Realism used to be foundational in our lifetimes, the basis of discourse and policy formation. You may not have noticed in deprivation, that the oxygen has been sucked out of the realist room by the (deranged) neocons (which includes the neoliberal as subset) since 1992.
A compilation for those interested in reality, or curious about it.
Interest (and curiosity) is relevant again as the neocon de-oxygenation chamber is now summarily smashed.
BREATHE IN THE FRESH AIR AGAIN:
WWII in 13 minutes. Worth a review now. Or a first view (for ignorants).
It replays again (second time as farce) since 1992. Blue and black more overtly unified this time.
Yet the military/technical gap between the west and Russia is greater now (in 2022) than ever before (in Russia’s favor).
Await the outcome.
The particular flavor of Europe’s demise remains to be seen. It’s already setting up as a reprise of the Austrian gentlemen’s bunker. But, again, second time as farce.
Maybe some piece of France will get some Atlantic gas from time to time? The rest of the west can burn furniture for a couple of winters?
Last century’s furniture, burning, some spuds (potatoes are easy to grow) washed down with some rusty water. Your dreams and visions of your glorious Drang Nach Osten (NATO version 2.0) should lighten your mood though.
Everyone’s gotta dream — And — No one can take Away your dreams!
Well, yeah, it would be a good idea to pay close attention to the Andrei Martyanov video here. And replay it again as needed for those who don’t get it:
We must admit that the new security system in Europe will be based on mutual hostility. But this will be a variant of hostility that precludes provocative behaviour. Such behaviour is possible only in a situation where no one believes that the other side will attack you, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.
Over the past decades, the need to take into account Russia’s interests has steadily declined in the West. “Gas station pretending to be a country” and “a regional power” are just some examples of the Western approach to Moscow’s politics. In other words, the image of Russia as a “paper soldier” — a country that is in systemic decline — was gaining popularity.
According to the West, as a vanishing strategic entity, Russia will not resist any US military or strategic decisions regarding Europe; the main thing is to give Russia bad news piece by piece. As early as 2008, then US Ambassador to Moscow William Burns wrote that three key US decisions in Europe — recognising Kosovo’s independence, endorsing NATO membership plans for Georgia and Ukraine, and deploying US missile defence systems in Europe — could not be successful if they would be presented to Moscow at the same time. “I believe that we can only manage one of these three upcoming crises without causing real damage to relationships that we cannot afford to ignore. I would choose to move decisively on the issue of Kosovo; postponement of the MAP for Ukraine or Georgia; direct talks with Putin while he is still in office to try and get a deal on missile defence.”
The system of relations between Russia and the West, which existed before February 24, included one major distortion. We were participants in an interdependent relationship based on Russia’s participation in the global economy, which was centred on the West. It was believed that Russia’s interest in participating in this system was much more significant than Moscow’s interest in ensuring its security. The outcome of the escalated drama consisted of one of two alternatives: either Russia would accept such a relationship and silently move into the second league of world politics, or the accumulated tension would explode into a major crisis.
Over the past few years, military episodes have taken place every week in the perimeter of Russia’s western borders, whether there were military vessels engaging in dangerous manoeuvres, encounters between military aircraft, unscheduled exercises and other provocations. The Western media drew the contours of an almost pre-war situation. For example, Spanish military aircraft were stationed in Lithuania last summer, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was invited to view them. Together with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, he gave a joint press conference in front of the hangar where these aircraft were based. At that moment, a combat alarm sounded, it was announced that the aircraft needed to leave the hangar to intercept a Russian fighter. Of course, all this was done for PR and the media.
After February 24, the NATO countries abruptly stopped all such provocative military activities along the perimeter of our borders — the realisation came that Russia is capable of a military response. But it has also become clear that the only real security player in the West is the United States, which is now arranging arms shipments to Ukraine but says it does not seek to escalate the crisis.
The Russian reaction to Ukraine’s relations with the West has always stood out against the background of other countries of the post-Soviet space. The peculiarity of Ukraine is that it is the only border country in Europe which poses a potential danger for Russia: it has a large population, formidable armed forces with modern weapons, a lot of social energy and the ideological motivation to oppose Russia. For us, relations with Ukraine are analogous to India’s relations with Pakistan. These two countries were born simultaneously in the process of the collapse of the British Empire. For Pakistan, the confrontation with India was a formative experience that determined the nature of the domestic policy of that country, the central role of the military establishment and intelligence, and programmes to create nuclear weapons and prepare terrorists to commit acts of sabotage in India. It also led to constant local border wars with India and the special nature of foreign policy alliances.
The costs of a protracted confrontation with a militaristic Ukraine would be significant for Moscow. Suppose, for example, that the predictions of the Russian military establishment turned out to be correct, and within a short time Ukraine would develop a “dirty bomb”. At the same time, the process of rearmament of the army would continue in full swing — and after some time, not 120 thousand well-armed soldiers, but 300 thousand would be concentrated in the east of the country. Over 40 million people live in the country, and the military budget of Ukraine is about 6% of GDP; this level of military spending is comparable to that of Israel. Weapons from the West entered the country on a large scale; Western military instructors prepared the best Ukrainian units. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — young men with combat experience — participated in the so-called anti-terrorist operation in Donbass. The Ukrainian army is the third largest in Europe after those of Russia and Turkey. The goal of the military return of Donbass and Crimea has never been discarded.
The use of force by Russia in Ukraine creates a new negotiating reality. The old formula of Western politicians that “Russia is on the wrong side of history. It has its own version of developments, but we will disregard it,” really exhausted its meaning. It became clear that this was not just a “version of developments”, but a demanding negotiating position aimed at creating a security system in Europe that takes into account Russia’s interests. After such a large-scale shake-up, all the dust will settle, which previously prevented us from understanding the real outlines of European security problems.
We must admit that the new security system in Europe will be based on mutual hostility. But this will be a variant of hostility that precludes provocative behaviour. Such behaviour is possible only in a situation where no one believes that the other side will attack you. After the outbreak of hostilities on February 24, there is no such belief among the NATO countries anymore. On the one hand, this will entail an increase in the military spending of European states and a change in the geography of the forward deployment of NATO forces and assets. They will be closer to Russia’s borders. But, on the other hand, there will be an increased responsibility for the use of these forces and means. Any incident will provoke a crisis that does not correspond to the vital interests of European states. The result of the system of checks and balances will be a “cold peace” — the best possible option for today.
May 19, 2014: "The confrontation between the Kiev putschists, backed by NATO and Ukrainian federalists, supported by Russia, has reached a point of no return. On May 2, President Olexander Turchinov and Israeli oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky organized a massacre at the House of Unions in Odessa. The Western press at first minimized the scale of the atrocities and then went mute when the testimony and evidence was accumulated [1]. After these horrors, it is no longer possible for two peoples to continue to live together.
Three scenarios are possible: either the United States will make Ukraine a new Yugoslavia and cause a war in the hope Russia and the European Union will be bogged down; or else they will multiply confrontations around Russia, starting with Georgia; or else they will grow non-state combatants to destabilize Russia itself, Crimea or Dagestan.
Whatever option is chosen, Washington has, as of now, a mercenary army in place. The Defence Council of Kiev sent envoys to Western Europe to hire far-right activists to come and fight against the Federalists (called "pro-Russian"). And a Pravy Sektor France cell, whose members will soon be integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard, has already been created.
In addition, the Kiev Defense Council intends "to grow numbers" to add jihadists who already have real military experience to these Western European neo-Nazis."
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who has gained international respect for his independence and integrity as a commentator on conflicts and foreign relations. This week, he was banned on the Twitter social media platform for challenging Western claims of a massacre in Bucha, Ukraine, allegedly carried out by Russian troops. Moscow denies the claims, as have other independent analysts who point to evidence that the incident was a false-flag provocation perpetrated by NATO-backed Ukrainian Nazi regiments to undermine Russia internationally and bolster Western objectives. It is a foreboding sign of the times that Ritter should be banned for daring to question dubious narratives. (He was later reinstated following a public outcry against censorship.)
In the following interview
for Strategic Culture Foundation, he makes the crucial point that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is exposing the involvement of the U.S. and NATO in the training and weaponizing of that country’s dominant Nazi regiments. That is why Western media have been so vehement in trying to distort the conflict and blame Russia. The truth about Western dirty involvement in Ukraine would be too much to bear for the Western public.
When Ritter served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s he later challenged Western media and government claims that Iraq was harboring WMDs. Those claims were used as a pretext for the U.S.-British war on Iraq launched in 1993 that cost over one million lives, destroyed a nation, created millions of displaced and millions of casualties, as well as spawned international terrorism. It later turned out that the WMD claims were based on deliberate lies for which no Western leader has been held accountable. Scott Ritter was vindicated in his warnings against that war and it is one reason why he is widely respected among international public opinion.
When all the evidence in Libya, in Syria, in Abu Ghraib or in Bucha point to the usual NATO suspects, we should arrest and imprison their political and military top brass as the serial war criminals that they are.
The USA and her closest allies have committed the most unspeakable war crimes in every corner of the earth, their own included. Don’t even get me going on the Philippines where the USMC hunted their quarry down like mountain rabbits, made necklaces of their ears and sang about it over half a century later during their Vietnamese extermination campaign.
But what about Bucha and media outlets like SCF, which are on the sanctions’ naughty list. Let’s take Bucha first. Atrocities were committed in Bucha; that much is clear and agreed upon, as too as are the only suspects, the Russian army and the Ukrainian militias allied against them; that too is clear. Let’s take both suspects in turn.
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated.
By now it’s abundantly clear that the neo-Orwellian “Two Minute Hate” Russophobic campaign launched by the Empire of Lies after the start of Operation Z is actually “24/7 Hate”.
Vast swathes of NATOstan have been corralled into behaving like a Russophobic lynch mob. No dissent is tolerated. The full psyops has de facto upgraded the Empire of Lies to the status of Empire of Hate in a Total War – hybrid and otherwise – to cancel Russia.
Hate, after all, packs way more punch than mere lies, which are now veering into abject ridiculousness, as in U.S. “intelligence” resorting to – what else – lies to fight the info war against Russia.
If the propaganda overdrive has been lethally effective amidst the zombified Western masses – call it a “win” in the P.R. war – in the front where it really matters, inside Russia, it’s a major fail.
Public opinion support for both Operation Z and President Putin is unprecedented. After videos of torture of Russian POWs that caused widespread revulsion, Russian civil society is even bracing for a “Long War” lasting months, not weeks, as long as the targets of the Russian High Command – actually a military secret – are met.
The stated aims are “demilitarization” and “denazification” of a future neutral Ukraine – but geopolitically reach way beyond: the aim is to turn the post-1945 European collective security arrangement upside down, forcing NATO to understand and come to terms with the concept of “indivisible security”. This is an extremely complex process that will reach the next decade.
The NATOstan sphere simply cannot admit in public a series of facts that a military analyst of the caliber of Andrei Martyanov has been explaining for years. And that adds to their collective pain.
Russia can take on NATO and smash it to bits in 48 hours. It may employ advanced strategic deterrence systems unmatched across the West. Its southern axis – from the Caucasus and West Asia to Central Asia – is fully stabilized. And if the going gets really tough, Mr. Zircon can deliver his hypersonic nuclear business card with the other side not even knowing what hit it.
“Europe has chosen its fate”
It may be enlightening to see how these complex processes are interpreted by Russians – whose points of view are now completely blocked across NATOstan.
Let’s take two examples. The first is Lieutenant General L.P. Reshetnikov, in an analytical note examining facts of the ground war.
Some key takeaways:
– “Over Romania and Poland there are airborne early warning aircraft of NATO with experienced crews, there are U.S. intelligence satellites in the sky all the time. I remind you that just in terms of budgets for our Roscosmos we allocated $2.5 billion a year, the civil budget of NASA is $25 billion, the civil budget of SpaceX alone is equal to Roscosmos – and that is not counting the tens of billions of dollars annually for the entire U.S. feverishly unfolding the control system of the entire planet.”
– The war is unfolding according to “NATO’s eyes and brains. The Ukronazis are nothing but free controlled zombies. And the Ukrainian army is a remotely controlled zombie organism.”
– “The tactics and strategy of this war will be the subject of textbooks for military academies around the world. Once again: the Russian army is smashing a Nazi zombie organism, fully integrated with the eyes and brain of NATO.”
Now let’s switch to Oleg Makarenko, who focuses on the Big Picture.
– “The West considers itself ‘the whole world’ only because it has not yet received a sufficiently sensitive punch on the nose. It just so happened that Russia is now giving him this click: with the rear support of Asia, Africa and Latin America. And the West can do absolutely nothing with us, since it also lags behind us in terms of the number of nuclear warheads.”
– “Europe has chosen its fate. And chose fate for Russia. What you are seeing now is the death of Europe. Even if it does not come to nuclear strikes on industrial centers, Europe is doomed. In a situation where European industry is left without cheap Russian energy sources and raw materials – and China will begin to receive these same energy carriers and raw materials at a discount, there can be no talk of any real competition with China from Europe. As a result, literally everything will collapse there – after industry, agriculture will collapse, welfare and social security will collapse, hunger, banditry and chaos will begin.”
It’s fair to consider Reshetnikov and Makarenko as faithfully representing the overall Russian sentiment, which interprets the crude Bucha false flag as a cover to obscure the Ukrainian army torture of Russian POWs.
And, deeper still, Bucha allowed the disappearance of Pentagon bioweapon labs from the Western mediasphere, complete with its ramifications: evidence of a concerted American drive to ultimately deploy real weapons of mass destruction against Russia.
The multi-level Bucha hoax had to include the Brit presidency of the UN Security Council actually blocking a serious discussion, a day before the Russian Ministry of Defense struggled to present to the UN – predictably minus the U.S. and the UK – all the bioweapon facts they have unearthed in Ukraine. The Chinese were horrified by the findings.
The Russian Investigative Committee at least persists in its work, with 100 researchers unearthing evidence of war crimes across Donbass to be presented at a tribunal in the near future, most probably set up in Donetsk.
And that brings us back to the facts on the ground. There’s a lot of analytical discussion on the possible endgame of Operation Z. A fair assessment would include the liberation of all of Novorossiya and total control of the Black Sea coastline that currently is part of Ukraine.
“Ukraine” in fact was never a state; it was always an annex to another state or empire such as Poland, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and crucially Russia.
The landmark Russian state was Kievan Rus. “Ukraine”, in old Russian, means “border region”. In the past, it referred to the westernmost regions of the Russian Empire. When the Empire started expanding south, the new regions annexed mostly from Turkish rule were called Novorossiya (“New Russia”) and the northeastern regions, Malorossiya (“Little Russia”).
It was up to the USSR in the early 1920s to jumble it all together and name it “Ukraine” – adding Galicia in the west, which was historically non-Russian.
Yet the key development is when the USSR broke up in 1991. As the Empire of Lies de facto controlled post-Soviet Russia, they could never have possibly allowed the real Russian regions of the USSR – that is, Novorossiya and Malorossiya – to be again incorporated to the Russian Federation.
Russia is now re-incorporating them – in an “I Did It, My Way” manner.
Vamos a bailar in European Puerto Rico
By now it’s also quite clear to any serious geopolitical analysis that Operation Z opened a Pandora’s box. And the supreme historical victim of all the toxicity finally let loose is bound to be Europe.
The indispensable Michael Hudson, in a new essay on the U.S. dollar devouring the euro, argues half in jest that Europe might as well surrender its currency, and go on like “a somewhat larger version of Puerto Rico.”
After all, Europe “has pretty much ceased to be a politically independent state, it is beginning to look more like Panama and Liberia – ‘flag of convenience’ offshore banking centers that are not real ‘states’ because they don’t issue their own currency, but use the U.S. dollar.”
In synch with quite a few Russian, Chinese and Iranian analysts, Hudson advances that the war in Ukraine – actually in its “full-blown version as the New Cold War” – is likely to last “at least a decade, perhaps two as the U.S. extends the fight between neoliberalism and socialism [meaning the Chinese system] to encompass a worldwide conflict.”
What may be seriously in dispute is whether the U.S., after “the economic conquest of Europe”, will be able to “lock in African, South American and Asian countries”. The Eurasia integration process, rolling in earnest for 10 years now, conducted by the Russia-China strategic partnership and expanding to most of the Global South, will go no holds barred to prevent it.
There’s no question, as Hudson states, that “the world economy is being enflamed” – with the U.S. weaponizing trade. Yet on the Right Side of History we have the Rublegas, the petroyuan, the new monetary/financial system being designed in a partnership between the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China.
And that’s something no puny Cancel Culture War can erase.
War in Ukraine against Ukrainians by Ukrainian army and Azov and related Nazi units started in March 2014, eight years ago, including US trainers and military equipment
The United States and Ukraine Started the War—Not Russia
For eight years, Ukraine terrorized the people of Eastern Ukraine with U.S. weapons but this was never reported on.
Here is a timeline of events:
October 2002 – “Full Spectrum Dominance” declared by the Pentagon to rule the world.
January 2014 – U.S. military trainers arrive in Ukraine. [1]
February 2014 – Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a violent coup.
March 2014 – Ukraine started the war and killed 10,000 Russian-speakers in Eastern Ukraine.
February 2015 – Ceasefire agreements at Minsk were violated by Kyiv, continuing war.
May 2019 – Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine after false peace promise.
May 2019 – U.S. Rand Corp. think tank issued a manifesto to destroy Russia.[2]
March 2021 – Russian troops appeared at the Ukrainian border.
Feb. 17, 2022 – Ukraine attacked a kindergarten in Donetsk, blaming Donbass separatists.[3]
Feb. 21, 2022 – Kyiv increased its shelling of Donbass by a factor of 100 within four days. [4]
February 21, 2022 – Russia recognized independence of Donetsk and Luhansk.
February 22, 2022 – Donetsk reported intelligence that Ukraine planned invasion of Donbass [5]
The democratically elected government of Ukraine, overthrown by a U.S.-supported violent coup in 2014, was sparked by a massacre of protesters by a renegade Nazi brigade in the Ukraine Army, a cynical and deliberate false-flag tactic to anger the population. It worked as well as the German Nazi false flag Reichstag Fire that allowed Hitler to take over Germany.[6]
In 2014, the Ukraine Army started shelling Donbass in the east, killing 10,000 civilians, which is 10 times more than the UN-reported 1,000 civilians that Russia allegedly killed in 24 days since their incursion into Ukraine, February 24 to March 20. Considering that the population of West Ukraine is 10 times that of the seccessionist-held Donbass, one can easily calculate that those killings by Ukraine were 20 times the percentage of population killed than those allegedly killed by Russia now.
The map below shows the blue two-thirds of Donetsk and Luhansk was occupied by Kiev which was besieging people in the brown one-third to the east. The Russian rescue mission stopped Ukraine’s genocide of Donbass.
In addition, 4,000 combatants were killed in the Donbass siege. Trainers and equipment from the U.S. were there since 2014 to help the Ukrainian Army. Not only has Kyiv started the war in Ukraine, but it also committed major war crimes like the shelling of a kindergarten in Donetsk, while trying to blame Russian for false flag attacks. why? Because Kyiv knows NATO has their back and they want to remove Russian-speakers from Ukraine. They want to grab that valuable property in the east.
It has been confirmed that 14,000 were killed Ukraine’s 2014 civil war, most of them Russian speakers in Donbass. Ukraine cleared minefields on February 23 around Donbass, preparing to invade. Russia blocked that with the incursion on February 24.
………
An underground Lab 404 in the port of Mariupol?
It seems that there is a biological laboratory within the Azovtal factory itself.
This laboratory would be named area 404 and would be located in the basement of the factory.
There would not be 7 basements but 8 basements!
Mariupol Special Update
THIS is going to be The Explosive Story of Mariupol.
Yes, there are quite a few NATO honchos still locked up with the Azov neo-Nazis in the bowels of Azovstal.
Civilian prisoners in the “Biblioteka” at Mariupol airport said they were constantly threatened with being sent to a pit – from which they would never return.
The “pit” may have been a NATO-run underground biological laboratory in Azovstal.
Azovstal's owner, billionaire oligarch Akhmetov, is panicking.
Bio-military experiments in 404 were conducted by Akhmetov's Metabiota company.
The Russian investigative committee is accumulating evidence in view of a REAL Nuremberg trial to come.
Thus, the true story of the sinister "pit" will soon emerge.
Note: ongoing investigation, from multiple sources, of offshoots from Ukraine to France, Britain and Turkey – key evidence is sealed, in possession of the Russian Investigative Committee.
After a particularly stormy day, here in Pécs it looks bright out my window, albeit still quite windy with trash and branches scattered all over, but it looks like we are heading for spring proper now. It is 10 April, the 100th day of the year, International Day of Resistance, not in electronics, but dedicated to the brave underground partisan fighters who resisted the Third Reich's occupation across the world during World War Two. It is truly international, and acquired the greatest scope in the Soviet Union, Italy, Poland, France, Bulgaria, and especially in Tito's Yugoslavia, but to my Azerbaijani friends : Happy Builder's Day!
I apologize in advance for the length of this article. I'm playing catch-up because of the lack of available time yesterday, and also experiencing a very rich NewsDay, so I will try to at least structure all the movements in a digestible way. As has been asked regularly in recent days, please feel free to clip any parts of the article you like, share on to whoever you like, no attribution is needed, but please make sure you include my sources - preferably in a comment, otherwise you may get a warning. Thanks, and here we go:
Kiev:
Further out however, beyond my window, the surreality of the World has not eased or changed one bit. The collective West is rushing towards a catastrophe so fast, it's hard to keep pace. The European Union's Queen Ursula and High-Priest Borrell have concluded their visit to Kiev - instead of independent forensic investigators that Russia has been asking for - who visited the troubled area that rhymes with Sukha, where the alleged war crimes took place. They were there with Elensky the actor - whose cabinet overwhelmingly consists of directors, producers and screenwriters by the way - to take photographs with bagged bodies that, depending on which source you pick, have just been laying there for ten days to a fortnight now. I'm no medical or religious expert, but if those people were my relatives, I know I'd be deeply upset, because this makes no sense to me.
Now Bojo the Royal British clown - Boris Johnson - has joined the row cheerleaders to visit the city and shake Olodimyr's hand and as "show of unwavering support for the people", days after pleading increased financial and military aid, the latter consisting of about £100 million pounds ( $130 million ) worth of weapons systems, which I'm sure will make the taxpayers in the United Kingdom very comfortable as they face tripling prices across the spectrum of commodities and services. He has since announced that Elensky "will go down in history", for some reason, and I believe he's right. I just don't think the man will be remembered the way he thinks he will.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has also come out in support for these shipments. It makes us Europeans very cozy indeed to know that Wicked Witch Ursula, Kurwatic President Andrzej Duda, and the famously European Justin Trudeu have announced further €10 billion ( $11 billion ) for Ukrainian refugees, nothing for us. This number is connected to a further scam to wich I'll return to later.
Someone pointed out - and I'm no expert but I agree - that the logistics of delivery of these weapons systems seem to be quite the exercise in magical thinking. I think it's interesting to note that while Russia de-facto permits these diplomatic travels to take place, weapons caches, fuel and ammunition depots even in the Western part of Ukraine they certainly do not. They have experience in wiping out air-defense systems, they did so during the first three hours of the Special Operations. But either way, these people will deplete their stocks of old weaponry, either bound for destruction, Russian ownership, or the black market, to end up in all sorts of conflict areas, benefiting nobody but the sellers. So who knows how they imagine delivering these arms, as well as Slovakia's ancient S-300 missile defense system, maybe they'll drill a tunnel to Kiev. I wouldn't put the idea past these people.
NATO vs China:
While Sweden and Finland look like they're warming up to Jens Stoltenberg's Invitation to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with now not only the ruling party but some opposition figures supporting this lunatic idea, the Foreign Legion of the US is increasingly talking about Countering China in the South-Pacific. The "Leadership" of Australia, at least the Foreign Minister Marise Payne, is seeking to "help the organization better counter hybrid threats and disinformation and reinforce Australia’s support for NATO". What an incredibly stupid idea, especially now with tensions on the rise everywhere, after Borrell tweeted out that the conflict in Ukraine will only be decided on the battlefield.
Australia, the former British penal colony is responding in a panic - echoing the screams of Washington - to the Solomon Islands signing a security deal with China, which currently does not include the possibility of air or naval bases on the 3,000 km Island chain - tiny on a map, but actually quite huge - but in future it can easily be expanded to include such measures. This step is in response first to protests that had sadly turned second, into riots against Chinese people and businesses on the Islands. There at least, the winds are changing, and are clearly blowing from the East. If other island nations were to follow suit, and seek security guarantees from the East, the tide could change very quickly.
I hope these new Arms-Race moves are only a ploy to increase some arms manufacturer's profits, but I will say that it is increasingly dangerous and unpredictable now, and it worries me greatly that every step of this escalation ladder makes the possibility of hostilities to get beyond control and spread everywhere, much more likely. I will tell you why it's a foolish idea even without considering a possible military conflict.
Those of you who have paid attention know that Russia has known for over a year that these sanctions were incoming, and have prepared accordingly. They have just lowered their Key Interest Rate at the Russian Central bank, signaling that the worst of the inflation crisis has now been endured, and their Financial system is stabilizing - as opposed to ours in doomed Europe or the US. They have taken the full force of the sanctions, weathered the storm, and have come out stronger - in particular a 4.5% increase in Industrial Output compared to February. They are discussing the death of the Eurobonds market, and Roscosmis is reaching towards Life on Jupiter's moons, now.
So what do you believe China has been doing while observing this serious Economic War? Just standing by, idling, do you - like me - believe that they have been fully engaged in preparations for the same happening - sooner or later - to themselves. But here's the key difference : Russia is a key regional Energy, Grain, and Resource Exporter, but not a very significant exporter of other Commodities, but China exports literally everything made by man.
Russia has been careful, patient, and did not have the Economic means to retaliate in most areas, only Gas. China on the other hand has a very different temperament when it comes to dealing with threats, now they don't even have the vulnerabilities they had just last year : Reliance on Energy and Food from potentially hostile countries, because they are getting it all from Russia. They are just now redirecting coal shipments bound for the unreliable Europe to the Asia Pacific. Just imagine what they can do if the West attacks the Middle Kingdom in the same fashion we attacked Russia. What do you think they, the manufacturing hub of the World, can unleash on their two largest trading partners, sitting at almost the same volumes : The United States and Europe? I will put it this way, you have seen nothing like it, ever, in our History.
The Mediterranean:
It is difficult to be hopeful during such times, but not impossible. A few examples come to us from the Mediterranean states, Greece and Cyprus. The Greeks are furious, after Elensky invited two Azov n*zis into their parliament, and a new poll reflects their anger. Support for President Katerina Sakellaropoulou has literally plummeted since this performance, and a clear two thirds do not support sending any further weaponry to the Blonde-and-Blue country, even though many still support it. The Communist Party of Greece has organized the successful blocking of a train that was supposed to carry NATO weapons there.
And now a massive news outlet in Cyprus - philenews, which is like a Washington Post of Nicosia - has published a detailed exposure of President Elensky's shady fortunes bound in corporate chains around the World, including the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus itself. Credit here goes to the lovely but weird Alex Cristoforou of the Duran, reporting from Greece, because I do not know the language so I had to rely on machine translation. The piece analyzes his, and his main supporter in the Presidential race, Ukrainian Oligarch Kolomoisky, from the Pandora Papers to the present day. It is an interesting move, signaling that at least part of the Economic Elite of the country is now clearly willing to challenge the prevailing narrative around the clown.
South America:
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, heir to Simon Bolivar's sword and Hugo Chavez's flame, has now chimed in on this conflict between Russia and the collective West in Ukraine. President Nocolas Maduro, and his people have first-hand experience of these crushing sanctions, and foreign meddling in their elections after all. The leader condemned the vote at the UN General Assembly to expel Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, and now has come out to slam these horrid sanctions for what they are : Prelude to a war with Russia. "They are lining up, economically, politically, and diplomatically for a big war against Russia. From Venezuela, we denounce it" - he said during a televised speech at La Guaira. Another sign of the tides changing. Chavez's slogan rings as true today as when he was with us : Aquí No Se Rinde Nadie | Here, nobody surrenders.
Eastern Ukraine:
I'm no journalist, so I can't bring you news, what I do here is News Analysis - and I have been doing that these past months by pure necessity because what's coming out of our Media has become pure garbage - so I can't report on the situations in places like Mariupol, Khamatorsk or the Donbass because I'm not there, and have no way of knowing the real situation. I will show you a few pieces of information that keeps me very interested in future developments though, from the Russian Ministry of Defense, but all confirmed by the country the name of which in old-Russian simply means "borderlands", now called Ukraine. Neither are confirmed or stated by myself.
First of all, the aerial evacuation attempts from the Azovstal Iron and Steelworks in Mariupol have failed, resulting in at least five lost helicopters on the Ukrainian side, and has now been followed by a failed naval attempt by the Ukrainian Apache, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship, which broke from a caravan of ships two nights ago under the cover of dark trying to enter the Port. It at first did not respond to Russian border guards, and later reportedly responded with the words "I am Maniac, coming for you". The ship was searched, and is being escorted to the Yeysk port now.
Who or what they are desperately trying to get out of the danger zone remains unclear, but the Russian Ministry of Defense's latest updates give us some hints at perhaps something very serious. They have reported that they have intercepted and recorded radio transmissions from the area, conducted in addition to Russian and Ukrainian, in six other, mostly European foreign languages. Who or what is desperate for a safe passage out, remains to be seen.
In Kramatorsk the tragic missile strike on the railway station has also been confirmed by both sides, and now - based on photo evidence - has been identified by both sides as yet another Tochka-U missile strike, costing at least 50 lives - by Elensky himself in the Telegraph. This to me is significant because the Russian Armed Forces have phased out these weapons long ago, and are relying on Iskanders, Kinzhals, Zircons, the modernized versions, but Ukraine has not. Furthermore I would like to add that dead civilians, in the process of evacuation do not serve Russia's interests, nor their Standing Orders. That's about all I can say about the area.
South-Asia:
Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan is still under siege, even after he presented the evidence, in the form of a US diplomatic letter as the source of the no-confidence vote against him. This came after the country's leader pursued a neutral status in the conflict between Russia and NATO, and the vote was overturned and deemed unconstitutional, it has now been reanimated by some necromancers in a court, who have ruled the overturning illegal. So the battle for the country is waging on, and it is difficult to say who, or what kind of Pakistan comes out after the dust has settled. I can say this though, against a rather united India, Russia and China, hostile moves will not stand a chance. For now, opposition supporters are seen celebrating.
The neighboring Iran has now placed sanctions on US officials for t*rrorism and human rights violations, with the notable inclusion of former New York mayor Rudy Giulliani, US ambassador Dorothy Shea, former US Senator Joe Lieberman, and several US Treasury officials. Its neighbor in turn, Iraq has refused to disarm their resistance fighters until a full US withdrawal of forces is implemented. The parliament passed a law back in 2020 that ended permission for US troops to be stationed on Iraqi soil, but they have not left.
And further West, Lebanon has failed to disburse necessary funds for the transfer of energy from Egypt, in a US-sponsored gas deal which was already on hold due to Washington's refusal to provide Egypt with required exemptions from the so-called Caesar Sanctions in order to sell gas to Lebanon via Syria. This equates to a legal default, and may result in severe power outages in the near future.
Non-News but funny:
In the tradition of this new Crusade against everything Russian, we have some new things to laugh about. Japan has moved to ban all new investments in Russia, vodka and timber imports, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has fumed in an announcement. In the zombified Europe, in the Kurwatic Capital of Warsaw, there was live-streamed concert in connection to Ursula's pledge of €10 billion ( $11 billion ), featuring U2, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ozzy Osborne, Madonna, Celine Dion, Billie Elish and Elton John among many others. They are asking for donations now, for Elensky.
And in a final piece of absolutely hilarious Entertainment News in the UK, Pink Floyd has announced the reformation of the band and their first new song in 28 years witch samples a Ukrainian musician, now on the front line, and expressed "disappointment" in the band's former lead, Roger Waters - a consistent voice for Palestine, Syria, Yemen, who refuses to condone Russia. They are doing concerts like LiveAid now - notorious because only 2% of its proceeds made it to the people they were fundraising for - and they are making songs. This is the level of sanity in the West.
In Conclusion:
If you have reached this point in this monster article - almost 3,000 words - I thank you. But if somehow you are one of the weird, and remarkable people who after a Sunday long read prefer to read more, I will not leave you empty handed. There have been three amazing big picture analyses coming out the past few days by two experts I really respect. First two by Geopolitics Master Pepe Escobar, and the third - referenced by the previous - was by Professor of Real Economics, Michael Hudson. I wanted to cover their work initially but with everything going on, this article is stretched to its capacity, I think you will agree. They cover the US-Euro currency war, the all-out war to cancel Russia, and the demolition of Europe better than I ever could.
Finally, China has responded to all this provocation, in an Opinion piece this is a delight to read. The title alone makes me smile : Will Stoltenberg ever understand China will not bow to a hegemonic clique? We are in to see that question answered, soon.
Have a wonderful Sunday Evening.
UPDATE : Facebook is having issue with one of three groups of source links I have, and I don't know how to post them to you, even after tiny-ing the URLS.. The comment simply won't render, kept in an enless processing mode.. My apologies, I will keep trying. They would include sources for :
- Source - Russian Industry, Jupiter ( RUS )
- Source - Russian coal redirected ( RUS )
- Source - China's largest trading partners
- Source - Greek support for president, weapons, plunges
- Source - Greeks block train
- Source - Cyprus exposes Elensky
- Source - Venezuela weighs in
- Source - Naval Evacuation failure, Ma*iupol ( RUS )
“The major energy producers of the world are fully able and capable of using their energy supply as a weapon for geopolitical power, as Russia is doing as we speak. Future wars might not be that unlikely, after all.”
1. Is it not the case that it is the US/NATO/EU that voluntarily (SANCTIONS!) cut themselves off from Russian resource flows? I mean, yeah, in the 1990s they came “this close” to controlling/owning all of Russia’s natural resources for themselves but their plan blew up and they haven’t restored their own psychic equilibrium since then but that’s another story.
2. Future wars might not be unlikely? Omission makes it sound like the US/NATO/EU has been sitting around peaceful campfires singing kumbaya all this time and, well, I throw up in my mouth a little bit hearing that characterization. Particularly given the fact of western megaviolence and its escalation in my lifetime, annihilating one country after another for decades, all for resource control, murdering tens of millions.
3. Well, resource control is one reason for (2) but the other is totally deranged pathological hatred of Russia, which does in fact have something to do with current (right now) events in Ukraine. It is the reason that the US/NATO/EU rejected Ukraine’s dual membership in both the Eurasian trading block and the EU, which was declared acceptable repeatedly by Ukrainian voters, Ukraine’s government, and was endorsed and promoted by the Russian government. This was rejected absolutely by the collective West (the US/NATO/EU) which overthrew Urkaine’s government and installed a client hostile to Russia transformed over the last 8 years into a heavily militarized platform controlled from Washington. Look at the Black Sea and the history of Russia, and ask yourself how far removed such actions are from the events described in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove in 1964. Who among those characters do our governing authorities resemble today?
In the context of that last question, here’s the kind of American military thinking and policy foundation that we grew up to expect in the United States, from the 1950s on:
But this kind of rationality was overturned in the 90s by the neocons, PNAC and whatnot and the Clinton/Bush/Obama/Biden class of fronts for this.
About the extent of their extremist policy, and rhetorical overhaul and shitcanning of reasonable awareness, of limits to imperial power, …most of us are only just beginning to become aware of the extent of the damage, the abyss we’ve walked into intentionally.
Thanks so much for this. And you're right. "We" really need Russian energy.