You can be whoever you are, that's fine and I'm not interested in your biography, just in your ideas as expressed in this context.
You've been saying that Russia is going to react in a radical way and even taunted me to come back to you once that happens.
Nobody knows for sure how many troops Ukraine has that are still west of the Dnieper, but that's where NATO arms and ammo are coming from.
Don't you think it would complicate Ukraine's military logistics to have to resort to pontoons as opposed to bridges and rails?
Since you're a veteran of the special forces, can you please explain why pontoons are better for military logistics than bridges and rails?
Seriously, I don't understand it and I'm sure that 99% of people don't either. Only those who think there's a "master plan" will blindly agree with you.
None can explain it though, you'd be the first person in 2,5 years to share a cogent explanation if you're capable of doing so, but I really doubt it.
If someone's desperate, wouldn't they throw the kitchen sink at it and not care about escalation control?
How do you square the circle of NATO being desperate yet still cautiously escalating with Russia?
I've accounted for that by introducing the influence of Western factions into my analysis and acknowledging escalation-management.
But you haven't done that. Instead, you're repudiating everything that I've written above in totality and I just can't understand how you arrived at such opposite conclusions.
I rarely interact with "5D chess master plan" conspiracy theorists since it's an exercise in futility to try to convert them and can also be very emotionally exhausting.
But since you're evidently one and I've already invested thus much time into learning about your views, at least answer my targeted questions.
To repeat:
1. If NATO is so desperate for war, why not just launch a first strike against Russia now without warning and get it over with?
2. Why is NATO waiting a full 2,5 years since the SMO began to consider letting Ukraine use long-range weapons?
3. Why are pontoons preferred to bridges and rail for crossing rivers as you imply is the reason why Russia didn't bomb them?
If I may, I'll ask some more questions since you didn't coherently answer them earlier:
4. Absent the need for a draft, in what way outside of the election cycle (which isn't always truly free and fair and whose winners sometimes go against their promises after being elected) does Western sentiment shape policy towards this proxy war?
5. You now insist that whatever major thing Russia might do won't lead to a nuclear war with NATO, so why do you expect a prolonged hot one that would extend long enough for NATO to need to draft troops? Why won't either side escalate to using nukes?
If you think that Russia doesn't have a pretty good idea as to how many Ukrainian troops are still West of the Dnieper, then you're a bigger fool than you care to realise.
If the Ukrainians had any forces West of the Dnieper, why weren't they either sent to Kursk, or to strengthen the front in the Donbass???
It also reflects your lack of military experience and understanding of military strategy on the ground, yet you persist in commenting as though you know or understand even the slightest about military strategy.
Talk is Cheap when you've never been on the battlefield, and as a boxer ( don't recall which one) once said, " everybody has a plan until he gets punched in the face".
I'm not trying to bait you into anything, I pointing out the Obvious, which you seem to dogmatically refuse to accept, that being that Russia will get to a point, in the face of continued Western and Ukrainian Beligerance in the not too distant future, when they will launch some form of attack, of whatever type, once again, Not Necessarily Nuclear, but which will bring the West and Ukraine back down to earth with a bump.
My Business Consultancy and Military resume are of critical importance to understanding people who control the reasoning behind strategy and reactions, so you can brush it aside a you want, but it will prove you Wrong on multiple issues and points I have made.
I've never said nor implied that, you're making strawmen and continuing to veer further off course from the original subject and my supplementary questions.
But for the benefit of other readers, I'll answer your question: they might not have the most accurate idea of how many are West of the Dnieper. Even if they do, Lukashenko said that 120,000 are on the Belarusian border right now.
They're being kept there presumably due to Kiev (in my view wrongly) fearing a Russian incursion from that front even though neither Russia nor Belarus has intimated any such interest in that repeating that early SMO scenario.
You also don't need to make this personal. I stand by my analyses and always update them accordingly when the need arises. You, however, continue clinging to the most absurd talking points that you won't even defend.
I've also never denied that Russia might get to the point where I lets loose and drastically escalates, but you flat-out refuse to countenance that maybe it won't for the reasons I've explained. It's a matter of dogma for you apparently.
You're discrediting your alleged resume too by refusing to answer my polite questions, especially about you implying that pontoons are more preferable than bridges and rail for crossing rivers.
I've thought about that for an hour, it's even distracted me from my work, but I can't make sense of it. I can only conclude that you were angry, said something ridiculous thinking it made your point, and are now too embarrassed to defend it.
You know, sometimes for a guy with a PhD which is supposedly to reflect the ability to think and reason you can come up with the most irrational Bullshit possible and in this case you are projecting this onto me.
Well for me, a guy with an Engineering degree, an honours in Applied Match and a Masters in Operations Management, both business and manufacturing, you have exposed yourself as far from deserving a PhD.
Although you often make sensible comments and write sensible assessment reviews you also quite often veer off the rails, like in this case, clinging to your Bullshit Dogma which you have most definitely not assessed from multiple angles and are horribly flawed you series of Irrational comments show, while you attempt to play to your audience, hoping for reprieve by public opinion.
The last time you produced such Shit to put it plainly, was in your analysis of the reasons for the visit by India's foreign minister to Russia, supposedly to put pressure on Putin to stop the war, and in the comments section I pointed out that to be absolute nonsense, and that it was in regard to establishing a better trade balance with Russia through more exports to Russia, which is Exactly what it turned out to be, as India went away with agreements for greater purchasing by Russia from India.
So, you can bury your head in the sand for as long as you like, it's not going to stop you from getting your ass proverbially shot off, and that projection finger you have pointed at me, has three pointed back at you.
So try being an adult, and accept that you have misanalysed this current situation, and that it is not merely political posturing or choreography.
I'm not "projecting" a single thing onto you: you were on the one who defended Russia's decision not to bomb bridges, brought up your military credentials to back it up, and even then used Krynki as an example of why blowing up bridges wouldn't stop Ukraine.
The irony is that it's you who's dogmatic, not me: I've regularly updated and corrected my analyses when they were proven to be inaccurate, yet you continue to maintain every single absurd (and in some cases even provably debunked) point because your ego won't let you admit you were wrong.
I also never said that India's FM was pressuring Russia to stop the SMO, I only explained India's interest in reaching a compromise solution that it could mediate to elevate its global status.
But okay, drop another comment under that exact post and let's carry this on there. I don't mind folks being anonymous, but it takes some real chutzpah to be an anonymous troll and not just use anonymity for its original purpose.
On the subject of credentials, let me humiliate you further: my PhD is in Russian-Pakistani relations, which required a deep understanding of Russian-Indian, Russian-Chinese, Russian-Iranian relations, etc.
I don't claim to always be right, but I have the credentials to speak from a position of authority on these issues, which is why I occasionally debunk others like that one Hugo guy who spew nonsense on these subjects.
I had no idea that politely responding to your ridiculous notion that Putin is about to go all out despite absolutely zero preparations here in Moscow would get you so angry.
In my experience, people like you have some personal issues that manifest themselves through the symptom of aggressive replies while hiding behind anonymity.
Instead of appreciating the time that I've given you to have a civilized exchange of ideas, you just waste it on trolling and getting increasingly personal.
People like you are why analysts of my caliber very rarely engage with the public because someone almost always ruins it. I'll still engage with others after this, but after today, I might not engage with you any longer.
Let me challenge you to find a MGIMO-credentialed PhD analyst with a decade of experience who regularly interacts with their audience. Actually, show me any Russian-based one who does so.
Don't you realize how you risk ruining it for others if I didn't have such thick skin? I genuinely enjoy humiliating my trolls, I troll them back daily on X and it's literally my favorite hobby nowadays.
If you think your "mean words" or whatever with your increasingly personal attacks are going to get me to self-censor or change my views, you're totally wrong, but I welcome you to try daily.
I've challenged dozens of trolls on X over the years into trolling me daily in pursuit of that, not a single one took me up on it, not even "NAFO". The longest that anyone went was around five consecutive days
Why not "fact-check" me daily "KC Erasmus"? I've dropped original analyses daily since the SMO began (first at the now-defunct oneworld.press then here at Substack) for 930+ consecutive days.
You also won't find a single person like me anywhere in the world who's provably done so, but I know my challenge might make you obsessively try in order to "win the debate" or whatever you imagine.
People like you are pathetic, but if it wasn't for you and your increasingly nasty attacks, I might not have continued working daily. Every day I work is me spitting in the face of my haters, you included. Deal with it.
Good Heavens do you really think I have all day to read only what you put out???
You really are an arrogant Fucking Putz.
Your PhD in History most definitely doesn't make you an expert in current affairs, and again in regard to the the trash you wrote about India's approach to Russia and it's purpose, definitely turned out to be to the contrary.
As a matter of fact, it is Not India alone who have been attempting to find a solution to the Ukraine conflict, but has been that of the the BRICS nations, however they have all come to understand that it is not Russia being irrational, but the US/ NATO/ Ukraine alliance and that it serves no purpose for Russia to make any more concessions than they have already put on the table., especially in the case of China who know that the West would merely be emboldened and then focus on them.
My degrees are all premised on logic, rationsation and analysis and yet you attempt in an illogical manner without evidence or answering the rational questions I posed, to supposedly "debunk" my arguments.
You really are a joker.
By the way, I'm still curious as to the basis upon which you purport the failure of Putin/ Russian mitary to blow up the bridges over the Dnieper, as a Political decision, which you have failed to answer, together with other rational questions I posed in regard to protection of harbours in Crimea etc.., which exposed your totally illogical and irrational stance in regard to both the bridges over the Dnieper, and Ukrainian attacks on the Kersch Bridge.
Great, this will be fun, I'm glad to see that you bit the bait!
1. I don't have a PhD in History, but in Political Science, with an MA in International Relations, both from MGIMO (which is run by the Russian MFA), thus making me an expert by any objective measure.
2. Actually, I'm practically alone among the Alt-Media Community in reaffirming the closeness of Russian-Indian relations, unlikely almost everyone else who wildly speculates that they're drifting apart.
3. Your degrees are discredited after you implied that pontoons are preferable to bridges and rails for crossing rivers LOL even LMAO!
4. I already explained almost two years ago how political and soft power considers are taking precedence over military ones:
Why'd Russia build the Crimean Bridge then if it's supposedly better to cross waterways on pontoons than bridges or rails? LOL! Few trolls leave a lasting impression on me, but I'll never forget what you implied! Too funny! lol
You can be whoever you are, that's fine and I'm not interested in your biography, just in your ideas as expressed in this context.
You've been saying that Russia is going to react in a radical way and even taunted me to come back to you once that happens.
Nobody knows for sure how many troops Ukraine has that are still west of the Dnieper, but that's where NATO arms and ammo are coming from.
Don't you think it would complicate Ukraine's military logistics to have to resort to pontoons as opposed to bridges and rails?
Since you're a veteran of the special forces, can you please explain why pontoons are better for military logistics than bridges and rails?
Seriously, I don't understand it and I'm sure that 99% of people don't either. Only those who think there's a "master plan" will blindly agree with you.
None can explain it though, you'd be the first person in 2,5 years to share a cogent explanation if you're capable of doing so, but I really doubt it.
You also missed my question earlier about why the US doesn't just launch a first strike against Russia if that's what it wants?
Also, why is it waiting 2,5 years to consider letting Ukraine use its long-range weapons against Russia?
Why wasn't this and other escalations done right away if they're so hellbent on war out of desperation? I genuinely don't get it.
If someone's desperate, wouldn't they throw the kitchen sink at it and not care about escalation control?
How do you square the circle of NATO being desperate yet still cautiously escalating with Russia?
I've accounted for that by introducing the influence of Western factions into my analysis and acknowledging escalation-management.
But you haven't done that. Instead, you're repudiating everything that I've written above in totality and I just can't understand how you arrived at such opposite conclusions.
I rarely interact with "5D chess master plan" conspiracy theorists since it's an exercise in futility to try to convert them and can also be very emotionally exhausting.
But since you're evidently one and I've already invested thus much time into learning about your views, at least answer my targeted questions.
To repeat:
1. If NATO is so desperate for war, why not just launch a first strike against Russia now without warning and get it over with?
2. Why is NATO waiting a full 2,5 years since the SMO began to consider letting Ukraine use long-range weapons?
3. Why are pontoons preferred to bridges and rail for crossing rivers as you imply is the reason why Russia didn't bomb them?
If I may, I'll ask some more questions since you didn't coherently answer them earlier:
4. Absent the need for a draft, in what way outside of the election cycle (which isn't always truly free and fair and whose winners sometimes go against their promises after being elected) does Western sentiment shape policy towards this proxy war?
5. You now insist that whatever major thing Russia might do won't lead to a nuclear war with NATO, so why do you expect a prolonged hot one that would extend long enough for NATO to need to draft troops? Why won't either side escalate to using nukes?
If you think that Russia doesn't have a pretty good idea as to how many Ukrainian troops are still West of the Dnieper, then you're a bigger fool than you care to realise.
If the Ukrainians had any forces West of the Dnieper, why weren't they either sent to Kursk, or to strengthen the front in the Donbass???
It also reflects your lack of military experience and understanding of military strategy on the ground, yet you persist in commenting as though you know or understand even the slightest about military strategy.
Talk is Cheap when you've never been on the battlefield, and as a boxer ( don't recall which one) once said, " everybody has a plan until he gets punched in the face".
I'm not trying to bait you into anything, I pointing out the Obvious, which you seem to dogmatically refuse to accept, that being that Russia will get to a point, in the face of continued Western and Ukrainian Beligerance in the not too distant future, when they will launch some form of attack, of whatever type, once again, Not Necessarily Nuclear, but which will bring the West and Ukraine back down to earth with a bump.
My Business Consultancy and Military resume are of critical importance to understanding people who control the reasoning behind strategy and reactions, so you can brush it aside a you want, but it will prove you Wrong on multiple issues and points I have made.
I've never said nor implied that, you're making strawmen and continuing to veer further off course from the original subject and my supplementary questions.
But for the benefit of other readers, I'll answer your question: they might not have the most accurate idea of how many are West of the Dnieper. Even if they do, Lukashenko said that 120,000 are on the Belarusian border right now.
They're being kept there presumably due to Kiev (in my view wrongly) fearing a Russian incursion from that front even though neither Russia nor Belarus has intimated any such interest in that repeating that early SMO scenario.
You also don't need to make this personal. I stand by my analyses and always update them accordingly when the need arises. You, however, continue clinging to the most absurd talking points that you won't even defend.
I've also never denied that Russia might get to the point where I lets loose and drastically escalates, but you flat-out refuse to countenance that maybe it won't for the reasons I've explained. It's a matter of dogma for you apparently.
You're discrediting your alleged resume too by refusing to answer my polite questions, especially about you implying that pontoons are more preferable than bridges and rail for crossing rivers.
I've thought about that for an hour, it's even distracted me from my work, but I can't make sense of it. I can only conclude that you were angry, said something ridiculous thinking it made your point, and are now too embarrassed to defend it.
You know, sometimes for a guy with a PhD which is supposedly to reflect the ability to think and reason you can come up with the most irrational Bullshit possible and in this case you are projecting this onto me.
Well for me, a guy with an Engineering degree, an honours in Applied Match and a Masters in Operations Management, both business and manufacturing, you have exposed yourself as far from deserving a PhD.
Although you often make sensible comments and write sensible assessment reviews you also quite often veer off the rails, like in this case, clinging to your Bullshit Dogma which you have most definitely not assessed from multiple angles and are horribly flawed you series of Irrational comments show, while you attempt to play to your audience, hoping for reprieve by public opinion.
The last time you produced such Shit to put it plainly, was in your analysis of the reasons for the visit by India's foreign minister to Russia, supposedly to put pressure on Putin to stop the war, and in the comments section I pointed out that to be absolute nonsense, and that it was in regard to establishing a better trade balance with Russia through more exports to Russia, which is Exactly what it turned out to be, as India went away with agreements for greater purchasing by Russia from India.
So, you can bury your head in the sand for as long as you like, it's not going to stop you from getting your ass proverbially shot off, and that projection finger you have pointed at me, has three pointed back at you.
So try being an adult, and accept that you have misanalysed this current situation, and that it is not merely political posturing or choreography.
I'm not "projecting" a single thing onto you: you were on the one who defended Russia's decision not to bomb bridges, brought up your military credentials to back it up, and even then used Krynki as an example of why blowing up bridges wouldn't stop Ukraine.
The irony is that it's you who's dogmatic, not me: I've regularly updated and corrected my analyses when they were proven to be inaccurate, yet you continue to maintain every single absurd (and in some cases even provably debunked) point because your ego won't let you admit you were wrong.
I also never said that India's FM was pressuring Russia to stop the SMO, I only explained India's interest in reaching a compromise solution that it could mediate to elevate its global status.
But okay, drop another comment under that exact post and let's carry this on there. I don't mind folks being anonymous, but it takes some real chutzpah to be an anonymous troll and not just use anonymity for its original purpose.
On the subject of credentials, let me humiliate you further: my PhD is in Russian-Pakistani relations, which required a deep understanding of Russian-Indian, Russian-Chinese, Russian-Iranian relations, etc.
I don't claim to always be right, but I have the credentials to speak from a position of authority on these issues, which is why I occasionally debunk others like that one Hugo guy who spew nonsense on these subjects.
I had no idea that politely responding to your ridiculous notion that Putin is about to go all out despite absolutely zero preparations here in Moscow would get you so angry.
In my experience, people like you have some personal issues that manifest themselves through the symptom of aggressive replies while hiding behind anonymity.
Instead of appreciating the time that I've given you to have a civilized exchange of ideas, you just waste it on trolling and getting increasingly personal.
People like you are why analysts of my caliber very rarely engage with the public because someone almost always ruins it. I'll still engage with others after this, but after today, I might not engage with you any longer.
Let me challenge you to find a MGIMO-credentialed PhD analyst with a decade of experience who regularly interacts with their audience. Actually, show me any Russian-based one who does so.
Don't you realize how you risk ruining it for others if I didn't have such thick skin? I genuinely enjoy humiliating my trolls, I troll them back daily on X and it's literally my favorite hobby nowadays.
If you think your "mean words" or whatever with your increasingly personal attacks are going to get me to self-censor or change my views, you're totally wrong, but I welcome you to try daily.
I've challenged dozens of trolls on X over the years into trolling me daily in pursuit of that, not a single one took me up on it, not even "NAFO". The longest that anyone went was around five consecutive days
Why not "fact-check" me daily "KC Erasmus"? I've dropped original analyses daily since the SMO began (first at the now-defunct oneworld.press then here at Substack) for 930+ consecutive days.
You also won't find a single person like me anywhere in the world who's provably done so, but I know my challenge might make you obsessively try in order to "win the debate" or whatever you imagine.
People like you are pathetic, but if it wasn't for you and your increasingly nasty attacks, I might not have continued working daily. Every day I work is me spitting in the face of my haters, you included. Deal with it.
Good Heavens do you really think I have all day to read only what you put out???
You really are an arrogant Fucking Putz.
Your PhD in History most definitely doesn't make you an expert in current affairs, and again in regard to the the trash you wrote about India's approach to Russia and it's purpose, definitely turned out to be to the contrary.
As a matter of fact, it is Not India alone who have been attempting to find a solution to the Ukraine conflict, but has been that of the the BRICS nations, however they have all come to understand that it is not Russia being irrational, but the US/ NATO/ Ukraine alliance and that it serves no purpose for Russia to make any more concessions than they have already put on the table., especially in the case of China who know that the West would merely be emboldened and then focus on them.
My degrees are all premised on logic, rationsation and analysis and yet you attempt in an illogical manner without evidence or answering the rational questions I posed, to supposedly "debunk" my arguments.
You really are a joker.
By the way, I'm still curious as to the basis upon which you purport the failure of Putin/ Russian mitary to blow up the bridges over the Dnieper, as a Political decision, which you have failed to answer, together with other rational questions I posed in regard to protection of harbours in Crimea etc.., which exposed your totally illogical and irrational stance in regard to both the bridges over the Dnieper, and Ukrainian attacks on the Kersch Bridge.
Great, this will be fun, I'm glad to see that you bit the bait!
1. I don't have a PhD in History, but in Political Science, with an MA in International Relations, both from MGIMO (which is run by the Russian MFA), thus making me an expert by any objective measure.
2. Actually, I'm practically alone among the Alt-Media Community in reaffirming the closeness of Russian-Indian relations, unlikely almost everyone else who wildly speculates that they're drifting apart.
3. Your degrees are discredited after you implied that pontoons are preferable to bridges and rails for crossing rivers LOL even LMAO!
4. I already explained almost two years ago how political and soft power considers are taking precedence over military ones:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/20-constructive-critiques-about-russias
5. Now tell me more about how pontoons are preferable to bridges and rails for crossing rivers! LOL I'll never get over that, it's too funny! haha
Why'd Russia build the Crimean Bridge then if it's supposedly better to cross waterways on pontoons than bridges or rails? LOL! Few trolls leave a lasting impression on me, but I'll never forget what you implied! Too funny! lol