The further reduction of Russian oil exports could lead to a price spike that destabilizes the global economy and ultimately weakens the US’ one as well, but it’s unclear whether Trump will punish Zelensky for this or if he cynically wants him to facilitate that scenario as part of a global reset.
Ukraine is ruled by the WEST. My father woul;d say ,Ukraine is 6,000 miles long from the Polish border to the Pacific Ocean. Ukrainians get smart and make your country 6,000 miles long. It's easy, just join up with Russia. Russians & Ukrainians are identical people with SLIGHT language variations here & there. We have slight language variations in the USA. So WHAT ?????
There is a consistent pattern whereby a) liberal-globalist actors (Ukraine, EU, etc.) brazenly defy Trump and b) the latter refuses to impose meaningful costs for said behavior, hence their willingness to continue the same tactics. Whether on Greenland, migration, Iran, or Russia, the usual suspects know that they can play on Trump’s mentality, so that he will end up backing them in the end.
Zelensky was always the fly in the ointment. Trump should make him a one time offer - leave Ukraine now and be exiled in USA or make your own arrangements for personal security.
Yes, Korybko is correct when he suspects that the US seeks a Global Reset. I wrote about this yesterday: In the next few days the United States and Israel are expected to destroy Iran’s national power grid as well as Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure. Most Western geopolitical observers think that President Trump has gotten himself onto a Highway to Hell and is looking for an exit ramp. These Western observers are too numerous to list, but a prominent example among many others is geopolitical “Realist” Professor John Mearsheimer, who believes that Trump blundered into attacking Iran because he was convinced that Iran was ripe for regime change.
According to the Realist view, Trump, Israel, and the Pentagon now realize that regime change is not going to happen and so they must fall back on Plan B.
Plan B apparently is just more of Plan A. The US is amassing a capable punitive force which can no doubt seize territory around the Strait of Hormuz. As hostilities escalate, the US is sure to make good on Trump’s threat to eliminate Iran’s national power grid and energy infrastructure. Iran has warned that in this event, it will attack the industrial infrastructure of all US allies in the region. Realists like Mearsheimer view this as a catastrophe that was caused by Trump’s impulsiveness or hubris, or perhaps by his susceptibility to Israeli suasion. In any case, the Realist view is that Trump is in “panic mode”. Now that Trump understands that Plan A has failed, he now has nothing up his sleeve but to threaten Plan B — which is starting to look a lot like Plan A except that it will be a more costly route to the same result. Never mind the human cost on both sides.
The reality, which is now apparent to everyone, is that no amount of available military power can “open” the Strait of Hormuz. Plan A, the uprising, failed. Plan B, occupation of the Hormuz littoral, will be a success, but that success will not “open” the Strait to commerce. The Strait will remain closed except to those who pay the Iranian toll price which is being estimated today as $2 million per tanker. Only friendly nations may apply and payment is in Chinese funds — US dollars not accepted.
We hear a lot these days about “escalation dominance”, the idea that when one has it, one can escalate and dominate because your opponent sees tit-for-tat escalation as worse than doing nothing. The Realists think that Iran exercised escalation dominance by closing the Strait. Realists also say Trump miscalculated and is now looking for an off-ramp because he understands that he is out of options. He understands that a tit-for-tat refinery war and destruction of regional power grids will not open the Strait and will not make Iran surrender. This is the Realist view of Trump’s intentions and America’s military options, and it is dead wrong.
The foundation of the Realist argument assumes that America is a rich hegemon that desires to dominate a prosperous globalized world economy. The Realists do not dismiss the history of American wars and proxy wars, but view them as serving America’s military security and commercial interests. The second axiom of the Realist view is that US foreign policy seeks to prevent any would-be regional hegemon from dominating or excluding US power from any region.
There is plenty of reason to believe that the US behaves like a traditional hegemon by igniting proxy wars, browbeating allies and other stereotypical hegemonic behavior. However none of this can explain the current US strategy which seems incapable of accomplishing goals that Realists expect.
How to make it all make sense? Can Trump be both the masterful politician who, against all odds, came back from the dead after multiple impeachments and criminal cases and, at the same time, a senile plaything in the hands of Israeli manipulation?
The key to making it all make sense is to understand the US not as a rich and satisfied hegemon, but as a revisionist power. Once this framing is adopted everything begins to make sense, moreover, everything that follows seems almost inevitable.
THE GREAT RESET
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 should be viewed as the end of the post-Cold War era. In the post Cold-War era, Russia complied with American demands, constantly mollifying and retreating in order to avoid direct confrontation. When the post-Cold War period ended, the US was at first unsure how to deal with a newly confident Russia which was battering a US proxy army. For the first time since the Berlin Wall came down, the US was losing.
Russia was pushing back and winning. The US understood that behaving like a peaceful hegemon no longer seemed like a winning hand. All the indicia of power seemed to be moving in the wrong direction. The talk on the street was de-dollarization, retrenchment into fortress North America, a lack of confidence in globalization and the raising of protective tariffs.
Slowly and then all at once, the deep state realized that the US had to become a revisionist power. No longer were allies to be pampered and coaxed into cooperation. American allies in Europe always knew they were virtual vassals, but were never publicly disciplined like when Nord Stream was conspicuously trashed.
A revisionist power has no need to hide its brutal face. Its allies live under no illusions, but rather in constant fear of further humiliations.
Europe now obediently starves itself of Russian energy and depends on US LNG for eighty percent of its industrial and heating gas. The US has instrumentalized the Ukrainian military to degrade Russian refining capacity. What oil Russia can export is price-capped through the threat of secondary sanctions whereby those who dare to purchase sanctioned oil and gas are themselves sanctioned.
The goal is a Great Reset whereby world power relations are to be reset to 1945 when the US controlled world energy markets and world trade, and the US was the last man standing after WW2 turned most US competitors into rubble.
Now with this in mind we can easily understand that US policy is not to open the Strait of Hormuz, but to close it and make sure it stays closed. But further, we can easily see that an attack on Iran’s civil infrastructure and the resulting devastating response from Iran will remove the last remaining large non-sanctioned oil sources not under direct US control.
The goal of the Great Reset is to cement US global dominance of energy markets and solve the post-globalism “problem” of Chinese unimpeded access to oil and gas from the Gulf.
As explained by the French author Emmanuel Todd, the United States wished to regain its lost preeminence by a moral revival and reindustrialization, but in time came to embrace nihilism and aggression as the only feasible path toward regaining its lost freedom of action.
One knock-on effect of US orchestrated destruction of Gulf energy and infrastructure is likely to be the beginning of a regional Sunni-Shia war, which, if long lasting, will remove the threat of marketable Gulf energy for decades.
To summarize, the US is a revisionist power that seeks to economically cripple both its allies and adversaries alike. Unable to revitalize a society that is decaying from within, it rejects the post war doctrine of liberal free trade, embraces atavistic mercantilism and sows chaos in a sad attempt to again be the last man standing.
Mearsheimer et al. obscure the actual reason(s) as to why Iran is still standing—namely, Trump 2.0’s refusal to adopt operational security at home, as well as his letting the enemy know of his plans (allowing Iran to relocate enriched uranium, disperse defenses, etc.). The many Iranian agents in Congress, media, and so on should have been taken into ‘protective custody’ or made to ‘disappear’, à la fascist regimes, and a military regimen—a U.S. version of Operation CONDOR—put in place. Re: the Iran war, Trump should not have advertised his military intentions as well.
Did I miss something? Did Putin surrender? Appears to me that he has! He's allowing Russia to be hammered by the Nazi American Terrorist Organization, and still allows Zelensky and Kiev to basically go about their evil business. How many other cheeks to turn does Putin have? Or perhaps he's in on the game.
He's been reluctant to escalate since authorizing the SMO, with the only notable exceptions being his decision to use Oreshniks, but only twice thus far. None of this is new, but top "Non-Russian Pro-Russian" (NRPR) influencers on X are now raising awareness of it, in a very critical way mind you, in unison per what I personally believe to be the orders of their patrons here in Russia (whoever they may be).
They flip-flopped from casually dismissing every indisputable setback as part of a "5D chess master plan to psyche out the West" to lambasting Putin for not retaliating. It's highly suspicious and none of this is organic, that much is certain. I've been canceled more times than one can count by these same people for soberly acknowledging that not everything is "going according to plan", to put it nicely. NRPR influencers are some of the slimiest and most untrustworthy people in Alt-Media.
I honestly don't believe that NATO has been demilitarized since it mostly only sent old equipment to Ukraine and is actively replacing its stockpiles.
Many "Non-Russian Pro-Russian" (NRPR) folks on Alt-Media have tried to justify this protracted conflict on the supposed basis that Russia is demilitarizing NATO but I think they're just coping with the obvious reality that everything has not gone according to plan with the SMO.
Neither Russia nor NATO have been demilitarized by the conflict, each is actively replenishing its arms (Russia faster than NATO), and this could therefore become another "forever war" if a political solution isn't reached.
It seems everyone “knows” exactly what Russia should do. The assumption is that they are at war with Ukraine. If one wants to know the difference between a war and an SMO, look no further than Iran/Israel/USA. Seems to me that if Russia were to declare war they would have to attack the American supplied NATO bases in Germany, Poland, Romania, and anywhere else, and also, to use Trump’s term, “obliterate” Kiev. Civilian casualties would summarily become horrific. Then would come the World War backlash with horrific Russian civilian casualties. Is this a rational path? It’s certainly the impulsive one. Should Russia be doing more? Maybe so. They certainly haven’t shared their calculus with me in my little American bungalow.
Now, I had hoped that once US/Israel attacked Iran, Russia would have picked up the pace in Ukraine under the cover of this new part of the West’s war against the East.
The apparent Trumpian plan to make the world economy scream so that the USA is slightly less devastated than the rest of the world (giving US a “win” in a great reset) is moving forward apace nonetheless. Having Ukraine hit Russian refineries at this time is consistent with such a plan. In this light I really have to wonder if Putin is in on it, particularly if recent US actions make a global economic collapse inevitable. I can visualize a devastated world economy where only the relatively self sufficient nations survive. And those nations would be USA and Russia. If this is where it’s all headed, does it matter if Russia fires 3 Oreshniks instead of 5? I can only hope they’re willing to fire the number necessary and no more. Russia has the opportunity to set itself apart for being less wasteful of infrastructure and human lives. There may be a time when alliances are reorganizing where this may matter.
One more red line which just received a middle finger by a tiny dwarf NATO state.
Russia declared today that the drones which shelled their refinery cross the Finland territory and because of that Finland can be considered as in war with Russia.
Wow ! Frightening!!! And what will do Russia to Finland? Send a hundred missiles on Helsinki? Send the First Army of Guards learn what politeness means? Send the Baltic Float blocking Finland coasts?
No, keep cool.
Russia threaten explain that if Finland don't understand that those drone can causing pains in Russia, it will have, perhaps, to shoot those drone on the Finland territory. And it's the same for Balts.
And they almost end by "thank you for your understanding and apologize for the convenience".
No shit ...
I'd like to know what could be the US reaction if Iranian drones cross all Russia for shelling oil facilities in Alaska...
I have to say it seems negligent of Russia not to protect their own oil infrastructure. They should not be relying on Trump to protect it. Particularly not when they are bragging about how much money they are making from oil. I must reluctantly score this as a huge Win for MI6 and their talented piano player.
Have you seen how Israël and USA can't protect their territories and basis of the third rate military power : Iran?
How do you want that Russia protect everything in its huge territory, against the best ISR of the world and one of the two most seasoned country of the world.
Tell us your solution.
Put a S 400 and a Panshir behind each russian factory, base, power plant, port, refinery, port, boart and each km of railway?
If two refineries constitute 60% of production then yes. Your comparison is also idiotic. Russia and Ukraine have been at war for years not weeks. Ukraine is not using hypersonic ballistic missiles - it's a far inferior threat than Iran. And Iran is using first tier Russian equipment and Intel, not 3rd tier.
I just say that in my opinion Russia have not the means to protect everything and must do choices. With it ISR, USA can exactly say to Ukraine what facility is not covered.
So, if raffineries are covered they will point another target.
Ok that is a valid point and I agree. However this article is saying that a very small number of targets had a huge economic value. So they should have been very high priority for protection.
Trump is not going to decide shit. He's not in control of the US government; Israel is, and will remain so until Trump is removed from office, no later than next year, possibly as early as autumn if he stumbles the US military into another Gallipoli.
The liberal peons in Washington are assuming they run the country and your TDS is obviously protruding. Trump is not beholding to Israel. Israel is beholding to the United States and speaking of which you're anti-Semitic thoughts are very prominent.
The US was defeated by the Viet Cong in Vietnam half a century ago. The attacks on WTC were done by Al Qaeda (considdering one of the hypotheses that it was no attack from within). The Viet Cong was the successor to the Viet Minh setup by the CIA to kick out the French from Indochina. Al Qaeda was setup up by the CIA to kick out the Soviets from Afghanistan. Zelensky is but an extension of CIA policy and it doesn't matter what the US president thinks or does. The CIA has its own agenda.
That said, the most important announcement for me today was this: Finland will not demand that Ukraine stop drone attacks after one of them struck Finnish territory, announced the country's Foreign Minister, Elina Valtonen.
The attacks on the Leningrad region are launched from NATO territory (Baltics & Finnish) and Finland is now publicly green lighting attacks from its territory. Eventually Russia will take an example of Iran.
Drone fleet over Finland on its way to Russia: "In Finland, the main topic of discussion in social networks and the media is the night-time flight over the capital, Helsinki, of about twenty slowly and evenly flying "balls of light"."
I would argue that shooting down incoming drones coming from Finnish airspace with (older S200) interceptors that cause damage on the ground would be a minor escalation.
You go too fast dear friend. Ho Chi Minh was not a CIA boy. Absolutely no big shot of Viet Minh was CIA men.
When French Indochine war began, CIA didn't yet exist. Just OSS.
Viet Minh was first a "gift" of Japanese to French. They gave their weapons and learned to them how fight against a superior force in building miles and miles of tunnels. They also learned them jungle guerrilla.
Second, almost all Viet Minh leaders , especially Ho Chi Minh were educated by french communists and syndicalists. Ho himself worked in France as blue collar and learned the revolution and "freedom of peoples" with french teachers.
French colonial administrators and settler acted so awfully that Viet Minh needed nobody to hire soldiers.
In 48, Mao arrived in China. That changed the frame.
The only thing USA did in this war was to let us alone in this quagmire. They haven't won a war against Japan and lost 150000 young Americans to let France keep on its horrible colonial occupation.
This man Simplicius, had another name when he wrote on the blog The Saker. He called Night vision.
That NightVision, in spring 2022, told us that Russia had the air supremacy in Ukraine, that all the territory at the east of Dniepr was under the russian fire control and the war could end for the fest of victory 8 may 2022.
Why do you want that a expert in foreign relation like Andrew loose his time and energy with such an "analyst" and on noises of war which are probably wrong. Rumors.
I propose you something.
You find a article of Simplicius written one year ago, another, 2 years ago and a third 3 years ago and you compare with what we know now about those moments.
And build your own opinion about the reliability of this author.
The Saker... I always wondered where he went to. His math way always over simplistic. At one point before or at the beginning of the SMO he stated that if Turkey closed the Bosphorus to Russian warships, because of old treaties, then Russia would destroy Turkey. Guess he preferred to eat his words and rebrand his gig.
Ukraine is ruled by the WEST. My father woul;d say ,Ukraine is 6,000 miles long from the Polish border to the Pacific Ocean. Ukrainians get smart and make your country 6,000 miles long. It's easy, just join up with Russia. Russians & Ukrainians are identical people with SLIGHT language variations here & there. We have slight language variations in the USA. So WHAT ?????
The language variations are substantial, but it doesn't matter. Most Ukrainians are fluent Russian speakers.
There is a consistent pattern whereby a) liberal-globalist actors (Ukraine, EU, etc.) brazenly defy Trump and b) the latter refuses to impose meaningful costs for said behavior, hence their willingness to continue the same tactics. Whether on Greenland, migration, Iran, or Russia, the usual suspects know that they can play on Trump’s mentality, so that he will end up backing them in the end.
"Ukraine’s Strikes Against Russian Oil Refineries "
You mean "UK" (raine)?
Zelensky was always the fly in the ointment. Trump should make him a one time offer - leave Ukraine now and be exiled in USA or make your own arrangements for personal security.
Uh, Trump supports Zelensky because GOPe supports Zelensky…Rubio is running the show and JD Vance has been demoted!
Yes, Korybko is correct when he suspects that the US seeks a Global Reset. I wrote about this yesterday: In the next few days the United States and Israel are expected to destroy Iran’s national power grid as well as Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure. Most Western geopolitical observers think that President Trump has gotten himself onto a Highway to Hell and is looking for an exit ramp. These Western observers are too numerous to list, but a prominent example among many others is geopolitical “Realist” Professor John Mearsheimer, who believes that Trump blundered into attacking Iran because he was convinced that Iran was ripe for regime change.
According to the Realist view, Trump, Israel, and the Pentagon now realize that regime change is not going to happen and so they must fall back on Plan B.
Plan B apparently is just more of Plan A. The US is amassing a capable punitive force which can no doubt seize territory around the Strait of Hormuz. As hostilities escalate, the US is sure to make good on Trump’s threat to eliminate Iran’s national power grid and energy infrastructure. Iran has warned that in this event, it will attack the industrial infrastructure of all US allies in the region. Realists like Mearsheimer view this as a catastrophe that was caused by Trump’s impulsiveness or hubris, or perhaps by his susceptibility to Israeli suasion. In any case, the Realist view is that Trump is in “panic mode”. Now that Trump understands that Plan A has failed, he now has nothing up his sleeve but to threaten Plan B — which is starting to look a lot like Plan A except that it will be a more costly route to the same result. Never mind the human cost on both sides.
The reality, which is now apparent to everyone, is that no amount of available military power can “open” the Strait of Hormuz. Plan A, the uprising, failed. Plan B, occupation of the Hormuz littoral, will be a success, but that success will not “open” the Strait to commerce. The Strait will remain closed except to those who pay the Iranian toll price which is being estimated today as $2 million per tanker. Only friendly nations may apply and payment is in Chinese funds — US dollars not accepted.
We hear a lot these days about “escalation dominance”, the idea that when one has it, one can escalate and dominate because your opponent sees tit-for-tat escalation as worse than doing nothing. The Realists think that Iran exercised escalation dominance by closing the Strait. Realists also say Trump miscalculated and is now looking for an off-ramp because he understands that he is out of options. He understands that a tit-for-tat refinery war and destruction of regional power grids will not open the Strait and will not make Iran surrender. This is the Realist view of Trump’s intentions and America’s military options, and it is dead wrong.
The foundation of the Realist argument assumes that America is a rich hegemon that desires to dominate a prosperous globalized world economy. The Realists do not dismiss the history of American wars and proxy wars, but view them as serving America’s military security and commercial interests. The second axiom of the Realist view is that US foreign policy seeks to prevent any would-be regional hegemon from dominating or excluding US power from any region.
There is plenty of reason to believe that the US behaves like a traditional hegemon by igniting proxy wars, browbeating allies and other stereotypical hegemonic behavior. However none of this can explain the current US strategy which seems incapable of accomplishing goals that Realists expect.
How to make it all make sense? Can Trump be both the masterful politician who, against all odds, came back from the dead after multiple impeachments and criminal cases and, at the same time, a senile plaything in the hands of Israeli manipulation?
The key to making it all make sense is to understand the US not as a rich and satisfied hegemon, but as a revisionist power. Once this framing is adopted everything begins to make sense, moreover, everything that follows seems almost inevitable.
THE GREAT RESET
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 should be viewed as the end of the post-Cold War era. In the post Cold-War era, Russia complied with American demands, constantly mollifying and retreating in order to avoid direct confrontation. When the post-Cold War period ended, the US was at first unsure how to deal with a newly confident Russia which was battering a US proxy army. For the first time since the Berlin Wall came down, the US was losing.
Russia was pushing back and winning. The US understood that behaving like a peaceful hegemon no longer seemed like a winning hand. All the indicia of power seemed to be moving in the wrong direction. The talk on the street was de-dollarization, retrenchment into fortress North America, a lack of confidence in globalization and the raising of protective tariffs.
Slowly and then all at once, the deep state realized that the US had to become a revisionist power. No longer were allies to be pampered and coaxed into cooperation. American allies in Europe always knew they were virtual vassals, but were never publicly disciplined like when Nord Stream was conspicuously trashed.
A revisionist power has no need to hide its brutal face. Its allies live under no illusions, but rather in constant fear of further humiliations.
Europe now obediently starves itself of Russian energy and depends on US LNG for eighty percent of its industrial and heating gas. The US has instrumentalized the Ukrainian military to degrade Russian refining capacity. What oil Russia can export is price-capped through the threat of secondary sanctions whereby those who dare to purchase sanctioned oil and gas are themselves sanctioned.
The goal is a Great Reset whereby world power relations are to be reset to 1945 when the US controlled world energy markets and world trade, and the US was the last man standing after WW2 turned most US competitors into rubble.
Now with this in mind we can easily understand that US policy is not to open the Strait of Hormuz, but to close it and make sure it stays closed. But further, we can easily see that an attack on Iran’s civil infrastructure and the resulting devastating response from Iran will remove the last remaining large non-sanctioned oil sources not under direct US control.
The goal of the Great Reset is to cement US global dominance of energy markets and solve the post-globalism “problem” of Chinese unimpeded access to oil and gas from the Gulf.
As explained by the French author Emmanuel Todd, the United States wished to regain its lost preeminence by a moral revival and reindustrialization, but in time came to embrace nihilism and aggression as the only feasible path toward regaining its lost freedom of action.
One knock-on effect of US orchestrated destruction of Gulf energy and infrastructure is likely to be the beginning of a regional Sunni-Shia war, which, if long lasting, will remove the threat of marketable Gulf energy for decades.
To summarize, the US is a revisionist power that seeks to economically cripple both its allies and adversaries alike. Unable to revitalize a society that is decaying from within, it rejects the post war doctrine of liberal free trade, embraces atavistic mercantilism and sows chaos in a sad attempt to again be the last man standing.
Mearsheimer et al. obscure the actual reason(s) as to why Iran is still standing—namely, Trump 2.0’s refusal to adopt operational security at home, as well as his letting the enemy know of his plans (allowing Iran to relocate enriched uranium, disperse defenses, etc.). The many Iranian agents in Congress, media, and so on should have been taken into ‘protective custody’ or made to ‘disappear’, à la fascist regimes, and a military regimen—a U.S. version of Operation CONDOR—put in place. Re: the Iran war, Trump should not have advertised his military intentions as well.
The numerous Iranian agents in Congress????
Are you f... crazy or just only dumb?
One mentions Emmanuel Todd, one gets a like :)
Did I miss something? Did Putin surrender? Appears to me that he has! He's allowing Russia to be hammered by the Nazi American Terrorist Organization, and still allows Zelensky and Kiev to basically go about their evil business. How many other cheeks to turn does Putin have? Or perhaps he's in on the game.
He's been reluctant to escalate since authorizing the SMO, with the only notable exceptions being his decision to use Oreshniks, but only twice thus far. None of this is new, but top "Non-Russian Pro-Russian" (NRPR) influencers on X are now raising awareness of it, in a very critical way mind you, in unison per what I personally believe to be the orders of their patrons here in Russia (whoever they may be).
They flip-flopped from casually dismissing every indisputable setback as part of a "5D chess master plan to psyche out the West" to lambasting Putin for not retaliating. It's highly suspicious and none of this is organic, that much is certain. I've been canceled more times than one can count by these same people for soberly acknowledging that not everything is "going according to plan", to put it nicely. NRPR influencers are some of the slimiest and most untrustworthy people in Alt-Media.
I largely agree with you. Objectivity and neutral observance are key.
Yes, Iran shows that retaliating hard can work. But if a nuclear power starts doing that against other nuclear powers? Consequences are incalculable.
Sidenote: Russia has demilitarised NATO. Without the long-winded Russo-Ukrainian war, Iran would’ve never had a chance.
I honestly don't believe that NATO has been demilitarized since it mostly only sent old equipment to Ukraine and is actively replacing its stockpiles.
Many "Non-Russian Pro-Russian" (NRPR) folks on Alt-Media have tried to justify this protracted conflict on the supposed basis that Russia is demilitarizing NATO but I think they're just coping with the obvious reality that everything has not gone according to plan with the SMO.
Neither Russia nor NATO have been demilitarized by the conflict, each is actively replenishing its arms (Russia faster than NATO), and this could therefore become another "forever war" if a political solution isn't reached.
Every player have been surprised in this game.
-Russia for sure
- West wanted this invasion, it was sure that it's sanctions would have ruined Russia and launched a coloured revolution in Moscow. It failed.
- Russia failed again in believing it would have been joined by other BRICS in a war against dollar.
- West failed again in proving the fragility and the bad efficiency of its weapons. And in believing it could product more ammos than Russia.
-Russia failed again in believing that NATO would split in increasing the pain dial.
Today, I don't know for Russia or USA but UE is suffocating.
USA have reached its true goals. At what price?
It seems everyone “knows” exactly what Russia should do. The assumption is that they are at war with Ukraine. If one wants to know the difference between a war and an SMO, look no further than Iran/Israel/USA. Seems to me that if Russia were to declare war they would have to attack the American supplied NATO bases in Germany, Poland, Romania, and anywhere else, and also, to use Trump’s term, “obliterate” Kiev. Civilian casualties would summarily become horrific. Then would come the World War backlash with horrific Russian civilian casualties. Is this a rational path? It’s certainly the impulsive one. Should Russia be doing more? Maybe so. They certainly haven’t shared their calculus with me in my little American bungalow.
Now, I had hoped that once US/Israel attacked Iran, Russia would have picked up the pace in Ukraine under the cover of this new part of the West’s war against the East.
The apparent Trumpian plan to make the world economy scream so that the USA is slightly less devastated than the rest of the world (giving US a “win” in a great reset) is moving forward apace nonetheless. Having Ukraine hit Russian refineries at this time is consistent with such a plan. In this light I really have to wonder if Putin is in on it, particularly if recent US actions make a global economic collapse inevitable. I can visualize a devastated world economy where only the relatively self sufficient nations survive. And those nations would be USA and Russia. If this is where it’s all headed, does it matter if Russia fires 3 Oreshniks instead of 5? I can only hope they’re willing to fire the number necessary and no more. Russia has the opportunity to set itself apart for being less wasteful of infrastructure and human lives. There may be a time when alliances are reorganizing where this may matter.
Thanks for your insights, Andrew.
And one more.
One more red line which just received a middle finger by a tiny dwarf NATO state.
Russia declared today that the drones which shelled their refinery cross the Finland territory and because of that Finland can be considered as in war with Russia.
Wow ! Frightening!!! And what will do Russia to Finland? Send a hundred missiles on Helsinki? Send the First Army of Guards learn what politeness means? Send the Baltic Float blocking Finland coasts?
No, keep cool.
Russia threaten explain that if Finland don't understand that those drone can causing pains in Russia, it will have, perhaps, to shoot those drone on the Finland territory. And it's the same for Balts.
And they almost end by "thank you for your understanding and apologize for the convenience".
No shit ...
I'd like to know what could be the US reaction if Iranian drones cross all Russia for shelling oil facilities in Alaska...
Just for laughing
I have to say it seems negligent of Russia not to protect their own oil infrastructure. They should not be relying on Trump to protect it. Particularly not when they are bragging about how much money they are making from oil. I must reluctantly score this as a huge Win for MI6 and their talented piano player.
Hey you smart man.
Have you seen how Israël and USA can't protect their territories and basis of the third rate military power : Iran?
How do you want that Russia protect everything in its huge territory, against the best ISR of the world and one of the two most seasoned country of the world.
Tell us your solution.
Put a S 400 and a Panshir behind each russian factory, base, power plant, port, refinery, port, boart and each km of railway?
If two refineries constitute 60% of production then yes. Your comparison is also idiotic. Russia and Ukraine have been at war for years not weeks. Ukraine is not using hypersonic ballistic missiles - it's a far inferior threat than Iran. And Iran is using first tier Russian equipment and Intel, not 3rd tier.
So this was a Russian failure.
I just say that in my opinion Russia have not the means to protect everything and must do choices. With it ISR, USA can exactly say to Ukraine what facility is not covered.
So, if raffineries are covered they will point another target.
Ok that is a valid point and I agree. However this article is saying that a very small number of targets had a huge economic value. So they should have been very high priority for protection.
Yes but other targets have a strategic interest.
True. It’s not a trivial problem to know where to allocate defences.
Trump is not going to decide shit. He's not in control of the US government; Israel is, and will remain so until Trump is removed from office, no later than next year, possibly as early as autumn if he stumbles the US military into another Gallipoli.
The liberal peons in Washington are assuming they run the country and your TDS is obviously protruding. Trump is not beholding to Israel. Israel is beholding to the United States and speaking of which you're anti-Semitic thoughts are very prominent.
Another Russian fuckup.
Why?
Refineries are an obvious target.
There are a lot of obvious targets. Much more than S400 or Pantsir systems
US ISR is the best of the world and can point every facility, military basis, port or else which is not enough covered.
Boy, if only Russia could have taken that into account....
Russia was so sure that west Ill respect its red lines. :)
And now:
" Bouhouhou, it's not fair, they are not nice."
The US was defeated by the Viet Cong in Vietnam half a century ago. The attacks on WTC were done by Al Qaeda (considdering one of the hypotheses that it was no attack from within). The Viet Cong was the successor to the Viet Minh setup by the CIA to kick out the French from Indochina. Al Qaeda was setup up by the CIA to kick out the Soviets from Afghanistan. Zelensky is but an extension of CIA policy and it doesn't matter what the US president thinks or does. The CIA has its own agenda.
That said, the most important announcement for me today was this: Finland will not demand that Ukraine stop drone attacks after one of them struck Finnish territory, announced the country's Foreign Minister, Elina Valtonen.
https://tgstat.ru/en/channel/@DDGeopolitics/179949
The attacks on the Leningrad region are launched from NATO territory (Baltics & Finnish) and Finland is now publicly green lighting attacks from its territory. Eventually Russia will take an example of Iran.
Drone fleet over Finland on its way to Russia: "In Finland, the main topic of discussion in social networks and the media is the night-time flight over the capital, Helsinki, of about twenty slowly and evenly flying "balls of light"."
https://tgstat.ru/en/channel/@two_majors/72187
I would argue that shooting down incoming drones coming from Finnish airspace with (older S200) interceptors that cause damage on the ground would be a minor escalation.
You go too fast dear friend. Ho Chi Minh was not a CIA boy. Absolutely no big shot of Viet Minh was CIA men.
When French Indochine war began, CIA didn't yet exist. Just OSS.
Viet Minh was first a "gift" of Japanese to French. They gave their weapons and learned to them how fight against a superior force in building miles and miles of tunnels. They also learned them jungle guerrilla.
Second, almost all Viet Minh leaders , especially Ho Chi Minh were educated by french communists and syndicalists. Ho himself worked in France as blue collar and learned the revolution and "freedom of peoples" with french teachers.
French colonial administrators and settler acted so awfully that Viet Minh needed nobody to hire soldiers.
In 48, Mao arrived in China. That changed the frame.
The only thing USA did in this war was to let us alone in this quagmire. They haven't won a war against Japan and lost 150000 young Americans to let France keep on its horrible colonial occupation.
That is a crime against Humanity!
A crime of humanity depends of who win the wars.
This man Simplicius, had another name when he wrote on the blog The Saker. He called Night vision.
That NightVision, in spring 2022, told us that Russia had the air supremacy in Ukraine, that all the territory at the east of Dniepr was under the russian fire control and the war could end for the fest of victory 8 may 2022.
Why do you want that a expert in foreign relation like Andrew loose his time and energy with such an "analyst" and on noises of war which are probably wrong. Rumors.
I propose you something.
You find a article of Simplicius written one year ago, another, 2 years ago and a third 3 years ago and you compare with what we know now about those moments.
And build your own opinion about the reliability of this author.
The Saker... I always wondered where he went to. His math way always over simplistic. At one point before or at the beginning of the SMO he stated that if Turkey closed the Bosphorus to Russian warships, because of old treaties, then Russia would destroy Turkey. Guess he preferred to eat his words and rebrand his gig.
You welcome
Simplicius styles himself a "thinker" but it may be more accurate to call him a "wishful thinker".