The only reprieve in that dark scenario, other than obliterating Ukraine to neutralize the NATO threats emanating from there once and for all per the special operation’s goal, would be for Russia to sell stakes in its natural resource and other critical industries to the US as a “security guarantee”.
"That’s why Russia must defeat Ukraine before his “war of attrition” really gets going." I have been arguing this point endlessly since 2014 and the US led, financed, and directed coup, and subsequently the war of "attrition" against Russia.
Russia could end this war tonight without having to send Orensniks to London, Paris, Berlin, or Burssels! Russia could end it without losing another soldier on either side. How you ask? 1) destroy all of the decision making centers in Kiev! all of them, including Zelinsky and his Nazi gang. Russia knows where they all are. 2) same thing with Odessa. 3) blow up the highways and railways from Poland through which so much of the weaponry is transported. That includes every airport in Ukraine. 4) Take out the bridges across the Dnieper! Game Over. Checkmate.
Simply stated, take off the friggin' while gloves, untie the hands of the military and end it tonight! Don't tell me thy can't, and don't tell me Trump or any of the chickenshits in the EU will do anything about it. Lesson #1 learned from TACO's retreat from Iran. The emperor has no clothes, and the USA is a paper tiger.
But the question is WHY? I'm beginning to think that perhaps Joe is right. Russia/ Putin are pawns in the claws of the Ziofascist, Rothschild, City of London globalists. Like everybody else.
I ask a somewhat different but related question. I see that Mr. Putin and many similar wise men in Russia and abroad have a goal to achieve X and Y while not hurting the prospect of Z and W. In many situations, such careful planning for a balanced approach to problems is a good aim, with many leadership teams trying to achieve it in the past on different occasions, but they did not always achieve their goals.
What if Russians have to pick an absolute order of priority of achieving X as the top priority, then maybe Y if the situation allows? Getting Z done would be a bonus prize in a rare possibility. What should be the X and Y for Russia at this juncture? I think X should be getting the upper hand during the SMO and have more say in the settlement. Y should be to stop NATO's go-east strategy. Z would be using the SMO context to achieve partial "national" mobilization (not just military mobilization).
Given that Russia still has severe wealth inequality (and regional inequality, etc.) I see that the Russian government's actions during the SMO have a strong smell of "do not spoil my party too much". Some people have been too eager to paint a rosy picture of "all is fine," and that "we are Russia, we can run and chew the gum at the same time," rather than facing the burden of managing a total war. If Mr. Putin has now really concluded that diplomacy has run its course, and a fundamentally different approach is necessary, then so far I have not seen him doing anything differently yet. Maybe I am simply not patient enough.
Seams that Russia does not know how to end the Ukraine conflict. It has to clarify if it fights against Ukraine or against NATO.
If Russia is afraid of NATO and avoids a direct confrontation with the block, then better to quit right now and accept the integration of Ukraine in NATO and EU. With all the consequences. Probably the split if Russia in two. European Russia - the western side of Ural. And the eastern part - east of Ural.
The world need ressources and will fight for these and Russia jas to demonstrate it is able to hold and manage those.
In the western world the view of Margaret Thatcher is wide spread. Russians should understand that the conflict in Ukraine is serious and will not have a peacefully end. You win or you hand over the management of the resources to the western capitalists. It is Russia's choice.
Margaret Thatcher famously argued that Russia's vast wealth of natural resources did not make it rich because the country lacked the political and economic systems necessary to foster human prosperity. She used Russia as a primary example to illustrate her belief that free enterprise and human creativity—rather than mineral wealth—are the true drivers of a nation's wealth.
Thatcher articulated these views across multiple post-premiership speeches, notably during her 1994 speech in São Paulo and her 1996 address at the Foundation for Economic Education.
Norway and Qatar and Saudi Arabia disagree…but UK’s oil and natural gas resources were always going to run out more quickly than other countries. Putin actually agrees with Thatcher on some level because after he maxed out Gazprom he next wanted to increase value added exports…but he was competing with China and how can you compete with them?? So Putin invaded Ukraine because they are a natural trade partner but they were moving closer towards the EU which is why he needed a regime change military operation. Bush invaded Iraq for their oil because people thought North America was running out of cheap oil.
Given such a strategic loss, because it would be a great loss after all these sacrifices, I don't see it that problematic with testing some tactical nukes on Ukraine, not on EU, per Karaganov. After all, look how good friends the Japanese and Americans are now...
I always like to read an opposing view, but these views do not correspond with reality at all.
- There is no sign of Russia losing pace
- Trump is constantly signing or saying things to immediately pull back
- even if Trump pulls through, there is no sign a 23rd (?) sanctions package will have any effect whatsoever
- the idea Russia will sell its industries to the USA for “pennies on the dollar” is quite frankly ridiculous. After the initial Russian retreat from Kherson the Americans already proposed this in exchange for security guarantees and Russia refused
- security guarantees from the USA/Europe are worth nothing. Minsk already proved this
- usually, I might be mistaken, the winning party does not accept losing terms. In this case Russia would already have started negotiations. Which they don’t.
Dr. Andrew, thank you for your insightful analysis. As for the SMO, Russia should focus on expeditiously liberating all areas that were annexed. Russia should not risk a nuclear war with NATO. An effective deterrence is for Russia to complete the SMO ipso facto.
Trump didn’t have enough firepower to defeat Iran and you think that this weapons depleted country can jump in against Russia? America’s and Europe’s manufacturing developed along sic sigma “just in time system” is inferior to Russia’s that has continued to build inventory for a NATO confrontation. Add the more advanced missiles and Europe’s cities will get pummeled faster than Russia’s that is spread over 11 time zones. Add China and North Korea to the equation and your article is replete with stale reasoning that got Trump his trouncing in West Asia. America’s military is akin to Rinaldo still starting for Portugal….aged and mediocre.
When Russian non nuclear giant missiles start targeting Europe’s cities like Brussels, Paris and London we will be back to another loosing strait of Hormuz moment. The West’s citizens will not support it. Russia’s will press on to victory in the memory of two German invasions and one French that resulted in Russia’s victory despite her enormous losses. TAKE A LOOK AT THE MAP.
Which is worse- obliterating Ukr to restore deterrence or employing your own asymmetric approaches? Imo, the former approach makes Russia equivalent to other states that have wiped out innocents.
Im not one to criticize Putin but it seems like you should consider fighting fire with fire. That doesnt necessarily mean sending drones into NATO (but that is a pretty thin salami slice that would get some attention and enable a symmetrical response
to each provocation.) This approach seems to have worked for Iran.
Where did you read about an ultimatum to Lukashenko "to withdraw air defenses?" It was about mesh networking facilitating Russian drone attacks, and four specific sites were named.
The mass output of phoney PR war successes out of Kiev are surely about Ukraine's lost and unloved status rather than any actual victories. Yes it is important to note that they are getting a lot of drone and missile assistance from west (my guess UK and Germany plus US satellitesn'at all that much.
Trump likes to create these ideas of mass US investment across the world justifying his mad wars. We have the huge investment into Venezuelan oil that will result in USA controlling another big chunk of Global oil. There seem to be no US oil companies on board with this, no investment commitment and no oil. It is a fake.
The Board of Peace for Israel/Gaza is another empty vehicle.
Greenland if I recall was supposed to be a massive US project bringing in great returns for USA.
Ukraine too of course.
We are being sold Iran on the basis of Trump taking control of the revenues and determining who gets Iran oil. Clearly a hopeful message for voters not reality
So no there is no great investment into Russia planned by USA. And indeed no great deal of funding for it. They struggle enough to fund AI. Venezuela and Iran projects of course will be funded by China.
Moreover no one should be investing in oil production right now unless it is very clear where the customer will be. Like coal we all know that most oil will remain underground for ever. Saudi may have 90 odd years of reserves and VZ has more. While the horizon for Fusion seems to have shrunk fom 50 years to 10 years.
This post takes for granted what G7 countries declared at G7, but they still have limited stuff to offer to Ukraine apart from drones which make more PR or terrorism than military damage.
Russia is progressing a lot in Donetsk and the whole front line ; difficult to see plausibility in an ukrainien attack on Bélarus, and looks like the Russian population is looking for accélération of opérations and less « SMO restreint » rather than anything else !
Russia should NEVER allowed the "color" revolution to get started by the USA & its cabal of JEWS. The JEWS are going to get hit hard again as they throufht history. They never learned their lession The proxy war between Russia & Ukraine was initiated by the USA/ JEWS and financed by them.
I genuinely haven't seen any significant shift in Russia's approach. Even its threatened "systematic strikes" ultimately haven't, at least not yet, been unleashed. It's really now or never, that's my honest assessment at this point. The dynamics are shifting against Russia:
Basically, Russia kicks Ukraine to scare the West. Nobody in Washington, nobody in Brussels, nobody in Kiev cares about Ukraine or Ukrainians, so the only thing Russia accomplishes is to convince the People Who Matter that they are safe and off-limits, so party on!
Yes a meaningless article on Duran that paraphrases the obvious. How much is the influence of the rootless global cosmopolitans that Stalin mentioned and their outsized influence on Russian economy which they can probably collapse if they scoot - the tripedals who have one leg in Kiev another in Washington and another in Moscow - behind Putin's dithering?
It is interesting that one negotiator who joined Kushner and Witkoff on the US side in the "bilateral" negotiations charade whose name i dont recollect something like Rybulaev lived through the SMO in the first year as a Russian citizen in Moscow and then in the fourth year arrived for the discussions as Ukraine's representative along with Kushner and Witkoff - wow what an ambidextrous creature!. May be he holds 4 or 5 passports as usual. (Kushner and Witkoff are merely discussing firesale of national assets everywhere in the world to US companies with Trump family and proxies like Witkoff and Lutnick taking choice pickings in the name of negotiations - the US always did this but Trump is doing all this in the open without shame because he has no shame.)
Moreover the American and European welfare states are on their last legs due to the debt ponzi scheme reaching its peak and they are scheming for a technocratic AI led totalitarian super state and building data centers like mad to put down a popular unrest when the bread and circus is over and the mobs are hungry, coming for their billionaires and their political puppets with pitchforks or gun.
This means the US and Europe must extort whatever value it can from the rest of the world by any means to sustain this ponzi scheme for another 100 years till when this generation of rulers and their immediate progeny are in control. This is the scheme behind all of Trumps trade deals.
Poor India which is under extreme asset stripping and transfer of wealth to the west for a miserable country has been told to invest $500 billion no less in the US over the next 10 years or else ..... - the first tranche of investments under the scheme have already been declared. Even Pakistan and Bangladesh are under extreme asset stripping and wealth transfer to the west which is why Hasina has a death sentence on her head and Imran despite being a M16 asset for long is now being slow poisoned in jail.
The empire never forgets or forgives. God have mercy on Putin and the Eastern Slavs - they have been at the wrong end of this experiment for more than 100 years now until Putin stabilised the ship and let them enjoy first right on the resources under their soil.
"That’s why Russia must defeat Ukraine before his “war of attrition” really gets going." I have been arguing this point endlessly since 2014 and the US led, financed, and directed coup, and subsequently the war of "attrition" against Russia.
Russia could end this war tonight without having to send Orensniks to London, Paris, Berlin, or Burssels! Russia could end it without losing another soldier on either side. How you ask? 1) destroy all of the decision making centers in Kiev! all of them, including Zelinsky and his Nazi gang. Russia knows where they all are. 2) same thing with Odessa. 3) blow up the highways and railways from Poland through which so much of the weaponry is transported. That includes every airport in Ukraine. 4) Take out the bridges across the Dnieper! Game Over. Checkmate.
Simply stated, take off the friggin' while gloves, untie the hands of the military and end it tonight! Don't tell me thy can't, and don't tell me Trump or any of the chickenshits in the EU will do anything about it. Lesson #1 learned from TACO's retreat from Iran. The emperor has no clothes, and the USA is a paper tiger.
But the question is WHY? I'm beginning to think that perhaps Joe is right. Russia/ Putin are pawns in the claws of the Ziofascist, Rothschild, City of London globalists. Like everybody else.
Ok, so why?
If you're right, Poutine had just to keep on the Elstine's job. That's all.
I don't know if people like you are just stupid or a agent provocateur.
Hi Lou, I hear you, but don't want to belive that. But, it has occupied a little, dark place in the back of my mind!
This headline could have been written four years ago.
Russia has done nothing but dither since that time.
You’ve whined…that’s how you got the Tickle Me Elmo for Christmas! 😉
I ask a somewhat different but related question. I see that Mr. Putin and many similar wise men in Russia and abroad have a goal to achieve X and Y while not hurting the prospect of Z and W. In many situations, such careful planning for a balanced approach to problems is a good aim, with many leadership teams trying to achieve it in the past on different occasions, but they did not always achieve their goals.
What if Russians have to pick an absolute order of priority of achieving X as the top priority, then maybe Y if the situation allows? Getting Z done would be a bonus prize in a rare possibility. What should be the X and Y for Russia at this juncture? I think X should be getting the upper hand during the SMO and have more say in the settlement. Y should be to stop NATO's go-east strategy. Z would be using the SMO context to achieve partial "national" mobilization (not just military mobilization).
Given that Russia still has severe wealth inequality (and regional inequality, etc.) I see that the Russian government's actions during the SMO have a strong smell of "do not spoil my party too much". Some people have been too eager to paint a rosy picture of "all is fine," and that "we are Russia, we can run and chew the gum at the same time," rather than facing the burden of managing a total war. If Mr. Putin has now really concluded that diplomacy has run its course, and a fundamentally different approach is necessary, then so far I have not seen him doing anything differently yet. Maybe I am simply not patient enough.
Seams that Russia does not know how to end the Ukraine conflict. It has to clarify if it fights against Ukraine or against NATO.
If Russia is afraid of NATO and avoids a direct confrontation with the block, then better to quit right now and accept the integration of Ukraine in NATO and EU. With all the consequences. Probably the split if Russia in two. European Russia - the western side of Ural. And the eastern part - east of Ural.
The world need ressources and will fight for these and Russia jas to demonstrate it is able to hold and manage those.
In the western world the view of Margaret Thatcher is wide spread. Russians should understand that the conflict in Ukraine is serious and will not have a peacefully end. You win or you hand over the management of the resources to the western capitalists. It is Russia's choice.
Margaret Thatcher famously argued that Russia's vast wealth of natural resources did not make it rich because the country lacked the political and economic systems necessary to foster human prosperity. She used Russia as a primary example to illustrate her belief that free enterprise and human creativity—rather than mineral wealth—are the true drivers of a nation's wealth.
Thatcher articulated these views across multiple post-premiership speeches, notably during her 1994 speech in São Paulo and her 1996 address at the Foundation for Economic Education.
Norway and Qatar and Saudi Arabia disagree…but UK’s oil and natural gas resources were always going to run out more quickly than other countries. Putin actually agrees with Thatcher on some level because after he maxed out Gazprom he next wanted to increase value added exports…but he was competing with China and how can you compete with them?? So Putin invaded Ukraine because they are a natural trade partner but they were moving closer towards the EU which is why he needed a regime change military operation. Bush invaded Iraq for their oil because people thought North America was running out of cheap oil.
For the girl who send her country in third world she better had to shut the fuck up
Given such a strategic loss, because it would be a great loss after all these sacrifices, I don't see it that problematic with testing some tactical nukes on Ukraine, not on EU, per Karaganov. After all, look how good friends the Japanese and Americans are now...
Could Russia learn from Iran?
I always like to read an opposing view, but these views do not correspond with reality at all.
- There is no sign of Russia losing pace
- Trump is constantly signing or saying things to immediately pull back
- even if Trump pulls through, there is no sign a 23rd (?) sanctions package will have any effect whatsoever
- the idea Russia will sell its industries to the USA for “pennies on the dollar” is quite frankly ridiculous. After the initial Russian retreat from Kherson the Americans already proposed this in exchange for security guarantees and Russia refused
- security guarantees from the USA/Europe are worth nothing. Minsk already proved this
- usually, I might be mistaken, the winning party does not accept losing terms. In this case Russia would already have started negotiations. Which they don’t.
Dr. Andrew, thank you for your insightful analysis. As for the SMO, Russia should focus on expeditiously liberating all areas that were annexed. Russia should not risk a nuclear war with NATO. An effective deterrence is for Russia to complete the SMO ipso facto.
Trump didn’t have enough firepower to defeat Iran and you think that this weapons depleted country can jump in against Russia? America’s and Europe’s manufacturing developed along sic sigma “just in time system” is inferior to Russia’s that has continued to build inventory for a NATO confrontation. Add the more advanced missiles and Europe’s cities will get pummeled faster than Russia’s that is spread over 11 time zones. Add China and North Korea to the equation and your article is replete with stale reasoning that got Trump his trouncing in West Asia. America’s military is akin to Rinaldo still starting for Portugal….aged and mediocre.
When Russian non nuclear giant missiles start targeting Europe’s cities like Brussels, Paris and London we will be back to another loosing strait of Hormuz moment. The West’s citizens will not support it. Russia’s will press on to victory in the memory of two German invasions and one French that resulted in Russia’s victory despite her enormous losses. TAKE A LOOK AT THE MAP.
Which is worse- obliterating Ukr to restore deterrence or employing your own asymmetric approaches? Imo, the former approach makes Russia equivalent to other states that have wiped out innocents.
Im not one to criticize Putin but it seems like you should consider fighting fire with fire. That doesnt necessarily mean sending drones into NATO (but that is a pretty thin salami slice that would get some attention and enable a symmetrical response
to each provocation.) This approach seems to have worked for Iran.
A good start would be to give Elon an ultimatum. Stop helping Ukraine attack Russia with drones or have your Starlink satellites fried!
Thanks for your great work Andrew!
We've restacked and shared this link on 'The Stacks'
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/the-stacks
Where did you read about an ultimatum to Lukashenko "to withdraw air defenses?" It was about mesh networking facilitating Russian drone attacks, and four specific sites were named.
I think some phoney news has been swallowed here.
The mass output of phoney PR war successes out of Kiev are surely about Ukraine's lost and unloved status rather than any actual victories. Yes it is important to note that they are getting a lot of drone and missile assistance from west (my guess UK and Germany plus US satellitesn'at all that much.
Trump likes to create these ideas of mass US investment across the world justifying his mad wars. We have the huge investment into Venezuelan oil that will result in USA controlling another big chunk of Global oil. There seem to be no US oil companies on board with this, no investment commitment and no oil. It is a fake.
The Board of Peace for Israel/Gaza is another empty vehicle.
Greenland if I recall was supposed to be a massive US project bringing in great returns for USA.
Ukraine too of course.
We are being sold Iran on the basis of Trump taking control of the revenues and determining who gets Iran oil. Clearly a hopeful message for voters not reality
So no there is no great investment into Russia planned by USA. And indeed no great deal of funding for it. They struggle enough to fund AI. Venezuela and Iran projects of course will be funded by China.
Moreover no one should be investing in oil production right now unless it is very clear where the customer will be. Like coal we all know that most oil will remain underground for ever. Saudi may have 90 odd years of reserves and VZ has more. While the horizon for Fusion seems to have shrunk fom 50 years to 10 years.
https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/NYMEX-CL1!/forward-curve/
2037 oil is currently priced at $54 a barrel and hasn't been over $61 throughout the "oil crisis"
It is safe to presume that the next big oil move will be a price collapse like that of April 2020 when some prices were negative.
What is really happening? Russia has gone quiet because the west can't take another big defeat too quickly.
This post takes for granted what G7 countries declared at G7, but they still have limited stuff to offer to Ukraine apart from drones which make more PR or terrorism than military damage.
Russia is progressing a lot in Donetsk and the whole front line ; difficult to see plausibility in an ukrainien attack on Bélarus, and looks like the Russian population is looking for accélération of opérations and less « SMO restreint » rather than anything else !
So true. Those pesky drones and fake "fires" are all just PR. And Russia's killing it in Donetsk.
Russia should NEVER allowed the "color" revolution to get started by the USA & its cabal of JEWS. The JEWS are going to get hit hard again as they throufht history. They never learned their lession The proxy war between Russia & Ukraine was initiated by the USA/ JEWS and financed by them.
Insightful article from The Duran on Putin’s new strategy.
https://theduran.substack.com/p/putin-20?
I genuinely haven't seen any significant shift in Russia's approach. Even its threatened "systematic strikes" ultimately haven't, at least not yet, been unleashed. It's really now or never, that's my honest assessment at this point. The dynamics are shifting against Russia:
https://korybko.substack.com/p/whats-the-endgame-behind-russias
I agree Andrew.
Yes, Andrew. It is really NOW or NEVER.
Basically, Russia kicks Ukraine to scare the West. Nobody in Washington, nobody in Brussels, nobody in Kiev cares about Ukraine or Ukrainians, so the only thing Russia accomplishes is to convince the People Who Matter that they are safe and off-limits, so party on!
Yes a meaningless article on Duran that paraphrases the obvious. How much is the influence of the rootless global cosmopolitans that Stalin mentioned and their outsized influence on Russian economy which they can probably collapse if they scoot - the tripedals who have one leg in Kiev another in Washington and another in Moscow - behind Putin's dithering?
It is interesting that one negotiator who joined Kushner and Witkoff on the US side in the "bilateral" negotiations charade whose name i dont recollect something like Rybulaev lived through the SMO in the first year as a Russian citizen in Moscow and then in the fourth year arrived for the discussions as Ukraine's representative along with Kushner and Witkoff - wow what an ambidextrous creature!. May be he holds 4 or 5 passports as usual. (Kushner and Witkoff are merely discussing firesale of national assets everywhere in the world to US companies with Trump family and proxies like Witkoff and Lutnick taking choice pickings in the name of negotiations - the US always did this but Trump is doing all this in the open without shame because he has no shame.)
Moreover the American and European welfare states are on their last legs due to the debt ponzi scheme reaching its peak and they are scheming for a technocratic AI led totalitarian super state and building data centers like mad to put down a popular unrest when the bread and circus is over and the mobs are hungry, coming for their billionaires and their political puppets with pitchforks or gun.
This means the US and Europe must extort whatever value it can from the rest of the world by any means to sustain this ponzi scheme for another 100 years till when this generation of rulers and their immediate progeny are in control. This is the scheme behind all of Trumps trade deals.
Poor India which is under extreme asset stripping and transfer of wealth to the west for a miserable country has been told to invest $500 billion no less in the US over the next 10 years or else ..... - the first tranche of investments under the scheme have already been declared. Even Pakistan and Bangladesh are under extreme asset stripping and wealth transfer to the west which is why Hasina has a death sentence on her head and Imran despite being a M16 asset for long is now being slow poisoned in jail.
The empire never forgets or forgives. God have mercy on Putin and the Eastern Slavs - they have been at the wrong end of this experiment for more than 100 years now until Putin stabilised the ship and let them enjoy first right on the resources under their soil.