With Estonia legalizing gay marriage and Poland announcing that it is opening up to mass nonwhite immigration, it is obvious what is in store for Ukraine should they win this war. Doesn’t mean the Ukrainians shouldn’t fight, but we should be honest about the situation

Lets us start the new thread with something Europe has not screwed up.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans

Bad news for the Whelen Cadillac immediately after the start. Sometimes motor racing is simply unfair, but… It’s The Same for Everyone

PEACE 😇

Some of the most shocking first person footage of trench combat from the war:
https://funker530.com/video/nsfw-russian-soldiers-gunned-down-point-blank-in-trench/

The Russians are looking pretty clueless. Attacking Ukrainians have most likely been trained by NATO countries. Note that the Ukrainians clearly have better gear.

Funny how I was called a Jew last year for pointing out that some of the Russians troops didn’t have proper camo or boots. Now there are daily videos of Russian conscripts running out in garage sale looking camo and holding an AK-47 with iron sights.

EVERYTHING IS GOING AS PLANNED COMRADE

OUR LORD DWARF PUTIN KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING

T-55s and classic AK-47s are all part of a 5D chess plan where Putin makes it look like he is running out of modern equipment.

GENIUS MOVE DWARF

Now that Putin has declared that the Russian troops withdrew from Kiev, Sumy and Chernihiv only as part of a failed agreement with the Ukrainian negotiators in Istambul, there are no doubts in my mind that all the regular commenters here who claimed that the pincer attack on Kiev was just a feint will admit their mistake (or call Putin a liar).

I don’t remember all the names and don’t have the time to search past posts now but you know who you are. Not long ago one of them was trying to convince me that there was no way such a small contingent could be anything but a feint. It was you, QCIC, wasn’t it?

Poland announcing that it is opening up to mass nonwhite immigration

Source? I see lots of headlines on “record numbers of non EU migrants”, but its quite obvious that must be due to Ukrainians, and a few Belarusians.

Ironically, most effective method for Poland to simultaneously maintain a Slavic supermajority, fill in labour shortages, harm the Russian state whilst winning over ordinary Russians, would be to allow visa-free emigration of skilled Russians to Poland, on condition they work within Poland for at least 5 years.

But of course PiS Poland is too dimwitted, spiteful and powerless on major policy issues to even think about such a forward thinking move.

The Russians are a mess, the invasion is evil and Russia is not going to conquer Ukraine, but Russia is clearly winning the war at this time.

The Ukrainian offensive has failed. Badly. It should never have been launched in the first place and has maybe 2 weeks left before it is formally canceled. There is simply no way to break through the lines of an entrenched, near peer enemy when that same enemy also has air superiority. This offensive was launched solely because the evil Biden regime demanded it, even Zelensky didn’t seem to want it.

You don’t need to take my word for it, just read the Western press. The Western press is the propaganda arm of the CIA/Pentagon and they are saying that the offensive is failing and that the Russians are fighting well. This is a sign that they are getting ready to wind the war down. Furthermore, Ukraine has just launched a massive mobilization drive, the broadest one yet. This is likely related to the large losses Ukraine has suffered in this offensive.

Right now it appears that Russia is planning another Bakhmut style grind to retake Kharkov. Once Kharkov falls, that will be the end. Both sides will agree to a ceasefire in place in exchange for no Ukrainian entry into NATO and the EU, a portion of Russia’s frozen overseas funds being used for Ukrainian reconstruction, formal recognition of all Russian conquests as part of the Russian Federation, lifting of the sanctions, a formal Ukrainian commitment to protect the rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine and a commitment that Ukraine will not receive long range weapons or an expansion of its air power. Ukraine will receive official commitments from the West for reconstruction funds and unofficial commitments for military protection in the event that Russia resumes hostilities, in addition to massive amounts of military hardware and assistance building up its defense industry.

Technically this will be an American victory but practically it will be an American defeat because ending the war will have required some US concessions to Russia. This will prove that the US no longer has the strength to enforce the liberal international order and will thus mark the official end of US hegemony.

Sir, this might be the first relatively grounded post on foreign affairs I’ve ever seen from you.

Legalizing same-sex marriage is a GOOD thing.

As for Poland’s immigration news, isn’t that just fake news?

BTW, Anatoly Karlin’s official statement on the Ukraine War from the very beginning was just pure cringe:

I mean, think about it: The main thing that the West did was to give Ukrainians the hope that they could be a part of a much larger economy of scale in the form of the EU than they would be if they reunited with Russia. What’s so wrong with that?

Ironically, most effective method for Poland to simultaneously maintain a Slavic supermajority, fill in labour shortages, harm the Russian state whilst winning over ordinary Russians, would be to allow visa-free emigration of skilled Russians to Poland, on condition they work within Poland for at least 5 years.

Ukraine can also have a Law of Return, at least for Russians of at least partial Ukrainian descent, but only if they will actually agree to denounce Russia’s predatory imperialist war against Ukraine and sign a loyalty oath to Ukraine. I mean, this would be the smart move to do on Ukraine’s part. Ukraine is currently pretty poor but won’t be so indefinitely and once Ukraine will become an EU member (probably not before the 2030s, but possibly in the 2040s instead) and become wealthier, it could become much more attractive to Russians due to the potential of getting an EU passport.

Ukraine will never agree to give up its EU aspirations and even its NATO aspirations would need to be replaced with an actual viable alternative if they are to ever be given up.

Ukraine will sign whatever the US tells them to sign. They will be given some sort of unofficial EU partnership but will also have to agree to some degree of economic integration with Russia

Re gay marriage: In and of itself, I don’t care if governments recognize gay marriage or not. But we all know that gay marriage is always and everywhere merely part of a larger globohomo agenda

Ukraine will receive official commitments from the West for reconstruction funds and unofficial commitments for military protection in the event that Russia resumes hostilities

Absolutely ethereal fairy story ending with no connection to the real world . Russia cannot be dissuaded from attacking Ukraine. It could not be in the past and if it does not start attacking Ukraine again in the future that will only be because is never stopped. A hermeneutic narrative is not ‘based’. Ltt us be clear, Russia is not asking for a deal, and no one is going to give Ukraine a security guarantee anyway.

Russia is not asking for a deal. That’s correct. However, eventually the West is going to force Russia to make a choice: allow Ukraine to continue to exist, albeit in substantially shrunken borders… or WWIII. Nothing else is possible. The West will stop at nothing to prevent Russia from dismantling the Ukrainian state.

The approach on Kiev was a feint, that forty mile convoy must rank as one the greatest acts of deception in military history. Clever to portray something you were going to do anyway as an act of magnanimity. Meanwhile the crucial land bridge to Crimea was captured.

Ukraine will never agree to give up its EU aspirations ….

You assume there will still be an EU worth joining, much less anything more than a rump state of 404.

The West and the USA are in no position to force Russia to do anything.

Yet more on why establishment DeNeocon is losing to MAGA Trump: (1)

CTH has said for a year the Achilles heel Ron DeSantis carries, the weak spot that outlines his neocon nature, becomes extremely visible on the subject of Ukraine.

Twice previously, DeSantis has tried to walk the tightrope and navigate his lies surrounding the Ukraine war. Each time he outlines something that leans toward Ukraine needing to concede to Russia and NATO needing to stop meddling on Russia borders, he immediately walks back his comments. DeSantis is stuck on the issue of Ukraine because DeSantis cannot be honest about his position on Ukraine.

Today in South Carolina [Forbes got the state wrong in the title] the issue of Ukraine surfaced in a public Q&A (video below), and both times DeSantis ducked, obfuscated, distracted and refused to answer the question. The second person asked more directly, “What are you going to do about the war in Ukraine?”, because DeSantis never answered the first questioner. WATCH [prompted to 01:08:23]

Only Donald Trump has the solution to the Ukraine war. (1) Stop NATO, namely U.S. created, from provoking nonsense antagonisms on Russia’s border; and (2) Force Zelenskyy to the negotiation table of reality. The Ukraine war stops immediately the day after the 2024 election, if Trump wins.

However, Ron DeSantis cannot take that attitude or foreign policy approach. DeSantis must maintain the approved Republican pro-war narrative as outlined by Democrats, Republicans, UniParty, and the DC political leadership writ large.

Yes… the part “stops immediately the day after the 2024 election” is obvious exaggeration for humor value. One of the key ways to tell Democrats from Republicans is — DNC supporters are incapable of humor and will declare jokes to be “micro aggressions”.

If DeSantis is smart, he will drop out of the GOP primary sooner rather than later. Being the governor of Florida is a full time job. And, he is only hurting himself with this anti-MAGA run that cannot succeed.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/06/22/asked-again-twice-about-ukraine-ron-desantis-ducks-weaves-and-avoids-the-question-at-a-certain-point-the-neocon-cannot-hide/

The West will stop at nothing to prevent Russia from dismantling the Ukrainian state.

The U.S. is headed into an election season, no one really cares about Ukraine, and the 🇺🇦fad🇺🇦 is ending. One hears more about boycotts against Target and Bud Light versus a fight thousands of miles away where America has nothing at stake.

With the U.S. out, what do you mean by “The West”? Parts of Europe? Which parts? The issue of immigration is becoming more tense across the continent. Sending Ukrainians back to Ukraine is thus desirable for a number of European countries.

The two realistic possibilities for Ukraine are:

-1- Capitulating to become a lesser state, military limitations, no NATO, etc.
-2- Total leadership collapse yielding a failed state

The idea that Germany and France will ride to the rescue is tragically misguided. If anything, they are secretly pushing for #2.

PEACE 😇

They are all Caucasians. That’s what matters. No Groids.

Wow, didn’t know you were still around trolling the good guys. Doesn’t matter, Russians are winning, Ukies are losing, and America will fall very soon.

Putin Says Hohols Have Ceased Major “Offensive” Operations, Realize They Are Doomed Pups

The Ukrainian offensive has failed. Badly. It should never have been launched in the first place and has maybe 2 weeks left before it is formally canceled. There is simply no way to break through the lines of an entrenched, near peer enemy when that same enemy also has air superiority.

The two realistic possibilities for Ukraine are:

-1- Capitulating to become a lesser state, military limitations, no NATO, etc.
-2- Total leadership collapse yielding a failed state

All of you sound crazy and even support from our erudite blog cheerleader Yevardian doesn’t seem to help your gloomy and incoherent prognosis. I carefully watch this war, and see Ukraine steadily chipping away at Russian controlled territory. At least 15 small towns have been retaken. Small progress daily, step by step. And you Greasy William, who thinks that you’ve really discovered something new and important:

There is simply no way to break through the lines of an entrenched, near peer enemy when that same enemy also has air superiority.

The Ukrainian military is aware of this profound wisdom, and rarely if ever attacks head on. The modus operandi for the counter attack is going around the entrenched defensive lines and attacking (and winning) from the rear. Here’s the official US Defense Department’s stance on the counter insurgency in Ukraine, something that should b read by everybody who has a serious interest in this war, published less than 24 hours ago:

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3436312/official-says-ukraine-well-prepared-to-liberate-russian-occupied-territory/

If DeSantis is smart, he will drop out of the GOP primary sooner rather than later. Being the governor of Florida is a full time job. And, he is only hurting himself with this anti-MAGA run that cannot succeed.

Perhaps, but only if Trump can find the time to run for the presidency while battling all of his felony charges in court:

The best case for Russia is to keep fighting until Ukraine throws off her Western puppet masters. This may take a long time. Once Ukraine does this Russia will have more respect for Ukraine than the West does.

In the meantime Russia will keep grinding away and gradually laying the groundwork for post-SMO civilization in Ukraine.

At some point either Kharkov or Dnipro will capitulate. Once that happens I think everything East of the river will follow suit. It will be interesting to see if Kiev stays the course or gives in at that point.

Have we reached the point where reasonable Ukrainophile nationalists are fighting against their own puppet government, foreign mercs and NeoNAZIs? I think this must happen before the conflict resolves.

Polish immigration stats in 2022 are surprising. Very brown. How much of this is due to the pressure to conform to the West because of NATO integration?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fy6qGLTWYAIDG-n?format=jpg&name=medium

I don’t think it was me. I had few opinions on tactical actions at that point. More recently I have foolishly made a few tactical comments. I am not a warrior (real or LARP) so my tactical comments are largely based on what I know about military technology. In other cases they are derived from the larger strategic picture or human nature.

I am mostly a single issue commenter: Let’s avoid nuclear WW3.

Independently of that point, I think this whole mess is an aggression by the West against Russia using Ukraine as a pawn. There is a clear and uncontroversial history from the early 1990s to now which thoroughly makes this case.

Since this combat is happening directly on the Western border of Russia I think Ukraine inevitably loses unless the outcome is otherwise pre-ordained. The West believed otherwise, probably because they overestimated the power of the economic warfare and the strength of their fifth column inside Russia.

+++

I agree that the size of the force applied to Kiev was way too small to do the job, so a diversionary attack seems plausible. I did not understand either of these points at the time, but in retrospect they are both obvious. Yet that cannot be the full story.

Part of the early Russian forces were clearly inadequately prepared, so I think Russia was rushed into action before they were ready.

It looks like Putin would have preferred negotiation so the idea that the force was intended as a bluff makes some sense, but not much. I don’t think generals do bluffs very well.

It also looks like there was some faction which foolishly believed attitudes in Kiev were much more favorable toward Russia than they really were. I don’t think anyone in these comments would have been confused about this in 2021, so it seems even less likely those in the Kremlin were confused. I wonder if this suggests a very powerful fifth column inside the Kremlin acting as a Judas goat to drag Russia into Ukraine to get her head chopped off financially and militarily?

Russia doesn’t want America to fall any more than America wants China to fall.

Absent the Biden White House I think a deal would have been struck in Istanbul, it was the ideological nutjobs in the West the Kremlin misjudged. Although this has inadvertently been a stroke of luck, Russia will be far more successful now than if a quick deal would have delivered.

I don’t see any serious military analyst suggest Russia actually intended to capture Kiev with a mere 40k, except the usual suspects engaged in propaganda, and whose record demonstrates that.

The legendary Marine Corps General Paul Van Riper wrote the definitive analysis.

https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/a-former-us-marine-corps-officershtml

Ukraine will never agree to give up its EU aspirations ….

You assume there will still be an EU worth joining, much less anything more than a rump state of 404.
The West and the USA are in no position to force Russia to do anything.

On present trends, Ukraine returns to Russian control. The EU (same as the US) falls apart politically and economically under unpayable debts and unaffordable welfare states.

Both the US and the UK have evolved into a hopeless mess since the 1980’s.

Once Ukraine does this Russia will have more respect for Ukraine than the West does.

Russian respect for Ukraine and its borders is clear for the world to see right now. Apparently, you’ve been looking at the world with closed eyes. “Russian respect” shown for Ukraine and its citizens in Sovierodonetsk, Luhansk:

At some point either Kharkov or Dnipro will capitulate. Once that happens I think everything East of the river will follow suit.

So far the Russian military has failed to to take both cities, and has failed miserably. The Ukrainian military, since then, has been able to solidly reinforce its presence in these cities. New Patriot systems have been set-up, so Russia’s chances at destroying or taking these towns is close to nill.

I think the Russians knew that an imperfect deal was better than losing half a million Slavic young men, but that choice apparently was not up to them. They will try to make lemonade out of their lemons, but who knows how things will go?

I can’t guess which course (SMO or early treaty) would have made WW3 less likely. I don’t see how Ukraine would have behaved after an early negotiated settlement. Maybe Russia didn’t expect that either and simply wanted more time to win the hearts and minds but also continue military and economic preparations. Minsk II was probably similar. Sure it was a deal they accepted and supported, but there was little chance the West or Ukraine would abide by it.

Ukraine is a pawn of the West, but a pawn can still be dangerous and Russia had to deal with it. When this is over Russia will help rebuild parts of Ukraine. Many Russians will eventually understand the bigger Cold War picture and hold the West accountable for this tragedy. The combatants and their survivors will not be so forgiving of Ukrainians. Such is war.

War is hell and best avoided. Ukraine was manipulated by the West, but some Ukrainians made a choice and all are now paying for it.

A typical appeaser line. Better to be a pawn of the West, than one for a loser state like RusFed.

BTW, are you an American?

Quick, QCIC, you need to send Putler a new supply of bleach for washing his hands, he’s running out fast!

The Russians are a mess, the invasion is evil and Russia is not going to conquer Ukraine, but Russia is clearly winning the war at this time.

The Ukrainian offensive has failed. Badly. It should never have been launched in the first place and has maybe 2 weeks left before it is formally canceled.

You can’t judge an offensive this early. We haven’t even seen the full tank force.

The Nazis took Ukraine in a month and to this day is considered an exceptional military achievement due to a strategic envelopment at Kiev. Historically most offensives in modern warfare run months to years.

Prigozhin isn’t convinced that the Russians can hold. So once again the pro-Putin bloggers are in contradiction with the main general on the ground.

There is simply no way to break through the lines of an entrenched, near peer enemy when that same enemy also has air superiority.

There is no air superiority by either side. The Ukrainians have been driving tanks around in broad daylight ever since the war started. The RAF has mostly been a no show. The Ukrainians never had much of an air force but they will be getting over 30 F-16s.

It should never have been launched in the first place and has maybe 2 weeks left before it is formally canceled

I think it was launched too early. They never should have announced anything. All that did was direct Russia to build defensive lines. The Nazis made the same mistake with Kursk. Too much of a warning was given.

But an offensive needed to happen at some point. They can’t just sit in defensive lines with Bradleys and Strikers. It makes sense to launch an offensive even if it comes with above average risk. It’s not as if their net losses are zero in a defensive position.

It’s clear from the captured Russian POWs that they are scraping the barrel for conscripts. Russia is lying about their losses and continues to send 2 week conscripts to the front. A single breakthrough could cause a major headache for the Russians. Note that Stalingrad was lost because the Russians pushed on weaker Romanian and Italian units that were guarding the rear. We could see a similar breakthrough whereby inexperienced and demoralized conscripts simply flee and allow a massive salient.

Technically this will be an American victory but practically it will be an American defeat because ending the war will have required some US concessions to Russia.

Which concessions would those be?

War is hell and best avoided. Ukraine was manipulated by the West, but some Ukrainians made a choice and all are now paying for it.

The Ukrainians elected Zelensky who defeated the pro-Western candidate.

Which choice was wrong exactly? Fighting back?

They don’t want to be under Putin’s boot. Why is that so hard to understand?

Prighozhin recently stated that the invasion was based on lies:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/stunning-rebuke-putin-wagner-chief-russias-invasion-ukraine/story?id=100335756

I guess in this case you guys can at least call him a Jew and be accurate.

Better hope that Putin puts a hit on his Jewish chef. The 5’3 dictator is being humiliated by his Voldemort warlord.

The West set WW3 into motion by dropping out of the ABM Treaty. This Ukraine mess is part of that larger picture. Your poor little pawn of Ukraine got cocky and lost sight of what they were getting involved in.

Yes, I am American. Unlike many, I realize that starting a nuclear WW3 with Russia will be very bad.

The stupid little wars supported by naive cheerleaders lead to loss of freedom for US citizens. If they flare into a nuclear WW3, then our civilization may be lost. Bad plan, grandpa.

The main supply line bridge in Chonhar for Russian troops (70% of supplies) fighting in Kherson and Zaporizhya has been seriously bombed. Where sorely needed supplies needed by the Russian side are far and few between, Ukrainian forces make a big strike. Go home Russian troops!

Ukraine is losing the counteroffensive…right?……

A lot of wheels had been set in motion by then. The best thing the Ukrainians could have done was let the South Eastern regions and Crimea return to Russia without controversy. Too bad the people in Kiev are not that sensible.

I wonder if your boy Prigozin is trying to force Russia to publicly acknowledge the big picture? Maybe he thinks Putin should explain that the West has been trying to destroy Russia for a long time and Ukraine is only a small part of that scenario in its role as lead pawn.

Do you really believe Zelensky is a functioning President? C’mon, you can spell your own name so I think you are sharp enough to understand he is a puppet. It’s OK, we have one, too.

America calls the shots in the West; I think it is now becoming clear that while the low cost Superpower-American security guarantee called Nato may oblige London (forever raiding the defence budget for social spending without raising taxes), to act like a US sockpuppet, and even Berlin and Paris have to shut up and go along with America, which has not won or even fought an non asymmetrical war for several decades. Ukraine is the sockpuppet boxing glove of the Pentagon so this is an indirect war with Russian dying in droves by the US military not getting a scratch, Nevertheless the opponent is a near peer in its own near abroad that went into the Special Military Operation with the intention of excluding the most powerful country on Earth from influence in a vast East of the Dnieper borderland region at least.

The inviolableness of the resources the Kremlin can draw on has become clear; in other words their limit is not discernable, and the ‘frog boiling’ method may not work at any intensity. Russia is a country that at the very least the West will have to industrially and economically ‘bring its lunch’ in order to have a chance of dissuading the Kremlin from continuing the Special Military Operation. America has the industrial and economic power to make a good attempt at doing this, because it is has a very advanced society, whereby with all sorts of augmenting up of existing arms producing capacity or repurposing of other productive capacity would be merely a matter of will, and even technical innovations are within reach to create entirely new production facilities and new weapons.

Britain France and even Germany are in a very different situation their economies would not be able to bear the strain of such a total indirect war strategy without cracking. For example the interest rate rises are already led to a steep climb in the cost of mortgages in Britain. Nevertheless. it is Britain and France supplying the Storm Shadow missiles the lighter payload French one (maybe more difficult to shoot down) being used the otehr day to strike a key Crimean road link bridge by the Ukrainian. From this we can see that 1 America wants to hold back ATACMs (heavy warhead much longer range and capable of destroying hardened bunkers), to answer any further Russian surge so as to convey that Russia cannot win and America will always up the ante. 2 Not merely the common Ukraine population are cannon fodder for Washington’s try at foiling Russia’s SMO , because Russia has threatened that the leadership in Kiev (“decision making centres) would be targeted if the Western long range missiles were used for strikes on the lines of communication to Crimea. I think Ukraine leadership, military equipment and army will be slowly but surely written down. And America will likely say it ‘did its best’ and to do more would mean WW3. I suppose it is possible that Washington will prefer to intervene more directly and present Russia with a hard either/ or: either continue conventionally to certain defeat and elimination of RusFed as a force to be reckoned with in the world or step on to the thermonuclear ladder of escalation, if they chose to maintain their current status, by showing they will go all the way to the top one tit for tat pus ante thermonuclear detonation at a time.

“The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path,” Mearsheimer averred in 2015, “and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.”

Kiev aggression is going poorly. Let Loose the Lies of Desperation (1)

Zelensky Issues Nuclear Plant False Flag Warning As Counteroffensive Fails

Zelensky is in essence alleging Moscow is plotting a false flag attack on the very facility its own forces have long been occupying and controlling. Russian forces have overseen the local staff which keeps the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, in operation.
…
While Zelensky offered no evidence or any concrete details to back his new and alarming warnings surrounding the Zaporizhzhia power plant, he concluded his video message by saying, “the world has been warned, so the world can and must act.”

The idea of Russia intentionally creating a nuclear event when fallout travels East is inconceivable and absurd. Just how fearful is Zelensky? Is this crazy performance his the last act before fleeing to safety in the European Empire?

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dangerous-moment-zelensky-issues-nuclear-plant-false-flag-warning-counteroffensive

The US finally backs the right horse in the world today. Once it helps Ukraine to completely maintain its autonomy it will regain its former moral superiority. Ukraine hasn’t even received the F-16’s promised, so we’re far, far away from US involvement with boots on the ground. So, you may go back to your bong and resume playing “Senryaku VII” (US vs Russia fighting it out in Eurasia) on your living room couch on PS2, Lad. 🙂

I don’t think it was me.

Yes, sorry. That was AnonfromTN. I remember now.

As for the Russian contingent in Belarus and Southern Russia being too small to take Kiev, that is easy to say after the fact but the Pentagon had perfect information of what forces were ready for the invasion and their assessment was that it would take them a matter of days to take Kiev (96 hours iirc). With competent planning and logistics, superior technology, suppression of air defenses and C+C centers in the first hours of the offensive, it was a realistic assessment. That’s how the Pentagon itself had successfully carried out similar operations in recent years, much further away from its frontiers. The Russians failed at every single one of those objectives though. Kabul didn’t fall because of the large amount of US troops sent there at all.

kremlinstoogeA123 is spreading his lies again. Russia is wrong in invading Ukraine, and he’s just full of it supporting Putler and this stupid war.

I think you have me confused with someone else. Don’t be so touchy, the “grandpa” line was supposed to be a twisted homage to a stupid movie called Red, except that I got it wrong: “Bad move, Grandpa!”

No, you’re not a Jew… but, you sure are an uninformed troll.

Have a 🙂 day

Did you read the piece in the link in comment #26 by LondonBob above?

Have you watched the Ukraine videos by Carlton Meyer? These may not change your opinion but will give you crucial background on this mess.

I don’t see any serious military analyst suggest Russia actually intended to capture Kiev with a mere 40k, except the usual suspects engaged in propaganda

You have that exactly backwards. Everybody knew in almost minute detail what forces were amassed north of Ukraine, which is why there were several months of negotiations to prevent the attack, and everybody (Western, Russian and pro-Russian analysts) was convinced that Kiev would fall within days of the invasion. We were all discussing that here a year and a half ago. How can you expect people to forget such recent events?

The Russians actually managed to get to the outskirts of Kiev from 2-3 different directions. They got to about 20-30 km from the city center. But their armored columns proved to be easy prey for the Ukrainian defenders and they failed to establish air supremacy or decapitate the state and military structures of the enemy so they were losing their best soldiers in the Kiev attack. The idea that the Russians got so close to Kiev at so much risk and loss to themselves but never intended to take it is clownish.

Kiev was an attempted ‘coup de main’. Edward Luttwak explains it part way through this interview

I suppose from Putin’s perspective it was worth a try even if the odds were against it.

Poles say the chart is fake and the numbers don’t match the actual government stats.

Furthermore, the chart (which may be fake) is about work permits, not immigration. I suspect people overstaying their visas would be more likely to move west to Germany then to stay illegally in Poland.

The West set WW3 into motion by dropping out of the ABM Treaty.

That was a mistake. Why didn’t Obama return to this treaty?

I suspect people overstaying their visas would be more likely to move west to Germany then to stay illegally in Poland.

Due to Germany being more lax in immigration enforcement relative to Poland? Very possibly. But what happens once Germany becomes oversaturated with migrants and its quality of life begins to significantly suffer? Then Poland will look more attractive, no?

Germany and Poland already have roughly similar average IQs according to PISA, which likely means that Poland will eventually become as wealthy as Germany currently is.

BTW, this is *very* off-topic, but I might as well ask:

What was the position of the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries (the party that most Ukrainians voted for in 1917) on the question of Intermarium?

Dropping out of the ABM Treaty was a mistake but was not accidental. This was a major early step in the long-term policy to pressure Russia militarily which continued with subsequent administrations. They are all more or less captured by the Neocons so the consistently hostile policy toward Russia is no surprise.

Now that the USA and NATO counties are publicly involved in Ukraine, Russia has suspended the New START process (though not cancelled IIRC). So in the next round of BS the Neocons will paint Russia as the bad guy and pretend all the prior Western extremely aggressive moves didn’t happen.

Our ‘leaders’ do kindergarten-level shit like this all the time.

The future challenge will be that the West needs to make serious one-sided concessions to revive the arms control negotiation process. That will be politically challenging. A multiparty negotiation might take some of the sting out of that but also leads us straight down the drain to globalism.

The West set WW3 into motion by dropping out of the ABM Treaty.

That was in 2002 which was actually during the time when Putin recognized the autonomy of Ukraine. He is on video in 2008 stating that they have no border contentions and that included Crimea. I have posted that video before but can provide it again if you would like. It was only in his later years that he reversed his own position and decided that Ukraine doesn’t exist.

But you are saying that a treaty related to nuclear arms is the cause of the war even though it wasn’t mentioned by Putin in his original invasion speech?

Since he didn’t mention the ABM that means he launched the war over false pretenses.

Do explain using logic and reason as to how Putin had no choice but to launch a military invasion of Ukraine with false pretenses over a treaty that GWB left 20 years earlier.

I realize that starting a nuclear WW3 with Russia will be very bad.

A patriotic, real American would think that Russia starting a nuclear with the West and with America will be a very bad thing. You’ve got your focus all mixed-up. Appeasers usually do. 🙁
The old Hitler was wrong then, as the new Putler is wrong today. History has taught us that appeasing any Hitler is the wrong thing to do, whenever he appears of the world stage.

Luttwak sounds like a con-man. His face even reminds me of Progozin.

I like his point about the Kremlins confusing the roles of the FSB and SVR. That has a tiny hint of plausibility.

The coup de main could never have worked without a very extensive fifth column inside the Ukrainian government and military. I don’t think there has been much evidence for that, at least not in the past 5 years. After all, the SBU and NeoNAZIs are there to weed out just that sort of thing.

I still wonder if some of the early Russian moves were made for posterity based on this train of thought: “We are giving you a chance, we know you have been misled and we don’t hate you. Ok, so you want to kill us and drive us out? Well, we tried.”

Prighozin (allegedly) is now claiming the Russian armed forces have obliterated a ‘huge number’ of Wagner troops in surprise missile strikes upon their rear encampments, that the Russian military leadership ‘must be stopped’, and is calling upon Russian volunteers to join his forces. [We’ll see how real this claim is, if at all, in the next few hours and day(s).]

https://news.yahoo.com/wagner-chief-vows-stop-russia-195459412.html

“A huge number of our fighters, our comrades died.”

Wagner chief vows to ‘stop’ Russia after alleged attack on forces

The council of commanders of PMC Wagner has made a decision — the evil that the military leadership of the country brings must be stopped,” Prigozhin said in a series of furious audio messages released by his spokespeople.

“We were ready to make concessions to the defence ministry, surrender our weapons.

“Today, seeing that we have not been broken, they conducted missile strikes at our rear camps. A huge number of our fighters, our comrades died.”

He warned Russians against resisting his forces and called on them to join him, adding “there are 25,000 of us”.

The Russian defence ministry denied the claims about the strikes, saying the statements “do not correspond to reality”, and calling them a “provocation.”

Just because you were dumb enough to fall for the deception…

Anyway it is acknowledged they didn’t think Russia would move as there were very few troops on the border, indeed Russia, until partial mobilisation, had used very few troops in the Ukraine, very much outnumbered by the Ukrainians until recently. That was why I didn’t think they would invade, too few to do so, I was wrong. Still it remains, no one in their right mind thinks you could take a city of three million with forty thousand soldiers, but it turns out it was sufficient to invade, disrupt supply lines and create confusion.

Luttwack is a neo-conman.

Odd how the West continues to obsess about the FSB whilst almost being ignorant of the SVR.

No doubt the Russians are concerned about perceptions in the world as well as amongst the general Ukrainian and Russian populace. The Kremlin would have happily taken the Donbass and Crimea, with Ukrainian neutrality, but then they also didn’t know how well the Russian economy would stand up to the sanctions, they had a stronger hand than they realised.

The coup de main could never have worked without a very extensive fifth column inside the Ukrainian government and military

Not necessarily. If you take over key government ministries and the leadership panics and flees, there is a possibility the people won’t fight, as they feel abandoned and demoralised by their own leaders. Remember there were intelligent Russians, including our former host, who believed that the Ukrainians wouldn’t fight due to their low birthrates and others who seemed (though maybe they were lying) to genuinely believe that many Ukrainians would even welcome them.

The old Hitler was wrong then, as the new Putler is wrong today. History has taught us that appeasing any Hitler is the wrong thing to do, whenever he appears of the world stage.

Both had completely bullshit reasons for war from the onset.

Hitler was trying to protect ethnic Germans by carpet bombing Warsaw? Are we to believe that it had nothing to do with it being heavily populated by Jews?

Of course there were no plans for even a reduced Polish state next to Germany. Everyone knew he was completely full of shit when it turned out that he had secretly made a deal with the worst Communist of all time. Not only did Hitler plan on eliminating Poland but he also knew that anti-Communist Poles would be marched off to Gulags. Poles that were in fact veterans of the Soviet-Polish war. Hitler was a total bastard and only decided to fight the Communists after filling Western Europe with the graves of anti-leftists. What a guy.

Putin was also completely full of shit from day one. He made no demands and ended diplomatic ties with Ukraine. After being pushed out of Kiev he claimed the war was about Donbas. Oh ok dwarf, do we just pretend that we didn’t watch tank battles in the suburbs of Kiev? Why didn’t you roll into Donbas and then set defensive lines?

Hitler was at least a competent liar. Putin contradicts himself and can’t remember his own lies. He first claimed the war was about stopping the expansion of NATO and then after Finland joined he responded that it doesn’t matter. Ok dwarf, makes a lot sense. Might want to look at how much NATO border was added next to Russia.

Luttwack is a neo-conman

He’s a Zionist, and, yes, he can be shifty, but he’s not a neocon, or any other kind of Trotskyite. I remember him opposing the first Iraq war back in 1990.

Trump could probably win the republican nomination without campaigning at all.

Doesn’t matter too much because he’ll either be defrauded out of a general-election win again, or squeak back into office and make no drastic changes to our path towards financial insolvency, a surveillance/police state, and mass disorder and poverty.

Anyway it is acknowledged they didn’t think Russia would move as there were very few troops on the border, indeed Russia, until partial mobilisation, had used very few troops in the Ukraine, very much outnumbered by the Ukrainians until recently.

The US and Britain told him an invasion was absolutely coming and to get ready. It was Zelensky that thought Putin would make demands first. I can go back and dig up public warnings from the CIA and MI6. They knew about the invasion months before it happened. It was leaked to them by someone in the Kremlin.

Still it remains, no one in their right mind thinks you could take a city of three million with forty thousand soldiers, but it turns out it was sufficient to invade, disrupt supply lines and create confusion.

40k is enough to take a city of three million citizens. That 3 million includes women, children, infants, elderly, etc. Of course it was all the more difficult given that the government handed out AK-47s to anyone that wanted one. If they had a 2A culture it would have been even harder for the Russians but Ukraine has somewhat bought into Western anti-gun bullshit.

Russian failed to take Ukraine because of their own mistakes.

The mistakes the Russians made are well documented. A key mistake was trying to take a major airport. Ukraine correctly guessed which airport and had artillery in preparation. Once the airfield was filled with men and vehicles the Ukrainians let the big guns rip. TIME TO DIE FOR DICTATOR

Another major mistake was sending a 40 mile column of armor and supply trucks through a slow moving road surrounded by trees. Completely stupid given that the Ukrainians had over 20k anti-armor missiles. We still don’t know how many Javalins and NLAWs they purchased. At leastk 20k and an endless supply of RPGs from the Soviet days. They’d take out a vehicle and the whole line would stop. Then Ukrainians would raid them at night. The dwarf really bungled it on that plan.

I think your points might apply if the Russians moved in 2014. By 2022 a significant percentage of Ukrainians seemed to be polarized against Russia and would likely fight a modest invasion force. The central government had been supporting genocidal bombing of Russian speakers for eight years, which may imply this was a socially acceptable policy in Ukraine.

Wonderful. Ukrainians accept all the help that they can get. Russian internecine warfare can only help stop the madness.

Putler opens up a jar of scorpions. No two scorpions can live in harmony; they always hunt each others down and only one remains alive.

This is about the West pressuring Russia in a way that can easily lead to nuclear war. The leaders in the West are willing to risk it because they think they are wise or immortal or some other stupid reason. Why do you support this insanity?

The West completed many provocations against Russia before Maidan, so the bigger picture has little to do with Ukraine.

You should ask yourself: “What is the next Russian trap the Ukrainians can blunder into?”

Prigozhin is now claiming two thousand of his men were killed in the surprise attack. And (allegedly) is to lead his 25,000 man Wagnerite army on a ‘March of Justice’ on Moscow. Says it’s ‘not a military coup’.

I’ll put this (tentatively) in the ‘New Beer Hall Putsch’ category.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/russian-paramilitary-leader-vows-25000-troop-march-of-justice-on-moscow-to-confront-evil-behind-ukraine-war/

Russian Paramilitary Leader Vows 25,000 Troop ‘March of Justice’ On Moscow To Confront ‘Evil’ Behind Ukraine War

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the infamous Wagner paramilitary group, vowed a “march of justice” to root out the “evil” behind what he claimed was a Russian missile strike on his troops, sparking talk of civil conflict within Russia.

“This is not a military coup, this is a march of justice,” Prigozhin said in videos released on Friday. “Our actions do not impede the troops.”

“The evil that the military leadership of the country brings forward must be stopped. They have forgotten the word ‘justice,’ and we will return it,” he raged, but never directly mentioned Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Anyone attempting resistance will be considered a threat and immediately destroyed. This includes all the checkpoints on our path and any aircraft above our heads,” he added, noting that his battle-hardened troops possess anti-aircraft missiles along with tanks and other heavy equipment.

Prigozhin, whose mercenary troops have secured key victories for Russia in Ukraine and other battlefields across the globe like Syria, accused the Russian Ministry of Defense of murdering some 2,000 of his troops. The Wagner Group has made headlines throughout the war for its brutal tactics and targeting of civilians, as well as horrendous battlefield executions of its own members accused of desertion or defecting.

Reuters reported that Prigozhin’s rant was accompanied by a separate “unverified video posted on a Telegram channel close to Wagner [which] showed a scene in a forest where small fires were burning and trees appeared to have been broken by force. There appeared to be one body, but no more direct evidence of any attack.”

“The minister of defense has ordered 2,000 bodies that are being stored to be hidden so as not to show the losses,” Prigozhin said, adding:

Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance…

There are 25,000 of us and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country.

Prigozhin also rebutted some of the often repeated justifications for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, noting that neither NATO nor Ukraine posed a military threat to Russia. In a video earlier in the day, he accused the Russian Ministry of Defense of lying to the Russian people with a “story about the crazy aggression from the Ukrainian side and the plans to attack us with the entire NATO bloc.”

Coup attempt in progress?

For anyone who has ever babbled about the “Nuland coup” — congratulations, now you may get to see what a real coup looks like!

Can’t believe this could possibly succeed, though.

You should realize that what you wrote is an embarrassing and incoherent rant – you are defending the indefensible by claiming that either nobody noticed US leaving the ABM Treaty or that the criticism wasn’t timed and stated exactly as you would like it.

That is nonsense: US dropped out of ABM and that started – or accelerated – the process towards the war where we ended up in 2022: by then the war became almost inevitable – the obvious candidate was Ukraine.

You pretend not to understand that things change, that people can’t predict the future, that there is an obvious dynamic of give-and-take. You are an ideological hack who cheerleads the war. Still, it is quite a hole to fall into – you really don’t think that unilaterally dropping out of ABM had a drastic impact on Russia’s strategy? Why would you say something so stupid? It looks like you are being told what to write.

I think your points might apply if the Russians moved in 2014. By 2022 a significant percentage of Ukrainians seemed to be polarized against Russia and would likely fight a modest invasion force.

At best it would have gone to urban partisan warfare. Even without NATO involvement there would have been AK-47s and NLAWs from windows. So some Russian family has to learn that their son was barbecued in a tank because….. ???? Even Russians can’t explain this war as seen by the 1420 videos on youtube. Partisans in Kiev would draw it out and Russia would use Gestapo style tactics which would lead to even more sanctions. This was all a stupid plan in any scenario. As I have said many times it would have been cheaper to carve out an area of Russia for Russian Ukrainians and give them 50 acres and 500k Rubles.

The Ukrainians don’t want to be under the boot of Putin. They never wanted to be part of Imperial Russia nor the USSR. This is an inescapable reality that was not going away. Ukrainians are not Russians and understandably do not trust them.

Even 50k well armed and motivated militia men would be a huge headache for Russia.

Let not forget that the Russians were defeated by Afghan militias. It’s hard to sustain an invasion when even 1% of the opposing population is willing to die trying to take out as many of your soldiers as possible. Invasions work best when the public is neutral to your rule or better yet has a minority that will collude against any resistors. That is how the Mongols were able to suppress Russia for so long. They created a wealthy monarchy that was subservient to their rule. No such alliance exists in Ukraine. The Russians in fact used the separatist militias as cannon fodder. Putin lied about creating LPR/DPR states and took them as Russian territory. The remaining wives of the separatists would likely vote for Russia to return to its borders. Former separatist leader Igor Girkin has completely turned on Putin and thinks he is a dunce when it comes to war. Girkin initially cheered the invasion but now thinks Putin has blown it.

The alleged strike on Prigozhin was the number two story just now on US NBC nightly news. It’s being reported that riot police are being placed around key installations in the city of Moscow.

Below is video of what is supposed to be the Wagner encampment after the alleged surprise missile strike upon it.

Dana White is serious about putting on a Zuckerberg Musk fight. Zuckerberg is in shape. Musk is 6″ taller. White says the revenues (for charity) are going to be in the 100s millions.

You should realize that what you wrote is an embarrassing and incoherent rant – you are defending the indefensible by claiming that either nobody noticed US leaving the ABM Treaty or that the criticism wasn’t timed and stated exactly as you would like it.

I never went on a rant about the ABM. Go ahead and quote me.

I asked for an explanation as to why the ABM is the cause of the war.

It was QCIC’s theory and not mine. It was also not given as a reason by Putin.

So he has to explain this theory and why Putin decided to provide false pretenses in his invasion speech.

I haven’t given my opinion on the ABM. In any case I think it is irrelevant to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

Still, it is quite a hole to fall into – you really don’t think that unilaterally dropping out of ABM had a drastic impact on Russia’s strategy?

Well go ahead and explain why the ABM would cause Russia to invade Ukraine and with leaked plans to invade Moldova.

Explain why launching cruise missiles at apartment buildings in Kiev was a required response to GWB dropping out of the ABM in 2002. Explain how this 20 year response was needed to mitigate a treaty with the United States.

Also explain how an invasion of Moldova was also required. Note that they have Swiss style neutrality in their constitution.

Go ahead and explain all of this if you think it is stupid to be skeptical of an explanation that Putin himself hasn’t stated. Do explain using logic and reason and be sure to explain the leaked plans of invading Moldova.

The best explanation for the war is that Putin is playing conqueror just like Tsars and Communist dictators before him. That is the better explanation that covers all points like why Putin completely contradicted himself by stating that Finland joining NATO doesn’t matter. Putin is getting old and wanted to add Ukraine to the empire. That is all there is to this bloody invasion. By adding Ukraine he would massively boost their GDP and population. Ukraine has always been more technologically advanced than Russia and contains massive mineral and agricultural reserves. By absorbing Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova he planned on recreating Imperial Russia to compete against the US and Britain. Well that plan failed.

Putin openly admires Peter the Great and is on record stating that the great Tsars all expanded Russia. He wanted his picture up on the wall with Peter the Great at the Kremlin. Well that ain’t happening as he will be viewed as a loser Tsar like Nick II.

Prighozhin now maintains that Putin lied about the cause of the war and also believes it is about egos. I guess he is also stupid for not believing this ABM theory that Putin never stated? Hint: It’s not a good sign if your best general is openly talking shit about you.

Putin is not a man of principle and it would be wise at this point to stop bootlicking for him. Even before the war it was well known that he would poison the opposition and have his own friends pushed out of windows over a minor sleight. He is a bitter 5’3 mobster and to ascribe any type of rational explanation based on a 20 year old treaty is absurd. But by all means go ahead explain if you can.

Wall Street Journal reporting that “Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for Wagner Chief on Charges of Mutiny”.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-cruise-missile-barrage-9d9da03a?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Well, as I said above, 2 days ago Putin left his most servile supporters in the West with egg on their faces (once again) by declaring that he stopped the assault on Kiev as a gesture of good will amid the Istanbul negotiations and actually showed some papers to the press purportedly proving this.

Of course, those of you defending his 3D chess skills with the Kiev feint will not hesitate to double down and proclaim his 4D skills claiming now that it was a feint to carry out a subsequent feint of a good will gesture but don’t you realize how ridiculous you look?

In any case, Putin has better things to worry about than his hapless Western supporters. According to the latest news, Prigozhin seems to be already on the move.

White says the revenues (for charity) are going to be in the 100s millions.

I’m definitely willing to pay to see that fight if it happens. Last night I was even discussing with my wife driving to Vegas to watch it but she’s probably right that it would be too expensive.

In any case, Putin has better things to worry about than his hapless Western supporters. According to the latest news, Prigozhin seems to be already on the move.

Prigozhin’s only real ally in the MoD Surovikin has already denounced him in a (forced?) video. Prigozhin will likely be dead or on trial in a few hours, although I don’t like to think what sort of effect this very public mess is going to have on the Russian army’s morale.
It also speaks quite poorly of Putin’s current ability to manage the previously controlled factional infighting both within his government and the military.

Also, worth remembering that although the August Coup went nowhere either, the indirect effects after its failure were enormous.

Wall Street Journal reporting that “Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for Wagner Chief on Charges of Mutiny”.

Well there goes the basement bootlicker theory that Prigozhin’s public insolence was all grand ruse dreamt up by Putin to lull the Ukrainians into a trap. That also gives further credence to the most likely scenario which is that Bakhmut was never a trap and there really is no plan.

I’m guessing that certain pro-Putin blog posts will conveniently disappear.

Moscow is currently being locked down with armored vehicles. They are actually afraid of Prigozhin storming the capital.

I gave a list of a few important Western aggressive moves against Russia since the fall of the USSR and now. I know you read it, stop lying about all this. No one here has listed comparable Russian moves which precipitated these actions. The West had it in for Russia and many western leaders have said this in one way or another.

You know full well this Ukraine mess is part of a larger picture.

Russia would have no issue with Ukraine except for a bunch of these insane Western moves including Kiev killing Russian speakers in Ukraine very close to the Russian border. Of course they intervened, who wouldn’t? Russia gave them chances to change course and make nice, but the West wouldn’t have it. Ukrainians thought they were invulnerable.

I wonder if the Russians simply do not want to mention this is really a nuclear war happening in slow motion, so the facts they emphasize in the story can change as needed to meet that constraint? Spilling the beans on the nuclear aspect may be some sort of formal escalation for them which they do not want to invoke.

I wonder if they are at DEFCON 2? Don’t forget the Belgorod submarine is operational. Great job morons.

The war is about Western aggressive moves to corner Russia and make it a vassal of the West or a failed state.

This is what the Russians are fighting in Ukraine. This is why Ukraine is a pawn in a proxy war.

The Western approach is true hybrid warfare on all fronts. It is the most dangerous game in history.

Fifth columns and NGOs in Russia–check.

Unprecedented wide and deep economic warfare against Russia–check.

Warm-up coups near Russia (Georgia, Kazakhstan attempt, Belarus attempt)–check.

Coup in Ukraine

NATO weapons in Ukraine–check.

World-wide information war against Russia–check.

Miscellaneous direct nuclear threats against Russia–check.

Anti-Russian civil war in Ukraine–check.

At some point Russia may get tired of this nonsense. I doubt their response will be what the Neocons hope for. Do you really trust Blinken, Austin, Sullivan and Milley to get ANYTHING right?

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any sign that the Wagner columns exist anywhere other than in Prighozin’s imagination.

I’m quite content with the US returning to the ABM Treaty as a way of reducing tensions with Russia. This treaty won’t hurt our ability to effectively respond to China, will it?

Bringing Russia in
Prospect Article 1997
The expansion of Nato will serve no clear defensive purpose and is likely to strengthen reactionary forces in Russia. Rodric Braithwaite, former British ambassador in Moscow, argues that acknowledging Russia’s desire to be part of a European settlement is not appeasement but good sense

Excerpt from George F. Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” New York Times, 05 Feb 1997

“Why, with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the Cold War, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict?”

“[B]luntly stated…expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking …

“Impel”, but it was still their decision. Yet by the same token they could not be impelled by the US to do nothing so why twist their tail? That is a very good question , however in Zbigniew Brzezinski published a suggested timetable for the Nato expasion with Ukraine penciled in for membership around 2006, so people like him thought Russia would be intimidated. Starting in 2007 with an impromptu speech at the Munich Security conference, which watching Americans like McCain snickered at.

Although NATO was still a year away from inviting Ukraine and Georgia to become NATO member-states in 2008, Putin emphasized how Russia perceived eastward expansion as a threat:

“I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?”

Earthling: The man who foresaw the Ukraine crisis

Substack
https://nonzero.substack.com › earthling-the-man-who-f…
11 Feb 2022 — In a memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Burns wrote, “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian

Rice and Gates are still around and urging Russia be stood up to.

Nato said its enlargement (towards Russia) was not up for discussion, because what those free and equal post Soviet countries such as Ukraine did was none of Russia’s business. The eventual response of Putin was “We are fucking making it our business!”, and so in 2014 he got kinetic for emphasis. By 2022 it was apparent the US and Ukraine thought Putin was scared to go further and could now be ignored. Kiev goose is cooked; does Washington finally understand the Kremlin cannot be intimidated or again deflected from their objectives a la Minsk2 in this matter which they consider vital to their national security, or will things have to get more serious yet?

Let not forget that the Russians were defeated by Afghan militias.

Actually, Najibullah was able to hold his own ground just so long as he was still getting Russian/Soviet financial support:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jalalabad_(1989)#:~:text=The%20Battle%20of%20Jalalabad%20is,were%20running%20low%20on%20ammunition.

It’s when the Soviet/Russian support dried up in 1992 that Najibullah finally fell. Arguably, the US would have been smarter in stepping in and beginning to directly provide support for him itself as opposed to allowing the incompetent and quarreling Mujahideen to take over Afghanistan, run it to the ground, and pave the way for the Taliban’s first emergence later on in the 1990s.

Putin openly admires Peter the Great and is on record stating that the great Tsars all expanded Russia. He wanted his picture up on the wall with Peter the Great at the Kremlin. Well that ain’t happening as he will be viewed as a loser Tsar like Nick II.

The great irony, of course, is that Putin could have quickly annexed both Crimea and Donbass back in 2014 and created a fait accompli and likely gotten only minor Western sanctions placed on him and Russia in response to this. (Not invading at all would have been better, but then Putin would not have gotten a huge popularity boost back home in Russia.) Another option, of course, would have been to annex Crimea and conquer all of Novorossiya but trade back all of Novorossiya, minus Crimea, in exchange for a Ukrainian neutrality treaty, similar to what the Soviet Union did in 1955 in exchange for withdrawing from eastern Austria. I don’t view Ukrainian NATO membership as existential but if Putin actually did, then the move above would have been better than what Putin actually chose to do. Ukraine was not going to trade only the Donbass in exchange for no NATO membership, especially if this also carries a risk of no EU membership as well and if the Donbass gets veto power on Ukrainian national policies in general.

I feel bad for Prigozhin and his brave men. They deserve better. Remember Trump slaughtering hundreds of them in Syria, right after they saved Christians from being murdered by US/Israel backed Islamists. Mercenaries are so much more admirable than the glorified civil servants who make up the militaries of states.

Great psychological warfare to distract from the fact that Ukraine has not had a victory since November and with a fresh force of superbly equipped and trained ten brigades to play with has nowhere got through or even to the first line of Russian defences on the ground north of Crimea that has been the major Russian gain of the SMO still held to date. Apart from making things up to distract from the PR disaster of the counter offensive fiasco, Kiev decided to launch on of their Storm Shadow missiles, actually the lighter payload French one (maybe more difficult to shoot down) on a key Crimean road link bridge.

Great thinking if they are goal is to be in their graves, because Russia has threatened that the leadership in Kiev (“decision making centres) would be targeted if the Western long range missiles were used for strikes on those lines of communication to Crimea. I think Ukraine leadership, military equipment and army will be slowly but surely written down that order. Rely on it, a precision assassination of someone in Zelensky’s circle is coming in retaliation.

This JJ guy is not capable of responding to factual points. Look how he runs away every time we ask him a specific question. “Moldova” for god’s sake? Even better, “a leaked plan to invade Moldova” means to JJ that Putin is Peter The Great, or something stupid like that. He has no answers, so he escapes into absurdity – it is something Anglos do a lot and think that nobody sees through it. But it is very transparent – they run away from a normal discussion when someone asks about ABM, Kosovo, Iraq, Nato in Ukraine, Kiev’s bombing of Donbas, banning Russian after Maidan, etc…it is infantile.

JJ will not address how extremely destabilizing was US decision to drop out of the ABM Treaty. Until he does, it is best to just ignore him. He has told us about this incredible “winning” offensive by Kiev that looks like a dud. Now he tells us about Prigozhin or whomever changing topics to run away. Tomorrow he will drop Prigozhin and tell us about other cacamonie ‘news’, or ‘predictions’. It is a technique – scream and shout to hide one’s intentions and what is going on……like good British clowns they are…:)

Probably not, but it has been late at night out there so one would not expect sightings and filmings yet. There are videos of supposes shooting in Rostov.

This may be a column:

Mercenaries are so much more admirable than the glorified civil servants who make up the militaries of states.

These, in the days when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and the earth’s foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57275/epitaph-on-an-army-of-mercenaries

The fact that these hijinks are even happening further shows that the war is not going well for Russia, contrary to wishful thinking.

Prigozhin always glowed

Johnson was probably a resident in the Caucasus. Form what I can tell Baku or Tbilisi. Probably involved in the Chechen wars.

Probably knows the family that did the Boston Bombing. That last one was speculation.

Maybe.

My guess is US Army or Hasbara troll. Smart enough to know better, barely. Probably on the fence with these things, just doing his job like a good little troll.

Is a tough job if one has a conscience. Now he can never be trusted on anything, ever.

By resident I mean an embassy guy or a CIA geezer.

Prigozhin is no geopolitical strategist, so his ideas about what impelled Russia to take on the West’s Ukrainian sockpuppet are unlikely to be of much value. Psychological warfare only achieves concrete results in conjunction with battlefield advances. A coruscating use of both together was in the Kharkov offensive. Ukraine is good and getting better at starting destabilising rumors. Both Putin and Zelensky are going to lose people from their inner circle before long. The Russians have as good as said they would kill someone like Oleksandr Syrsky if the lines of communication to Crimea are attacked with Storm Shadow with has now happened.

But unfortunately making a dent in the rested and refitted dug in Russian army behemoth on the battlefield is now beyond Ukraine. The relative gain in fighting power in the field has been all Russia’s. Ukraine ought to have taken advice from the West and struck when the iron was hot back in December when while they lacked equipment there were no Russian fortifications to overcome, and Bakhnut had not restored Russian faith in their arms. Back then Ukraine had all the psychological momentum and the Russians were disorganised, whereas currently Russian command, control and confidence has been restored. Their dug outs are better camouflaged and deeper than the Ukrainian ones.

You have got to follow up a success with determination in a timely fashion; failing to do that is as bad as needlessly retreating.

That treaty is gone forever.

We will be lucky if something new can be created. It would have been much easier to apply unified pressure on China and Israel to make them join the existing treaty.

Wow, those Wagner columns turned out to be real after all!

Wagner forces have surrounded the headquarters of the Russian Southern Military district in Rostov.

It is really happening…#Coup #Russia #Rostov pic.twitter.com/ZuylmBYsHJ

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) June 24, 2023

I’d crucify Prigozhin now and drop his body over the SBU HQ in Kiev. Or fling his carcass over the wall of the US embassy in Moscow…if I were Surovikin.

Prigozhin’s recent actions tend to vindicate the Stalinist purges and the Grozny era Oprichnina.

But unfortunately making a dent in the rested and refitted dug in Russian army behemoth on the battlefield is now beyond Ukraine

But that is exactly what they have been doing. Making minor territorial gains, while grinding down the Russian defenders and destroying logistics and command centers and keeping the bulk of the newly trained and equipped forces on standby in case there is opportunity for breakthrough.

Too soon to say whether the Ukrainians will win or lose. How the Prigozhin affair plays can will make a big difference.

Without considering the Prigozhin attempted putsch, we won’t know whether Ukraine wins, loses or is in stalemate until the bulk of its forces actually enter the fray. If they do and are destroyed without gaining significant ground, a Ukrainian loss. If they enter (maybe in a week, maybe in 3 months) after more of the current approach grinds down the Russian forces so that the Ukrainians break through and drive to Crimea, a Ukrainian win. If they are never even used because it’s determined that the Russian defenses are sufficiently intact that the attack would be pointless, a stalemate.

Of course, depending on how things play out in Russia, everything in the previous paragraph could be irrelevant.

Prigozhin now owns the Southern Russian military district. He says ““We lost huge amount of territories in Ukraine. The Russian losses in Ukraine are 3-4 times higher than reported by the Russian High Command. Up to 1000 casualties a day (KIA + WIA).””:

Makes one wonder if the Prigozhin coup attempt in 2023 will be this century’s Russian equivalent of what the Kornilov coup attempt was for Russia back in 1917.

The Kornilov coup attempt in Russia presaged the Bolshevik rise to power in Russia. What will the Prigozhin coup attempt in Russia presage? The rise to power of Russian neo-fascists such as these?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Volunteer_Corps

Ironic if such neo-fascists will be better for Russia than the current Putin regime is, though I cannot rule out this possibility, especially if they will actually succeed in creating a viable pro-natalist culture in Russia:

https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2022/01/authoritarianism-and-fertility-maybe-probably/

This is one way in which Russia should indeed be more like Israel!

And Saddam’s purges, no? And for that matter, Hitler’s post-July 20th Plot purges as well, right?

I hadn’t heard of him before a few months ago.

The intelligence agencies, not the Pentagon though, were talking up an invasion so when it didn’t happen they could portray the illegitimate Biden as strong. Military sources were all saying too few troops.

The Russians took the land bridge to Crimea, the greatest prize of all.

This is about the West pressuring Russia in a way that can easily lead to nuclear war.

So now its Prigozhin that’s taking his marching orders from the West? Or is it Shoigu or Gerasimov?
It’s always the fault of the West and never Russia’s for all of the insanity going on within Russia.

Why not just name the culprit like Ivashka has?Is Klaus Schwab at it again and making the RusFed leadership look stupid once again?

Looks like Prigozhin is also trying to take Voronezh next after Rostov, pro-Wagner source is reporting now:

In the Voronezh region, one of the columns of the PMC “Wagner” was attacked. Aviation works the same way, bombs are being used. The civil war has officially begun.

https://t.me/apwagner/9135

The assault on a city of three million, with forty thousand?

The Russians withdrew with minimal fuss, nothing messy about it, they had the upper hand. Hardly an act of genius to decide to portray something you were going to do anyway as an act of goodwill instead? Whether the deal was signed or not, they weren’t staying there.

Strelkov:

The rebels successfully passed Voronezh and are moving through the territory of the Lipetsk region. They boast that they shot down the forward outposts of the “Rosguard” and took trophies.

https://t.me/strelkovii/5680

If this is true, it’s not RF army inside RF fighting against Prigozhin, but inner police on steroids – Rosgvardiya, led by Zolotov, probably army simply doesn’t not have enough forces inside as everybody is at the front?

It’s funny how I was the only one here who wrote that the only question about RusFed currently was whether we were still in 1916 or already in 1917. Also when I wrote that 2024 in RusFed will be very interesting to watch from afar. And of course when I wrote years ago that Putin will not end his his presidential term in 2024.
I am sure that you found my predictions rather funny and unhinged, but here you have it.

Intelligent people work calmly and methodically on reaching their objectives. Naive people think that history is made of happenstance. This situation in RusFed was at least two generations in making. I am pretty certain that Gvishiani is smiling in Hell.

See my reply to suddent death above. As I expected, it is Time of Troubles in Russia again. Now, if Russia becomes the North Eurasian Somalia with whatever is really left of Soviet nuclear weapons stockpile, is that better for any of its neighbors? If RusFed is not there anymore to absorb the excess population of the Central Asian Stans, where will they go ? Will it be as in an old Soviet joke: “Polish radio happily reported that everything is peaceful on the China’s border with Finland” ? All this situation should have been avoided…

The intelligence agencies, not the Pentagon though, were talking up an invasion so when it didn’t happen they could portray the illegitimate Biden as strong. Military sources were all saying too few troops.

I realize this is a difficult time for you, but just stop with the retcon bullshit, OK?

Maybe it is what the people in these countries want to become? Liberal and woke? Maybe it doesn’t bother them at all about becoming a minority. Maybe it is all about democracy and having a good life they are interested in?

Of course looking at the West, immigration is ruining the good quality of life but the Slavs, rather then fighting to resist it, seem to be fighting to join it which means maybe they really don’t care.

I did not find your predictions to have been crazy. But it looked more like 1905 to me – you were right, 1917. Prigozhin who is an expert on coups in Africa saw his chance in Russia. He admitted that Ukraine was invaded for all the wrong reasons but also claims he will be better at invasion. You think he will try again?

Lukashenko and family in Turkey. Arestovich, a Belarusian nobleman, would make a fine replacement (one can hope).

But I doubt there will be a 1918-1920. No desperation for a Civil War. Hopefully this ends the invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine uses the Russian internal problems to better integrate with its Western brothers and maintain a powerful army, two factors that will prevent a future invasion by Russia. Ukraine utterly failed to take advantage of the 1990s in that way, but this time the stakes are very clear to everybody.

As I said, Ukraine is the Poland of 1919-1920. A smaller state, but a unified state and people lavishly equipped by the West in its fight against the Russian invader.

PS Kadyrov may still be loyal to Putin. An opportunity to rid Russia of Chechens?

Prigozhin’s Decline

Excellent overview with an interesting comparison to elements in the French military failing to overthrow de Gaulle in the 1960s and the MacArthur-Truman split. The optics of Prigozhin’s action serve the interests of Russia’s adversaries with the Russian government lax in addressing his insubordination.

What exactly was going on in Bakhmut? Was Prigozhin funnelling in supplies and cash from NATO under the cover of a “battle” for the city?

It has been noted that Prigozhin isn’t a professional military guy and is frustrated that Russia doesn’t take the offensive. Russia isn’t doing so because they know they’ll lose more personnel that way even with a win as opposed to letting the NATO backed Kiev regime come at them. As is, Russia is winning the war of attrition which is about taking out more of your enemy’s military assets than losing yours.

In his appeal to Wagner personnel Surovikin made it a point to suggest that some of the stated grievances might’ve merit while adding that the move/comment by Prigozhin aren’t appropriate. Prigo had complained about his forces not getting enough supplies which led to unnecessary casualties among his men. Was that calculated or a matter of bad planning or the supply line facing an obstacle along the way?

Either way you cut it, he (for now) figuratively shot himself.

He admitted that Ukraine was invaded for all the wrong reasons but also claims he will be better at invasion.

A bogus claim on his part that has been factually debunked as evidenced by the Kiev regime, France and Germany acknowledging that the Minsk Accords were a charade designed to buy time. OSCE monitors on the ground noted a sharp increase in Kiev regime firings on rebel held Donbass in the weeks leading up to the start of the SMO.

You keep on being wrong.

Looks like Ukrainian intelligence who have been warning of a Russian civil war for awhile, knew what they were talking about. Good for Budanov 🙂

The war is about Western aggressive moves to corner Russia and make it a vassal of the West or a failed state.

Yet another excuse. The only consistency among Putin supporters is that they can’t maintain a consistent explanation for the war.

You told me in this very thread that it is about the ABM and now it is about countering Western plans to make Russia a vassal state.

You can’t even maintain a consistent explanation over a 24 hour period.

In the 1420 videos it is clear that Russians themselves can’t explain why the war exists.

Putin himself has given at least four different explanations.

Coup in Ukraine

Do explain how there was a coup when the removed pro-Russian president was disavowed by his own party as a corrupt criminal.

The intelligence agencies, not the Pentagon though, were talking up an invasion so when it didn’t happen they could portray the illegitimate Biden as strong.

They were talking up an invasion because they knew it would happen.

Zelensky was warned by both the CIA and MI6 and he ignored their advice to put the military on alert. It has nothing to do with Biden. Zelensky would have been given the same warning if Trump was president.

That in fact undermines the theory that Zelensky is a puppet of the West. They wanted him to prepare for an attack from Belarus and he didn’t respond out of fear of provoking Putin. He in fact made a public plea to Putin for diplomatic talks which was ignored. I can find that video if you would like.

His refusal to believe CIA/MI6 was in fact a huge mistake. They could have mined the northern entrance and placed artillery in range of the roads. The northern entrance has natural defenses outside the main road in the form of swamps. Putin in fact counted on Zelensky to sit there in shock as Russian troops poured across the border. That border is now secure and a second attempt would be a disaster.

Military sources were all saying too few troops.

False. Military analysts in the West expected Kiev to collapse and NATO aid only started flowing after Ukraine pushed the Russians out of the city.

Now he tells us about Prigozhin or whomever changing topics to run away. Tomorrow he will drop Prigozhin and tell us about…….

Changing topics? Oh my fuccing word!!

Obviously any responsible commenter of the situation has to address random bullshit grievance theories like ABM (or Russian language regulation in Donbas, or whatever).

Wagner PMC in open battle against the Russian MoD, in control of Rostov and Voroneh and advancing on Moscow, that’s obviously a distraction.

Too soon to say whether the Ukrainians will win or lose. How the Prigozhin affair plays can will make a big difference.

Absolutely and especially when it comes to public opinion.

Russian State TV has convinced the public that Bakhmut was an elaborate trap and Putin knows what he is doing. Russians are a serf like people that put their faith in the Tsar. They view it as not their place to question him.

Well now his private warlord is threatening mutiny and Ukraine is advancing. Armored vehicles are patrolling Moscow out of fear that the Hebrew chef might come home.

It public opinion breaks it will be a huge disaster for Russia. The gears of resistance will turn and Putin will be fighting a war of two fronts. One in Ukraine and one at home.

Nazi Germany was difficult to defeat in part because they had the public convinced that Hitler was a genius who would always win in the end. Even as the Soviets entered Germany it was a common belief that the dictator must still have a grand plan for victory.

Great psychological warfare to distract from the fact that Ukraine has not had a victory since November and with a fresh force of superbly equipped and trained ten brigades to play with has nowhere got through or even to the first line of Russian defences on the ground north of Crimea that has been the major Russian gain of the SMO still held to date.

The Nazis took Ukraine in a month and Russia never fully took Bakhmut over nearly a year. A former city of 70k that is now in ruin. When this war started we were told that Russia would crush Ukraine within weeks.

But I agree that the Prigozhin situation is excellent psychological warfare. It will absolutely undermine the Russian State TV narrative of Putin being in control of the situation. Thank you very much Prigozhin for donating your services to Ukraine. You are humiliating Putin and Russia. Well done.

As for the offensive it is too early to judge. Offensives of this scale in modern warfare normally take months. We haven’t seen the bulk of the armored attacks and the Kremlin is lying about destroying 60 leopards. They would constantly show images of them on State TV if that were true.

Russia has heavily mined defensives and anyone expecting some quick march on Melitopol like the movies really doesn’t understand how modern warfare works. There however is still very much the potential for a Russian rout so it is really just something to watch at this point.

Kiev decided to launch on of their Storm Shadow missiles, actually the lighter payload French one (maybe more difficult to shoot down) on a key Crimean road link bridge

It definitely needs to be hit again.

I think Ukraine leadership, military equipment and army will be slowly but surely written down that order. Rely on it, a precision assassination of someone in Zelensky’s circle is coming in retaliation.

Ritter and MacGregor have told us that Ukraine is weeks away from capitulation for over a year. Larry C Johnson and Moon of Alabama told us that Prigozhin was just an elaborate play by Putin.

This war is simply not going well for Russia. I don’t see why it is so difficult for Putin’s defenders to make this simple admission. They seem to have a weird alpha male attachment to him like Africans and their Big Man leaders. It’s really creepy. I openly support Ukraine but that doesn’t mean I have some weird attachment to Zelensky. I think he has done a fine job but I’ve also been critical of him in numerous areas. He made a huge mistake early in the war by not putting the military on defense in the north.

the West needs to make serious one-sided concessions to revive the arms control negotiation process.

The framework you propose does not hold together:

• Define “The West”?
• Is the “The West” “one-side”? Clearly not. The U.S. has many difference with Europe. And, Europe is rife with internal divisions.
• How can “not one-side” offer “one-sided” concessions?

We do hear & understand what you are trying to say. However, it seems to be grounded in bilateral assumptions that do not hold.
____

Despite the resistance of the NeoConDemocrat old guard, Americans correctly perceive the CCP as the #1 global, strategic threat.

The WUHAN-19 leak from the CCP’s bioweapons labs at WIV has altered national priorities for the long term.

We will be lucky if something new can be created. It would have been much easier to apply unified pressure on China and Israel to make them join the existing treaty.

China was not interested 20+ years ago. The CCP liked the bilateral U.S.-Russia trap that restrained their American opposition. Breaking out of bilateral deals was the minimum first step towards multilateral treaties.

It is unfortunate that a series of new arrangements did not happen. However, the U.S. would be in much worse shape versus the CCP if it had retained the bilateral framework of a bygone era. That would have been an open license for China to run amok.

Israel’s geopolitical strategic situation is so unique, it is hard to see what could be gained by attempting to force their inclusion. Compelling Israel to participate in talks between gigantic nations would be a clever way to scuttle negotiations, thus guaranteeing no results.

PEACE 😇

I’m also reminded of the attempt to militarily overthrow Erdogan a few years ago. That action had greater potential. Keep up the wishful thinking to maintain good spirits as opposed to dealing with the sobering reality of what the Kiev regime faces.

Пишут, что иранский КСИР готов отправить в Москву свои отряды для оказания помощи российскому правительству.

История сомнительная, будем говорить откровенно. Без логистики, без языка, без баз любой экспедиционный корпус буквально растворится здесь. В Сирии шиитские Ваффен-СС выстраивали инфраструктуру года полтора, и только потом начали массированный заброс наемников. Тут с колес – ну очень все белыми нитками шито.

С другой стороны, сейчас Путин может КСИРу вообще подарить все что угодно – вплоть до ядерного оружия, лишь бы спасти шкуру. Последствия в таких случаях интересуют очень слабо.

From the Tg Channel of Anatoly Nesmiyan (Elmurid).

If Shiah and Sunni Muslims can collaborate in the falling RusFed, if Turan and Iran unite their forces, then the future global Caliphate is rapidly becoming inevitable.

Just wait and see, we’ll probably live long enough to see the Islamisation of most of the FUSSR and therefore Eurasia becoming a nearly certain outcome.

That would be the outcome of the russophobic policies of the Western puppeteers.

Erdogan must be delighted with what is going on in RusFed.

Вагнеровцы пошли двумя колоннами. Первая, во главе с самим Пригожиным на Ростов, она с медиаподдержкой, публичными заявлениями, переговорами в штабе южного командования, принеобходимости должна связать наиболее боеспособные части армии и кадыровцев. Вторая, видимо во главе с Уткиным, без публикаций в сети пошла на Москву.

From Tg Channel of Igor Dmitriev (Rus Orientalist).

Теперь про Пригожина станут говорить, что он позор еврейского народа.

From the Tg channel of Pavel Priannikov.

If Shiah and Sunni Muslims can collaborate in the falling RusFed, if Turan and Iran unite their forces, then the future global Caliphate is rapidly becoming inevitable.

Sure, on paper, or if this were a video game, it looks like the right move.

But in the real world, in which people are motivated by a whole lot besides their spiritual commitments to honoring their haplogroups (or whatever the precise formulation you prefer to describe your own motives), calling that scenario far-fetched is the most charitable thing that could be said about it.

This war is simply not going well for Russia. I don’t see why it is so difficult for Putin’s defenders to make this simple admission.

Just about everyone has admitted that RF forces underperformed expectations. Especially in the initial weeks. The logistics problems were epic and took months to sort out.

However, Zelensky’s defenders need to make an equally damning admission.

Without ~€8 Billion/Month of external support flowing to the Kiev regime, underperforming Russian Forces would be able to grind out a predictable victory in Ukraine.

Ukie Maximalism resembles the Muslim Occupation of Gaza, Judea, & Samaria — Heavily propped up by outside interests. Zelensky is in constant international diplomacy, desperately attempting to raise funds to continue the fight. And, the stated goals (e.g. capturing Crimea) are 100% unobtainable versus a foe with strategic nuclear weapons. This leaves no path to “Ukrainian Victory”. How long is this sustainable?
____

Prigozhin does not represent a liberal/left putsch. Is the Kiev regime really better off if Putin falls?

It may buy time, but does little to resolve the underlying geopolitical flashpoint. Prigozhin would have to respond to Kiev aggression against Russian ethnics with choices similar to Putin’s. Or, be dragged down by the Center-Right.

PEACE 😇

What would really be entertaining: Singh and A. Karlin in the octagon.

Erdoğan said he backed the Russian government’s handling of a mutiny by the Wagner mercenary army, the Kremlin said in a statement.
President Erdoğan urged his counterpart to act with common sense and stated that Türkiye was ready to do its part to solve the situation in Russia peacefully as soon as possible.

https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/president-erdogan-expresses-support-for-putin-against-rebellion

Iran supports the rule of law in the Russian Federation and considers the latest developments there an internal Russian matter, Iranian state media quoted foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani as saying on Saturday.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-747531

Just wait and see.

I was already right about the Russian Time of Troubles 3.0 (Russian revolution being the 2.0), now you will witness a progressive strengthening of the Islamic Oumma.

The only force standing in its way in the end would be the Asian Dharmic Civilization.

European Civilization is dying before our very own eyes.

You just don’t realize it yet.

Just about everyone has admitted that RF forces underperformed expectations. Especially in the initial weeks. The logistics problems were epic and took months to sort out.

MacGregor, Ritter, Larry C Johnson, MoA and Pepe made no such admissions. Go ahead and quote them if you think I missed a post.

They simply didn’t discuss how Russia was pushed out of Kiev.

They all moved on to “Russia will wipe Ukraine off the map any moment now”.

In fact some of the earlier posts by pro-Putin bloggers have been removed. They now have time gaps around the invasion.

Without ~€8 Billion/Month of external support flowing to the Kiev regime, underperforming Russian Forces would be able to grind out a predictable victory in Ukraine.

I was told here that Bakhmut would be taken in weeks….repeatedly. It is back to being contended and a Russian city has been taken by Wagner.

But you are certain that Russia will eventually take Ukraine? The Abrams haven’t even arrived.

Prigozhin does not represent a liberal/left putsch. Is the Kiev regime really better off if Putin falls?

I don’t support liberalism nor the left. I am against this stupid invasion which has proven to be a complete disaster. I was called a Jew for asking how this benefits Whites or undermines the Western status quo. Still waiting for a rational explanation on how killing Slavs in trenches and carving out a rump state for Putin’s abortion empire will undermine liberalism or globalism. No one here denies that Russia has the world’s highest abortion rate and a declining Slavic population. But the war is good for us and them because….????? Still waiting.

Prigozhin taking power is unlikely but would be an improvement. He recently stated that the invasion was based on lies and is really about egos. That is similar to what I have been saying from the beginning. That was obvious when Russia made zero attempts at diplomacy and in fact cut the phone lines with Kiev.

If Putin falls will you become Prigozhin’s lackey?

Or revert to Orban’s lackey?

You will have difficult decisions to make, Beckow. Whose boots to lick?

This JJ guy is not capable of responding to factual points. Look how he runs away every time we ask him a specific question. “Moldova” for god’s sake?

Are you claiming the leaked plan to invade Moldova is fake?

Also the leaked plan to absorb Belarus is fake?

All fake? Is that your position?

Putin is just a really swell guy that would never do anything like that? All just lies? Remember when Putin’s defenders said the same thing about the leaked plans to invade Ukraine? Scott Ritter is in fact on record stating that the idea is outrageous because Russia would never do such a thing. Then he switched to the position that the war was over. Now he claims that the Russia is about to win. Right Scott.

JJ will not address how extremely destabilizing was US decision to drop out of the ABM Treaty.

I asked how invading Ukraine changes the nuclear situation with the United States.

Do explain how the invasion mitigates a treaty from 20 years ago.

Putin has not cited the ABM as a cause so do explain this theory.

I am in agreement with Prigozhin which is that the war was based on lies and Ukraine was never a security threat to Russia. Better hope that Putin takes him out so you can ignore him as well.

Oh and Igor Girkin thinks Putin is a dunce when it comes to war. That is the former DPR leader that initially supported the invasion.

You might want to reassess your determination to defend Putin. He is losing supporters by the day.

So can we finally confirm that Russians really are just Snow Niggers?

You are – as always – getting too excited with anticipation. It looks like the usual internal dispute in a country at war between the moderates and the radicals, or possibly some foreign-sponsored forces. What are you going to do if it fizzles out or fails?

The giddy excitement that the likes of JJ, AP, Mr. Hacks or you go through at any sign of “good news” betrays your insecurity. Get something done first, your breathless, boastful “Kremlin is about to fall!“, “we are taking Crimea!” talk makes you look slightly ridiculous. The main effect so far is that the 80-90% of people in Russia who are on the moderate, but by now firmly anti-Western side, are being consolidated. Given the the West needs either the liberals or the radicals take over in Russia, this is not good news for them. They can’t handle sober self-serving Russia, they would like anything else instead. I strongly doubt they will get it. But it is entertaining…

This has a feeling of our not-so-distant future being very different than anyone has predicted, a turn in human development. I have said before that the Maidan-2022 war, Trump, C19, Brexit will all be in an introductory chapter called Causes. Of course, we have to make it through and there is someone left to write it…:). But I would not celebrate if I were you – the crisis is accelerating and that is not good for anyone.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/155007-man-is-something-that-shall-be-overcome-man-is-a

…Are you claiming the leaked plan to invade Moldova is fake?

I really don’t care if it is a contingency plan, fake, or some piece of paper that each military keeps ‘just in case‘. US certainly has them and some have also been leaked. You are a hopeless simpleton, read what you said: “a leaked plan to invade Moldova“…that is what you base your thinking on? You sound like a kindergardener who heard that “there is possibly candy in that closet!” Grow up.

Do explain how the invasion mitigates a treaty from 20 years ago.
Putin has not cited the ABM as a cause so do explain this theory.

Controlling Ukraine and keeping Nato out means that US can’t place its missiles – “defensive” as you say, another of your outright lies and idiocies – right on Russia’s borders close to Moscow. That is so obvious and such a clear “mitigation” that you must be really stupid or very dishonest to ask that question.

And not “cited”? How do you know? Where you sitting at Kremlin’s meetings all these years? Politicians in public talk about what benefits them and what is understood by the ordinary people – maybe 5% of people even know what “ABM treaty” was. Again, you argue on a very low level. Why doesn’t Biden mention the US heroic wars on Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan in his speeches?

Reuters is reporting Voronezh has fallen, though it’s unverified.

https://www.aol.com/ukraine;russia-war-live-furious-085913580.html

Putin’s speech to Rusfed with subtitles:

‘It’s a stab in the back!’

I was already right about the Russian Time of Troubles 3.0 (Russian revolution being the 2.0), now you will witness a progressive strengthening of the Islamic Oumma.

Other than in the Caucuses, Muslim TFR in Russia is not much better than Russian TFR. It is higher in Central Asia, but not nearly on sub-Saharan African levels. So Russia’s population declines, but Muslims become a bigger slice of the shrinking pie. But not enough to swamp it.

This may give Ukraine the chance to completely extricate itself from the Russian mess and the Eurasian World.

The only force standing in its way in the end would be the Asian Dharmic Civilization

The Americas are not going to go Muslim. And in Africa, Christianity and Islam are each expanding

European Civilization is dying before our very own eyes.

Putin wasn’t going to save it.

If it is to be saved, it will be saved by a renewal within Europe, that’s the only hope. Probably starting from the East (which does not include Russia-Eurasia, though who knows, the very unlikely acts of salvaging parts of Russia such as Kalinigrad might not be bad). Ukraine adds tens of millions to that. Belarus coming along (unlikely but not impossible) would be great also. So expand the healthy East as much as is feasible, while renewing the West. Keep the Eurasian hordes at bay, they might be busy for awhile, if so it’s an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen the Ukrainian bulwark. Time must not be squandered as it had been in the 1990s. And when Eurasia is no longer a threat, it can be a friend.

The most likely result of the war was going to be a draw, with the strong possibility of Ukraine taking back the Crimean corridor. Russian infighting just weakens Russia’s chances, either way some Russian forces are lost through internal battles. The more, the better for Ukraine. Russia’s government has already lost several helicopters and fuel storage facilities within Russia, some Wagnerites have been bombed by the Russian government. Russians positions in Ukraine are being lost. Good thing Ukraine waited with its offensive, better to start against a weakened enemy (unless Russian forces leave without a fight, not impossible). If Wagner is crushed, Russia lost some of it’s better forces for the future battles.

So whose ass you gonna lick if Putin falls? Prigozhin, Orban, Kadyrov? Genuinely curious.

The GRU general Alekseyev, responsible for the military interactions with the PMCs have been seen on video, discussing in Rostov with Prigozhin and telling him: “You need Shoigu? Go and take him” (Вам нужен Шойгу ? Берите на здоровье). The Russian nationalists fighting on Ukrainian side have expressed their support for Wagnerite uprising. Thousands of troops are supposedly moving from DNR into RusFed. Time of Troubles 2.0. Sobyanin has declared Monday a non-working day in Moscow. Private businesses jets are flying off Moscow airports going leaving to Dubai.

Putin wasn’t going to save it.

Have I ever written anything opposite?

If it is to be saved, it will be saved by a renewal within Europe, that’s the only hope.

There will be none. The Globalists will prevent this.

Keep the Eurasian hordes at bay, they might be busy for awhile, if so it’s an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen the Ukrainian bulwark.

Demographics are destiny. Eastern Europe is aging and dying off. Younger EE people will emigrate. Younger Central Asian people will immigrate.

My explanation of Russia’s requirements from the SMO has been roughly the same for a long time. I do think Putin is more of a moderate than I previously realized. I use different words to describe the situation to better explain my position. If you are confused, try a thesaurus.

If it looks like a coup, walks like a coup and talks like a coup that’s what I call it.

My biggest questions have always been what happens in Ukraine West of the river and also how does Russia reintegrate the city of Kiev.

I have also always said there is some chance the whole thing is fake/preordained. This latest Prigozhin gimmick might be in that category.

I don’t know what is going on in Russia. Here are some possibilities.

Maybe Putin is ready to retire and he is cleaning house (Shoigu) on the way out?

Maybe the powers that be need a really big distraction? The fake submersible wasn’t enough for this month.

Maybe Prigozhin vigorously stirring the pot gives the West an out from Ukraine? [I hope]

Maybe Zhenya is ready to retire?

Maybe you can retire!

I agree with Ivashka here. The Eastern European Youth are too obsessed with democracy, freedom, individualism and in general having a good quality of life. The fate of Europe or whether the original inhabitants are replaced by the third world is not on their radar.

To be honest, saving Europe itself will have to be on the West’s initiative at this stage. The Slavs are not going to do it. Which means the Western Populists must actually start to take power and do populist things. So far, they are not but events dear boy, events.

My main point is that if the USA and Russia had an ad hoc unified position on nuclear arms control together they could have politely pressured others into joining updated versions of some but probably not all treaties and agreements. This would have been a nice baby step to further multilateral nuclear arms reductions. This opportunity is long gone. At the time the USA/West was still in the process of building China up and working to push Russia down, so this sort of collaborative big picture was probably not talked about much. It does have a big risk of accelerating globalist agendas so maybe it is just as well it did not happen.

I always mention Israel since I think they are the most likely to use nuclear weapons. I cannot make that case strongly, it is just a hunch. Pakistan and India tied for second. North Korea is the least likely, the other countries are in the middle.

Now that we have decent evidence of a worldwide bioweapon attack the arms reduction treaties may need to change to keep up with the times.

I take it as self-evident that China has lied about the size of her nuclear stockpile for decades.

In my own tiny way I try to influence this discussion to deescalate the West to reduce the risk of nuclear war. I do this by explaining the situation from a Cold War 2.0 perspective which emphasizes real issues which are lost in the dumbed-down perspective of a manipulated blood feud between brothers. I think my outlook is valid but obviously incomplete. The big picture of the whole thing could actually be a feud between Klaus Schwab and Semion Mogilevich over some woman whose name I can’t spell much less pronounce.

I regularly point out that the situation is driven by hidden forces in various countries. This is obvious from various things which are not explained. The dog that didn’t bark.

The friendly Ukrainian combination of Jewish power and NeoNAZIs has always made this look like a farce. Once we have that, anything goes, since it is one of the weirdest things publicly accepted in 2023.

With several factors mentioned, an interesting claim that Prigo is part of an Anglo-American Intel/Kiev regime plot to destabilize Russia.

Primakov is twice mentioned in a snafu. Questionable Wagner and Kiev regime Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) casualties uncritically presented.

“Putin wasn’t going to save it.”

Have I ever written anything opposite?

Never.

But many deluded Westerners thought otherwise.

“If it is to be saved, it will be saved by a renewal within Europe, that’s the only hope.”

There will be none. The Globalists will prevent this.

Possible but far from certain.

Again, if European civilization is to be saved, it will be through renewal and not by Russia which has its own sort of civilizaton (and certainly not RusFed).

And renewal will depend on Eastern Europe, a large area that is the least invaded and most traditional. The bigger this region is, the better the chances. Adding Ukraine and, God willing, Belarus, would be very helpful.

which rainbow dildo is shoved up your arse though?

At this point the jew will have to be shot.

Battle of the Nations
Spain United States
Australia Denmark

The Eastern European Youth are too obsessed with democracy, freedom, individualism and in general having a good quality of life.

Sure, they are young. But they are not Woke. They are normal.

To be honest, saving Europe itself will have to be on the West’s initiative at this stage. The Slavs are not going to do it.

The Slavs cannot do it alone, but their large reservoir of generally conservative people and large territories with few foreigners are probably necessary for eventual renewal. Ukraine would be almost like another Poland in terms of population. Belarus (if…) another Hungary.

Italy seems to be the first Western country to flip. Support for traditional forces is strongest among the young there.

Just as Chamberlain’s government –loath to rerun WW1– nevertheless gave a full territorial guarantee to Poland the instant the Nazi Soviet pact became known, Ukraine’s coalescing military understanding with and orientation to the West is now regarded by the Kremlin as making war necessary at whatever cost. That sudden assignment was the sort of thing Russia’s army might reasonably be expected to be ready for. However, the peacetime Russian army is kept procedurally hidebound because in peace the army’ combat effectiveness and morale being very low does not matter. For the Kremlin, the army’s status in Russian society being low is deliberate policy (fantastic as it seems Russian gangsters extort money from soldiers, including officers and even members of the nuclear forces) and this is because it has he priority of making sure the military top brass can never be a political force in their own right. Command has a way of going to a mans head and recent events involving Prigozhin show that the Kremlin’s worries about not keeping a very bureaucratic chain of command were not so paranoid.

The quick practical methods of command based on personal loyalty to leaders that are inherent to success in actual combat confer a danger for the Kremlin inasmuch as the army leadership might have the potential for a power play. Wagner was already combat experienced and agile, so it was used in Bakhmut with new Z-convict expendables, and with regulary army fire support and shell supply achieved victory. There seems to have been an understanding between Putin and Prigozhin that he could draw attention to Wagner and contrast its achievements with the regular army; this would have given the Kremlin a useful way to goad the regular army to greater efforts. With the balance of his mind disturbed, Prigozhin wrongly thought he had carte blanch for any action against the army brass hats, no matter how egregious.

Prigozhin completely lacks an independent power base, so nothing could come of him using the relatively tiny Wagner to stage a genuine revolt against the huge Russian army , still less the Kremlin that ultimately controls the army, but his own death along with any who followed him’ He made his money in casinos (a licence to print money) and is smart but not terribly level headed in view of his failure at youthful petty criminality , and he did spend time at the sharp end in Bakhmut, maybe too much because certain of his appearances–as with the ones that showed him raging at the army behind a pile of his own men’s corpses–may indicate a touch of traumatic stress disorder. May he be have been resorting to drugs to unwind? The idea that Sergei Shoigu is a mastermind who pulled the strings of Putin and got into a war with Ukraine so Shoigu could be promoted, as alleged by Prigozhin, is risible; is accusations are a symptom of him losing his mind. He is about to find himself back in prison. Wagner is not longer required because the regulars have their own Zpenal battalions now. Wagner personnel had to sign contrast with the regular army by July, he thought his position of independent control was disappearing so he started echoing Western commentators about the origin and course of the conflict; he said the Ukraine were about to take a strategic town they are nowhere near and not even advancing towards.

At the end of the day ordinary Russians entering the army are convinced that they are fighting Nato, and this is a battle for the survival of the thousand year existence of the Russian state, seen as the only thing safeguarding the existence of the Russian people. Ukraine’s cross border raid into Russia proper may have been intended to distract from the loss of Bakhmut, but made it look like Ukraine was Nazi: hunting ordinary Russians just for being Russia. This was a gift to Putin. Prigozhin’s escapade may be a PR triumph for Ukraine in the West and damage his standing among Chinese, Indian and Iranian elites but in Russia it will play to increasing Putin’s authority. Something very unpleasant will happen to Zelensky the instant Putin is assassinated. There are standing instructions in the Kremlin to that effect–rely on it.

Only the Russian army counts now and Putin has given them what they want at the cost of increasing their status to Great Patriotic War rather than SMO levels. It is like WW2 where Soviet generals tortured into confessing and convicted of spying were released from the Gulag and reinstated at their previous rank to do their jobs. A few years later the Austrian whose name is better left unmentioned was telling his staff the have faith and remember the deliverance of Fredrick’s Prussia. To which they later scoffed “Which Tsarina is going to die this time?” Zelensky is going to be increasingly be predicting another but successful coup as deus ex machina for an inexorably deteriorating military situation against the behemoth Russia army becomes ever clearer, and the limit on how far America will go stops at direct involvement–the only thing that can ultimately defeat or hold back the Russian army.

And… It’s Over (1)

Prigozhin Agrees To Halt Wagner Advance, Start De-Escalation, After Lukashenko’s Mediation

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced on Saturday that he had arranged a deal whereby Wagner Group leader Evgeny Prigozhin will abandon his mutiny in exchange for “security guarantees” for his fighters.

“Evgeny Prigozhin accepted the proposal of President Alexander Lukashenko to stop the movement of armed men of Wagner in Russia and take further steps to de-escalate tension,” read a statement from Lukashenko’s office.

The whole situation is bizarre. However, the quick conclusion should move attention back to Russia’s highly successful defense against Kiev aggression.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-blasts-wagner-treason-betrayal-clashes-erupt-southern-russia

Of course they want it. If you give people freedom to choose, they will always choose LGBT and mass immigration. But that does not mean that we should allow LGBT and mass immigration, rather it means that we should reject democracy.

Note that when Ukraine was attacked, most Ukrainians stayed. My cousin, a successful businessman, cut short a ski holiday in the European Alps, dropped his wife and kids off in Poland, and rushed back to Lviv when Ukraine was attacked (he signed up for territorial defense but wasn’t sent to war in the East, I guess his group was held back in case Belarus would attack from the north).

But RusFed flees. Their lackey Beckow would do the same, he was predicting that Ukrainian would all escape, the army would dissolve and flee. surrender, etc. Based on what he would certainly have done.

Ukrainians are telling Russians to go home and sort out their country. Hopefully it won’t be too bloody, but will take a long time, so that by the time Russia is in a position to threaten somebody again Ukraine will be too integrated with the West, and too powerful, to be worth the trouble. When I pray for peace and victory, I do not pray for maximum death and destruction upon the Russian soldiers, but that they simply leave Ukraine.

worst coup ever

⚡️ Message from the press service of the President of the Republic of Belarus.

This morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin briefed his Belarusian counterpart on the situation in southern Russia with the private military company Wagner. The heads of state agreed on joint actions.
As a follow-up to the agreements, the President of Belarus, having additionally specified the situation through his own channels, and in agreement with the President of Russia, held talks with the head of PMC Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Negotiations continued throughout the day. As a result, they came to agreements on the inadmissibility of unleashing a bloody massacre on the territory of Russia. Yevgeny Prigozhin accepted the proposal of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko to stop the movement of armed persons of the Wagner company on the territory of Russia and take further steps to de-escalate tensions.
At the moment, an absolutely profitable and acceptable option for solving the situation is on the table, with security guarantees for the Wagner PMC fighters.
As previously reported, also during today, the President of Belarus held two meetings with the power bloc of the country on this situation.

All hail Bat’ka Lukashenka !

President of the United State of Russia and Belarus in 2024 ?

(Just kidding, although who knows these days).

There must have been a piece we did not see:

• Failed assassination attempt
• Expectation that significant military units would join in

The coup attempt has flopped harder than the Kiev offensive.

PEACE 😇

For the guy like you who has been licking like mad everyone from the Banderites to the long-gone Habsburgs, you should stay away from that term, it makes you look even more weird and ridiculous.

The most likely result of the war was going to be a draw, with the strong possibility of Ukraine taking back the Crimean corridor.

A draw is defined as neither side gaining anything. So far Russia has gained: Crimea: most of Donbas, the Azov Sea corridor. Plus it has blocked (for now) Ukraine in Nato and seriously weakened Ukraine internally – millions left (permanently), infrastructure and economy destroyed.

The West has gained Finland in Nato – wow! as if Finland was previously not a de facto Western outpost, weakened Russia internationally, and a hope that Ukies will keep on dying for Nato, since Natoids are clearly unwilling to do it.

Ukraine has gained Western sympathy and…actually what else? maybe I am missing something, but what else other than future hopes has Kiev gained? Why don’t you tell us.

Based on the above Russia is winning over Ukraine, and the West is in a draw with Russia. Get the narrative straight and stop mixing up what you are hoping will happen with what has actually happened o far.

Prigozhin would be suicidal to agree to a truce/withdrawal.

He needs to finish the task, or he is finished.

Putin & co will slowly strangle his organization by depriving them of resources and recruitment.

You can’t walk back a coup attempt and expect everything to continue as normal.

If RusFed is not there anymore to absorb the excess population of the Central Asian Stans, where will they go ?

China?

I completely agree.

I am pretty sure Prigozhin understands this too.

We’ll see.

I do not pray for maximum death and destruction upon the Russian soldiers,

What if more Russian suffering this time around will reduce the risk of Russia attacking Ukraine again in the future?

If it makes no difference, though (for instance, due to Ukraine joining NATO by then), then I agree that one should not root for this. But if it does make a difference, then it’s a different story, no? Germany suffered more in WWII relative to WWI but was also much more docile after the end of WWII than after the end of WWI, especially when looking at the long-run. Had Germany been able to maintain discipline in its military and home front and WWI continued into 1919, with Germany proper going down and getting destroyed in a rain of apocalyptic fire similar to 1944-1945, but 25 years earlier than in real life, then Germany might have been more reluctant to start a second World War 20 years later, even under Hitler, who might have very well been more likely to face an anti-Nazi internal coup at the start of WWII in such a scenario.

The Slavs cannot do it alone, but their large reservoir of generally conservative people and large territories with few foreigners are probably necessary for eventual renewal.

Are the conservative white people in the Southern and interior Western US enough for an eventual conservative renewal in the US?

As a side note, while Poland, etc. lags behind the West in terms of liberalism, they are still advancing on this front:

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/poland-will-legalize-gay-marriage-within-10-years/

Poles are already the most Negrophilic Eastern Europeans:

And I guess that it’s thus no surprise that the Simon Mol story occurred there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Mol

He knowingly infected a double-digit number of liberal Polish women with HIV by telling them that it’s racist for them to ask him to wear a condom because he’s black and that thus they’re reinforcing negative stereotypes about blacks being STD-ridden by asking him to wear a condom, even though, unknowingly to them but knowingly to him, in his case, these stereotypes were actually true.

That said, though, all of the crap in the West is still better than having Ukraine get conquered by the Russians. The West is still much more impressive than Russia in spite of the West’s problems (and Russia has its own fair share of crap as well); the West actually moves humanity forward to an astronomically greater extent than Russia does, after all.

For the guy like you who has been licking like mad everyone from the Banderites to the long-gone Habsburgs

The lackey can only understand anyone’s relationships with anything as being a necessarily subservient one. That’s all you know.

A draw is defined as neither side gaining anything. So far Russia has gained: Crimea: most of Donbas, the Azov Sea corridor.

Russia has already had Crimea and most of Donbas.

It gained the Crimean corridor.

Ukraine has gained a massive amount of Western weapons, and has gotten closer to EU and NATO.

If Russia keeps some of the Crimean corridor, but Ukraine gets into EU and/or NATO and gets massive reconstruction aid, it is a draw. If Russia loses the corridor, it’s a Ukrainian win.

Whose boots will you be licking Beckow? Looks like Putin will stay, but he is weakened. Lukashenko? I forgot about him.

Unless I misunderstand you, the information that you present in comment #167 that appeals to you clearly shows that Prigozhin is indeed ready to negotiate an end to hostilities. Yet you agree with Yahya that Prigozhin would be suicidal to agree to any sort of truce/withdrawal??

That’s why we’ll see tomorrow.

Although, Russians are already joking that “Putin has joined the Wagnerite mutiny”.

BTW, I am sorry to note that your cartoon is Antisemitic Mr Hack. Drawing Prigozhin as a rabid dog is a hate crime against a Jewish individual.

🙂

And renewal will depend on Eastern Europe, a large area that is the least invaded and most traditional. The bigger this region is, the better the chances. Adding Ukraine and, God willing, Belarus, would be very helpful.

Eastern Europe can help make Europe less Woke, but Eastern Europe’s influence in European affairs is reduced by the fact that it’s not a huge R & D hub or elite science production hub like Western Europe is. Western Europe is primarily the part of Europe that moves Europe forward, whether for better (R & D spending/research and elite science production) or for worse (Wokeness and mass immigration of undesirable elements).

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/science-production/

I think that this is what Anatoly Karlin means when he says that rightoids have less relevance than leftoids even when their numbers are comparable. It’s similar for the US, where leftist areas produce most of the elite science:

The South, interior West, and Midwest (outside of Chicago) don’t have all that much elite science production, and even the parts of them that do have a relatively large amount of it (Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Ann Arbor, et cetera) are considerably more liberal than their US states as a whole.