Russia can either decisively “escalate to de-escalate” in its own right to swiftly end the conflict on as many of its terms as possible, carry on as usual amidst this new “war of attrition” at tremendous risk to itself, or freeze the conflict.
Russia has to know that the goal of the US/UK has always been the strategic defeat of the Soviet Union and now Russia since 1945 at least. It has to be obvious with all that Andrew listed above, plus the "cordon sanitare" around Russia with the goal to inflict a first strike on Russia. If Russia does not act forcefully very soon, the pressure will increase and humanity faces the unthinkable. Si vis bellum, para bellum...i.e. nuclear war!
So why did Biden remove Trump’s sanctions on NS2?? Biden wanted Putin to make tens of billions of euros a year for at least another 10 years before solar and wind and batteries made Russian gas obsolete.
Petroleum products will never be obsolete. That is sheer fantasy. They touch everything you touch. They are necessary to mine the alternative energy you listed. You can’t move a ship without them, or make car tires, move a long distance truck, produce pharmaceuticals, etc etc.
My number one constructive critique of Russia is that it's plagued by broken feedback loops that lead to the formulation of inefficient or even sometimes counterproductive policies. There's also a cultural preference for telling superiors whatever someone thinks that they want to hear, not holding anyone to account whenever they're wrong, and failing to fix problems whenever they're finally identified.
I'm absolutely confident that every single person who told Putin to stick with the "Spirit of Anchorage" will get off scot-free, not even with a tongue-lashing, and everyone single one of them will now pretend a la 1984 that they always knew it was a ruse.
That's just the way that things are around here, and you'll likely also see top "Non-Russian Pro-Russian" (NRPR) influencers doing the same, they always without exception toe whatever the Kremlin line may be.
What makes you think that Trump might have intended to deceive Russia this time, given the possibility—as you have said before—that he is just forgetful and impressionable?
I'm personally undecided about whether or not he meant to mislead Putin, but at the end of the day, he had 10 months to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from Donbass if the reports about the "Spirit of Anchorage's" quid pro quo are to be believed, he was regularly reminded in the media and during his envoys meetings in Moscow, yet he didn't do it so I understand why Russia is very disappointed.
Obviously divining intent is hard, but this situation is eerily similar to the failed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in early 2022. Both UK PM Johnson's visit and the Bucha false flag coincided, so there is some question as to whether the latter played a role in persuading key Western elites to scuttle a deal.
If that is the case, then it shows how high-ranking officials can be duped by rather crude PSYOPs—spread by third parties or even subordinates—and react illogically, notably so if personal idiosyncrasies such as Trump's are at work as well. At any rate, it does not bode well for mankind in general and confirms my cynicism.
In fairness, all of the elements of your critique apply equally to the U.S. government, though maybe for different reasons. There is no accountability whatsoever. Success is defined by other terms - sociability, attending the right university, having the right social circle. Fixing identified problems is the last goal of anyone in the government. Why would for example someone overseeing programs to eradicate homeless ever want to see it eradicated (and their job made unnecessary)? Counterproductive policies aren't a bug - they're a feature, a "success" to list on your annual performance report.
I suspect Russia and the U.S. aren't the only government bureaucracies like that, either.
I agree that it's not exclusive to Russia, but at least in the US, different policy ideas are thought up, shared, and lobbied for, plus the Intelligence Community makes reference in their public reports to which agencies disagree with certain claims.
None of that happens here. There aren't several policy tracks that decisionmakers can move between as circumstances change. There's just one track, and deviating from it risks professional problems.
Only once it's clear that the official policy isn't working or requires change does another policy appear, and then that becomes the new dogma, and so on and so forth. There's very little public debate among experts too.
I used to participate in conferences and related events here and was sorely disappointed when I realized that it's just people reading off their reports, talking over one another, and basically just saying the same thing but in different ways.
Moreover, in the US at least, there's at least public shaming if someone gets something very, very wrong; that too is unknown here, all experts "circle the wagons" since they're all mostly saying the same thing anyhow.
For a creative thinker, it can be incredibly frustrating working in this field at times since it's all about amplifying talking points, not actually thinking, discovering new solutions, identifying latent problems, etc.
Few people have any sense of initiative here, "fatalism" ("avos") rules the roost in the sense of everyone thinking everything will be okay and someone else will do whatever must be done. For someone like me, it's a very irresponsible attitude.
I know we have the same thing in the US too, but we still have some (very imperfect!) checks and balances to try to address this, while no such system exists here. It's really only a handful of people formulating policy.
Everyone else then does whatever this "brain trust" decides must be done, and they honestly don't even do it all that well anymore nowadays as proven by Russia's recent spree of setbacks abroad.
Think about it: Lavrov is half-Armenian and he's been in his job for something like two decades, how can it be that Russia "loses" Armenia under his watch of all people!? It boggles the mind but nobody cares to address the root causes.
Russia took Armenia for granted, convinced itself with "wishful thinking" that Pashinyan would remain loyal, and was once again "led by the nose" as always, over and over again, always duped and always none the wiser.
Is Lavrov basically saying that Russia did not fight on the battlefield as hard as they could have because of Anchorage? This is the first time I hear this. I always thought the Russians were doing all they could to win the war. If this is true, then the Russians are absolute fools and have no one to blame but themselves. You would think they would have learned something after being deceived for years by the Minsk agreements.
Life and history can surprise. Putin is a man of negotiation. Pragmatic. This supose to have a counterpart. When the politicians of the west do not hear what he says, Russia remains only the way to let the people in west know and understand who is responsible for the comming war and the suffering. Same about the people in Russia.
You need a clean conscience before you hit hard. At least normal people have to be fully convinced that is no other solution.
This takes time. With Iran happened the same. You try to avoid the impossible. It is up to each person when he reached limit of trying to trust one. Putin needs more time because he cares. The war is the worst solution but sometimes you cannot avoid it.
For now Putin seams to be the right person. Seams to be balanced. When the war is here ams killing for surviving will become necessary then you will need a killer like Stalin.
I don't know....at the time Putin meeting face to face with a major western leader was a PR win, a sign that RU wasn't as untouchable as in the Biden admin.
Lavrov is generally the bad cop, so I'm not surprised that he's saying this...PR wise.
Any path taken would've presented its own set of quandaries.
Putin and Lavrov have dealt with this insane situation better than any two other leaders in the world ever could have. And they've done a very difficult job, probably that has entirely consumed them for 4 years now, with grace and dignity. The entire world is blessed that these men didn't wreck everything and for that we owe them our respect and gratitude.
Today's world just keeps reminding me of Kafka's novel, "The Trial."
It is possible that Lavrov bought into the TDS that Donald will be a foolish and ineffective leader. However, from what it looks from the encirclement strategy as well as revving up military production, that is not quite true. Yes, sure - Trump didn't escalate further on Iran. But maybe it was because a lot of US opinionmakers said to him Russia will be a softer target.
I think the globalists knew that Trump would be easily swayed and thus beholden to them—hence their willingness to let him assume office in 2025 (unlike in 2021). Otherwise he would be a skilled manager on their behalf, at least insofar as Russia goes. Maybe they realized, as Europe did, that Obama–Biden simply would not help them "win" in Ukraine.
Ukraine has enough clout to launder its PSYOPs, so, if anything, a number of globalists—on both sides of the Atlantic—are effectively Ukrainian proxies. Skillful disinformation is enough to persuade Trump that he should put his acumen to work against Russia. The globalists, paradoxically, know that they need Trump's skills to win. But Islamists think otherwise.
Russia also has a fourth option: Armistice more favorable to Ukraine's terms and withdrawing from occupied territories. Not a likely option considering the sunk cost of the invasion and the fact that some (or most) residents in the occupied territories already voted for annexation in 2022.
The problem is that any escalation from Russia is clearly pushing the conflict toward nuclear.
Just like the war in Iran had a critical issue that is hard to gap for the negotiations – the issue of enriched uranium – the same goes with the Russian-Ukraine conflict. There the major problem is Ukraine’s status after a ceasefire. The entry of NATO forces is the elephant in the room. Russia cannot live with it and Ukraine/NATO/US does not want live without it. Again, the Russian view is obvious; it is better to mitigate the conflict and live with an ongoing low level warfare than giving Ukraine the opportunity to open the door for NATO/US. A NATO/US direct entry can easily take the war to the level of a nuclear conflict and if anybody, Russia knows the nature of that beast. They were living and playing with it since the 1950s. There you have it, this war was designed by US/NATO to never end and they took decades to advance and warm it up to that point. The Ukrainians together with their gain of function biolabs are surely not going to win nothing here. Half their population is already outside of the country and with each year less likely to return. This war is already longer than the Soviet involvement was against Germany from 1941 to 1945. Ukrainian industry and agriculture was miserable low level corrupted and downgraded and there will be no money and people to reconstruct it. America was sucked in by Zion Don and Ukraine by the Servant of the People, the third grade piano player and both nations are paying the price for these substandard, surrealistic decisions.
I see some parallels between Putin and our current government (BJP) in India.
Both appear to take their adversaries at face value, and both have a slow legalistic approach to confrontations.
Whereas NATO et al invented their "rules based order" which I like to call rules based disorder: "we do dis, you no do dis."
High time the global majority acts together to break out of this trap.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
And more than three time?
Sometimes I ask myself if Poutine doesn't like that?
For more than ten years, neocons say always: " Come on, push forward, Poutine is a pussy, he will not dare"
Was they right?
Russia has to know that the goal of the US/UK has always been the strategic defeat of the Soviet Union and now Russia since 1945 at least. It has to be obvious with all that Andrew listed above, plus the "cordon sanitare" around Russia with the goal to inflict a first strike on Russia. If Russia does not act forcefully very soon, the pressure will increase and humanity faces the unthinkable. Si vis bellum, para bellum...i.e. nuclear war!
So why did Biden remove Trump’s sanctions on NS2?? Biden wanted Putin to make tens of billions of euros a year for at least another 10 years before solar and wind and batteries made Russian gas obsolete.
Petroleum products will never be obsolete. That is sheer fantasy. They touch everything you touch. They are necessary to mine the alternative energy you listed. You can’t move a ship without them, or make car tires, move a long distance truck, produce pharmaceuticals, etc etc.
Don't feed the troll.
Lavrov is being kind, in the manner that suits his style.
He knows he was tricked.
The question is :
how could that happen ?
Is the KGB that out of touch with realitiy?
The current losses on the Eastern Front are amazing.
Particularly in Crimania.
Could it be Putin is somehow complacent?
My number one constructive critique of Russia is that it's plagued by broken feedback loops that lead to the formulation of inefficient or even sometimes counterproductive policies. There's also a cultural preference for telling superiors whatever someone thinks that they want to hear, not holding anyone to account whenever they're wrong, and failing to fix problems whenever they're finally identified.
I'm absolutely confident that every single person who told Putin to stick with the "Spirit of Anchorage" will get off scot-free, not even with a tongue-lashing, and everyone single one of them will now pretend a la 1984 that they always knew it was a ruse.
That's just the way that things are around here, and you'll likely also see top "Non-Russian Pro-Russian" (NRPR) influencers doing the same, they always without exception toe whatever the Kremlin line may be.
What makes you think that Trump might have intended to deceive Russia this time, given the possibility—as you have said before—that he is just forgetful and impressionable?
I'm personally undecided about whether or not he meant to mislead Putin, but at the end of the day, he had 10 months to coerce Zelensky into withdrawing from Donbass if the reports about the "Spirit of Anchorage's" quid pro quo are to be believed, he was regularly reminded in the media and during his envoys meetings in Moscow, yet he didn't do it so I understand why Russia is very disappointed.
Obviously divining intent is hard, but this situation is eerily similar to the failed peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in early 2022. Both UK PM Johnson's visit and the Bucha false flag coincided, so there is some question as to whether the latter played a role in persuading key Western elites to scuttle a deal.
If that is the case, then it shows how high-ranking officials can be duped by rather crude PSYOPs—spread by third parties or even subordinates—and react illogically, notably so if personal idiosyncrasies such as Trump's are at work as well. At any rate, it does not bode well for mankind in general and confirms my cynicism.
In fairness, all of the elements of your critique apply equally to the U.S. government, though maybe for different reasons. There is no accountability whatsoever. Success is defined by other terms - sociability, attending the right university, having the right social circle. Fixing identified problems is the last goal of anyone in the government. Why would for example someone overseeing programs to eradicate homeless ever want to see it eradicated (and their job made unnecessary)? Counterproductive policies aren't a bug - they're a feature, a "success" to list on your annual performance report.
I suspect Russia and the U.S. aren't the only government bureaucracies like that, either.
I agree that it's not exclusive to Russia, but at least in the US, different policy ideas are thought up, shared, and lobbied for, plus the Intelligence Community makes reference in their public reports to which agencies disagree with certain claims.
None of that happens here. There aren't several policy tracks that decisionmakers can move between as circumstances change. There's just one track, and deviating from it risks professional problems.
Only once it's clear that the official policy isn't working or requires change does another policy appear, and then that becomes the new dogma, and so on and so forth. There's very little public debate among experts too.
I used to participate in conferences and related events here and was sorely disappointed when I realized that it's just people reading off their reports, talking over one another, and basically just saying the same thing but in different ways.
Moreover, in the US at least, there's at least public shaming if someone gets something very, very wrong; that too is unknown here, all experts "circle the wagons" since they're all mostly saying the same thing anyhow.
For a creative thinker, it can be incredibly frustrating working in this field at times since it's all about amplifying talking points, not actually thinking, discovering new solutions, identifying latent problems, etc.
Few people have any sense of initiative here, "fatalism" ("avos") rules the roost in the sense of everyone thinking everything will be okay and someone else will do whatever must be done. For someone like me, it's a very irresponsible attitude.
I know we have the same thing in the US too, but we still have some (very imperfect!) checks and balances to try to address this, while no such system exists here. It's really only a handful of people formulating policy.
Everyone else then does whatever this "brain trust" decides must be done, and they honestly don't even do it all that well anymore nowadays as proven by Russia's recent spree of setbacks abroad.
Think about it: Lavrov is half-Armenian and he's been in his job for something like two decades, how can it be that Russia "loses" Armenia under his watch of all people!? It boggles the mind but nobody cares to address the root causes.
Russia took Armenia for granted, convinced itself with "wishful thinking" that Pashinyan would remain loyal, and was once again "led by the nose" as always, over and over again, always duped and always none the wiser.
Russia could have endeded the war early by taking KIEV. What is going on is a civil war between 2 identical people.
Russia could have ended the war early by capturing Washington D.C., also.
Neither has any connection to real possibilities.
Is Lavrov basically saying that Russia did not fight on the battlefield as hard as they could have because of Anchorage? This is the first time I hear this. I always thought the Russians were doing all they could to win the war. If this is true, then the Russians are absolute fools and have no one to blame but themselves. You would think they would have learned something after being deceived for years by the Minsk agreements.
This was obvious from the outset. Russia fell for the okey doke.
Again.
Hell yes, stall and build inventory. Difficult to believe how they all bought into this. No one at SVR profiled Trump?
Life and history can surprise. Putin is a man of negotiation. Pragmatic. This supose to have a counterpart. When the politicians of the west do not hear what he says, Russia remains only the way to let the people in west know and understand who is responsible for the comming war and the suffering. Same about the people in Russia.
You need a clean conscience before you hit hard. At least normal people have to be fully convinced that is no other solution.
This takes time. With Iran happened the same. You try to avoid the impossible. It is up to each person when he reached limit of trying to trust one. Putin needs more time because he cares. The war is the worst solution but sometimes you cannot avoid it.
For now Putin seams to be the right person. Seams to be balanced. When the war is here ams killing for surviving will become necessary then you will need a killer like Stalin.
I don't know....at the time Putin meeting face to face with a major western leader was a PR win, a sign that RU wasn't as untouchable as in the Biden admin.
Lavrov is generally the bad cop, so I'm not surprised that he's saying this...PR wise.
I thought Chadvedev was the bad cop (Dmitry Medvedev)
Any path taken would've presented its own set of quandaries.
Putin and Lavrov have dealt with this insane situation better than any two other leaders in the world ever could have. And they've done a very difficult job, probably that has entirely consumed them for 4 years now, with grace and dignity. The entire world is blessed that these men didn't wreck everything and for that we owe them our respect and gratitude.
Today's world just keeps reminding me of Kafka's novel, "The Trial."
It is possible that Lavrov bought into the TDS that Donald will be a foolish and ineffective leader. However, from what it looks from the encirclement strategy as well as revving up military production, that is not quite true. Yes, sure - Trump didn't escalate further on Iran. But maybe it was because a lot of US opinionmakers said to him Russia will be a softer target.
I think the globalists knew that Trump would be easily swayed and thus beholden to them—hence their willingness to let him assume office in 2025 (unlike in 2021). Otherwise he would be a skilled manager on their behalf, at least insofar as Russia goes. Maybe they realized, as Europe did, that Obama–Biden simply would not help them "win" in Ukraine.
Ukraine has enough clout to launder its PSYOPs, so, if anything, a number of globalists—on both sides of the Atlantic—are effectively Ukrainian proxies. Skillful disinformation is enough to persuade Trump that he should put his acumen to work against Russia. The globalists, paradoxically, know that they need Trump's skills to win. But Islamists think otherwise.
Russia also has a fourth option: Armistice more favorable to Ukraine's terms and withdrawing from occupied territories. Not a likely option considering the sunk cost of the invasion and the fact that some (or most) residents in the occupied territories already voted for annexation in 2022.
I expect that pretty much all Ukrainian energy will now come under relentless assault.
The problem is that any escalation from Russia is clearly pushing the conflict toward nuclear.
Just like the war in Iran had a critical issue that is hard to gap for the negotiations – the issue of enriched uranium – the same goes with the Russian-Ukraine conflict. There the major problem is Ukraine’s status after a ceasefire. The entry of NATO forces is the elephant in the room. Russia cannot live with it and Ukraine/NATO/US does not want live without it. Again, the Russian view is obvious; it is better to mitigate the conflict and live with an ongoing low level warfare than giving Ukraine the opportunity to open the door for NATO/US. A NATO/US direct entry can easily take the war to the level of a nuclear conflict and if anybody, Russia knows the nature of that beast. They were living and playing with it since the 1950s. There you have it, this war was designed by US/NATO to never end and they took decades to advance and warm it up to that point. The Ukrainians together with their gain of function biolabs are surely not going to win nothing here. Half their population is already outside of the country and with each year less likely to return. This war is already longer than the Soviet involvement was against Germany from 1941 to 1945. Ukrainian industry and agriculture was miserable low level corrupted and downgraded and there will be no money and people to reconstruct it. America was sucked in by Zion Don and Ukraine by the Servant of the People, the third grade piano player and both nations are paying the price for these substandard, surrealistic decisions.
Russian dithering and indecision are what are driving the escalation of this war.
Lot of pauses to kill more cattle to make room for the real people.