Tag: Russia

Yes, The Russians Will Win

Even the official broadcasters of The Narrative are beginning to recognize that Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable, however unpalatable it might be.

At one point in the novel “Sign of the Four,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s inimitable detective Sherlock Holmes explains and demonstrates to Dr. Watson his method of observation and deduction. Confronted with an apparently inexplicable circumstance, Dr. Watson is utterly perplexed. He simply cannot understand how the event in question came to pass, given the facts as he understands them and the laws of nature. Slightly irritated at his plodding companion’s bafflement, Holmes once again shares with him the methodological key to solving all such mysteries: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

And the truth is, once we have eliminated all the impossible scenarios, the least improbable outcome of the war in Ukraine is a Russian victory.

Note that I did not say such an outcome would be desirable. Russia’s inevitable victory is anything but. Nor did I say it would be total. The outcome of this war is going to fall far short of the Kremlin’s initial hopes and expectations. Nor, finally, did I say it would be without significant cost. Any conceivable Russian victory now will entail such a loss of blood and treasure that it will have to be judged Pyrrhic at best.

But it will be a victory nonetheless — and we in the West had better come to grips with that hard truth.

The fact that Russia will defeat Ukraine militarily is hardly news. That was always inevitable, with or without Clown World sanctions and weapons shipments, as I and many others have pointed out from the onset. But what is informative here is the fact that the Narrative has now shifted to accommodate this reality, which suggests that Phase One of the larger conflict between the Sino-Russian Alliance and Clown World is coming to a close.

My interpretation – and it is only that, an educated guess – is that the Clown World powers are desperately trying to convince Russia and China to return to the economic fold, and they are dangling the possibility of their acceptance of Russia’s gains as bait in order to prevent the systemic failure of their neo-liberal rules-based order that will take place when Russia and China actively reject the system.

Brussels is seeking to strike the right balance between hurting Russia’s economy as much as possible and minimizing the secondary effects on European economies.

Remember, all of the damage that has been done to the ex-West so far is self-inflicted. Neither Russia nor China are seeking to inflict economic harm, although they are both in excellent positions to do so at any time. So, will they take the bait, focus on internal development, and allow Clown World to survive until the inevitable next crisis? I would tend to doubt it, but we will have to simply wait and see.

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The Great Bifurcation Continues

ITEM: Russia is now SWIFT-free.

Russian banking giant Sberbank has been disconnected from the SWIFT global financial messaging system under a new set of sanctions approved by European Union leaders on Monday. “This sanctions package includes other hard-hitting measures: de-Swifting the largest Russian bank Sberbank,” European Council chief Charles Michel announced following the EU summit.

ITEM: The European Union has largely stopped importing Russian oil.

After weeks of deliberation, EU member states have agreed in principle on a sixth round of anti-Russia sanctions, the bloc’s leadership announced after a meeting on Monday. Hungary and Bulgaria will keep buying Russian oil, but most other import routes will be blocked. EU Council President Charles Michel said the watered-down embargo will affect about 75% of Russian oil imports, with the percentage growing to 90% by the end of the year.

ITEM: India has replaced the USA as a primary customer for Russian oil. In 2021, the USA imported 6 million barrels of Russian crude per month.

More than 24 million barrels of Russian crude were supplied this month, up from 7.2 million barrels in April, and from about three million barrels in March. The South Asian nation is set to receive about 28 million barrels in June, data shows. Last year, Russian crude exports to India averaged just 960,000 barrels per month, roughly 25 times less than this month’s total.

ITEM: China has publicly denounced the “rules-based international order” as a “US rules-based international order”.

The “rules-based international order” it touts is actually the “US rules-based international order”, a hegemonic order to dominate the world with the house rules of its clique… The US places its domestic law above international law and international rules and willfully resorts to illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Venezuela, Syria and Iran have been grappling with severe difficulties with a struggling economy and strained medical resources due to prolonged US sanctions. Under such circumstances, the US, rather than halting those sanctions, redoubled them, making things even worse for these countries. The international community sees with increasing clarity that the US only complies with the market competition principle and international trade rules it claims to champion when it suits US interests.

On the basis of these developments, I suspect that we are going to see China voluntarily and preemptively disconnect from the SWIFT and global trade systems later this year. China will likely be followed in this by India and a number of other anti-Clown World nations. This will not only trigger a serious financial crisis, if not a comprehensive banking collapse, but will likely lead to regime changes across Clown World.

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Unrestricted War on Russia

It appears the rulers of the Imperial USA have come to understand the Chinese principles of Unrestricted Warfare, or as the Russian Foreign Minister calls it, Total War.

The confrontation between Western nations and Russia amounts to “total war,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday during a meeting with the heads of Russian regions. Russian society and major political forces support the government’s decision to face this challenge, he added.

Western nations “are doubling, tripling, and quadrupling their efforts to deter our nation. They use a wide array of tools, from unilateral economic sanctions to totally deceitful propaganda in the global media,” Lavrov said, noting that “low-level Russophobia, which to our deepest regret is promoted by a number of governments, has risen to unprecedented levels.”

“The West has declared total war against us, against the entire Russian world. Nobody even hides this fact now,” Lavrov stated.

Lavrov also noted that the crisis has exposed the true nature of the promises given to Russia 30 years ago, after the collapse of the USSR. “We now see the value of all the talk about universal values and the need to turn Europe into a common home from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” No one should have illusions about the attitude of the US and its allies towards Russia, he added.

I’ve repeatedly pointed out that the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is not merely about Ukraine’s designs on Crimea and the Donbass, or Russia’s designs on Ukraine, anymore than Nazi Germany’s conflict with Czechoslovakia was merely about the Sudentenland. The globalist imperials have been preying on Russia since 1991, and attempting to undermine its government since Putin unexpectedly took power in 2000. Putin and his generals clearly recognize that Ukraine is not the core problem, it is merely the most immediate manifestation of the problem.

Dmitry Trenin, a member of Russia’s Foreign and Defense Policy Council, clearly understands the scale and import of the situation:

The challenge Russia is facing has no equivalents in our history. It’s not just that we have neither allies nor even potential partners left in the West. Frequent comparisons with the Cold War of the mid and late 20th century are inaccurate and rather disorienting. In terms of globalization and new technology, the modern form of confrontation is not only of a larger scale than the previous one, it is also much more intense. Ultimately, the main field of the ongoing battle is located inside the country.

The asymmetry between the opponents is huge, particularly the imbalance between the forces and capabilities available to them. Based on this, the US and its allies have set much more radical goals than the relatively conservative containment and deterrence strategies used toward the Soviet Union. They are in fact striving to exclude Russia from world politics as an independent factor, and to completely destroy the Russian economy.

The success of this strategy would allow the US-led West to finally resolve the “Russia question” and create favorable prospects for victory in the confrontation with China.

Such an attitude on the part of the adversary does not imply room for any serious dialogue, since there is practically no prospect of a compromise, primarily between the United States and Russia, based on a balance of interests. The new dynamic of Russian-Western relations involves a dramatic severance of all ties, and increased Western pressure on Russia (the state, society, economy, science and technology, culture, and so on) on all fronts. This is no longer a source of discord between the opponents of the Cold War period, who then became (unequal) partners. It looks more like the drawing of a clearer dividing line between them, with the West refusing to accept even the perfunctory neutrality of individual countries.

China, India, Iran, and most of the unaligned nations now recognize both the evil nature of the corrupted West and its hostile intentions toward them as well, which is why they are also preparing for war against it. Note: I do not subscribe to what I consider to be the absurdly stupid idea that China is intending to invade the USA; the various numbers listed in the leaked transcript are simply not “too extensive” for an invasion of Taiwan and the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu  islands.

Leaked audio that appears to have originated from a meeting of China’s top war generals [a regional government authority – VD] reveals elaborate plans for a land invasion in the near future, waged by the People’s Liberation Army and augmented with cyber warfare, orbital space weapons and the activation of CCP civilians currently embedded in corporations and governments around the world.

China’s war leader [provincial committee member] makes strong reference to the psychological operations that will be waged by their government to control the population as they wage war against the West:

First, we need to strengthen the protection in political field. Look at the recent several regional wars, especially the Russian-Ukrainian conflict war situation. If you look at the big picture, the United States and the West will try everything to slander us, smear us, in an attempt to confuse right and wrong, to shake our will to win a just and decisive battle. We must give full play to public opinion, legal struggle, psychological war and militia teams to strengthen the guidance of public opinion and psychological protection, and cohesion of patriotic support for the positive energy of the military front.

The fact that the author of the linked article doesn’t even understand that the meeting is of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee for Guangdong Province, not the Chinese military leadership, and that he clearly hasn’t fully read or understood the nature of the transcript, which clearly shows the regional authorities attempting to determine how to go about handling their various supporting roles when the invasion happens, doesn’t take away from the way in which the transcript – which Chinese experts have told me appears to either be genuine or a very convincing and detailed fake – indicates Chinese preparations for a major military effort that will soon open WWIII’s second front by bringing it into direct conflict with the US government and military.

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UKRAINE Shuts Off Europe’s Gas

Ukraine is proving to be a less-than-trustworthy ally for the European nations:

Ukraine’s operator OGTSU announced it would halt further deliveries starting May 11, due to the presence of “Russian occupiers.”

Gas Transit Services of Ukraine (OGTSU) declared force majeure on Tuesday, saying that it was impossible to continue the transit of gas through a connection point and compressor station located in the Lugansk area. As OGTSU personnel “cannot carry out operational and technological control” over the Sokhranovka connector point and Novopskov compressor station, the company cannot continue to fulfill its contract obligations, it said.

Gas from this connection will not be accepted into the transit system of Ukraine starting at 7 am on Wednesday, OGTSU said. Sokhrankovka accounts for almost a third of the Russian gas that transits through Ukraine to Europe – up to 32.6 million cubic meters per day – according to the operators.

This would appear to indicate either a) an increasing level of desperation on the part of the Ukrainians, or b) the determination of the neocons to trigger a hot war between Russia and the USA. Cutting off the supply of gas to Europe is supposed to one of Russia’s trump cards, so Ukraine preemptively playing it – if only in part – is surprising.

Sure, it’s only a third of the supply so far. But if the desired results aren’t achieved, it’s obvious that the percentage will rise.

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Foreign Legion Fail

A Canadian sniper returns from Ukraine, unimpressed:

Once lauded by the international media, a Canadian sniper known as ‘Wali’ has returned from Ukraine to Quebec, telling local media that his experience there was a “terrible disappointment.” He claimed there was inadequate weaponry, poor training and heavy losses, as well as profiteering and desertion in the ranks.

When ‘Wali’ answered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call in March and volunteered to fight for Ukraine, he was given lavish coverage by the Western media. A former Canadian soldier who had also volunteered to fight with Kurdish militants in Iraq, Wali was described by Spanish media as “the best sniper in the world,” celebrated by American military bloggers for “hilariously troll[ing]” Russia and praised by the New York Post for “grabbing anti-tank missiles in a warehouse to kill real people.”

However, he said that reality left him disillusioned. Back home in Quebec, Wali told La Presse on Friday that his Ukrainian commanders initially “didn’t know what to do” with foreign fighters like himself. Tired of waiting for an opportunity to fight, Wali joined the ‘Norman Brigade,’ a private unit led by another former soldier from Quebec.

However, several members of this brigade told La Presse that weapons and armor promised by the brigade’s head never showed up, and some of its members found themselves near the front lines with no protective equipment. Around 60 members of the brigade have since deserted, its commander told La Presse, and some soldiers “schemed” to steal a $500,000 shipment of American-supplied weapons and form their own unit.

Wali eventually joined a Ukrainian unit fighting near Kiev, and described having to seek out weapons, food and gasoline. “You had to know someone who knew someone who told you that in some old barbershop they would give you an AK-47,” he recounted. “Even for the meals, it is often the civilians who provide them.”

In the end, Wali said that he ended up firing two bullets into windows “to scare people,” and decided to come home shortly after two Ukrainian conscripts he was posted with in the Donbass region exposed themselves to a Russian tank and received “highly accurate” shell fire in return.

I’m surprised he managed to survive. Of course, simply telling the truth about his experience will almost certainly get him banned from social media for “disinformation”.

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Not An Option

Europe cannot replace Russian natural gas, according to European oil professionals.

European countries will not be able to replace Russian natural gas without an energy transition, according to Shell CEO Ben van Beurden.

“Bringing more LNG to the market, increasing liquefaction and regasification capacity, and raising pipeline supplies from North Africa and Norway are reasonable things,” he said adding that “it is also inevitable to have an energy transition in the medium term. There is no way to simply buy more pipeline gas and LNG to completely replace all the Russian gas that we currently consume. This is not feasible,” van Beurden said.

Perhaps more sanctions are the answer? Or more sanctions and pride parades?

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US Targeting Russian Generals

And yet, we can be confident that the US military is going to screech like a violated owl when the Russians and/or the Chinese return the favor and strike back at its generals.

The United States has provided intelligence that has helped Ukrainian forces kill several Russian generals since Vladimir Putin’s troops invaded the country, senior US officials said.

The US officials said that of the approximately 12 Russian generals killed by Ukrainian forces, ‘many’ had been targeted with the help of US intelligence, reports the New York Times.

Washington has provided Ukraine real-time battlefield information on Russia’s expected troop movements and the location about Russia’s mobile military headquarters, which relocate often.

Ukraine has combined those details with its own intelligence, which includes intercepted communications that reveal whether senior officers are located within a base, to conduct artillery strikes and other attacks that have killed Russian generals.

We knew the neocons wanted war with Russia. What we didn’t know was that the US military has degenerated to the point that its leadership appears to want it too.

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You Don’t Say

The former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO says the quiet part out loud.

“I think we are in a proxy war with Russia. We are using the Ukrainians as our proxy forces.”

Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Minister let a little something slip out too.

“So what if Zelenskyy is Jewish? The fact does not negate the Nazi elements in Ukraine. I believe that Hitler also had Jewish blood. It means absolutely nothing. The wise Jewish people said that the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.”

Wait, what?

Oh, that’s right. Of course Hitler is Jewish. After all, we’re all one race, the human race.

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The Russians are Doomed Again

Obviously, I’m very skeptical of the pro-NATO interpretation of events, but since I believe it’s important to always pay attention to what those with different perspectives think, this is one of the more relevant anti-Russian arguments presented, given that it focuses on the perceived logistics issues faced by the Russians in their special military operation. As it is said: “Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics.”

Of course, on social media, amateurs talk tactics, strategy, logistics, and geopolitics, and all of it is nonsense. And the incessant, and ever-nonsensical propaganda from the so-called “military experts” on Fox News and CNN doesn’t help. But this logistical analysis comes with a concrete prediction, so it is worth noting.

This tweet in the thread talks about Russian Army units being tied to supply dumps closer & closer to the front lines. This is consistent & expected with high levels of attrition, both combat & operational, in the Russian Army tactical truck fleet. As the Russian tactical truck fleet diminishes, the depth of Russian break-ins gets shallower & the chance of any sort of breakthrough followed by mobile operations disappears.

“Still-continued logistics problems” boils down to not enough tactical trucks, efficiently used. The pace of operation the Putin regime insists upon means Russia simply cannot change over non-mech to mechanized logistics in the middle of the Ukraine war.

At the start of the war Russian had MTLB tracked fighting vehicles being used as ambulances. Now they are using unmarked civilian cars with a sunroof for the same role. This is the bleeding out of Russian Army vehicle fleet & the Russian economy too. These symptoms are consistent with my “Russian truck fleet dead from Operational Attrition in six-to-eight weeks” prediction.

It doesn’t look like Russia’s current rates of loss will get to ‘immobilization from a lack of trucks level’. 1701 trucks isn’t even 50% of 4,000. This is part of the issue of making prediction based on straight line projections. The people you are predicting about will make changes in their operations to avoid that predicted disaster.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to be wrong at the middle-May end date of my projection, but doing a straight line projection from now says I will be. Call it a less than 25% possible outcome. We shall see in two weeks.

The fundamental problem with this truck-based analysis is that it is predicated on the same assumption that every single pro-NATO analysis I have seen contains: the idea that the Russians have thrown 100 percent of their military assets into the Ukrainian battle. This has always struck me as highly unlikely, given that even Russia’s Chinese allies are aware that the real conflict is with NATO and the neocons, that the Russians have utilized significantly fewer BTGs than originally reported, and there has been very little use of the Russian Air Force in either tactical or strategic operations.

If mobility logistics are the limiting factor, then one presumes the Russians can figure out how to obtain vehicles from their primary ally, who happens to produce 48 percent of all the heavy trucks manufactured in the world.

My assumption is that the Russian strategists are smarter and better-informed than I am. Most of the so-called “expert” analysis I have seem appears to be predicated on the idea that the Russian strategists are ill-informed and too stupid to recognize the obvious. Time will tell whose position is closer to the truth.

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Congress Goes to War

Karl Denninger points out that under long-established international law, the US Congress has effectively declared the United States to be in a state of war with Russia:

Congress has explicitly authorized, and Biden will sign, this bill that specifically permits the transfer to Ukraine of basically anything other than nuclear material. Seriously folks — that’s the only real exception found in the referenced definition.

By agreeing to provide direct weaponry that can be and will be used in the waging of war by one of the two parties to same we have entered the conflict. That our GIs are not directly involved there is of no consequence. This is no different than shipping arms to Britain during WWI in the Lusitania or the lend-lease provisions in early WWII that ultimately led us to get involved there in Europe. Indeed Pelosi directly referenced those early WWII provisions indicating that she knows damn well the implications of what Congress just did.

In fact it was lend-lease of March 1941 that led Hitler to come after the United States; we had entered the war as a belligerent by officially agreeing to supply war material to Britain.

In those two wars there was no realistic means for the Germans or other Axis powers to hit us directly on our own soil. But they did in fact do that in response when they sunk the Lusitania, which had a bunch of Americans on board. They could reach that ship, did reach it, and did sink it. They did so because we were supplying England with munitions.

We claimed at the time we were not, we were lying and that is now established as a historical fact.

The Germans hit a legitimate military target despite our and Britain’s claims at the time otherwise.

Today the situation is different. Russia can hit us here and not just with nukes. They can hit American assets that are by any reasonable international standard military targets all over the world and that includes military command and control which by our Constitution includes all members and facilities of both Houses of Congress along with the Executive, never mind obvious things like the Pentagon.

I don’t think Putin is crazy enough to do it right up front but do not mistake “doesn’t” tomorrow morning for “can’t” — the door is open.

Don’t kid yourselves folks; such a strike, if it occurs, is entirely legal from an international law perspective under the laws of war. It is legitimate for a belligerent to strike the military elements, direct and indirect, of an entity supplying its opposing military.

We are now a belligerent in this conflict having crossed the line when we went from providing food, medical assistance and similar to military goods and the definition in this act does not draw a distinction, not that there really is one that is internationally recognized in the first place, between offensive and defensive arms.

The neocons wanted their war with Russia. Looks like they’re getting it, and it won’t be even remotely surprising if they get it good and hard. It’s worth noting that it was just nine months from FDR’s establishment of Lend-Lease to formal war with Germany; if a similar time frame holds, the USA will be openly at war with Russia by January, just in time for General Winter.

But legalities and diplomacies aside, the USA is already observably at war with Russia, given that it is already spending 6x more on the Russo-NATO war than the entire Ukrainian military budget. All the endless word games and legal posturings about the expansive redefinition of neutrality and what is justified in response to the illegality of war aren’t going to prevent a single missile from being fired against a legitimate target in a belligerent state.

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