What I remember is Putin chewing out his head of intelligence who advised against invading Ukraine:
What a huge error, even if Russia ends up winning.
With that, Ukraine has decided not to agree to Russia’s claims, and have been pretty successful keeping Russia out. It’s worthwhile maintaining one’s own sense of the world, and not fall into narratives served by others.
Wikileaks leaked 2008 cable from ambassador to Russia William Burns to Sec State Rice and President Bush: Nyet means nyet: Russian redlines regarding NATO expansion especially Georgia and Ukraine.
The one issue that unites all Russians is vehement opposition to NATO expansion
I will find and link to my previous comment about this cable.
Edit: found it, Cable: 08MOSCOW265_a
That is a very well-stated case, CW. The only objection I would make is that it is not the “US” which has behaved so stupidly – it is that tiny minority of the Political Clique in the DC Swamp who have established themselves as enemies of humanity. Sadly, “representative democracy” has totally failed … co-opted by nasty people.
The people who called for the end of NATO after the USSR & the Warsaw Pact broke up were correct. Let’s hope that Divine Intervention lets President Trump overcome the inevitable opposition from our elected CongressScum and exit NATO now.
Let me rephrase it:
Wikileaks leaked 2025 cable from ambassador to United States Vladimir Palin to President Putin: No means no: American redlines regarding Canada’s trade deal with EU.
The one issue that unites all Americans is vehement opposition to EU expansion.
Since both US and Canada were obviously a part of a greater empire a few generations ago.
Do you see how silly this sounds?
lol. Ukraine is losing, badly, and will end up devastated, tragically. Their demographics are even worse than Russia’s.
Good advice. Consider taking it yourself.
Here is an interesting sidelight to the (increasingly UK/Euro) proxy war in the Ukraine – impact on Chinese shipments of certain goods to Europe through Russia.
“… In October, Moscow banned a series of goods from being transited through Russia, with a focus on dual-use items such as mechanical and electronic products that could potentially be used by Western forces in Ukraine. …”
The Chinese truly are the Capitalists of this age – happily selling to both sides in a conflict!
Yeah but it looks like China was outflanked and this rail link isn’t working out.
The captain of the Solong cargo ship who was arrested after crashing into a US-flagged tanker off the English coast is a Russian national, the vessel’s owner said Wednesday, as maritime experts search for answers.
The Solong careered into the Stena Immaculate while it was at anchor in the North Sea and carrying huge amounts of jet fuel for the US military, setting fire to both vessels and prompting emergency rescue efforts by the British coastguard.
Fascinating piece:
At their first meeting, General Donahue had shown General Zabrodskyi a color-coded map of the region, with American and NATO forces in blue, Russian forces in red and Ukrainian forces in green. “Why are we green?” General Zabrodskyi asked. “We should be blue.”
In early June, as they met to war-game Ukraine’s counteroffensive, sitting side by side in front of tabletop battlefield maps, General Zabrodskyi saw that the small blocks marking Ukrainian positions had become blue — a symbolic stroke to strengthen the bond of common purpose. “When you defeat Russia,” General Donahue told the Ukrainians, “we will make you blue for good.”
Soon after, at a hastily arranged meeting on the Polish border, General Zaluzhny admitted to Generals Cavoli and Aguto that the Ukrainians had in fact decided to mount assaults in three directions at once.
“That’s not the plan!” General Cavoli cried.
What had happened, according to Ukrainian officials, was this: After the Stavka meeting, Mr. Zelensky had ordered that the coalition’s ammunition be split evenly between General Syrsky and General Tarnavskyi. General Syrsky would also get five of the newly trained brigades, leaving seven for the Melitopol fight.
“It was like watching the demise of the Melitopol offensive even before it was launched,” one Ukrainian official remarked.
Fifteen months into the war, it had all come to this tipping point.
“We should have walked away,” said a senior American official.
But they would not.
Except for NYT readers, it has always been an open secret that the Ukraine was a proxy war between an aggressive NATO and Russia. In fact, the nature of the conflict has never been a secret, not since NATO started expanding to the east in the 1990s. The only question is why the NYT has decided to admit the truth now?
We are very fortunate that President Putin has been at the head of Russia. If (when?) he has a heart attack, it is quite probable that his successor will be much less patient & forgiving – leading to the nuking of Ramstein, London, Paris, Berlin … and probably even Denmark too, just because they have been so vociferously annoying. At least if the US sits on its hands, that future conflict may not go global.
Putin has declared war on the West long before that, with Milner and others - leveraging the disruption of the Internet and the openness and freedom of the West against itself:
Leaked papers have revealed that hundreds of millions of dollars in Kremlin cash was behind major investments in Facebook and Twitter. The man at the centre of the money chain is Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.
The Paradise Papers have allowed us to unpack how Russian state money flowed through offshore companies into America’s technology giants.
Something a little strange. US’s Rubio phoned Russia’s Lavrov today (Thursday) to fill him in on a meeting the US just had in Paris with the Ukrainians and the Euros.
"The US Department of State said Rubio conveyed to Lavrov the “same message” he had delivered to the Ukrainian and European delegations: that US President Donald Trump and Washington “want this war to end, and have now presented to all parties the outlines of a durable and lasting peace.”
“The encouraging reception in Paris to the US framework shows that peace is possible if all parties commit to reaching an agreement,” the statement added, without providing any further details."
In a world in which there is no shortage of leakers, it is surprising that the outline of that “durable and lasting peace” is not yet on NYT/BBC.
Now we have an Easter truce / ceasefire.
We all know what Russia means with a lasting peace:
The question is, can the neo-cons (nazis) in NATO and EU again accept a defeat to Russia?
Starting from a miserable position after the devastation of Mao’s rule, China has already out-competed the Euros and North America in a whole range of industries – electronics, pharmaceuticals, construction, steel-making, shipbuilding, automobile manufacturing, nuclear reactors. Even the Chinese movie industry is arguably already ahead of anything that Europe or North America is currently producing.
The one remaining industry where the Euros & North Americans were indisputably ahead was aircraft-manufacturing. Then came foolish Ukrainian-related sanctions, ignoring the truism that Sanctions Turn Customers Into Competitors. Now even that lead is evaporating.
The latest prototype of Russia’s new SJ-100 Superjet airliner, built entirely from domestically produced components, has successfully completed its first test flight, state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec has announced. …
… “The program of import substitution in relation to the Superjet aircraft has entered the home stretch. The Rostec conglomerate has done a massive job. About 40 foreign systems and units have been replaced on the airliner, including the most important component – the engines,” Vladimir Artyakov, Rostec’s first deputy general director, said. …
Of course, if Russia can do this, so can China. And indeed China is in the process of doing just that with its C919 jet, which will significantly undercut the market for Airbus and Boeing. Sic transit gloria. Doesn’t anyone in the “leadership” of Europe and North America care?
Nope. Even so-called “conservatives” don’t care (or believe in the delusion that America still has the biggest…stick on the block).
I watched a replay of the US Army’s 250th Anniversary Parade. Can’t help but compare it to this year’s May 9th Victory Day Russian military parade in Red Square.
No question that the Russian military and the units from its allies seemed to be more parade-ready – smarter uniforms, more disciplined marching, and (dare we say it?) fitter-looking soldiers. Also, the Russian parade had very smartly dressed all-female units instead of shorter people with hair buns intermingled in the formations.
All of those are consequences of history and of more recent decisions. The surprise was that, just seen as a performance, the Russian parade seemed much more professionally-produced – much faster paced, videos from inside tanks, etc. Strange, since I would have expected US production values to be higher – Hollywood, and all that.
Well, the two parades had different purposes – one recalling 250 years of history, the other celebrating victory in an existential conflict. The US military personnel seemed more casual, a bit less disciplined, but maybe more human. Which is better? Let’s hope we never see those two militaries go mano-a-mano to find out.
Since I’m convinced that most wars (at least those in the past 150 years, and probably much longer) are figuratively speaking, “bankers’ wars” (i.e., are totally contrived by the people psychopaths who actually run this world), and have nothing to do with the average citizen or their best interests, my enthusiasm for the military, let’s just say, isn’t what it used to be. That being said, the parade that just took place is one of the most pathetic, sad and cringe displays that I’ve ever seen. It was so bad that it had to be done on purpose, as I’m 100% sure that our people in uniform, despite the various DEI assaults on them, are capable of much, much better. Nothing happening in America makes any sense. We are truly living in clown world.
FYI: Just to be clear, I blame the political and military “leadership” (I use that word lightly) for this debacle, not the military personnel who took part in the parade.
I wish I could disagree with you – but I can’t.
Before Covid, I saw a military celebration in Abu Dhabi – held in the evening in an arena. Every solider in a crisp uniform; perfect parade marching; the Special Forces unit even double-timed it through the arena; separate female units, equally proficient; even a medical unit with a squad of marching pregnant nurses! At the end, the Sheik danced, and there was a massive fireworks display.
If the Arabs can put on an impressive show, to say nothing of the Russians, then why can’t the US Army with a parade budget that reportedly ran to something like $45 Million? So many generals, so little competence, so little desire to show the world what they can do!