Tag: Russia

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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Rumblings in the East

A US general is removed from duty two months early:

Reports are circulating this morning claiming Lt. Gen. Charles D. Costanza, the Commanding General of the U.S. Army’s V Corps, forward based out of Camp Kościuszko, Poland and tasked with the defense of NATO’s Eastern Front, has been removed from command.

NATO’s “eastern Front” is Russia.

The reports allege there has been no official reason given (to the public) for this removal.

The reports conclude that the General had “only two months remaining” on his tenure.

Many, MANY, questions are being asked about this. What did the General do — or refuse to do — that caused his alleged removal?

Clown World wants NATO to go to war with Russia. Their pet politicians will do as they are told, but only to the limits of their capabilities, which are barely capable of keeping the lid on their own captive peoples. Which means that whatever false flags are utilized by the European militaries will have to be overseen, if not necessarily assisted directly, by the US military in Europe.

And while most US generals are not courageous in the political sense, they are not stupid and they are not suicidal. One of the more fascinating things about the various US military defeats is how few casualties have been taken by the US military, even when it is losing. That is a sign that everything isn’t lost as far as the military goes, and I strongly suspect that the generals are very actively obstructing the Trump administration and the other shot-callers for Clown World.

Which may be why Gen. Costanza was removed from command. But I very much doubt they’re going to find any American general willing to help start a completely unnecessary war with Russia that will almost certainly lead to defeat and the Russian occupation of Germany.

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Translation: The Baltics Will Attack Russia

NATO strategists really assume that the rest of the world is stupid:

U.S. intelligence reports raised new alarms that Russian President Vladimir Putin could provoke a NATO nation with a limited attack as early as this fall, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Aug. 6.

According to WSJ, officials in Washington previously believed that an attack on a NATO ally would not occur amid Russia’s preoccupation with its war in Ukraine. The new-found belief by U.S. intelligence matches a chorus of similar warnings made by European officials in recent months.

In June, the head of Germany’s army, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding, cautioned that Russia might have the capabilities to strike NATO countries within the next three years. According to WSJ, U.S. officials believe that a large-scale hybrid-warfare attack, or even limited land incursion, may come between the fall of this year and 2029.

The latest intelligence report comes amid warnings from European countries that Russia may also attempt to use false flag-style attacks using Ukrainian-made drones to strike critical infrastructure in the Baltic region.

The whole thing is ridiculous. Russia has the ability to strike every single NATO country, including the USA, right now. And Russia doesn’t require any false flags in order to strike back against the NATO countries already attacking it, including Germany, France, and the UK.

Frankly, Russian forbearance has been astonishing. The Clown World puppets ruling over their European satrapies are fortunate that Vladimir Putin, and not one of his many more militant supporters, is the one calling the shots in Moscow.

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Air Supremacy Established

But not in the Middle East, in the Gulf, or in Iran. In Ukraine:

Numerous reports are coming in from several different geographic areas of Ukraine claiming “Ukraine has no more air defenses.” Those reports go on to say that Russian missiles and drones “are not being intercepted AT ALL.”

Last night in Kiev, Russia targeted the capital with 4 Zircon/Oniks missiles, 24 Iskander-M/S-400 missiles, and 115 strike UAVs including Shahed (mostly jet-powered), Gerbera, and Italmas types, as well as “Parodiya” decoy drones (98 shot down). The Ukrainian Air Force reported that air defense forces failed to shoot down any Russian missiles overnight.

This morning, Russian Combat Aircraft had complete freedom over the war zone, carrying Fuel-Air-Bombs (FABs) directly to the front lines to blow up Ukraine positions, without being fired upon even once by surface to air defenses. Russia now has absolute air superiority at the front, Russian bombers are flying for the first time since 2023 right up to the front lines again – which makes it far easier to drop heavy bombs.

With this new development, the last Ukrainian fortress belt in the Donbass will fall in the autumn.

The boots on the ground are still necessary to take the ground and win the war. But the key component has now been established.

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The Aerial Blockade of Odessa

I’ve always thought Odessa is Russia’s primary objective. And now they’re using 5GW to enforce an aerial blockade of Ukraine’s most important ports, including Odessa:

I just returned from Odesa, where an unprecedented Russian aerial offensive has completely blocked Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, threatening an economic disaster that, at the moment, appears underestimated by international media. In the city, one witnesses paradoxical scenes, with Russian drones and missiles flying over beaches full of swimmers, or being shot down off the coast, in view of thousands of smartphones pointed at the sky.

For about ten days now, Moscow has begun systematically targeting all vessels approaching the port, with no regard for nationality. Now, neither captains nor shipowners dare to approach the three major Ukrainian ports: Odessa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdenny.

For Ukrainian farmers, it risks being a disaster. With exports blocked at the peak of the harvest season, their warehouses are overflowing, and agricultural commodity prices in the country have collapsed. With the sunflower harvest starting in just a few days, the situation risks becoming critical.

After having been targeted by it for decades, Russia and Iran clearly understand how to wage economic war better than the West.

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The EU is a Pirate State

Send in the Marines…

European states have developed a mechanism that allows them to sell confiscated Russian oil without transferring the proceeds to its rightful owners, according to a decision in the official journal of the EU. European countries intend to dispose of seized Russian oil without transferring the proceeds to its owners; the corresponding decision was published in the official journal of the European Union, reports RIA News.

Before the adoption of the new package of sanctions, the embargo prohibited the purchase, import and transportation of Russian energy resources, but there was no mechanism for selling goods without transferring profits to the owner. The new amendments introduce this possibility for the first time. The mechanism will allow European countries to remove confiscated products from the ban, sell them to third parties and keep the proceeds for themselves.

I seem to recall something about “the shores of Tripoli”. The US Marines were sent there to deal with a piracy problem, and now we’ve got the European Union literally operating as an oil-pirating operation.

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The Addition of Economic Attrition

Instead of accepting the reality of its military defeat, Ukraine has tried to create political pressure on Russia by targeting the civilian population. To which, of course, Russia has responded by escalating and expanding the economic pain on Ukraine and Europe:

Ukraine is trying to redirect part of the cargo flow from the Odesa region. Due to the strikes on the port infrastructure of Odesa and ships in Ukrainian territorial waters, the largest container shipping operator, Maersk, has suspended operations at the Black Sea Fish Port and redirected ships to the Romanian port of Constanta. On July 27, Ukraine initiated an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council due to the cessation of ship traffic in the Odesa ports.

In addition, there is a slight increase in the volume of rail traffic of grain and oilseed cargoes, redirected from the Greater Odesa area, to the western railway border crossings (key stations: Chop, Uzhgorod, Mostyska, Rava-Ruska, Yagodin, Batievo, Vadul-Siret) and the Danube ports (Izmail, Reni, Kilia). The early involvement of the Moldovan port of 🇲🇩Giurgiu and the Romanian 🇷🇴Constanta (to which barges can be delivered from the Danube ports) is expected.

In the scheme of increasing rail transportation to the west, large grain storage facilities, located directly at the border stations or within 5-30 km of them, will play a key role, due to the need to transship from the broad gauge (1520 mm) to the European gauge (1435 mm).

However, land routes are not capable of completely replacing sea exports: their combined throughput is estimated at only 1-1.2 million tons per month, compared to the required 5-6 million tons. And this is under the condition that strikes on the railway infrastructure will not increase.

It is clear that the Russian side has finally found a truly sensitive vulnerability of the enemy and its sponsors, and pressure on them needs to be increased. The importance of Ukrainian agricultural products for its European sponsors will increase significantly this season – according to estimates by European industry associations, the June heatwave in Europe led to a loss of almost 9 million tons of grain.

This is why one has to have serious questions about the reality of war, especially when foreign leaders, or national leaders owned by foreign interests are involved. Ukraine can’t possibly win. The people are suffering greatly. And yet the leadership remains as bellicose and belligerent as ever.

And it’s not only Ukraine. Germany should be surrendering now too; its energy costs are skyrocketing and its economy is practically dehydrating. And yet, the so-called “leaders” keep banging on their war drums.

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Russia = Charlie Brown

The Foreign Minister says that this time, for sure, Russia will stop believing that Clown World is going to pull the football away:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced that Russia will no longer believe the West when it claims to seek “negotiated solutions on Ukraine”.

Source: Russian propaganda agencies TASS and RIA Novosti

Quote: “We will no longer believe the West that it wants negotiated solutions. This reserve of goodwill and hope has been exhausted entirely.”

Details: According to Lavrov, the West is allegedly simulating readiness for negotiations on Ukraine while “now openly beginning to issue ultimatums to Russia”.

With all due respect to Mr. Lavrov, once you’ve determined that a party is “agreement incapable” then if you choose to believe anything that party says going forward, it’s really on you. I frankly have no idea why Russia or Iran continue to entertain “negotiations” with any of the Clown World entities at this point nor do I see what positive purpose any pretense at believing in the legitimacy of the fake negotiations serves their interests.

Granted, attrition is on the side of both Russia or Iran, so perhaps they’re simply playing along with Clown World’s desire to postpone its collapse in order to reduce any risks to the process. But if so, then what is the point of publicly declaring, again, that you don’t believe them.

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