Mr. Unz,

Many thanks for the new thread.

Normal site functions were no longer available in the prior one.

PEACE 😇

The Daily Mail days the Russians are not winning and that they are therefore losing. I understand Japanese and have been watching their far better coverage of the fighting. They have a territorial dispute with Russia and are knee-jerk anti-Russian, but they say essentially the same thing.

Is this a rerun of the Grozny fiasco?

Does anyone have a reliable source of news?

😁 Open Thread Humor 😂

Per Mr. Unz suggestion, only the first item is above the [MORE] tag

PEACE 😇

[MORE]

 

 

 

 

 

 

See https://thesaker.is/ukrainian-propaganda-in-conflict-with-the-truth/

The best is Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels.

Second best is conflict autists on Twitter.

Will post sources at end under MORE tag.

Russia is doing well–its advance is extremely rapid and parallels other historic, rapid advances such as the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and early WW2 Wehrmacht campaigns.

That said, fantasies about a quick Ukrainian capitulation have proved to be just that–fantasies. Deep airborne drops appear to be a complete failure (as they usually are in warfare).

In the south the Russians have faced very little resistance, and in the north they’re in Kiev where things are getting ugly.

It’s in the east where the Ukraine is holding out best. Kharkov is yet to be taken, but must be taken for both logistical and political reasons. They’re now bringing in heavy artillery. In the Donets basin there was little movement initially, but Ukrainian forces have reportedly been heavily attrited by Russian fire strikes and separatist forces are beginning to push through.

Thus far perhaps only one-third of Russian forces have been committed, and they’ve been using a light touch. Stiff Ukrainian resistance, especially in cities, means things are likely to get a lot uglier.

Human shields only works till the other side is fed up and start killing everything that moves. Remember when chechnya got shelled to the shits? that is what will happen if a swift victory is slowed down by human shields.

That is just stupid of the Ukrainian armed forces(or maybe deaths toll is the point, just like that female leader during tiananmen asking for blood) and extremely deathly for the civilians.

Thanks Ron for a new thread! We promise will follow the rules.

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From the George Orwell perspective.

There is the daily official military report of Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation of 26 Feb 2022.

They say that Ukraine regime rejected negotiations so LNR and DNR continue advance against the nationalist groups.

These nationalist groups are using Bandera-automobiles* as well as heavy weapons, mortars, like terrorists in Syria, etc.

The conclusion that the nationalists are a kind of terrorist group that hides heavy weapons inside peoples’ homes.

A few observation from Russian MoD briefings:
1. It's only DLNR troops that are advancing. Nothing about Kiev etc. Some naval action, though
2. They insist it's "banderovtsy" who fight back, not regular UA army
3. US provides support and instructions https://t.co/U0NjXk0OVL

— Pavel Podvig (@russianforces) February 26, 2022

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*This is a kind of homemade tanks that Ukraine produces in 2014-2015, that has been a popular narrative in Russian media and the government astroturfed internet culture in those years near 2014-2015.

But this is kinda also self defeating because it means some scattered bands of banderites really are true legendary mythical wariors risen from the graves of WWII and capable to defend and fight like some superhumans against all odds, lol

Good summary. But Kharkov doesn’t have to be taken – it is outside of areas that are either Russian-majority or strategic like the Black See coast.

The West threw up its arms and produced “sanctions”: no more SWIFT and golden passports, “hard currency” reserves can be declared to have no value. Now it is official that ‘virtual currency’ is just that – it doesn’t exist in the real world. What took them so long?

What is left to offer ‘to not do’ by the West? The diplomatic relations, embassies, visas of any kind will be soon gone. No sports, no culture. A few movies in the works with heroic martyrs on far-away islands and a heroic Zelensky doing a Rhett Butler abandoning his loved ones to go and fight in the lost fight. Anger, hatreds, and tears.

We could be heading for a nihilistic ending: two worlds colliding with different views of reality and each with the ability to end it all. Like a really bad divorce when revenge takes over and all limits are removed. This could be fun.

It doesn’t even matter that the underlying dispute is “Does a country on the border of a much larger country have a right to join a hostile military block against that larger country and put missiles on its own territory?” A philosophical dilemma that is best answered with: it depends.

It depends on whether the military block is the big boss, the virtuous centre of mankind that can do no wrong. Too bad the smaller boss in Russia can also destroy the world. Dilemmas lead to a game of chicken: who will back down first. There is the silly Western hope that Ukies dying in large numbers will prolong the game of chicken. And the Russian hope that once they win and it is over, the time will fix it all.

Maybe. But no matter how long the game of chicken goes on, there has to be a resolution – someone has to win. Right now neither side can afford to be seen as losing. We need a lucky break, can they restart the corona sh.t?

Your computer may be infested with DNC-CIA spyware. The old thread is slow to load on mine which is a cheap laptop running ubuntu but all of the functions work fine.

Do you ever listen to the Farm podcast? Steven Snider host is a raving lunatic at times but his episode on the OTO-Facebook-Unite the Right Charlottesville brouhaha was amazing bullseye accurate. (Feb 14 episode? Something like that.) He has a narrative which I think is way off the mark that a huge fraction of the American state department has been captured by 2nd generation Ukraine nazis. This narrative has consumed something like 40 hours of his podcast over the last couple years. Since all the true facts are top secret we have no idea what is really going on. His Ukraine story is .999 probable bullshit but it is fascinating nevertheless. Something to pursue only when you have copious spare time.

If you haven’t digested the complete rooster already.

What would have happened to Putin, if he had said he was going to de-rainbowfy Ukraine?

Are you using firefox? I have occasionally had this problem if I am using it, but it resolves with a refresh. Brave actually seems to have been more problematic for me recently.

If the British Germans and French have inserted commando units like the Royal Marines and Legion And some of the German recon guys the Russians will lose a lot of armoured forces in their advances. But the weight of the infantry and artillery will mean the light units with antitank weapons will have to be extracted.

Were you watching the Azerbaijan-Armenia war in October 2020.

From the Azerbaijan side, the technological level was much higher than we have seen in this war so far.

Immediately, Azerbaijan was using precision attacks on moving targets, destroying all Armenia’s air defense, etc.

Whereas in this war, Ukraine has a fully third world military. But the technological level in the Russia attack has been more similar to Armenia than to Azerbaijan.

Russian military has not shown yet precise attacks against moving targets. There seems to be an absence of drone capability. There hasn’t been fully successful SEAD, even against such third world country as Ukraine defenses.

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One of the main worries is the confused objectives, which seem to imply they expected a friendly population, as in Crimea.

Are they supposed to occupy Kiev with soldiers or urban warfare? How is this possible without destroying buildings first.

If you don’t destroy buildings, how would you stop enemy waiting for you to enter, and then later firing downwards on Russian convoys? Rebels could hide in buildings like in some Beirut 1976 (there are multilevel buildings all across Kiev, which are better than fighters have in 1970s Beirut), unless you create a kind of chemical disaster to remove the population.

If you change government in Kiev, then what happens? How would you give new government legitimacy even in Kiev, unless you change the population? It seems like a recipe for the “Doctrine of Brezhnev”, where communist pro-Moscow governments can be installed with force.

The “positive example”, of rescue of some benefit from this kind of regime-change war, is actually Grozny.

Grozny was somehow successful, after the second attempt, despite the hostile population.

In other examples, this conflict is already much worse than Prague 1968, which has a positive result. And there is Afghanistan 1979-1989 which has never succeeded to create both a stable and friendly government.

A lesbian army would immediately invade. On closer inspection most of them would turn out to be British men looking for adventures with Kadyrov men. BBC and CNN journalists would stop pretending and join in. It would be over before sunrise. Then Biden would nuke the world because a world ‘without love’ is not worth preserving. So let’s stay with the ‘Nazis’.

It’s kind of internally consistent, because according to the official media and government, the Russian army is also not fighting in Ukraine. Just today, they say it is giving some fire support to LNR and DNR.

So, at the moment there is “special operation in Donbass”, where there is fire support to LNR and DNR by the Russian army, to defend the Donbass people against the genocide of the nationalist, Nazi groups, who are using Bandera-automobiles.

It’s not exactly “2 + 2 = 5”, because you can construct a kind of internally consistent story.

Although this alternative parallel world, will also be internally inconsistent with the future narrative, if they achieve objective to change government in Kiev.

Media in Russia, will have to say that brave Ukrainians have rebelled against the nationalist government and welcome the Russian peacekeeping forces.

But Russian peacekeeping forces are only supposed to be located in the “special operation in Donbass”. So they will have to transport to Kiev somehow, to be welcomed by the Ukrainian citizens, who have bravely thrown over the nationalist/neo-nazi government with their own will. Also, if they will report about deaths in the future, after the “special operation”, they would be difficult to explain the high number of deaths, if these will have to be openly reported. There were a lot of “training accidents”.

He has stated that it’s a raid through the regions needed to decapitate the Ukrainian state. One has to assume that the Russians have lots of ethnic Russians in Ukraine just living there waiting for re unification with Russia. It’s an asymmetrical war. The political situation there may be very complex. It’s not Anschluss but some areas are annexations of friendly populations.

Prague 1968 is misunderstood: one group of commies had an argument with another. Soviets invaded to remove the more popular group. Weirdly enough, the popular group was the group Soviets supported 8 months earlier and helped to take over.

Then blabla…lots of yelling and crying… eventually yet another group of commies, the self-styled “realists” took over and the Soviets hid in 2-3 remote bases. People were angry, especially in big cities – they thought that there were good communists, and not so good communists, it turned out that it didn’t matter that much.

I agree with you that Russia’s next moves are not well thought out. How do they stay away, as they say they will, if Ukraine collapses into chaos? How do they prevent the same Maidan-like dynamic from happening in the future? But I don’t think either Kiev or the West have thought this through any better – after NATO running away, after almost certain military loss, where do they go with this? We are in a new world. No rules.

are not well thought

I think Putin also believes propaganda created partly by the Kremlin, that there was a neonazi coup in 2014, and the Ukrainian population will welcome Russian forces to save them from the nationalists. They will also be attracted to Russia, due to the higher salaries, etc.

Something like this situation, was partly true in 2003 in Iraq, as Saddam Hussein and Baath party was sectarian Sunni Muslim nationality minority, with country which was majority Shia Muslim.

Immediately, after American soldiers entered Baghdad, the population has destroyed statues of Saddam Hussein and there is a successful appearance of regime change to the majority Shia government.

In June 2003, President George W Bush, says “Mission Accomplished” and they believe the war is completed. But it is really, just beginning, as most of the violence against American forces will continue, as they need to occupy these zones.

Eventually, there is now a Shia majority government in Iraq, but it’s still not necessarily a great advantage for the American population. And American taxpayers used trillions of dollars to rebuild Iraq. And 4500 American soldiers were killed across 8 years, with almost all deaths after Bush has claimed “Mission accomplished”.

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There is also a problem that the new government which will be installed in Kiev, cannot be even a little democratic, unless they will change the population in Kiev. Because, unlike even in Baghdad (where there was a Shia majority), the majority of nationality in Kiev are Ukrainians, who identify with Ukrainian national culture.

So, to create the new government in Kiev, will require a non-representative government, either with a lot of “political technology” (as in Russian Federation), or with something like Kadyrov (as in Chechen Republic with RF) How stable such government would be in a long-term is difficult to predict.

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There are also probably analogies from Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon 1982-2000. In this scenario, they tried to install a Maronite government in Beirut, failed, but then installed a local authority in South Lebanon which was friendly with them. But the long term results, were regular death of soldiers from rebel groups, as well as eventually evacuation after 18 years, resulting in a hostile local population.

So, it seems Netherlands will be sending 125 units of “Panzerfaust 3” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerfaust_3) to Ukraine.
Probably Germany will also send some of these.

Tutaj znowu trzeba liczyć, że tak naprawdę to 125 granatników przeciwpancernych Panzerfaust 3 (a tak naprawdę to mechanizmów spustowych z celownikiem, skądinąd produkowanych przez H&K) wraz z ośmioma pociskami. pic.twitter.com/npe2W2XCZI

— Remigiusz Wilk (@RemigiuszWilk) February 26, 2022

Some Battle of Berlin atmosphere with the German “Panzerfaust”. Hopefully will not be given to the Azov.

Unlike NLAW, maybe we can assume “Panzerfaust 3” will not always be able to destroy the most modern tanks in the Russian army that has armor developed in the 2000s.

Perhaps it would be more dangerous for older unmodernized tanks from 1970s/1980s, as this edition of “Panzerfaust” is a technology of the 1970s.

Putin doesn’t strike me as a man who believes in narratives, so I doubt he thinks that Ukraine’s only problem are Nazis. He knows that the deep yearning for “Western lifestyles”, for being allowed in Europe, is an order of magnitude bigger than the shaved-head marching thugs.

His plan is probably to smash the current regime, grab the safe lands of east and Black See coastal areas, and then let the remaining stump Ukraine stew in its anger, debts, and hopelessness. With a proviso that if any weapons come in, Russia will destroy them from distance. Probably a few bases, I am not sure where.

The problem with that plan is that most likely outcome is massive chaos, people moving all around, armed bands and looting. West won’t take care of it – they have bailed once it was clear that there could be no NATO missiles there. And Ukraine is too much of a mess to recover on its own. Clearly, Russia’s favorite solution would be a military coup, army takes over and cleans up the mess. I don’t think that will happen.

As with the other crazy adventures that the morons in Washington-London-Brussels have tried, we may have a black hole of instability spewing across borders in the place where is now Ukraine. Millions will leave, cities will shrink into lawlessness, everybody will hate everybody. Those are the fruits of Western misunderstandings, we have seen it before, and now for an encore performance right across the hills from Europe. I hope I am wrong. We didn’t get a Franz Ferdinand as a trigger, maybe we will get a Napoleon.

His plan is probably to smash the current regime, grab

Maybe, as your guess is as accurate as my guess. I don’t know more than you.

But if there will not be occupation, how would you explain why do they send so many Rosgvardia (internal security) units into Ukraine in the first wave of attack?

These are forces that would be for occupation, not for smashing military, but they are driving around Ukraine in the first wave. It seems like they expect to occupy territory immediate and that there would be not much need to worry about partisan attacks against them.

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E.g. In first wave, they were sending Rosgvardia units drive around in the roads in Ukraine, with lightly armored vehicles. Then they are attacked by Ukrainian forces and won’t have much defense from heavy weapons.

Warning graphic video below MORE tag. Apologies for graphic video, but I mean how do you explain this planning of sending lightly armored police units into the first wave of an invasion?

How will police units designed for “internal security” in the Russian Federation, survive an attack from heavy weapons? They will be important for occupation in Ukraine. But why were they in the first wave of the invasion.

In how many of these European countries that are sending arms to Ukraine is one even allowed to articulate the interests of native Europeans?

DW News (in English, which is being promoted to me) apparently announced the invasion with a black anchor. And almost two million have clicked on it.

I think globohomo’s playbook would be to destabilize Ukraine to the maximum level. Then say that we need to take in refugees. Then substitute Nigerians, Somalis, and Arabs for Ukrainians.

No chance Russia goes door to door anywhere. Vlad will destroy NATO/Ukie weapons stores, put the Intel gents on anything new or interesting, then move on. KIEV? Destroy the seat of the government, bomb incoming weapons from NATO and move along. I couldn’t care less if Zelensky surrendered or not. Better he faces his people. After a certain level of destruction is achieved, leave KIEV and let Ze have it back as a lesson learned. Then partition the entire Donbass, killing all the Nazis that don’t leave. Leave the rest of the destruction behind as a warning for the future. Then inform the Baltic bloc that NATO will be leaving Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, either voluntarily or otherwise. Ukraine will stand as a stark reminder who not to ally yourself to. Screw them, they sold out to NATO for a few bucks.

Well, we are definitely living through an exciting adventure. Few questions that will be important in the future.

1. Is there a demographic study of war somewhere that tracks soldier losses (demographic loss) vs subsequent baby boom population gains? I know there are baby booms after wars usually but i don’t know if they are worth it, more detail would be appreciated. As in, “1% population decline due to war results in 0.3 TFR increase” or something like that.

2. With sanctions hitting Russian Central Bank, my “nukes fly in the air” scenario just got accelerated by at least 5 years. And no, I’m not worried about Russia. The commodities disruption will crash the global financial system. West can not survive without global financial system. Hence West will have to launch the nukes. It will be a matter of survival. Any chatter about Nabiullina commenting on this situation?

3. How many countries will appear in the current Ukraine territory? LNR/DNR is two, maybe Republic of Kiev, and Republic of Lvov? Any others?

The Institute for the Study of War has been fairly reliable with its updates:

The last three days(ish) pic.twitter.com/ysBcNwSu9n

— Irkutyanin (@Irkutyanin1) February 27, 2022

Where did you get such a detailed copy of the Russian invasion plans? How do you know exactly which equipment they are using/plan to use? How do you know how “friendly” (or not) Crimeans are toward Russian forces?

Whereas in this war, Ukraine has a fully third world military. But the technological level in the Russia attack has been more similar to Armenia than to Azerbaijan.

Putin flipped Azerbaijan to Russia’s side prior to the invasion:

https://eurasianet.org/ahead-of-ukraine-invasion-azerbaijan-and-russia-cement-alliance

The agreement also includes several provisions on mutual military aid, including a stipulation that the two sides “may consider the possibility of providing each other with military assistance.”

This indicates Russia has some knowledge of Azeri success with drones in their recent conflict. Word is that Russia wiped out Ukrainian drone control infrastructure very early on.

You can tell Aliyev is a real man because he doesn’t appear intimidated by Putin’s table.

If you change government in Kiev, then what happens? How would you give new government legitimacy even in Kiev, unless you change the population? It seems like a recipe for the “Doctrine of Brezhnev”, where communist pro-Moscow governments can be installed with force.

This is a very big problem for the Russians. Their options are to maintain a draining Soviet style occupation or install the friendliest puppet government they can find. Neither are very appealing over the long-term.

His plan is probably to smash the current regime, grab the safe lands of east and Black See coastal areas, and then let the remaining stump Ukraine stew in its anger, debts, and hopelessness.

I think Putin is better off trying to take the entire Ukraine.

Why leave a rump area where Zelensky can regroup, buy time, beg for help from other countries, and engage in all manner of economic and political shenanigans?

It just doesn’t make sense.

…that tracks soldier losses vs subsequent baby boom population gains?

I haven’t seen the numbers, but it has happened consistently. Something about fighting puts younger women in the mood. It may turn out that the biggest mistake Zelensky made is to keep back the 18-60 year old males as their women spread all over Europe. Maybe he is just a pimp, and we are missing what this is all about.

…commodities disruption will crash the global financial system.

Exactly. Most people don’t realize that the global fin system is based on selling and buying actual stuff with commodities being by far the most important. Everything else is just a cherry on the cake. They have tried hard to prevent it, at the end they decided to go for it. Now to a large extent it will depend on Russia’s counter-move. If Russia goes fully rogue and stops everything (other than China and other allies), we are in for a roller-coaster ride. There are trading positions that will simply collapse and with no backstop other than to print more money, this will get ugly. Plus the actual commodities – if Russia stops selling – will be unavailable. Financial unravelling can be devastating to stability in the West. And they gave Russia the excuse to try to trigger it. As i said, all they have to counter with is massive money creation and thus inflation.

Because taking care of 20-25 million poor, angry Ukrainians in a land-locked resources poor rump Ukraine is not what any smart person would do. Why feed them, give them jobs, energy, pay their debts? Putin says that this is about ‘security’. Russia can make sure that rump Ukraine doesn’t re-arm by blowing up anything that comes in. Plus, they can threaten to do this again, how would anyone in the future stop them? The first drink or invasion are the hardest, after that it is just routine.

Zelensky won’t be sticking around, maybe Hollywood, possibly a Brussels sinecure. Or he will go into hiding.

Anyone else want to go on the record with a SWIFT prediction? (I think mal is saying “yes”, to a pull)

The analysis that I heard suggests that the Fed is too smart to do it. But, OTOH, Fed nominee Lisa Cook supports reparations, and made a glaring error in her racial grievance research paper, on “black inventions.” But, on the gripping hand, they are saying she would be the first black woman appointed in the 108 year history of the Fed.

It’s hard. Part of me really wants to say that in a feminized society, the response is to take away the “credit card”, and they already dangled it during Crimea. Though, even though there is the statue of the little girl facing the bull, on Wall Street, I think the financial industry is still dominated by testosterone.

I am going to commit to “no”, based on Yellen’s language* which seems calculated to sound tough, assuming Biden is manipulable, and too many have vested interests in not pulling it. To be sure, I would not pull it myself, unless I was specifically trying to damage the dollar.

I should add, that I believe some states like India and China are taking preliminary measures to deal with a banning of Russia.

Not all ethnic Russians are amenable to this barbaric intrusion from the north into Ukrainian lands. Also, there are many denizens of Ukraine that are of mixed Ukrainian-Russian families, as is my cousin. I spoke with him yesterday through skype, he lives in a small town in south central Ukraine. He’s been busy reconfiguring his large cellar into an underground fallout shelter. He’s had to remove all of the foodstuffs that he normally places in there, and move everything outside. He says its cold down inside, especially at night. No insulation, even poor flashlights etc; He’s figuring it all out as he goes so that his grandkids can “stretch out their legs” while sleeping. He and his lady don’t complain for they can sit on chairs and cath a few zee’s.

He grew up thinking that Russians and Ukrainians really are brothers, but not anymore. His mother, an ethnic Russian (whom I’ve written about here before) was a beautiful woman, inside and out. She lived most of her life in Ukraine, however, often took my cousins along with her to visit her family in Murmansk. He wants nothing to do with Russians and the “Russian world” anymore, and would be glad to never having to see any more Russians, ever. He’s readying to give the intruders a big boot, as are millions of other Ukrainians. Russians, mixed Russian/Ukrainians and Russian speaking Ukrainians. should not be characterized as all being loyal Russian fifth columnists in Ukraine. I think that Putler is finally learning this lesson. The Klitschko bros are of mixed Ukrainian/Russian ethnicity. I’m proud to watch both of them make great patriotic Ukrainian pep talks on TV.

Anyone else want to go on the record with a SWIFT prediction? (I think mal is saying “yes”, to a pull)

I’m a chemical engineer in the deep south US and we rely on Russia to keep the refineries running properly. Nothing to do with gasoline and natural gas – my concern is with plastics and monomers/polymers, heavier fractions of oil.

If Russia retaliates with Mazut export embargo, it’d be like ass raped without the lube.

But i don’t set the foreign policy, so my opinion is irrelevant. But i would like to register on record a concern about SWIFT and other potential sanctions on Russia. Nothing good will come of it, hence my comment about “nukes flying”.

Yes, Aliev has imported the most advanced drones for a decade before the war.

For years, you could see in the videos of military parade in Baku, the increasing advances of the equipment and technology he was importing.

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Another strange thing in the war so, is a lack of “opsec”?

For example, the live webcams on the border crossings and highways, are showing the entry of Russian military equipment to Ukraine, and you can watch the equipment moving live on Facebook.

Also with the Tiktok to Twitter, another example was the logistics convey this morning, that was later destroyed in Ukraine.

In the morning, netizens watch this logistic convoy driving in Russia and it became an internet celebrity. And then in evening, we watch video of the convoy destroyed in Ukraine.

So, they don’t care about being filmed at any stages. But then movements will be transmitted on TikTok and Twitter?

So, here the convoy was popular on the internet in the morning. It was a kind of internet celebrity in the morning for a short life before it would be destroyed.

This is interesting. Looks like communication trucks South of Belgorod followed by a series of civilian vehicles that also have Z painted on the side of the Russian war operation. Also, the white vans have no license plates. #CNN #Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/aTMZfIyxiw

— Frederik Pleitgen (@fpleitgenCNN) February 26, 2022

And video below MORE tag it was later destroyed

This is like Panama (Operation Just Cause)

Go in, destroy some things, arrest some people, secure some assets, and pull out-ish.

LOL, comparing this border incursion (in a state already fighting separatists and is poorer than Moldova) to the Iraq invasion that was half-way across the world is really stretching it.

When your supply convoy becomes a multi-day traffic jam on the MSR, now that’s an invasion:

As for AT weapons, tanks are complex machines. An SPG-9 (1962) can handle a uranium-lined M1A1 Abrams (70t, compared to the lighter armoured T-90 at 50t)

RPG-7s can still crack radiators in tanks, which is all you need for the engine to overheat and immobilize it. RPG-29s are even better. Ukraine has plenty of all of these. Regardless there won’t be any Afghanistan-level multi-generational resistance. It’s too cold for that nonsense.

Can be psychological war by Rubio, but Marco Rubio is implying like they are going to bomb Kiev or Kharkov with artillery, creating a Grozny. There is artillery buildup we saw on videos of movement of equipment for these areas.

#Russian military leaders should think very carefully before following the orders they recently received #Putin is 2 years shy of the life expectancy of a Russian male
and you will spend the rest of your lives evading an international tribunal for committing his crimes

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 27, 2022

His plan is probably to smash the current regime, grab the safe lands of east and Black See coastal areas, and then let the remaining stump Ukraine stew in its anger, debts, and hopelessness.

It would be funny if the remaining lands were rebuilt with aid money that came from Russia’s confiscated reserves.

If the West (the parts of Ukraine that weren’t Soviet until 1939) is left on its own it would get into EU quickly; the population would be small and manageable, it’s nearby, its economy is already oriented towards Europe. And the war has given it much sympathy. It would eventually converge with Romania and Poland.

If Ukraine were divided in half then a similar process would also be possible but would happen more slowly. In that case it would become much wealthier than the occupied destroyed and sanctioned eastern annexed part, as West Germany was wealthier than East Germany. They would then eventually unify, perhaps decades later, whenever the annexed part goes free as it inevitably would.

Millions will leave, cities will shrink into lawlessness, everybody will hate everybody

The millions will leave part is right, the rest just reflects your sick soul.

If part of Ukraine is left free it will attract a lot of people from the occupied part. Lviv might get to a million population. There will probably be a few million in Poland also. This diaspora will reinforce the native Russophobia.

Rubio is ignorant like most American politicians. Russians won’t be storming Kiev, Kiev already has looter problem which will only intensify once Russia completes the siege. Zelensky will have to face the consequence of his own choice to distribute rifles to criminals. It will be a poetic justice. Russians love poetry.

Fireworks in Kiev will only intensify, but Russians will be on the sidelines watching and being amused.

If part of Ukraine is left free it will attract a lot of people from the occupied part. Lviv might get to a million population. There will probably be a few million in Poland also. This diaspora will reinforce the native Russophobia.

I agree with you that there should be a Republic of Lvov. But demographically, we already have examples of such construct – Baltic states, which lost like 30% of their population since early 90’s. So sure, they will reinforce the native Russophobia, but they will become a dying zoo like the Baltics. Russia can live with that, i think.

I agree with you that there should be a Republic of Lvov. But demographically, we already have examples of such construct – Baltic states, which lost like 30% of their population since early 90’s

Unlike Baltics, western Ukraine would get a bunch of settlers right away, from the rest of Ukraine. Patriots who don’t want to live under Moscow but don’t want to leave Ukrainian soil, most of the programmers from Kiev and Kharkiv who want to stay in Europe’s orbit, etc. So population would grow, not shrink, at least in the short to medium term (people who move tend to be younger and of child-bearing age). The smaller it will be (Galicia smallest, Galicia + Volyn a bit bigger), the sooner it gets into EU and achieves Visegrad/Romania level of prosperity.

Others will end up in Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, adding to those countries’ populations and reinforcing their Russophobia.

Whatever size free Ukraine ends up being, it will get more prosperous and await the eventual reunification with impoverished Moscow-ruled Ukraine.

Either way, buffer zone achieved.

Videos below MORE tag. It seems like beginning of the urban combat in Kharkov morning and designed try to attract enemy fire, or is it just lightly armed vehicles going lost without purpose in a city?

Kind of discovery mission this morning of the light vehicles to attract the enemy fire position in Kharkov is beginning?

Kamaz truck was also going around the city this morning but then destroyed a short time later. Videos below MORE tag.

Others will end up in Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, adding to those countries’ populations and reinforcing their Russophobia.

Exactly. All of your “Ukrainian Patriots” will end up in Poland, and given what they admire (all those politically incorrect Volhiniya disputes), I’d be extra cautious if I were Polish.

Whatever size free Ukraine ends up being, it will get more prosperous and await the eventual reunification with impoverished Moscow-ruled Ukraine.

With inflation ravaging the West (and we have no choice but to inflate – no money printing means economic collapse), there won’t be resources to make “free Ukraine” prosperous. Moscow ruled Ukraine will have better future, that i have confidence in.

“Others will end up in Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, adding to those countries’ populations and reinforcing their Russophobia.”

Exactly. All of your “Ukrainian Patriots” will end up in Poland, and given what they admire (all those politically incorrect Volhiniya disputes), I’d be extra cautious if I were Polish.

Not nearly all. As I wrote, most will probably end up in free Ukraine.

“Whatever size free Ukraine ends up being, it will get more prosperous and await the eventual reunification with impoverished Moscow-ruled Ukraine.”

With inflation ravaging the West (and we have no choice but to inflate – no money printing means economic collapse), there won’t be resources to make “free Ukraine” prosperous.

They’ll probably get a chunk of the Russian assets, seized because Russia is a terrorist regime or whatever.

Moscow ruled Ukraine will have better future, that i have confidence in.

No, it will have to be rebuilt by a Moscow that will be sanctioned and with most of its reserves taken. Russia and its puppet Belarus are already poorer than Visegrad.

And also, for the record, I got the current situation wrong, and Karlin was right.

I expected Russia to bomb Ukraine, and I advocated for it like a year ago. I wanted ballistic missile strikes on Ukrainian warehouses of extra military equipment. This happened in like first 12 hours of our current adventure. It was good and proper. But i expected those strikes to compel Ukraine to fulfill the Minsk agreements.

What i didn’t see was ground invasion and far more importantly, Russia giving up on Minsk process that Russia was calling for for the past 8 years. I thought Minsk was the key. With Russia giving up on Minsk, it means global Western dictated diplomacy is dead and we are off into a new bright and glorious future.

There is no turning back. It will be a fight to the death, and new global order will be born one way or another. Putin’s 2007 vision will come true or nukes will fly. Maybe both, but like 5 years sooner than expected.

So as a Russian Cosmist and accelerationist, all i have to say is well, it’ll certainly be an adventure of a lifetime, whether we like it or not 🙂

No, it will have to be rebuilt by a Moscow that will be sanctioned and with most of its reserves taken. Russia and its puppet Belarus are already poorer than Visegrad.

This is seriously not a game we want to play (Russia will halt energy sales if reserves are taken which will cause the West to collapse), but we will see what the future holds. 🙂

Kharkov is the 2nd biggest city of Ukraine, has among the most ideological and experienced troops (many vets from Donbass).

❗#Russian military vehicles in #Kharkiv pic.twitter.com/UtZo2wr9r8

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) February 27, 2022

This one has been making the rounds.

“Civilized”
pic.twitter.com/AiU7uVmjMr

— Imraan Siddiqi (@imraansiddiqi) February 26, 2022

I am too young to remember the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, but my impression reading about the coverage years later is that there was a distinct disinterest in the conflict. So the idea that Ukraine is interesting to Westerners because it’s white seems patently false. It’s more about Russia’s direct involvement which raises the stakes massively.

Some have already been liquidated:

Abandoned and damaged Russian Tigr-M vehicles in Kharkiv. https://t.co/z27GOxQv27 pic.twitter.com/mHITxIJJ3K

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) February 27, 2022

Head of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, Robert Pope, warns that the US’s network of Pentagon-run bio-labs in Ukraine could unleash deadly pathogens if hit by Russian forces.

https://thebulletin.org/2022/02/us-official-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-risks-release-of-dangerous-pathogens/

Many on the discord are more of the edge racial right who dismiss arguments based on background.
A few posters were making outright anti-Ukrainian or anti-Warrior posts dismissing those who fight.

Although, Karlin & mods did call this out. Not saying this was common, I just have 0 tolerance for it.
I like this community, and would like it to continue. Good tidings to all,

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

[MORE]

When Afghans asked for an alliance the Singhs said end cow slaughter & we can discuss friendship.

but my impression reading about the coverage years later is that there was a distinct disinterest in the conflict.

That’s not true. I can’t remember many of the details either since I was a child then, but the wars did generate a lot of attention, something like the siege of Sarajevo was seen as a tragedy and a real embarrassment to the Europeans (“how can something like this happen on our continent in this day and age”, with people being killed by snipers or shelling while waiting in line to buy bread). There was also stuff like Serbs taking UN blue helmets as hostages, and of course eventually the Srebrenica massacre, this was all constantly in the media back then and regarded as shocking and outrageous (not saying the media depiction of the conflict was always correct or not one-sided, but the events in Bosnia especially were the crucial background why much of the public in Western countries was fine with the Kosovo war years later, despite the dubious character of that intervention and the lies and half-truths it was justified with, there just was a general sense that the Serbs had gotten away with too much for too long).

Also what bs from “Nabih”, the war in Syria war did generate massive media attention (with lots of none too subtle calls for military intervention), so it’s not like issues affecting Arabs are ignored just because they’re Arabs (though of course something like the war in Yemen is largely ignored by Western media, because Western allies supported by the West are arguably the bad guys there and causing civilian suffering up to the threat of mass starvation).
These professional poc with their ethnic resentments and the white shitlibs supporting them are really just absolute scum, I hope their self-centred bs in this time will cost them sympathy among normies.

Looks like those sanctions are not entirely unprecedented, it is Iranian variation:

“Sanctions against the central bank are the last step,” Oleg Vyugin, a veteran Russian banker and formerly a first deputy chairman at the central bank, told Bloomberg. “It’s a formula tried in Iran, which initially results in the deepest decline in the economy, production, household incomes. And then a country begins to adapt, create its own settlements with those that agree to cooperate.”

Some nationalist paramilitaries and tougher units in Kharkov, once they are gone the people will be able to come out of hiding and carry on with their lives. So sure there is resistance there but then there won’t be and that will be it.

Professor Michael Hudson:
“The Americans want war. The people that Biden has appointed have an emotional hatred of Russia. I’ve spoken to government people who are close to the Democratic Party, and they’ve told me that there’s a pathological emotional desire for war with Russia, largely stemming from the fact that the Tzars were anti-Semitic and there’s still the hatred about their ancestors: ‘Look what they did to my great-grandfather.’ And so they’re willing to back the Nazis, back the anti-Semites in Ukraine. They’re willing to back today’s anti-Semites all over the world as long as they’re getting back at this emotional focus on a kind of post 19th-century economy. I’ve met these people. Their emotion is one of hatred and anger. You can look at their face and see what they’ve become. This is really dangerous. They are crazy.”

Markets will be interesting next week, looks like the West is increasingly looking to impoverish their citizenry further, that covid justified police state was built just in time.

I tend to agree with what German Reader was writing on this, I was in my early teens when the Yugoslav wars were going on in the early 90s and still remember a fair amount, it was well covered in the British media, even in the arts.

Ukraine is interesting to Europeans because within Europe one traditional European great power is waging a conventional military campaign against another middle sized European state, clearly going beyond the smaller scale civil war situation that developed in the former Yugoslavia. I think someone would need to be fairly obtuse not to see this and the significance it has.

Is there anything inherently wrong about caring about your neighbourhood more than places far away? I doubt that e.g. Nigerians care more about Ukraine than what’s happening in their neighbourhood. Would these people condemn Nigerians for that? I doubt it. And if they would not, then it means they themselves are creating separate racial categories where whites are expected to be universalist and others are not.

A while ago I was wondering if something like this would start to happen, racial politics deriving from Anglo-colonial history becoming the dominant paradigm through which all interactions between European white people and any non-white peoples are understood, as a result of the scale of US cultural influence and the current obsession with this topic in the Anglosphere.

Also generally agree with German_Reader about the shitlibs and the ethnic grifters on this point.

I watched Deutsche Welle for some months, songbird, wanting to get a German perspective on the news. It was always a puzzle, that some 50% of the stories were about Africa. The final straw, the proverbial break-the-camel’s-back insult, was their lead story on 25 February: What’s the impact of the war in Ukraine for Africa?
I discontinued my link to Deutsche Welle. They’re not a German news organization: they’re a Woke propaganda outfit.

Putin sent negotiation delegation to Belarus, Zelensky loks like not coming, does not want to debate in a country which now is not neutral, but the very fact of sending such delegation ndicates that RF is not going to fly nukes at least today, lol 🙂

I have the same feeling. After the SWIFT decision, Russia will likely retaliate with oil and gas. The West is risking everything, short of nuclear war, to take down the disobedient Russians. Especially the Europeans, they are exposing themselves with extremely imprudent positions in the hope that their subjects will be well influenced by propaganda and endure the very bad outcomes that may come.

No need to make SWIFT predictions. The decision has been made already. They say they will remove selected Russian banks from the list.

How is that going to work? Other Russian banks may take the messages and then pass them on to the unlisted banks using Russia’s own messaging system. Clients in the West will receive the new account numbers to send the messages to and then the message and funds will be redirected to the unlisted banks.

Maybe it’s just posturing, or maybe there is an implicit threat to delist any non-sanctioned Russian bank cooperating with unlisted Russian banks.

I think Russia’s only nearly symmetrical retaliation is to sanction western countries with commodities exports.

Since all of this looks like a long game, perhaps a very long game, US energy supplies look to gain in popularity and usage, and like in Russia the prices are bound to escalate. A return to a robust fracking industry is bound to occur. Buy your energy stocks today before they go sky high.

I don’t think there will be much change in volume of oil Russia sells it may sell more to China and less to EU but the west realizes that higher oil prices only harm them and help Russia.

Halliburton and Schlumberger are as active in Russia as ever helping extract ever more oil from Siberian oilfields in long term decline.

In addition 1-2 mbpd Iranian oil will hit the market this and the less than robust growth in the world economy may actually depress prices.

(with lots of none too subtle calls for military intervention)

There are many overt calls in the U. S. MSM for direct NATO “boots on the ground” intervention in Ukraine.

How do you justify your approval of German arm shipments to Ukraine? It will just increase the body count and what purpose will that serve?

Halliburton and Schlumberger are as active in Russia as ever helping extract ever more oil from Siberian oilfields in long term decline.

Do you really think that these companies will be able to operate in Russia as “business as usual” for very long?

Bearish for TradFi, bullish for cryptos to evade sanctions like this, as Russia represents a major part of crypto market/development and especially as everyone sees how (along with Trudeau freezing dissident bank accounts) TradFi is under America’s iron fist.

So far symbolic sanctions, the worry is the hysteria of the politicians can still lead to them doing something stupid. James Rickards is very good on this aspect, consulted for the Pentagon on currency wars and financial conflict, guess they didn’t listen though. Swift is just a messaging service ultimately, the disconnected banks will just use a fax machine…

Is Anatoly Karlin still a shill for Richard Spencer?

Pro-Putin Russian (fake) "journalist" Anatoly Karlin is in fact a white nationalist who attended neo-Nazi conferences with Richard Spencer : AntifascistsofReddit https://t.co/FuQBcMrEC6

— Franklyn Monk (@fqmonk) February 26, 2022

There are many overt calls in the U. S. MSM for direct NATO “boots on the ground” intervention in Ukraine.

Obviously that’s demented, I don’t agree at all with idiots demanding no-fly zones and the like, and it’s worrying that such proposals are even brought up by supposed elites. However, at this point I don’t think there’s a real risk of something like this being implemented. NATO’s Stoltenberg has already ruled out direct intervention, and Biden’s administration seems also to be quite sensible in this regard at least.

How do you justify your approval of German arm shipments to Ukraine? It will just increase the body count and what purpose will that serve?

Your argument has a certain merit (certainly am not looking forward to urban warfare which would kill lots of civilians, Ukrainians will have to make very difficult decisions in this regard), but I don’t want Russia to secure a bloodless win and be able to pretend that this was a professional intervention desired by most Ukrainians. And there aren’t just moral reasons, I admit I’m also looking at this from German self-interest. I don’t want Germany to isolate herself completely in Europe and NATO because of alleged appeasement of Russia. And I also feel Russia has abused Germany’s good will and willingness for “dialogue” with this invasion (also other unfriendly actions, like the assassination probably carried out on behalf of Russian intelligence in Berlin). So a signal has to be sent that hard limits will be set to the kind of behaviour Russia can get away with.

I think Russia’s only nearly symmetrical retaliation is to sanction western countries with commodities exports.

The problem with that technique is that Russia’s primary export is not “unique”. All natural gas is effectively the same.

Deliberately interrupting deliveries via the Yamal (Belarus-Poland) pipeline showed that Putin is inherently unreliable. Becoming even more unreliable, as you suggest, will hasten 100% Russian replacement.

How dependant on Xi does Putin want to be? The more Russia sells to a single customer, the more the more easily that country entry can exploit the supplier.

PEACE 😇

and it’s worrying that such proposals are even brought up by supposed elites.

I’m not nearly as confident as you are that they won’t be able to push us in. I don’t know how extensively you follow U. S. MSM, but the push for a war was overwhelming, and they got it. Maybe we will see some opposition in Congress to the proposed supplemental package of aid.

You make some good points.

Interesting to me is supposed interest of Sweden and Finland in joining NATO.

I hope your government follows through on defense spending increase and will push it even higher, then you can start talking about real limitations on Russian behavior.

I hope your government follows through on defense spending increase and will push it even higher

Scholz just announced a 100 billion Euro extra package for the Bundeswehr, which is at least a start.
Obviously he’s still pretty terrible from my perspective on almost every other issue, but at least he seems to have understood that Germany’s previous approach to Russia has (unfortunately) just failed in a pretty drastic manner.

Can’t Russia simply stop exporting gas and oil to Europe? Nationalize Gazprom completely and start selling oil and gas internally at break even prices, which will be much lower than global market prices and thus will give Russian industry a competitive advantage and ease the pressure on standard of living at a time when the energy prices explode in the West.

Gazprom prides itself how they always deliver on their contracts, but surely these sanctions are breaking contracts that westerners have made with the Russian Federation.

The Russians can still export gas and oil to China and others in Asia, like South Korea for example, so they won’t completely deprive themselves of export revenue.

Also, can’t the Russians complete the SWIFT sanctions themselves and disconnect completely from SWIFT, forcing banks around the world to adopt SPFS in parallel to SWIFT to serve anyone who wants to trade with Russia? And also force people to buy rubles to purchase goods and services from Russia, as Euro is even more unreliable than the US dollar as the latest actions against the Russian Central Bank has shown?

The question becomes, “Are these events real?” Ukrainian and Russian equipment is quite similar. It would be quite easy to place fake “Z” marks on Ukrainian equipment and then blow it up.

A limited number of light vehicles being in the wrong place could be natives messing with road signs. The number of these “losses” is now straining credibility.

Do you really think that Russian troops are willingly committing suicide by driving unnarmed trucks around in enemy held territory?

PEACE 😇

he seems to have understood that Germany’s previous approach to Russia has (unfortunately) just failed in a pretty drastic manner.

As in personal life, failure doesn’t have to be the end. It’s usually the failure to learn from failure that is devastating, and, on that point, the U. S. has no equal.

German’s previous policy of saying one thing and doing the other, at least the Russians have called out their duplicity finally.

Looks like he may get more than he bargained for

still keeping money in Western banks

Im no geopolitical expert(i haven’t even completed 4 years of college) but when ur enemies say their goal is to dismember you, you probably dont want to keep your money in their banks lol

Russia has $630bn in international reserves.

A big chunk of that is held overseas.

Western sanctions agreed tonight are designed to stop Putin being able to spend even a single rouble worth.

— Henry Foy (@HenryJFoy) February 26, 2022

It will be a consolidation of what little opposition remained internally in the other half of the West, Europe, into the agreement that permanent alliance and following the US’ every whim is necessary for their country.

American arms and LNG companies are gonna make killing off the Europeans with the overpriced gas and the armaments.

Europe will have to toe GAE(Gay American Empire) line in a sense that “We helped you vs Russia now you help us vs China”(and other threats like Iran, North Korea, insert any other country America deems hostile).

Now there will be more psyops and onslaught about the need of diversity to combat Russia and it will be hard to reject blacks and other assorted minorities and whatever Jews say since they will be seen as “essential” in combating it.

German’s previous policy of saying one thing and doing the other, at least the Russians have called out their duplicity finally.

Germany’s Traffic Light coalition includes the Green Party. NS2 was doomed as soon as the coalition took office. It isn’t “duplicity” to reach the end of the road that one started down. Even the theoretically right FDP party (yellow) in the Traffic Light is for SJW Open Borders.

After decades of crippling underspending, a one time “100 billion Euro extra package for the Bundeswehr” is merely symbolism. It will take an equivalent period of high spending just to make up for prior shortfalls. The chances of the Traffic Light committing to that level of expenditure is effectively nil.

The problem is more fundamental. Germany’s voters are 80% SJW and getting “woker”. Unless there is a change of heart among German citizens, there is no hope for lasting improvement.

PEACE 😇

Is reiner Tor still around? I wonder, what’s his take on this?

Brave Ukrainians are now on the frontline and risking their lives in an onslaught that reminds me of the siege of Budapest in 1944 and the siege of Sarajevo in 1993.

— George Soros (@georgesoros) February 26, 2022

Good news. “aggressive statements” and “sanctions” trigger Putin. Puts nuclear forces on special combat duty.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/27/russia-putin-nuclear-weaponry-00012108
Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin asserted on Sunday that leading NATO powers had made “aggressive statements” along with the West imposing hard-hitting financial sanctions against Russia, including the president himself.

Putin ordered the Russian defense minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”

Thats because \$350ish billion of his \$600 billion war chest is possibly going to get frozen

a’la Afghanistan

Deliberately interrupting deliveries via the Yamal (Belarus-Poland) pipeline showed that Putin is inherently unreliable.

Nobody will interpret it that way. The guy has shown a lot of patience as is evident.

1. Russia has a 4th rate military that cannot even operate at night. France, by themselves, would comprehensively destroy them. Their tempo of operations would be at least twice as fast.

2. A Russian nationalism that rests of murdering Ukrainians is doomed.

3. Ukraine may have been a fake country but it isn’t now and any Ukrainians who sided with Russia are the sort of traitors and scumbags which would make Ghani look honourable.

4. All political careers end in failure and Putin’s has ended in epic failure. It is fitting given how successful it was previously.

5. Russia should have negotiated recognition of Crimea and the Republics and been at peace. NATO never actually threatened Russia militarily. That’s a paranoid fantasy.

6. Ukraine will join NATO. Possibly even the EU! Russia should join too and force it all in a conservative direction with Poland etc.

7. Russia may also now lose Chechnya, Belorus et al. It is not the West that has been revealed as the paper tiger.

8. Democracies are plenty warlike and good at fighting. Idiots always forget this. America got hit with one terrorist attack on 9/11 and then invaded a country on the side of the world and terrorised the Taliban for 2 decades. They also flatten Iraq and would have flattened a bunch of other countries had their vengeful spirit not been directed to hopeless nation building. Democracies fight and fight well. France only didn’t resist German occupation in WW2 because it was too short a time and French could go off and join the free French to resist from war not internally.

9. Somehow a Ukrainian TV clown is now a warrior President and will be the face of the decade. Lol at Putin and Russian military for being so humiliated. Come on guys, you should have just developed Siberia etc.

10. This is all very sad. The Russian establishment and nationalists need to forge a new narrative without Putin and he should fall on his sword to save the movement. Join NATO, save Europe from within

Deliberately interrupting deliveries via the Yamal (Belarus-Poland) pipeline showed that Putin is inherently unreliable.

Nobody will interpret it that way. The guy has shown a lot of patience as is evident.

Everyone in Europe interpreted that way. Putin intentionally deployed legalistic minimalism to destabilize the European natural gas “spot market”. (1)

According to Slovakian operator Eustream, the average daily volume of gas transfer from Russia between Jan. 1 and 9 had dropped to 54 million cubic meters — half the amount for the same period in 2021. The Yamal pipeline, on the other hand, has not been transferring any gas through Poland at all since the end of December.

The fact that Putin intentionally went after European markets in an attempt to coerce NS2 startup is proven fact. There is no way for him to take back the failed attempt at blackmail.
___

While I am sympathetic to Russia’s security concerns their commercial misbehaviour has been egregious.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://rmx.news/poland/us-gas-supply-to-eu-is-5x-higher-than-that-of-russias-gazprom-so-far-in-january/

This is exactly what I fear and I have told this to the few uninformed people who are panicking that war could reach us. There will be no war, but complete NATO enslavement and the final death of democracy and free speech is very much on the table.
The GAE will use this crisis to crush its opponents in the vassal states of Europe and in America itself.

Also, as I watch RT being offline pretty much all the time, all government websites in Russia under constant attack, Facebook and Twitter going dark in Russia (by the way, in Facebook you can put a frame with the Ukrainian flag, but you can’t put a frame with the Russian flag, even though pretty much any other country is there), I started following some Russian telegram channels but today I notice that videos are taking a lot of time to load so I wonder if it will be even possible to communicate with Russians over the internet without using special technology.

1. Size matters and Russia is #2.
2. It isn’t nationalism but Tsarist imperialism. Putin has the pretense of being nationalist but stopped being one after publishing that essay on nationalities.
3. Agreed.
5. Yes at the 1st point, but this will preclude any further land grabs. But Putin prefers a buffer zone filled with his own troops, just like Eastern Bloc.
6. NATO might be transformed into a federal EU military. (How the optics deteriorate especially domestically is another matter). Russia could never have gotten into EU even with someone like Yeltsin. Clinton rebuffed Putin when he brought up Russian admission into NATO and that started the domino effect up to now.
7. Russia will probably consolidate after a stalemate in Ukraine.
8. America isn’t democratic at war. It is technocratic (Military-Industrial Complex).
9. It is never about rational national interest and will never be. It’s contest between civilization spheres and the “Regathering of Russian lands” is precisely setting up for that.

I don’t know, maybe you’re right, but could also be too pessimistic. Pre-1989 West was arguably already on a bad trajectory, but I don’t think it’s an accident that “antiracism” and LGBTQ stuff escalated to their present state only after the fall of the Soviet Union and the supposed end of history. Genuine geopolitical conflict with Russia and China might have a dampening effect on wokeism (or maybe not, after all competition with the Soviet Union for the hearts and minds of the 3rd world was a factor in the US civil rights revolution, it’s hard to tell what’s going to happen).

As if any more proof is needed to show that old Putler has gone completely daft. He’s definitely the most dangerous and deranged person in the world today.

A correspondent just stated that: “Putin was hoping to divide the Western world by his actions in Ukraine; he’s managed to do just the opposite.”

Can’t Russia simply stop exporting gas and oil to Europe?

And likely the US too.

I’m still trying to understand how the attack on Russian Central Bank will work. This doesn’t make much sense to me.

Here’s how Russian monetary mechanism works. Russia Inc (Rosneft, Gazprom etc) sells oil and gets dollars/Euros. Russian Central Bank (CBR) then sells rubles on the forex market and buys those dollars/Euros from Russia Inc. They do this up to a limit set by the budget rule based on \$42 oil.

Here’s brief Moscow Times explainer.

Russia’s Central Bank typically buys foreign currency using the proceeds of Russia’s oil and gas exports. This so-called “fiscal rule” is designed to reduce the currency’s volatility in response to swings in the value of global commodities — a previous weakness which had accentuated economic pressures during periods of turmoil.

It mandates Russia to convert cash from oil sales into foreign currency by selling rubles when global oil prices are above a benchmark level of around \$44 a barrel. Oil is currently trading at around \$88, meaning the Central Bank has been selling significant amounts of rubles in recent days — accentuating the pressure on the currency stoked by fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, analysts say.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/01/24/russias-central-bank-steps-in-to-halt-trade-as-russian-markets-in-freefall-a76130

Basically, CBR acts as the biggest ruble short seller and it supports the value of other currencies. They do this on purpose to devalue the ruble just like Chinese Central Bank does the same thing to devalue yuan as such devaluations act as soft tariffs and keep domestic industries competitive.

But if CBR can’t use euros/dollars for financial manipulation, what do they need them for? Euros/dollars can’t be spent domestically, and Russia always runs trade surplus (this is a result of Central Bank policy described above) so Russia doesn’t need euros/dollars for trade.

Simplest thing would be to just denominate all oil sales in rubles. Russia would lose a lot of financial flexibility in doing this, but accumulating useless invalid currencies is rather pointless.

Basically, attack on CBR reserves is an attack on the eurodollar which will likely cause CBR to stop shorting ruble. I see ruble dropping initially on the panic, but who is going to short sell it going forward? Banks? Normally they would but they are under sanctions as well, so their ability to transact in foreign currency is limited.

As ruble plunges, Russian government will post massive budget surpluses, bigger than what they currently have (revenues in expensive currency, costs in cheap currency leading to surplus and profit). So how this will play out in the longer term is difficult to see.

Great comment. Pretty much agree with all points except I do not see Russia in NATO or EU for a long time.

Bro, the US foreign policy establishment and military wing is woke. A large part of their mission is advancing gender & LGBQT equality & multiculturalism globally.

So how can the dampening of wokeness be reduced if thats their goal? Imo any rightoid or right leaning person will still surely be able to serve as fodder…they will just purge them every couple of years like they do in your country
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/world/europe/german-special-forces-far-right.html

Or turn a blind eye to that, just as the western media gives the ok to turn a blind eye to various jihadists in the FSA against Assad, Saudi Arabia, etc. The new Europe will have a “don’t ask don’t tell” if you are a nazee who can fight.

If you dont count China,there is no competition between the two powers now, most of the global South is solely in the Western pocket so the West will appease them so as not they lose support of the global South.
And imho Chinese propaganda is not that effective as of yet and only way so far China has been able to gain any kind of support is by building bridges, schools, etc.

But tbh maybe ur right. Take what I said with a grain of salt, arent you a PolScience major? You should be better than me at predicting and knowing this kind of stuff…

Again, im nothing but a failed history student who switched my History Major to and did 2 years with an Associate of Arts (lol) just for the sake of completeness and to prove my mom that im not completely worthless.

When a commodity price goes up, the producers can sell less of it to make the same or more money. So, the overall production will go down. The fracking increase in US-Canada is unlikely: they are close to capacity and the ‘logistics’ are expensive. But I can see some others getting into the fracking business, maybe UK?

Another problem is how to get the stuff to Europe, there are choke-points and oceans to cross – it is easier to disrupt than a pipeline. Sh..t happens. When it benefits someone, sh..t seems to happen more often.

This will be a massive wealth transfer from Europe to North America: a retrenchment to safer quarters. Unfortunately the most exposed part of Europe is V4 and above all Germany. We are heading back to the 50’s. Visegrad brief moment in the sun is over. Thank god (or Zelensky) for all the Ukie women heading here. Let the men be courageous and organize ‘partisan bands’: woods, guns, cold nights and an occasional sheep. A great 21.st century lifestyle.

That’s just propaganda, and it hasn’t happened.

Take what I said with a grain of salt, arent you a PolScience major?

Haha, fortunately not. Don’t have a lot of respect for “political science” tbh.
Anyway, you may well be right. I would hope that wokeness, with its demonization of heterosexual white men (still the backbone of Western societies after all, what would work without them?), will be seen as a liability in a context of genuine great power competition, but who knows, Western elites are pretty crazy after all and not terribly smart. And of course, should the present crisis escalate beyond the nuclear threshold, none of that will matter anymore anyway.

It is a strangely planned operation. Invasion of Kharkov seemed like a suicide mission, although at least it is better they try this than just destroy a city with artillery and aviation.

With light vehicles VDC were driving and then walking into the center of the city, everyone was showing them for Twitter. They become internet celebrities. Then now those VDC were killed or captured. It’s like they have planned this invasion of Kharkov where the locals would welcome them, as in Crimea.

–

In Bucha, netizens watching Russian military armored column enter the city, it was popular on Twitter. Then this armored column was been ambushed.

After they were ambushed video. But they were famous on the internet before this. I’m not a military expert, but why do they enter at the day when everyone can see them?

#Буча, ул. Вокзальная, продолжение: кто с мечом к нам пришёл, блядь, тот, блядь, от меча и погибнет #RussiaInvidedUkraine pic.twitter.com/wMMZBEtrzP

— Necro Mancer (@666_mancer) February 27, 2022

Before everyone was watching entry, it is same column that was earlier on Twitter. Below MORE tag video of the column before ambush.

lol, you mean pushing Russia into a corner was a good approach? What is a bad approach? geeez.

This anon wants blood 😛 Ukrainian blood to be spilled. lol.

That’s what I’m saying. Companies of special forces all over the country moving around in light vehicles, grabbing attention, tagging targets for long-range strikes, support by composite battalions with AD and artillery (a single AD system here, a single TOS-1 driving there).

A scout battalion can make itself look out to be a larger unit and pin multiple divisions down (for a short time anyway). A higher level Ukrainian commander is basically getting reports of Russian vehicles in areas he assumed were secure, multiple reports from multiple areas gives the impression Russian armour has punched deep when its just a few platoons making themselves noticed.

Not that there isn’t some mechanized warfare happening with the LDNR and whatever is going on around the Bulgaria-Cherynobl-Kiev corridor.

I mean shit:

A good one :). You have descended into a parody. I recall your defense of how West was “sincere” in Iraq, Serbia etc… believing its own lies. Maybe you do too.

Some counter-points:

1. It was NATO military that run away like a bunch of scared teenage girls in the last month. Not Russia.

2. There was no offer to recognize Crimea and Donbas by the West, or to pull back its forces from Ukraine. Just the opposite: they doubled down. So your suggestion is hot air.

3. French can’t even subdue Mali. They wouldn’t last against a real enemy 2 weeks. They could go nuclear, but so could their enemies – and France is not that big. (Your WWII French collapse ‘explanation’ is just hilarious, beyond anyone ability to comment. Really funny.)

4. “NATO never actually threatened Russia militarily”

Right. And how do you define “actually”? NATO repeatedly declared that Russia is its primary enemy – way back 10 years ago and before Maidan in Ukraine. Placing bases, weapons and missiles on Russia’s border, arming Ukraine and saying that it will be in NATO (officially already way back in 2008) – that is not a threat? How about if Russia would do the same in Ireland against UK, or in Mexico?

You are wrong about your predictions:
– Ukraine will not be in NATO; they were never going to be in EU, so that hasn’t changed
– Russia has consolidated as it does every now and then. With no Western access, Putin is stronger than he was before. The liberal pro-Western Russians are the real losers – maybe 5-10% of population.
– Ukrainians will go with the winner, that always happens and it will happen this time too. The ones who hate it can now leave easily. The rest will adapt, they are fatalistic people. But their folklore, ballads and self-pity will continue, you are right there.

The real loser is Europe: they had a chance to make it work by publicly announcing that Ukraine will not be in NATO and not a single leader had the guts to go against Washington and say it. They whispered it in secret like silly girls, look at those fools Macron and Sholtz. Now for the consequences.

Here is a “fog of war”. There is a static monument in Bucha of a military vehicle.

When the VDV enter the city they have a gun fight with the static monument.

I would also like to add that the VDV forces were unloading into a static BDRM scout car monument https://t.co/oo9WeiUczC pic.twitter.com/KcKMEM5JDr

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) February 27, 2022

Very good explanation. Like yourself I am not understanding how many of those sanctions will affect the Russian economy given her current macro situation. Specially the sanctions on the CBR are difficult to understand what would they achieve.

I also posted a comment to the effect that it is not clear how delisting a few Russian banks from SWIFT will work given that all the other Russian banks will be connected.

The sanctions on HNW individuals would only be important if said HNW individuals stage a coup against Putin to recover their access to villas and mansions in the Mediterranean. Not gonna happen.

Sanctiond against Putin and Lavrov are purely symbolical.

Are western apparatchicks pretending to be mean and Russian apparatchicks pretending to be offended?

That’s just propaganda, and it hasn’t happened.

Objective reality shows that it is not propaganda and did happen: (1)

anyone expecting a sudden surge in Russian nat gas shipments to Europe should not hold their breath as “Putin has been very clear in laying out Russia’s ask to save Europe: activate the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. As long as Europe’s bureaucrats refuse to comply, any hope that electricity costs will slide in the coming weeks will be at best – pardon the pun – a pipe dream.”

We didn’t have long to wait to be once again proven right: on Saturday, Russian gas supplies through the Yamal – Europe pipeline via Poland to Germany had come to a sudden, unexpected, and screeching halt.
…
Russian gas export flows have been closely watched as gas prices in Europe have soared amid economic recovery and low inventories. This website was one of the first to anticipate the endgame, writing on August 3 “From Russia With 50% Less Supply: European Nat Gas Prices Explode To Record Highs As Putin Turns The Screws.”

Russia’s unreliability as a supplier has been factually demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/europe-edge-after-russia-halts-gas-shipments-yamal-pipeline

Well looks like blogger won’t let you upload and direct link anymore…. yet…..

Testing nitter links:

Deluded nonsense. Your entire worldview is coming apart at the seams. There is no way for Russia to win in Ukraine. They can drive around in armoured columns taking casualties and that is it. The rest of your post is even more stupid. I can educate you but it is hardly worth the hassle. You have no idea about military strategy or tactics. No clue of how logistics work or different doctrines of warfare. It seems that not only Russia cannot operate at night, but can’t do precision strikes at a big scale, which is exactly what would be expected from a country at their level of development. Them trying to contain a Ukrainian insurgency would be ridiculous. France would be inside their OODA Loop within 2 minutes and would completely pick them apart. I like Putin, but he is likely finished. Let’s hope whomever takes over doesn’t get so carried away. Your sheeting resentment at your individual life inferiority is clouding your judgement. Go seethe more. Sorry to the Russians and their brave nationalism, but don’t hitch your wagon to overreach and don’t believe your own propoganda.

Were they hit by drones or by artillery with very precise targeting guided by drones or satellite? It was not necessarily an ambush. Actually I was wondering how extensive is tactical real time intelligence transfer from American sources to the Ukrainian army on tactical level. I have heard that skies over the bordering NATO countries are saturated with tankers, AWACS and all kinds of NATO planes. Supposedly weapon supplies are being delivered to Ukraine all the time.

When a commodity price goes up, the producers can sell less of it to make the same or more money. So, the overall production will go down. The fracking increase in US-Canada is unlikely: they are close to capacity and the ‘logistics’ are expensive.

Only if you’re a monopoly. In a more competitive market (not necessarily “perfectly” competitive), as the price increases, the inclination is to produce more, not less. Investments in productive capacity that were “expensive” when the price of the commodity was low now become “affordable.”

A very reasoned overview:

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2022/02/27/russia-ukraine-coverage-update-what-western-mass-media-downplays/

My feeling is there is mix of trying to copy Guderian’s 1941 blitzkrieg around Kiev, but with asset-stripped postsoviet army instead of elite Wehrmacht.

But then they mixed hopes of somekind of “Operation Just Cause” that would go to the center of Kiev and the special forces would capture Zelensky. I don’t think it is co-incidence, Shoigu’s daughter owns the Russian franchise of “Ultimate Ninja Warrior”.*

This is partly because they might believe their propaganda that the Ukrainians might view this as liberation and accept the change of government.

Hopefully they do not become frustrated and change to old Grozny attitude to using artillery against residential area of cities. What would be the final goal after bombing a city? You would pay to rebuild it like Grozny?

–

* Shoigu’s daughter even installed an exhibition for “Ninja Warrior” in the center of Moscow a couple of years ago.

I noticed that you did’t answer any of my points.

– Do you really believe that Ukraine will win this militarily? At best they will negotiate terms of surrender – Ze. is already starting.
– How is Ukraine now going to be in NATO?
– Was NATO in Ukraine a threat to Russia? Of course it was. And you simply ignore it because you have no answer.
– And the valiant French army…you are kidding about that, right?

Try to do better and be serious. This is not a playground. It can go big “boom” if we just yell at each other.

EU to ban “pro-Kremlin media”

BRUSSELS (AP) — Top #EU official: Bloc will close its airspace to #Russia airlines, fund arms supplies to #Ukraine, ban pro-Kremlin media.

— Matt Lee (DiploWriter) February 27, 2022

My fears about the final death of free speech are already coming true.

Even before this, earlier today the cucks in Bulgaria have blocked 45 000 Russian IP addresses for “malicious traffic/hybrid warfare/insert liberast justification here” and I have been completely unable to access RT or some of the other big Russian news sites like ria.ru and so on. I guess the masters told the cucks in power here and they got to work in advance, even though an official EU decision has not been made yet.

The youtube channels of Russian TV like Rossiya24 and so on will also probably be banned.

I guess I will finally have to buy a VPN if I want to continue being able to access the RuNet.

The fracking increase in US-Canada is unlikely: they are close to capacity and the ‘logistics’ are expensive. But I can see some others getting into the fracking business, maybe UK?

There is a temporary shortage of “fracking quality” sand. Don’t ask me what that technically means, it is just buried in the numbers I have seen. Some idled sand pits are reactivating, so this constraint will be much reduced in the next month or two.

Much of the U.S. slow reaction is based in financing. Firms that were burned last time around do not want to go into speculative ventures the way that they did last cycle. If gas prices are going to stay high for several years there are huge dollars available. However, the signing of long term contracts is not yet taking place.

The fact that the Russian SWIFT “non-sanctions” explicitly excluded energy took the pressure off immediate drilling. Also, U.S. LNG export capacity is nearly maxed out. So, there is no way to push additional fracked gas to European markets.

Real growth in U.S. hydrocarbons requires additional pipeline capacity being blocked by Not-The-President Biden’s corrupt regime. The mid terms will help, but substantial U.S. output increases are likely to be a few years away.

PEACE 😇

They’re going to start using heavy artillery quite soon probably because they’re gaining ground too slow and to break morale

And this is why we’re ‘ve been trying to stay away from Russians like everyone else is but they keep coming back

That's right, the Russian goal appears to have been to race to Kyiv – elsewhere seizing key junctions and going around major cities. Much of the fighting had been on the outskirts. They dramatically overextended the small numbers of units that were sent in to achieve this. https://t.co/uofGP3CShN

— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 27, 2022

As a reminder, Russia has only committed ~1/3rd of the mobilised force on its border(s) with Ukraine. Kadyrov even implored Putin to “stop playing” today and get serious. Clearly the Russians are using as light a touch as they can. This is a regime decapitation operation. They understand that widespread destruction of residential areas and mass civilian casualties is a gigantic self-defeat if it were to happen.

…the inclination is to produce more

Sure, the inclination. But it is far from easy, requires long-term investments, and an assurance that the prices will stay high.

Many commodities like gas and oil have only a few available large sellers. Some may step up production, but Russia is way too big a component. If they pull back and make the same amount of money by selling less, there are not many alternatives. Lowering consumption would help and we may get that.

Russia has the technology to stop selling raw products and switch to value added processed gas, chemicals, fertilizers, etc… that would eviscerate EU (=German) economy. EU is playing with fire, social media and video games can’t drive the economy.

Russia has been for decades a stabilizing factor – solid supplier that always delivered and tried to keep markets stable. They not only said it, they actually did it. Will they continue?

Ukraine also has a 6 Bayraktars, so I guess this is also possible result of the Bayraktar.

Ukraine is the poor third world country, with very disorganized military, no funds and poor old equipment, postsoviet asset-stripping, etc.

But the last year, they received 6 Bayraktar drones. Bayraktar are an advanced technology which can follow moving targets. We saw them in 2020 in Northern Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh.

It’s possible that introduction of Bayraktar drone was a motive for acceleration of the invasion in the Russian military planning, as Ukraine still only such has limited numbers of this equipment.

Before this war, Ukraine was planning to receive 48 of the Bayraktar, but they currently only have 6 Bayraktar. If you waited too long, until Ukraine had large numbers of Bayraktar drones, the invasion plans could have become much more difficult than by attacking now, where this kind of attack seems still less common.

Allegedly TB-2 Bayraktar destroying a Russian convoy from CombatFootage

If I understand correctly, they are pulling SWIFT from certain banks that have already been sanctioned.

I guess the move against the central bank was the big one. But it is hard for me to believe that most of their foreign currency reserves aren’t already in Russia, and that this move was anticipated. I mean, if there is one thing that is predictable, it is that people want to grab other people’s money.

The rest of it – the certain banks thing – strikes me as a compromise. The way that I’d interpret it is that the naysayers were politically backed into a corner, where they felt trapped into it. And the people in favor of pulling it realized that they just need to start the process, get their toe in the water, and then use the fact that they will be using workarounds to eventually pull the whole system.

IMO, it is a dumb move. Lower ruble will just mean that they will have an even better balance of trade. Not to mention, Russia will raise its energy prices, eventually, in retaliation.

1. Russia has a 4th rate military that cannot even operate at night. France, by themselves, would comprehensively destroy them. Their tempo of operations would be at least twice as fast.

Indeed. It’s shocking that the Russians still can’t fight at night! Especially when you used to be able to buy decent Russian-made night-vision equipment at Walmart a decade ago. I’m guessing the real problem is that Russian generals had no real plans for fighting at night? Whatever…their meager advances come to a complete halt once the sun goes down. The over-hyped “modern” Russian military is pretty embarrassing.

It’s also true that France has come a long way militarily. I’ve heard nothing but good things about their special forces and air force. They also did a good job fighting a bloody military campaign against ISIS in central Africa for the last 10 years. They’ve been ordered to leave by corrupt Africans but at least the French were able to fight at night, supply their troops adequately and hold ground with its airborne forces. Meanwhile the Russian military (and Russian mercenaries in Africa) are running around liked a bunch of pissed-on chickens.

Interesting… I didn’t know something like that existed (Ultimate Ninja Warrior). I mean sure, as an 80s thing maybe….

Hopefully they do not become frustrated and change to old Grozny attitude to using artillery against residential area of cities. What would be the final goal after bombing a city? You would pay to rebuild it like Grozny?

Yeah I agree.

I doubt in the heart of the Russian military and leadership there is malevolence behind this.

Perhaps a little bit of adventure, no doubt. Butt hurt no one honoured their terms in agreements, but not butt hurt enough to burn entire cities down.

I have to believe Russians on all levels are not as giddy as Karlin watching Russia ‘stronk’ (“so stronk we could have done an Iraq but bigger-er and better-er AND faster-er!”).

Maybe we’re all seeing this as something more complex then it really is. Georgia seems to be playing nice with Russia now. This could be growing pains and what better time than a global recession. In 5 years when the good times roll everyone will forget about this.

Watching a monument get suppressed by VDV: better safe than sorry I guess.

But that exact tactic of driving fast down a main road and just shooting at anything. They drive around the whole city doing that and all low-level commanders report up that they are engaged or spot enemy vehicles. Operations commanders report up that they’re encountering a large push that broke through the front (I mean shit there are is armour driving around EVERYWHERE!).

In reality it’s these assclowns prosecuting (Nazi) street lights and derelicts.

Russians clearly know how to paradrop an entire VDV BMD-4 battalion, that’s enough vehicles to pull it of (I put it in a more tag in case it embeds and kills the thread, like reddit embeds seem to do):

30 BMD-4 and 300 paratroopers in a single drop. Good way to generate noise in the fog of war.

Russia has been for decades a stabilizing factor – solid supplier that always delivered and tried to keep markets stable. They not only said it, they actually did it. Will they continue?

No. They will not.

As I conclusively demonstrated above, Russia is now a destabilizing factor.

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-177-continuing-russia-ukraine-war/#comment-5200977

To escape Putin’s proven unreliability, new sources of natural resources are being prioritized.

PEACE 😇

Who actually got it completely right?

Who predicted that Putin would first formally recognize Lugansk and Donetsk, followed by his answering their request?

While I’m here, this is a good one:

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/02/27/constructive-destruction-of-russia-model-of-relations-with-west/

EU has banned RT and sanctioned its CEO. Apparently (at least where I am), you can only get into that venue by having a linked article from that site.

Doxing myself a bit, but don’t care – senpai has noticed me!

Margarita Simonyan screenshots my post in Telegram along with a few others, says thank you.
The day wasn’t completely bad 😀

Yes the Shoigu family really owns licenses for this franchise of “Ninja Warrior” within Russia. They also pretend to be fans of Japanese culture.

I have zero idea how military works or how they do planning in such organization. But, I kind of romantically almost imagine this “ninja” fandom of the Shoigu family can influence, on military planning, with the unrealistic special forces emphasis. Why were isolated units fighting from the Kiev zoo?

–

Although about culture of people like Soviet mestizo (Tuvan-Jewish-Ukrainian) Shoigu.

It’s not like they understand real Japanese culture, but perhaps they have attraction to Americanized culture with Japanese window dressing, such as films like “Karate Kid” and “Ninja Turtles”.

Metadata Shoigu children in Monaco in New Year. So, I guess being fans of Japan, is just less than their attraction to the Cristal and Jay-Z lifestyle.

After filtering assets a hundred times (so they can put it cleanly anywhere in the world), they go to Jaz-Z land. If they really had some appreciation for Japanese culture, they should have moved to Japan. If you have unlimited money, Tokyo is far more interesting culturally surely than Monaco.

Even Sweden will send weapons to Ukraine:

“Sweden is now proposing direct support for Ukraine’s armed forces. It includes 135,000 field rations, 5,000 helmets, 5,000 body shields and 5,000 anti-tank weapons” Andersson told a news conference.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-27/sweden-to-send-military-aid-to-ukraine-pm-andersson

5000 Pansarskott 86
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT4

Sure, the inclination. But it is far from easy, requires long-term investments, and an assurance that the prices will stay high.

Companies make long-term investments all the time, and there is never any assurance that prices will remain high. Experience demonstrates that the mere assumption prices will remain high is sufficient to drive investment decisions.

utu,

I am genuinely curious. What is your ethnic background? I have no dog in this fight and am not pro-Russia by any means. I consider myself neutral and trying to understand both sides of the conflict.

Ukraine began to use its 6 Bayraktars for attacking convoys? Whereas in previous days of conflict they were trying to intercept cruise missiles instead?

In October 2020, it was mainly Bayraktars being used for attacking convoys, rather than as interception of missies.

These Bayraktar are deadly. Russian losses mounting fast
pic.twitter.com/hc8yDkZ4j3

— Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno) February 27, 2022

YES

They better hurry because it looks like the Russians completed two “boilers” today – one in Mariupol and another in Kiev. You seriously don’t want to be inside a boiler (completely surrounded). Very bad for Ukrainian Army.

That said, those Swedish and Polish idiots may still try. What happens when Russia kills a bunch of poor Polish truck drivers in Ukraine who are delivering weapons? NATO intervention? And nukes fly? I hope not, but can’t rule this out.

So Putin raised the nuclear alert level

And this is is US’s response.

Spoke to Senior White House Offical just now. He explained that "While #Russia might be flexing its nuclear muscles, we will remain steadfast. Putin cannot and will not scare us." When I asked him if this felt a little like the Cuban Missile Crisis, he said "Maybe a little."

— Harry Kazianis (@GrecianFormula) February 27, 2022

Anglos will not back down they arent the kind of people to do so

And Putin cant either or he will be ousted and he knows if “he will be ousted then US will do a regime change and in the future use Russia in war vs China and that will be the end of Russia itself”.
So neither side will back down

I just got the feeling the West has decided to seize the moment and go at regime change in Russia. I am not a fan of Putin. But this is a dangerous game, especially now.

— Artyom Lukin (@ArtyomLukin) February 27, 2022

Uhh this is the type of stuff that makes me even slightly weak in the knees…

Perhaps it was a mistake to gamble with the devil after all…

The Ukrainians did just shoot up a column of Chechens with a Death List. So yes it’s like Grozny. But only twisted.

How easy will it be for the regime to get such weaponry? It comes across as like giving a baseball bat to protect someone against someone else who will remain more powerful.

Night fighting in the snow? Are you having a laugh?

Has that been verified?

Sweden sent weapons to “kill the Boer.” Of course, they will send weapons to kill Russians.

It requires no courage. It is not the same thing as volunteering to fight yourself, and they are probably too shortsighted to understand the costs.

They will always align with whatever state is perceived to have more blacks being celebrated or that has more gays out of the closet.

So Putin raised the nuclear alert level

As I understand it, it’s only the 2nd of four levels.
But yes, it would be dangerous for the West to carry too far and adopt regime change in Russia as a goal. Ideally there should still be some sort of diplomatic approach allowing Russia to end this operation without total loss of face (may of course be futile attempt, if Russia’s goals are as extreme as Karlin hopes they are).

So they are speeding up their own CBDC then?

10. This is all very sad. The Russian establishment and nationalists need to forge a new narrative without Putin and he should fall on his sword to save the movement. Join NATO, save Europe from within

LOL, any gestures Russia made regarding joining NATO were laughed out of the room, even under that alcoholic stooge Yeltsin. There was no reason for NATO to exist after 1991.
I think Putin has made a historic mistake in taking this massive and extremely rash gamble, and I greatly fear what will happen to Russia (and by extension, Armenia) after this, but your comment is in bad faith as usual.

Impact is somehow not shown. But these kind of convoys are just an open target for these small strikes of Bayraktar, as we knew already in March 2020.

More TB-2 footage from Ukraine from CombatFootage

Or was that a column of Chechens with a Death Wish LOL

Putin had no choice. There is no mistake. He has to do this or Russia would bend the knee and what happened in the 90s would happen again.

Please hide future videos under more tag, otherwise you’re soon going to render the thread unusable again…

Why are people so obsessed with those Turkish toys? If I’m reading correctly, Bayraktar TB-2 has 100 mile range and 330 lbs payload capacity. That’s like four small bombs. And then it needs like an hour at least to fly back to base and reload and get back out.

A single Grad firing for one hour would turn the entire place into a moonscape for a fraction of the drone’s price. Sure, Grad is not as precise, but firepower is orders of magnitude greater. Artillery seems vastly more cost effective vs drone strikes, as far as i can tell. Recon drones to guide artillery fire are of course a different story, those are actually useful.

I don’t share the triumphalism, but I agree with your core points here, but this is hardly the whole picture.
What concerns me is that Russia is going to become an Iranian-tier international pariah after this, any lukewarm advocates such as France & Italy are gone forever. The Russian economy is currently tanking with no survivors (and it was shit already), and the costs of Ukrainian reconstruction (if Russia even bothers) after the war and decades of kleptocracy will be astronomical. And Russia is hardly West Germany here. The alternative of letting the country continue festering under a new oligarch-puppet or collapse into anarchy is even worse.
With the new isolation, Chinese dependence will grow more than ever before. I just don’t see why Putin couldn’t wait a few more years, it’s not as if US power abroad is growing.

I think you understand that it finds the target, loiters for hours and has almost no sensor-shooter delay.

It’s now showing how effective this system is (March 2020 in Northern Syria, October 2020 in Nagorno-Karabakh and now it might be beginning with much smaller numbers in Ukraine).

By comparison, things like cruise missiles can only attack fixed targets, where the target is already known before in the target bank. And then you need satellites to see the targets days before.

Su-25 or Mil Mi-24 can carry more munition but doesn’t have sensor or loiter like this, for the target discovery and intelligence.

In addition Su-25 or Mil Mi-24 are very easy to be detected and shot.

But these drones are a lot more difficult to intercept in the air-defenses as they have a much smaller radar signature than a plane.

Ukraine only has 6 though, so this obviously will not be like October 2020.

Grad is not as precise, but firepower is orders of magnitude greater. Artiller

Grad cannot see targets or hit them precisely. If you fire a lot of grads, only a small proportion hit enemy targets.

They can destroy cities and fixed positions. Hopefully they will not use them against cities.

This article by zheng yongnian says about the lessons Chinese leaders are drawing from Russia-Ukraine crisis: maintain peace, lay low, don’t make strategic mistake, no war, keep developing. https://t.co/0fklfE7fF5 https://t.co/HkvTYyvAQX

— Dr. Lin Zhang 张琳 (@LinZhang9) February 27, 2022

China has probably been the biggest beneficiary of this crisis. It takes heat off them and makes Russia even more dependent on Beijing.

It also makes any future anti-China balancing coalition that Mearsheimer has floated all but impossible for many years to come. Never had much chance; now dead for certain.

CBU can wipe out a brigade in one go.

Ukraine also has a 6 Bayraktars

They actually had 19 when the war started.

If there is one industry that will make an absolute killing thanks to this war it will be the traffickers in Slavic women. It’s a trade that is at least 1500 years old and and just like any industry it has gone through many business cycles. The most recent peak was in the 90s and early 2000s. The utter destruction of Ukraine and the coming impoverishment of Russia via sanctions over the next few years will inject a supply of Slavic girls not seen since the “harvests of the steppe” by Tatars in the middle centuries of the last millennium. There are a lot of happy middlemen in a certain middle eastern country rubbing their hands in glee right now, and an even bigger number of prospective customers in several other middle eastern countries rubbing some other things as well.

It’s actually quite remarkable how old and persistent the trade in Slavic females has been. The transatlantic slave trade lasted only for about 300 years and has long since been cast into the dustbin of history. The trade in Slavs has lasted nearly 2000 years and is still going strong today, with another boom cycle incoming. I guess that is the inevitable consequence of the Slavs being cursed with beautiful daughters that everyone lusts after without having the means to safeguard them. The need for black field slaves was a transient one that came and went away with economic and technological advancements, but the demand for beautiful slavic women will always be there and for the next decade at least so will the supply.

🙏

Hopefully they will stay in the basement as it can be that they use artillery against Kiev soon.

Even the ground forces will be difficult to rebuild after this (even without sanctions for electronics and optics, etc), let alone to pay for rebuilding Ukraine under occupation.

In such occupation, there are already hundreds of anti-tank weapons distributed to the people in the country, that can fire from the forest and destroy the most advanced tanks. In Iraq, George W Bush said “Mission Accomplished” in June 2003 and the vast majority of problems in Iraq are continuing until 2011.

There are 4 days in Ukraine and already lost hundreds of armored vehicles and tanks for the Russian army. How many in 1 year, or 5 years?

And then the peoples’ lives. Below MORE tag. Apologies, but I’ll add a typical graphic video below of the dead soldiers, as all that is really the reality of war which forums seem to ignore and the “chickenhawk” people.

This article by Zheng Yongnian says about the lessons Chinese leaders are drawing from Russia-Ukraine crisis: maintain peace, lay low, don’t make strategic mistake, no war, keep developing.

and most of all – what was omitted in the article – don’t count on Russians because they are nincompoops and bunglers.

Why is the U.S. response so incoherent? (1)

Former White House Physician Says Biden Is Not Cognitively Fit To Deal With Russia Crisis

“The whole country is seeing his mental cognitive issues on display for over a year now, and there’s really no question in most people’s minds that there’s something going on with him,” said Jackson.

“He’s not cognitively the same as he used to be and, in my mind, not fit to be our president right now,” he added.

The Congressman said that the 79-year-old representing America at a time when a message of strength needs to be sent isn’t going to end well.

The fake election of a mental invalid is not just problematic for the U.S. — It is globally destabilizing. Tragically, with Kamala Harris in this wings, there is not a good way out of the fiasco Nazicrats have created for the world.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-white-house-physician-says-biden-not-cognitively-fit-deal-russia-crisis

WHERE IS JOE BIDEN!? Is he even AWAKE right now!? The absence of leadership from this White House is SICKENING! This war should’ve NEVER happened!

— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) February 24, 2022

China is much more powerful, they have more choices, they also aren’t an object of Jewish ire, yet.

On that note Dmitry your obvious propaganda is tedious.

Just listened to Keith Woods interview with the American in Kiev, fulsome in praise for the Russian campaign and thinks it will be over soon.

Does this mean Russia invading Ukraine has actually increased the chance the reunification of Taiwan being peaceful than invasive? The civilian and military leaderships might learn different lessons.

Just filled my car up with petrol, still only £1.50 a litre. Looks like the EU, staring defeat in the face, has gone mad. The Western financial system can ill afford the shock, reality is Russia is much more prepared.

Here’s what Biden’s team of amateurs don’t understand. Every payment, every trade has two sides. When you blow up one side (Russia) you also blow up the other side (world banking system). Linkages are dense and immensely scaled. This could be the worst liquidity crisis ever.

— Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) February 27, 2022

Apparently over 70 percent of neon gas—used in the sophisticated laser-etching technology needed for manufacturing most semiconductors—comes from Ukraine, one single plant near Odessa.

Increasingly hysterical NATO and EU attempts to sanction Russia and regime change Putin, very apparent in the propaganda shift this Sunday invites a bigger land grab. Still Elijah Magnier thinks there will be a peace deal sooner rather than later.

Why is the U.S. response so incoherent?

I will defer to the Israeli propaganda bot as the authority on incoherency.

Iffen the Troll,

Why are you such #NeverTrump extremist ???

Can you not see that your precious, Dear Leader Joey, is mentally incompetent?

#LetsGoBrandon 😇

He is correct that you are Israeli – Lubyanka bot. You are a product of B-movie wannabe Israeli-Russian screenplay writers who never could make it to Hollywood so they wrote screenplays for Mossad and FSB. Their blockbuster was Q-anon:

https://www.unz.com/ishamir/trumps-last-stand/#comment-4396374
“That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action.” – That was the whole point of the “QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies”, so the conspiracies were of no consequence and did not pose any threat to those in power. The objective was to string along people with the hope that Trump was fighting for them without giving them any idea what actually was he fighting for or against. The objective was for Trump to believe that he had a mass support without giving him any idea how to go about it by keeping him self-satisfied that he would not have to do anything except for few more things for Israel which would always thank him profusely satisfying his insatiable vanity. More of the full spectrum opposition he faced in America more attractive was Israel’s appreciation to him, the only appreciation he was getting apart form the deluded QAnon crowds. His personality and charisma were supposed to be enough. No tangible and constructive populist objectives were permitted to be voiced and heard. People were to believe that Trump was fighting some dark forces of Satanists and pedophiles. But the words oligarchs or Zionists were not to be mentioned. The whole psy-op was from the low budget B-movie script written somewhere in Tel Aviv

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/habbening-us-capitol-being-stormed/#comment-4391447
What is the Qanonism? Imo it could have started as a prank that was picked up by some operatives who decided to keep it going, fending off copy cats and maintaining a narrow framework to string along people by giving them hope and not offering anything tangible and what probably was more important by keeping them away from constructive populist ideas.

Apparently over 70 percent of neon gas—used in the sophisticated laser-etching technology needed for manufacturing most semiconductors—comes from Ukraine, one single plant near Odessa.

https://the-european-times.com/iceblick/

ROTFLMAO

You are straw manning. … And doing so in an incredibly pathetic way.

I am not now, never have been, and never claimed to support QAnon.

So, feel free to swing on QAnon… but it has nothing to do with me.

#LetsGoBrandon 😇

If that is real than Ukraine is totally declawed. The point mal was making is if you can spot where a stationary parked convoy is then it’s a lot faster to attempt a conventional shoot-and-scoot artillery barrage than some subsonic drone to deliver a minor payload.

It’s interesting though, Russian LIDAR detectors and SIGINT didn’t catch the painting laser OR the transmission of video. Also both videos show 200M and 194M altitude, under a 1000 feet. I guess its too low for conventional radar and the transmission of video too weak to be noticed?

Are Shilkas not cool anymore?

…Ideally there should still be some sort of diplomatic approach allowing…

Sure, ideally. We know precisely what the ‘approach’ should be: one verbal concession and one symbolic statement.

– Zelensky, NATO and Biden announce that Ukraine will not be in NATO

– Zelensky announces that he will not tolerate violence against Russian speakers in Ukraine and that Nazi symbols will be prohibited. That would ‘save face’ for everyone since even West couldn’t object.

Is that so hard? Or unreasonable?

So, feel free to swing on QAnon… but it has nothing to do with me.

Yeah, but your sister is in bed with them (several, each night).

Utu,

Here is your precious Not-The-President speaking in public.

Why are you so totally in love with this guy ???

PEACE 😇

Nazi symbols will be prohibited

Would this mean that we can’t wear our MAGA caps in The Ukraine?

Lay low in 2022? that ship has sale for over 10 years now, it was 2008.

Do you really think Putin would be content with ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine (and banning “Nazi symbols”)?
I mean, I wish it were that simple, if there’s any chance Putin and his circle would take an off-ramp from this insane invasion, one should certainly evaluate the possibility and work towards it, but I’m afraid things have gone too far for that.

Russia’s economy is one of the most isolated among major economies. They have their own food, energy, raw materials, wood, weapons, chemicals, etc… What they don’t have they can buy from China, India… The few things that they can only buy from the West can always be bought through intermediaries – anything that is shipped to China, will find its way to Russia, and nobody will sanction China.

Germany is the most resources poor economy among the big ones. It is also extremely dependent on exports – trade war or financial instability hurts it more.

…lukewarm advocates such as France & Italy are gone forever

What good are ‘lukewarm’ friends? How much did lukewarm France help Armenia? What is going on is very polarizing, but eventually there will be clarity and a settlement. That settlement will be better for Russia than the status quo ante – e.g. there will be no NATO in Ukraine, no bases, no missiles. Ukraine will be defanged.

Armenia should also be careful. An obvious deal for Russia is to work with Azerbaidzan and Turkey – they need them for Central Asia, energy corridors, etc… maybe if lukewarm friends are being dumped the small Armenia will be one of them. Why should Russia protect them?

Friendship works both ways and the betrayal by Germany-France-Italy will cost them. They have become officially irrelevant. They constantly fly to Moscow, ask for trade deals, cheap energy, pretend that ‘we are not crazy like those Anglo-saxons‘. That has benefitted them and they threw it away. Siemens or Chinese? Renault, Total, VW will lose their investments and the ‘Anglos-axons’ will sell them more weapons. Being a lukewarm friend in a crisis gets you nowhere.

“Et tu, Brutus.”

Autonomy for the eastern provinces and military neutrality for Ukraine.

How fucking hard can that be?

Sure, ideally. We know precisely what the ‘approach’ should be: one verbal concession and one symbolic statement.

– Zelensky, NATO and Biden announce that Ukraine will not be in NATO

What drove Putin into this situation is a demand for “legally binding” agreement.

A statement is not enough. However, a fully ratified Peace Treaty between Ukraine and Russia could permanently bar Ukraine from NATO membership including withdrawal from NATO “Partnership for Peace” status.

This approach also 100% deals out Not-The-President Biden who is not functional enough to participate in a solution.

PEACE 😇

….content with ruling out NATO membership

That’s what they asked for, so it would be hard domestically in Russia not to take it. It would have to be formalized with a treaty. Like e.g. Austria – not a bad country to live in.

That off-ramp has been available for the West and Ukraine from the very beginning. If you are right and things went too far by now, let’s test it. If it doesn’t work, a lot of people would adjust their assessment of the situation.

Clarity is always good. Not making this concession suggests that Russia is right in suspecting the worst – NATO setting up on its borders for a future opportunity to attack or pressure Russia.

Russia is moving slowly as if waiting for something. Ukraine will never be in NATO, making it official costs them nothing and could be used to end the war.

I just realized that through all this shit, the one lesson China is learning, the only one that matters, is improving their own version of swift, CIPS.

That’s what he asked for, so it would be hard (domestically in Russia) not to take it. Probably would have to be formalized with a treaty.

As I understand it, Putin has demanded pretty much a total demilitarization of Ukraine. So Ukraine would be totally at Russia’s mercy, with no chance of any resistance, if Putin or a successor decides it’s time for another invasion, to secure what they regard as Russian interests. Which self-respecting Ukrainian government could agree to that?
I agree that Ukraine will never be in NATO, and that should have been stated clearly by Western governments. But imo it’s far from sure that this would be enough to end the conflict, especially given the recent escalation (which was Putin’s choice and is just indefensible on any level).

Ukraine only need to resist and keep resisting to eventually win. Every day that goes past is a day to greater and greater Western intervention and if Russia deployed everything into Ukraine, the West could destroy their entire military in a day. Stop listening to clueless nuts like the Saker. The Russian military would be obliterated. It would be easier than the invasion (not occupation of Iraq) given how out of place they would be.

The NATO public will demand their entry. Ukrainians are now the heroes of the West. They will like the adulation. Ukraine is no longer fake and gay but a hardcore country of military resistance. Go figure.

The French Army is superior to the Russian. Everyone with even a hint of expertise knows it now. That you think I’m kidding only reveals you as completely ignorant.

Not that any of this should suprise. Russia is a disorganised not yet developed country. What does anyone expect from their military. Their propoganda is much better.

Apparently Putin and Aliev are very good friends at a personal level.

Ukraine only need to resist and keep resisting to eventually win.

The NATO public will demand their entry.

While NATO is better off than the EU, new members are highly unlikely.

Turkey is a NATO member:

— Do you think that Turkey’s public will call out for Ukraine’s entry?
— Do you think that Erdogan would offend his Russian S-400 supplier?

Perhaps a Finnish admission could happen without Turkey vetoing the event. However, the last thing Erdogan wants is a defense obligation to Zelensky.

PEACE 😇

Imagine if newly independent Ireland had behaved to Britain how the Ukraine has since the CIA took over. The Irish had no issues adopting a policy of neutrality whilst granting Britain some military access.

As someone who was initially critical, the reaction of the EU and NATO has made me change my mind completely. They had years to compromise and have, and amazingly continue to, refuse to compromise. The catastrophe is it is ordinary people who are going to pay a very high price for their hubris and delusions.

Aliyev seems like he has his head on straight:

Video Link

His English is better than most of the people in my US plant.

the West could destroy their entire military in a day.

I think that’s rather doubtful, and even if they did, what makes you think Russia wouldn’t resort to her nuclear weapons then, if really faced with such a total defeat (not merely a set-back and maybe not achieving maximalist aims against Ukraine)?
It may be emotionally satisfying to fantasize about inflicting a crushing defeat on Russia and have Putin tried in The Hague, but these are just fantasies, and trying to implement them would lead to total disaster. NATO has already ruled out a direct intervention, and hopefully they’ll stick to that course and not let themselves be influenced by hysterics on Twitter and other social media.

This is partly because they might believe their propaganda that the Ukrainians might view this as liberation and accept the change of government.

This is probably one of the main questions — have they really believed their own propaganda even inside the military? If they did, then it’s madness.

It was clear already yesterday that the Blitzkrieg completely failed. The Ukrainians withheld those first two days of shock and the psychological break happened the night before. The Russians must’ve counted on the Blitzkrieg to succeed, as it appears they have no Plan B (except nuclear blackmail?), they have no second echelon (they will have to start calling in reservists next week if this continues), not enough food, fuel (the Russian soldiers are walking around civilian homes, asking for food and fuel, like during WWII). They were probably expecting that they would just bomb, arrive and then just use whatever supplies would be available on the ground.