Tag: war

Doubling Down on Ukraine

The US military is now reportedly disarming its own forces in order to continue arming its proxy forces in Ukraine:

  • I’m getting word from team guys that they’re being forced to turn in their Carl Gs to send to Ukraine. This removes a very important item out of an operator’s kit.
  • Have your bravos prep your Carl Gs for turn in. I’ve fought back on it as long as I can. Grp CDR said tough shit. SECDEF is sending them to Ukraine.
  • Not just SF you didn’t hear it from me, but HIMARs systems slated for my regiment were sent there along with most of the ammo allotted to the regiment for training this year for both Tubes and Rockets. Apparently it’s also happened to the other Marine Corps Artillery Regiments.

On the down side, this is an abjectly stupid policy that cannot possibly end well. It will accomplish nothing but render the US military unable to perform its responsibilities. On the plus side, it looks like Russia will soon be in a position to force reasonable terms that the rest of the world can live with without ever having to invade Europe or engage directly with any NATO forces. This is an unusual form of attrition warfare that appears to be remarkably effective.

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The Judeo-Christian War

Emmet Sweeney observes that the root cause of the NATO-Russian war indicates that it is actually one of history’s rare religion-inspired wars:

During the Communist era, Christianity was suppressed in Russia and throughout the Soviet block. At its worst, under Lenin and Stalin, the Communist regime massacred millions of Christians. Victims were mainly Orthodox, but Christians of every denomination suffered. Even after the death of Stalin and into the 1980s religion continued to be persecuted. All children were required to attend lessons in atheism, during which Christianity and religious faith in general was mocked. By the end of Communism, the Orthodox Church was a small remnant of its former self under the Tsars, but that soon began to change. Hardship birthed a spiritual revival; by the mid-1990s the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as other branches of Christianity, began to experience noticeable growth. It was not however until the first decade of the twenty-first century, and the presidency of Vladimir Putin, that this movement became really significant.

Putin had occupied a senior position in the Yeltsin administration, and he was no doubt viewed by the oligarchs, at that time the real rulers of Russia, as a safe pair of hands who could be relied upon to continue the policies which had allowed them to plunder the country for almost a decade. He was appointed Prime Minister on 9th August 1999 and, just four months later, in December, acting President of Russia, following the unexpected resignation of Boris Yeltsin. A presidential election on 20th March 2000 was easily won by Putin with 53% of the votes. One reason for Putin’s popularity was that he was seen as a strong leader during the Second Chechen War, which commenced on 7th August 1999, just two days before his appointment as Prime Minister. The war ended in April 2000, with Chechnya again part of the Russian Federation, a victory which enhanced Putin’s reputation as a strongman, willing and able to restore stability and enforce the law.

Over the next five years, Putin showed that the ruling plutocrats were very much deceived had they imagined him to be under their control and part of their team. On the contrary, the new president set about breaking their power. The next decade witenessed a series of legal cases and trials which left some of the oligarchs in prison and others forced to pay substantial compensation. Others, arguably the most criminal, fled the country and their assets were confiscated. The breaking of the oligarchs’ power, together with that of the “Russian mafia” which enforced their corrupt rule, began to restore some form of normality.

In parellel with his economic reforms, Putin oversaw a revival of the Russian Orthodox faith. In an act heavy with symbolic import, he made a visit to the great Orthodox monastic settlement of Mount Athos in Greece in 2001, just one year into his presidency. Although this attempt had to be aborted owing to a storm which grounded his helicopter, and a second attempt in 2004 similarly shelved when he had to return to Russia to deal with the Beslan School siege, he finally made it to the Holy Mountain in 2005. There he established a bond with the monks that transformed their community and impacted the lives of ordinary Russians. A major program of church-construction commenced, and the numbers attending church began to grow. Putin made it clear that he regarded Orthodoxy as Russia’s national religion and the Church was accorded a favored legal position. And such symbolic gestures were backed by new legislation which began to transform Russian society: the country’s abortion laws, hitherto some of the most liberal in the world, were tightened. In October 2011, the Russian Parliament passed a law restricting abortion to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with an exception up to 22 weeks if the pregnancy was the result of rape. The new law also made mandatory a waiting period of two to seven days before an abortion could be performed, to allow the woman to “reconsider her decision.”

During this period, the portrayal of Russia in the Western media moved from one of condescension to outright hostility. As early as 2005, scholars Ira Straus and Edward Lozansky remarked upon a pronounced negative coverage of Russia in the US media, contrasting negative media sentiment with largely positive sentiment of the American public and US government. As Russia displayed increasing signs of a Christian revival, so the media reporting in the West became increasingly hostile. Only rarely however did journalists openly attack Russia for its “Christianization”; normally, columnists, conscious of the fact that large numbers of people in the West continued to describe themselves as Christian, portrayed their anti-Russian commentary as a result of Russia’s “aggression,” “corruption,” or “lack of democracy.” All that however changed with the new abortion law of 2011. Now the attacks against Russia became explicitly ideological. The Russians, we were told, were oppressing women and turning their backs on “progress.”

It was not until 2013 however that the anti-Russian rhetoric went hyperbolic. In that year, the Russian parliament passed its so-called “Gay Propaganada” law. The bill, described as “Protecting Children from Information harmful to their Health and Development,” explicitly banned Gay Pride parades, as well as other forms of LGBT material, such as books and pamphlets, which attempted to normalize homosexuality and to influence children in their attitudes to homosexuality. In actual fact, since around 2006 many districts in Russia had been imposing their own local bans on such material, though these rules had no power outside their own jurisdiction. The bill, which was signed into law by Putin on June 30 2013, was extremely popular, and passed through the Russian Parliament unanimously, with just one abstention. But the impact upon the Western nomenklatura who form the gatekeepers of acceptable opinion, was immediate. Almost unanimously, Western media outlets now began to compare Putin with Adolf Hitler; he was a “thug,” a “fascist,” a “murderer.” Between bouts of seething rage, he became the butt of scathing satire. He was cast in the role of a caricature James Bond villain, routinely murdering and torturing those he held a grudge against. There is even evidence, admittedly somewhat circumstantial, that Western Intelligence bodies, such as the CIA and MI5, became actively involved in anti-Russian propaganda.

It is intriguing, although in hindsight comprehensible, that the real reason for the break between the ex-Soviet neocons and post-Soviet Russia was directly related to abortion and homosexuality instead of economics or, as I had always assumed, ex-Trotskyite bitterness over the loss of the Soviet Empire.

Now that we recognize the deeply satanic nature of what is called “judeochristianity” in the United States, a dark religion in which abortion, homosexuality, child-trafficking, and transgenderism are sacred rites, we can better understand why it is Putin’s embrace of the Russian Orthodox Church that has made him Global Enemy Number One of the US ruling elite.

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The Cost of Broken Neutrality

An influential Swiss businessman points out to the Swiss that their government’s abandonment of their historica neutrality means that they are responsible, in part, for the enemies on the other side that are killed in the war to which Switzerland is now a party.

In the Tages-Anzeiger I read about the tragic fate of bloody young Russian soldiers who died in the Ukraine war.

The title reads: “These teenagers died for Putin on the battlefield”. We suffer through words and pictures as hopeful eighteen- to twenty-year-old boys perished in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Or, as a data analysis shows, “who gives his life for the Kremlin ruler”.

Their names are Eduard, Maxim, Boris or Chan-Tsaj and they often come from poor areas. And they leave behind grieving parents, siblings, and sometimes even wives and children. We see how a deceased person is honored, for example, at a school memorial service – namely by a “lectern of the hero”. Or a funeral service with relatives and friends walking behind the coffin, military personnel in goose step and a band playing a funeral march.

It goes to the heart and hurts. That many young soldiers die is the truth. On both sides.

But only part of the truth – only half the truth. Because in view of the fallen Russian teenage soldiers, one should also ask the question: Why are they dead? Someone must have killed them.

And that brings us to the other side of the coin: As in any war, two parties are fighting. The young Russian soldiers were killed by Ukrainian soldiers. They, in turn, are armed by the West, mainly by the US, but also by the EU. Even with the support of neutral Switzerland, which broke Swiss neutrality and is thus a party to the war. It helps that bloody young Russian soldiers have to die. For example Eduard, Maxim, Boris or Chan-Tsaj. Why did Switzerland get involved here?

Needless to say, various pro-war media and government figures just about lost their little minds at Blocher’s observation of the undeniable.

Blocher’s piece was met with an angry response by Swiss media and politicians, who blasted him for not saying “who started the war.” “He doesn’t say a word about the fact that Ukraine was attacked by Russia and is defending itself, that Putin started the war,” the Switzerland Times wrote.

Swiss Watson news outlet called Blocher’s column “bizarre” and accused the former minister of “ignoring Russian war crimes.” According to the outlet, Blocher is currently working on an initiative that would compel Bern to not only refrain from participating in conflicts outside of its territory, but avoid imposing economic sanctions in such cases as well.

MP Philipp Matthias Bregy, the head of the Center party’s parliamentary group, accused Blocher of distorting history, and said the former minister himself told a “half-truth” by “ignoring the aggressor.”

Andrea Caroni, the vice president of the Swiss Liberals, claimed Blocher is playing into the hands of the Kremlin. “Putin does not need a propaganda minister anymore,” he told Swiss newspaper Sonntagszeitung. “Blocher does it for free.”

All of this is just meaningless rhetorical posturing thrown out to obfuscate the correct, and vital, point that Blocher has made. It doesn’t matter who started the war. It doesn’t matter who is winning or who is losing. It doesn’t matter who has, or has not, committed war crimes. It doesn’t matter who was the aggressor. Rightly or wrongly, it cannot be denied that Switzerland chose to take a side, that it is now a party to the war, and therefore, it is responsible – and it will be held responsible by its enemies – for what happens to the people and the military forces of those enemies.

There are no shortage of various aspects of the current situation that can be reasonably argued. Did the war start in 2014 or in 2022? Should the people of Crimea and Donbass be permitted democratic self-determination? Was the Crimean referendum legitimate and fair? Are the Ukranians actually winning the war or are they losing it? Are the Russians justified in launching attacks on what President Putin describes as the “decision centers” of the nations waging war against them? Should the Swiss government prioritize the well-being of the Swiss people or its promises to the EU member-states? All of these things can be debated by reasonable observers.

But what cannot be argued – although I expect it will be, to very little avail, in the future – is that the Swiss government broke its historic neutrality and made the uncharacteristic choice to side with the Ukro-NATO alliance in its war against Russia and its allies.

In doing so, Switzerland has foolishly risked far more than one cold and dark winter without Russian natural gas. It also risks its relationships with the vast majority of nations around the world who have clearly taken the side of Russia despite – or in some cases, because of – US pressure to join the NATO sanctions regime.

This is a world war. It will expand to Asia soon. It may expand to the Middle East and South America as well. Does Switzerland really wish to find itself at war with Brazil, China, India, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Russia? Do the Swiss people really wish to discover what will happen to their economy when it is sanctioned by all of those nations? Because that is exactly what will happen if they does not hasten to extricate themselves from the foolish foreign policy of their existing government.

At this point, the only intelligent move for the Swiss people is for them to pass a referendum restoring their historic neutrality and absolutely forbidding any future Swiss government from similarly putting the nation at risk of both military assault and economic isolation from the majority of the nations of the world by taking one side against another.

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Unrest in Europe

If even the wealthy and highly-prepared Swiss are anticipating shortage-related social unrest despite their world-class self-sufficiency, the social order across Europe and in the UK is unlikely to remain intact this winter.

Swiss people may revolt and resort to looting if the Alpine nation is hit by a severe energy crunch this winter, the police chief of one of its cantons told local media on Saturday.

Fredy Fassler, the head of the Security and Justice Department in the canton of St. Gallen, told German-language daily Blick that a blackout would have “far-reaching consequences.”

“Imagine, you can no longer withdraw money at the ATM, you can no longer pay with the card in the store or refuel your tank at the gas station. Heating stops working. It’s cold. Streets go dark. It is conceivable that the population would rebel or that there would be looting,” he said, adding that the country’s authorities should take measures to prepare for such extreme scenarios…

Fassler’s comments come after Swiss authorities said last week that they may place restrictions on energy consumption this coming winter, signaling that “power shortages [are] among the most serious risks” for the landlocked country.

What the police chief doesn’t mention is that the main reason the Swiss would likely be rebelling against their government is that the country produces what should be sufficient electricity for its own winter needs, but it has promised to provide a fair amount of that electricity to the rest of Europe. And the Swiss people are very unlikely to accept the idea that they have to freeze in darkness so that their electricity can be sent to France or Germany due to the outdated ideals of a few globalist Europhiles.

Still, the fact that the Swiss authorities are already talking openly about the situation and at least beginning to try to address the problem is a positive sign. The silence of the EU countries on the subject does not bode quite so well. Of course, the solution for the Europeans is perfectly straightforward: stop participating in the neocon’s proxy war on Russia, end the idiotic sanctions regime, return everything that was seized, and apologize profusely to the Russian government.

Like it or not, no one can deny that it’s a better alternative than famine, freezing, and facing a popular revolt. If they don’t choose wisely, the over/under on EU regime change before this time next year is probably around five and could be considerably higher. And Italy and Hungary will not be the only nations to exit the EU.

Nationalism is inevitable. Nationalism is inevitable because globalist imperialism is constructed on false foundations that we now know to be both evil and impossible.

UPDATE: Notice that the Swiss are on the verge of panic on the basis of an expected 10-percent shortfall. I anticipate the shortfalls in other European nations will be at least 3x that.

The energy shortage is “imminent”, Roger Nordmann from the left-wing Social Democratic party told the SonntagsBlick. “The war in Ukraine is causing acute gas shortages. Half of the nuclear power plants in France are at a standstill. And the drought is putting a strain on hydropower. This combination of drastic factors means that Switzerland could be short of around 15% gas and up to 10% electricity in the coming winter,” he said.

So end your war on Russia, guys. You took sides and you lost. It’s over. This really isn’t that hard.

UPDATE: Now the NHS in the UK is also starting to foresee trouble. Perhaps if the British authorities would stop welcoming “refugees” and start repatriating them to their homelands, they’d possess sufficient resources to prevent a humanitarian crisis among their own people.

The UK could face a “humanitarian crisis” involving ill health, excess deaths and rising inequality if the government does not take urgent action on rising energy bills, the National Health Service (NHS) Confederation warned on Friday. The organization wrote to the chancellor of the exchequer, claiming that failing to act would add more pressure on health services that were already strained.

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Assassination in Moscow

The daughter of influential Russian intellectual Alexander Dugin, Darya Dugina, was killed tonight in what appears to have been a car bombing targeting her father.

Russian media are reporting that a car exploded in Moscow oblast; allegedly, Darya Dugina, Alexander Dugin’s daughter, was driving and that she died on the spot. No official confirmation at this point, also no information on the cause of the explosion.

Unofficial sources who knew her personally are confirming her death – still nothing from the family or official sources. According to sources close to the family, both Darya and her father were returning from the “Tradition” festival at the Pushkin museum in Bolshiye Vyazyomy & Alexander Dugin was supposed to be in the car, but went home in another one.

Some Russian media are reporting, citing local law enforcement sources, that the driver of the car has preliminarily been identified as a woman and that the current theory for the cause of the explosion is an IED.

This is bad. This is potentially VERY bad. It practically reeks of the CIA, and if the history of Soviet/Russian intelligence is any guide, it will serve as a prelude to a ruthless series of reprisals aimed at influential figures supporting the war against Russia.

UPDATE: The mainstream media is now reporting it as a car bombing, while also trying to portray the assassination attempt as somehow justified because the 30-year-old victim’s father, who is not even a government figure, was somehow responsible for the war in Ukraine.

Daughter of Ukraine war mastermind ‘is blown to pieces in Moscow car bomb’: Darya Dugin ‘assassinated in attack meant for her father Alexander’

UPDATE: Both the identification and the fact that it was not an accident have been officially confirmed.

A criminal case has been launched over the death of the daughter of prominent Russian philosopher and political commentator Aleksandr Dugin, the Investigative Committee announced on Sunday morning, adding that a car bomb is suspected as the cause. Darya Platonova Dugina, 30, has been officially confirmed as the victim of the explosion outside the Russian capital, the agency said in a statement.

Moscow car bombing victim officially identified, Russia Today, 21 August 2022

UPDATE: The Russian FSB intelligence service has identified the responsible parties.

The FSB reported on the identification of the customers and perpetrators of the murder of Daria Dugina. The murder was planned by the Ukrainian special services. The direct perpetrator of the murder was a citizen of Ukraine, Natalia Vovk, born in 1979, who left Russia for Estonia on August 21. She arrived in Russia on July 23. According to Russian sources, Natalia Vovk is now hiding in Estonia, an EU and NATO member state.

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Ammo Diet

You won’t lose weight, but you will lose territory:

Ukraine’s European backers may be about to put the country on an “ammunition diet”, an American military analyst has claimed in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel. Michael Kofman said these nations may already have reached their limit in terms of weapons supplies to Kiev.

In an article published on Tuesday, Kofman was quoted as saying it is not in the Ukrainian military’s best interests to bide its time, as the weather will soon begin to worsen, making any counteroffensive more difficult to pull off. On top of that, according to the US expert, Russian troops could use a hiatus to regroup and “solve some of their personnel problems.”

He noted that time would be on Kiev’s side if Western support was unlimited. However, that is likely not the case, and the Ukrainian leadership is well aware of this, Kofman suggested. He added that the “Ukrainians are apparently quite concerned about for how long they can expect further support, especially from the Europeans.”

The analyst went on to suggest that Kiev’s European backers may already have “given Ukraine most of the weapons they are ready to give.”

“The Ukrainians will likely go on a kind of ammunition diet,” Kofman predicted.

The analyst told journalists that, with this in mind, the leadership in Kiev may be concerned that Ukraine “could come under pressure to accept the stalemate” in the absence of any major success by the start of next year. Such a scenario “would be a defeat for Ukraine,” he noted.

Kofman concluded that Kiev’s ability to reclaim territories seized by Russia ultimately hinges on the extent of its Western support.

He also acknowledged “some small Russian successes in the southern part of Donbass, like in Peski,” adding, however, that the offensive is largely being carried out by the militaries of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), as well as by “Wagner mercenaries.”

When asked about the possibility of a Ukrainian counteroffensive to reclaim the southern city of Kherson, which is currently held by Russian forces, Kofman pointed out that while Kiev has a lot of personnel on paper, only a limited number of units are “really trained and equipped for that.” The American expert also argued that, simply because Ukrainian officials say they will launch the counteroffensive, it does not necessarily mean that it will actually materialize.

Translation: the neocons may be willing to fight to the last European, but even the European globalists are rapidly beginning to lose their enthusiasm for giving up their food, electricity, and fuel in return for absolutely nothing but more military defeat-by-proxy. It’s anecdotal, but I haven’t seen or heard a single person say anything positive about “helping Ukraine” in weeks now. The general consensus is that it’s over, so let’s all move on already.

Note that the Russians aren’t even using their own troops, for the most part. The whole special military operation has been a proxy war in which the Russian-supported Donbass militias have roundly defeated the NATO-supported Ukrainian military despite the latter being well-entrenched and lavishly funded. If Russia wants to go all the way to Dunkirk – they absolutely don’t, they don’t even want all of Ukraine – there is very little that NATO or the European nations or the USA could do to slow them down.

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The Partition of Ukraine

The Saker contemplates the partition of Ukraine that he predicted six years ago.

Interesting info today. First, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has, through the statement of a Colonel General, made the following statement (translated by my friend Andrei Martyanov on his blog): (emphasis added)

Translation: MOSCOW, August 16 – RIA Novosti. Western curators have practically written off the Kyiv regime and are already planning the partition of Ukraine, Foreign Intelligence Service spokesman Colonel-General Volodymyr Matveev said at the Moscow Conference on International Security. “Obviously, the West is not concerned about the fate of the Kyiv regime. As can be seen from the information received by the SVR, Western curators have almost written it off and are in full swing developing plans for the division and occupation of at least part of the Ukrainian lands,” he said. However, according to the general, much more is at stake than Ukraine: for Washington and its allies, it is about the fate of the colonial system of world domination.

Just to clarify, the SVR rarely makes public statements and when they do, you can take them to the bank as the SVR is not in the business of “leaks” from “informed sources” and all the rest of the PR nonsense produced by the so-called western “intelligence” agencies (which have now been fully converted to highly politicized propaganda outlets).

The same day I see this article on the RT website: “Western countries waiting for ‘fall of Ukraine’ – Kiev” in which an interesting statement the Ukronazi Foreign Minister is mentioned:

Several countries in the West are waiting for Kiev to surrender and think their problems will immediately solve themselves, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba in an interview published on Tuesday. “I often get asked in interviews and while speaking to other foreign ministers: how long will you last? That’s instead of asking what else could be done to help us defeat Putin in the shortest time possible,” Kuleba said, noting that such questions suggest that everyone “is waiting for us to fall and for their problems to disappear on their own.”

Finally, a while ago, Dmitri Medvedev post this “future map of the Ukraine after the war” on his Telegram account. This maps shows a Ukraine partitioned between her neighbors and a tiny rump Ukraine left in the center.

This anticipated partition would be a very good thing, as it would mark to an end the war between Russia and NATO by the surrender of the latter. The problem is that it will almost certainly require the European “partners” to break with the neocons who presently dictate US foreign policy, and the neocons are more than willing to fight to the very last European – yes, European, not Ukrainian – rather than give up their revenge war against Russia.

So, as fearful as the European leaders rightly are – they are terrified of their native populations going all Sri Lanka on their useless, cowardly selves once the winter shortages kick in – I don’t believe they are fully cognizant of the consequences of the Russian victory due to the media gaslighting, so they are reluctant to throw off their globalist masters and give up the fancy pants and lollipops that come with their submission.

Which means that I don’t think the nations that matter – France, Germany, and the UK – will give up and accept the new geopolitical reality until the winter of 2023 extinguishes all hope of reprieve, unless the coming winter is even worse than we’re expecting and the citizenries explode in open revolt.

UPDATE: The historic fissures in the NATO Alliance are already beginning to widen as the failure of the globalists’ European vision is becoming undeniable.

Berlin has plans to subjugate Eastern Europe and has designs on the lands that it lost in the past, Adam Glapinski the head of the National Bank of Poland has claimed, adding that his country stands as a bulwark against those ambitions.

Glapinski offered the grim prediction about Warsaw’s current diplomatic confrontation with Berlin in an interview with Gazeta Polska, which was published on Wednesday. Since the reunification of Germany in 1990, Berlin’s strategic goal is to “regain in some form their former lands, which are now within Polish borders, and subordinate the entire belt of countries between Germany and Russia,” the Polish official said.

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The Nonexistent Counter

You simply cannot believe one single thing that the US and European medias report about the Ukrainian war.

The Ukrainian military has not been able to pull off its promised counteroffensive, and Russian forces are now likely to take over the whole of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a former adviser to the secretary of defense in the Trump administration, has said.

Appearing on a livestream hosted by former US judge and columnist Andrew Napolitano last Tuesday, Macgregor dismissed as “utterly nonsensical” reports in some US media outlets that the Russian military has lost some 80,000 personnel in Ukraine so far. According to the decorated Gulf War veteran, “more accurate numbers are probably thirteen to fifteen thousand dead on the Russian side,” with Ukrainian forces having lost “sixty to eighty thousand.”

Commenting on these reports in late July, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the alleged Russian casualty figures as “fake.” He also lamented that even established media outlets are publishing misleading reports these days.

The last time Russia’s Defense Ministry provided an update on the number of casualties was in late March, at which time the official death toll had reached 1,351, with 3,825 service members injured.

When asked to comment on the current state of affairs on the frontline, the former Pentagon official said that the majority of Russian personnel had been given rest, “refitted, reorganized,” to renew the offensive in August. Macgregor claimed that the first signs of that happening were already evident, “particularly down in the south.” He went on to predict that the Russian military would seize the key port city of Odessa, making Ukraine a “landlocked country.”

“Ukrainians have been unable to put together any sort of counteroffensive. So, I don’t see much evidence that the Ukrainians can stop this,” the former Pentagon adviser claimed. Moreover, Macgregor said that the activities of Russian forces south of Kharkov in the east of Ukraine seemed to him like preliminary “shaping operations” meant to pave the way for a major offensive later on.

He concluded that “first comes the operation in the south and then subsequently up in Kharkov,” pointing out once more that the Ukrainian army does not appear to be able to stop either one.

Macgregor added that he expected these offensives to be over by the “end of August-beginning of September.”

No one with any knowledge of military history believed for one single second that there was going to be a Ukrainian counteroffensive this summer. They don’t have the troops, they don’t have the artillery or the air support, they don’t have the supplies, they don’t have the transport, and they don’t have the command-and-control infrastructure. The pattern of false reporting is very clear. The globalist media reports periods of Russian rest and refit as glorious Ukrainian victories, then portrays every successful Russian offensive as Pyhrric victories akin to Stalingrad. Meanwhile, the Russian goal of assisting the Donbass militias to clear their land of the Ukrainian military is very nearly complete within six months of its onset.

Compare this, on the other hand, to the way in which Israel has been unable to demilitarize Gaza despite periodic invasions and bombings, and the way the US military was unable to demilitarize Iraq or Afghanistan.

The proxy war for the Donbass is ending. The question is if it will be followed by a direct war between NATO and Russia for Europe.

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You’re Not Neutral When You Choose a Side

Switzerland belatedly discovers that it can’t redefine the concept of neutrality.

Russia has turned down a Swiss offer to represent Ukrainian interests in Russia and Moscow’s interests in Ukraine because it no longer considers Switzerland a neutral country.

Switzerland has a long diplomatic tradition of acting as an intermediary between countries whose relations have broken down, but Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Ivan Nechayev said on Thursday this was not possible in the current situation.

“The Swiss were indeed interested in our opinion on the possible representation of Ukraine’s interests in Russia and Russia’s in Ukraine,” Nechayev said. “We very clearly answered that Switzerland had unfortunately lost its status of a neutral state and could not act either as an intermediary or a representative. Bern has joined illegal Western sanctions against Russia.”

Switzerland has mirrored nearly all the sanctions that the European Union imposed on Russia over its military intervention in Ukraine.

No independent sovereign nation is going to trust the Swiss any longer or permit them to act as a neutral intermediary now that their federal government has not only taken sides in the NATO-Russian war, but foolishly chosen the losing side. If the current Federal Council had been in charge when WWII started, it would have taken the side of the Axis and gotten the country occupied by 1944.

This really isn’t that surprising. If the federal government ever decides to redefine chocolate to mean “something that isn’t chocolate”, the demand for Swiss chocolate will collapse too.

If you are as others see you, then the recent statement by a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson that “Switzerland had unfortunately lost its status of a neutral state” could be a tipping point in any understanding of what neutrality and Swiss neutrality mean. It is one thing for the 200-year-old Swiss “perpetual neutrality” recognised at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to be questioned internally, but for a major power, a member of the United Nations Security Council, to make such a declaration adds a new dimension to the ongoing domestic and global discussions of what neutrality means.

Neutrality means not taking sides. If you take a side, if you engage in economic sanctions or military conflict, then you obviously are not neutral. It’s not just the Russians who recognize that Switzerland is no longer a neutral state, but China and the rest of the BRICSIA coalition too. And what is the significance of “international law” that 80 percent of the global population does not recognize or respect?

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Indefinite Exercises

China announces that its military exercises blockading the island of Taiwan, scheduled to end on Sunday, have been extended:

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Monday continued military exercises and training activities surrounding the island of Taiwan, marking an extension from the previously announced schedule. Drills like these will not stop and are expected to become routine until reunification, as the Chinese mainland shows its determination to push forward the reunification process after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s provocative visit to the island last week that seriously violated China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, experts said.

The drills not only lock the island from inside out, but also from the outside in, telling external forces that the PLA has powerful area denial capabilities in the region that even the US cannot rival, analysts said.

The PLA Eastern Theater Command continued realistic combat-oriented joint exercises in sea and air space around the island of Taiwan on Monday, focusing on joint anti-submarine warfare and sea assault operations, the PLA Eastern Theater Command said in a statement.

Monday’s exercises mean that the PLA has extended its drills surrounding the island of Taiwan, which were originally scheduled to conclude on Sunday noon.

“As long as the Taiwan question is not solved, drills like these will not stop,” Song Zhongping, a Chinese mainland military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Monday.

I suspect the Chinese are very aware that the US military is going to be unable to interfere with its actions in the South China Sea, being distracted by the Ukraine situation as well as what appears to be the incipient arrest of President Donald Trump.

This doesn’t mean that the final reunification push is on yet, but it is an indication that it might be coming.

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