Reflecting on Putin’s long awaited speech to Russia’s national assembly I was struck by some similarities with Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. What do I mean? Jefferson started with his iconic preamble (i.e., We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .) and then proceeded to present an indictment of Great Britain that created the predicate for the rebellion of the Colonies:
That is precisely what Putin did in the first 45 minutes of his speech — he presented the “history of repeated injuries and usurpations” by the United States and NATO that forced Russia’s hand to undertake the Special Military Operation. Here are some of the key points:
Russia did everything possible to solve the problem in Ukraine by peaceful means. But the statements of Western leaders turned into a forgery and a lie.
The West supplied weapons, trained the nationalist battalions. Even before the start of the SMO, negotiations were underway on the supply of air defense systems and aircraft. We remember Kyiv’s attempts to obtain nuclear weapons.
The United States deployed bases and biological laboratories near our borders, mastered the theater of military operations, prepared Ukraine for a big war.
We received a refusal on all fundamental positions. It became clear that the go-ahead for the implementation of aggression had been given. The threat grew every day. By February 2022, everything was ready for the next punitive action of Kiev in the Donbass.
They spare no expense to encourage unrest and coups around the world. At a conference in Munich, Russia was blamed so that everyone would forget what the West had done in recent decades. Entire regions are in chaos. American experts say that as a result of the wars unleashed by the United States after 2001, more than 900 thousand people died, more than 38 million became refugees.
In the 1930s, the West opened the way to power in Germany for the Nazis, today they are making “anti-Russia” out of Ukraine, this project goes back to the 19th century, Austria-Hungary, Poland nurtured it to tear off historical territories from our country.
Putin then shifted gears and identified red-lines that will escalate the current conflict from demilitarizing and de-nazifying Ukraine to a full scale war if the United States and NATO continue to fund the war and arm Ukraine with more sophisticated weapons. Putin said:
The more long-range Western systems will come to Ukraine, the further we will be forced to move the threat away from our borders.
The goal of the West is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, to end us once and for all. We will respond accordingly, because we are talking about the existence of our country.
We remember what problems the late Soviet economy faced. The Russian economy was created on a market basis. However, in the end, our economy became oriented towards the West, as business was aimed at selling resources and making quick profits. It took years to break this trend, and we have achieved visible change.
The image of the West as a safe haven turned out to be fake. Those who considered Russia only as a source of income have lost a lot. In the West they were simply robbed.
In early February, a NATO statement was made with the actual demand for Moscow to “return to the implementation of the strategic offensive arms treaty”, including the admission of inspections to our facilities. We know that the West is involved in Kyiv’s attempts to strike at our strategic aviation bases. Now they still want to inspect our defense installations? This sounds like bullshit.
The United States and NATO openly say that their goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and at the same time they are going to drive around our facilities? I have signed a decree on putting new ground-based strategic systems on combat duty. Are we going to let them in there?
A week ago, I signed a decree on putting the latest ground-based missile systems on combat duty.
Russia suspends its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty.
As Putin delivered his plan of action, the Russian’s reportedly summoned the American Ambassador to the Foreign Ministry and delivered a strong Démarche:
In this regard, the ambassador was told that the current aggressive course of the United States to deepen confrontation with Russia in all areas is counterproductive. It was especially noted that in order to de-escalate the situation, Washington must take steps that involve the withdrawal of US-NATO military and equipment, as well as the cessation of hostile anti-Russian activity.
The Russian side also emphasized that the United States should give explanations about the explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines and not interfere with an objective investigation to identify those responsible.
This means Russia is putting the United States on notice that Moscow will hold America accountable and that any U.S. military and equipment inside Ukraine will be treated as legitimate targets. As I have watched the commentary on this speech, I have seen no one pick up on Russia’s new “red line.”
Prior to start of Russia’s Special Military Operation in February 2022, there were many in the Russian Government, including Putin, who believed that they could negotiate in good faith with the West. The events of the past year and the belligerent rhetoric from Washington politicians and Europe’s ruling class have convinced the Russians that traditional diplomacy is dead. Russia is fighting for its very existence.
Whether you agree with this is irrelevant. It is what Russia’s leaders believe, not just Putin. The West will make a fatal mistake if they ignore what Putin said today.
Nice one Larry, I was thinking along the same lines :]
It looks like free men share the same traits, regardless of time in the history, color of skin, or culture.
Thanks,
The bulk of the speech (almost 2 hours long!) was not aimed at the “West” but at the Russian people. Comments on the Western aggression, already well known, were just rallying points, with withdrawal from the nuclear treaty just a sign of Russian refusal to continue agreements with the agreement-incapable US of A.
The focus of the speech was on reinventing Russia as a unique culture with equally unique options.
Of particular importance was the emphasis on the selfishness and narcissism of the Russian oligarchy.
“big business in Russia controls strategic enterprises with thousands of workers that determine the socioeconomic well-being of many regions and, hence, the overall state of affairs. So, whenever leaders or owners of such businesses become dependent on governments that adopt policies that are unfriendly to Russia, this poses a great threat to us, a danger to our country. This is an untenable situation”.
Very clearly Putin favors the Chinese solution to corporate greed, namely “controlled” or “managed’ capitalism where Kapital serves the State and not th other way around as in the US. Then again, Putin is an orientalist as I write in my article “The Tao of Vladimir Putin”.
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/the-tao-of-vladimir-putin
Then again, among the first things that Putin did on taking power was to try to bring the Oligarch’s to heel. Easier said than done, then. Now, the West’s war on Russia has made it a lot easier.
The speech emphasizes Russian culture and values within the context of history – then — but also NOW! Russia has done extraordinarily well, profiting from the economic short-sightedness of the West.
Larry is correct as to the similarities between Putin and Jefferson, both of whom viewed history through a moral lens. One may disagree with their values, but both had a unique perspective. The American Revolution was a unique opportunity for Mankind. How sad that it led to American being ruled by people like Biden and Kamala. Let us hope that this new Russian Revolution does not squander its opporunities.l
In reference to your last paragraph, Julian, I’m not sure Biden rules anything more than his underpants. His brain has disintegrated to the point that he’s just a heavily instructed and drugged puppet (elder abuse comes to mind). And Harris? Utterly clueless, a floater, whose greatest impact in politics came at the tip of Willie Brown’s sword. I’d suggest instead that it is the cabal of ethnic supremacists in the Biden administration who have wrought destruction upon the republic, repudiating everything it once stood for.
I agree – and it seems that any country this particular Psychopath Support Group masqueraded as a ‘culture’ turns to shit and self-destruction
after all most psychopaths tend to eventually self-destruct…
It already has, just take a good look at its major cities, its infrastructure, its police and political class.
“The American Revolution was a unique opportunity for Mankind. How sad that it led to American being ruled by people like Biden and Kamala.”
It is not just sad, it is horrifying- and yet, it was the inevitable consequence of that revolution. When we cut out the abstractions, the American Revolution was fought to free private capital from the constraints of the feudal system. Untrammeled private ownership of the means of production has lead us to where we are today. Putin makes it clear that he understands this, that a new revolution must take place in which capital is subordinated to the public interest. Whether this should happen via the old Soviet model, the Xi Jing Ping model, or some other is certainly an open question, but it MUST happen, not only in Russia, but also in Europe and the US, and ultimately around the world. Personally, I would like to see a system that is fundamentally Confucian in design, because without an overarching emphasis on ethical development in the context of promoting the welfare of society as a whole, we will inevitably end up back here again- if we (as a species) live that long.
The long road from 1776 to 2023…..just another case of the abused becoming the abuser.
Capital best serves the public interest when it is disciplined by the free market, unconstrained by anything but those who participate in the market economy, and by the laws of contract and private property. It is coercive government interference that pretends to regulate, or worse deploy and run, capital resources that causes waste and corruption to creep in, and eventually take over, as in the Fascist, crony capitalist USA, or in the communist Soviet Union, that hopefully the new Russia will never again disintegrate into.
“The American Revolution was a unique opportunity for Mankind. How sad that it led to American being ruled by people like Biden and Kamala.”
I couldn’t agree more, but in all fairness, it must be said that G.W. Bush and Trump were mental lightweights as well. And let us not forget that Ronald Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer’s during his presidency. The underlying fact is that the United States political system has devolved to the point that it routinely serves up nonentities on both sides from which the voters must choose. There are no realistic alternatives. This is a feature, not a bug.
At the same time, it should be noted that both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were highly intelligent, but they used their intelligence to serve the interests of wealthy elites, so their supposed brilliance did little good for the rest of the people. That seems be the modus operandi for all presidents regardless of their intellectual levels. Wealthy donors always stand at the front of the line.
💯
“Putin makes it clear that he understands this, that a new revolution must take place in which capital is subordinated to the public interest.”
This is the key-point. Capital, money the industry and the economy are to serve the people, it is not for the people to serve the economy!
In our current world it is upside down. We, the people are to act so that the economy works. This is unnatural and no economic theory that may be implemented will change that. The never ending interest rates are one of the fundamental flaws. And that is part of the reasons why the system will fail in the end.
I give you an example (simlpyfied for an easier understanding):
A few years ago, in 2017/18 I counted how large the gross domestic product for the entire world is. I came up with roughly 80 trillion US-Dollars. Then I counted how much capital in form of money, industrial investments, private capital, real estate and so on exists in the world. The number was roughly 400 trillion US-Dollars.
Capital, so logic dictates, wants to generate interests. So imagine the gross capital of the world would want to get an interest rate of ‘only’ five percent. Then the gross world product would have to generate 25 % of its production value only for the interests of the capital. Which is simply unsustainable.
This, of course, is only a calculation that is not realistic. Because much capital, for example, is only invested in real estate, to be of use for the owner and not to generate any other value. And there are many examples like this.
But it shows how unbalanced the world is, in economic terms. Just the thougt, that if interest rates would be applied to all capital existing in the world, demanding to be paid would collapse the world economics and is a hellish nightmare.
I disagree with your main conclusion based upon our American revolution. At that point in time an astounding group of men emerged to serve in the independence of those thirteen colonies of England. These were giants the likes of which we have not seen again. Whether this has some cause I do not know but it is true.
Perhaps these men knew that somehow. They were amazingly prescient. Madison alone was just incredible! Almost single-handedly he created the United States’ Constitution. While not “perfect” (what is in the course of human affairs?) it was the finest designed government then known at the time, nor in the entire history of Civil Man before that.
What these extra-ordinary men did: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and others, was to believe in the goodness of men. Adams said it best, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
This is the true problem. The fault is not in our Constitution, or in Capitalism, or any other thing. The fault lies within the very nature of Man itself. In the long, sad history of Mankind efforts have been made to perfect a government to serve all equally according to the culture of those times.
Until human beings are utterly and ruthlessly convinced of the immorality of their behavior we will not have peace. It is indeed unfortunate that, in general, people need to be hit over the head with a hammer in order to first, get their attention, and then second, to show them the error of their ways.
The question today is new. The question today if whether these people can be made aware of their dire situation before bad men wind up killing us all.
According to the Fraser Institute, Switzerland is more capitalistic than the US, but does not have the neo-con oligarchy that the US has. Your analysis needs to include not only the type of system that is in place, but the nature of the people involved. The US formerly had a leadership class of White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS) with a sense of noblesse oblige. Now, Zionist Jews have control of major institutions–check the ethnic composition of Biden’s cabinet, the White House Chief of Staff, etc.–the mainstream media, the Ivy League, and so on.
Too simplistic.
Americans love the good life, credit, guns, power and the idea of American exceptionalism, individual freedom and merit created wealth. Exceptionalism is the lovechild of supremacy.
Once you buy into American exceptionalism and Western supremacy what you do to the inferiors is really for their own good. They are kind of another species really, dumber, backwards, less bright, less exceptional. And there are too many of them right. All wanting your shit or their shit that is now your shit or whatever.
In terms of influence Americans keep voting in same people and families again and again leading to corruption of Congress and politics.
The politicians lost power when they got paid to overlook monopoly laws and let the super rich get richer. It’s a nice big bed. Getting bigger.
America rode on the back of it’s billion dollar companies. Now those companies are riding America. Yeehaa!
Love entertainment, look how much influence Hollywood and celebrities have. Hey you think you own your kids or does the school, the state, the media? How much influence do you have?
The dumbing down and corruption of America is nothing new. What is new is the absolute crushing of religious, moral and ethical principles, so in your face. Bitches.
There is nothing more American than a false front in a cowboy movie. For a long time that’s all America has been. Y’all just getting a look at the backside and saying wtf is this?. Most people still staring at that false front.
Well well well. Now you see it. Now you don’t. We all skirt past where we don’t want to look behind.
“There is nothing more American than a false front in a cowboy movie.”
And there is:
From Capricorn, New York
Everyone who dies of his misfortune through too much love, which is unnatural after all, is reborn not to know love or hate, but to enjoy. And this joy of life, since it was acquired in an unnatural way, is a poison that eventually spoils the whole world. Everything that is created beyond the normal limits of human suffering acts as a boomerang and brings destruction with it. At night, the streets of New York reflect the crucifixion and the death of Christ. When there is snow and the utmost silence prevails, a music of such dull despair and hopelessness comes out of the hideous buildings of New York that you can get goosebumps. No stone was laid on the other with love or respect; none of these roads were built for dancing or joy. One was joined to the other in a wild urge to fill one’s belly, and the streets smell of empty bellies and half-full bellies. The streets smell of a hunger that has nothing to do with love; they smell of a belly that is insatiable, and of the creations of the empty belly that are null and void. (pp. 63f.)
Henry Miller , Tropic od Capricorn.
“The wonders and mysteries of life – how are they strangled in us when we have become responsible members of human society! Until we were pushed out into the work, the world was very small for us, and we lived on its edge, on the edge of the unknown. A small Greece, and yet spacious enough to contain every kind of variety, every kind of adventures and spiritual ventures. Not even that small, because it held unlimited possibilities. I have gained nothing by expanding my world, on the contrary, I have lost. I want to become more and more childlike and get back beyond childhood. I want to swim against the current of normal development, get into a pre-childhood sphere of existence, which, although it will be crazy and chaotic, but not as crazy and chaotic as the world that surrounds me. (Miller, Capricorn, 135)
We are on the way, to leave a kind of living, thanks to the orthodox community of Russion Civilization. The birth of the new world is bloody. These weeks are filled with the drama:
current week: “Offensive Next Week: the Realm Joining the Strategist and Knowledge Joining Fatherly Constraint”.
https://astromundanediary.blogspot.com/2023/02/2.html
“Very clearly Putin favors the Chinese solution to corporate greed, namely “controlled” or “managed’ capitalism where Kapital serves the State and not the other way around … ”
I don’t know how clear it is Julian, as recently as two months ago President Putin was still quoting the patron saint of neo-liberal globalism, Milton Freidman, and extolling the virtures of privatization. Hardly the path toward autarky, or what China calls, Socialism, with Chinese Characteristics.
But I cut him slack, always have. I know what he’s had to deal with all these years. The treasonous neo-liberal faction in Russia has been the majority party since US neo-liberal privateers overran the place in the early 1990’s.
But with war comes opportunity, and as an old New Deal Democrat who believes in autarky above all things, and has read dozens of Putin’s speeches and listened to even more of his press conferences, I can say with this address he finally let go, and said enough is enough. Although he may not be able to do much about the neo-liberal menace in other countries, he can sure do something about it in his.
And he does love China. He has visited the Shaoling Monastary three times that I am aware of, and among the world’s past and present leaders, I believe only the treacherous Angela Merkel has spent more time with Vladimir Putin than Xi Jinping.
They seem to genuinely like each other:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5qZoT6bbJo
And let’s face it, President Putin can learn a lot about autarky, and many other things, traveling around China at 350 kilometers per hour with his friend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkzkxPPtn6w&t=8s
Autarky is about a lot more than food, fuel, and national defense, I would argue, because how many of the planet’s 196 nation-states have the potential to be self-sufficient in all three categories? At best, only the lucky few.
It is the striving for it that counts, because that alone will produce results.
Government by the people is great, and I’m all for it, but to me, government for the people is far more important, because what good is a government by the people, if works for everyone but them?
Dictatorships are really no fun.
Putin may not be one, but he is 70 and has to take care the system he sets up does not create a monster.
I can understand why the West is so desperate to get rid of him. He is truly an exceptional man. The odds on a replacement of similar calibre are low.
Likewise China under Xi..he probably pushes too far for my tastes but there is an appeal in a state that works for people, but do they really? Any more than Switzerland or Norway etc.
Ultimately the state is always a balancing act, gently leading the populace on a rope to a chosen destination. All great until someone decides that’s not where they want to go. Then how does the sovereign state react?
The West until the last decade was doing pretty good in individual choice, free speech and sovereignty in a way. No longer.
“You’re only as good as you Emperor” I always say. Probably the reason the Roman Empire lasted so long, in my estimation, over the course of roughly 450 years they were remarkably fortunate on the Emperor front. They had their share of bad ones, and even a few horrendous ones, but overall, I would give the Roman Emperor class a grade of B- in the aggregate.
And a B- grade is nothing sneeze at, it’s certainly a lot better than all D’s and F’s were seeing at present from the “rules based order” nations.
Good stuff.
> Washington must take steps to withdraw its military and equipment
Well, this is so vague that here is nothing to pick up.
Which equipment? Does one starlink termnial count? Thousand? Million? Does Vespa count? HMMV? Bradley? Abrams? withdraw to Kiev? Lvov? Warsaw? Paris? Bordeaux?
Basically we all know Russia already blasted some stalink terminals and western mercs nases when she saw fit. So, in suach a vague unquantified form this is not any new redline but just a reiteration of a policy implemented long ago and many times.
I admit the devil can be in the details, but there was no detail in that line – and hence there was nothing to comment.
https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1855127/
The wording does not say “USA must”, it only says “USA won’t get de-esca;aion (if it wants it, maybe it does not) until ….”.
At most i can read in it canceling some non-public agreement of before that some American targets in Ukrraine would be spared (Putin cancelled foreign policy a formal treaty and a formal legislations today, so it would make sense to cancel some informal ones too). IF such ever existing, i am just stretchign things here.
Other than that i only see a reiteration in that wording: if you, americans, still imagines yourselves exceptional and indispensable – wake up while you still alive.
A reaiteration produced out of politeness or p[ity or nobless oblige.
But no new red lines.
At Munich, Wang made it clear that “China doesn’t provide arms to countries at war,” and had no plans of providing arms to Russia. This, Wang said, “is the principle of China’s foreign policy,” according to Borrell’s recollection.
However, Borrell said that Wang asked him: “Why do you show concern for me maybe providing arms for Russia when you are providing arms for Ukraine?”
Borrell said that he responded by explaining the “big difference” between these scenarios, pointing out “what is at stake for us Europeans in the war in Ukraine.” However, he did not share his explanation with the press.
And what if China decides it feels it has something at stake in the war in Ukraine? All steam ahead?
BTW: What exactly is at stake for Europe? Any Europeans out there know? If so, do tell.
What is complicated here? He laid it out plain at simple: at stake is the bug difference.
Your captain Obvious.
….What exactly is at stake for Europe? ….
Grooming Parties for little children, among other ‘values’
> what is at stake for us Europeans in the war in Ukraine.
On a serious not, and VERY speculative and conspirological…
1. USA needed to devour someone to keep their economy going on. It is a kind of a starfish or a spider with external digestion.
2. Russia was putting “filters” in the borderline. It did not want to trade as West wished, but in the way that would favor Russian economy. “Merchantilistic semi-insulation” or something like that, as world-systems theory coin it.
Economic events of 2013 are readily forgotten today, but back then they were hitting the news.
Ukraine had free access to Russian market at the hope that economic interests would pull it into EAEU. As soon as Manafort brought Yanukovich to power in Ukraine – Putin offered joining economic ranks and entering WTO as a block having more influence. Yanukovich declined. Still, up to 2013 much of Ukraine industries still had value for Russia.
Yanukovich promised to sign the “deep association” that was military and trad epact between EU and Ukraine, by which EU would get free access to Ukraine market, but erect barriers against Ukrainian reach to EU market.
Later after the coup it was a bitter yet funny show watching how Yatzenyuk and then Poroshenko tried to weasel out of the assotiaiton, which was glorified as the goal and reason of EuroMaidan. Poroshenko was forced to sign it, albeit only late in 2014.
In 2013 Russia did three things:
2a. We somehow foxed out the non-public text of the pact, translated it and made Yanukovich finally read what he was promising to sign on behalf of the nation. We also leaked the text, so later even some (few) pro-EuroMaidan Ukrainians admitted it was a death sentence. Those few who took labor to read the boring legalese of the pact they were going to enter.
2b. Told Yanukovich Ukraine would not be a one-way syphon for EU to poke free through Russian market. Would the association be enacted – Ukraine would loose free trade with Russia. Our health ministry was signed to give scrupulous testing to every Ukrainian good imported (and they always were more cheap than good) and few then famous bans were introduced. “evil Russia coerces neighbors back into jail” and all the normal MSM hysterics followed.
Yanukovich had to admit, Ukropean economy would not be living off the syphoning and would let alone against EU.
Russia and Ukraine offered EU to expand the association so it would be a tri-party treaty including Russia. EU demanded Ukraine ratify the pact as it is without any alterations.
2c. Russia offered $12B credit to Ukraine to modernize their industries and make Ukraine more sovereign. 10% was transferred before the coup.
Another bitter comedy after the coup was when EU and EuroMaidan claimed the credit was not the credit but “a bribe to Yanukovich” and would never be returned, yet demanded the rest 90% to be handed out to the usurpers.
Russia agreed to provide more credit on a condition EU would provide the same amount and on the same condition. EU declined. Only Eussia should be crediting Ukraine (now openly anti-Russian) but not EU.
The elegant plan started faultering. EU should had been sucking out Ukrainian economy while Ukraine would be sucking out Russian one. This would be a good surplus so USA would be able to feed off EU (remember multi-BN penalties against Volkswagen and bank of France? There was also “Trans-Atlantic trade agreement” in the making then – EU would kill it when “association” syphon was not extended into Russia).
Everyone should’ve been happy, except Russian barbarians who would have no one to feed off. Brzhesinzki’s adage about new world order goes here.
3. Simultaneously, and since 2012, international war on Syria was going on. One of the promises was to provide non-Russian gas to EU, building a North to South pipeline through democratized Syria to Qatar. And USA would gain a breeding ground for “moderate terrorists” closer to Iran and Russia. Ideally, Iranian nut would be cracked and digested like perestroika-morphed USSR.
4. October 2013 had EuroMaidan prematurely kickstarted. It had to be started year later, during next presidential election, and after Yanukovich would be assigned the blame for Ukraine economy collapse under the DACA (deep and comprehensive association) pact. But time was running out.
4a. Yanukovich demanded DACA renegotiated so that Ukrainian economy would have a better deal.
4b. Russia was readying to help Syria and Iran.
4c. Russia also just hosted very visible Olympics and called tourists to come again for Football championship. “free media” worked hard to inform about the failure, but YouTube and Facebook had too many tourists stories. Another high-profile story was needed to preempt Olympics.
So, albeit prematurely, the coup was started, and eventually succeed.
5. In 2015, two years later, Russia managed to stabilize Donbass frontline and finally assist Iran and Syria, by then barely existing and having lost even parts of the capital city.
The memory of Olympics was successfully wiped off.
EU was sucking out Ukraine economy but it was too small to substitute for Russia’s. EU was fencing off USA attempts at Trans-Atlantic agreement (under which trade condition would’ve been decided not by EU countries but by external arbiters from industry experts). USA was getting hungry.
6. In 2016 (? Not sure) USA tries to coup out Turkey. Before that Turkey was sorta kinda good guy, supporting democratic Azov in Ukraine and democratic ISIS in Syria, shuttled stolen Syrian oil to EU. Sure, Turkey failed to blockade Russian fleet, and was failed to contain refugees form Libya and Syria so they won’t upset EU citizens. But generally it was “on the right side of history”. Shot Russian airplane, killed Russian ambassador – good, freedom-loving guys, even if of 2nd quality.
Suddenly USA kickstarts a coup in Turkey. EU immediately supports the conspirators. Conspirators also publicly promiced Russia to support her in Syria and everywhere. Putin however did not believe their promices and supported Erdogan.
Back then I decided that USA lost temper with slow European servant, and demandes EU to serve some meal fast. Russia, or Turkey, or EU herself. Still think so.
EU, Russia and Turkey were on collision course in Syria. About gas trade. About Libya. About Crimea. For one to win two others had to loose. Two winners could somehow divide spoils, if the their one would loose all.
EU noticeably stopped demonizing Russia and tried to pressure “dictator Eedogan”. That mess was surreal to watch.
But Erdogan evaded assassination, rumored due to Russia’s help (which was not seen favorably, to save doible-dealing murderer of out pilot and ambassador), had to sever ties with EU and USA and had to submit more often to Russia’s demands.
Turkey did not descend into chaos when new “democratic government” would only hold to power due EU/US external influence and would have to enact any “reforms” and feed Turkish economy to them. Did not happen, EU failed again to feed the hungry master.
7. Since then the situation was squeezing tighter and tighter for EU.
Somewhat self-minded Merkel was replaced with totally obedient Scholtz.
Somewhat reasonable media were either forced to unquestioning propaganda, or prohibited.
NS2 was built but banned, and later blasted (with NS1).
Trade with Russia was increasingly blocked by sanctions, which USA did not put upon themselves. Refugees from Ukraine, Syria and Libya also strained EU not USA.
Unsustainable hydrogen-based zero-carbon insanity was legalized. Would any new economy be invented and built or not, the old German economy would have to die first. Marshall plan redux, now without even nominal investments.
EU exponentially is loosing economy, loosing social comfort and stability, loosing whatever sovereignty they had to turn away from the cliff.
USA gave up on waiting their inept servant would bring any prey and started eating out the guilty servant herself.
EU emergently need to slow down this descent if not to arrest it.
Restart trade with Russia, at least, which required end of Ukrainian war.
Hurt Russia as much as possible so Russia would agree to trade conditions defined by EU not Russia (Russia’s loss in Ukraine would help) – better.
Regime-change Russia and finally implement 2013 plan and gain free access to Russian market without giving back a thing – ideally.
USA condition is worsening. It would need more and more income squeezed from EU, it is accelerating.
EU lost even the limited to resist (to rebel on the knees) they ever had.
Ukraine is almost eaten out.
Turkey stands and would be too small to feed America anyway.
Russia is decoupling, using EU economic aggression as a tool, instead of feeding.
You are making a great case of what has been done by the US and EU during the last 2 decades, however it takes a very informed reader to understand what you write, because you mix hard facts with your own disdain for the corruption and bully tactics used by the US and the EU against smaller Nations.
This leaves your readers with a suspicion that your conclusion is biased and can’t be trusted.
Advise: State the facts in chronological order, and let you readers come to the conclusion themselves.
Arioch’s article was good for me, I suspect people here are well able to decide for themselves whether “disdain for the corruption and bully tactics used by the US and the EU against smaller Nations.” is biased or just another fact.
Just trolling perhaps to diminish the post…
QK
Of course my conclusions ARE biased. I am just a man, and we all are, and we all have passions.
And i actually forewarn about it, to quote:
>> and VERY speculative and conspirological…
>> Back then I decided that …. Still think so
Now, first thing before “state the facts in chronological order” would be to tell facts from my recollections, maybe false. Which would require me making a bibliographoical research and to find 2-3 spirves for every fact i remember, and htis after 10 years Google was enhancing censorship and blurring searching efifciency.
All this for just a comment in just a blog.
Sorry, that is a non-starter.
Consider the above like an oldman ranting about his youth – a bait for you to take and verify, if you feel like it. Or to just entertain yourself with a funny story.
Excellent comment Arioch! To each his own. I really liked all the information given in a very easy to understand chronological manner. I was familiar with most of the happenings but you connected the dots to present the big picture. Thank you.
Excellent.
I believe this is the part where Borell confused ‘Europe’ with ‘European 5th column elites’.
A cushy retirement plan with plenty of time in the sun is at stake for these lapdogs, unless they show their undivided support for the current suicide trajectory.
What is at stake?
Our ruling classes decided to jump off a cliff in support of the only country in the world building statues and naming streets after holocaust war criminals.
Frankly, I find the entire fiasco surreal. But we are where we are!
Ukraine is the source of the most beautiful women and children in the EU’s bordellos. That is Europe’s vital interest.
Don’t forget the loveliest mansions in foreign countries. Zalushny’s student daughter has now been outed as the owner of multi-million dollar luxury properties in Chile and the Canary Islands.
I’ve heard that the EU has some very strict anti-money laundering measures. Shouldn’t Spain be looking into whether their or US taxpayers are the actual owners of those coal mine canaries?
What is at stake, is the end of Western Imperialism conducted in tandem by the US and EU.
Also at stake is the split of NATO, and the end of the EU.
Also at stake is the end of the unipolar world of Globalism, and the resurrection of a multipolar world.
Also at stake is the end of the Dollar Hegemony and western FIAT currencies.
Also at stake is the rise of Hyperinflation and a long economic depression in America and Europe.
Also at stake is the insane graft and pay collected by swamp Agents like Mr. Borell.
At stake is the fall of the 4th Reich.
Europe fears America. But it fears Russia more. And China as well.
The unknown is always more scary. European policy is now better the devil you know.
They have poked the other potential devil’s so they better stick with the American one in case they get a good slap. They are after all but helpless babes with at best a tier 3 combined military after Russia, US, China, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, oh dear. Good thing they are in NATO. America will protect the freeloaders.
That is not how the mafia works. They make you an offer you can’t refuse.
@ISL that is how abuysive relationship works.
First thing they cut you off your old friends and relatives.
So you have no “second opinion” first. And so – if later you realize what swamp you ended in – you would have nowhere to borrow any reliable ground to stand upon.
Those years as i have to look at Ukranian and American foriegn policy (and those are looking more and more similar in style with each year) – it looks more and more like “ghetto girl”, always needy, always hysterical, always pushing, always accusing, etc, etc, etc
Bulgaria EU,
I believe we are what is in stake here is loss in credibility. As a lot of people believe in MSM will get disappointment. It is total propaganda in the mass media. Ukraine is wining bigly. Rusian medias and Russian channels are banned to protect us from propaganda.
In Bulgaria our ex premier Kiril Petkov known as Kircho Harvardski 🙂 Was filmed how he put his hand under the skirt of his press secretary just before 2 of them are entering her apartment. (maybe he was checking for a wire) 🙂
He blames Russians for that and expelled 70 Russian embassy workers because he do not know which one exactly shoot that.
I will say it is not Eussians to blame but himself because if he went home to his wife instead of his press secretary appartment no such video will be taken…
Well you have more pressing issues in bulgaria
https://obektivno.bg/dogovor-za-749-387-s-pentagona-razoblichava-lazhata-za-nezavisimite-faktchekari/
A fantastic Bulgarian Journalist have exposed the Usa’s evil in Ukraine, Bulgaria and other places
I highly recommend her: Skripal, biolab, weapons trafficcing
paul
“Wake up while you’re still alive.” An apt distillation of the outward-facing aspects of Putin’s speech and a message meant to appeal to whatever sliver of humanitarianism still exists in the West. Tragically, it will be ignored.
If this is true, after NATO expansion, after Iraq, Libya, Syria, Serbia, after Georgia, well, if this is true then those “many”, including Putin, are incompetent to hold office.
I do not believe this is true.
Since Yeltsin’s resignation, Mr Putin, who is not an idiot, has begun to prepare Russia for the worst: purchase of gold, control of the oligarchs, rearmament, military interventions on the steps of the Russian empire, recovery of Crimea before it and its naval base in SEBASTOPOL passed into the hands of NATO, new alliances and the strengthening of old ones. It was a long walk. Probably a success.
I don’t think that’s true either. Rather, the Russian leadership became aware of its weakness vis-à-vis the West (nato-usa) and negotiated, while recovering, at a forced march, the lost ground, and creating the conditions for self-sufficiency…
Alonso -Russians didn’t even insist on NATO signing no expansion in writing when it was promised to Gorbachev “not an inch to the East.”. What part of a gentleman’s handshake you don’t get? Do you get what your word of honor means?
Nobody could imagine that the West instead of culture is full of shit.
It was their public position because they know that, when caught in a rip, it is not wise to swim against it but to conserve strength.
Clearly a government and a ruler capable of adopting policies that have wreaked the kind of damage visited on the collective West since March 2022 is anything but incompetent. If Western leaders were even a tenth as competent, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.
One negotiates differently with a peer than a subordinate. Or at least if one is wise.
Larry, what exactly does this mean”will hold America accountable if its military and equipment inside Ukraine will be treated as legitimate targets.”
Is there a typo?
And of course…The West will ignore everything in their pursuit of hedgemony. They couldn’t be happier that a) they are finally in a war with Russia and b) it is the Ukrainians that are doing the dying.
Yes. I corrected it. The cache is slow to catch up:
This means Russia is putting the United States on notice that Moscow will hold America accountable and that any U.S. military and equipment inside Ukraine will be treated as legitimate targets. As I have watched the commentary on this speech, I have seen no one pick up on Russia’s new “red line.”
As a point of information, nothing in the “MESSAGE FOR THE Media” (https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1855127/) regarding the demarche indicates its scope is limited to “inside” Ukraine.
Exactly. It only makes any sense if the real meaning is US + NATO military and equipment outside Ukraine. The ones inside Ukraine are already being destroyed in industrial quantities anyway. Cleverly left slightly ambiguous, distracting attention from the most important message which is a public acknowledgement that US + NATO are belligerents. That necessarily entails that they are legitimate targets – not just in Ukraine but anywhere in the world, including in their own countries.
So why does Putin hide this behind a semi-transparent smokescreen? Because Russia has escalation dominance. So far, it has suited Russia geostrategically to refrain from publicly acknowledging that Russia is already directly at war with both US + NATO, because to do so would necessarily require reciprocal acts of war by Russia against US + NATO in response to the acts of war committed by US + NATO against Russia.
Russia will do so, but only at the time and place most conducive to her interests. That time is getting closer. Putin has dropped this hint before (multiple times) – it fell on deaf ears, so he is repeating it, slightly less disguised.
The key is in the demands in December 2021 to retreat to 1997 boundaries. That was the demand then – since US + NATO has only doubled down and declared their determination to destroy and dismember Russia, behaving in every respect worse than rabid dogs, one has to assume that a simple NATO retreat to 1997 borders may no longer suffice – let alone some pitiful blatently unsustainable land “settlement” in Ukraine.
This conflict was never really about Ukraine, Ukraine is merely the current battleground and the tool for the US to attack Russia. That was made crystal clear from the beginning of the SMO.
This conflict is about, on the US side: destroying, dismembering and devouring Russia; and on Russia’s side: protecting her sovereignty and legitimate security interests, and eliminating existential threats.
Which side is winning? Russia. If Russia’s security threats to her existence are not settled to her satisfaction – after taking into account the astronomic increase in threats after the myriad levels of doubling down, combined with the complete destruction of any plausible respectability, trustworthiness, humanity or morality of the combined west (especially the US) – Russia herself will take all military steps necessary to create the regional security Russia requires.
Russia can afford to take her time. Meanwhile the west is self-destructing, while Russia is getting ever stronger and stronger. In their exceptionalist but desperate fantasy world, the US and her Tabaquis are thrashing about wildly and incoherently, and almost every single act they take against Russia ultimately makes Russia even stronger and the combined west even weaker.
Ergo ultimately the war will almost necessarily extend geographically beyond Ukraine, and everything the US + NATO do during the current phase of the war will have consequences for them in later phases.
NATO retains higher troop numbers than Russia and formidable CISR. It also has escalation dominance. it has huge forces on the border. Russia is far more extender.
Russia has a great military that’s still polishing up for this war but the West/ US is still a formidable force and this war will be no walkover for anyone.
I don’t agree with the idea that Russia can beat the combined West it would be MAD at best. This to me is self evident in Russia’s restraint because it knows that escalating out of theatre even when provoked could lead to a war it cannot win.
Larry, the normies in America believe that Putin is the boy who cried wolf. He’s put down red lines before.
Yes
And the failure to observe them means end of START, potential giving of nukes to other countries, new military and economic alliances and a complete break with the West.
What the West may not understand is that these in the long run are far far more serious consequences than a bomber up the arse of big Ben or the decimation of a military base.
It’s hitting home though.
Bidens recent visit and NATO latest meetings are laced with real fear.
So there have been slow but severe consequences for lines crossed and only a fool would escalate beyond the next line.
While NATO leaders try to outbluster Trump the blustermaster himself, I can hear their knees going clickety clack from here.
Picked up on it, but yawned because it’s just yet another of Putin’s red lines – one of many that Putin has announced, but not enforced, if there’s even anything new about it, which there isn’t because Russia has been blowing up HIMARS and 777s on a regular basis for many months.
If Putin was implying that he’d do something by way of making the US accountable beyond lighting up US shit in Ukraine, then he’s just blowing smoke again, like all politicians do.
Putin seems to me to not be a 5D warrior chief. Rather a fairly classy, smart, dedicated politician who is effective on Russian domestic matters, but not much else; emphasis on “politician”. He puts on a good show for his audience (= the Russian people)
Personally, I think the nerve wracking twang of an overstretched red line is far more intimidating than the line itself.
Dear Larry – and the rest of you, guys! What surprises me the most – although it shouldn’t probably – is that NOBODY have even noticed that always moderate and careful in his expressions Putin, who up until this speech always called “free west” “our western PARTNERS”, has for the first time crossed his own “red lines”! People here comment mostly on how, what and why the WEST is doing – not surprisingly, really, because here even the best and most conscientious of us are so self-absorbed!
Not many in the west really understand and even really interested in WHO Putin truly is and why he is SO admired in Russia. To tell you the truth, although and émigré from the oppressive Soviet Union (1979) myself, I was as much brainwashed by the western propaganda and could not understand him either (but at least I had and excuse of rejecting everything USSR’s regime stood for). But from the start of the SMO I started researching and LISTENING. His speech in Munich in 2007 just blew me away – what a person, a true LEADER and promoter of peace! And arrogant Americans LAUGHED 🙁
Anyway, what I wanted to note is that the Putin on Feb 21, 23 is not the same Putin of 2007 or even the same leader of just a few months ago when the Crimean bridge was attacked, Nordsteams blown and Angela Merkel confessed… He was the LEAST confrontational of the whole Russian gov-t and the ONLY one of his quality that people of Russia consider his flaw is his SOFTNESS.
But after years of endless efforts to reach understanding and collaboration with the west, he is truly angry now. This is the anger of his disappointment and disillusion about ANY remote possibility of civilized discourse with those who are not his “partners” anymore and will never be. He was very slow and persistent in giving his “partners” a chance after chance even after they crossed all his “red lines” – for which together with his use of “partners” he was mocked in Russia and was (still is) being considered “weak” here. His unusually strong language goes against his whole nature as a moderate political leader and, I believe and hope, that this means he is now “walks the talk”.
In Russian there is a famous saying: “Russian man harnesses slowly but rides fast” (Русский мужик медленно запрягает, но быстро едет)
Forgive me… I got half a good scotch in me… been sipping on it…
I follow the US militia system and publications in the good ol USA. Not the wing nuts….the regular armed citizens.
Roseanne Cash…long black veil “nobody knows…but me…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7-PvIcVvt4&list=RDoHKB424xk-c&index=9
I offer North Carolina Renegades…who/whom..are not terrorists, just constitutional.
https://ncrenegade.com/putins-speech-and-what-it-means/
According to US experts, almost 900,000 people were killed during wars unleashed by the United States after 2001, and over 38 million became refugees. Please note, we did not invent these statistics; it is the Americans who are providing them. They are now simply trying to erase all this from the memory of humankind, and they are pretending that all this never happened. However, no one in the world has forgotten this or will ever forget it.
None of them cares about human casualties and tragedies because many trillions of dollars are at stake, of course. They can also continue to rob everyone under the guise of democracy and freedoms, to impose neoliberal and essentially totalitarian values, to brand entire countries and nations, to publicly insult their leaders, to suppress dissent in their own countries and to divert attention from corruption scandals by creating an enemy image. We continue to see all this on television, which highlights greater domestic economic, social and inter-ethnic problems, contradictions and disagreements.
a little bible study..without insulting anyone or putting beliefs on others:
Matthew 7:5 NKJV
Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Such it is…with murderers of the USA…. for oil mostly…and the Russians…that just want a nation…and to do business.
US journo allegedly blows a whistle to Russian media about Nord Stream terrorism
https://ria.ru/20230216/vodolazy-1852456054.html
IMO, only the United States can provide those security guarantees, of the sort that President Putin and his Cabinet specified. Further, it is uniquely Donald Trump as a U.S. leader & currently former President, who must be brought in to negotiate a peaceful and sane solution to this truly existential conflict. Donald Trump is perhaps the only U.S. personality whom the Russian leadership would now trust. Trump has offered to negotiate — as he did again on Monday night in Florida. He understands the stakes. Realistically, it is also he who has shown the courage ‘to cut the leash’ that as bound our nation, in recent decades, to a self-destructive British empire doctrine of “endless wars.” Congressman Troy Nehls (R-TX) has called on Biden to call up Trump and bring Trump in to negotiate. We should do no less than demand that our respective congressmen and senators do the same! We have a voice 🇺🇸 .
Russia would trust Trump, who openly started arming the Ukranazis, sent troops into Syria, and murdered Soleimani.
Surely you jest.
It was Trump, as you surely recall, who sought details on the Biden crime family from Ukraine’s then-Attorney General. And got impeached for even attempting to learn the truth. To blame Trump for the sins of the neocons, who were moving in, working from the inside of the administration (think Bolton, Pompeo and Nicki Haley), is naive.
Basically you just said than when Trump is the figurehead neocon can take any positions in his office they want and do under his cover what they like.
What’s the point of negotiating with him them?
To pity him – sure, but negotiate?
Remember, Russia first designates USA agreement-incapable when… What was his name? Kirby? was meeting with Lavrov, making good deals about Syria – only for USArmy defiantly violate that deal the next day to make a point they do not report to president.
On the contrary. President Trump fought, and is still fighting, like a tiger. Against an inside-outside job, it is clear as day. And he learned from it. That is what scares the ‘Deep State’ about him now. No one else could have stood up to what he stood up to – through two ‘impeachments’ and the rest. No one else would have survived. With the Jordan “weaponization” committee hearings and Twitter Files he is now being vindicated. Putin and team see and know his tenacity. Thanks
Trump is fighting like Yanukovich, not like tiger.
He sold out Flinn, for the starter.
He sold out Capitol protesters, for the ending.
But this does not matter, actually. There is a place for tigers and it is called zoo.
As for presidents – they should be controlling their governments and keep the negotiated agreements.
Trump’s government violated those. Because Trump “fought like a tiger”? Whatever. Agreement capability was still zero.
This your excuse that Trump was a tiger…
It is like a bad student failing exam then demanding he still be given an A grade because he says he was reading textbooks. Exams do not check if you were reading or not, exams check whether that reading resulted in knowledge.
was Trump the president or not?You want to bend a knee to Trump and give him a pass.He had the power to fire Haley,Pompeo,Bolton and the whole lot.He did nothing!
Hayley and Pompeo are in a different league to Bolton. Who is a freak.
All three of those lizard-people have announce a run for the presidency.
Yeah and don’t forget the missile strike he ordered when he was serving Xi a “beautiful cake” at his tasteless pile of bricks in Florida.
Trump is no warmonger but that doesn’t mean he’s a good guy either. He still has Zionist backing, just a different faction.
Even if Trump did negotiate. Why would anyone believe the empire of lies, who rob, plunder, cheat and steal? Their word means nothing. You would have to be a fool to believe anything they say or put in writing.
Trump is many things and above all a showman with his wetted finger in the wind at all times and who understands all too well how to sway a public that’s about as informed on life and death issues as my neighbor’s pet gecko.
Regardless of how he arrived at his opinions, anyone who’s set his sights on Victoria Nuland as target no. 1 is getting the benefit of the doubt from me.
Sure, famous last twisted words but I’ll take half an oaf over a full oaf any day of the week.
Trump said/says lots of things, many of them are true, and it helps to an extent in sparking some folks to educate themselves. However, Trump is also controlled opposition, who was even made to appoint and/or not fire his enemies in Washington whilst he was president. He did make some reasonable proposals but failed (most likely per orders) to implement them. He also failed to pardon those of his supporters who were being held without bail until they caved and pleaded guilty to something.
The guy was more heavily sanctioned than Russia itself. Not sure what he could or would have done given a free hand. As it was, he took the path of least resistance with Israel, maybe thinking he’d get some slack cut by the dems or maybe some slack cut on a new Canadian megaproperty from the Bronfmans.
Who the hell knows? This country’s a clusterfuck anyway.
Depending on nuance and language translation there could be the inference that targets need not be within Ukraine. My feeling is Putin is prepared to go all-in against the US and NATO if the nonsense continues. I think there is concern about that in NATO circles and that’s why we see the huge lead time for tanks, and f-16’s will have a longer lead, conveniently ready after Russia has won.
The US and NATO can’t support any kind of ground war in eastern Europe and would get a shit kicking in a hurry. No munitions, no ability to produce munitions, Russian air defenses that would rub out a significant amount of NATO air capability and the result would be a neutered and exposed NATO and the US open to attack by everybody they’ve pissed off over the last several decades.
And the there’s Taiwan. The US can’t vacate the Pacific to support Europe. I believe Putin has a contingency built in to take on NATO if he has to. They’ve kept their best stuff in reserve, using older munitions in Ukraine, and have mobilized enough manpower for a full European war. Public opinion would rip the EU and NATO apart if it even spread to Poland.
My sense is there’s a lot Putin isn’t saying, and that’s what we need to consider. He could take out most of the European NATO troops and aircraft pretty quickly with a surprise attack using their sophisticated hyper sonic and hyperbaric weapons. I don’t think NATO realizes how vulnerable they are, or maybe they do. Hard to tell based on their irrational behavior.
Wars still take some soldiers, and NATO’s are sitting ducks right now. The US has nothing like the hyper sonic missiles, and Russia has superior air defense, already set up for the possibility of attacks inside Russia. They are prepared for anything and everything. NATO isn’t. Putin has said before he’s prepared to attack supply at source. I guess we might find out soon depending on what NATO does.
China would be happy…
If such a war unleashes and stays Shor tof nukes (or maybe even with nukes) USA would need to transport their armies and ammo across the ocean, and Russia would need to sink those ships and down those planes.
Whoever prevails, USA capability to sustain their army (proxy or immediate) in Taiwan would be degraded.
….Depending on nuance and language translation there could be the inference that targets need not be within Ukraine…..
Yes – in late 2021, Moscow made a number of statements that if attacked it would retaliate against those entities giving the orders.
The Wes is now definitely dead for Russia, once for all. It stands to reason then that no negotiations or agreements are possible with the dead about anything but in particular about the manner of common life. In Ukraine Russia has clearly seen the true nature of the West. Russia can finally fully endorse the words of the legendary head of foreign intelligence Leonid Shebarshin: “The West needs one thing from Russia. For her not to exist.” The consequences for the West will be dire.
Things may look bad now, but history shows that countries often reconcile. Russia will reconcile with the West once the latter accepts that a strong, prosperous, independent Russia is in the best interests of the West and the world in general. Some leadership adjustments will probably be necessary in the meantime, but the future can be bright for all if we work at it.
Ironically Biden having reduced the oligarchs financially is an assist to Putin. Does Putin still consider the demise of the USSR the greatest tragedy of the 20th century? Does he still revere Stalin?
When did Putin ever say that he revered Stalin? Never, that’s when.
Show some proof, or dry up and blow away.
You are correct.
He said that about the USSR because the dissolution upset the world order and destroyed the lives of the people of the USSR. Ukraine never recovered. Russia only did through the efforts of Putin (which is why the west hates him, russia was supposed to be a bigger Ukraine).
Parsing how Russians feel about Stalin isn’t as simple as westerners would like. Not so many think he was a good guy but that he got the job done and saw the nation through WWII.
Putin has also said, “Anyone who doesn’t mourn the USSR has no heart but anyone who wants it back has no brain.” In terms of life for the average citizen even the late USSR was better than the 90’s, “democracy” and American capitalism. Many people had good lives in the USSR and it didn’t get grim until the 80’s.
I’m getting concerned. Over the last day it seems that the war drums/propaganda have been kicked into high gear. Fox is all in in a way I haven’t seen yet. Hannity, idiot that he is, is talking about F-16s. House republicans are visiting Ukraine and calling for F-16s and ATACMS. It’s an all out blitz of the likes I haven’t seen since before the invasion of Iraq. It’s clearly coordinated and it’s clearing building up to direct US involvement.
It’s just so frustrating. Americans are not in favor of this. People are pissed that our money is going over there instead of here where it is needed. I believe if a national referendum were held now, at least 60% would vote to end support of Ukraine and 90% would be against any direct involvement. But it doesn’t seem to matter.
Since they don’t have a 9/11 trauma to pivot off of, (and I like to think most of us wouldn’t be fooled by WMD lies again), I can’t imagine how they would galvanize support for openly direct involvement.
Never make the mistake of believing your rulers give a flying *uck what you think!
Pay your taxes and shut up!
Nobody is going to hold a referendum. Options available to US citizens are sit tight and indulge in hand wringing and be prepared to accept all the consequences that come with it. Those would include being subject to nuclear conflict or being drafted to the front.
Other alternative is to take to the streets and risk whatever it entails including loss of jobs, jail and income. But overall it might save lies
Putin has once again shown himself to be the greatest statesman of our age. From what I have seen and heard of this, his latest, speech, it was structured, direct and unequivocal.
The war in Ukraine will end when Putin says so. Meanwhile, the ownership of this war will be nailed onto Biden. His supporters will fade into the woodwork, hopefully never to return.
One big question remaining is, will Biden be forced out before the ’24 elections? If so, Kamala Harris is biddable, and she would not win in ’24. Who will come next? I don’t know, but I do look forward to finding out.
Hilary. Or Michelle.
It was a Great Speech by any standards. I don’t know of any leader in the Collective West who can make a five minutes speech of substance on any subject.
It is a speech that is guaranteed to resonate well with those of us in the Global South – victims of five centuries of unremitting violence, oppression and exploitation by the West.
Unfortunately, the current crops of leaders in the West are too Woke and too narcissistic to understand what they currently face.
Sadder still is the fact they all lack the education, the cultural sophistication, the diplomatic skills plus the other abilities their predecessors used to keep the rest of the world under the control of the West.
We Yorubas have a saying to the effect: Those that the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Wokism and degeneracy swept through the West like a wild fire and, drunk by hubris and narcissism, the ideologues decided to punch above their weight by picking on Russia.
Pray, tell, what must have people consumed to make them believe in their dream about conquering a country that is not only the largest in the world, the only truly autarkic nation in the entire universe, and one with the largest nuclear arsenal?
“Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”
The problem might be what they are hearing – their own echoes. I agree about Putin being a great statesman. I was looking at one of his press conferences a few weeks ago to try to get original source for statements he made about Russia’s nuclear policy. But when I was trying to find that in the transcript, I was so impressed that I called my husband and we went through the whole conference. Translating with a machine is tedious, but it was worth it. Putin is really knowledgeable about every aspect of his country, and he handled tough questions about conditions for soldiers in the field. He speaks extemporaneously in multiple paragraphs, no handler needed, and he’s diplomatic.
Biden, on the other hand, alienated us right off the bat with his stupid remarks about how unpatriotic citizens were who wouldn’t take the experimental Covid shot. He thought he was a doctor, not a lawyer. We turn him right off as soon as we hear his voice now. If he hadn’t gone on to his anti-Russia program, we’d probably be in a Gulag now.
“Tell me, please, what should be consumed by people to make them believe in their dream of conquering a country that is not only the largest in the world, the only truly autarkic nation in the entire universe and has the largest nuclear arsenal?”
It’s herd instinct.
Otherwise, I cannot explain the statements of the president of a tiny, evil Balonka (Estonia) in the UN, which dared to raise a stinking tail on the entire Russian people.
Western leaders think that there are many of them and they will overwhelm the bear with a large flock of hyenas. In fact, once a bear kills a couple of individuals, the rest scatter with a screech.
It is unlikely that the United States will be able to assemble a cohesive coalition. We will see how European countries will eat each other.
🌞 NATO and five eyes 1bn v Russia 150mn.
That’s what they see.
They also don’t see either side going nuclear anymore. So they are betting on winning a conventional war.
With the Russians killing 7 to 1 or 10 to 1 it will not matter how big the Nato army is I bet it will still kill 10 to 1 and good riddance to NATO and the Evil empire, For the record I am British part of the most evil empire their has ever been and the world has ever known
We Yorubas have a saying to the effect: Those that the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
And we thank the Yoruba for that great pearl of wisdom. It has become a guiding light for those of us in the West who strive to avoid the same fate.
Armstrong is excellent financial analyst who also has a war cycle in his analysis. This fits with Putin’s assessment that the west is bankrupt, not only morally but financially as well. https://usawatchdog.com/neocons-need-war-because-monetary-system-collapsing-martin-armstrong/
If I am not mistaken, the US/UK alliance was responsible for funding the Bolshevik anti-Christian terror unleashed on the Romanov family and the Russian people, the present war began in 1913 Vienna.
Funny framing…
Romanov family was kicked out of power and palaces in the “2nd Russian Revolution” by the very “white guards” people who 6 months later after their military coup, after plunging Russia into the chaos and poverty wihh their incompetency that eclipsed even Romanov’s nepotism, fled to France and America, and whose grandchildren now are crying about Romanov’s peril like it was any significant event in the unleashed “bellum omnium contrary omnes”.
Jewish Bolsheviks , synagogue of satan, killed the Russian Christians and the Romanov family.
White Guards were the Jess. Like Bund party and a few more explicitly Jewish parties, like the infamous Azef.
Bolsheviks had their share of Jees, but ironically those were renegade Jews, the Jews that fought against the typical Jewish things like usury, trade, rabbinism.
Those White Guards – Jews and Slavs together – destroyed the empire, destroyed the Romanov’s dynasty, and opened the road for fringe freaks Bolsheviks were (3K party in 200M nation) by showcasing utter incompetence in all other parties.
The Church then fully embraced and supported the coup against Nikki, BTW.
Offspring of those White Guards Jews today did a flip-flop and paint themselves monarchists and loudly worship Romanovs whom they destroyed and the empire which they brought down.
It is so funny to watch.
The death of the Christian family was accomplished by the Jews and the end of history was ushered in.
WW3 draws nigh. When Jewry attains to global rule, history reaches its final chapter.
https://russia-insider.com/en/history/tsar-nicholas-ii-stood-way-jewish-global-dominance-so-they-killed-him/ri25868
Oh, yeah, I remember that article and that site.
Clowns.
> In the spring of 1918, Czar Nicholas II, his wife, and children, were taken to Ekaterinburg in the Urals
Dude! “In the spring of 1918” there was no any Czar Nicholas II.
There and then was a nobody’s fool who was wanted by no one.
That fool asked his cousin Czar George of UK to give him politic asylum – and was laughed at.
That very George who before WW1 loved to make Instagram sessions of wjo similarly two men looked when wearing the similar dresses and hairdo.
The “Czar Nicholas II” – the inept idiot he was, but still a czar – existed only until February 1917. When pro-western liberals staged a coup and arrested his family and turned badly managed empire into non-managed wild capitalism republic. And many Jewish Socialism parties indeed took part in the “February Revolution” AKA “Russian Revolution #2”
You may argue, with a stretch, that Russian Empire somehow was stopping “Jew Domination” – despite that Empire was falling to pieces due to nepotism and mismanagement ever since that Czar took the throne and after pathetic 1905 war could not effect any significant world events, but you may dream on.
However there is one simple fact, by the” spring 1918″ there was no nah Czar who could command weka but large empire, there was a hostage who could not command himself and his wife.
And the people who made this transition were not Bolsheviks, it was those very White Guards whose children run Russian Insider and similar outlets.
So cringy and funny!
And the people who made this transition were not Bolsheviks, it was those very White Guards
Nobody gives a hoot nor holler about your little feud with a marginally noticed Russia Insider. To put it simply and succinctly…..you’re full of crap.
I always suspected there was something not quite right in the head with you from your borderline bizarre writings but now, all doubt has been erased.
I wish I could say sayonara but the website’s not mine and I’m sure you’ll be back with more ravings from the margin.
…meanwhile Ohio – and a place named after Palestine – gets poisoned with “dioxins”, a term rather famous here.
It’s karmic? Ironic? What goes around comes around?
Dioxins…
A lady killer turning into a toad.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Viktor_Yushchenko_in_Polish_parliament..jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Victor_Yuschenko_in_2004.jpg
The 2005, the “orange maidan”, the Tyrant Putin trying to crash freedom by installing a democratically elected Yanukovich.
Freedom fighters, nobly raping the laws and the constitution.
And Putin tries to kill the hero. Not with Novichok, not with Polonium, back then the fad was poisoning with dioxins. Free media knows, free media remembers.
…what goes around comes around. It’s weird.
I wonder, is there some place in Ohio named after Megido? Would be handy to have one.
Larry,
Article in the regimist Economist Magazine on open source intelligence on Telegram/Tik Tok.
https://www.economist.com/interactive/international/2023/01/13/open-source-intelligence-is-piercing-the-fog-of-war-in-ukraine
Would enjoy a pro like yourself to comment.
It’s a joint venture between the Economist and that bastion of unproven innuendo, Integrity Initiative. Pure russiagate-era bunk gasping for its last breaths while wrapped up in The Economist’s rapidly unraveling cloak of gravitas.
“The West will make a fatal mistake if they ignore what Putin said today.”
Houston, we have a problem.
Negotiation between Russia (inherited USSR) and USA happens in different levels and layers almost all the time.
For example there are some channels of negotiation betten them in Syria. Why USA occupied part of Syria, and Russia tolerated and then accepted channel of disengment?
Isn’t reminding the old secret treaties between USSR and USA for some territories?
Popular Russian blogger and military analyst Yuri Podolyaka saw Putin’s speech in the same way:
“The main thing that the president said, of course, concerned domestic policy, and that main thing is called the construction of autarky. Autarky is a system of closed reproduction of the community, with minimal dependence on exchange with the external environment; the economic regime of the country’s self-sufficiency… The course towards autarky on the part of the country’s leadership is clearly clear and unambiguous. Everything that Putin talked about in relation to the economy, education, upbringing, all this is fundamentally different from the previous vector of Russia…”
As expected, the empire of lies responded to Putin’s speech by escalating. There are videos showing that the Russian anti-aircraft defense was intensively active over Mariupol last night. Mariupol is about 100 kilometers from the nearest battle line, which means that the city could not be targeted by the previously delivered HIMARS, which have a range of up to 80 kilometers. Apparently, long-range missiles have already been sent to the Ukrainians.
Podolyaka is Ukrainian blogger, one of a field commanders of Orange Maidan, a covert Ukraine-firster and promoter of Evgenia Bilchenko, Right Sector activist.
The guy really has some sponsors and promoters behind his back, like Girkin/Strelkov had in 2014, but take all his analyses with a lot of salt. His goal was to make EU feed Ukraine during the 2nd Maidan. Then he learnt EU was there for eating not feeding and changed colors, and when the 3rd Maidan came he wants Russia to feed Ukraine instead.
Calling him Russian blogger and analytic is deluding yourself. The guy is smart unlike most other maidan drones, and have insider knowledge how those color revolutions are engineered.
Still his goal is Ukraine, where his relatives run an enterprise, not Russia he tries to hoard. Right Sector to him were bad not because having bad goals, but because chowing stupid means to achieve them.
Quite right.
Something Putin brought up in his speech that concerned me is the possibility of a cycle of nuclear weapons testing like back during the Cold War. He noted that the US has new weapons and might choose to test them and said he would do testing, too, if that happens.
I can confirm we have new weapons. They were retrofitting the subs in Bremerton before I left. It was no secret. I used to see the comings and goings during my hikes, and I heard the secretive nuclear waste train whistling late one night for the first time in the many years that I lived there.
If another testing cycle starts, so will a cycle of thyroid disease start.
A few things are very odd for me, perhaps someone can shed some light on this:
– According to this article (https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/whitney-setting-record-straight-stuff-you-should-know-about-ukraine) Russia filed an Article 51 procedure at the UN. “Every country has the right to defend itself”. Why is Russia not referring to this more often? In every speech they should say something like: “We have the right to defend ourselves and that is why we laid out some points. Those are still not fulfilled yet, so we have to right to continue.”. Nobody around me ever heard about a Art. 51 procedure. Instead they refer to unquantifiable points: denazification, demilitarisation, etc. What does this mean? Zero nazi’s and zero military? Is that achievable? For me its clear that the UN is corrupt and biased (its an US institution). Why is Russia not showing this to the world? Why is Russia not putting pressure on the UN?
– In 2014 the West committed a coup in the Ukraine and since then the Ukraine is occupied, trained and equipped by NATO. Also, NATO has put AEGIS in Rumania and Poland. In the last several years, the West is blaming everything on Russia (MH17, Skripal, Doping on the Olympics, voting fraud in the US, and more). I do not understand that when Russia crossed the border with the Ukraine last year they thought it is a SMO with Ukraine itself. They should know this is going to be a war with NATO. The West is misusing Ukraine for its goals: to weaken Russia, they don’t care about Ukraine. Why didn’t Russia regard this as a NATO/Russia war from the start? Why they still thought they could negotiate with NATO?
– I do not believe for a minute the official MH17 story. But what I also do not get is: there was a bloody coup in Ukraine (in 2014). Remember Maidan? And since then a civil war in Ukraine (especially Donbass, but don’t forget what happened in Odessa). For me its hard to believe that Russia was not monitoring every step that was taking place in Ukraine, especially in the Donbass (right on the border with Russia). So, in my view, Russia should know exactly what happened to MH17. Why are they not releasing this data? Or other incriminating data that the US did (Iraq, etc)? Russia has a formidable intelligence agency, they should know much more what the US/the west did. Why are they not showing to the world the hypocrisy of the west?
Russia did released the data on MH-17: radar records, Buk missile transportation records during USSR time (a serial no of a specific missile was found in MH-17 debuts and leaked).
That data is not accepted by the cangaroo Court in Netherlands and “free media”. At best they are mentioned in passing as Russian disinfo, or not mentioned at all.
I live in the Netherlands and I agree with you 100% about the cangaroo court. What a shame and an embarrassment.
What I mean is, yes Russia released radar records, but this is not the whole story, only a piece of the puzzle. Russia should know who/what/where and when. Do they keep this information to themselves, or they really do not know?
Also, why don’t they release data on 9/11 (I assume Russia also knows more than they are telling)?
Russia should have more dirty secrets of the US, why not release it? Perhaps not directly, perhaps leak it via an alternative media?
When one of the suspects is given a seat at the inquiry table and even a veto right over what information is to be released, you can assume anything stemming from those inquiries is going to be overrun by kangaroos.
One example (of many): Russia actually located the original log containing the serial number and delivery date of the BUK missile whose serial number the Netherlands inquiry actually revealed.
In any legitimate inquiry, there would have been a demand for a forensic analysis of the log book, ink, handwriting, etc. analysis etc. to establish its authenticity and lack of tampering. It’s done all the time. A well established science.
Was it done? ……….. crickets. It was a show trial, pure and simple.
A lot of empty words.
If the US sends the airborne cavalry into Odessa, the Russians will do absolutely nothing.
Just like NATO did not attack Russian airborne forces in Pristina airport in ’99.
Only now, the US position is so much stronger.
What drugs are you using? Exactly how is the “US position so much stronger?”
When the Russians made their famous dash in ’99 they had to fly a very long way to land in a hostile area. They planned to reinforce their small initial force but had to give up cause Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania refused requests by Russia to use their airspace. All these countries are now NATO members.
If the 101st had to secure Odessa it would not have to go a long way, or through hostile countries, or land in a hostile area.
It has the whole of NATO Europe at its back and a Ukrainian army in front.
I would call that a much stronger position.
Your ignorance of military matters, especially logistics, is profound. How exactly is the 101st going to arrive in Odessa? How are they going to be resupplied in the face of a Russian counter attack? The Russian military of 1999 bears no resemblance to the modern force operating today.
> How are they going to be resupplied in the face of a Russian counter attack?
They won’t. They would be a token, a tripwire force.
He assumes Russia would no dare to overtly targert “the sole hyperpower” with tehir nuclear CBGs.
He might be right. Russia, by rumours, bombed UK officers in Ukraine (Ochakov) and Syria, who worked unofficially as ISIS and UkrArmy staff. RuArmy was harassing illegal US Army strongpoiunts and patrols in Syria.
Still, there was no any overt attack, like Iran’s missiles over US bases in Iraq, at least not ones in the public knowledge. We have no precedent.
Would Russia dare to attack USA tripwire force in Odessa or not – is a matter of belief. I am inclines to believe we would try to set a siege and induce Americans to surrender and get away (with honor and flying flags – but away) by denying any logistics.
You might think Russia would just smash them to make a point.
He thinks Russia would not dare.
We just don’t know, we believe whjat we like to.
But we can observe up until now USA did not dare to dispatch any tripwire force to UKraine.
@Fidel No way that light infantry, especially the 101st, could secure Odessa. You are fantasizing.
Fidel…you are aware that the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) is a light infantry division right? You’re also aware that the Russian Navy basically owns the Black Sea?
Here’s the point…yes the US could send in the 101st or 82nd or a Ranger Regiment or a Marine Expeditionary Force and they would fight bravely and professionally–they also would die by the thousands. America is not prepared for that militarily, politically or as a society.
No offense to the Ukraine but it is not worth one American life…if you feel so strongly about defending the Ukraine you are free to join its foreign mercenary forces (I doubt you have the balls to do so)…like all cowards you are all to willing to let someone else’s son or daughter do the dying for your political beliefs but you are unwilling to do any fighting yourself. You are entitled to your opinion but I have no tolerance for people like you.
Fidel may be somewhat ignorant of military logistics….or is he, like a broken clock, correct this time?
First agree that not a single US life should be sacrificed in Ukraine. Second, agree that the 101st alone is not sufficient.
However, the Ukrainians seem to be able to move troops up and down the line and to resupply them, all pretty much at will. How would a combined expeditionary force consisting of USMC and various US Army units + Polish troops moving into Odessa be different?
As far as Russia annihilating those forces, yeah, sure maybe over the course of a couple or three years, at the pace Russia fights. What would Russia use to kill them? Long range artillery? Missiles? US has AD and counter battery fire for that and can simply dig in deep.
But would Russia really dare to attack them, especially face to face infantry engagements? I know about the all of the red lines (that are never enforced), but does Putin really have the balls to risk killing Americans in significant numbers? Would Putin really risk escalation?
IMO – “no”
Well said VR.
Should have added that the rumors of the Ukrainian military’s demise are greatly exaggerated. From what I can tell, there is still a sizable Ukro force in Odessa. So Odessa would be defended by NATO and Ukrainian forces. It would a formidable nut to crack. Those forces would probably be supported by the US Navy and Air Force. Putin would have to go all in on WW3 to take Odessa and, again, I really think that neither he nor his military is up to that task.
If Odessa is ever threatened by Russia one of these days, NATO will indeed reinforce Ukrainian troops with a few thousand US Marines, three or four Army combat brigades, lots of top notch weapons systems and the power of the US Navy and Air Force. It’s the right move from a NATO standpoint. Some here might scoff at that array of force, but I’m sure Putin would not. Additionally, those forces would be in a good position to participate a push on Crimea this Summer. I do not think that is a good idea, but I’m not a neocon. Russia has asked to be put into this position by slow walking their somewhat incoherent attack on Ukraine.
“Should have added that the rumors of the Ukrainian military’s demise are greatly exaggerated.”
Hey, a great caulron battle is about to begin. Wagner Group, with the helpful assistance of the Russian army, looks to within the next month or two, trap 2,000 Ukrainian enlisted men, and 7 officers, in the what will come to be known throughout the ages as, the Battle for Bakhmut!
Find the enemy’s main body and destroy it, said Clausewitz (as did pretty much every other military commander worth his salt). Well, what if his main body is currently waiting for you in cities like Chernihiv, Kiev, Kharkov and Sumy ?
Not to mention in that vast expanse on the western side of the Dnieper?
” I do not think that is a good idea, but I’m not a neocon.”
Exactly. It is irrelevant how idiotic the American’s future conventional war plans might be in Ukraine, what matters is, how much havoc can these idiotic plans wreak?
Enough to end life on this planet, in my opinion. Therefore, I would proceed with great alacrity if I were the Russians. The less time the Americans have to formulate plans that could lead to the end, the better for everyone.
Eric…”but does Putin really have the balls to risk killing Americans in significant numbers? Would Putin really risk escalation?” Agree that is one of the big questions yet to be answered…the question could be posed “does NATO have the balls to escalate?”
I think some NATO countries do and some absolutely do not want to escalate and risk a 3rd world war on the European mainland. As for Putin, I would not call his bluff. My guess is that escalation will occur but in other venues–just a thought.
In any event, a peer-on-peer confrontation between NATO and Russian forces will result in high casualties on both sides…thanks for your feedback–some excellent points.
It’s ‘so much stronger’ in Odessa because the Russians are ‘so far away’ in Kherson.
Biden might even be brave enough to make a move on Lwow too, with some help from Casimir Pulaski. 😉
VR,
I’m just asking jarhead simple questions based on jarhead simple observations. I don’t have answers.
Max424,
I really do appreciate your dry humor and subtle tongue in cheek approach :-).
Thanks. The truth is though, I can’t take much credit, it’s the Russian tongue and cheek approach to this SMO that deserves all the praise.
I’m just reporting what I’m seeing.
Is the ground frozen yet? ;–)
Another speech your might consider taking a look at is Mr. Orban’s recent state of the nation of Hungary:
http://thesaker.is/prime-minister-viktor-orbans-state-of-the-nation-address/
Here’s the humourful bit at the start:
“So much has happened in the past year – an election, the war, an energy crisis, inflation – that in fact I should spend several hours talking about it. Please do not start making for the door: it is too late now, if you are here, you are here. Tomorrow, on Sunday, you can rest yourselves after a speech of Atatürk or Fidel Castro proportions. But I will keep it shorter after all, because during a long political speech people lose their zest for life – and we are not here to lose our zest for life, but to renew our zest for life.”
… and some of the meat:
“Our foreign policy remains: we want to continue to make friends, not enemies; we want everyone – East and West, North and South – to have a stake in the success of the Hungarians. The creation of connections instead of the formation of blocs.”
“We can keep the strategic sectors – the banking sector, the energy sector and the media industry – in Hungarian hands, and we will even revive Hungarian ownership in the telecommunications and infocommunications sector.”
How’s that for a declaration of independence? Or this …
“Alongside agricultural production, we are building up agricultural processing. We will revive the Hungarian food industry, which has been devastated by privatisation, and we will have national champions in the food industry who will also be able to compete in the world market. We shall not tolerate Hungarians having to buy food that is dumped on us from abroad.”
He’s talking about the EU’s relationship with Hungary. This part, though has to really stick in the craw of Brussels:
“And we will not give up our most daring plan: to ensure that families with children are better off financially than those who do not have children. So, war or no war, we will have new family support decisions every year. The same is true this year, with women committing to having children paying no personal income tax until the age of 30.”
It won’t be long before the CJEU issues a ruling that this is an illegal production subsidy.
And theres much more … it was indeed a long speech.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
“…, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
“All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”
Whilst:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King’s horses,
and all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again
re:
“Reflecting on Putin’s long awaited speech to Russia’s national assembly I was struck by some similarities with Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. What do I mean? Jefferson started with his iconic preamble (i.e., We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .) and then proceeded to present an indictment of Great Britain that created the predicate for the rebellion of the Colonies:”
George Orwell was a MI6 stooge!
He provided the “Orwell’s List” naming likely propagandists for the State and “cryptos”.
And yes, 1984 WAS an instructional manual.
Diplomacy indeed is dead but not just between Russia and the US…other countries are watching geopolitical dynamics closely…they see what’s happening and they realize that the US cannot be trusted…US street cred is gone. Trust and respect can rarely be regained once lost.
The US will no doubt double down on its irrational diplomacy to its ultimate demise. My hat’s off to Putin for leading his Nation and people against the hegemon’s “folly”. Speaking of “folly”, Jim Quinn does a nice job of summing up the US cabal in his recent article:
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/02/19/march-of-folly-american-empire/#more-292812
…highly recommend the read.
for 30 years we in India, and probably others like africans, waited for the Russian to make a final decision to be a Russian.
For centuries they wanted to be “European”, whatever that means. But they are just too big to be anything but Russian.
Yelstin made the Russians “get to know” the west very well. Then the next stage was Putin, with Medvedev interspersed to cover the unpalatable periods.
A good tight team. Still, Russia succeeds only if the Russians decide to be Russian.
The speech by putin this month would not have been welcome 25 years ago.
It signifies yet another milestone in the Russians deciding to be a Civilization all of their own.
Therein lies the real victory in this war.
“The speech by putin this month would not have been welcome 25 years ago.”
It would not have been appropriate from 1969 until February 2023, since many of the opportunities were facilitated by the premature ejaculations/projections of the opponents from at least 1968 onwards (55 years ago), whilst an increasing sum of some others understood that patience is a virtue not recognised/practiced by all.
“for 30 years we in India, and probably others like africans, waited for the Russian to make a final decision to be a Russian.”
From 1968 onwards an increasing sum of some understood that “The Soviet Union” and “The United States of America” were emulative coercive social relations mutually dependent for their sustainability,and that for myriad reasons neither was sustainable but with different velocities as a function of culturally derived levels of patience.
“For centuries they wanted to be “European”, whatever that means. But they are just too big to be anything but Russian.”
That is a simplistic assertion/conflation/interpretation derived/believed by others.
The decision from 1968 onwards was to co-operate with the patient to mutually transcend coercive social relations, unlike the impatient coercive “Bolsheviks/Communists” whose practices emulated in significant degree “The United States of America” and whose impatience rendered coercion “necessary”.
“ “Yelstin made the Russians “get to know” the west very well. Then the next stage was Putin, with Medvedev interspersed to cover the unpalatable periods.” which is undermined by your conflation/framing of a collective of millions with individuals.
“It signifies yet another milestone in the Russians deciding to be a Civilization all of their own.”
The decision made was to continue co-operating with those capable of co-operation.
Consequently in my understanding The Russian Federation decided to continue to be The Russian Federation in co-operation with those capable of co-operation on the bases of mutual benefit, which required the ongoing transcendence of “The Soviet Union” to facilitate.
Hence “Russia’s Declaration of Independence” in the title of this thread is a misrepresentation.
Mr. Putin speech yesterday was based on the presently agreed Constitution of the Russian Federation consistent with his role as President/Representative of The Russian Federation acting for and on its behalf, and hence should be represented as a derivative of:
The Russian Federation’s Declaration of Interdependence in co-operation with those capable of co-operation for mutual benefit, since “total independence” is often a facilitator of competition which can facilitate reluctance to co-operate, since Mr. Putin and others have shown capability in association of describing and managing matters holistically.
“Mr. Putin speech yesterday was based on the presently agreed Constitution of the Russian Federation consistent with his role as President/Representative of The Russian Federation acting for and on its behalf, and hence should be represented as a derivative of:
The Russian Federation’s Declaration of Interdependence in co-operation with those capable of co-operation for mutual benefit, since “total independence” is often a facilitator of competition which can facilitate reluctance to co-operate, since Mr. Putin and others have shown capability in association of describing and managing matters holistically.”
https://www.voltairenet.org/article218888.html
I do not know whether holistically, but at least quite more holistically than in the West…
I watched the whole speech provided by Spuntik, with simultaneous translation by Russian translators into Spanish, usually not so good, but in the end understandable.
It seemed to me that according to the current state of affairs in the West, and the prospects delineated for us by the Davos troupe, the summary of Russian economic an social achievements and prospects was comparable to a Khinzal launched to the dictatorial technocratic feudal system being impossed on the Western masses through the past 2008 crisis and in an accelerating way of lose of rights and liberties, plus whole squeezing of Western taxpayers through the “pandemic”.
The numbers given, for the Western infiormed and nterested citizen, not a full vaccinated televiewer, acted as a mirror in which Western taxpayer image got quite prejudiced.
I am talking about 4% rate of inflation, when we are here submitted to a 21% and galoping….
The 3.5% umeployment rate, which equates almost full employment, when we have here a 21% and galoping…
Connection to gas supply infrastructure for free, when here there are still working families who can not afford the cost of the gas connection here, less the current gas and electricity bills..and our “leaders recommend us to freeze and have less showers, plus lately not to have breakfast to save more to help Ukraine…
Social benefits and tax exemptions, plus social homes for families and young students, when people here, even working both, rarely meet ends and every talented people has no way but to migrate …to the US or Germany….
Renewal and betterment of schools, medical centers and roads, when we are currently submitted to the total dismatling of the public health system and public edcuation system…
Related to the later, return to the Soviet education system, when here we face the elimination of real culture and educationis from the school programs leaving place to sex and transgenderism education starting 4 years, rewritting of history and post-truth…since servants do not need and education nor be able to think by themselves..
Protection of bank deposits and inversions, when we face one financail crisis after another through which we lose whatever we earned and saved during the past decade which then is siphoned to the oligarchs and political caste….
Contests for young leaders and talented people, when here we face the ubiquity of “Young Leaders of Davos”, quietly infiltrated through decades by Klaus Schwab to suck us dry and enslave us, as he bragged in an interview…
Reasonable protection of the environment , when here we face an alleged protection, which is not such, quite the contrary, and morevoer that alleged protection is made at the price of our lives and welfare, making it not worth for anyone paying the price, which those at Davos and at the political caste are not willing to pay along…
In summary, it seemed to me that the USSR, in his modern capitalist version, but as a mirror for the Western masses to look through, was back…
There was not need thus of intercontinental balistic missiles….since sooner or later, it will be the Western masses who will ovthrow the enslaving opressing system as it has been through history…
It is to avoid this that they plan to interfere with people´s brain and thinking process…and in the meantime they need a fascist system to crush dissent…
For the rest, it called my attention that I could go through the whole speech without falling sleep, even when not having 7 hours sleep past night, while in Murashko´s zone Morpheo was wreaking havock….I would say that you should shift to a more holistic Health Minister…
Excellent comment, Chola, wholeheartedly agree!
> for 30 years we in India, and probably others like africans, waited for the Russian to make a final decision to be a Russian.
I feel offended here.
Why everyone “waited”, why didn’t you pick the fallen flag and March on?
And especially India, the cradle of non-aligned movement.
You said, USSR was not good enough to join. You said you are wise enough and strong enough to build your own, different, better realm.
OK.
Then, USSR fallen – and where was that your better and wiser realm???
> But they are just too big to be anything but Russian
Russia is just 130M population. About as large as Japan, Germany, Pakistan. Less than India. Less than China.
Well, China seems to be doing their own kind of civilization.
India then just integrated into Western sphere. The bangaloring of IT, etc.
Just the same thing was post-Soviet Russia doing, desperately trying to integrate into Western structure as a 1st-grade sattelitte, equal in rank to Germany and Japan.
And now you say all those years 1400M-sized India was waiting for “big enough” 130M-sized Russia to cease intergrating and to step out as a willing target for all the attacks. So that “not big enough” 10x sized India would be outsourcing powerhouse.
There is something really off with this world.
“And now you say all those years 1400M-sized India was waiting for “big enough” 130M-sized Russia to cease intergrating and to step out as a willing target for all the attacks. So that “not big enough” 10x sized India would be outsourcing powerhouse.”
Serbs were the (un)willing target before Russians. I guess the big guys had to wait for the small one to soften the enemy, and perish in the process.
Arioch says
22 February 2023 at 21:22
“Well, China seems to be doing their own kind of civilization.”
The psychiatrist’s couch says
22 February 2023 at 11:46
“The long road from 1776 to 2023…..just another case of the abused becoming the abuser.”
just saying says
23 February 2023 at 06:11
” I guess the big guys had to wait for the small one to soften the enemy, and perish in the process.”
A son of the New American Revolution
21 February 2023 says:
“Russia’s declaration of Independence….”
Thank you for your confirmation that seeming can be deceptive even when mirror gazing.
“Thank you for your confirmation that seeming can be deceptive even when mirror gazing.”
“The whole non-western world is starting to shun the West.”
No, not starting to shun, or even starting to show shunning – merely some of the shunned are perceiving the shunning, informed by Mr. Rove’s observation that you can fool/shun some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you should concentrate on shunning to continue fooling yourself.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/02/24/more-evidence-emerges-that-us-wanted-russia-to-invade/
Strategy ?
How do you spell it?
Thank you Larry well put.
I don’t see how Putin could have stated it any more plainly.
In fact Putin’s speech was articulated in such a manner even a dense and dull White House, State Department and other officials could understand.
And yet the efforts of Putin will be lost on an arrogant Western society who sloshes around in its own vain exceptionalism.
The speech will be ignored by almost all Americans.
Putin clearly called for national sacrifice to defeat the west.
There are some in the west in some institutions of research and study that bring debate to the process but do not have much
of a stage. Putin probably would like to see our system of government work and see debate. With woke media and a elitist agenda that seems a stretch. I would have mixed feelings about a military draft brought on by war. The woke people are so nuts they may feel bringing gender fluidity to Russia is as important as climate change, “the crisis of our times.”
Their words not mine.
The best translation of Putin’s speech I’ve seen
https://globalsouth.co/2023/02/21/mr-putins-speech-to-the-russian-parliament/
Here is official one: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70565
Honestly – the whole speech to me was shallow and empty.
Even the comparison to the masterpiece of Hamilton is completly over the top.
While the words of the Declaration of Indepedence are valid for over 250 years and represent the values and ideas of “the West”, Putin is miles away from that.
His speech is just a list of real, half-real and invented grievances and contempt against the West and it´s ideas. But he has nothing to offer as an alternative.
While Hamilton has with one sentence set the tone for the American Revolution, whatever Putin believes or wants for the world is unclear. He just emphasizes that the West is evil.
But Russia has no iea to offer to the world. At least not after the end of communism.
So, Putin represents plain and simple “Power” or “Autocracy” – nothing else.
While western states at least claim to have ideals, I do not see any in Putin´s Russia.
Just Brutality.
Hamilton? What the hell are you reading? I did not mention Hamilton once. Your ignorance on this point exposes you as not very educated. You’re just trolling. I listed the specifics of what Putin said and you just gloss over that.
If I may edit your last sentence a bit: While western states are brutal at least they claim to have ideals. And if Putin doesn’t have any ideals at least he’s not an arrogant hypocrite.
On another jag, when you run a state you sometimes are brutal to some or all of your own citizens if only for their own good. That is unfortunately the nature of the state, the wielding of police power, military power, and power to legally steal/extort the incomes and wealth of we citizens aka the power to tax.
But at least vis a vis other states Russia desires peaceful and voluntary relations. The US used to be more of a free trader like Russia is now. But we became the most economically powerful country in the world and used that power to bully and intimidate other countries and topple other sovereign states, rather than respecting the independence of these states and simply trading with them.
Will Russia (and China) learn to avoid the Arrogance trap if they become the economic powerhouses? One day Putin and Co. will be gone. What kind of people will run it then? History is not on their side. When I became of age, John Kennedy was president. Look what we have now.
Larry,
There’s a very important issue mentioned by President Putin in his speech that did not get any attention so far that I can see, strangely enough. It is the issue of nuclear proliferation. Pres. Putin said that in the event the US continues its escalation, Russia reserves the right to help other nations around the world develop a nuclear capability to defend themselves against American and European aggression.
That’s a tectonic shift in Geopolitics that upends all previous policies. Any small nation will be able then to defend itself instead of having the hegemonic bully invade and rape a country after another with total impunity causing the death of millions and untold human misery quickly swept under the “collateral damage” rug and forgotten. Iraq with nukes would never have been messed with.
What’s you take on that, Larry?
Good point.
I’m guessing Iran is first in line the Syria.
Yes, then on to Egypt, with whom they have recently signed a big contract to build major nuclear infrastructures, on to Algeria, Russia’s main old friend in the region, a country facing the dangers from a Morocco-Israel military alliance. It that has control over the Gibraltar strait with the naval base at Mers-El-Kebir that they inherited from the French; they could choke Mediterannean maritime traffic. Additionally to being crucial for the control of the Sahel where Wagner already operates, it is a major player in the Libya conflict which will determine who controls the hugely hydrocarbon-rich nation. We are witnessing a quantum leap in Geopolitics and all bets are off.
Can you bring the verbatim quote on bypassing NPT?
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70565
PS/ The similarities with a Jefferson Declaration of Independence, or other similar documents, are quite natural because they are INDICTMENTS and an affidavit of grievances and inequities committed by an aggressor nation. It just says: the abuse ends now.
This speech marks the end of conciliatory Russia and we should expect tit-for-double tat from now on coming from the global East.
Not good. Biden and UK/EU and NATO just got delivered with bad news.
China has announced they will be siding Russia in the Ukraine War, they will be supplying all the weapons Putin wants. Maybe even troops eventually. And they will be forming a much deeper alliance with Russia.
They and most of the world have come to understand, that none of them are safe, and America is a rogue nation. Blowing up gas pipelines and sabotage like common terrorists.
Attacking anyone they like and seizing country’s foreign reserves and sanctioning trade when ever they like.
This is very very bad news
https://warnews247.gr/i-kina-aperripse-to-telesigrafo-ton-ipa-xekinoun-oi-paradoseis-oplon-stin-rosia-diloseis-v-poutin-wang-yi-vid/.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akzr0K0CE0M
1:17:35: “… creation of a self-sufficient economy …” (but) “… not closed from the world …” (no “autarchy” then…) …
1:17:53: “… development of infrastructure …, manufacturing, …. tourism …”
1:19:37: “Russia is an open country, … a civilization …”…
1:27:36: “… upgrade the training for science and technology …, provide freedom for creativity …” …
1:29:40: “.. unemployment 3.7% …”
1:30:19: “train 1 million specialists for the industry (electronics, robotics, engineering, … , pharma, agriculture, defense, etc.) in the next 5 years …”
“… 21. In the sd Colleges shall be taught the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian & German languages, English grammar, geography antient & modern, the higher branches of numerical arithmetic, the mensuration of land, the use of the globes, & the ordinary elements of navigation …” (Bill for Establishing a System of Public Education, October 1817)
Source:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-12-02-0095
The US is confident their propaganda operation works world-wide not just well enough nationally. Hubris this big goes before the fall–as if what they say actually is.
But the world sees the US unsympathetically as it now is and hasn’t sympathy with their obviously violent colonialism cum neo-fascism. That mask has fallen. The US must finally inform themselves if they are to survive.
We are being governed by people without the intellectual capacity required to imagine that other people perceive events from an entirely different perspective then themselves…
This hubris fuel stupidity leads to projecting owns own judgments upon other leading to a profound state of self deception…
Putin is not bluffing but those whose entire professional existence rest on puffing up their plumage in great displays of pomposity cannot perceive sincerity when they encounter it… The failure of the self processed experts is that they think others blunder and bluff around their goings about just as they do…
The problem is. It is already too late. The sanctions failure and refusal of 70% globe to apply them was fatal for the West. It meant the East could create a viable alternative system and had reason to do so.
At that point things became irreversible.
What is happening now is just defence, division of assets and delay while west waits for the East to show it’s hand. It’s all about the money.
Yep, as soon as Merkle admitted the Minsk agreements were nothing more than a ruse to buy time for them to prepare for a war with Russia, all credibility of western negotiations went out the door.
Russia can’t do anything but go all of the way to the middle part of Ukraine – including Odessa and the entire coast of the Black Sea.
With the revelation regarding the attack on Nord Stream, even China must officially align itself with Russia. And, they are saying it is because of security concerns.
As both Alex and Alexander on The Duran said, it is not Russia that has become isolated, it is the West becoming isolated from the world.
All of these neocon actions have irreparably damaged the West for generations. The whole non-western world is starting to shun the West.
“The whole non-western world is starting to shun the West.”
No, not starting to shun, or even starting to show shunning – merely some of the shunned are perceiving the shunning, informed by Mr. Rove’s observation that you can fool/shun some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you should concentrate on shunning to continue fooling yourself.
“History is a set of lies agreed upon” — Napoleon Bonaparte
Notes from the Crimean War…1853 – 1856…
“The front settled into the siege of Sevastopol, involving brutal conditions for troops on both sides. Smaller military actions took place in the Baltic (1854–1856; the Caucasus (1853–1855)…
“Sevastopol finally fell after eleven months, after the French had assaulted Fort Malacoff. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of invasion by the West if the war continued, Russia sued for peace in March 1856. France and Britain welcomed the development, owing to the conflict’s domestic unpopularity. The Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, ended the war. It forbade Russia to base warships in the Black Sea. The Ottoman vassal states and Moldavia became largely independent. Christians in the Ottoman Empire gained a degree of official equality, and the Orthodox Church regained control of the Christian churches in dispute.”
“The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts in which military forces used modern technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways and telegraphs. The war was also one of the first to be documented extensively in written reports and in photographs. The war quickly became a symbol of logistical, medical and tactical failures and of mismanagement.”
“The reaction in Britain led to a demand for professional medicine, most famously achieved by Florence Nightingale, who gained worldwide attention for pioneering modern nursing while she treated the wounded.”
“The Crimean War marked a turning point for the Russian Empire. The war weakened the Imperial Russian Army, drained the treasury and undermined Russia’s influence in Europe. The empire would take decades to recover. Russia’s humiliation forced its educated elites to identify its problems and the need for fundamental reforms. ”
“They saw rapid modern change as the sole way to recover the empire’s status as a European power. The war thus became a catalyst for reforms of Russia’s social institutions, including the abolition of serfdom and overhauls in the justice system, local self-government, education and military service….”
Memory fades and human behavior It’s all just history repeating itself…
But then, a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender…
“Prior to start of Russia’s Special Military Operation in February 2022, there were many in the Russian Government, including Putin, who believed that they could negotiate in good faith with the West.”
I’m not so sure this is true. The US provided many examples prior to the SMO and the 2014 coup, that showed they were not to be trusted. I think it’s more likely that Russia took the approach they did to be in compliance with their obligation as a guarantor of the Minsk accord to intervene under the ‘right to protect’ doctrine.
Bear in mind, while the SMO was a fairly small force, there was nothing small about the destruction of the Ukrainian air force and air defences. That suggests they didn’t expect the SMO to succeed in bringing anyone to the table. The extensive training at scale prior to the SMO would also seem to support that.
I would compare this to an aggressive drunk picking a fight in a bar. First I’ll try to warn him off. If he persists, he’ll get a bloody nose and a moment to reconsider, and if he still comes at me, only then will I pummel him into the ground. This is partly for appearance sake, given everyone in the bar (the Russian public) is watching and will support me as the non-aggressor who tried to avoid a fight. From experience I know aggressive drunks don’t usually back down, but I also know I can beat them, so I don’t think a miscalculation was made. Russia just followed the rules of combat as they apply to people you don’t really want to kill. I don’t think surprise describes their response so much as disappointment followed by resolve.
Well said.
https://www.rt.com/news/571934-biden-newstart-nuclear-mistake/
Biden reacts to Russia suspending nuclear treaty
Moscow’s decision on New START is a “big mistake,” the US leader has said
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday disapproved of Moscow’s decision to suspend the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the two powers. In a speech to lawmakers the day prior, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the move was in response to “unacceptable” and cynical moves by the West.
Biden was wrapping up his visit to Ukraine and Poland with a photo-op in Warsaw when one of the reporters shouted a question about the treaty.
“I don’t have time,” the US president said at first. Pausing, he said, “big mistake.”
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known in the US as ‘New START’ and in Russia as ‘SNV-III’, was originally signed in 2010. Biden had agreed to extend it through 2026 during his first week in office. The US had previously withdrawn from the INF and Open Skies treaties, leaving New START as the last arms control agreement standing.
Addressing the Russian legislature on Tuesday, Putin said Russia would be “suspending its membership” in New START, but not withdrawing from the treaty. He accused the US of trying to “refashion the international order to suit exclusively its own needs and selfish interests,” demanding that Moscow abide by treaties such as New START “while they will do as they please” and Western leaders publicly make statements about “inflicting a strategic defeat” on Russia.
“This is either the height of hypocrisy and cynicism, or the height of stupidity, but they are not idiots. They are not stupid,” the Russian leader said.
Putin pointed out that NATO – which is not even a party to New START – had made “absurd” demands to inspect the Russian nuclear deterrent, even as the US-led bloc was openly aiding Ukraine in carrying out drone attacks against strategic aviation bases that host atomic weapons.
Before Moscow can return to the table, Putin said, it must have “a clear idea” of NATO’s nuclear arsenal – including the UK and France, who are welcome to join the treaty.
“Come onboard, we do not mind. Just try not to lie to everyone this time and present yourselves as champions of peace and detente. We know the truth,” the Russian president said.
In August 2022, Moscow suspended the New Start inspection regime, saying US sanctions had prevented Russian inspectors from doing their job, giving Washington an unfair advantage. Technical talks on resuming the inspections, scheduled for the end of November in Egypt, were postponed indefinitely. Russia said there was no point in talking to the US while Washington was sending billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine.
President of the Russian Federation Mr. V. V. Putin in Luzhniki Stadium (former Lenin Stadium):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhijbJJYn7g
The speech starts after 51:50
P.S. Primary source, uncensored, provided by The Telegraph …
Thanks. +1
Test.
Dear Larry and those at the front of class
Putin’s paternal reminder and Russia’s formal warning was followed closely by China’s top diplomat Wang Yi’s comment “Beijing and Moscow must synchronize our watches”.
And by what Mr. Lira calls “the prosecution’s case for War against the US” by China.
https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjbxw/202302/t20230220_11027664.html
I thought Putin’s speech was dignified, and in tone with other speeches, but nothing new. The question is, what will Russia do if we really physically attack them? Paul Craig Roberts goes over and over how Putin is a pushover, that Russia should have rolled into Ukraine last year.
Also, if it is serious that the US is considering sending ISIS forces, etc., into Russia for sabotage, etc., what will Russia do? That would be as existential as it comes.
Yes, Russia could have made a full invasion in February 2022, but Russia probably wasn’t ready. I wonder if anyone on earth is ready to fight any kind of war. I do think that as long as the war continues, Russia could see all of the west collapse, and they would have a Sun Tzu victory…or the US will just keep spending and spending, just to keep this on ad infinitum.
Britain did that with Napoleon until they found a continental partner. I suppose our partner is Poland. That could be a big disaster, but again, if this war keeps going on and on, the US could build some kind of army and keep it low-key. I suppose the CIA etc., thinks “it worked in Afghanistan.” Maybe it didn’t, but it’s the one trick pony we know how to ride.
I recall Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 book Johnny Got His Gun, where he recalls old men discussing WWI in 1916, and saying as they jawed away that Rooshia was on the verge of some kinda great offensive, and once Rooshia commenced it, the Germans would be whipped, and that would be the end of your war.
Well, like Many people ask, where’s the offensive?
The ‘conservative’ talk shows distance themselves from the war, but all say the same: 1. Putin is a thug,-a thug-a-thug. There is no rational change from this.
2.The war is criticized for the money wasted. No real questioning of America’s worthy intentions. 3. “By God, If Trump were alive, Putin wouldn’t have dared…”
4. As Glenn Beck said, Russia and China are planning to impose a communist dictatorship, using BLM and Wokeism to make Americans ready to offer their freedom to ANYONE who will control them…and this will be the KGB operatives IN OUR GOVERNMENT. It sounds wacky, or just updating the old commie scare tactics.
So much for talk radio. Assuming Beck isn’t just a shill for the CIA.
The “red line.” I’m reminded of Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, how Russia had been rebuffed by Austria when it sought control of the Dardanelle Straits, and had been forced to back down in the Balkans in supporting Serbia. The Austrians felt very proud of forcing their way, but Russian leaders decided that NEXT time, they wouldn’t back down. Ever. And August, 1914, was that time.
Paul’s changed his tune.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/02/21/breaking-news-a-nano-second-to-midnight/
Looks like the Ukrainian spring offensive is about to get underway…
Noticed a report this morning about a large UAF convoy approaching Transnistria. Now SouthFront is reporting:
…Ukrainian troops are amassing on the border between the Odessa region and Transnistria. Mass movements of the Ukrainian military in the immediate vicinity of the border are also confirmed by resources in Tiraspol, capital of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR).
Large forces are accumulated along the Kirovograd highway a few kilometers from the Platonovo checkpoint. The number of military personnel has been increased at all checkpoints in the region. Some special operations forces from the Bakhmut and Donetsk frontlines were reportedly transferred there.
It is expected that Ukrainian forces will strike at the territory of Transnistria in the near future, probably on the anniversary of the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. — SouthFront
https://southfront.org/a-new-front-in-the-smo/
Resisted the urge to speculate earlier today that Russia might be using the Transnistria ammo dump as a shiny object to attract the attention of the US/Ukraine. Earlier reporting indicated that Russian troops in Transnistria have been quietly reinforced since the beginning of the SMO, with a current force estimate of 3500 to 5000 men.
So, will a Ukrainian attack force the Russian-Belorussian concentration into a big arrow rescue?
Putin is saying Russians will Make their own Freedom and democracy , with blackjacks and hookers !
He also draw a bunch of lines in the sand for the US not to cross … knowing the geezers in Washington cannot see a line even when they draw it themself , this is Machiavelism …
“The whole non-western world is starting to shun the West.”
No, not starting to shun, or even starting to show shunning – merely some of the shunned are perceiving the shunning, informed by Mr. Rove’s observation that you can fool/shun some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you should concentrate on shunning to continue fooling yourself.
” Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. “