Russia

Good grief! We are broke as a country yet our government is giving/wants to give something like $50 billion to the kleptocracy known as the Ukraine. How much of that amount is going to the Ukrainian oligarchs, including Zelensky? More importantly, how much will be filtered back to American politicians and bureaucrats? And this is only what America is giving him. Europe is giving a lot as well. 

Biden asks for $33 billion more

Marine General Smedley D. Butler called it about 90 years ago. He learned from personal experience. We should learn from him. I have read the book. It is concise and factual. One can read it in one or, maximum, two sittings.

War Is A Racket  


I think the Ukranian government can't believe what is happening. They keep asking for more and more money and weapons (many of which it is now admitted are probably not going to this fight against Russia i.e. they are being sold to others around the world) and the West obliges. Zelensky has brazenly asked for at least $7 billion a month from the West and it looks like he might get it. That is more than 46% of the Ukraine's yearly GNP. 

On top of this, Western countries are taking in millions of refugees, providing them food, shelter and monthly stipends. There are now over 5 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe and some expect the number to reach 8 million. The exact numbers are not clear, but it appears that something like 6 million Ukrainians already lived outside the country before Russian invaded.   The Ukraine had a population of about 41 million people in 2021. 

From what I am reading a large battle is shaping up in eastern Ukraine. This is somewhat west of the Kursk area where Soviet armies destroyed Germans but the land is similar, however, the aggressed  party is not the Soviets but Ukrainians defending their homeland. The soil in the Donetz area must be very fertile from the blood of millions of Soviets and Nazis who fought desperate battles over 75 years ago. 

Russia has lost a lot in the last six weeks of war and stands to lose more. Instead of a tank battle, like Kursk, this stands to be artillery and ground pounders. I tend to give the Ukrainians a slight favor, home field advantage and the quality of the artillery they have received from the US and NATO. The M777 155 mm is an impressive weapon and generally outranges Russian artillery and is more accurate.  Most importantly it is more mobile. A battalion can set up fire and be gone as the first shell arrives on target. Additionally, firing can be coordinated for massive ToT, time on target, so a target can be hit at the same time from artillery miles apart, and can be walked to other targets in the same vicinity. Russia can fire massive amounts but their ability to ToT is limited. In some cases they are using WW II weapons. 

The other day Ukraine claimed to have 25,000 KIA Russians. I think that number is propaganda but, I would believe 12-15,000 KIA which means the Russians have 36-45,000 wounded. If so they have suffered 20% to 30% casualties since the war began. It is clear their armored force has suffered greatly. 

If Putin cannot achieve a noticeable victory soon his political position could become untenable. 

Things are about to get worse.

The Ukraine cuts off gas to Europe


I believe this must be an attempt to squeeze some of the Western European countries and force them to get on board with more sanctions against Russia. I think countries like Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania would be hit the hardest by this.

A good explanation of why the Russians are failing in Ukraine.

mwi.usma.edu/putins-bad-math-the-root-of-russian-miscalculation-in-ukraine/

Vladimir Putin is not Hitler or Napoleon, but there are striking similarities between the flawed theory of victory that undergirded his foray into Ukraine and their doomed invasions of Russia. Putin was convinced that the whole structure of the Ukrainian state would come crashing down under the weight of the Russian attack. He seized on a theory of victory that obviated the need to comprehensively defeat the Ukrainian army in the field. He expected his forces to crash across the border in strength and swiftly collapse the unpopular government in Kyiv, enabling a resurgent Russia to decisively disarm, dismember, and dominate its wayward western neighbor.

The Russian army is struggling to win this war because it did not plan to fight a general war against a determined and resilient enemy. It did not mobilize the mass and firepower necessary to overwhelm the Ukrainian forces in the opening phase of the war.

The problem with that theory is that the world of energy producers is replete with mangy, and sometimes rabid, dogs. 


Oil producing countries  

Gas producing countries  

The US-Saudi relationship is a good example of the unfortunate need to associate with such creatures. There are many more examples across the world. 

What has really hurt Europe is the insane green policies which their governments have been pushing. The idiots in Germany closed down three, I believe, nuclear facilities recently. Huh? 

I hate to stick out like a fart in church, but I have yet to see definite evidence that this is the case. I do not have access to the Russian order of battle or battle plan or the, no doubt, numerous contingency plans developed by their general staff, so I can't say one way or the other what they expected. But if one paid any attention to the situation, prior to and just after the invasion, the broad strokes of what was happening were clear.

 If you will go back to late January/early February you will note I said that Russia does not need or want all of the Ukraine. I also said that Putin's focus would be on the Donbass region and the coast. It was clear that Russia wanted to have a land-bridge from the Donbass to the Crimea, but I wasn't sure if Russia would go farther than that. Now, I am inclined to believe Russia might go to Odessa.  Somewhere I believe I mentioned that Russian might take something like the Eastern third of the country. My thought being the Dnieper as the absolute western-most boundary. But I thought the area around Kharkiv as a more likely boundary.  

Frankly, I give the analysis of American intelligence be it CIA, DIA, NSA or military very little credence. I give the actions of our political class even less. These fucking geniuses have done little but fail since the Vietnam War, and particularly since 2000. Reagan was a brief bright spot, but even he had the luck of having a series of walking corpses, and then Gorbachev, as opponents. It might be argued that there was some success in the First Gulf War, but they walked away from that leaving it undecided and festering, in effect a bust. In their failures, they killed thousands and wounded tens-of-thousands of American military personnel, killed hundreds of thousands of foreigners, (mainly civilians) bankrupted our country (trillions of $$ were spent in Afghanistan and II Iraq) yet somehow they still manage to keep control of things and enrich themselves and their friends. 

Worse than the above-mentioned geniuses are those in the Mainstream News Media. That anyone in America still believes the lies, misrepresentations, fabrications and idiocy of these people stuns me. They make this guy look honest and straightforward. 



Since late February/early March I have often heard from that crowd that "Putin has only another week or two and if Russia doesn't beat the Ukraine NOW it will fall apart," or something to that effect. Russia would run out of missiles, artillery shells, whatever by March 5th, April 5th etc., etc. Well, it is May 11th and the missiles are still flying, the shells are still being fired and Russia has not folded. Putin has not been overthrown, he looks pretty healthy (watch some video of him at the May 9th celebrations) and things are not going well in the Ukraine. Even the Western media is beginning to take note of the fact. 

The assholes at the top of our Executive Branch thought they were going to crush Russia, in days, by sanctioning their Central Bank, forbidding most Russian banks from handling handle dollars, Euros, Yen and other currencies, and forcing foreign companies out of Russia. They expected the Rubble to crash,  the rest of the world to stop dealing with Russia and Putin to be deposed. How has that worked out? The Rubble is stronger, Russia is selling more gas and oil, about 2/3rd of the world has not sanctioned Russia, oil and gas prices have further risen and there are increasing shortages of fertilizer, food and important non-ferrous metals. There is a very strong case that all of these sanctions have hurt the West more than Russia. In my opinion, Europe has committed slow suicide, something like taking a slow working poison. 

I hold out little prospect for the Ukraine defeating Russia, but it may bleed Russia a good while longer. I would not be surprised if, in the end, Russia cut off most of the eastern third and the complete coast of the country, while Hungary, Romania and especially Poland reclaimed areas which they lost due to WWII. This would leave the Ukraine a land-locked, agricultural country with little industry. It would become Europe's problem, yearly costing billions of Euros in perpetuity. 

I don't need a crystal ball to know that the longer this goes on, the more chance there is that the war expands. I do not want that.

It is being said that Putin went in so softly as he had hoped to have very little resistance. He based this on intel from the FSB which had been working to soften things up by paying off a number of Ukrainian generals/leaders to sit on their hands when the invasion started. They didn't. 

Putin may have hoped to take Kiev, but I doubt it. There were only 30-40,000 Russian troops facing Kiev and one doesn't take a city of 3 million with such a small number of soldiers. The troops were likely a feint to keep Ukrainian troops in place around Kiev so that these could not transfer to the Donbass area which is the real Schwerpunkt of the operation. Rumors have been swirling around that Putin fired a number of officers in the 5th(?) directorate of the FSB. 

Everyone should have known this a long time ago.  As far as I can tell, nice people have never led Russia, or most any other nation for that matter. But Russia is something special.

I have a friend who had contacts up to Yeltsin's family in the 1990s. He told me then that Yeltsin was drunk most of the time. Yet Yeltsin's family (daughter) could steal everything not nailed down and the oligarchs killed each other (and bystanders) for control of the wealth of the country. I am including Ukrainians in this as Ukrainians were numbered among the original "oligarchs" who sprouted during Yeltsin's time.  What's the saying about a "vacuum?" No Yeltsin was not a harmless guy, just an incompetent corrupt drunk who watched the place start to spin dangerously out of control. As I said before, "Nice guys do not rule countries."