Tag: Russia

Putin Wins Again

Vladimir Putin is far more popular with Russians than Trump is with US citizens or any of the unelected EU sock-puppets are with the various countries they supposedly “lead”:

Judging by the preliminary results, Russia’s new State Duma will look remarkably similar to the old one, after this weekend’s elections. Yet amid dramatically different domestic and international circumstances, that continuity is perhaps the most notable result of all. The 2026 result has produced some changes, but the new is considerably less significant than the familiar.

Turnout, at around 57%, was the highest in a State Duma election for a decade, although hardly unprecedented as participation exceeded 60% four times in earlier elections.

United Russia was the clearest beneficiary, taking almost 58% of the party-list vote, up sharply from 49.8% in 2021. Even so, it remained below the party’s record 64.3% in 2007, during Vladimir Putin’s second presidential term.

The Communists again established themselves as Russia’s principal opposition party, comfortably finishing second with almost 14%, but that represented a significant retreat from their roughly 19% in 2021, and was far removed from the turbulent 1990s, when the party could attract almost a quarter of the electorate.

Remember, everything – everything – about Clown World is fake, gay, and retarded. Which is why their fantasies about the people rising up against Vladimir Putin are little more than the projection of their own quite realistic fears about the people of the slave states of Europe rising up against the apparatchiks in Paris, Berlin, and London.

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Gas Prices Aren’t High Enough?

It’s almost as if Short Fake Trump wants everyone around the world to hate his administration:

China has condemned the latest expansion of US sanctions against Russia, including potential tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian energy, vowing to take “all necessary measures” to safeguard its national interests. US President Donald Trump signed the sweeping legislation on Friday. Among other measures, the bill authorizes secondary sanctions against the five largest buyers of Russian crude oil and natural gas. It does not explicitly name major importers such as China or India.

We paid 21 percent more for diesel today than last week. These idiotic wars on Iran and Russia are devastating all the Western economies. And they’re wholly unnecessary; at this point, Americans and Europeans will be demanding that someone give Tehran nuclear weapons just to bring the whole charade to an end.

It’s eminently clear at this point that the “mad mullahs” are more restrained and rational than the Clown Worlders. It’s also clear that whoever may be in the White House, it isn’t Donald Trump.

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The Cost of Taking Sides

The Swiss are being informed that taking sides against a major power on behalf of others is a very expensive proposition when those others lose:

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian subsidiaries of Nestle, Auchan and Leroy Merlin placed under temporary management owing to Western support for Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian and economic infrastructure.

Moscow introduced the temporary management mechanism in 2023 in response to Western companies leaving Russia and the seizure of Russian state and private assets abroad. Officials said it was intended to keep strategically important businesses operating and shield the economy from decisions by “unfriendly” countries.

On Thursday, Putin amended the 2023 decree to add the Russian assets of Nestle, Auchan and Leroy Merlin to the list. All three were transferred to L.E.V. Management, a business and management consultancy.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the companies’ home countries and their support for Kiev were major factors behind the decision. “We are talking about European companies, companies from unfriendly countries,” he told journalists on Friday. “These are unfriendly countries that are actively involved in military actions against our country,” Peskov said, adding that some also support Ukrainian strikes “against our civilian economic infrastructure.”

The Swiss alarm over why they just lost a fairly significant asset as an inevitable result of their own actions would be amusing if it wasn’t so ominous for the future. There is no such thing as performative belligerence. If you attack a nation’s economy with sanctions, they will punish you for that, sooner or later.

Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, speaking on behalf of the government, said in a statement that it’s “worried” about the seizure of Nestlé’s assets. It’s working with Nestlé “toward the reversal of the compulsory administration,” it said.

Neutrality is what once made Switzerland the wealthiest country in the world. Kowtowing to the United States and the European Union has already cost them dearly and caused the failure of one of their two major banks; one hopes that the Swiss people will keep this in mind and limit the federal government’s disastrous forays into belligerence by strengthening its official neutrality structure in their upcoming vote.

As for the idea that Putin did this in order to influence the constitutional vote, there is no chance that Russia cares one way or another. This is simply a reaction to actions already committed; if the Swiss choose to engage in further foolish provocations and act like an EU puppet province, Russia will continue to treat them like an enemy. I suspect this is the real reason for the seizure:

Bern has also considered easing restrictions on the re-export of Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine.

Which is really not a great idea when Ukraine has already lost the war, NATO has shown itself to be a paper tiger on multiple fronts, and BRICS is rapidly demonstrating that it, and not Clown World, is the economic entity that matters. International diplomacy is not an appropriate venue for virtue-signaling.

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Odessa Confirmed

I’ve always believed that obtaining control of the city and the port of Odessa is central to ending the Russia’s war against Kiev and Clown World. This recent conversation between John Mearsheimer and Sergei Larvrov in Moscow, as reported by Larry Johnson, tends to confirm that:

A week ago Monday I had dinner with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. I was in the company of John Mearsheimer, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Alastair Crooke. The dinner was informal and genuinely candid, and Lavrov answered questions directly — and anyone who has sat with Mearsheimer knows he does not ask soft ones. I came away with two clear impressions.

The first is that Russia’s negotiating position toward the West has not moved an inch since Putin addressed his foreign ministry on June 14, 2024. In that speech he made the terms explicit, and they are the terms still on the table: the West must recognize Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson, along with Crimea, as permanent Russian territory. These former Ukrainian oblasts are not going back. In Moscow that is treated not as an opening bid but as a settled fact. Beyond it, Russia is building buffer zones through its advances in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk. Those territories could, in time, be incorporated as well — though officials frame that as something that would follow a vote or plebiscite rather than a foregone conclusion. It is not formally on the menu. But it is, in my read, very much in the cards.

The second impression is that the space for a negotiated settlement is extremely narrow — narrower than Western capitals want to admit — because Russia is simply not willing to make the concessions the West requires, and does not believe it has to. My own assessment, after listening to how officials here talk, is that the war effort will not stop until Odessa and Kyiv are firmly under Russian control. I hold that as a judgment, not a certainty. But nothing I heard this week moved me off it.

I’ll disagree with Larry about Kiev. I don’t believe Russia wants it, and the rump state of Western Ukraine will need a capital city. But Odessa is too important economically to not take control of it.

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The Usual End

Larry Johnson explains that Clown World has reached the exit stage with its failed 30-year Ukraine project.

The war in Ukraine was not a crisis that erupted in 2022. It was the payoff of a deliberate, decades-long Western project to turn Ukraine into an instrument for weakening Russia — carried out under the cover of “partnership” and “peacekeeping.” And having spent thirty years building that instrument, Washington and NATO will do with Ukraine exactly what they have done with every client before it: discard it the moment it stops paying…

Here is how it gets discarded. Any foreign government that trusts an American security promise should first study what happened to the South Vietnamese, the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Cambodians. When a war stops serving Washington’s purposes, the U.S. says adios.

The recriminations over the failed counteroffensive are the opening of exactly that. The West is lining up to blame Kyiv while its pledges of weapons turn out to be lip service. The maritime-drone strikes on Russian ships are pinpricks — militarily trivial, and dangerous mainly because the Western surveillance that guides them invites Russian retaliation against NATO reconnaissance over the Black Sea and stiffens Moscow’s resolve to strangle Ukraine’s ports. If you want an honest barometer of where this war is heading, forget the briefings from British intelligence and the Institute for the Study of War. Watch for the day the London bookmakers start taking bets on when Zelensky falls.

It’s not the USA proper, of course. It’s the Clown World imperialists who have hijacked the US military for its globalist satanic purposes. Fortunately, the nations that remained sovereign and independent now have the upper hand, which is why the Ukraine project failed, why the Gulf project is failing, and why BRICS is supplanting the G7 as the most important economic organization in the world.

While Mr. Johnson is watching for Zelensky’s fall, I’m more interested in seeing a) when Taiwan officially reunifies with the mainland, b) when Japan frees itself from the US military occupation, and c) how the Korean reunification plays out. Unlike the German reunification, which played into Clown World’s hands, these three events likely demonstrate the opposite.

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Why Russia Can’t Stop

The special military operation in Ukraine is not about Ukraine. It was never about Ukraine. The Russians have been telling everyone this from the start, but the media refuses to report the truth about the nature and scale of the conflict.

The world has entered an era of major transformation. In that sense, the narrow focus is – will they reach an agreement on Ukraine? No. Every time you think about that, you have to recall how it all started, why it is like this, how wrongly the world is structured, how important it is for Russia to insist on its interests, why the European bureaucracy itself cannot accept that, because otherwise that would mean the end of both it and the political class of many countries. Why can’t this conflict stop? Because it can’t be settled. Someone has to win. Just as with the US and Iran (which, incidentally, is a much more local conflict) – it is impossible to agree, there can be no deal. There can only be some movement in which one of the sides explicitly or implicitly recognizes its defeat. It may not be total defeat, but at least at some stage one side wins and the other side does not recognize it. Such a process will last a long time, but in the end there will still be some de facto consolidation of the results of this conflict. Not a negotiated one, unfortunately, but a factual one. Diplomats may formalize such a conclusion, or they may not. Frankly, that is no longer important.

When we talk about Russia-US negotiations on Ukraine, there are two extremes, and both miss the essence. Yes, we are negotiating, and we constantly demonstrate that Russia and the US have nothing to fight over. We are ready to coexist with the US on the same globe. That is exactly why Putin says: “Of course, Kushner and Witkoff are welcome guests, come. What else should we show you from Moscow’s kitchen?” You see, the US cannot conduct negotiations on Ukraine because it cannot force either Kiev, London, or Brussels to accept Russia’s reasonable demands. And how are they going to pressure Russia? I think the Trump administration more or less understands that it is pointless. So what kind of negotiations on Ukraine can there be?

As I said back in 2022, we’re already in WWIII. It’s not as dramatic as WWII or as violent on the battlefield as WWI, because the grounds being contested are more abstract than material. Right now, the most significant front is the Strait of Hormuz, which has serious ramifications for Venezuela and Canada due to the global importance of oil. But there is no violence on the second front, which is China, Taiwan, and Japan, and the real question is the destiny of the latter.

Taiwan island is already lost to China. Its fate, already obvious, was absolutely sealed with the defeat of the US Navy by Yemen and Iran. A navy that cannot impose its will on third- and fifth-rate coastal powers cannot hope to contest the will of a primary regional power in its own sphere of influence. Everyone understands this, even though the Chinese are too polite and the Americans are too embarrassed to admit it in public.

The real question is when Japan will throw off its occupation by the USA, which will probably require some sort of mutual assistance arrangement with China. The US military does not give up its bases easily, as the Philippines, the Europeans, and the Iraqis have learned, but it will give them up under pressure. And only the Chinese can provide the Japanese with the amount of pressure they will require to free themselves from the financial servitude under which they have labored, at great and increasing cost to their nation, for the last 70 years.

So that’s the big event that I think will make this global transformation undeniable even to those who still think nothing has changed and we are still living in the post-WWII era. An agreement of some sort between China and Japan, followed by a US withdrawal from its bases in the Home Islands and Okinawa.

On a related note, my guess about the recent visits to Moscow by the CIA Director and the senior negotiators is that Russia and the USA are in the process of reaching an agreement concerning what Russia will be permitted to do to defend itself against the UK and German logistical support for Ukrainian attacks without the USA agreeing to accept those states’ subsequent attempts to invoke NATO Article 5. Note that the USA has absolutely no obligation to take part in any so-called “collective self-defense,” only “such action as it deems necessary.”

The Russian embassy in Berlin has stated “From this point forward, facilities in Germany that house long-range (weapons) systems (being used by Ukraine to attack Russia) will be considered legitimate targets. This comes as German Chancellor Merz this week showcased factories in Germany that hope to produce 5,000 attack drones per month for Ukraine, to make long-range-strikes into Russia. As most people would probably guess, the very first time Russia hits a factory inside Germany, the country of Germany will attempt to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, “Collective Self Defense.”

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Playing the War Card

Hal Turner does tend to be more than a bit of a catastrophist, but it goes without saying that there is a lot of troublesome activity going on around the world that bears paying attention. Here is his read on the current situation; to it I would add that the financial markets are looking like they are going to have a horrific October and the oil problem from the US defeat in the Gulf War III has not been fixed by the resort to Venezuelan oil.

So it’s not unthinkable that the financial and political elites are looking for a combined distraction and reset.

I’m watching NATO push Russia toward a response that terrifies me. I think the United Kingdom is going to be hit.

Let me walk through what’s actually happening.

The Kursk incursion wasn’t a Ukrainian operation. It was NATO. Real-time satellite data. AI intelligence collecting digital and mobile network information showing exactly where Russian troops were positioned. Special NATO operatives and Ukrainian forces got guided deep into Russian territory by technology and planning they don’t have on their own.

That’s a red line people who lived through the 60s and 70s would never have considered crossing. Direct NATO operations inside Russia. Not weapons. Not training. Active intelligence coordination for a ground invasion.

Then Ukrainian forces following that incursion killed civilians. Another line crossed.

Then drones deployed from makeshift trucks attacked Russian nuclear bomber bases. Targeting the strategic deterrence force. The weapons designed to prevent exactly this kind of escalation.

Every step calculated. Every line deliberately crossed.

Here’s what makes this dangerous: the West knows Russia doesn’t want nuclear war. Russia never planned for global conflict. They responded to Ukraine’s NATO membership trajectory because their security demanded it. Not because they wanted World War III.

But NATO is facing irrelevance. The alliance needs a purpose. It needs an enemy. It needs escalation to justify its existence and its budgets.

So watch the contradiction in Western media: “Russia is too weak to advance on the battlefield. ” and the very NEXT words we’re told “Russia is also an existential threat that could invade Europe any day.”

Both statements can’t be true. But both serve the same goal.

They want to make Russia look weak enough that pushing them further seems safe. While simultaneously making Russia look threatening enough that massive military spending stays justified.

The strategy is clear: push Russia into retaliating. Cross enough red lines that Moscow has to respond with something NATO can call escalation. Then use that response to flip Western economies onto war footing.

Because those economies are beyond saving through normal means. The debt is too high. The infrastructure is too broken. The political systems are too captured.

The problem with playing the war card is that it’s more akin to rolling the dice. Wars seldom stay as neatly contained as the Smart Boy strategists declare they will, their consequences are often unpredictable, and the side that overestimates its own abilities while underestimating its enemies usually loses worse than it imagines it can.

Now, it’s also very important to keep in mind that evil will oft evil mar, and there are very good strategists on the other side. Russia developed the Oreshnik for precisely this reason; to be able to deliver a conventional blow with tac-nuke power that does not cross the nuclear line. And the US population is almost militantly anti-war while the European nations don’t have the military forces to fight anyone now. So even if the war between Russia and NATO goes hot and direct, that doesn’t mean the two major nuclear powers are going to start launching ICBMs at each other.

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Never Bluff a Bluffer

There is never any point in warning Clown World. Clown World lives by the bluff, which is why it dismisses every warning from Russia, Iran, or anyone else and assumes that its enemies are also posturing and manifesting.

British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond could become legitimate targets for Russian strikes if Kiev continues to use UK-supplied weapons for attacks on Russian territory, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has warned.

The comments come amid rapidly deteriorating relations between Moscow and London, and a day after Ukrainian forces reportedly used British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles in a strike on Donetsk that wounded at least eight civilians, including two children.

“We have repeatedly warned that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons against Russian territory could be directed against any British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond,” Zakharova said during a press briefing on Thursday.

Notice that China doesn’t bluff. China is much more effective and respected than Russia, mostly because it simply acts when and how it deems necessary, without any threats, without any posturing, and without any warning. The Russians always seem to be a little incoherent, as one minute they’re correctly describing the USA as agreement-incapable, and the next they’re trying to reach an agreement with the same party they described as being incapable of one.

Russia has repeatedly warned that it might, perhaps, possibly respond if British weapons kept being used against it. And its warnings have been repeatedly ignored. But Russia never seems to draw the correct lesson from that process.

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Air Power Idiocy

What do air power advocates, American tax protestors, religious conservatives, and NATO strategists all have in common? The foolish idea that with just a little external assistance, the people will rise up and overthrow their government:

Early this year, Ukrainian officials came to President Volodymyr Zelensky with a risky new plan to end the war with Russia. It would require expanding their bombing campaign to include a set of targets and a class of weapons they had long avoided. In addition to Ukraine’s ongoing strikes against Russian military bases, oil refineries, supply lines, and logistics hubs, the officials wanted to launch waves of AI-enabled drones at Moscow’s airports, hoping to stop international carriers from flying in and out of the Russian capital, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the plan, which has not been previously reported.

In short, they wanted to plan a mass terror attack on Russian airports to completely shut down all civilian flights in and out of Moscow as a way to ramp up pressure and make Russian civilians in the capital city feel the consequences of the war.

It’s remarkable that military planners even entertain these ridiculous notions that never, ever, work. The idea has been around since the 1920s when it was first conceived by an Italian general named Giulio Douhet. It will probably not escape your attention that despite having first access to this strategery, Italy has not won any wars since the publication of The Command of the Air in 1921. Nor has ever it worked anywhere from Germany to Vietnam to Gaza.

Contra the air power theory, bombing tends to cause the people to support the regime in charge and turn to it for protection. It doesn’t ever make them want to surrender to the people bombing them or accede to their wishes.

And in preemptive answer to the obvious rebuttal, Russia isn’t bombing civilian targets in Kiev to turn the Ukrainian people against Zelensky and the Kiev regime. It’s a) payback for Ukraine’s attacks on civilians and b) a warning to the Kiev regime’s NATO supporters.

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Don’t They Know They’re Losing?

Iran is engaging in some very unusual behavior for a side that we are reliably and repeatedly losing the war in the Gulf.

Iran has delivered an ULTIMATUM to the United States and states the U.S. has “3 – 4 weeks” to meet all of its demands or Iran “will severely escalate in the Strait of Hormuz” and launch its planned preemptive strike on US-Backed Gulf Infrastructure, and US / ISRAELI assets.

Iran’s demands include:

  • $300 billion in reconstruction funds
  • Full release of Iran’s frozen assets of up to $120 billion
  • Lifting of the U.S. naval blockade
  • End to the war across all fronts, including Gaza and Lebanon
  • Accepting Iran’s permanent control of the Strait of Hormuz, including up to 7% of transit fees
  • The lifting of all US sanctions on Iranian oil, petrochemical products, and gas

Of course, we’re also being told that Ukraine is winning the EU/NATO’s war against Russia despite having lost over one-third of its population, 20 percent of its territory, and living without heat or power.

I always wondered how the German people didn’t realize how badly they were losing on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. I don’t wonder about that anymore.

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