Tag: Russia

Russia Will Abandon SWIFT

Now that they know they don’t need it, there is no reason for Russia to continue to utilize the erstwhile global payment system:

The SWIFT system should be abandoned to avoid information leaks, VTB CEO Andrey Kostin said in an interview that journalist Pavel Zarubin published on his Telegram channel. “SWIFT should be simply killed, in a good sense of the word, abandoned and no longer used. This is a direct leak of information to our enemies and the main thing is that it is so easy to solve — it is a purely administrative decision, an agreement between the two parties and a few technological solutions, that’s all,” Kostin said.

Several years ago, SWIFT was the main system for processing payments — almost all banking transactions in the world went through it. But in 2014, when Western countries first threatened to disconnect Russia from the system, large countries began to create alternatives. The Financial Message Transfer System (SPFS) appeared in Russia.

It’s now only a matter of time before BRICSIA+ announces its own payment processing system, and eventually, currency. This will be a very positive thing for most people, given the way that the current payment processors play thought police and abuse their privileged positions. But it’s going to have a very negative effect on a lot of Western financial institutions.

DISCUSS ON SG

Germany Gives Up

Germany has stopped funding Ukraine. Which means every other European state will follow suit, especially when Trump takes office and the US gravy train stops.

Germany has officially stopped funding Ukraine.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has REFUSED to approve a further €3 billion in military aid for Ukraine.

It’s over.

The smartest thing European leaders can do now is drop all sanctions on Russia, return all the frozen funds to Russia, apologize to Vladimir Putin, and beg him to start the gas flowing to Western Europe again. It’s not smart to deny that you’ve lost an argument, a fight, or a war, because it’s an objectively obvious fact that everyone can observe.

The Allies demanded unconditional surrender from Germany. The Russians would be in their rights to do the same, but simply granting them their original demands will probably suffice. The sooner Clown World accepts that and does so, the better it will be for everyone.

DISCUSS ON SG

Denmark Turns to Russia

The fake Trump’s bizarre rantings about acquiring Greenland has sufficiently scared the Danes to the point that some of their politicians want to seek Russian assistance in defending their territory.

The Danish parliament is discussing the possibility of asking Russia for help in the event of aggressive actions by the United States towards Greenland. MP from the Socialist People’s Party Karsten Henge expressed confidence in the need for such measures. “In a situation of extreme escalation and tension, we need to take extreme measures and ask Russia for help to solve this problem. I am sure that our request will be heard, because Russia will not allow Greenland to become part of the United States. It is as disadvantageous for Russia as it is for us,” MK.RU reports him as saying. However, Henge did not specify how Russia could protect Greenland from American influence.

All of this talk of North American Union with Canada and Mexico, and acquiring Greenland by finance or by force, is nothing more than Clown World theater. First, I don’t think the short Trump at Mar-al-Lago is the real Donald Trump, he’s the body double being used by Clown World to try to negotiate a deal with the forces behind the real Trump. Second, all of the talk about merging with Canada and Mexico is part of the same NAU-NAFTA madness that was pushed hard by the Bush-Clinton regime before the neocons took control and shifted the US focus toward establishing Greater Israel. It’s a longstanding Clown World project, so either a) Donald Trump has completely betrayed both America and his base or b) the Trump who is advocating it is not the real Donald Trump.

The fact that the media keeps quoting the fake Trump’s absurdities and does so in mostly favorable terms is the best indication, other than the obvious height issue, that he isn’t the real Donald Trump. The whole point of noticing anomalies is that there should not be any anomalies. Nor is the fake Trump alone; in addition to the six Bidens, the “Hillary Clinton” who received a medal from one of the Bidens quite obviously wasn’t the real Hillary; she was too young, too healthy, and insufficiently overweight to be the real individual.

I understand that it’s very hard to accept that everything that is presented to you by the mainstream Narrative is false, but you have to learn to trust the evidence of your eyes. Don’t take my word for it, just take a close look for yourself and pay attention to the details. If every single detail is not correct, then you can be certain that things are not what they are publicly reported to be.

As for what’s actually going on with regards to Greenland, Occam’s Razor suggests that Clown World is trying to establish a bargaining chip that it can trade Putin in order to convince him to accept a deal where Russia establishes a new border that leaves Odessa with Ukraine. It’s not going to work, but it is an original and creative effort to substitute for the fact that Clown World has nothing else to trade because the Kursk invasion failed and Russia has already taken most of what it wanted in the first place.

And if Andrei Martynov is any guide, the Russians will not lift a finger to defend the Danes or anyone else in Europe.

DISCUSS ON SG

Big Serge’s 2024 Ukraine Summary

Big Serge is one of the Internet’s best military historians. Here, in one of his characteristically long and detailed analyses, he provides his 2024 summary of the Ukraine conflict and explains how Ukraine is effectively debellized.

2024 actually saw several very important developments which make the coming shape of the war relatively clear. To briefly recapitulate:

  • Russian forces caved in Ukrainian defenses at depth across an entire critical axis of front. After remaining static for years, Ukraine’s position in Southern Donetsk has been obliterated, with Russian forces advancing through an entire belt of fortified positions, pushing the front into Pokrovsk and Kostayantinivka.
  • The main Ukrainian gambit on the ground (the incursion into Kursk) failed spectacularly, with the salient being progressively caved in. An entire grouping of critical mechanized formations wasted much of the year fighting on this unproductive and secondary front, leaving Ukrainian positions in the Donbas increasingly threadbare and bereft of reserves.
  • An attempt by the Ukrainian government to reinvigorate its mobilization program failed, with enlistments quickly trailing off. Decisions to expand the force structure exacerbated the shortage of manpower, and as a result the decay of Ukraine’s frontline brigades has accelerated.
  • Long awaited western upgrades to Ukraine’s strike capabilities failed to defeat Russian momentum, and stocks of ATACMs and Storm Shadows are nearly exhausted. There are now few options remaining to prop up Ukrainian strike capacity, and no prospect of Ukraine gaining dominance in this dimension of the war.

In short, Ukraine is on the path to debellation – defeat through the total exhaustion of its capacity to resist. They are not exactly out of men and vehicles and missiles, but these lines are all pointing downward. A strategic Ukrainian defeat – once unthinkable to the western foreign policy apparatus and commentariat – is now on the table. Quite interestingly, now that Donald Trump is about to return to the White House, it is suddenly acceptable to speak of Ukrainian defeat. Robert Kagan – a stalwart champion of Ukraine if there ever was one – now says the quiet part out loud:

Ukraine will likely lose the war within the next 12 to 18 months. Ukraine will not lose in a nice, negotiated way, with vital territories sacrificed but an independent Ukraine kept alive, sovereign, and protected by Western security guarantees. It faces instead a complete defeat, a loss of sovereignty, and full Russian control.

Indeed.

None of this should be particularly surprising. If anything, it is shocking that my position – that Russia is essentially a very powerful country that was very unlikely to lose a war (which it perceives as existential) right in its own belly – somehow became controversial or fringe. But here we are.

I couldn’t agree more. The position of Clown World, led by the architects of its strategery like Robert Kagan, was always insane, incoherent, and ill-informed. It’s worth noting that the very champions of the ill-advised proxy war, including Kagan, are now offering their advice to Trump on how to best handle what they call “negotiations with Putin” but are actually a very thin veil for the inevitable surrender.

Russia has not only defeated the Ukrainian forces, it has comprehensively defeated the EU and the USA in military, diplomatic, strategic, and economic terms. This isn’t the “pro-Russian” position, it is the objective position, and with the exception of the economic context, it was always and completely obvious from the start. The problem is that even now, the would-be negotiators completely fail to understand Russia, its leadership, it’s people, and its objectives.

They would do well to stop posturing and pontificating, and instead, read War and Peace.

DISCUSS ON SG

Russia’s Presidential Q&A 2024

The difference between the intelligence displayed by the leaders of the sovereign nations and the degenerate leaders of Clown World is underlined given the comparison between the Russian President and the literally senile President of the United States in the former’s annual question-and-answer session.

Alexandra Suvorova: You have cited Germany and Japan as examples. I wish to focus on Germany having a zero percent growth rate, which you mentioned as a case previously known for its economic expansion. Do you believe this is perhaps linked to politics and sovereignty? Not long ago, at the VTB Forum Russia Calling!, you reminisced about Gerhard Schroeder’s birthday celebration, remarking how all the songs were in English, with none performed in German.

Vladimir Putin: There were. It’s an interesting episode. Quite some time ago, it was Gerhard Schroeder’s birthday, he invited me and I attended. There was a small concert, and, as it happened, all the companies performed in English. I remarked at the time, “Even the Hannover girls’ choir sang in English.”

There was, however, one ensemble that performed in German: the Kuban Cossack Choir, which accompanied me. Moreover, this was entirely unexpected on my part. I inquired, “How did you come to know these songs?” They replied, “Out of respect for the Germans, our hosts, we learnt these songs en route and performed them in German, including those from the local region where we are now.” During the intermission, numerous attendees approached me (I recount this as it truly unfolded) and expressed, “We are embarrassed, truly, that only Russian Cossacks performed in German here.”

I recounted this to a colleague who was present at the event, which has now been recalled. You see, sovereignty is a crucial concept; it must reside within, in one’s heart. In the post-war era, I believe this sense – of homeland and sovereignty – has been somewhat eroded among the German people.

Who are the Europeans, after all? They are proud to be European, yet they are foremost French, German, Italian, Spanish, and then European. There is a tendency to smooth out things, to homogenise. Ultimately, this affects everything, including the economy.

I previously spoke about our economic growth – this is largely attributable to the reinforcement of sovereignty, which extends to the economic realm. Many foreign manufacturers have exited our market. What has been the consequence? Our entrepreneurs have started producing these goods domestically, necessitating further research and the engagement of institutions, including those focused on development. All of this – what we are discussing – is the enhancement of technological sovereignty.

Sovereignty manifests itself in various forms: defence, technology, science, education, culture. This is of paramount importance, especially for our nation, because should we lose sovereignty, we risk losing statehood. That is the crux.

Economic growth is also an effect of bolstered sovereignty.

Free trade, as Ian Fletcher and I have proven – not demonstrated, proven – is a lie. Comparative advantage as advertised doesn’t exist as it clearly doesn’t benefit both parties. The economic and political entwinement of nations being beneficial to those nations is also a lie, as it is nothing more than imperialism accruing to the benefit of the ruling imperial elite at the expense of those nations. Neither the occupied European nations nor the imperial USA are the good guys in this conflict. To the contrary, their elites represent, not the future to which they aspire, but the very worst aspects of humanity.

“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger. I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over.”
– Muhammad Ali

Neither Americans nor Europeans have any quarrel with the Russians. It’s their white slave masters who do, and who are destroying their nations and countless Ukrainian lives, in a futile attempt to salvage their wicked empire that never ended.

UPDATE: Speaking of the contrast between the two presidents, blown cover as cover:

The terrifying scandal is that Biden was NEVER president.

Apparently the truth is going to come out sooner than we expected. But this isn’t an admission about Donald Trump winning the 2020 presidential election, which he did, but about Joe Biden’s incapacity from the start of his fake term. And they’re even hinting at the use of the six Bidens.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, as recently as March, called this sham of a president ‘intellectually, analytically… the best Biden ever.’

DISCUSS ON SG

“A Legitimate Act”

The Times view on assassination of a general: The targeted killing is a legitimate act of defence by a threatened nation.

How very peculiar! I don’t recall the British newspapers endorsing the IRA assassination of Lord Mountbatten as a legitimate act of defense. But if we’re to take Clown World media seriously, any nation that is threatened is now justified in engaging in state-sponsored targeted killings.

DISCUSS ON SG

Regional Power != Global Invincibility

A surprising number of would-be war analysts are putting far too much stock in Russia’s inability to prop up the Syrian regime against the combined assault of US, Israeli, Turkish, and jihadist forces. But Russia and China are both REGIONAL powers; their inability to dictate events in the Middle East, or in Africa, is no different than the inability of the USA to dictate events in Eastern Europe or the Red Sea. The further away from their industrial core where force is generated, the harder it is to deliver a sufficient amount.

But the logistical difficulties in a remote location should never be confused with an inability to generate the force in the first place, as Andrei Martynov illustrates:

Russia is outpacing the arms production of the entire EU after significantly ramping up its defense industry and despite Western sanctions, the bloc’s commissioner for defense and space, Andrius Kubilius, has said. Kubilius, a noted Russia hawk and two-time prime minister of Lithuania, was approved by the European Parliament last month as the EU’s first ever defense commissioner. In an interview on Friday with the RND media group, he called on the EU to significantly expand the production of conventional weapons such as artillery and infantry vehicles, as well as long-range and precision weapons amid what he called a Russian attack threat. “The Russians have expanded their arms industry to an unimaginable extent despite our sanctions,” Kubilius stated. Russia now produces “more weapons in three months than the entire European arms industry can produce, and in six months more weapons than the entire German army has,” he added. Kubilius also cited experts who, according to him, say that Russia now produces more tanks than it uses on the front lines in the Ukraine conflict.

I want to stress, that in the last few years, a very good man, who I will not name, because I respect him, no, he is not my acquaintance–was repeating ad nauseam that Russia “with the economy the size of Spain”. Sadly, there is no such profession as a “good man”, but for most people in the US “intel” community it is worth learning that Russia’s economy is the 4th economy in the world and, possibly, the third. I want to stress that GDP numbers circulating in the “intel” circles are crap invented in the combined West to hide its deindustrialization and financialization of own economies. US industrial base was in steady decline for decades now and realistically, with the exception of automotive industry (granted with huge pure assembly from import parts sector) and aerospace with naval construction… well, that’s about the most important US machine building sectors.

What changed the equation in Syria was the involvement of the Turks and their willingness to help Clown World depose the Assad regime. The Russians quite rightly assessed the situation as hopeless and extricated their forces as well as the Assad family without taking any losses; contrast that with the expense incurred by the futile Us and European attempts to preserve Ukraine and its Clown World regime. But Erdogan has long been open about his dream of rebuilding the Ottoman empire, and Syria is part of that former Ottoman territory.

A deluge of new evidence shows Turkey slowly fortifying its position as future hegemon of the region. As soon as Damascus fell, the director of the MIT—Turkey’s CIA equivalent—Ibrahim Kalin was spotted visiting Jolani, touring Damascus, as well as paying homage to the ancient Umayyad mosque. Several videos showed Jolani acting as personal chauffeur to Kalin, driving him around Damascus with an armed escort. Think about that: Jolani as personal driver to the head of Turkey’s top intelligence agency—that’s not to mention that Kalin was senior personal advisor to Erdogan and is member of his AK Party. So, Erdogan’s personal henchman is already shadowing Jolani, whispering in his ear—what can that mean? And what does that say about rumors that HTS had long ago cut ties with Turkey, with the same going for SNA/FSA/TFSA?

This is why Israel has already invaded southern Syria. In my estimation, Turkey poses a much more significant long-term military threat than Iran ever has, although I wouldn’t assume that Turkey won’t eventually ally with Iran against Israel when the Israeli-Turkish war eventually begins.

DISCUSS ON SG

Five Lessons for Russia

Simplicius contemplates the lessons to be learned from the collapse of Syria and cites five lessons that the Russians should take from it.

FIVE LESSONS FOR RUSSIA

Doom and gloom are somewhat appropriate, but it is more important to think about the future now. What does the fall of Syria tell us?

  1. False Peace is Death. A bad faith ceasefire is a recipe for disaster and after Minsk and Astana should never be repeated. False peace is worse than war, because false peace means you still have to fight the war later, but at a disadvantage. No green busses or green corridors for the enemy, no deescalation zones, no freezing of any lines. The enemy has to be defeated completely: victory is a prerequisite for mercy. Until that is achieved, no ceasefires, only death under FABs.
  2. Collapse is always sudden. The Assad regime resisted NATO-Israeli aggression for 13 years. And then it fell in a week. Mistakes, systemic errors and structural attrition accumulate until a critical mass is reached, and at that point the smallest impact will bring down the entire house of cards. Likewise, our current enemy in the main theater will resist stubbornly, until he will not be able to anymore, and then we will see Big Arrows. All our efforts should be focused on damaging the enemy’s war-waging capabilities to reach that critical point.
  3. Infantry is King. A single full-sized, dependable Russian infantry brigade (or a Ukrainian one, for that matter) would have been able to defeat the Jihadi advance for good. They were completely overstretched and to a large degree their offensive was a bluff that only worked because the SAA didn’t even try to resist, they just ran. We had our own experience with a lack of infantry in the SMO — it led to the Kharkov oblast debacle in fall ’22. No matter what anyone says, no matter what technological advances there are, the infantry unit was and remains the central actor of history, upon which all else depends.
  4. Empire is secondary to the Nation. There was a loud public debate among patriotic circles in Russia when the intervention in Syria began in 2015. Personally, I was opposed to the intervention because it seemed absurd to me to send Russian men to die in a foreign desert while Russian people are suffering under the yoke of Banderite occupation just across the border. We were told by Kremlin propagandists that “Palmyra is a symbol for all mankind” and the Donbass is just, eh, the Donbass. Whatever. Now, Jihadi dogs will get to loot and destroy all that archaeological treasure of all mankind, and we have to fight for the Donbass, anyway. Was it worth it? I have always been staunchly pro-Assad, but a single square mile of Russian land in Novorossiya means more to me than the entire Middle East. A nation should have its priorities in order.
  5. You can’t change nature. Some peoples and countries are just unreliable. They will never have stable polities unless compelled by overwhelming force or foreign occupation. They will never build working institutions on their own. You can’t just offer them a comprehensive reform package and then shrug when they refuse to implement it. They will always be shitty client states if you work with them within a civilized framework. We know how to work around local particularities in other parts of the world, so we should let Middle East policy also be guided by this knowledge. They are not Warsaw Era-pact allies you can let do things on their own.

The most important lesson, of course, is to stop trusting to agreements with the agreement-incapable. The second-most important lesson is to recognize that every state and entity controlled by Clown World is agreement-incapable.

DISCUSS ON SG

Why Russia Quit on Syria

Andrei Martyanov’s citation of a Russian journalist helps explain why the Russians finally stopped protecting the Assad regime in Syria:

I do not feel sorry for the Syrian authorities. I remember too well how, back in 2012, we, Russian journalists, were “squeezed” at border control, with all our luggage turned inside out, and our cameras and photo cameras confiscated. Then they hounded us around the offices of various ministries, putting us through an unsolvable puzzle of obtaining various papers and permits. And Western reporters were practically carried around in their arms, trying to demonstrate their liberal views against the backdrop of the uprising in Daraa. These are not my personal grievances. This, among other things, was an expression of their attitude towards my country. Condescending, with rolled eyes and a disdainfully raised upper lip. Then we saved Syria in 2013, if anyone doesn’t remember. Obama was going to cover it with carpet bombing after the chemical provocation in Eastern Ghouta. And thanks to the efforts of Russian diplomacy, the catastrophe was averted. Postponed, as it turns out now. In 2015, we came to Assad’s aid again when the terrorists were five kilometers from the center of Damascus. And as best we could, we patched up this patchwork quilt, consisting of various religious, social, forbidden and not so forbidden pieces, between which contradictions grew.

Now Israel and Turkey will divide up whatever parts of the country ISIS-HTS are not allowed to keep. It appears the US military is already bombing their jihadist proxy army; one wonders how it is going to respond to the Turkish invasion of Kurdistan.

I would also keep an eye out for similarly sudden events in Ukraine; Martyanov and others believe Russia dropping its support for the Assad regime was traded for US dropping its support for the Kiev regime and that this was not necessarily the win for Clown World that it appears to be.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Beginning of a Failure Cascade

This may be one of the worst technological developments for humanity since gunpowder:

This is the type of AI that all leading experts have warned us about. German defense firm Helsing has announced it will provide Ukraine with 4,000 HX-2 “Karma” kamikaze drones this month. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he had been “very pleased that the delivery of these drones equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) technology is already underway.”

With a top speed of 137 mph, these drones are capable of traveling up to 62 miles and can be loaded with various warheads for maximum destruction against armored vehicles, buildings, or platoons. The company states that these drones do not need a human operator, rather, they will be programmed to “search for, re-identify, and engage targets, even without a signal or a continuous data connection.” A human operator may “stay in the loop,” per the company’s messaging, but these weapons are designed to act autonomously.

“With HX-2, we have created a new smart effector that combines mass, autonomy and precision. Individual HX-2s can reliably engage armored targets in highly contested environments. When deployed along borders at scale, HX-2 can serve as a powerful counter invasion shield against enemy land forces,” Helsing’s co-founder Niklas Köhler stated. The other co-founder, Gundbert Scherf, said that NATO in particular has been eager for this technology. On one hand, the company says that these drones will retain human oversight, but on the other hand, the entire purpose of their design is to be autonomous.

Forget all the Skynet possibilities. Begun the Hacker Wars have. The easiest and most effective way to combat AI-controlled drone swarms is by putting a backdoor in the manufacturing process and giving yourself the ability to take control of them. And the utility of these autonomous killer drones in repressing civilian populations is obvious; combined with facial recognition technology it could be used to deny any movement to persons deemed undeniable.

It is informative that while knives are being banned by governments, this sort of lethal weaponry continues to be legally developed. Of course, civilians are going to acquire it too, which should make for a very interesting arms race.

But if they’re actually being used on Russian troops, I definitely wouldn’t want to be working in a Helsing factory. Or at their corporate HQ. I can’t imagine they would not be a priority on the Russian target list.

DISCUSS ON SG