
If you really thought germany was on the brink of economic collapse, then short bunds.
The world needs German engineering. Meanwhile their leaders are pissing on a forest fire.
Seems to me the ' leaders ' that Germany has are arsonists. And the world definitely needs Germany and Germans to be free of this darkness that has overtaken its ' leadership ' What an awful word.
China publishes far more patents.
They're stupid. Europeans like being slaves.
yes. I agree - especially Germans. I like them, but I worked at a lumberyard in a tourist town in Canada and I would ask German tourists if they liked Madam Merkel and all of them did.
As the German economy is slowly going doooown, I am wondering what they are going to do with the millions of immigrants who receive all those welfare benefits there.
Actually, it's very like the situation in your own America. With a declining birthrate, Germany is banking on the immigrants and their descendants to keep the lights on in the future.
Without H-1B visas and migrant labour, I look forward to the shrinking of the American economy.
As it shrinks it cannot keep up it's warmongering. What we're seeing today is it's last hurrah before the candle goes out.
Without H-1B visas and migrant labour, I look forward to the shrinking of the American economy.
It is already above the horizon, with or without those fine things.
let's also remember its merger w/East Germany (Fall of the Wall). in retrospect a great move on the geopolitical chessboard bringing NATO and the UE closer to Russia.
I listened to Wagenknecht speak. She is a class act.
The AfD cou8ld toss migrant children alive and screaming into piranha tanks, and the german media would sing hosannas, as long as the AfD supported American hegemony in general and the War On Russia in particular.
The AfD will either get banned or they will get the message, presumably choosing to sell out for the highest price.
You will encounter a problem. After accepting a vagina, how will you redevelop balls?
Capitalism thrives on competition. There is no competition per se in the US, there are few monopolies in every industry absorbing the rest. Even the job market has shrunk significantly - instead of a multitude of employers, just a very few left.
It thrives on competition, but left to itself it creates monopolies.
The elites want monopolies, any competition is an anathema.
The billionaire elites in the US are increasing at a rate of 17% annually. This creates an irresistible urge and imperative for the US regime to go to war. If not clipped in the bud somehow, these billionaires will be our masters and we their serfs, by 2030. The Elites are racing at breakneck speed to make agenda 2030 happen, and it is happening.
"If the contradictions of the system become too great to manage, they will lead you to war. The capitalist economy needs to be reset every time the rate of profit falls and debt becomes ridiculous. Authoritarian power grabs are only a pretext for martial law and then war."
No, not for Third Worldization. The rest of the world, for its own protection, will isolate you and cease all trade with you; you will die economically.
Not just the western world.
Hi Smita - which country were you thinking of ? India ? I agree with you - its almost like India is a part of the west as far as its government - I suppose its zionism. Wherever that has become a parasite it makes the country western. But perhaps you were meaning another country ?
No. You are right. Many decisions have recently been taken which benefit the West. There is also support for Israel to our utter horror. We have been campaigning for years for a measure of space for industrial/ tech policy but recently the boulder has rolled back to its Sisyphean default level.
so sad. I wonder how the population of the earth will overcome this horror. Do you think if somehow zionism was outlawed, everything would become normal as it was before zionism ? I suppose the people behind zionism would still exist. The british masons and oligarchs. Money is the root of all evil perhaps.
The whole world is turning against Zionism, younger Americans included. But Big Tech has formed an alliance with Zionists and all States including democracies have become surveillance States, (https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-world-is-following-the-china-model-10267422: unfortunately paywalled). So there is and there isn't hope. And people over here arent well informed so still support Israel despite its government's genocidal actions.
are the people over there pro Israel or is it just the Hindus. I don't know the stats on how many Hindus there are to Muslims. Surely the Muslims aren't pro-zionist/Israel. I have friends here in Canada ( they own the local grocery store ) who are Hindu and I always ask about India but they don't want to talk about it too much. They are anti-Muslim because they say Muslims are terrorists. Such nonsense, but possibly in India too, you have the Takfiris - ISIS types. But possibly these folks in my neighbourhood are waking up now, because of the Tariffs. The food prices here are skyrocketing. The owner of the store said to me ' Its the politicians " Hopefully all this prevelant evil wakes people up. And then I suppose the path will present itself over time - as to how to overcome these oligarchs and their evil plans.
The state of western corruption has never been more obvious.
Honestly, our animal emotions concerning such madness and stupidity can lead us to great frustration and irrational responses. I confess, after reading about the horrors of EU digital totalitarianism - and personally having experienced the same at home - I have moments when I feel like I would almost welcome global thermonuclear armageddon. It is not only the existence of agents of pure evil which rankles, it is the even more depressing spectacle of the vast majority of humanity submitting to the evil without a fight.
Agree 💯%. Let it end, humans cannot be saved. The small group of evil exploiting all human weaknesses of the majority of the crowd. There is no miracle solution. But then again, maybe you and I don’t want to live in such world, but the other 7 billion will just be living fine.
My 2 cents... Spiritually. It's our Soul wrestling with what it "sees" in this material world. We are born into a system built on no morals. usury, lies, deception etc. I call it "the cage." Similar to one who gets a puppy. Trained to, for good behavior rewards, bad behavior retreat to the kennel (cage). A place of the "big lie" of safety, comfort etc.
For most the lie is all they know. For a very few in tuned with their soul, the "gut feeling" saying this all stinks.
Emotions is the driver of misery. The trap that holds our souls.
When one comes to complete calmness spiritually, then one begins to "see" the truth.
You confirm that the Westerner has mutated into a vagina and prefers death to freedom, pride, honor, etc. You are free, don't wait for others to rid you of this, sacrificing others in the process.
I confess, I do have a vagina. Are you suggesting it is necessary for elderly women to become warriors because (most) young western men will not? Or are you suggesting I should commit suicide, which is a sin. Either way, your statement makes no sense to me.
Speaking of vaginas, I'm thinking of the Amazons, those men who no longer have anything masculine and everything fearful woman. Regarding suicide, that's your business, your decision; it's also a sin to ask others to end you with nuclear fire, even if it means taking others with you.
Your last sentence says it all!
The prophet Frank Zappa (groove be upon him) told us as much some time ago:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12280-the-illusion-of-freedom-will-continue-as-long-as-it-s
If I sit on the other side of the table, the EU/globalist/NATO side, I'm thinking "this is what winning looks like"
No argument with anything you're saying Simplicious, but none of these actions have consequences. Most Europeans don't even argue the point anymore, yes democracy is gone but life just isn't bad enough. The people drink their medicine and simply carry on with their lives. And, waiting for a "collapse" of EU economies and whatnot will be a long wait indeed.
It all a bit Ancien Regime, all a bit of 1848.
You can squeeze the poor indefinitely, but when it starts to really impact the middle classes and bourgeoisie, you're buggered.
We are approaching that tipping point, perhaps?
Not really. Throughout most human societies for most of history, you have the oligarchs, the rulers, enjoying lives of virtually unlimited wealth and power, and then there are the peons, that is, everyone else.
We are simply seeing the reversion to the mean.
It is becoming very clear to the world why the West promoted the idea of "Freedumb and Democrazy" to developing nations, though almost none of the western states started out as democracies. Forcing countries to adopt the most corruptible form of government will hinder development with corrupt officials who will do the bidding of their corruptors at expense of nationhood. Considering that the western nations controlled the paper which was accepted as value they always had the power to keep their boots on the neck of the developing world while eliminating patriots who had their nations best interest at heart. The only freedom in today's world is "economic/financial" from a national or personal level. if you have it or live in it, you are free if you don't you are not. As Europeans lose their wealth so will go their freedoms. Maybe in a distant future, if there is one to have, people will speak of the despotic dictators in Europe or maybe they will go back to having despotic monarchs.
European wealth and freedoms all came from their colonies by enslaving them, and robbing them from their resources and richness.
Maybe worth adding the brutal exploitation of their own "poor, peasant, serf" class. Life for the underclass in Victorian Industrial Britain was tough and often short lived.
the Industrial Revolution... urbanisation... full of unintended consequences: abolishing past communities, barely addressing poverty, still waging for-ever wars, wealth flowing upwards into the clutches of Big Business. it's been a miserable development in human culture.
It was full of INTENTIONAL consequences. None of what happened was unplanned.
Most normal people would think that impoverishing entire communities would surely be a mistake. But to sociopaths and bean-counters, it can and is often a goal.
in 1784 (only 5 years before the outbreak of French Revolution) when Samuel Greg's Quarry Bank Mill Weaving Shed was founded as well as many more factories using steam powered machines neither labourers nor factory/business owners could foresee what the massive draining of the country side (agricultural communities) and the irreversible shift in production would bring about. did governments and 'industrialists' (or, according to Marx, them pesky "capitalists") have a better understanding? perhaps. yet here we are, with advancements in public health and an attainable degree of prosperity for many. humanity needs more than that to sustain it. we'll see.
Two words: Enclosure Acts.
Yet the poorest in the US today live like kings compared to the conditions they faced back then. People didn't flock to the cities because they thought it would be fun -- just better than what they had back on the land. They weren't stupid. And as with all things, you pays your money and you takes your bets.
Actually, in terms of free time, life enjoyment, social relations, and even local democracy, life for 'commoners' was generally better back then. If you remove all the technology, and the productivity that burning billions of barrels of oil gives, conditions today are pretty miserable.
Now immigration has become the new Colonialism. How many clandestine factories are there, not only in the UK where illegal Indian, Pakistani and Afghans are working, eating and sleeping next to their knitting machines and producing much cheaper as imported from their countries. Father Daems the movie gives a real view, how it was living and working in the mines and factories. Men became too expensive they were replaced by their women, raped and abused during work, then they became too expensive also replaced by the children, even beaten everyday and girls 5, 6 years raped and killed. Anno 2025 we have a modern version of this slavery, imported in the ex colonial counties; Immigration favourable clandestine works.
Simplistic calumny. The world is much more complex than your third grade textbook told you.
Fuck off Ursula von der Leyen! Long rise the anti vaxers
I laughed when von der Leyen announced the "global health blah blah initiative". Does she really think the rest of the world is dependent on Europe saving their health? The Imperial arrogance is so embedded they can't see it.
Probably a handout to the EU pharmaceutical companies hit by the 100% Trump tariffs.
Nostalgia for 2020. The whole world was scared and cowered in their houses for a virus that only killed the vulnerable, as viruses will do. And then they got almost everyone to comply with taking an experimental drug. Good times
Well Russia made it clear since 2023 that an attack on Transnistria would result in a declaration of war against Ukraine. Even though the enclave is geographically separated from Russia, the cowardly Ukrainian leadership did not attempt an offensive as they know a declaration of war would enable Russia to target them. With the desperation now at fever pitch in the west all options are open so all is a wait and see if Moldovans will follow in the steps of the Ukrainians. The over used Ukrainian sympathy and demonizing Russia campaign is running out of global support. What will happen when or if the Russians actually start commiting the crimes Russia has been accused of commiting since the SMO commenced? There is always a consequence to crying wolf too many times.
It's not 2023 anymore though, the degenerates in Kiev have serious weapons themselves now
Or rather, NATO has moved into Ukraine with serious weapons, and the drug addicts in Kiev are disposable, but that only makes the situation much more difficult.
Run the decision tree.
First, they move in from the north into the PMR
What does Russia do? Let's say it takes out Zelensky, then what?
Well, now it's open season for strikes on the Kremlin, but in addition to that NATO moves in from the south.
What does Russia do then?
It either has to fold and let the people in the PMR be slaughtered, or it will have to nuke Romania. Likely Poland too. There is no other move left.
I would nuke Romania with zero hesitation, but does Putin look like someone who does not hesitate and does not ultimately fail to act decisively in critical moments?
Nuke them here, nuke them there, nuke everyone everywhere.
You really are an ignorant dumb as dog shit child, a fool, a moron. A general Moron.
(then why engage in conversation?)
I don't. I verbally smack the troll down. That is not conversing.
yeye... ;-))
Using a nuclear weapon is easy (?); it’s the strategic planning to handle the world-wide “fallout” that GM never provides.
Yeah you would niuke the whole planet everyone knows that, you would nuke nuke nuke then nuke some more.
I just have questions what are the serious weapons that Kien now have? NATO will come from the north with what and where is the North? NATO/US whole military doctrine is based on air power which air bases will they use to project that airpower? Any build up of air craft on NATO bases will be spotted by Russian space based surveillance and air bases are huge immovable facilities impossible to disguise. How will NATO logistically support any major force in Odessa if Russia does declare war on Ukraine? Yes there is no way Russia can defend the Transnistrian but they are not defenseless. Plus any attacking force against Transnistria would be targeted by every available Geran, Gerbera, ballistic cruise and hypersonic missile in Russia's arsenal. The Russians have probably planned in everyway for this scenario. In a sense, a major push again Transnistria would expose a high concentration of Ukrainian military personnel making it a very high cost even if there is success.
>Any build up of air craft on NATO bases will be spotted by Russian space based surveillance and air bases are huge immovable facilities impossible to disguise.
Yes, huge immovable facilities that are impossible to fully take out without using nukes. How many hundreds of cruise missiles, dozens of Kinzhals, and probably thousands of Gerans have hit just Starokonstantinov? And yet it is still operating...
>How will NATO logistically support any major force in Odessa if Russia does declare war on Ukraine?
How can Russia disrupt logistics through Romania and Ukraine without using nukes?
See how it always comes back to the nukes.
Because it is not 1944 anymore, and you cannot send a couple hundred four-engine bombers on a single sortie to drop 1500 tons of bombs over the enemy's deep rear. There is air defense these days and that has been largely impossible against a peer enemy since the 1960s.
Then you are left with missiles and drones. But nothing has changed, no, scratch that, a lot has in fact changed regarding the nature of all those targets in the rear that you need to take out -- they have been hardened in a major way with an eye towards a big war for decades during the Cold War. Sure, PGMs mitigate against that a bit, but the fundamental math does not change all that much -- you have large-footprint targets, both linear ones and stuff like airfields, so you need a huge amount of explosives to disable them conventionally. And nobody has that many missiles (OK, maybe the Chinese do; maybe).
Modern war against a peer adversary is largely impossible to win without using nukes. That is the ultimate consequence of advanced air defense, the super high cost (thus low volumes) of modern military aircraft, everyone having hardened their valuables, etc.
<<<<<<How can Russia disrupt logistics through Romania and Ukraine without using nukes?<<<<<
Who will move what through Romania and Ukraine?
By who, I mean specifically who? By what, I mean specifically what will they move that they aren't already moving into Ukraine? Exactly what is it that Russia has to fear so much in your scenario that their only choice is to use nukes?
Well it is not 1944, yes but you are still stuck on 1950s technology. Russia demonstrated the Oreshnic, basically a medium range missile with multiple reentry vehicles just not armed with nuclear warheads. We are living in the 21st century only the Russian general staff know what options are available to them. NATO in the meantime may not know until they end up on the receiving end. I guess you should advance to discussing the neutron bomd as that technology is a little more modern than the 1950s atomic bonds you are so fascinated with.
Oreshnic [sic]
A kilogram of explosive is still a kilogram of explosive.
And an IRBM's payload isn't all that much.
You are much better off sending 40 Gerans at 90 kg each than an Oreshink with 36 x 100. Order of magnnitude price difference, if not two.
If we make it 36 x 100-kg nuclear warheads, likely good for 50 kT each, then we are in business
The issue with your assertion is you don't know the type of explosive that would be used in a deployed Oreshnic warhead. You don't know the yield of those explosive warheads. The reality is yield is not based on the weight of the explosive but on the explosive magnitude measured in the equivalent TNT blast. The Oreshnic strike on the Yushmesh industrial plant were with inert warheads, as reported by the Russians. Yet for some reason the Ukrainian refuse to disclose the damage. Imagine if those war heads are armed with the aluminium based explosive the Russians rumor the Oreshnic warheads would be armed with? Unlike you I don't know so I rarely assume I generally ask questions mostly.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Amazingly enough there are other tools -- but you can't get past your fixation on hammers (nukes).
Please explain to me how Russia can get out of this situation without using nukes.
I have explained at great lenght why it can't
You are totally focused on winning the war in the shortest amount of time. Russia is focused on winning the peace.
"The Russians have probably planned in everyway for this scenario."
Indeed.
"The Russians don't take a dump without a plan son..." Chip
You nuke too much and Fock too less
Our daily Russia's weak Ukroprop mantra...
how about you came here and suck some romanian dick, you seem to have an obession with romanians.
Everyone knows that there are two and only two possible response to any dilemma - nuclear weapons (lots and lots!) and surrender.
The view of their own backyard by our troubled political frontmen and women is increasingly a projection of their own night terrors, not the real world. They are descending into madness, not us. They are getting sicker and it shows. What next for them? It will not be war, an objective phenomenon curiously resilient to wishful thinking, or hysterical imaginings (some voices in the independent media need to remember that).
Our managers are losing their marbles. Soon they will gone and we will look back on this time as evidence of their own degradation, not a globe in crisis. Other fear projections are on the way out. Climate change (eeek, the climate is changing, who knew!), covid-babble.
Cheer up folks. It is darkest before the dawn. 'AI' is our friend, not theirs (and they fear the truth of this too). Not all paranoia is delusion. Something is coming for them. They sweat out this fear each night. There is an old name for it. Nemesis.
Maybe, Perhaps, Hopefully; 3i Atlas will zap the baddies in some kind of wrath of God, divine retribution and thus deliver us from evil at the very last minute ;-).
Btw: anyone find it suspiciously disturbing and very convenient for some, that Venezuela gets hit by two big Earthquakes just now ?
Very insightful. My own thoughts exactly.
Sandy looks like the Great Whore of Babylon.
it's a horrible, thoroughly synthetic image. Ai's not our friend.