I read that we’ve entered a “post truth” age. I dislike the term because it seems too sure of itself, as if it encompasses all there is to encompass. As if it should come to mean the same thing to everyone. The worst is “holocaust”, a word I’ve forbidden myself to use for the reasons just mentioned.
Sure, something’s been accelerating. It’s hard to miss the competitive manipulation taking place in the “information age”, another shorthand though with more authenticity. At a certain point in his presidency, the Washington Post catalogued 10,000 of Donald Trump’s lies. They were practically giddy about it. “Now we’ve got him!”, they seemed to be saying. “10,000!”.
Isador Feinstein Stone published the newsletter, I. F. Stone’s Weekly, from 1953-1971. Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and Eleanor Roosevelt were among the first subscribers. (If the reader is unimpressed, this is a good place to stop.) As an investigative journalist, Stone’s bedrock principle was that all governments lie. It’s tempting to say that we find too few like him today. More to the point, there are always and everywhere too few like him. They are the anti-authoritarians.
Once we accept as a given that all governments lie, it reduces to, whose lies can you trust? The answer is easy. You’ll trust the lies of your own country before any other. An example of “post truth”? No, the truth about the lies.
To lie is to be at cross-purposes with the target of the lie. It exposes an adversarial relationship between the two. The unavoidable conclusion is that government is in an adversarial relationship with its own people. How do these cross-purposes come to exist between our government and the people it lies to?
First we should define the sides in this internal conflict because it’s not just government on one side. Multinational corporations have become such a potent force that government must consult with them, and vice versa. Their symbiosis is based on capitalism with a revolving door existing between the public and private sector. When you’re high up in one, you’re not far from the other.
We wouldn’t know we were being lied to without government’s microphone, the mega corporations that disseminate information to us, also a potent international force. And then, easy to overlook, what is government but the only two competing political parties in America, “both sides of the aisle”. There is an aisle, and Democrats and Republicans do sit on opposing sides. And they do have their differences. Otherwise you couldn’t tell them apart. But these differences largely run along cultural lines, and increasingly so.
Not that these are unimportant. They’re very important, but the parties come to be identified mainly by their stances and clashes on sexuality, civil rights, reproduction, religion, immigration and skin color to the exclusion of what could be the most crucial area to disagree on, but isn’t.
Are we to assume that because they differ so strongly on certain things, that their agreement on other things is a good indication of their virtue? I think not because such conformity is less a sign of reasoned judgment than of subordination to larger interests. The result of their general agreement is that we have no major political party independent of capitalist imperialism as promulgated by Wall Street, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the intelligence/security industry.
This is where the “national interest” is manufactured, the great secret plans that are hammered out for our own good. Ordinary people cannot be entrusted to determine the interests of their own country because they might be at odds with the manufactured kind.
Imagine if the public had had a say over the question, in 2003, of whether or not we should invade Iraq. No, forget that. That’s not a good example. The public was in favor of it. But why? For months we were the target of an intense propaganda campaign to sway our support for a decision to attack that had already been made. If you convince people that we’re fighting them “over there” so that we don’t have to fight them “over here”, well, that figures to be enough to win them over.
Now go back to 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Much talk about a “peace dividend”. Nice ring to it. The United States has had the lion’s share of the world’s wealth since WW2, and now it had the wealth and no viable rivals anywhere in sight.
However, it was considered to be in the “national interest” to expand NATO, an alliance solely formed to counter the communist menace of the Soviet Union, which no longer existed. There was to be no peace dividend. It’s a made-up thing anyway.
Since then, 13 countries have joined NATO pushing east toward Russia’s borders. Russia’s leadership regards it as a provocation. You can argue against this but only if you wouldn’t consider it a provocation if Russia had formed a military alliance with Cuba, Mexico, and Canada, or any of the three. I suspect patriotic Americans will reject this dialectic.
Imagine if the public had had a say over the question, in 1991, of whether or not we should expand our military alliance with its attendant costs, or whether we should reap the dividend by seeking a more cooperative relationship with the whole of Eurasia including the Middle East. Missing was the propaganda campaign to win our support for a peace dividend so that we could spend “over here” instead of “over there”.
People will instinctively choose peace over war. We are naturally possessed of that much empathy for others. You have to be marshaled into killing. That we identify with peoples’ suffering is evident in all the Ukrainian flag flying. That’s people, not states. States deal in straight power concepts. It is in the anarchist spirit to resist this.
To declare that Ukraine is a pawn in a great-power game greatly overstates the country’s role. A pawn can force a win by checkmate or through progression. A better metaphor is Ukraine is the board the game is being played on. The main players are the United States and Russia.
The US-led NATO contingent would like to diminish Russia as a regional power so that it can fully concentrate on its primary target, China. Russia would like to diminish NATO and expand its influence throughout Eurasia.
On February 4, Russia and China formally announced a strategic partnership, essentially declaring their intention to remake the world order. This wouldn’t have come as a surprise to the United States because it sits atop the existing world order — precariously — and knows perfectly well about the threat China poses to its hegemony. Russia needs China. China doesn’t need Russia, but finds it useful. This accounts for its “hands off” policy in Ukraine.
Putin seems to have calculated, correctly, that the United States has no appetite for a direct military clash over Ukraine. The partnership building with China was likely decisive in ordering the strike. The United States is in full-hypocrisy mode when Nancy Pelosi pledges, “to help the Ukrainian people as they defend democracy for their nation and for the world.”
You’re supposed to be oblivious to the United States orchestrated coup, in 2014, that removed a democratically elected Ukrainian president because he was not sufficiently pro-West. The script never changes. But you can trust it.
James Rothenberg writes on U.S. social and foreign policy.
I am glad to be here again, at this anniversary assembly. Last time, we met in this room on October 2, 2021. But I have an impression that this was in a totally different historical epoch.
I would like to congratulate you on the 30th anniversary of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. Its activities are a fine example of Russian expert involvement in the foreign policy process. From the very start, the Council has brought together professionals, including politicians, state officials, journalists, academics, and entrepreneurs. Throughout these years, this has ensured an effective and rewarding combination of practical experience and impeccable knowledge of the subject matter. Therein lies the key to comprehending the most complex international processes, particularly at stages like the present one. Advice, analytical materials, and debates (occasionally heated debates involving a clash of opinions) are of much help to us. We invariably take them into consideration in our foreign policy activities.
It is a cliche to say that this meeting is taking place at a historical turning point. I agree with the experts (Mr Karaganov and Mr Lukyanov have written a lot about this), who say that we again have to choose a historical path, like we did in 1917 and 1991.
The external circumstances have not just changed radically; they are changing ever more profoundly and extensively (though not becoming more elevated, unfortunately) with each passing day. And our country is changing along with them. It is drawing its conclusions. The choice we have taken is made easier by the fact that the “collective West” has declared a total hybrid war against us. It is hard to forecast how long this will last. But it is clear that its consequences will be felt by everyone without exception.
We did everything in our power to avoid a direct conflict. But they issued a challenge and we have accepted it. We are used to sanctions. We have been living under one or another form of sanctions for a long time now. The surprising thing is a surge of rabid Russophobia in almost all “civilised” countries. They have thrown to the wind their political correctness, propriety, rules, and legal norms. They are using the cancel culture against all things Russian. All hostile actions against our country are allowed, including robbery. Russian cultural figures, artists, athletes, academics, businesspeople and just ordinary citizens are exposed to harassment.
This campaign has not bypassed Russian diplomats. They often have to work under extreme conditions, occasionally with a risk to their health or life. We do not remember anything like the current massive and synchronised expulsion of diplomats happening even in the grimmest Cold War years. This is destroying the general atmosphere of relations with the West. On the other hand, this is freeing up energy and human resources for work in the areas with which our country’s future development should be associated.
In accordance with the demands of the times, we are carrying out our professional duties conscientiously and to the fullest extent. There are no traitors among our diplomats, although such attempts have been made from abroad and within the country. We do our best to defend the rights and interests of Russian citizens abroad. When the West hysterically reacted to the beginning of our special military operation and all flights were cancelled, we immediately helped Russians who were abroad at the time to return home. The routine consular services to Russians (of which there have always been many) are provided as always. It is clear that the situation demands that the diplomatic service works in a special regime. This is required by the new tasks set by the country’s leadership to protect national interests.
This is not only and not so much about Ukraine, which is being used as an instrument to contain the peaceful development of the Russian Federation in the context of their course to perpetuate a unipolar world order.
The Americans started preparing the current crisis long ago, right after the end of the Cold War, having decided that the way to global hegemony was then open. NATO’s eastward expansion has been one of the key components of such a course. We tried hard to convince them not to do this. We showed where and why our red lines are drawn. We were flexible, ready to make concessions and look for compromises. All this proved futile. President Vladimir Putin reminded us of this once again in his speech on May 9 on Red Square.
Today Western countries are ready to oppose Russia, as they now say, “to the last Ukrainian”. At first glance, this is a very convenient position, especially for the United States, which is managing these processes from across the ocean. At the same time, they are weakening Europe by clearing its markets for its goods, technologies and military-technical products.
In fact, the situation has many layers. Russia, the United States, China and all others realise that it is being decided today whether the world order will become fair, democratic and polycentric, or whether this small group of countries will be able to impose on the international community a neo-colonial division of the world into those who consider themselves “exceptional” and the rest – those who are destined to do the bidding of the chosen few.
This is the aim of the “rules-based order” concept that they have sought to introduce into general circulation for years. No one has seen, or discussed, or approved these “rules”, but they are being imposed on the international community. As an example, let me quote a recent statement by US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, who called for a new Bretton Woods framework and said that the United States would practice “the friend-shoring of supply chains to a large number of trusted countries” that shared “a set of [liberal] norms and values about how to operate in the global economy.” The hint is absolutely clear: the US dollars and the “benefits” of the international financial system are only for those who follow these American “rules.” Dissenters will be punished. Clearly, Russia is not the sole target, all the more so as we will fight back. The attack is aimed at all those capable of conducting an independent policy. Take, for example, Washington’s pet Indo-Pacific strategy, which is directed against China. In parallel, it seeks to firmly and reliably harness India to the US and NATO. In the spirit of the Monroe doctrine, the United States wants to dictate standards to Latin America. The inevitable question is whether the Americans are really able to follow the key principle of the UN Charter, which states: “The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.”
The “rules-based order” envisions neither democracy, nor pluralism even within the “collective West.” The case in point is the revival of tough bloc discipline and an unconditional submission of the “allies” to Washington’s diktat. The Americans will not stand on ceremony with their “junior partners.” The EU will finally lose all attributes of independence and obediently join the Anglo-Saxon plans to assert the unipolar world order, while sacrificing the Europeans’ quality of life and key interests in order to please the United States. Just recall how Victoria Nuland defined the EU’s place in Washington’s plans to reformat Ukraine in her conversation with the US Ambassador in Kiev in December 2013, at the height of the Maidan riots. Her prediction came true in its entirety. In security matters, the EU is also blending in with NATO, which, in turn, is making increasingly louder claims about its global ambitions. What defensive alliance? We are being told and assured to this day that NATO’s expansion is a defensive process and threatens no one. The Cold War defence line ran along the Berlin Wall – concrete and imagined – between the two military blocs. Since then, it has been moved east five times. Today, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, and others are telling us that NATO has a global responsibility to solve security problems, primarily in the Indo-Pacific region. As I understand it, the next defence line will be moved to the South China Sea.
It is being insinuated that NATO as the vanguard of the community of democracies should replace the UN in matters of international politics, or at least bring global affairs under its sway. The G7 should step in to run the global economy and from time to time invite benevolently the extras the West needs at this or that moment.
Western politicians should accept the fact that their efforts to isolate our country are doomed. Many experts have already recognised this, even if quietly and off the record, because saying this openly is “politically incorrect.” But this is happening right now. The non-Western world is coming to see that the world is becoming increasingly more diverse. There is no escaping this fact. More and more countries want to have a real freedom to choose their development ways and integration projects to join. An increasing number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are refusing to abandon their national interests and to pull chestnuts out of the fire for the former parent countries. An overwhelming majority of our partners, who have felt the effects of Western colonialism and racism, have not joined the anti-Russia sanctions. The West, which President Putin described as the “empire of lies,” has not been considered an ideal of democracy, freedom and well-being for a long time. By plundering other countries’ material assets, the Western countries have destroyed their reputation of predictable partners who honour their commitments. Nobody is safe from expropriation and “state piracy” now. Therefore, not just Russia but also many other countries are reducing their reliance on the US dollar and on Western technologies and markets. I am sure that a gradual de-monopolisation of the global economy is not a distant future.
We have taken note of Fyodor Lukyanov’s article published in the newspaper Kommersant (on April 29, 2022), in which he writes, with good reason, that the West will not listen to us or hear what we have to say. This was a fact of life long ago, before the special military operation, and a “a radical reorientation of assets from the west to other flanks is a natural necessity.” I would like to remind you that Sergey Karaganov has been systematically promoting this philosophy by for many years. It is perfectly clear to everyone that the process has begun and not on our whim – we have always been open to an equal dialogue – but because of an unacceptable and arrogant behaviour of our Western neighbours, who have followed Washington’s prompting to “cancel Russia” in international affairs.
Forging closer ties with the like-minded forces outside of what used to be referred to as the Golden Billion is an absolutely inevitable and mutually driven process. The Russia-China relations are at their all-time high. We are also strengthening our privileged strategic partnerships with India, Algeria, and Egypt. We have taken our relations with the Persian Gulf countries to a whole new level. The same applies to our relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as other countries in Asia-Pacific, in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
We are fully aware of the fact it is at this juncture, which perfectly lends itself to be called a turning point, that the place for Russia and all other countries and forces in the future international architecture will be determined.
We believe the aim of Russia’s diplomacy is, on the one hand, to act with great resolve to fend off all adversarial attacks against us, while, on the other hand, to consistently, calmly and patiently reinforce our positions in order to facilitate Russia’s sustained development from within and improve the quality of life for its people. There is much to be done, as usual. We always have a packed agenda, but in the current environment we are witnessing a serious shift in the mindsets of many of our comrades in all spheres of Russia’s life. This makes meetings held by the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy especially useful because they help nurture ideas which make their way into Russia’s foreign policy.
An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, Pepe Escobar writes.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead, 1922
This glimpse of “fear in a handful of dust” already ranks as one the prime breakthroughs of the young 21st century, presented this week by Chief of Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Force Igor Kirillov.
The provisional results of evidence being collected about the work of U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine are simply astonishing. These are the main takeaways.
U.S. bioweapon ideologues comprise the leadership of the Democratic Party. By linking with non-governmental biotechnology organizations, using the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden, they profited from additional campaign financing – all duly concealed. In parallel, they assembled the legislative basis for financing the bioweapons program directly from the federal budget.
COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, as well as Merck and Gilead – of Donald “known unknowns” fame, and affiliated with the Pentagon – were directly involved.
U.S. specialists tested new drugs in the Ukraine biolabs in circumvention of international safety standards. According to Kirillov, acting this way “Western companies seriously reduce the costs of research programs and gain significant competitive advantages.”
According to Kirillov, “along with U.S. pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian government agencies are involved in military biotechnology activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.”
The Pentagon, Kirillov pointed out, expanded its research potential not only in terms of producing biological weapons, but also gathering information on antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases among the population in specific regions. The testing ground in Ukraine was practically outside the control of the so-called “international community”.
These findings, amply documented, suggest a vast “legitimized” bioweapon racket reaching the highest levels of the American body politic. There’s no doubt the Russians plan to thoroughly unmask it for the benefit of world public opinion, starting with a War Crimes Tribunal to be set up this summer, most probably in Donetsk.
An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, side by side with preventing an imminent NATO-managed blitzkrieg against Donbass and Kiev’s desire to re-start a nuclear weapons program. These are Top Three red lines for Russia.
The strength of the collected evidence may directly correlate with what was largely interpreted as a carefully measured Victory Day speech by President Putin. The Kremlin does not bluff. It will certainly privilege the meticulous presentation of – bioweapon – facts on the ground over grandstanding rhetoric.
The return of Nord Stream 2
Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyaniskiy announced Russia’s demand for an open meeting of the UN Security Council to present further evidence related to U.S. biolabs in Ukraine. Even if the meeting would be vetoed by the U.S., the evidence will be entered by Russia on the UN records.
These developments provide an extra indication there’s absolutely no space left for diplomacy between Russia and the U.S./collective West, as Polyaniskiy himself suggested when commenting the possible accession of Ukraine to the EU: “The situation has changed after Mr. Borrell’s statement that ‘this war should be won on the battleground’ and after the fact that the European Union is the leader in deliveries of arms [to Ukraine].”
It gets worse. The next chapter is Finland’s drive to join NATO.
The Americans gamble that Finland – and Sweden – joining NATO will totally discredit Putin’s Operation Z as having accomplished next to nothing strategically: after all, in the near future, potential U.S. hypersonic missiles stationed in Finland and Sweden will be very close to Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russian unmasking of the bioweapon racket will drive a toxic section of American political elites to turbo-charge their warmongering. It’s all following a carefully calculated script.
First, these bioweapon-supervising “elites” ordered the massive Kiev shelling of Donbas in early February. That forced the Kremlin’s hand, pushing it to launch Operation Z.
We should always remember that the ultimate goal in the U.S. plan of training Ukrainians for war since 2014 was to alienate Germany from Russia – as Germany de facto controls Euroland economically.
Imperial control of the oceans allows the Empire to strangle Germany at will into subservience by cutting them off from Russian energy – as the British did to Germany in WWII when Britannia ruled the waves. The Wehrmacht could not supply their mechanized army with fuel. Now, in theory, Germany and the EU will have to look to the seas – and total U.S. dependency – for their natural resources.
The remote-controlled Kiev regime dominated by SBU fanatics and Azov neo-Nazis is making it even harder – by shutting off all natural gas from Russia through Ukraine into Europe, reducing the flow by more than one third.
That translates as U.S.-enforced blackmail to force the EU to increase the Ukro-weaponizing against Russia. The practical consequences for Germany and the EU will be dire – in terms of shut down industries and cost of home heating and electrical power.
Russia, meanwhile, will rely on a bolstered Pipelineistan maze to China and East Asia as well as high-speed rail to transport all its natural resources.
Blowback against the Americans though is not off limits. Stranger things have happened. If gas transit to Europe via Ukraine is totally cut off, there are no alternatives. And that – assuming there are working IQs in Berlin – would open the way for a renegotiation on the future of Nord Stream 2.
As the head of the Energy Development Center Kirill Melnikov notes, “the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline is practically idle and one of the Nord Stream 2 lines is also ready for operation though the German regulator has not issued permission for its launch yet.”
That prompted Melnikov to a priceless comment: “If purchases remain the same, Germany will probably need to urgently allow the launch of one of the Nord Stream 2 lines in order to replace the Ukrainian transit route.”
No one ever lost money betting on the astonishing stupidity permeating EUrocrat decision levels. Even facing economic suicide, the EU is desperate to “abandon” Russian oil. Yet a full ban is impossible, because of energy-deprived Eastern Europe.
Every impartial energy analyst knows replacing Russian oil is D.O.A., for a number of reasons: the OPEC+ deal; the ghastly divide between Washington and Riyadh; the never-ending JCPOA renegotiation, where the Americans behave like headless chickens; and the crucial fact – beyond the understanding of EUrocrats – that European oil refineries are designed to use oil from the Urals.
So just when we thought we could enjoy the summer by watching Europe commit hara-kiri, it’s time to stock up on those Aperol Spritz. Get ready for a new hit series, season 1: Inside the American bioweapon racket.
by Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
After careful evaluation, the Kremlin is rearranging the geopolitical chessboard to end the unipolar hegemony of the “indispensable nation”.
But it’s our fate / To have no place to rest, / As suffering mortals / Blindly fall and vanish / From one hour / To the next, / Like water falling / From cliff to cliff, downward / For years to uncertainty.
Holderlin, Hyperion’s Fate Song
Operation Z is the first salvo of a titanic struggle: three decades after the fall of the USSR, and 77 years after the end of WWII, after careful evaluation, the Kremlin is rearranging the geopolitical chessboard to end the unipolar hegemony of the “indispensable nation”. No wonder the Empire of Lies has gone completely berserk, obsessed in completely expelling Russia from the West-centric system.
The U.S. and its NATO puppies cannot possibly come to grips with their perplexity when faced with a staggering loss: no more entitlement allowing exclusive geopolitical use of force to perpetuate “our values”. No more Full Spectrum Dominance.
The micro-picture is also clear. The U.S. Deep State is milking to Kingdom Come its planned Ukraine gambit to cloak a strategic attack on Russia. The “secret” was to force Moscow into an intra-Slav war in Ukraine to break Nord Stream 2 – and thus German reliance on Russian natural resources. That ends – at least for the foreseeable future – the prospect of a Bismarckian Russo-German connection that would ultimately cause the U.S. to lose control of the Eurasian landmass from the English Channel to the Pacific to an emerging China-Russia-Germany pact.
The American strategic gambit, so far, has worked wonders. But the battle is far from over. Psycho neo-con/neoliberalcon silos inside the Deep State consider Russia such a serious threat to the “rules-based international order” that they are ready to risk if not incur a “limited” nuclear war out of their gambit. What’s at stake is nothing less than the loss of Ruling the World by the Anglo-Saxons.
Mastering the Five Seas
Russia, based on purchasing power parity (PPP), is the 6th economy in the world, right behind Germany and ahead of both the UK and France. Its “hard” economy is similar to the U.S. Steel production may be about the same, but intellectual capacity is vastly superior. Russia has roughly the same number of engineers as the U.S., but they are much better educated.
The Mossad attributes Israel’s economic miracle in creating an equivalent of Silicon Valley to a base of a million Russian immigrants. This Israeli Silicon Valley happens to be a key asset of the American MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex), as indelibly named by Ray McGovern.
NATOstan media hysterically barking that Russia’s GDP is the size of Texas is nonsense. PPP is what really counts; that and Russia’s superior engineers is why their hypersonic weapons are at least two or three generations ahead of the U.S. Just ask the indispensable Andrei Martyanov.
The Empire of Lies has no defensive missiles worthy of the name, and no equivalents to Mr. Zircon and Mr. Sarmat. The NATOstan sphere simply cannot win a war, any war against Russia for this reason alone.
The deafening NATOstan “narrative” that Ukraine is defeating Russia does not even qualify as an innocuous joke (compare it with Russia’s “Reach Out and Touch Someone” strategy). The corrupt system of SBU fanatics intermingled with UkroNazi factions is kaput. The Pentagon knows it. The CIA cannot possibly admit it. What the Empire of Lies has sort of won, so far, is a media “victory” for the UkroNazis, not a military victory.
Gen Aleksandr Dvornikov, of Syria fame, has a clear mandate: to conquer the whole of Donbass, totally free up Crimea and prepare the advance towards Odessa and Transnistria while reducing a rump Ukraine to the status of failed state without any access to the sea.
The Sea of Azov – linked to the Caspian by the Don-Volga canal – is already a Russian lake. And the Black Sea is next, the key connection between the Heartland and the Mediterranean. The Five Seas system – Black, Azov, Caspian, Baltic, White – enshrines Russia as a de facto continental naval power. Who needs warm waters?
Moving “at the speed of war”
The pain dial, from now on, will go up non-stop. Reality – as in facts on the ground – will soon become apparent even to the NATOstan-wide LugenPresse.
The woke Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, expects Operation Z to last years. That’s nonsense. The Russian Armed Forces may afford to be quite methodical and take all the time needed to properly demilitarize Ukraine. The collective West for its part is pressed for time – because the blowback from the real economy is already on and bound to become vicious.
Defense Minister Shoigu has made it quite clear: any NATO vehicles bringing weapons to Kiev will be destroyed as “legitimate military targets”.
A report by the scientific service of the Bundestag established that training of Ukrainian soldiers on German soil may amount, under international law, to participation in war. And that gets even trickier when coupled with NATO weapons deliveries: “Only if, in addition to the supply of weapons, the instruction of the conflict party or training in such weapons were also an issue would one leave the secure area of non-warfare.”
Now at least it’s irretrievably clear how the Empire of Lies “moves at the speed of war” – as described in public by weapons peddler turned Pentagon head, Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin. In Pentagonese, that was explained by the proverbial “official” as “a combination of a call center, a watch floor, meeting rooms. They execute a battle rhythm to support decision-makers.”
The Pentagonese “battle rhythm” offered to a supposedly “credible, resilient and combat-capable Ukraine military” is fed by a EUCom system that essentially moves weapons orders from Pentagon warehouses in the U.S. to branches of the Empire of Bases in Europe and then to the NATO eastern front in Poland, where they are trucked across Ukraine just in time to be duly incinerated by Russian precision strikes: the wealth of options include supersonic P-800 Onyx missiles, two types of Iskander, and Mr. Khinzal launched from Mig-31Ks.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed Moscow is perfectly aware the U.S., NATO and UK are transferring not only weapons but also loads of intel. In parallel, the collective West turns everything upside down 24/7 shaping a new environment totally geared against Russia, not caring for even a semblance of partnership in any area. The collective West does not even consider the possibility of dialogue with Russia.
Hence talking to Putin is “a waste of time” unless a “Russian defeat” in Ukraine (echoing strident Kiev P.R.) would make him “more realistic”. For all his faults, Le Petit Roi Macron/McKinsey has been an exception, on the phone with Putin earlier this week.
The neo-Orwellian Hitlerization of Putin reduces him, even among the so-called Euro-intelligentzia, to the status of dictator of a nation chloroformed into its 19th century nationalism. Forget about any semblance of historical/political/cultural analysis. Putin is a late Augustus, dressing up his Imperium as a Republic.
At best the Europeans preach and pray – chihuahuas yapping to His Master’s Voice – for a hybrid strategy of “containment and engagement” to be unleashed by the U.S., clumsily parroting the scribblings of denizens of that intellectual no-fly zone, Think Tankland.
Yet in fact the Europeans would rather “isolate” Russia – as in 12% of the world’s population “isolating” 88% (of course: their Westoxified “vision” completely ignores the Global South). “Help” to Russia will only come when sanctions are effective (as in never: blowback will be the norm) or – the ultimate wet dream – there’s regime change in Moscow.
The Fall
UkroNazi P.R. agent Ursula von der Lugen presented the sixth sanction package of the Europoodle (Dis)Union.
Top of the bill is to exclude three more Russian banks from SWIFT, including Sberbank. Seven banks are already excluded. This will enforce Russia’s “total isolation”. It’s idle to comment on something that only fools the LugenPresse.
Then there’s the “progressive” embargo on oil imports. No more crude imported to the EU in six months and no more refined products before the end of 2022. As it stands, the IEA shows that 45% of Russia’s oil exports go to the EU (with 22% to China and 10% to the U.S.). His Master’s Voice continues and will continue to import Russian oil.
And of course 58 “personal” sanctions also show up, targeting very dangerous characters such as Patriarch Kirill of the Orthodox Church, and the wife, son and daughter of Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
This stunning display of stupidity will have to be approved by all EU members. Internal revolt is guaranteed, especially from Hungary, even as so many remain willing to commit energy suicide and mess up with the lives of their citizens big time to defend a neo-Nazi regime.
Alastair Crooke called my attention to a startling, original interpretation of what’s goin’ on, offered in Russian by a Serbian analyst, Prof. Slobodan Vladusic. His main thesis, in a nutshell: “Megalopolis hates Russia because it is not Megalopolis – it has not entered the sphere of anti-humanism and that is why it remains a civilization alternative. Hence Russophobia.”
Vladusic contends that the intra-Slav war in Ukraine is “a great catastrophe for Orthodox civilization” – mirroring my recent first attempt to open a serious debate on a Clash of Christianities.
Yet the major schism is not on religion but culture: “The key difference between the former West and today’s Megalopolis is that Megalopolis programmatically renounces the humanistic heritage of the West.”
So now “it is possible to erase not only the musical canon, but also the entire European humanistic heritage: the entire literature, fine arts, philosophy” because of a “trivialization of knowledge”. What’s left is an empty space, actually a cultural black hole, “filled by promoting terms such as ‘posthumanism’ and ‘transhumanism’.”
And here Vladusic gets to the heart of the matter: Russia fiercely opposes the Great Reset concocted by the “hackable”, self-described “elites” of Megalopolis.
Sergey Glazyev, now coordinating the draft of a new financial/monetary system by the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) in partnership with the Chinese, adapts Vladusic to the facts on the ground (here in Russian, here in an imperfect English translation).
Glazyev is way more blunt than in his meticulous economic analyses. While noting the Deep State’s aims of destroying the Russian world, Iran and block China, he stresses the U.S. “will not be able to win the global hybrid war”. A key reason is that the collective West has “put all independent countries in front of the need to find new global currency instruments, risk insurance mechanisms, restore the norms of international law and create their own economic security systems.”
So yes, this is Totalen Krieg, Total War – as Glazyev spells it out with no attenuation, and how Russia denounced it this week at the UN: “Russia needs to stand up to the United States and NATO in its confrontation, bringing it to its logical conclusion, so as not to be torn between them and China, which is irrevocably becoming the leader of the world economy.”
History may eventually register, 77 years after the end of WWII, that neocon/neoliberalcon psychos in Washington silos instigating an inter-Slavic war by ordering Kiev to launch a blitzkrieg against Donbass was the spark that led to the Fall of the U.S. Empire.
The only antidote to propaganda dementia is served by sparse voices of reason, which happen to be Russian, thus silenced and/or dismissed.
By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
Especially since the onset of GWOT (Global War on Terror) at the start of the millennium, no one ever lost money betting against the toxic combo of hubris, arrogance and ignorance serially deployed by the Empire of Chaos and Lies.
What passes for “analysis” in the vast intellectual no-fly zone known as U.S. Think Tankland includes wishful thinking babble such as Beijing “believing” that Moscow would play a supporting role in the Chinese century just to see Russia, now, in the geopolitical driver’s seat.
This is a fitting example not only of outright Russophobic/Sinophobic paranoia about the emergence of peer competitors in Eurasia – the primeval Anglo-American nightmare – but also crass ignorance about the finer points of the complex Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership.
As Operation Z methodically hits Phase 2, the Americans – with a vengeance – have also embarked on their symmetrical Phase 2, which de facto translates as an outright escalation towards Totalen Krieg, from shades of hybrid to incandescent, everything of course by proxy. Notorious Raytheon weapons peddler reconverted into Pentagon head, Lloyd Austin, gave away the game in Kiev:
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
So this is it: the Empire wants to annihilate Russia. Cue to War Inc.’s frenzy of limitless weapon cargos descending on Ukraine, the overwhelming majority on the road to be duly eviscerated by Russian precision strikes. The Americans are sharing intel 24/7 with Kiev not only on Donbass and Crimea but also Russian territory. Totalen Krieg proceeds in parallel to the engineered controlled demolition of the EU’s economy, with the European Commission merrily acting as a sort of P.R. arm of NATO.
Amidst the propaganda dementia cum acute cognitive dissonance overdrive across the whole NATOstan sphere, the only antidote is served by sparse voices of reason, which happen to be Russian, thus silenced and/or dismissed. The West ignores them at their own collective peril.
Patrushev goes Triple-X unplugged
Let’s start with President Putin’s speech to the Council of Legislators in St. Petersburg celebrating the Day of Russian Parliamentarism.
Putin demonstrated how a hardly new “geopolitical weapon” relying on “Russophobia and neo-Nazis”, coupled with efforts of “economic strangulation”, not only failed to smother Russia, but impregnated in the collective unconscious the feeling this an existential conflict: a “Second Great Patriotic War”.
With off the charts hysteria across the spectrum, a message for an Empire that still refuses to listen, and doesn’t even understand the meaning of “indivisibility of security”, had to be inevitable:
“I would like to emphasize once again that if someone intends to interfere in the events taking place from the outside and creates threats of a strategic nature unacceptable to Russia, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning fast. We have all the tools for this. Such as no one can boast of now. And we won’t brag. We will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know about it – we have made all the decisions on this matter.”
Translation: non-stop provocations may lead Mr. Kinzhal, Mr. Zircon and Mr. Sarmat to be forced to present their business cards in select Western latitudes, even without an official invitation.
Arguably for the first time since the start of Operation Z, Putin made a distinction between military operations in Donbass and the rest of Ukraine. This directly relates to the integration in progress of Kherson, Zaporozhye and Kharkov, and implies the Russian Armed Forces will keep going and going, establishing sovereignty not only in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics but also over Kherson, Zaporozhye, and further on down the road from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea, all the way to establishing full control of Nikolaev and Odessa.
The formula is crystal clear: “Russia cannot allow the creation of anti-Russian territories around the country.”
Now let’s move to an extremely detailed interview by Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, where Patrushev sort of went triple-X unplugged.
The key take away may be here: “The collapse of the American-centric world is a reality in which one must live and build an optimal line of behavior.” Russia’s “optimal line of behavior” – much to the wrath of the universalist and unilateralist hegemon – features “sovereignty, cultural and spiritual identity and historical memory.”
Patrushev shows how “tragic scenarios of world crises, both in past years and today, are imposed by Washington in its desire to consolidate its hegemony, resisting the collapse of the unipolar world.” The U.S. goes no holds barred “to ensure that other centers of the multipolar world do not even dare to raise their heads, and our country not only dared, but publicly declared that it would not play by the imposed rules.”
Patrushev could not but stress how War Inc. is literally making a killing in Ukraine: “The American and European military-industrial complex is jubilant, because thanks to the crisis in Ukraine, it has no respite from order. It is not surprising that, unlike Russia, which is interested in the speedy completion of a special military operation and minimizing losses on all sides, the West is determined to delay it at least to the last Ukrainian.”
And that mirrors the psyche of American elites: “You are talking about a country whose elite is not able to appreciate other people’s lives. Americans are used to walking on scorched earth. Since World War II, entire cities have been razed to the ground by bombing, including nuclear bombing. They flooded the Vietnamese jungle with poison, bombed the Serbs with radioactive munitions, burned Iraqis alive with white phosphorus, helped terrorists poison Syrians with chlorine (…) As history shows, NATO has also never been a defensive alliance, only an offensive one.”
Previously, in an interview with the delightfully named The Great Game show on Russian TV, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had once again detailed how the Americans “no longer insist on the implementation of international law, but on respect for the ‘rules-based world order’. These ‘rules’ are not deciphered in any way. They say that now there are few rules. For us, they don’t exist at all. There is international law. We respect it, as does the UN Charter. The key provision, the main principle is the sovereign equality of states. The U.S. flagrantly violates its obligations under the UN Charter when it promotes its ‘rules’”.
Lavrov had to stress, once again, that the current incandescent situation may be compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis: “In those years, there was a channel of communication that both leaders trusted. Now there is no such channel. No one is trying to create it.”
The Empire of Lies, in its current state, does not do diplomacy.
The pace of the game in the new chessboard
In a subtle reference to the work of Sergei Glazyev, as the Minister in Charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union explained in our recent interview, Patrushev hit the heart of the current geoeconomic game, with Russia now actively moving towards a gold standard: “Experts are working on a project proposed by the scientific community to create a two-circuit monetary and financial system. In particular, it is proposed to determine the value of the ruble, which should be secured by both gold and a group of goods that are currency values, to put the ruble exchange rate in line with real purchasing power parity.”
That was inevitable after the outright theft of over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves. It may have taken a few days for Moscow to be fully certified it was facing Totalen Krieg. The corollary is that the collective West has lost any power to influence Russian decisions. The pace of the game in the new chessboard is being set by Russia.
Earlier in the week, in his meeting with the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, Putin went as far as stating that he’d be more than willing to negotiate – with only a few conditions: Ukrainian neutrality and autonomy status for Donbass. Yet now everyone knows it’s too late. For a Washington in Totalen Krieg mode negotiation is anathema – and that has been the case since the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine meeting in Istanbul in late March.
So far, on Operation Z, the Russian Armed forces have used only 12% of its soldiers,10% of its fighter jets, 7% of its tanks, 5% of its missiles, and 4% of its artillery. The pain dial is set to go substantially up – and with the total liberation of Mariupol and the resolution one way or another of the Donbass cauldron there is nothing the hysteria/propaganda/weaponizing combo deployed by the collective West can do to alter facts on the ground.
That includes desperate gambits such as the one uncovered by SVR – Russian foreign intel, which very rarely makes mistakes. SVR found out that the Empire of Lies/War Inc. axis is pushing not only for a de facto Polish invasion to annex Western Ukraine, under the banner of “historical reunification”, but also for a joint Romanian/Ukrainian invasion of Moldova/Transnistria, with Romanian “peacekeepers” already piling up near the Moldova border.
Washington, as the SVR maintains, has been plotting the Polish gambit for over a month now. It would “lead from behind” (remember Libya?), “encouraging” a “group of countries” to occupy Western Ukraine.
So partition is already on the cards. Were that ever to materialize, it will be fascinating to bet on which locations Mr. Sarmat would be inclined to distribute his business card.
So now we are 50 days into this Special Military Operation (SMO) and right in between the end of the first phase and the beginning of the second one. So I want to begin by list a few things which were unclear/ambiguous/misunderstood and which now are becoming clear(er):
There is this saying “no plan survives the first contact with the enemy” which I would even expand to “no plan survives the first contact with reality”. Why? The first one is obvious, the enemy will try to foil your plans, but the second one is less known: in war there is always a large element of chaos simply because your entire country and your military are in one mode up until the initiation of combat operations and because they have to very quickly switch over a completely new reality. The point is therefore not to stick to plan A at any cost, but neither is it to ditch it all and reinvent the wheel. What is needed is a quick response time to identify the problems and fix them. I would say that with this in mind, the Russian military did a very good job by quickly transforming a integrated Ukrainian military capable of strategic operations into a broken up entity with its various parts isolated and unable to support each other. What is my evidence for that? There has not been a single Ukrainian counter-attack higher than on a subunit (battalion, company) level. Considering that the Ukrainians have the double advantage of being on the defense and having a larger force, this is truly a remarkable achievement. Add to this the money, weapons and intelligence support from the US/NATO and it is nothing short of a triumph.
The clueless RT still has this on its webpage even though the Moskva sank 24 hours ago!At the same time, Russia as a whole, and especially the military, did an absolutely awful job talking to the public, both in Russia and in the West. See a typical example of the image on the right. The only mistake the US PYSOPs made was that they really “overdid it”, which profoundly angered and alienated the Russian public which went from “what is going on?” to “we are in a fight for our very survival” very quickly and most Russians are now in what I would refer to a “WWII” mode: total warfare until total victory. In the West, however, the US PSYOPs truly triumphed and totally defeated the Russian counter-propaganda efforts which, the truth be told, were primitive, clumsy, slow and even self-defeating at times. Does that matter? Yes, very. Why?
Because most people in Zone A sincerely and truly believe that “Russia is losing the war”. Now these are the same folks who until February of 2021 were all virologists/epidemiologists/microbiologists/etc. and who in a remarkable feat, became overnight military experts and now are sincerely advising the Russians on how to wage a war. The fact that no “real” war has even begun does not elicit any second thoughts or doubts in these “experts in everything” folks who simply don’t believe that some matters require years of training to achieve the expertise needed to understand even the basics. And no, as Andrei Martyanov always points out, a BA in communications or a law degree do not make you into a military expert overnight (by the way, I notice a very large “overlap” between the COVID death cult members and the armchair generals).
Objectively, there is also a double language and culture barrier at work here. Very few folks in Zone A are fluent, or even conversant, in Russian and even fewer understand the Russian mindset. So if all the English speaking media (including putatively pro-Russian ones – more about those later) says someting it makes no sense to expect most English speakers to find the correct Russian language Telegram channels to get the other side of the information. As for RT and Sputnik, in their naive and clumsy efforts to appear “objective” they just reinforce the western propaganda narratives.
Then there is an interesting phenomenon which became very apparent over the past 50 days: there are quite a few websites and blogs who PRETEND to be pro-Russian but, in reality, that support is conditional on Russia supporting their agenda and if Russians do things differently those putatively pro-Russian outlets quickly take up the exact same talking points as the US PSYOPs. There are also a number of PRETEND “liberal” or “Leftist” or “Anti-Imperialist” websites which were ALWAYS CIA-operated but which, over the years, acquired some (totally undeserved) credibility and which have now suddenly “flipped”. Pro-Nazi “liberals”, got to love that…
The result of all this? FUD: fear, uncertainty and doubts of course.
Even worse are the implications of this FUD on many levels:
It gives the folks in the West a sense of impunity and it almost totally conceals the magnitude of the dangers the Empire of Hate and Lies is facing today: from real food shortages, to an economic collapse, and even to a continental war in Europe. After all, if the Russians are losing, then “we” must be winning, so all is well. Not very bright, but oh so human…
It angers and frustrates the Russian soldiers actually doing the fighting who are living in fear not a a heroic Ukrainian counter-offensive, but what the Russian government (at all levels and in all branches) will screw up next. Want an example? Sure! How about this: until senior LDNR official began to openly complain the Russian customs the latter did not allow non-governmental humanitarian convoys to cross into the Ukraine. This was was solved, now the next one is this: how to organize pensions for the families of Russian volunteers who fight in the Ukraine?
It greatly encourages the Ukrainians to fight this war down to the last Ukrainian and a total destruction of the Ukrainian civil infrastructure. Yes, the united West wants to genocide Russians by means of genociding Ukrainians. It cannot get any more openly satanic than that!
Having said all of the above, we now need to step back and only make some very basic predictions:
What began as the “special military operation” is now turning into a total war of the united West against Russia and that means that the goal for the West is not peace, its victory and a Russian defeat. My personal conclusion is that the West will only stop doubling down of the US homeland itself is threatened by Russian conventional and nuclear strategic deterrence capabilities.
The Russians are slowly but surely coming to the realization that in spite of all the concessions and retreats made by Russia since 2013 the Empire of Hate and Lies will not stop by itself, it will have to be stopped, by Russia. Again. As the VDV motto says “nobody but us”.
The Ukrainians have no agency, and neither do the Eurolemmings. In fact, the USA is using both the Ukronazis and their EU serfs as cannon fodder because their calculation is that if Russia wins, then the Eurolemmings will become not only become terrified and even more subservient, but also that the EU will burn itself down removing a competitor. I remind you that the USA’s wealth is based on how much the USA profited from both WWI and WWII. So why not with WWIII as long as it remains within the confines of the European theater of operations? And that will be doubly true if Russia loses.
My first conclusion here is that a direct military conflict involving NATO and Russia is now likely.
That, by itself, is simply horrible, but here is the simple truth: if the Anglos, yet again, want to burn down the European continent there might not be anything Russia could do to prevent that. And forget about the suicidal Eurolemmings. Russia can win that war, and she will, but yet again at a huge cost.
And that is exactly what the Anglos want.
So is there a silver lining here or is it all doom and gloom?
In fact, there is: the reactions of the Russian public to the rather ambiguous and sometimes outright weird stuff members of the Russian government, at different levels, have been doing and saying. Like that terrible Medinski presser which totally freaked out most Russians. Or the rumor that Abramovich (!) is negotiating between Moscow and Kiev. Oh I know, that is just another rumor, but considering the DISMAL job of Russian information operations that rumor, and hundreds more, are making the public weary and angry.
And the general public itself, rather than any government officials, started to react to this kind of dangerous FUD by something we could think of as a grassroots counter-propaganda campaign. For example, while the letters Z and V have been banned in the Ukraine (and in Latvia, Moldova, Greece and even in some German states) they are literally all over the Runet and you could say that Z and V have now become part of the Russian alphabet and that they are now often used to replace the traditional Cyrillic Z (З) and V (В).
Yup, the letter Z is now serving a somewhat similar function to the Star of David in Nazi Germany.
Then there are the many iterations of the following slogans “our cause is just“, “the enemy will be defeated” and “we will go to the end!” which are also all over the Runet. Note that all of these slogans are strongly associated with WWII in the Russian mind.
And then there is this: the, shall we call them “poor communication skills”, of the Kremlin have resulted in a real shitstorm of angry protests and freakouts so the Kremlin had to tone it down by a lot. Yes, Putin PERSONALLY is very popular and trusted (over 80%), but not the government or, even less so, mid-level or local government officials. It would not take much (another major SNAFU for example) to trigger angry protests.
But if anybody is to be truly credited with reassuring the Russian public that no “negotiators” will backstab the Russian military should go to the “Biden” Administration which “convinced” Zelenski to stop any and all negotiations and to restate the Ukronazis most extreme demands (including the LDNR and Crimea). Now that truly made negotiations not only pointless, but pretty much impossible.
Thank you “Biden”!
I also want to use this opportunity publicly express my deepest gratitude to Josip Borrell, the Eurolemming’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, for declaring “this war must be won on the battlefield“! When EU *diplomats* use that kind of language, it has a quasi-miraculous effect on the wannabe “peace camp” in Russia. Even RT (!) seems to have smelled the coffee and now we can find an article entitled “It appears that the West doesn’t want peace in Ukraine“. No kidding, geniuses!
As I have mentioned it in the past, I am personally very much in favor of negotiations and even talking to the enemy during a war, but that should be done very discreetly, very carefully and with the clear “message” to the general public if these negotiations, or leaks about them, are made public. If you cannot negotiate without freaking out your own people, then don’t try, you will do more for peace by shutting up and staying at home. If instead of using the insect-like Medinski (he reminds of Blinken, same “I am a loser” look) Putin had sent Ramzan Kadyrov the perception about “negotiations” in Russia would probably be very different today.
So what is up next?
A major battle around the Donbass cauldron
NATO convoys moving into the Ukraine
The collapse of the “the Russians are losing” narrative replaced by
A Russian “atrocity” of some type
The western media will begin to “discover sins” amongst those they lionized until now (see image)
The full dimension of the economic crisis resulting from the collapse of the international economic system will become much more apparent, especially in the EU.
What about the Black Sea Fleet – can it operate without its flagship?
As I mentioned yesterday, I am not a navy person and neither do I know what plans the Russian General Staff had for the BSF. But I can say this: Slava-class guided missile cruisers were designed in the 70s as aircraft carrier destroyers. For this purpose they were equipped with very powerful missiles, superb (by 1970s standards!) S-300F, OSA-MA SAMs, 6 AK-630 point air defenses and a lot of (old) electronics. Since there are not aircraft carriers in the Black Sea, I suppose that the Moskva main role was as a command ship (its main canons don’t provide the range needed to support amphibious assault operations) and also as a relatively powerful mobile, floating, radar. The Moskva was hit by something about 50km south of Snake Island which means that she was also probably watching the movement of ships near/from Romania. Frankly, that is not a task for a guided missile cruiser.
[Sidebar: as to what actually caused the explosion, my personal best guess is a Ukrainian mine detached by the recent storm and drifting southwards which the Russians failed to detect. That would explain the hull breach which later resulted in the Moskva taking in water and sinking while in tow. I still don’t buy the “Ukrainian 2 “Neptunes” version at all, if only because the Moskva had very solid air defenses while bad weather makes minesweeping very hard. But we will probably never find out for sure, unless the members of the crew reveal what really happened]
Considering that the Ukraine has NO navy at all, I don’t see how the loss of the Moskva would hamper or significantly complicate any BSF operations (navy folks, please correct me here if I missed something!).
The Moskva also had an important role in the eastern Mediterranean (Syria) and yes, there is probably where she will be missed the most. I hope that this loss will provide the impetus to massively accelerate the modernization of old Russian (well, Soviet, really) ships and the construction of new ones.
I would even be inclined to think that the deployment of hypersonic ASM has not only made aircraft carriers obsolete (at least against Russia) but, by the same logic, has made old Russian/Soviet “carrier hunter killers” obsolete by implication. Nowadays, even SMALL missile boats can fire Russian hypersonic missiles thousands of kilometers away, so why bother with really big ships in anti-carrier operations? Range? Okay. Firepower? Okay. Bigger and better sensors? Okay. But not in the Black Sea. And not with a minimally modernized 1970 era ship.
Conclusion:
There is no doubt that Russia fought superbly during the SMO and there is no doubt either that the Russian probably calcualted that “just” a SMO would be sufficient to achieve the Russian goals (immediate: protect the LDNR, intermediate: denazify and disarm the Ukraine and long term: change the European and world collective security arrangements) was wrong. It is now becoming almost certain that a real, much larger, war to crush the Ukrainian military will be needed, and it will have to be fought with much larger forces and means.
The Empire of Hate and Lies has decided to “go max” and is acting exactly as it would be in preparations for a much larger war in Europe. For example, with the steady stream of mass expulsions of Russian diplomats there is a very real possibility that Russia and the US/NATO/EU will sever their diplomatic relationships, something traditionally considered as the last step before a declaration of war.
One of the best things the Kremlin could do now is to carefully study how the Iranians since 1979 (!) managed to successfully:
Never be drawn into a war they did not want (except the one launched by the West and the USSR following the Islamic Revolution which Iran won, by the way)
Deter the Anglo-Zionist from direct attacks on Iran
Survive both sanctions and even a blockade
Defeat US PSYOPs (remember Neda Agha-Soltan?)
Actively assist in the liberation of other countries around the world and, especially, the Middle-East
Superbly combine political pragmatism with deep religious piety and idealism
Preserve their economy (albeit with major difficulties, but not collapse!)
Preserve their Islamic societal and civilizational model
Remain truly sovereign
Maintain a rock solid morale throughout it all
If Iran could do that, why can’t we? I have an answer for this question, but I won’t offer it until the end of combat operations.
As I have also mentioned many times, Russia is a project, a ‘moving target’, a society which is recovering from at least 300 years of foreign domination (especially spiritual and political) and a society which is STILL changing, very fast in many aspects.
Yes, Russia has a superb military and immense resources. But that is not enough.
Some say that the next “New Russia” was “born in the LDNR”, and I hope that they are right, not in the sense that Russia needs to copy all the decisions (often bad ones too!) of the LDNR, but Russia does need to purge herself from those in positions of power who are just stuck in the past or unable to adapt to new realities.
Can Russia denazify the planet? By herself, no. At most she can militarily destroy all of Zone A, but only in a mutual suicide act of desperation (the US nuclear triad is still mostly functional, in spite of its problems). But can Russia and the rest of Zone B denazify the planet? Absolutely. Even “just” Russia and China together are more powerful than the rest of the planet combined, add India to this and you have a truly unstoppable force.
The Empire is already dead, but like a stinking unburied corpse, it still have enough “toxicity momentum” to continue to threaten the planet until the USA is both denazified and disarmed. That will take a lot of time, even with the recent massive acceleration of the pace of events.
So no quick fix, no quick solution, no quick victory (or defeat for that matter). This is not want Russia wanted, but that is what she got.
May she make the most of it to transform herself into the civilizational realm she was for centuries. That could be the biggest homage to those fighting for the future of Russia today.
Andrei
PS: I want to remind you all one more time that if the USA and Russia openly and directly clash militarily, I will immediately “freeze” the blog until the situation is resolved in one way or another. I am a guest, a legal alien (“Green Card”), in the USA and it is not my role to speak if my country of current residence and my country of ethnic origin are at war with each other.
Russia intervenes in a country which neighbors Russia, thousands of miles away, and the US Americans see that as a threat to the USA. And nevermind that the USA is the country which forced Russia into this war which the Kremlin spent eight years trying to avoid.
How is such a result even possible? Here are a few options:
A majority of US Americans are simply stupid and cannot think
A majority of US Americans are unbelievably ignorant
A majority of US Americans are brainwashed by their media and schools
A majority of US Americans have been trained/conditioned to fear and hate whomever their rulers designate for demonization
A majority of US Americans sincerely believe that the USA ought to be the planet’s cop and no matter where a conflict starts, even when that conflict started by the USA, they believe that it is Uncle Shmuel business to deal with it. In their tiny minds, the USA has a God given right to intervene anywhere and attack anyone.
A majority of US Americans perceive any truly sovereign country as a direct threat to their way of life.
The PYSOP campaign to demonize Russia has been a resounding success.
A mix of all of the above is probably the most accurate cause for such a result.
Next, I bumped into a Foxnews propaganda piece featuring a clown which, apparently, in some very distant past was a US Lt. General in the USA military, his last name is Kellogg. I decided to give it a try and I have to say that I sat absolutely *transfixed* listening to him: according to him, Russia has already suffered a huge defeat at the hands of the Ukronazis and with NATO’s help the Ukraine can, and probably will, win this war.
And both that “general” and the presstitute “interviewing” him delivered that crock of shit with great gravitas and appropriate facial expressions (angled eyebrows, the way the journos try to look very sincere). I was expecting at least one of them to burst out laughing but, no, of course not.
These two simply lack both the brain and the humor to realize how terminally stupid and ridiculous they both sound.
As I have written many times in the past, US generals are much more “corporate CEO in combat fatigues” than real combat officers. By Russian standards this guy would not even be allowed to clean latrines in a construction battalion. A man who says with a straight face that delivering 20 Soviet era aircraft or S-300 to the Ukrainians will make a difference in this war is either a clueless civilian or a deliberate liar prostituting his (putative and now former) officer’s honor for a few bucks.
Does anybody still wonder why “Kabul” happened or why the USA cannot win a war against anybody except Grenada (and that one barely, they had to bring the 82nd to fix the usual SNAFU created by US “special” operation forces)?
As for the German Eurolemmings, they have truly lost any sense of decency or even basic common sense: they are now seriously thinking about sending old Leopard 1 tanks to the Ukraine!
Let me explain something really basic here:
You cannot just send weapons to the Ukraine and have that make a difference. I mean, yes, if you send AKs, bullet and clubs, they might get used. But modern weapon systems require training. They also require maintenance. Then they need to be integrated into the rest of the armed forces. Then your forces need to train and practice a lot to perfect their combat coordination. Then you need a supply/maintenance/repairs network to maintain/repair your systems. Advanced air defense systems require crews with sometimes many years of training. Considering that the reinforcements sent by Kiev to the Donbass even include their Volkssturm, you can imagine how utterly useless the operators of the few weapons systems surviving the trip from Lvov to the Donbass will be. And the interval between the moment this ancient S-300 goes live and the moment a Russian ARM hit it will be counted in minutes at most.
Next, old weapons (ex-Soviet or ex-NATO) are just fat targets. In almost all cases, Russian equivalents are one or even two generations ahead, so why are all the EU sending them? Well, for a couple of reasons, the main one is to get rid of them, since storage or recycling of such systems is rather costly. The next reason is that it makes NATO politicians look “tough” – after all, if Zelenskii wants old tanks, artillery or air defense systems (he ain’t exactly a military genius either!) then, by all means, we give it to him and look like we are doing *something*. By the way, the four S-300 sent by the Slovaks were, apparently, already destroyed in a strike yesterday. And the Slovak taxpayer did not spend a penny on this. How is that not a good deal for Slovakia? Oh sure, this is an act of war, a casus belli, as are ALL but UNSC approved “sanctions”, but the Euroemmings Master Race are so superior in every sense to the accursed Rooskies that, screw that! The only thing which can bring the Eurolemmings back to reality is a Russian strike on such a weapons convoy INSIDE a NATO member country because, as I have already explained, when the Eurolemmings to hide behind Uncle Shmuel’s back, all he will offer them are statements of support, outrage, freshly printed fiat money and the usual mix of threats, fear and hate western politicians always spew about Russia. But the US won’t allow NATO to go to war with Russia over one such strike, especially if the Russians clearly explain what they did and why (I actually expect that quite a few “old-time” western officers will get a good kick out of their newfound NATO “allies” hysterics once that happens).
As I have mentioned in the past, weapons convoys in the western Ukraine (and, possibly, even inside Poland) make for easy and lucrative targets for the Russians. Just mix in enough civilians and, voilà!, sooner or later you will have a “Russian atrocity”, something like “the Russians kill scores of innocent feeling Ukrainian civilians” or “the Russians attacked trucks clearly marked with red crosses” (FYI – the SBU and Azov uses red crosses on its vans and ammo/supply trucks!). This is likely one of the reasons the Russians have, so far, chosen not to attack early on but to wait for solid intelligence and then strike the NATO forces/hardware when it is nicely concentrated somewhere. Still, we know that Azov ALWAYS used civilians (especially those perceived as “not sufficiently patriotic”!) as human shields. By the way, NATO taught them this technique. Anyway, to expect NATO weapon convoys NOT to be protected by human shields would be simply stupid. The Russians simply have to ASSUME that NATO/SBU/Azov will ALWAYS be surrounded by captive civilians.
Which brings us to the issue of false flags. Here are a few headlines about this topic:
Even by British standards, this is the most pre-announced pre-publicized false flag in history, I am amazed I don’t see ads and previews for it on Amazon and Netflix…
I guess, I will just say that if the public opinion is being prepared for a Russian chemical attack (maybe even with the – apparently harmless – “Novichok”) then we know for sure which side is winning and which side is not winning.
Medvechuk, one of the main leaders of the opposition at held in the SBU offices, according to Zelenskii who is very proud of that “capture”
There are also a few other reasons why the Empire of Hate and Lies badly and urgently needs a false flag:
Mariupol has fallen and all the rescue or escape attempts have failed. Yes, there are probably several hundred, possibly around 1000 Nazis still left in the deep and many underground facilities under the industrial complex, but they have become militarily irrelevant so the Russian National Guard forces are taking their sweet time to avoid any unnecessary losses on the Russian side.
Reports of Nazi atrocities are literally all over the place, especially on Telegram. A few of these have leaked into the legacy corporate ziomedia thereby creating the first, still tiny, cracks in the official narrative.
Nobody knows what/who exactly is hidden deep in the bowels of Azovstal, but considering the immense efforts to get “it/him/them” out of there, the inevitable takeover of the underground floors by the Russians will result in some major embarrassment for the Empire, unless the Kremlin decides to show “goodwill” again and mistakenly believe that any such goodwill will be appreciated in the West. IF there is a deal made, it will have to offer the Russians something really substantive and very quickly verifiable since just promises won’t do, not even with the Atlantic Integrationists (who are now busy rebranding themselves as “patriotic Russians”).
There are also lots of reports of atrocities in the Nazi-controlled Ukraine, including public floggings and executions. Again, Telegram is flooded with such reports and footage and the Bucha false flag petered out without providing the needed “distraction” and return to the “correct” narrative. The Ukronazis even reportedly told the Brits that they have no intention of abiding by the Geneva Conventions (what a surprise!).
On the photo above and on the closeup, check out the face and expression of Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian opposition. If that is how the SBU OFFICIALLY – the photo is from ‘Ze’ himself – treats a top political figure, just imagine what they have done to the thousands of people they have “disappeared” over 8 years now!
Over the past week or so, the western PSYOPs have begun to lose control of the narrative, which means that they need to seize the initiative and regain control of the narrative. Not exactly a difficult task when dealing with a terminally stupidified public in Zone A.
In the meantime, the Eurolemmings are continuing their acts of highway robbery. European “values” at work, from the Crusades to the modern age 🙂
A few weeks back I wrote that while the immediate objective of the SMO in the Ukraine was to denazify and disarm the Nazi-occupied Ukraine, the real end goal was to chance the European collective security architecture which, itself, is the cornerstone of our entire, worldwide, international order. I called that “denazify the planet” and I am pretty sure that many readers reading these words thought “what’s Andrei smoking?”.
Well, how about we now listen to both Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Karaganov?
Still, for the time being, the big event will be the initiation of the 2nd phase of the war: the elimination of the Ukrainian forces inside the Donbass cauldron. Very few people know how long such an operation would last, it depends on so many things that it makes no sense to try to guess it, but the outcome itself is not in doubt.
Only God, and Satan, know what kind of demented scheme the likes of Nuland or Blinken will come up next.
All we can say is that a rabid dog is cornered, it makes it even more dangerous.
And we have to keep in mind that they REALLY and SINCERELY thought they would (finally!) break the will of the Russian people and that they know this long awaited and oh-so-sweet revenge-victory is slipping away from them – just imagine the rage they must feel. After eight years of endless provocations, insults and “negotiations” the Neocons have FINALLY forced Russia to intervene openly, which was always the dream of the Neocons. But what they did not expect (and neither did anybody else, myself included) was that instead of “just” liberating the LDNR from constant Ukronazi strikes, Putin chose to liberate the entire Ukraine and change the entire collective security architecture of Europe. Even better, Putin has confirmed this openly in his ultimatum and many times since.
You could say that Putin’s message to NATO was short: “We are coming for you”. I think of it as the modern equivalent of the ancient words “хочу на вы идти” (pronounced “khochu na vy idti”) spoken to his enemies by the famous commander of ancient Russia, the Grand Duke of Kiev Svyatoslav Igorevich (955-972) and which can be loosely translated as “my intention is to attack you”.
I don’t believe that NATO has fully understood this or, to the extent they did, they will dismiss it as “bluff” (as if Putin ever bluffed, which is really something Russians very rarely do).
But by the time the 2nd phase is over, this reality will have trickled into the delusional minds of the likes of Borrell or Stoltenberg and you can be sure they will run to their beloved Uncle Shmuel for protection. At which point the Empire of Lies will have exactly two options left:
Admit a total political defeat of NATO in Europe or
Commit suicide and try to attack Russia. And since the US/NATO/EU/etc do not have anywhere near the force levels to take on the Russian military a direct US military intervention, this would be utterly pointless and bring the leaders of the USA to the same choice (to nuke or not to nuke?), except that a really embarrassing military defeat will be added on top of an already really embarrassing political defeat
So, apparently, the Eurolemmings are totally willing to die for the Ukraine, as long as the fighting is done by the Ukrainians themselves.
The same Eurolemmings are also willing to eviscerate their own economies only for the privilege to brown-nose Uncle Shmuel and get a “certificate of democratic credentials” as a reward.
But will US soldiers be willing to die for either the Ukraine or the Eurolemmings? Will the Neocons have enough influence and power to force the US military to execute a civilization-ending order? Or will there appear some personality/group which would do, but this time REALLY DO, what Trump promised and “drain the swamp” and get rid of the likes of Bliken or Nuland?
I very much doubt it. But I can still hope for it.
And then there is China which clearly supports Russia, and which is clearly preparing for a war against the USA. Even their minister of defense said so quite openly. And here are two things the Chinese know for sure:
If the Empire defeats Russia, China will be next, thus China cannot afford a Russian defeat under ANY circumstances (and neither can Russia afford a hypothetical Chinese defeat at the hands of the Empire).
If the US and Russia go at each other in earnest, this will be the perfect time to not only solve the Taiwan issue, but to boot the US out of the Far East just as Iran booted the USA out of the Middle-East. From the Chinese point of view, “just” liberating Taiwan is not enough – the US must be removed from Taiwan, Japan and even the ROK. So yes, China also wants to denazify the planet, they are less blunt about it than the Russians, but it is clear to me that this world denazification plan was agreed to by both Putin and Xi.
The folks at the Pentagon must realize that – at least a sufficient critical mass must do so. Yes, I agree with Andrei Martyanov, the former US generals on TV sound like ignorant infantiles, but I will never believe that all US military commanders are that stupid. I studied in Washington DC from 1986 to 1991 and most of my teachers were active-duty military, and none of them were stupid. I also had a lot of fellow students who were from the US military, in the “lieutenant to major” range, and, again, these were smart men, very well educated and, I believe, honorable men. By now some of them must hold very senior ranks and they could make the difference.
Again, I don’t expect that to happen, but I get to still hope that it will.
I did not study with either General Mattis or General Milley and I know very little about them except this: Mattis seems to be the person who deliberately botched the US missile strike on Syria to avoid a possible Russian reaction leading to war and General Milley called his Chinese counterpart to tell him that the US has no intention of striking at China thereby telling the Chinese that they are NOT in a “use them or lose them” situation, which would have put the entire USA in the very real danger of getting nuked by a desperate China. In both of these cases, these generals appear to have contravened direct orders for the greater good of service to their country and protection of the US population of the imbecilic orders given by imbecilic US Presidents. Mattis was “let go” pretty soon by The Donald while Milley was subjected to a vicious smear campaign.
So if “Biden” (meaning Nuland, Sullivan, Blinken or any other demented psychopath) gives the order to attack Russian forces I still want to believe that there will be a critical mass at the Pentagon to tell the “crazies in the basement” to finally shut up and get back to where they belong: the basement they crawled out of.
Is there enough true and real patriotism left in the USA? Or is patriotism just waving (Chinese made!) US flags, vote for the “lesser evil” from either branch of the Uniparty, and remain an Israeli colony forever?
Click on the image above to appreciate the irony of HIAS aiding Nazis!
If it wasn’t for the US nuclear triad (old, but still formidable and capable!), I truly wouldn’t give a damn, but alas that is a luxury nobody can afford, at least until the USA is finally denazified and disarmed too. But until all of Zone A is absorbed and re-civilized by Zone B, that danger will threaten every human being on the planet (and now even in the southern hemisphere courtesy of the comprador leaders of the US colony in Australia which have decided to paint a big Chinese nuclear crosshairs on their brainless heads!).
Okay, I will end with some major good news: the entire 36th Marine Infantry Brigade in Mariupol has surrendered! That is over 1000 soldiers, including 300 wounded and 90 seriously injured.
Now, careful here, these are NOT the Azov forces hiding in the underground floors of Azovstal. First, they are not Azov but regular Ukrainian military and, second, they were barricaded in the Illich industrial complex, near the Azovstal, but already cut off from Azovstal.
The Ukrainian 36th Naval Infantry Brigade has surrendered
It is important to note that unlike the Azov Nazis, the Naval Infantry forces are NOT considered as Nazis by the Russians and that they will all get full POW protection under the Geneva Convention.
The very best the Azov people can expect is to be identified and arrested on suspicion of war crimes, crimes against humanity and all kinds of atrocities. If some of them are clearly clueless idiots who made some bad choices, they might return home one day after either being found innocent (a minority) or after serving their time in Russian jails.
Those found with tattooed swastikas or those who are already on the FSB wanted list will get harsh sentences in equally harsh high-security prisons.
As for Azov commanders, they have already been told by everybody that they will get no mercy. Which means that they will get interrogated and executed.
[Sidebar: Russia has had a moratorium on the death penalty to appease the Eurolemmings. Now that Russia has quit all EU institutions, you can expect the death penalty to be reinstated under popular pressure. Besides, the LDRN republics DO have the death penalty. As does every single Chechen subunit :-)]
The bottom line is this: while the surrender of the 36th Naval Infantry Brigade is absolutely wonderful news – just think of the saved lives – it is very unlikely to set a precedent to the Azov forces in Mariupol or elsewhere. Worse, I strongly suspect that the two reasons why the 36th Naval Infantry Brigade could surrender were that:
They were cut off (by the Russian National Guard units) from the Azov forces in Azovstal
They were considered an elite unit that the Nazis of Azov could not simply and safely massacre
In the Donbass, the situation is, reportedly, much worse: the ratio of Nazi to normal soldier seems to be close to 1:10 which means that the Nazis can act as “barrage forces” and shoot anybody refusing to advance or trying to retreat – a technique which the West loves to blame on Stalin, but which was invented by the Nazis on the Eastern Front. They can also act as “political commissars”, a category invented by Leon Trotsky himself to force former officers of the imperial Russian military to obey orders given by these commissars or face execution. And those who will say that 1:10 is a great ratio for the Ukrainians to dispose of their “Nazi commissars” miss the point as any such conspiracy will be detected long before it materializes.
Yet again, I am not expecting this to happen, but I will keep hoping with all my heart that a huge massacre (because that is exactly what this is shaping up to be) can still be avoided. I really hope that the Russian PSYOPs are doing all they can to reach out to the Ukrainian soldiers in the Donbass cauldron and that the RU+LDNR forces will do everything short of taking serious losses to spare the lives of the 60-70 thousand or so Ukrainians who are now waiting to be obliterated by heavy Russian strikes.
One of my favorite Russian poets, Maksimilian Voloshin, wrote a poem entitled “Civil War” which I love and which I will share with you, in Russian and in a somewhat corrected machine translation:
Одни восстали из подполий, Из ссылок, фабрик, рудников, Отравленные темной волей И горьким дымом городовДругие из рядов военных, Дворянских разоренных гнезд, Где проводили на погост Отцов и братьев убиенных.В одних доселе не потух Хмель незапамятных пожаров, И жив степной, разгульный дух И Разиных, и Кудеяров.В других – лишенных всех корней – Тлетворный дух столицы Невской: Толстой и Чехов, Достоевский – Надрыв и смута наших дней.Одни возносят на плакатах Свой бред о буржуазном зле, О светлых пролетариатах, Мещанском рае на земле…В других весь цвет, вся гниль империй, Все золото, весь тлен идей, Блеск всех великих фетишей И всех научных суеверий.Одни идут освобождать Москву и вновь сковать Россию, Другие, разнуздав стихию, Хотят весь мир пересоздать.В тех и в других война вдохнула Гнев, жадность, мрачный хмель разгула,А вслед героям и вождям Крадется хищник стаей жадной, Чтоб мощь России неоглядной Размыкать и продать врагам:Сгноить ее пшеницы груды, Ее бесчестить небеса, Пожрать богатства, сжечь леса И высосать моря и руды.И не смолкает грохот битв По всем просторам южной степи Средь золотых великолепий Конями вытоптанных жнитв.И там и здесь между рядами Звучит один и тот же глас: «Кто не за нас – тот против нас. Нет безразличных: правда с нами».А я стою один меж них В ревущем пламени и дыме И всеми силами своими Молюсь за тех и за других.
Some have risen from the underground, From exiles, factories, mines, Poisoned by the dark will And the bitter smoke of cities.Others from the ranks of the military, Nobles from now ruined nests, Where they would accompany to the graveyard The fathers and brothers of those murdered.In some the flame of ancient fires has not been snuffed out yet And in the steppes, rebellious spirit of Razins and Kudeyars remains aliveIn others – devoid of all roots – The corrupting spirit of the capital on the Neva: Tolstoy and Chekhov, Dostoevsky – The anguish and turmoil of our days.Some are posting slogans about Their nonsense and bourgeois evil, About the bright proletarians, A petty-bourgeois paradise on earth…In others, all the color, all the rot of empires, All the gold, all the decay of ideas, The brilliance of all the great fetishes And all scientific superstitions.Some go to liberate Moscow and unite Russia again, Others, unleashing the elements, They want to recreate the whole world.In both, the war breathed in Anger, greed, the dark intoxication of rioting,And following the heroes and leaders A stalking a greedy pack of predators crawls near To betray and sell out Russia’s boundless power to her enemies:Rot her wheat piles, Her dishonor skies, Devour riches, burn forests And suck up dry her seas and springs.And the roar of battles does not cease Across all the expanses of the southern steppe Amidst the golden splendors Horses are trampling upon the harvests.And there and here between the rows The same voice sounds: “Whoever is not for us is against us. There are no indifferent ones: the truth is with us.”And I stand alone between them In the roaring flames and smoke And with all my strength I pray for both of them.
These verses were written in November of 1919 and they refer to the Russian Civil war.
Today, the situation is radically different in too many ways to list, but on a spiritual level, I think that this is again yet another Russian civil war. I have exactly ZERO sympathy or, even less so, empathy for the Ukrainian Nazis, but when I see the young faces of Ukrainian POWs I can’t help it – I see *my* people. Yes, confused, mistaken, misguided, possibly stupid and even deeply sinful. And I would not hesitate for 1 second to fight them with more than a keyboard. But as long as they don’t embrace the Ukronazi/Baderista/Azov/SBU/NATO/EU/US ideology I will always see them as my people and I will never rejoice in their suffering or demise.
Finally, when Voloshin wrote “I pray for both sides” it was not a political statement. It was a recognition of our common humanity. Even if the core of the Ukronazi/Baderista/Azov/SBU/NATO/EU/US ideology and even IDENTITY is to deny us, Russians, that common humanity (other than in vapid words, of course).
To the demons in Washington DC we need to oppose our saints, both living and long dead.
Our most formidable weapon is not a nuke or any “Tsar-Bomba” but our modest prayer ropes.
Let’s use that most formidable weapon of ours which only we have (there is no real hesychasm in the West, and there has not been for many centuries now),
And strictly in that sense, I do the same, I also pray for our people on both sides.
Serbia is a country that, as even its President Alexander Vucic has publicly admitted, supports Russia in the Ukrainian conflict by an overwhelming majority of at least 80 %. That is very likely an underestimate. The people of that small Balkan nation feel intuitively that Russia has acted correctly and that it is their only international friend. They know their history and realize that at each critical juncture over the last two centuries Russia, whether imperial, Soviet, or the Russian Federation of today, is their only reliable ally. In August 1914, as Europe’s Germanic powers were plotting the invasion and demise of Serbia, after falsely accusing it of complicity in the Sarajevo assassination of Austria’s heir to the throne, Archduke Ferdinand, it was Russia alone among the great powers which in the global storm that was brewing unequivocally stood up for Serbia. Czar Nicholas II literally risked the stability of his empire (and as subsequently became clear, also his own and his family’s life) in order to oppose the assault on Serbia, which triggered World War I.
In World War II, Serbs remember the key role played by the Soviet Army in driving out Nazi occupiers after a brutal and murderous four-year occupation. During the troubled nineties of the last century, after the collapse and dismemberment of the Soviet Union Russia was too embroiled in recovering its own sovereignty to be able to do much for the Serbs. But Russia’s unwavering subsequent support for and insistence on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which marked the conclusion of the Kosovo conflict by defining Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia again made Russia a key guarantor of Serbia’s statehood and independence. Russia’s position on the Kosovo issue has effectively nullified Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence and ensured that Serbia’s claim to the province which was forcibly occupied as a result of NATO aggression in 1999 remains inviolable and valid from the standpoint of international law. The Serbian nation knows that and deeply appreciate it.
If we fast forward to current events, a sharp discrepancy has emerged between the sentiments of the Serbian people and the policies pursued by their government. The Serbian government appears increasingly to be playing a slimy double-faced game, guided primarily by its own political survival rather than concern for the country’s honor or desire to properly represent the overwhelming sentiment of its citizens in international forums.
That game, which is gradually aligning official Serbia with NATO and the Western powers which the Serbian people despise was recently played out in two landmark votes in the United Nations. On March 3, to the utter dismay of the Serbian public, the government voted in favor of a UN resolution proposed by leading Western countries to condemn the “Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Government spokesmen quickly pointed out that notwithstanding the questionable UN vote Serbia still had no intention of imposing sanctions on Russia, but the damage was done. Russia was nevertheless kind enough to exclude Serbia from the list of “unfriendly countries,” which it published soon after that.
Perhaps encouraged by Moscow’s leniency, on April 6 the Serbian government raised the stakes and continued to test Russia’s patience by casting another hostile vote, this time to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, again in response to the pressure of Western governments.
A member of the Russian UN delegation commented diplomatically on that occasion that he found the vote of “our Serbian friends” difficult to understand.
The Serbian government is taking the country on a dangerous path by giving in to Western pressure and blackmail. The first vote might have been explained away as a fluke, but the second vote against Russia cannot be described otherwise than as a slap in the face. The legitimate question that arises now that we can clearly see a hostile trend toward Russia emerging in the conduct of the Serbian government, is how far will these provocations go and what further acts unfriendly to Russia are bound to follow?
Qualified Serbian analysts are of the opinion that once the new Serbian post-election government is formed, a set of measures against Russia will inevitably be adopted on orders from the collective West. That may very well include joining Western “sanctions,” though it is not clear exactly in what form because trade with Russia on very favourable terms is a one-way street which benefits only Serbia. Russia is not likely to suffer much by being deprived of Serbian plums, apples, and other agricultural products, but the fragile Serbian economy certainly will.
On a more serious level, there is widespread speculation in political circles in Serbia that the government’s Western overseers will demand that Serbia demonstrate its solidarity with Western countries by also plundering Russian property on its territory. A prime target would be NIS, the mixed ownership energy company which ensures that Serbia receives from Russia the gas and oil it needs at an extraordinarily favourable price. Will Serbia shoot itself in the foot by disrupting its energy relationship with Russia, which is so vitally important to its people and its few remaining viable industries? That remains to be seen, but Germany, UK, and other Western countries have already done it to their own detriment, so something along the same lines can be expected also from the politically insecure and heavily blackmailed Serbian regime.
Official Serbia having recently set two important precedents which mark its subservience to the Western bloc and pliancy in the face of Western pressure, what is next? Obviously, the collective West’s “unfinished business” in Kosovo is still at the top of the agenda. For Kosovo’s secession to be recognized under international law, Serbia must give its consent and sign off on it. The government has been moving steadily in that direction for the last eight years, granting the secessionist regime one attribute of sovereignty after another, but so far stopping short of the ultimate step in fear of the popular reaction. It is stymied also by Russia’s thus far inflexible position as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council that the only solution it would approve is the one that is within the framework of Resolution 1244, which mandates that Kosovo is part of Serbia. The question can therefore be legitimately put whether the regime is intentionally annoying Russia in the hope that it will be irritated enough to put Serbia on its list of unfriendly countries and drop its insistence on Resolution 1244, which is what effectively prevents the secessionist entity’s legalisation as a sovereign state separate from Serbia? Time will tell, but well-founded suspicions of foul play abound.
The other important issue on the agenda that must soon some up is Serbia’s membership in NATO. It is an issue that perforce will soon have to be put on the table in light of the collective West’s increasingly bellicose attitude toward Russia, which many interpret as deliberately leading in the direction of war. Assuming that war with Russia is being planned, absorbing Serbia into NATO would be a military and political necessity. Not, of course, in the sense that anyone at NATO headquarters seriously expect that Serbian soldiers would willingly shoot at Russians (even the World War II collaborationist regime flatly refused to send a single Serb to the Eastern front and the Germans could do nothing about it), but because, like Hitler when he was preparing Operation Barbarossa, NATO needs to at least neutralize its Balkan flank.
We should be alert therefore to the likelihood that pressure on the Serbian regime to join NATO will gain in momentum and intensity and will not encounter stiff official resistance. An indication of that is that NATO’s chief lobbyist in Belgrade, a woman who shamelessly asserted that depleted uranium remaining after the 1999 bombing was not only harmless but could even have certain health benefits, was recently rewarded for her 5th column activities by being appointed Serbia’s ambassador to Croatia.
It is important to bear in mind, nevertheless, that with the Serbian media being roughly evenly divided, on the one hand, between Western-owned outlets pushing the Empire of Lies version of events in Ukraine, and television and print outlets under the control of the duplicitous regime pushing a slightly watered-down version of the same party line, the Serbian public is largely shut off from reliable information about Ukraine and just about anything else.
In light of that, the spontaneously organized mass demonstrations in Belgrade and other major cities against the government’s March 3 vote condemning the “Russian invasion” are an important milestone. They indicate that the brainwashing process in Serbia at least is far from a resounding success. They are also a repudiation of NATO’s war plans and of the political betrayals of NATO’s local collaborators. Serbian mass protests are a message to the Russian government and the Russian people that Serbia stands with them and that the decisions of the ruling cabal in Belgrade are null and void.
On April 15 there will be another popular gathering in Belgrade, this time to denounce Serbia’s vote to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights council. Yes, there are now copycat demonstrations in many Western European countries in support of Russia. But it bears pointing out that this time also, as on March 26 1941, when they poured into the streets to denounce their cowardly government’s signing of the Axis pact, the Serbs again are trailblazers in opposition to global tyranny.
Hitler and now the collective West after him correctly categorized Serbs as an incorrigibly troublesome element in the Balkans. May the Serbian people continue to live up to that glorious reputation.
This is the defiant poster that is circulating in Serbian social media these days:
Translation:
After Serbia’s shameful action against Russia in the United Nations, when it voted to expel Russia from the Human Rights Council, I say:
NOT IN MY NAME
That action does not reflect the position of the overwhelming majority of Serbia’s citizens.
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated.
By now it’s abundantly clear that the neo-Orwellian “Two Minute Hate” Russophobic campaign launched by the Empire of Lies after the start of Operation Z is actually “24/7 Hate”.
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated. The full psyops has de facto upgraded the Empire of Lies to the status of Empire of Hate in a Total War – hybrid and otherwise – to cancel Russia.
Hate, after all, packs way more punch than mere lies, which are now veering into abject ridiculousness, as in U.S. “intelligence” resorting to – what else – lies to fight the info war against Russia.
If the propaganda overdrive has been lethally effective amidst the zombified Western masses – call it a “win” in the P.R. war – in the front where it really matters, inside Russia, it’s a major fail.
Public opinion support for both Operation Z and President Putin is unprecedented. After videos of torture of Russian POWs that caused widespread revulsion, Russian civil society is even bracing for a “Long War” lasting months, not weeks, as long as the targets of the Russian High Command – actually a military secret – are met.
The stated aims are “demilitarization” and “denazification” of a future neutral Ukraine – but geopolitically reach way beyond: the aim is to turn the post-1945 European collective security arrangement upside down, forcing NATO to understand and come to terms with the concept of “indivisible security”. This is an extremely complex process that will reach the next decade.
The NATOstan sphere simply cannot admit in public a series of facts that a military analyst of the caliber of Andrei Martyanov has been explaining for years. And that adds to their collective pain.
Russia can take on NATO and smash it to bits in 48 hours. It may employ advanced strategic deterrence systems unmatched across the West. Its southern axis – from the Caucasus and West Asia to Central Asia – is fully stabilized. And if the going gets really tough, Mr. Zircon can deliver his hypersonic nuclear business card with the other side not even knowing what hit it.
“Europe has chosen its fate”
It may be enlightening to see how these complex processes are interpreted by Russians – whose points of view are now completely blocked across NATOstan.
Let’s take two examples. The first is Lieutenant General L.P. Reshetnikov, in an analytical note examining facts of the ground war.
Some key takeaways:
– “Over Romania and Poland there are airborne early warning aircraft of NATO with experienced crews, there are U.S. intelligence satellites in the sky all the time. I remind you that just in terms of budgets for our Roscosmos we allocated $2.5 billion a year, the civil budget of NASA is $25 billion, the civil budget of SpaceX alone is equal to Roscosmos – and that is not counting the tens of billions of dollars annually for the entire U.S. feverishly unfolding the control system of the entire planet.”
– The war is unfolding according to “NATO’s eyes and brains. The Ukronazis are nothing but free controlled zombies. And the Ukrainian army is a remotely controlled zombie organism.”
– “The tactics and strategy of this war will be the subject of textbooks for military academies around the world. Once again: the Russian army is smashing a Nazi zombie organism, fully integrated with the eyes and brain of NATO.”
Now let’s switch to Oleg Makarenko, who focuses on the Big Picture.
– “The West considers itself ‘the whole world’ only because it has not yet received a sufficiently sensitive punch on the nose. It just so happened that Russia is now giving him this click: with the rear support of Asia, Africa and Latin America. And the West can do absolutely nothing with us, since it also lags behind us in terms of the number of nuclear warheads.”
– “Europe has chosen its fate. And chose fate for Russia. What you are seeing now is the death of Europe. Even if it does not come to nuclear strikes on industrial centers, Europe is doomed. In a situation where European industry is left without cheap Russian energy sources and raw materials – and China will begin to receive these same energy carriers and raw materials at a discount, there can be no talk of any real competition with China from Europe. As a result, literally everything will collapse there – after industry, agriculture will collapse, welfare and social security will collapse, hunger, banditry and chaos will begin.”
It’s fair to consider Reshetnikov and Makarenko as faithfully representing the overall Russian sentiment, which interprets the crude Bucha false flag as a cover to obscure the Ukrainian army torture of Russian POWs.
And, deeper still, Bucha allowed the disappearance of Pentagon bioweapon labs from the Western mediasphere, complete with its ramifications: evidence of a concerted American drive to ultimately deploy real weapons of mass destruction against Russia.
The multi-level Bucha hoax had to include the Brit presidency of the UN Security Council actually blocking a serious discussion, a day before the Russian Ministry of Defense struggled to present to the UN – predictably minus the U.S. and the UK – all the bioweapon facts they have unearthed in Ukraine. The Chinese were horrified by the findings.
The Russian Investigative Committee at least persists in its work, with 100 researchers unearthing evidence of war crimes across Donbass to be presented at a tribunal in the near future, most probably set up in Donetsk.
And that brings us back to the facts on the ground. There’s a lot of analytical discussion on the possible endgame of Operation Z. A fair assessment would include the liberation of all of Novorossiya and total control of the Black Sea coastline that currently is part of Ukraine.
“Ukraine” in fact was never a state; it was always an annex to another state or empire such as Poland, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and crucially Russia.
The landmark Russian state was Kievan Rus. “Ukraine”, in old Russian, means “border region”. In the past, it referred to the westernmost regions of the Russian Empire. When the Empire started expanding south, the new regions annexed mostly from Turkish rule were called Novorossiya (“New Russia”) and the northeastern regions, Malorossiya (“Little Russia”).
It was up to the USSR in the early 1920s to jumble it all together and name it “Ukraine” – adding Galicia in the west, which was historically non-Russian.
Yet the key development is when the USSR broke up in 1991. As the Empire of Lies de facto controlled post-Soviet Russia, they could never have possibly allowed the real Russian regions of the USSR – that is, Novorossiya and Malorossiya – to be again incorporated to the Russian Federation.
Russia is now re-incorporating them – in an “I Did It, My Way” manner.
Vamos a bailar in European Puerto Rico
By now it’s also quite clear to any serious geopolitical analysis that Operation Z opened a Pandora’s box. And the supreme historical victim of all the toxicity finally let loose is bound to be Europe.
The indispensable Michael Hudson, in a new essay on the U.S. dollar devouring the euro, argues half in jest that Europe might as well surrender its currency, and go on like “a somewhat larger version of Puerto Rico.”
After all, Europe “has pretty much ceased to be a politically independent state, it is beginning to look more like Panama and Liberia – ‘flag of convenience’ offshore banking centers that are not real ‘states’ because they don’t issue their own currency, but use the U.S. dollar.”
In synch with quite a few Russian, Chinese and Iranian analysts, Hudson advances that the war in Ukraine – actually in its “full-blown version as the New Cold War” – is likely to last “at least a decade, perhaps two as the U.S. extends the fight between neoliberalism and socialism [meaning the Chinese system] to encompass a worldwide conflict.”
What may be seriously in dispute is whether the U.S., after “the economic conquest of Europe”, will be able to “lock in African, South American and Asian countries”. The Eurasia integration process, rolling in earnest for 10 years now, conducted by the Russia-China strategic partnership and expanding to most of the Global South, will go no holds barred to prevent it.
There’s no question, as Hudson states, that “the world economy is being enflamed” – with the U.S. weaponizing trade. Yet on the Right Side of History we have the Rublegas, the petroyuan, the new monetary/financial system being designed in a partnership between the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China.
And that’s something no puny Cancel Culture War can erase.
The Biggest Bang.
China is starting to pay for Russian oil and coal in yuan.
"Julian Assange is a victim of torture and inhuman treatment. This is a threat not just to Assange himself but to freedom of speech everywhere in the world. Nils Melzer’s book is the essential, utterly forensic analysis of this case" @VersoBookshttps://t.co/oKvEq3hwAbpic.twitter.com/XSJIRn6xXQ
'Sit back and watch Europe commit suicide,' suggests @RealPepeEscobar. If the US goal is to crush Russia's economy with sanctions and isolation, why is Europe in an economic free fall instead?https://t.co/LM9dDENWGN via @TheCradleMedia
If the #US goal is to crush Russia's economy with sanctions and isolation, why is Europe in an economic free fall instead while Moscow enjoys a record budget surplus?https://t.co/dAoL9zMbsK
The Empire of Resentful Cowards and Liars, who's starving millions of Afghans to death and weaponizing the genocide in Yemen, got the UN General Assembly to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council. pic.twitter.com/Db20bdC25g
Neither Russia nor China ever subscribed to the concept of “rules-based world order”. Unlike the West, they are not allergic to international law (as opposed to vague or even unknown “rules”) as the sound basis of international relations. https://t.co/42flmGWof2
The Russian Investigative Committee has 100 researchers working full-time, amassing evidence of UkroNazi war crimes across the Donetsk People's Republic.
Looks like someone gave a copy of Eurasia For Dummies to Generalito Milley:
"We are now facing two global powers: China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities both who intend to fundamentally change the rules-based current global order."
Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work for NO #Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.
The big news today is that those evil Russkies have fired a Tochka-U missile with a cluster warhead at the city of Kramatorsk, killing scores of innocent civilians. The “entire civilized world” is disgusted and immediately announced even MORE sanctions, MORE condemnation and MORE anti-Russian virtue signalling.
Minor problem: Russia does not have Tochka-U missiles, which are 30 year old Soviet missiles which have been far surpassed by modern Russian missiles (of which Russia has plenty enough). How do we know that it was Tochka-U which was used?
Because of the tail section which separates from the warhеard during the flight. Here it is:
No Russian tactical missile in service with such a tail section, and only the Ukrainian Tochka-U have.
Tochka-U tail and control surfaces
How much of a problem is that for the Empire of Hate and Lies?
Very minor, really. Remember that their PSYOPS are directed at two kind of people:
Those with low intelligence
Those who don’t care about the truth
Russia did not have the old-model Buk which allegedly shot down MH-17 either, which did not stop the Empire of Hate and Lies to instantly blame the shooting down on Russia. And Russia has long liquidated her chemical weapons stores, unlike the US or the UK, by the way.
But who cares about that when hating Russia and Russians is all which really matters?
In fact, this is straight out of the western PSYOPs book:
Execute a false flag, then
INSTANTLY blame Russia and lean on all your colonies to do the same in the name of western “solidarity”
Thereby make absolutely certain that no real investigation can take place or, if it does, it will be so far down the road that nobody will care.
So we have a major false flag in Bucha, and now we have that Tochka-U in Kramatorsk. What will come next?
God only knows, but the goal is to associate “Russians” with “atrocities” in what is left of the mind of the eagerly scatophaging serfs in Zone A.
In the meantime, inside Russia a scandal is brewing with the latest statements of Dmitry Peskov who said a lot of very dumb things in his latest interviews. Frankly, the day Putin fires Peskov I will personally feel an immense sense of relief. During peacetimes having folks like Medinski and Peskov is painful enough, but during war times folks with their mindset are a real DANGER for Russia as they are directly injecting fear, uncertainty and doubt in the mind the the Russian public. The only good news, but it is very good, is that more and more Russians are getting really upset with these characters: they support Putin and the military operation, and they are really getting fed up with the Atlantic Integrationists and their way to patronize 5th columnists (which is what Peskov did).
I very much hope for the day when the likes of Peskov and Medinski are given their retirement package and are replaced by a completely different kind of person.
[Sidebar: I wonder if those who emphatically denied even the existence of Atlantic Integrationists will how have the honestly to admit that they were wrong. Probably not :-)]
Now let’s take a look at the recent vote to suspend Russian from the UN Human Rights Council:
First, notice that neither Hungary nor Serbia had the courage and decency to abstain (nevermind oppose).
Second, while this map does not accurately reflect how the actual people in these countries feel about this war, this map does a superb job showing us the list of pure comprador colonial ruling classes. So here is the score for our planet: the Empire, while already dead, still rules, by momentum, over 151 governments and only 24 countries have what it takes to openly oppose the voting directives from the Empire of Hate and Lies. The 58 countries which, like Pilate, have washed their hands from this vote are particularly pathetic, just like those who did not have the courage to even show up for the vote.
As for those who “voted green”, I wish I could send them each a small bag with 30 silvers coins inside.
Radovka posted an interesting map showing how the world is split:
Legend: from L to R: pro Ukraine, sympathetic to the Ukraine, neutral, sympathetic to Russia, pro Russian
And here is a sanctions map I came across recently:
Of course, this is just a still-shot of an evolving situation. But the real value of these maps is that it shows three different groups:
The real modern Nazis (CA+US+EU+AUS+NZ+JP).
The comprador regimes who vote “correctly” but many of which do not want to put their money where their mouth is and who also want to get good and services from Russia (I think of them has countries which huge stomachs but tiny balls).
The 25 countries which dared to defy the Empire of Hate and Lies and openly voted “no”.
Since the beginning of this war, the Russians have suffered many casualties trying hard NOT to harm civilians or the civilian infrastructure. The Ukronazis did the polar opposite: not only have they kidnapped thousands of people who have been “disappeared”, they have openly attacked civilians in the LDNR and since the SMO they have unleashed their hatred against almost every town they had to evacuate (to make the local “separs” pay and to blame it all on “Russian atrocities”.
And the West noticed absolutely *nothing*.
At least officially. In reality, of course, this is directly the result of the kind of “instruction” the Ukronazis have received from their Anglo masters.
Here is the ugly truth nobody wants to openly admit: the West wants to genocide Russia and the West is ALREADY genociding the people of the Ukraine. If the Empire of Hate and Lies has its way, this war will last as long as possible, include as many horrible atrocities as possible and a total destruction of the civilian infrastructure of the Ukraine.
As for Russia and the Russian people, there is only one thing I have not heard from our wonderful western neighbors yet: the screams “crucify them! crucify them! crucify them!”. Of course, that is not how the modern Crusaders express their feelings, they just want to “cancel Russia” – different words, same meaning.
If all this sounds demonic, it is because it is. Literally. And Russia history is filled with such genocidal invasions, and today, in conclusion, rather that use words I want to use a few paintings by the Russian artist Il’ia Glazunov. I don’t want to “explain” them, just look at them and you will maybe understand the Russian people and their history a little better than before, at least that is my hope.
The biggest news of today’s cycle is the wild admission by the Pentagon, U.S. media, etc., that the U.S. has in fact employed a “strategy” of outright lying and making up fake intelligence to ‘combat Russia’.
Astounding quote from article: “President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.”
They also admitted that most of the intelligence surrounding the conflict, such as the infamous ‘China is providing Russia with equipment’ was complete ‘malarky’, as the demented zombie-in-chief would say. How any reasonable and self-respecting country or people could trust the U.S.’s ongoing claims from this point on are beyond me. How could you possibly take in this announcement, and yet still believe the U.S. side of the story about the ‘Bucha massacre’ amongst other things?
This amazing feat of neuro-linguistic-programming must be seen to be believed:
The reporters here celebrate the ‘novelty’ of this method of utilizing intelligence (as if the amazing technique of ‘lying’ has only just been discovered by them). They dance around the real description of the concept as basically being “lying”, by continually describing it in fancy ways to frill it up and legitimize the “technique” as something other than what it is on its bare-faced surface: outright lies and propaganda meant to control the narrative of the conflict favorably.
And by the way, the reporter in the video is this guy:
And was actually fired by the LA Times for how deeply in bed he was with the CIA
After these admissions how can ANYTHING from the U.S. be believed? Russian “casualties” of 30,000+? Bucha massacre? Chemical weapons usage? Russia’s “failed objectives” and “failing campaign”? These are all individual claims that fall under the purview of this ‘new’ and ‘amazing’ technique called complete b.s. from the CIA.
Obviously this has been U.S.’s chief tactic for decades. But the full admission brings up a starker reality. That behind the curtains, the CIA has in recent times shifted to conducting its Ops “in the open”, but presenting them in a way that makes them seem acceptable. For instance we know during the last election, a remarkable series of articles came out in the MSM detailing the entire deep-state covert ops, how various apparatuses of the democratic party came together with corporate assets, Facebook, NGOs, etc., to take control of the 2020 election. They even fully admit to it being a secretive “shadow campaign”, but rebranded as a ‘good cause’.
In previous times this would have been an unprecedented scandal but now, rebranded and ‘in the open’, it’s given the cachet of legitimacy. The reason for the method shift is obvious: in today’s integrated online/social media environment, it’s pretty much impossible for the western intel agencies to operate in pure secrecy anymore. That era is over with. And so they’ve shifted to a strategy of conducting their Ops in full view but utilizing their media arm to repackage them to look justified in a certain light.
It’s akin to this – Hannity proudly and openly wearing a CIA pin (the Mockingbird is no longer caged, as you can see, it can fly freely and proudly in the open now) while decrying that, “Vladimir Putin has forfeited his right to live.”
“The “very small number” of Ukrainian soldiers, who have been in the U.S. since last fall for military training, were taught to use the drone with the expectation that they would soon return to their country to train others on the equipment, press secretary John Kirby told reporters.
“We took the opportunity — having them still in the country — to give them a couple of days’ worth of training on the Switchblade so that they can go back — and they will be going back soon, back home — to train others in the Ukrainian military,” Kirby said.”
More confirmation of how deeply invested and entrenched the U.S. is in this war. But no different than the billions spent on training Syrian rebels and ‘moderate terrorists’ to fight against Russians and Assad in Syria.
Here’s today’s print-up from the Pentagon itself. I can’t stress enough how massive the scale of this operation by the west to fund/supply Ukraine is. It dwarfs anything in history. When you consider that less than ~2000 Stingers were provided to the Taliban in the 80’s war, and that was considered an unprecedented scale operation at the time, then look at the above list and realize we’re only at the very earliest stages of what the West will be supplying to Ukraine (tanks, jets, etc likely all incoming eventually). There are some unconfirmed reports that even British Harpoons are already delivered and placed in Odessa. This is orders of magnitude more powerful/dangerous than the ‘Sea Skuas’ they were talking about, but this rumor may be fake propaganda from the Ukrop side.
More and more each day the scale of this operation is revealed and how deeply invested the west is, and it is breathtaking. New videos appear daily of large groups of foreign fighters, Georgian, etc., being heavily equipped and sent into the Ukraine.
And this list above is only from the U.S., there is much more from the other western ‘allies’ as well. Planes from North Macedonia landed in Reznow airfield in Poland today, likely bringing goodies as every other European country has. And add that to the billions already allotted recently in general aid and the billions spent on achieving Euromaidan, as admitted by Nuland when she said over $5 billion had been spent by the U.S.
The entire project has been in development for a very long time and it is the culmination of the western empire’s attempts to destroy Russia. Just listen here how Soros himself explains his involvement in the events of Ukraine dating back to the late 80’s and early 90’s. And how Adam Schiff admits that “the U.S. is fighting Russia over there so it doesn’t have to do it over here.”
On frontline news: As the big showdown in Donbass looms, a lot of forces are pouring in on both sides. Russia has shifted strategies and is now striking railway stations and reinforcement hubs / corridors, as many have hoped it would do. Overnight there were several reports of important railway hubs being hit by missiles. One near Zhytomir, which is possibly the single most important reinforcement hub to the frontlines in all of western Ukraine. Reinforcements being sent to frontlines were reportedly destroyed in the strike, though there’s no visual confirmation. And another in Kharkov region – just south, in Lozovaya – which evoked a video message plea from the Kharkov mayor who said railways were hit, oil has run out, but pleaded for people not to flee (presumably because the militants who control him need citizens to use as hostages / human shields just like in Mariupol).
“#KHARKOV Region—#Lozovaya—#Russia|n forces conduct precision missile strikes at a major supply/logistics centre of #Ukraine|ian forces in Lozovaya, which boast a key intersection of rail tracks enabling the supply and reinforcement of the #Donbass grouping of #UA military.”
As can be seen on this map, the Lozovaya junction is a critical resupply / reinforcement route for the Ukrop Donbass cauldron and specifically their stronghold of Kramatorsk, which had been the central headquarters of the entire JFO for some time. And other reports said a railway bridge was hit leading to that junction as well.
Just north of there, Russia continues to progress around Izyum. Our forces are now fighting at Sulihyvka/Suligovka on the way to Dovhen’ke in the direction towards Slavyansk.
Not only does this photo below show the progress downward from Izyum, but you can start seeing how this salient is now beginning to create the opening pincer that will enclose the ‘Great Cauldron’.
The battle for Kam’yanka, directly south of Izyum was quite destructive for the UAF, they suffered many losses and there are fields littered with their dead, as well as many trophies taken. https://www.bitchute.com/video/2qjB8t89mK2a/
Reports indicate that UAF forces are now amassing a huge force in the Kramatorsk / Druzhkovka region in preparation for RF’s advances. But they continue putting up stiff resistance along the road towards Slavyansk as well. The highways from Horlivka towards Kramatorsk are said to be filled with UAF troops. This appears to be their single largest agglomeration of the cauldron.
In the south, RF have blockaded Ugledar and Novomikhailovka, and begun storming the latter. Also, Basurin has estimated 3,000 to 3,500 enemy fighters remain in Mariupol. And the map there looks something like this:
With that said, most of the ‘weak’ ones have surrendered and only the most hardened Azov fanatics remain, so there is some possibility that the fighting can still go on for a decently long time. With that said, the more they retreat towards the ports, the more they are running out of residential areas with civilians to use as human shields, which allows allied forces to use increasingly heavy-handed tactics and strikes against them. I reported last time how for the first time heavy duty artillery units like 2S3 and 2S4s were brought in, such as those you can see in the latest Wargonzo video
So it’s difficult to guess – the fight could take another two weeks, or it can suddenly collapse in the next day or two if the remaining Azov abruptly surrender. Unfortunately cities take a long time to siege, many of us remember following the events of Aleppo or Sarajevo, and the years it took. Even in the final stages of Aleppo when rebel forces were already collapsing and SAA had the upper hand, it was weeks for every neighborhood, and months to clear districts.
But right now things are advancing according to plan. Large Russian reinforcements have poured into the Kharkov area to head to the Izyum front, and meanwhile Ukrop reinforcements/resupplies are finally being hit in their train stations and railyards by the RuAF, so the stage is being favorably set for our forces.
And for those that continue to doubt that the RF has vastly destroyed the Ukrainian military in terms of armor and capabilities. New videos continue to show the total lack of Ukrainian armor or vehicles. Here is one showing a large Ukrainian force, all on foot, not a vehicle among them – forced to use a civilian truck to evacuate their wounded – whom, by the way, have obvious swastikas on their person.
A force this large should always be supported with mechanized units and some sort of infantry fighting vehicle at the minimum, yet here they are taking lots of casualties in the video, no armor in sight.
A week or so ago, the American mercenary James Vasquez bragged on twitter how him and his squad “commandeered” (read: stole) a Lexus in Kiev so they can get to the frontline, such is their lack of military transport vehicles or APCs.
Lastly, the Ruble is now in the mid 70’s to the USD.
To the utter bewilderment of the West, it just keeps gaining in strength against the dollar.
I’ll leave you with this last video: to those that still question the Russian air power, or say Russia is not utilizing it, or doesn’t have air supremacy, etc. Here’s what a Ukrainian soldier said when asked what he fears most in this war: https://www.bitchute.com/video/xbWbfp7v5nJH/
The stunning spectacle of the EU committing slow motion hara-kiri is something for the ages. Like a cheap Kurosawa remake the movie is actually about the Empire of Lies-detonated demolition of the EU, complete with subsequent rerouting of some key Russian commodities exports to the US at the expense of the Europeans.
It helps to have a 5th columnist actress strategically placed – in this case astonishingly incompetent European Commission head Ursula von der Lugen – with her vociferous announcement of a crushing new sanctions package: Russian ships banned from EU ports; road transportation companies from Russia and Belarus prohibited from entering the EU; no more coal imports (over 4.4 billion euros a year).
In practice, that translates into Washington shaking down its wealthiest western clients/puppets. Russia, of course, is too powerful to directly challenge militarily, and the US badly needs some of its key exports, especially minerals. So, the Americans will instead nudge the EU into imposing ever-increasing sanctions that will willfully collapse their national economies, while allowing the US to scoop everything up.
Cue to the coming catastrophic economic consequences felt by Europeans in their daily life (but not by the wealthiest five percent): inflation devouring salaries and savings; next winter energy bills packing a mean punch; products disappearing from supermarkets; holiday bookings almost frozen. France’s Le Petit Roi Emmanuel Macron – perhaps facing a nasty electoral surprise – has even announced: “food stamps like in WWII are possible.”
We have Germany facing the returning ghost of Weimar hyperinflation. BlackRock President Rob Kapito said, in Texas,“for the first time, this generation is going to go into a store and not be able to get what they want.” African farmers are unable to afford fertilizer at all this year, reducing agricultural production by an amount capable of feeding 100 million people.
Zoltan Poszar, former NY Fed and US Treasury guru, current Credit Suisse grand vizir, has been on a streak, stressing how commodity reserves – and, here, Russia is unrivaled – will be an essential feature of what he calls Bretton Woods III (although, what’s being designed by Russia, China, Iran and the Eurasia Economic Union is a post-Bretton Woods).
Poszar remarks that wars, historically, are won by those who have more food and energy supplies, in the past to power horses and soldiers; today to feed soldiers and fuel tanks and fighter jets. China, incidentally, has amassed large stocks of virtually everything.
Poszar notes how our current Bretton Woods II system has a deflationary impulse (globalization, open trade, just-in-time supply chains) while Bretton Woods 3 will provide an inflationary impulse (de-globalization, autarky, hoarding of raw materials) of supply chains and extra military spending to be able to protect what will remain of seaborne trade.
The implications are of course overwhelming. What’s implicit, ominously, is that this state of affairs may even lead to WWIII.
Rublegas or American LNG?
The Russian roundtable Valdai Club has conducted an essential expert discussion on what we at The Cradle have defined as Rublegas – the real geoeconomic game-changer at the heart of the post-petrodollar era. Alexander Losev, a member of the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, offered the contours of the Big Picture. But it was up to Alexey Gromov, Chief Energy Director of the Institute of Energy and Finance, to come up with crucial nitty-gritty.
Russia, so far, was selling 155 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe each year. The EU rhetorically promises to get rid of it by 2027, and reduce supply by the end of 2022 by 100 billion cubic meters. Gromov asked “how,” and remarked, “any expert has no answer. Most of Russia’s natural gas is shipped over pipelines. This cannot simply be replaced by Liquified Natural Gas (LNG).”
The risible European answer has been “start saving,” as in “prepare to be worse off” and “reduce the temperature in households.” Gromov noted how, in Russia, “22 to 25 degrees in winter is the norm. Europe is promoting 16 degrees as ‘healthy’, and wearing sweaters at night.”
The EU won’t be able to get the gas it needs from Norway or Algeria (which is privileging domestic consumption). Azerbaijan would be able to provide at best 10 billion cubic meters a year, but “that will take 2 or 3 years” to happen.
Gromov stressed how “there’s no surplus in the market today for US and Qatar LNG,” and how prices for Asian customers are always higher. The bottom line is that “by the end of 2022, Europe won’t be able to significantly reduce” what it buys from Russia: “they might cut by 50 billion cubic meters, maximum.” And prices in the spot market will be higher – at least $1,300 per cubic meter.
An important development is that “Russia changed the logistical supply chains to Asia already.” That applies for gas and oil as well: “You can impose sanctions if there’s a surplus in the market. Now there’s a shortage of at least 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. We’ll be sending our supplies to Asia – with a discount.” As it stands, Asia is already paying a premium, from 3 to 5 dollars more per barrel of oil.
On oil shipments, Gromov also commented on the key issue of insurance: “Insurance premiums are higher. Before Ukraine, it was all based on the Free on Board (FOB) system. Now buyers are saying ‘we don’t want to take the risk of taking your cargo to our ports.’ So they are applying the Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF) system, where the seller has to insure and transport the cargo. That of course impacts revenues.”
An absolutely key issue for Russia is how to make the transition to China as its key gas customer. It’s all about the Power of Siberia 2, a new 2600-km pipeline originating in the Russian Bovanenkovo and Kharasavey gas fields in Yamal, in northwest Siberia – which will reach full capacity only in 2024. And, first, the interconnector through Mongolia must be built – “we need 3 years to build this pipeline” – so everything will be in place only around 2025.
On the Yamal pipeline, “most of the gas goes to Asia. If the Europeans don’t buy anymore we can redirect.” And then there’s the Arctic LNG 2 project – which is even larger than Yamal: “the first phase should be finished soon, it’s 80 percent ready.” An extra problem may be posed by the Russian “Unfriendlies” in Asia: Japan and South Korea. LNG infrastructure produced in Russia still depends on foreign technologies.
That’s what leads Gromov to note that, “the model of mobilization-based economy is not so good.” But that’s what Russia needs to deal with at least in the short to medium term.
The positives are that the new paradigm will allow “more cooperation within the BRICS (the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa that have been meeting annually since 2009);” the expansion of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC); and more interaction and integration with “Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Iran.”
Only in terms of Iran and Russia, swaps in the Caspian Sea are already in the works, as Iran produces more than it needs, and is set to increase cooperation with Russia in the framework of their strengthened strategic partnership.
Hypersonic geoeconomics
It was up to Chinese energy expert Fu Chengyu to offer a concise explanation of why the EU drive of replacing Russian gas with American LNG is, well, a pipe dream. Essentially the US offer is “too limited and too costly.”
Fu Chengyu showed how a lengthy, tricky process depends on four contracts: between the gas developer and the LNG company; between the LNG company and the buyer company; between the LNG buyer and the cargo company (which builds vessels); and between the buyer and the end user.
“Each contract,” he pointed out, “takes a long time to finish. Without all these signed contracts, no party will invest – be it investment on infrastructure or gas field development.” So actual delivery of American LNG to Europe assumes all these interconnected resources are available – and moving like clockwork.
Fu Chengyu’s verdict is stark: this EU obsession on ditching Russian gas will provoke “an impact on global economic growth, and recession. They are pushing their own people – and the world. In the energy sector, we will all be harmed.”
It was quite enlightening to juxtapose the coming geoeconomic turbulence – the EU obsession in bypassing Russian gas and the onset of Rublegas – with the real reasons behind Operation Z in Ukraine, completely obscured by western media and analysts.
A US Deep State old pro, now retired, and quite familiar with the inner workings of the old OSS, the CIA precursor, all the way to the neocon dementia of today, provided some sobering insights:
“The whole Ukraine issue is over hypersonic missiles that can reach Moscow in less than four minutes. The US wants them there, in Poland, Romania, Baltic States, Sweden, Finland. This is in direct violation of the agreements in 1991 that NATO will not expand in Eastern Europe. The US does not have hypersonic missiles now but should – in a year or two. This is an existential threat to Russia. So they had to go into the Ukraine to stop this. Next will be Poland and Romania where launchers have been built in Romania and are being built in Poland.”
From a completely different geopolitical perspective, what’s really telling is that his analysis happens to dovetail with Zoltan Poszar’s geoeconomics: “The US and NATO are totally belligerent. This presents a real danger to Russia. The idea that nuclear war is unthinkable is a myth. If you look at the firebombing of Tokyo against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more people died in Tokyo than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These cities were rebuilt. The radiation goes away and life can restart. The difference between firebombing and nuclear bombing is only efficiency. NATO provocations are so extreme, Russia had to place their nuclear missiles on standby alert. This is a gravely serious matter. But the US ignored it.”
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
So, as predicted by pretty much everybody, the long announced false flag has happened. Yes, it was very poorly executed, botched really, but in a way this makes it even MORE effective? Why? It conditions the public of Zone A to uncritically accept any fairy tale, no matter how stupid, illogical and otherwise going against both basic common sense and basic logic. In a way, Bucha is really MH-17 reloaded. Yes, they appear different, but in reality they are built exactly according to the same model. It goes something like this:
Russia was/is winning while the cannon fodder of the Empire of Hate and Lies was/is clearly being defeated.
The leaders of the Empire of Hate and Lies want to make Russia pay as high a price for daring to defy the leaders of the Empire of Hate and Lies, and so an atrocity was quickly arranged for and propagandized urbi et orbi. And it worked. Each time.
In order to prevent any real investigation, the Empire of Hate and Lies IMMEDIATELY proclaims that “those evil Snow Niggers” did it and then declares that to be “self-evident, indisputable common knowledge” and anybody asking questions is, therefore, a “Putin agent”. I guess the West’s infatuation with “diversity”, no matter how obscenely grotesque, does not apply to ideas, opinions or views…
Those simple acts have proven that they are extremely effective in turning most of Zone A into a Russophobic lynch mob.
Check out this list of article titles I just saw a few minutes on RT: (no need to read them, I just list them to “set the mood”, so to speak)
I could continue the list, but you get it, the leaders of the Empire of Hate and Lies have fully opened the “Hate and Lies” valve and it appears that they are seriously “losing it”.
Remember how in the Skripal and MH-17 cases EU countries joined in the sanctions out of “solidarity”?
I personally would call that cowardice and submissiveness, but “solidarity” works too. Well, the Eurolemmings have solidarized themselves into their own grave and now there is no undoing what they did to themselves.
From the Russian point of view, it is rather straightforward: Russia tried to encourage EU countries to use their own judgment and act in their own interests. It is now quite clear that as long as they get to brown-nose Uncle Shmuel the Eurolemmings are quite content with their fate. Russia needs to flush the EU down her “mental toilet” and only deal with sovereign countries which have retained enough agency to defend their own interests. In the EU that means Hungary and, to a much lesser degree, Serbia (not the people, of course, but the government which remains subservient to the Eurolemmings).
The Bucha massacre itself will go down Zone A’s collective memory hole, that’s where all the previous false flags of the Empire of Hate and Lies have gone. Once a demonization operation has served its use, it can be forgotten.
So what are the purposes of the Bucha false flag:
Change the narrative from the (non-existing) Ukronazi “victories” to “stop the Russian atrocities”
Obfuscate the DELUGE of evidence (witnesses and forensic) showing that it was the Ukronazis who engaged in mass atrocities in Mariupol. Remember – Ukrainian victims are sacred, Russian victims are simply irrelevant. In fact, a Russian CAN NOT be a victim unless he is anti-Putin, then it’s okay.
To condition (I mean that in the psychological sense) the TV watching serfs of the Empire of Lies and Hate to hate anything Russian with a searing, explosive, hated. Declare that Putin is now the “New Hitler” (though Putin has been Hitler pretty much since 2000, it’s just that now he is even MORE Hitler than before) and Russia some kind of broken, poor, and otherwise horrible Mordor.
Use this pretext to try to eject Russia and Russians from as many locations and organizations on the planet as possible. That means all of Zone A for sure, but also plenty of locations and organizations in Zone B where the comprador ruling set the tone and don’t give a damn about their own people and country.
Try to scare Putin with the same fate as Gaddafi, Milosevic, and Hussein who were all demonized and later murdered.
If you think about it, I think that it is fair to say that these are all clear signs that the Empire of Hate and Lies has now declared total war on Russia, just short of overtly actually attacking Russian forces or Russia, of course. In fact, Russia and the Empire of Hate and Lies have been at war since at least 2013, and Russia had to make many concessions to the Empire simply because from 2013-2021 Russia did not have:
A military that could take on NATO and win. She does now.
The kind of advanced strategic deterrence systems (nuclear and conventional) she now has.
A stabilized southern axis (Middle-East, Caucasus, Central Asia) from which no threat can realistically come.
A legal case to justify the decision to openly intervene in the Ukraine
A society that would not crumble under the tremendous pressure of US PSYOPS
A society in which the 5th columnists, the 6th columnists, and the Atlantic Integrationist have been pretty much totally discredited.
An economy that could survive the kind of total economic war unleashed nowadays
A system of alliances Russia could count on (remember Lukashenko’s and Nazarbayev’s “multipolarity” of the mid-20s?)
Large enough stores of advanced weapons for a long campaign
The real and full support of China
Interestingly, while the idiots in the West saw each Russian compromise and retreat as a sign of Russian weakness (including supposed well-wishers of Russia, who acted like typical 6th columnists), none of these wannabe armchair strategists had the intelligence to see that with each concession Russia APPEARED to be weaker and weaker while IN REALITY she was getting stronger and stronger right under the Empire of Hate and Lie’s collective nose 🙂
Now that all which has been previously hidden or misunderstood is becoming clear for all to see, and in this context, Bucha is the Empire of Lies’ declaration of TOTAL war against Russia.
The leaders of the Empire of Hate and Lies know the real score, not only in Mariupol or the Donbass, but about this entire war whose scope and purpose have caught the West totally by surprise (and me too!), and now they are scrambling to retain a semblance of control. And, let me tell you, they are not.
The collective West has now fully adopted a strategy first invented by the Israelis: if you cannot win a real war, win an imaginary one. And just as the IDF bombing some border post between Syria and Iraq makes no military sense or even any difference whatsoever, it is great for the morale of the Israelis who, just like the folks in the West, feel a strong sense of racial superiority over their Arab neighbors so they *need* “victories” to boost their own egos and conceal the fact that Israel’s neighbors have lost any fear they might have had in the past. What has to remain the biggest secret of them all is that, in reality, it is Israel which fears its neighbors (and it should!). Hence all the Israeli hysterics about BDS, or the term “Apartheid”, and all the crap about anti-Semitism: they are all designed to hide the truth, and first and foremost from the Israelis themselves who all suffer from what Gilad Atzmon very accurately calls “the pre-traumatic stress disorder”.
Bombing a Russian border post, however, is not an option for the Empire of Hate and Lies – that would be waaaaaaaaay too dangerous. So, instead, the Empire scores political “victories”, stuff like sending old weapons to Lvov, threaten to take Putin to the ICC, or make noises about super-dooper hypersonic weapons the US is about to develop and deploy.
Sooner or later, the delusional and ignorant psychopaths which run the Empire of Hate and Lies will come to realize that far from breaking Russia, they committed collective economic, political, social, moral, spiritual, and, of course, military suicide and they will be left with *nothing* else to do that try a desperate military provocation. I hope that I am wrong, but I don’t see how the united West could de-escalate from the corner it painted itself into.
Both the USA and the EU are run not by individuals, but by a class (in the Marxist sense of the word) which we can conceptually call the “1%ers”. One percent seems small, but in the USA 1% is over 3 MILLION people, and in the EU this is almost 4,5 MILLION people. Throw in colonies like Japan, Australia, Taiwan, and others and we can see that it is reasonable to assume that there are about 10’000’000 very rich and very powerful people out there who want to see Russia dead and gone forever.
These people will NEVER be voted out of power. Oh sure, here and there, for a while, some will lose an election and an outsider might be voted in, but that is what economic sanctions are for: to punish those nations which vote for the “wrong” candidate (like Hungary just did).
Consider this: the leaders of the West have always preferred actual warfare to any risk of social warfare (inability, protests, riots, shortages, etc.). So the “wait, we just shot our economies, let’s send more weapons to the Ukraine” is the only kind of “logic” these folks are capable of. And just to make sure that the TV watching serfs “get it” “correctly”, they will either do a false flag at the UN (Powell), in their own country (9/11), or outside (Srebrenica, Gouta, etc.).
In other words, it is all going according to the script. Not because that is “the plan” but simply because that is what the Empire of Hate and Lies does. It is the ONLY thing that Empire knows to do very well: hate and lie.
It is not just Banderastan that needs to be denazified – it is the entire Empire of Hate and Lies. And I have no clue whatsoever how to denazify 10 MILLION Nazis from our entire planet without a major war.
The false flag in Bucha is not only a declaration of total war on Russia, it is also a rallying call for those 10 million who run Zone A and a good part of Zone B. The fact that it was botched really makes no difference. If you have a brain, you know who did it and why, and if you don’t, you know it was Russia, on Putin’s personal order, no less.
And I predicted exactly that when I wrote (many times) that as soon as the “the Ukies are kicking the Russkies’ ass” narrative becomes unsustainable, which it now has, it will be changed to “Russian atrocities”.
Next, I fully expect NATO weapon convoys to be camouflaged as civilian and when the Russians begin striking them, there will be even MORE cries about “atrocities”. To be clear, I do NOT believe that NATO is sending weapons to the Ukraine to make a military difference, and I believe that the NATO leaders know that.
My fear is that the 3B+PU will try to make the Russians attack those convoys: if the Russians do not, western armchair generals will resume their cries to high heaven about “Russia is letting NATO arm the Ukie, Putin is about to sell out!!!” and if Russia does strike these weapon convoys, then they will instantly become “trains of refugees” and “humanitarian safe zones” or whatever crap the Anglo PSYOPS will come up with.
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Which might sound like an unsolvable dilemma, but that is simply not true. If you are going to get hated in either case – then, by all means, do “it”. And that seems to be the conclusion to which not only the Kremlin (and it’s Eurasian Sovereignists) have come to, but also the general public whose approval rating for both Putin and the Special Military Operation (SMO) has gone up. Even better, there are signs that the Russian society is bracing for a “long war”, lasting months for sure, maybe even into next year.
We are 41 days into this horror and the end is nowhere near in sight, and remember that the real objective of Russia and China is not “just” to disarm and denazify the Nazi-occupied Ukraine, it is to completely change the European collective security architecture which, in turn, is the cornerstone of the Empire of Lies worldwide. This will most probably take several years unless the coming economic crisis is even much worse than I expect it to be (in my total ignorance of economic topics).
Conclusion:
The Empire of Lies already understands that it lost Banderastan, so it executed the Bucha massacre to change the narrative and trigger a TOTAL “Cancel Russia” war. The WWII Nazis used the term “final solution” and that is what the Bucha false flag signals: the decision by Uncle Shmuel to achieve a “final solution” to the “Russian problem”.
This is the West’s way to signal that it too is now entering into its own 2nd phase of the war.
First, in Hungary, Viktor Orban won a supermajority in the latest elections. This makes perfect sense, as Orban’s policies have guaranteed that Hungary will get her energy at a low and stable price for the next 15 years (if I remember correctly) while the Eurolemmings will get their at astronomic prices on the spot markets which they themselves chose over long term contracts. The same goes for food items, fertilizer, etc.
I want to congratulate the Hungarian people not only on being the smartest in Europe, but for showing and proving that even a nation which is part of the EU and NATO can defend its own national interests.
Now about the Bucha fake, I won’t repeat it all here, I rather simply refer you to these:
Unlike Gonzalo Lira who is in Kharkov, Lancaster reports from Mariupol. They have very different styles, but they both deserve the recognition for the crucial work they are doing.
I also noticed that the Chinese channel CGTN has very good correspondent in the Ukraine, although I have heard him only on the Russian-language CGTN chanel. Here is the main one, FYI: https://www.youtube.com/c/cgtn.
Finally, it appears that the USA is trying to color-revolutionize Imran Khan in Pakistan and that this might even involve a plot to kill that man. Makes me wonder – did the CIA really learn nothing from Belarus or Kazakhstan???
In Russia the mass exodus of pro-western 5th columnists is continuing, which is a real cause for celebration. The sad part is that the official spokesman for the Kremlin, Peskov, seems to think that these folks are not traitors. Considering how the Atlantic Integrationists in the Presidential Administration and the Russian Government have totally mismanaged PR war, and then sent a pitiful figure like Medinsky to talk, which resulted in a real panic in Russia as most Russians are much more afraid to have diplomats negate all the efforts of the military. Frankly, sending Ramzan Kadyrov to negotiate would have been a much better move.
If the first phase of the war has shown that the Russians could achieve amazing results against a major force with a smaller force and the focus on maneuver, it has, alas, also shown that Russian PYSOPs and Civil Affairs capabilities are minimal and mostly ineffective. Now, wars can be won with little or not efforts allocated to PYSOPs and Civil Affairs, but such wars are much more costly not only in time and money, but also in human lives. Negotiations, PSYOPs, Civil Affairs and military operations have to work together, towards a common goal – then they act as a force multiplier. But when civilians do their own thing and the military their own, this needlessly complicates military operations and make wars much harder to end.
In all fairness to the Russians, they never had the kind of propaganda resources the Empire of Lies has. In fact, since US forces are typically of poor military value, the US has developed very sophisticated capabilities which they now bring to bear with great efficiency. So Russia faces two very different enemies:
The Ukrainian soldiers who are just the cannon fodder for Uncle Shmuel
The formidable propaganda machine of the Empire of Lies
The only good news here is that INSIDE Russia the Empire of Lies has totally failed, Putin’s personal popularity is now well above 80% and the popular disgust with the Russian fake “intelligentsia” (the self-applied label of “creative class” the Russian 5th columnist always claim for themselves) is real. So more and more of them are resigning, moving abroad, or openly caving into the immense pressure of the Empire to condemn their own President and country.
Lastly, remember how for YEARS I wrote that a Russian invasion of the Ukraine would be a dream come true for the Neocons?
Now that this has happened, do you see what I was referring to? We can now say that thanks to this war, the Empire of Lies can now officially “cancel Russia” – their 1000 year old dream.
That being said, I think that the West also overplayed its hand. Yes, they managed to make hatred for Russia and Russians a new type of woke virtue signalling, but they went so far overboard that they got the undivided attention of the Russian people who now see the true face and intentions of the Empire of Lies. And now that most Russians have understood that:
Russia and the Empire of Lies are in an existential war which only one side can walk away from and
The Empire of Lies wants to genocide the Russian nation (by a combo of means), this is a fight for survival, and for the right to live in a sovereign country
At this point in time, Ze has indicated that he will make no concessions, etc. etc. etc. so the negotiations are going nowhere. Good. I think that the Russians need to get rid of the Ukrainian force inside the Donbass cauldron first, and then offer negotiations again. But until that battle is over, I don’t see the point of talk unless these are talks about the surrender of this force.
Today, I want to comment on a topic I did not address yet: the quality of the Ukrainian armed forces.
Over night, two Ukrainian helicopters flying at very low altitude and high speed flew across the Russian Ukrainian border, and in only six minutes of flight time found themselves next to a fuel storage facility near the Russian city of Belgorod. They both fired, one missed, but the second one hit perfectly and the entire fuel storage facility ignited. Not a big deal, the fire has been contained, but very embarrassing nonetheless 😦
Another case: the night before yesterday a group of 5 Ukrainian helicopters took off from Nikolaev, flew 7 meters above the waves and landed in Mariupol. Their mission was to evacuate the leadership of the Azov force still hiding inside the Azovstal industrial facility. After they took off, two helicopters were shot down, but another three flew away, with a possible 3 helicopter ditching in the waters off the coast (unclear at this time).
Why do I consider these two events very telling?
Because it shows that the Ukrainian soldiers have A LOT of VERY REAL courage. Not only that, in both of these operations, a great deal of careful planning went into the preparations of these missions. So they are not only courageous, they are SMART.
Yes, the Ukie Volkssturm is a joke, but not the entire Ukrainian military and most definitely not the Nazis of the Azov “battalion” (it is not really a battalion, but rather a regiment or a small brigade, but spread out in key sectors of the Ukrainian defenses). Why is that so important to realize?
Because a HUGE battle is preparing in the Donbass.
Quick reminder:
While nobody knows the true size of the Ukrainian force surrounded in the Donbass, most observers place that force at about 60-80 thousand men. They are VERY well armed, courtesy of 7 years of mass delivery of weapons by the Empire of Lies. Their defenses are very solid, since they have been preparing them also for seven years. Furthermore, the Ukrainians are reportedly trying to bring in another major force from the central Ukraine to either reinforce their forces in the Donbass, or to help it to escape from their cauldron.
On the other side, nobody really knows how many Russian/LDNR forces are being concentrated around the Donbass either. There are reports of “immense” columns of Russian forces moving towards the Donbass, including some the Russian forces which were deployed near Kiev to pin down Ukrainian forces away from the Donbass.
The same feint was used by the Black Sea Fleet off the coast of Odessa.
There are two ways to control a road: you can stand on the road, place a roadblock, maybe lay mines and generally by physically on top of that road. Or you can do that remotely, without stepping on the road but by being able to fire (small arms, RPG, artillery, CAS) at any vehicle driving on that road. The Russian “encirclement” of the Ukrainian force in the Donbass into 2 small cauldrons which themselves are locked in a bigger cauldron are a mix of these two techniques. In other words, the Ukrainians still have retained *some* ability to move on the ground. But only at VERY high risk. Keep in mind that the Donbass is pretty flat terrain and that the Russians have air supremacy. But, with enough luck, immense courage and determination, some APC or cars could try to move out, or reinforcements move in. Let’s look at these two options:
Moving out: for a FEW vehicles, and with a lot of luck, that could still be doable. But for the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian force on the Donbass, this not an option. Not only do they lack fuel, any big force would attract the attention of the Russians (which a 4 passenger car going at full speed in the dark might not) resulting in immediate strikes.
Moving in: here the Ukrainian would still have fuel (or they would not even try, which they apparently are), but the problem is that it is impossible to hide any significant force from the Russians which could then use their long range artillery and close air support to destroy that force. I am personally very dubious as to the chances of any Ukrainian subunit to make it to the Donbass.
And yet.
The Ukrainian propaganda is beyond ridiculous, but we should NOT assume that if Ukie propagandists are clowns, so are the Ukrainian soldiers. The fact is that the Ukrainians never had the initiative, and they still don’t, and all their counter-attacks, including the airstrike on Belgorod, only had a limited and local effect. But that does not mean that they would not fight very hard for their lives, even when surrounded, even without air cover, with no ability to rotate forces and not enough fuel to engage in maneuver warfare.
Here is what the map of the area of operations looks like today:
The yellow circle is roughly the area where the outcome of this battle will be decided.
The small black arrow represents the likely Ukrainian effort to send in reinforcements
The big black arrow represents the move away from Kiev and towards the Donbass by Russian forces
Speaking about maps: while they do, more or less, show the military reality on the ground, they do not show the political realities the same way. The truth is that there are plenty of towns and cities which are blocked/surrounded by Russian forces, but which are still run by the “old”, Nazi, authorities. Yes, the Russians could go in and denazify these town and cities manu militari, but that would take time, results in casualties on both sides and ruin the civilian infrastructure. And the Russians sure don’t want, say, Kharkov to become a 2nd Mariupol.
[Sidebar: some of you must have heard that canard about the Russians “running out of ammo”, right? Well, local residents near the Ukrainian positions in the Donbass report that for three days the Russian artillery has been shelling the Ukrainian positions nonstop. In reality, anybody who has studied the Soviet and, later, Russian military knows that with the exception of some very modern systems which have just been deployed, Russia has huge stores of ammunition. In fact, when the Russians prepare a military offensive the expenditures in ammo, POL, and any other form of logistics required are carefully calculated. If not, then the order to attack will not be given. And, with a few exceptions, the kind of hardware and supplies the Russians are using in the Ukraine is both modern and plentiful. By the way, there are signs that the Ukrainian forces are running out of ammo, most of their shelling is directed at LDNR cities and result in scores of death and injured civilians on a daily basis]
One possible option would be to warn the Nazi authorities that while the Russian military won’t invade their city, the Russian can use special forces and means to target “just” these Nazi authorities. Yes, the Nazi will set up traps, like, say, placing the cellphone of a Nazi leader right on top of a Kindergarten, so the Russian intelligence services will have to do a lot of careful preparations and planning, or just make the threat and then wait for the Nazis to freak out and wonder where the promised missile will be aimed at.
All this means the following:
The Russians need to take the Ukrainians much more seriously and if that means having early warning aircraft and interceptors on combat air patrol 24/7 – then that is what the Russians should do. A pair of MiG-31BM on constant high altitude CAP over the central Ukraine would be a good start.
While the outcome is not in doubt, the Russians need to be very careful and assume that the Ukrainians will fight with skills and courage.
I don’t like making predictions, even less so, time-related ones, but I think that we need to prepare ourselves for a major battle lasting several weeks, possibly even a month.
Have have to assume that the PSYOPs of the Empire of Lies will go in full attack mode, and since it will be very hard to make sense of what will be going on, we have to ready for a major attack on our minds.
Once that Ukrainian force in the Donbass is defeated this will basically mean the end of the 2nd phase of this Special Military Operation (SMO) and the very best and combat capable Ukrainian will have disappeared and a 3rd phase will begin, probably by an attack on the Nikolaev and Odessa regions.
Still, we need to remember that all wars are political in nature and that while the military “pain dial” is turned up quite high for the Ukrainians, the US PSYOPs are still telling the Ukrainians that they are winning and soon the first Ukie tanks will enter Moscow. The de facto fall of Mariupol (as evidenced by the desperate attempts to evacuate the Azov leaders by helicopter) is already a major blow for the Ukrainian narrative. But this blow pales in comparison to what will happen when the best forces the Ukraine has will simply disappear from the maps of the Donbass. At that point, no amount of hot air, grand statements or other lies will make a difference – such a defeat is impossible to conceal, it will make the news.
Furthermore, we need to keep another thing always present in our minds: while in actual combat the Russians are facing Ukrainians, in the war itself Russia is not fighting the Nazis in Kiev, but the US/NATO/EU and their vassal states. It is also certain that the “Biden” administration does not want peace but, instead, they want that war to last as long as possible and to destroy as much of the Ukrainian population and civilian infrastructure as possible. And, of course, the Russians are not negotiating with the Nazis, they are negotiating with Uncle Shmuel via the Nazis. Big difference. Right now, some Ukrainians might be willing to look at reality and surrender just to save lives and the Ukrainian infrastructure. But they know that the Nazis will kill them or kidnap their family members (as has happened to one Ukrainian mayor). And these Nazis are taking orders only from many western “advisors” in Kiev who tell them “fight down to the last solider, then we will evacuate you“.
You could say that the hardcore Ukronazis act like political commissars did during the Russian civil war.
The Russians fought phase one of the SMO with a force which was deliberately kept smaller than the opposing Ukrainian force. But against an elite Ukrainian force deeply dug in in the heavily fortified defenses Russia will have to to do some combination of two things: more man and more firepower. And, by all accounts, that seems to be exactly what they are gearing up for.
As many others have already pointed out, the chances of a false flag are extremely high, most likely some chemical attack, possibly in Kiev or Kharkov. Such an attack, while fake, will result in the usual hysterics of the Empire of Lies, so we all need to prepare ourselves for this too.
The Empire of lies is so desperate now, that US PSYOPs claim that the Russian generals are afraid of telling Putin the “horrible truth” and that Shoigu is preparing a coup against Putin. Right now, the Ukronazis say that the Russians are on the run, but even the US Pentagon admits that the forces moved away from Kiev are only regrouping.
Remember, in maneuver warfare you do not “hold terrain” anymore than you do in naval warfare, and that is what the first phase of the SMO was all about. But in the Donbass, holding terrain will become much more important and since both sides are very skilled and courageous, do NOT expect big movements on the map. Instead, expect several weeks of very severe “grinding down” of Ukrainian defenses followed by slow and deliberate movements, mostly short distance – from a few hundred meters to a few clicks.
I hope that the above will be helpful once the 2nd phase is fully launched.
One more thing: western military aid to the Ukraine. Most of it is in Poland. True, there is A LOT of western kit found in Mariupol or the Donbass, but that stuff was brought in long ago. Just look at the map, look at where the Polish-Ukrainian border is and then look at where the yellow circle is. In order to make a difference, western weapon systems need to get across the entire Ukraine and enter into a highly contested and dangerous area. How can such a delivery be made? Three options:
Road
Train
Air
In all three cases, if the force is tiny, say a few cars fill with MANPADs, there is a chance to make it, albeit a small one and such a “delivery” would be fantastically dangerous. But the Ukrainians have now PROVEN that they can be very tough and very smart. But such tiny reinforcements won’t make any difference. Now a bigger force might, but it would be instantly detected and attacked by Russians standoff weapons, close air support and long range artillery. So all this stuff about sending weapons to the Ukrainians really is a load of crap. It’s just irrelevant fake news.
So far the Russians did not consider such a possibility as significant, hence the fact that they did not blow up any bridges, remotely mined any roads or destroyed any train tracks (that I am aware of). But if the risk of a significant reinforcements from the western Ukraine become a real threat, you can rest assured that the Russians will do all of the above, especially since there are very few towns and civilians in some parts of this track to the East.
So far the Russian policy was to let the (covert) NATO forces to gather in an assembly area and only then hit them really hard. This is a very effective strategy which the NATO forces have found no way to counter (if only because NATO air defenses are a joke, even against trans-sonic and subsonic missiles and drone).
Finally, the Ukrainians don’t have any air force left, and no navy, but they have proven that they still can use helicopters flying very low and fast, especially at night when local air defense operators might mistake them for a Russian helicopter (friendly fire is always a major risk in warfare). BTW – a helicopter is a hard target, not only do they fly very low, they can fly both fast (say to avoid a MANPAD) or very slow, to hide for fighters and interceptors. A slowly moving and low flying helicopter is a difficult target for fighter aircraft’s radar and infrared search and track system. A hilly or mountainous terrain makes detection even harder.
Russian attack helicopters all have air to air capabilities, both gun and missile, and so they can be very effectively used against Ukrainian helicopters (which are a full generation behind modern Russian helicopters) but you need to have them ready and you need to have them fly under air cover. So that is doable, it just takes time.
Conclusion:
Phase one, pure maneuver warfare is over and it was a military success.
Politically, it was pretty close to a failure, not only did the PSYOPS of the Empire of Lies totally crush the rather clumsy and primitive Russian counter-propaganda efforts, the Russians also failed to realize that they could not count on the local civilians authorities to simply do their job under a new flag.
Which means that Russia failed to properly denazify even the towns and cities which were deep in the Russian rear. Now that miscalculation will have to be fixed the hard way: with more men and more firepower.
Phase two of this war will be the liquidation of the Donbass cauldron and it will decide the outcome of this war (not that this outcome was ever in doubt).
On a personal note, I will only add that the past month has convinced me that Russia should NOT permanently occupy more of the Ukraine than the “full” LDNR plus the entire Ukrainian Black Sea coast. But neither can Russia leave a the Ukraine like a Petri dish for Nazi toxins, so it seems to me that the optimal solution would be a breakup of the country into several successor states: neutral, with only police forces and light arms and with a clear understanding that Russia has the means to militarily intervene at any minute should the successor states attempt to violate their neutral, unarmed and denazified status.
Will that happen?
I don’t know, Putin has already surprised me twice with very risky operations which I would have recommended against (Syria and that “big” SMO in lieu of a “small” liberation of “just” the LDNR). Considering that Russia has used only a small fraction of her armed forces, it is impossible for me to predict what Putin and the Russian General Staff will decide after the second phase of this SMO is over.
Finally, I am going to take the next two days off, barring some major developments, of course.
the unipolar world is irrevocably becoming a thing of the past,
a multipolar one is taking shape.
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By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and widely cross-posted
It was something to behold. Dmitri Medvedev, former Russian President, unrepentant Atlanticist, current deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, decided to go totally unplugged in an outburst matching the combat star turn of Mr. Khinzal that delivered palpable shock and awe all across NATOstan.
Medvedev said “hellish” Western sanctions not only have failed to cripple Russia, but are instead “returning to the West like a boomerang.” Confidence in reserve currencies is “fading like the morning mist”, and ditching the US dollar and the euro is not unrealistic anymore: “The era of regional currencies is coming.”
After all, he added, “no matter if they want it or not, they’ll have to negotiate a new financial order (…) And the decisive voice will then be with those countries that have a strong and advanced economy, healthy public finances and a reliable monetary system.”
Medvedev relayed his succinct analysis even before D Day – as in the deadline this Thursday established by President Putin after which payments for Russian gas by “unfriendly nations” will only be accepted in rubles.
The G7, predictably, had struck a (collective) pose: we won’t pay. “We” means the 4 that are not large Russian gas importers. “We”, moreover, means the Empire of Lies dictating the rules. As for the 3 that will be in dire straits, not only they are major importers but also happen to be WWII losers – Germany, Italy and Japan, still de facto occupied territories. History does have a habit of playing perverted tricks.
Denial didn’t last long. Germany was the first to break – even before industrialists from Ruhr to Bavaria staged a mass revolt. Scholz, the puny Chancellor, called Putin, who had to explain the obvious: payments are being converted into rubles because the EU froze Russia’s foreign exchange reserves – in a crass violation of international law.
With Taoist patience, Putin also expressed hope this would not represent a deterioration in contract terms for European importers. Russian and German experts should sit down together and discuss the new terms.
Moscow is working on a set of documents defining the new deal. Essentially, that spells out no rubles, no gas. Contracts become null and void once you violate trust. The US and the EU broke legally biding agreements with unilateral sanctions and on top of it confiscated foreign reserves of a – nuclear – G20 nation.
The unilateral sanctions made dollars and euros worthless to Russia. Hysteria fits won’t cut it: this will be resolved – but under Russia’s terms. Period. The Foreign Ministry had already warned that refusal to pay for gas in rubles would lead to a serious global crisis of non-payments and serial global-level bankruptcies, a hellish chain reaction of blocked transactions, freezing of collateral assets and closures of credit lines.
What will happen next is partially predictable. EU companies will receive the new set of rules. They will have time to examine the documents and make a decision. Those that say “no” will be automatically excluded from receiving direct Russian gas shipments – all politico-economic consequences included.
There will be some compromise, of course. For instance, quite a few EU nations will accept to use rubles and increase their gas acquisitions so they may resell the surplus to their neighbors and make a profit. And some may also decide to buy gas on the go on energy exchanges.
So Russia is not imposing an ultimatum on anybody. The whole thing will take time – a rolling process. With some sideway action as well. The Duma is contemplating the extension of payment in rubles to other essential products – such as oil, metals, timber, wheat. It will depend on the collective voracity of the EU chihuahuas. Everyone knows that their non-stop hysteria may translate into a colossal rupture of supply chains across the West.
Bye bye oligarchs
While the Atlanticist ruling classes have gone totally berserk but still remain focused on fighting to the last European to extract any remaining, palpable EU wealth, Russia is playing it cool. Moscow has been quite lenient in fact, brandishing the specter of no gas in Spring rather than Winter.
The Russian Central Bank nationalized foreign exchange earnings of all major exporters. There was no default. The ruble keeps rising – and is now back to roughly the same level before Operation Z. Russia remains self-sufficient, food-wise. American hysteria over “isolated” Russia is laughable. Every actor that matters across Eurasia – not to mention the other 4 BRICS and virtually the whole Global South – did not demonize and/or sanction Russia.
As an extra bonus, arguably the last oligarch capable of influence in Moscow, Anatoly Chubais, is gone. Call it another momentous historical trickery: Western sanction hysteria de facto dismembered Russian oligarchy – Putin’s pet project since 2000. What that implies is the strengthening of the Russian state and the consolidation of Russian society.
We still don’t have all the facts, but a case can be made that after years of careful evaluation Putin opted to really go for broke and break the West’s back – using that trifecta (imminent blitzkrieg on Donbass; US bioweapon labs; Ukraine working on nuclear weapons) as the casus belli.
The freezing of foreign reserves had to have been forecasted, especially because the Russian Central Bank had been increasing its reserves of US Treasuries since November last year. Then there’s the serious possibility of Moscow being able to access “secret” offshore foreign reserves – a complex matrix built with Chinese insider help.
The sudden switch from dollars/euros to rubles was hardcore, Olympic-level geoeconomic judo. Putin enticed the collective West to unleash its demented hysteria sanction attack – and turned it against the opponent with a single, swift move.
And here we all are now trying to absorb so many in-synch game-changing developments following the weaponization of dollar assets: rupee-ruble with India, the Saudi petroyuan, co-badged Mir-UnionPay cards issued by Russian banks, the Russia-Iran SWIFT alternative, the EAEU-China project of an independent monetary/financial system.
Not to mention the master coup by the Russian Central Bank, pegging 1 gram of gold to 5,000 rubles – which is already around $60, and climbing.
Coupled with No Rubles No Gas, what we have here is energy de facto pegged to gold. The EU Chihuahuas and the Japanese colony will need to buy a lot of rubles in gold or buy a lot of gold to have their gas. And it gets better. Russia may re-peg the ruble to gold in the near future. Could go to 2,000 rubles, 1,000 rubles, even 500 rubles for a gram of gold.
Time to be sovereign
The Holy Grail in the evolving discussions about a multipolar world, since the BRICS summits in the 2000s featuring Putin, Hu Jintao and Lula, has always been how to bypass dollar hegemony. It’s now right in front of the whole Global South, as a benign apparition bearing a Cheshire cat’s smile: the golden ruble, or ruble backed by oil, gas, minerals, commodity exports.
The Russian Central Bank, unlike the Fed, does not practice QE and won’t export toxic inflation to the rest of the planet. The Russian Navy not only secures all Russian sea lines, but Russian nuclear-powered submarines are capable of popping up all over the planet unannounced.
Russia is far, far ahead already implementing the concept of “continental naval power”. December 2015, in the Syrian theater, was the strategic game-changer. The Black Sea-based submarine 4th division is the star of the show.
Russian naval fleets may now employ Kalibr missiles across a space comprehending Eastern Europe, West Asia and Central Asia. The Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, linked by the Don-Volga canal, offer a space of maneuver comparable to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf combined. 6,000 km-long. And you don’t even need to access warm waters.
That covers around 30 nations: the traditional Russian sphere of influence; historical borders of the Russian empire; and current political/energy rivalry spheres.
No wonder the Beltway is berserk.
Russia guarantees shipping across Asia, the Arctic and Europe, in tandem with the Eurasia-wide BRI railway network.
And last but not least, don’t mess with a Nuclear Bear.
Essentially, this is what hardcore power politics is all about. Medvedev was not bragging when he said the era of a single reserve currency is over. The advent of a resource-based global reserve currency means, in a nutshell, that 13% of the planet will not dominate the other 87% anymore.
It’s NATOstan vs. Eurasia redux. Cold War 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and even 5.0. It doesn’t matter. All the previous Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) nations see which way the geopolitical and geo-economic winds are blowing: the time to assert their real sovereignty is at hand as the “rules-based international order” bites the dust.
Welcome to the birth of the new world system. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in China, after meeting several counterparts from across Eurasia, could not have outlined it better:
“A new reality is being formed: the unipolar world is irrevocably becoming a thing of the past, a multipolar one is taking shape. It’s an objective process. It’s unstoppable. In this reality, more than one power will “rule” – it will be necessary to negotiate between all the key states that today have a decisive influence on the world economy and politics. At the same time, realizing their special situation, these countries ensure compliance with the basic principles of the UN Charter, including the fundamental one – the sovereign equality of states. No one on this Earth should be seen as a minor player. Everyone is equal and sovereign.”
How many of you remember the endless stream of warnings that “Putin works for Schwab” or “Putin is in bed with Netanyahu”, he will “sell out the Donbass” and he is “bluffing” about sanctions.
Then came the ultimatum. They dismissed it.
Then came the Special Military Operation (SMO). They dismissed it.
Then came the news that Russia would sell gas to hostile states only in Rubles. They dismissed it.
See, for them, there are only two options:
Putin is a Davos/Bilderberger/CFR/WEF/etc. agent
Putin is bluffing
So let me ask you all: with a eight year track of being wrong, every time, why would you listen to these clowns?
I mean, seriously, not only are they wrong, but they are using all the talking points of US PSYOPs. Some do that in the name of freedom, democracy, and their love for the pure and Nazi-free Ukraine they support so much, others do that in the name of Holy Russia and their desire to overthrow Putin to replace him with… … somebody better.
Having spent YEARS debunking their nonsense, I now wonder, with Putin saying this:
Will they finally admit that they were wrong?
NOPE!
Why not? Because for them ANY victory, even just a perceived victory, for Russia is not a victory for Russia, but a victory for that “evil Putin” which they hate with all their hearts. Besides, they much rather have bona fide Nazis prevail than Russia. For the Empire of Lies, Nazis are SOBs, but they are “our SOBs”. Nothing new here.
Russia beat the initial economic sanctions in exactly the time frame predicted by Putin. But the naysayers chose to either deny or dismiss this.
Now the Ruble is back on its pre Feb 24th position, but they won’t consider that as relevant.
Then there are those who still believe that the Nazis are winning. On all fronts. Well, here is today map and you decide for yourself who is winning and who is losing:
Especially for the alternatively gifted, here is a breakdown of what is going on according to Scott Ritter:
1/ Big Arrow War—a primer. For all those scratching their heads in confusion, or dusting off their dress uniforms for the Ukrainian victory parade in Kiev, over the news about Russia’s “strategic shift”, you might want to re-familiarize yourself with basic military concepts.
2/ Maneuver warfare is a good place to start. Understand Russia started its “special military operation” with a severe manpower deficit—200,000 attackers to some 600,000 defenders (or more). Classic attritional conflict was never an option. Russian victory required maneuver.
3/ Maneuver war is more psychological than physical and focuses more on the operational than on the tactical level. Maneuver is relational movement—how you deploy and move your forces in relation to your opponent. Russian maneuver in the first phase of its operation support this.
4/ The Russians needed to shape the battlefield to their advantage. In order to do this, they needed to control how Ukraine employed it’s numerically superior forces, while distributing their own smaller combat power to best accomplish this objective.
5/ Strategically, to facilitate the ability to maneuver between the southern, central, and northern fronts, Russia needed to secure a land bridge between Crimea and Russia. The seizure of the coastal city of Mariupol was critical to this effort. Russia has accomplished this task.
6/ While this complex operation unfolded, Russia needed to keep Ukraine from maneuvering its numerically superior forces in a manner that disrupted the Mariupol operation. This entailed the use of several strategic supporting operations—feints, fixing operations, and deep attack.
7/ The concept of a feint is simple—a military force either is seen as preparing to attack a given location, or actually conducts an attack, for the purpose of deceiving an opponent into committing resources in response to the perceived or actual actions.
8/ The use of the feint played a major role in Desert Storm, where Marine Amphibious forces threatened the Kuwaiti coast, forcing Iraq to defend against an attack that never came, and where the 1st Cavalry Division actually attacked Wadi Al Batin to pin down the Republican Guard.
9/ The Russians made extensive use of the feint in Ukraine, with Amphibious forces off Odessa freezing Ukrainian forces there, and a major feint attack toward Kiev compelling Ukraine to reinforce their forces there. Ukraine was never able to reinforce their forces in the east.
10/ Fixing operations were also critical. Ukraine had assembled some 60,000-100,000 troops in the east, opposite Donbas. Russia carried out a broad fixing attack designed to keep these forces fully engaged and unable to maneuver in respect to other Russian operations.
11/ During Desert Storm, two Marine Divisions were ordered to carry out similar fixing attacks against Iraqi forces deployed along the Kuwaiti-Saudi border, tying down significant numbers of men and material that could not be used to counter the main US attack out west.
12/ The Russian fixing attack pinned the main Ukrainian concentration of forces in the east, and drove them away from Mariupol, which was invested and reduced. Supporting operations out of Crimea against Kherson expanded the Russian land bridge. This phase is now complete.
13/ Russia also engaged in a campaign of strategic deep attack designed to disrupt and destroy Ukrainian logistics, command & control, and air power and long-range fire support. Ukraine is running out of fuel and ammo, cannot coordinate maneuver, and has no meaningful Air Force.
14/ Russia is redeploying some of its premier units from where they had been engaged in feint operations in northern Kiev to where they can support the next phase of the operation, namely the liberation of the Donbas and the destruction of the main Ukrainian force in the east.
15/ This is classic maneuver warfare. Russia will now hold Ukraine in the north and south while its main forces, reinforced by the northern units, Marines, and forces freed up by the capture of Mariupol, seek to envelope and destroy 60,000 Ukrainian forces in the east.
16/ This is Big Arrow War at its finest, something Americans used to know but forgot in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan and Iraq. It also explains how 200,000 Russians have been able to defeat 600,000 Ukrainians. Thus ends the primer on maneuver warfare, Russian style.
Now none of that is very advanced or exotic. And if a US Marine (!) can understand that, so can anybody else with a basic educated and common sense. Unless, of course, you have an ideological agenda which prevents you from accepting reality.
I might drop by later again, this is definitely a day full of events.
To the utter bewilderment of the West, it just keeps gaining in strength against the dollar.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 