Yes, Russia Is In A Complete ...

 ... disarray, there are lines of people to the grocery stores and shelves are being emptied because of ...

Vladimir Putin does not “know what to do” after Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron pinned down new security guarantees for Ukraine, according to a former Russian prime minister. The UK and France agreed to put troops on the ground in the war-torn country if a peace deal with Russia is reached after a pivotal Coalition of the Willing meeting on Tuesday.

Mighty British and French Armies are gathering in Europe. At this stage Putin is isolated and Gerasimov with Bortnikov are in constant contact with CIA, MI6, Mossad, Kenyan and Lesotho intels, and SAS with Delta Force arranging kidnapping of Putin and then getting themselves some nice retirement somewhere in Gary, Indiana (it is so nice and peaceful in Winter). So, any moment now. I guess the US should prepare Gary Kasparov to be flown into Moscow and take Putin's post of President of Russia. There are also reports of Russian troops staging mutinies and deserting once the news of Starmer and Macron giving "guarantees" to Ukraine hit the frontlines.  

Yes, Vladimir Putin Asked Him ...

... to settle 404 issue. He also asked him to develop Russian nuclear weapons and balance the budget ... ah, wait--Russia's budget runs a very low deficit. 

He continues to embarrass himself and country. 

Yeah, Yeah, Autocracy ...

 ... my ass. For cretins from the butt-hurt Atlantic. 

Putin is winning, because he’s cunningly exploited the advantages of autocracy. His near-total control of his own polity allows him to absorb the economic pain of sanctions, until the West loses interest in them. His lack of moral compunction allowed him to sacrifice bodies on the battlefield, without any pang of remorse, an advantage of expendable corpses that Ukraine can never match. Confident in the permanence of his power, he has patiently waited out his democratic foes, correctly betting that their easily distracted public would lose interest in fighting proxy wars against him.

What’s most devastating about Putin’s reversal of fortune is that he read Western societies so accurately. When he railed against the decadence of the West and the flimsiness of its democracy, he wasn’t engaging in propaganda, he was accurately forecasting how his enemy would abandon its first principles. He seemed to intuit that the idealism of American democracy might actually vanish, not just as a foreign-policy doctrine, but as the consensus conviction of its domestic politics.

Foer, go to your office, take your degree from Columbia University off the wall and place it in the nearest public restroom as a last resort toilet paper for a person with a sudden onset of diarrhea, because this is the only worth of all of the American "liberal" journalists'--in fact, totalitarian fanatics--degrees which provide zero awareness about pretty much anything. Do not write about something you have no clue about. Find a decent McDonald's near you--they may take you there as a janitor and even that could be too much for your "expertise" level.   

WTF Is Wrong...

 ... with French generals!? Here is the guy at LCI, General Nicholas Richoux believes... that Zelensky will have to meet... Putin to settle the war and he will circumvent his own legislature which forbids him to talk to Russia. 

So, the leader of a nuclear superpower which defeats NATO will talk to outlaw clown from 404? Seriously? Boy, talk about being lost in alternative universe. In related news, Zelensky is not a President of 404 anymore. General also insists that capitulation is a rare occurrence in history. Correct, except for Russians who force their enemies to capitulate. Paris should remember 1814, so should Berlin which was taken by Russians twice. But hey, he is a French general, have mercy on him... 

Pepe Did What Real Journalists Do...

 ... getting the story right! 

They have waited 10 long, suffering years to vote in this election. And vote they did, in massive numbers, certifying a landslide reelection for the political leader who brought them back to Mother Russia. VVP may now be widely referred to as Mr. 87%. In Donetsk, turnout was even higher: 88,17%. And no less than 95% voted for him.  

But here is what Pepe stresses the most:

This was of course a referendum. Donbass represents a microcosm of the solid internal cohesion of Russian citizens around the policies of Team Putin – while at the same time sharing a feeling experienced by the overwhelming majority of the Global South. VVP’s victory was a victory of the Global Majority.

It was a referendum. Read the whole thing at Sputnik...

A Peculiar Photo...

 ... Tucker in Bolshoy in Moscow today. I wonder if he came to meet this Russian guy they call Vlad;)) 

Ouch!

Su-34 dropping FAB-500s from a very low altitude. 

In related news, about Krynki--as Vladimir Putin admitted, Gerasimov told him that he wants to keep the VSU foothold on the left bank because it is a very convenient method of reducing VSU's remaining elite. As Putin himself stated--they are just merely disposing of the remaining personnel for the PR effect in Kiev. Russia obliged. The zone of a few hundred meters wide and a couple-three hundred meters in depth is littered with VSU bodies. It is a massacre there. 

Shits and Giggles Geopolitics.

I never thought it was possible, but here it is--a contrast. A Boss arrives a couple of years ago, and then Steinmeir has to wait for half-an-hour for someone to meet him. I love music, though;))) 

Finally, The Truth Is Out.

The true pyramid of control of the world has been revealed! Shocking)))

From bottom up:

1. Simple people;

2. Heads of states;

3. Economic elites;

4. The Order of Masons;

5. Reptiloids;

6. Aliens;

7. Putin. 

Now that the secret is out, we have to devise a strategy, before Putin's people get to us...

What A Bunch Of Losers...

At this stage the US is exhibiting its military impotence and the only tool left is to smear Russian military leaders who are in the league of their own and this is the league way beyond reach of any current US general. So, what's left? Of course, let's spread BS in a desperate attempt to remove people who are writing a book on modern warfare. 

WASHINGTON — A senior Russian general had advance knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to rebel against Russia’s military leadership, according to U.S. officials briefed on American intelligence on the matter, which has prompted questions about what support the mercenary leader had inside the top ranks. The officials said they are trying to learn if Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the former top Russian commander in Ukraine, helped plan Prigozhin’s actions last weekend, which posed the most dramatic threat to President Vladimir Putin in his 23 years in power. Surovikin is a respected military leader who helped shore up defenses across the battle lines after Ukraine’s counteroffensive last year, analysts say. He was replaced as the top commander in January but retained influence in running war operations and remains popular among the troops.

Sure, it takes a bunch of losers from NYT tabloid to spread BS which has been already flatly denied by Kremlin and was called... well,  BS (in Russian). But then again, Putin is desperate and is losing war in... Iraq according to POTUS, and the next thing you know Putin will lose the war in Afghanistan and, possibly, even likely, in Vietnam. US establishment now is a laughing stock around the world. 

Here is Joe, always extremely situationally aware, delivers his Sitrep.

Why They Are "More Adequate".

Vzglyad's observer Dmitry Bavyrin asks this question. 

Пентагон резко снизил накал страстей вокруг упавшего в Черное море беспилотника. Его шеф Ллойд Остин лично позвонил Сергею Шойгу, назвал Россию великой державой и подчеркнул важность контактов с ней. Такое легко можно было представить десять лет назад, но для нынешней политики США это нечто невообразимое. Чем Остин отличается от тех американцев, которые засели в Госдепе и Белом доме?  

Translation: The Pentagon has sharply reduced the intensity of passions around the drone that fell into the Black Sea. His boss Lloyd Austin personally called Sergei Shoigu, called Russia a great power and emphasized the importance of contacts with her. This was easy to imagine ten years ago, but for current US policy, it is something unimaginable. How is Austin different from those Americans who settled in the State Department and the White House?

I answered this question many years ago and continue to answer it ad nauseam. The answer is because the US military is the one who does dying for American political circus populated by ignoramuses, chickenhawks and cowards who never bear responsibility for their words and actions. This, plus US military deals with tangibles--personnel, hardware, technology--some of it very advanced--plus they have to rely on more realistic view of the outside world and, especially, key enemy. Such as Russia. Most American politicians, media personalities and "intellectuals" are BSers with zero applicable skills in any meaningful field of human activity. That's the answer. 

I am on record--middle to middle-high level of Pentagon people, those colonels and major generals, and rear-admirals who have to deal with resources, operational planning and warfare are the last vestiges of professional competence left in any American governmental institutions. We know that CIA is being purged of people who try to deal with facts, US military was purged and partially corrupted by neocon and woke psychopaths, but the rest of US government institutions are de facto functional failures, which cannot perform effectively functions they have been created for. Same goes for many businesses, which are nothing more than financial manipulators producing nothing. So, yes--last American professionals ARE in Pentagon.  

That also explains a desperate attempts to simulate a useful activity such as by kangaroo ICC which issued today arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin. 

THE HAGUE (AP) — The International Criminal Court said on Friday it issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine. The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

This is a logical conclusion to the activity of utterly corrupt European "justice" and just another proof of a correct Russian strategy designed to drown Europe in its own excrement and then see what kind of regimes' changes will occur there. To explain matters in more detail, the ICC President is this guy: 

Piotr Józef Hofmański (born 6 March 1956) is a Polish jurist and judge who has served as President of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since 2021. He has been a judge of the ICC since 2015. His election into the Presidency of the ICC is for a three-year term. Prior to his tenure as a judge of the ICC, Hofmański was a legal expert and advisor at the Council of Europe.

So, make you own conclusions. 

In related news, the date of Xi's visit to Moscow was announced and it is this Monday. As was correctly stated, many things would be discussed tete-a-tete and rightly so--there is a lot to discuss in terms of the configuration of a new gigantic block emerging in Eurasia. Prepare yourself for the Western media going apoplectic. Meanwhile, the price cap is working, working... ah, wait:

Japan purchased Russian crude oil at $68.5 per barrel in February, TASS news agency reported on Thursday, citing calculations based on statistics from the Japanese Finance Ministry. The figure is above the $60 price cap that Tokyo agreed to with its Western allies, in an effort to punish Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. Last month, Japanese importers reportedly bought 232,700 barrels of oil from Russia with a total value of 2.125 billion yen ($15.945 million). The average cost of a barrel from the February batch totaled $68.52, exceeding the Western price cap for Russian oil supported by Japan.

Not to mention others buying it way above this price cap. But, as I said, it is impossible to explain to Western politicos that they are dumb, because they are dumb--Dunning-Krueger for ya. For people whose only ability is to shake the air, it is inconceivable to relate to reality.

Let's Give A Proper Definition.

I mean the term "domination". Often people, understandably, use the term "domination" as a euphemism for the US foreign policy. What many fail to point out is that "domination"--a supremacy or preeminence over another, exercise of preponderant, governing, or controlling influence, as defined my Merriam Webster is not really US actual trait. The US is always hell-bent on domination but it is miserably inept on exercising it, with the exception over Europe, and if anything else it primarily attempts it without success. We all know how US "domination" of Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan went. The US never achieved any "domination" there. Enter Russia, China and India. Good luck "dominating" those, especially Russia and here US dreams of "domination" become nothing more than wet dreams. 

Hence the desperation and loss of any semblance of any class or even legitimacy by the American warmongers such as coward and war criminal Lindsey Graham. Kim Iversen couldn't let it slide. 

As most psychopaths, a preferred type for modern American politics, Graham is, indeed, a coward and a thug, and he cannot stand the feeling of slipping "domination" of the US over not just Russia--only moron could believe that Russia will submit--but over the whole global geopolitical realm and Graham hates Vladimir Putin because he is nothing like him. Same goes for the 90% of American political class which is stuffed with different iterations of Lindsey Graham. 

How people of South Carolina continue to reelect this terrorism enabler and a thug is a complete mystery to me, but then again--people of Arizona were reelecting a thug John McCain for decades. Here is McCain facing a little bit of reality from the US Marine.

At least late John stood there and took it, Graham would have ran away as he did when approached by Russian TV crew a few years back with request for commentary--he simply ran. So, calling for the head of nuclear superpower to be assassinated is so senatorial in the US today. And the US main-stream media are mum. Of course they are. Are you surprised? I am not. Can you imagine a torment they are going through when seeing their Nazi SOBs in 404 being annihilated on the industrial scale. That's gotta hurt.

This Is A Serious... LOL.

Wait a minute, how could this be, wink, wink?

МОСКВА, 20 декабря. /ТАСС/. Компания "Транснефть" получила заявки от Польши и Германии на прокачку нефти на декабрь, 2023 год и первый квартал следующего года соответственно, несмотря на сообщения о нежелании продолжать поставки. Об этом заявил президент "Транснефти" Николай Токарев во вторник в эфире телеканала "Россия-24". "Вот объявили, что не будут брать с первого января у России нефть. А к нам пришли заявки сейчас от польских потребителей: на следующий год 3 млн тонн дайте нам, и на декабрь 360 тыс. тонн, и на первый квартал Германия уже подала заявку - тоже дайте", - сказал он.

Translation:  MOSCOW, 20 December. /TASS/. Transneft has received applications from Poland and Germany to pump oil for December, 2023 and the first quarter of next year, respectively, despite reports of unwillingness to continue deliveries. This was stated by Transneft President Nikolai Tokarev on Tuesday on the air of the Rossiya-24 TV channel. “They announced that they would not take oil from Russia from January 1. And now we have received applications from Polish consumers: give us 3 million tons next year, and 360 thousand tons for December, and Germany has already submitted an application for the first quarter “Give it to us too,” he said.

Of course, Transneft has a long-term (through 2024) contract with Polish operator Orlen, but... but... what about sanctions, price caps and shit like that? Nah, it is all for the show. The latest EU (9th) "horrible" sanctions cancelled for Russia... succory, acetone and... lasers (here I start to giggle uncontrollably) with... rhododendrons. WTF. This horrifying "package" moved Elena Karaeva to write an acerbic and hilarious piece for Ria (sadly, only in Russian) on this matter. You see, there are reportedly 130 PR agencies from the US alone which are in charge of "spinning" the SMO. But somebody forgot to tell those "experts" that reality is a bitch and no amount of spin can substitute food, heat and military victory. But what do I know? 

Meanwhile, the info from Bakhmut is dire for VSU and, without going into long elaborations, there seems to be a nice "little" cauldron forming which will collapse the front. VSU even throws formations from Kherson to Bakhmut. Make your own conclusions. The reports about losses of VSU are mind-boggling even from the actively pro-Kiev regime US "Mozart" group. 

Ukrainian units training with Mozart “have been taking extraordinarily high casualties,” Milburn told Newsweek. “The numbers you are reading in the media about 70 percent and above casualties being routine are not exaggerated.” 

Meanwhile: 

The Kremlin has commented on a statement by Andrey Gurulev, a retired general and MP, who earlier said that Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a special military operation zone as Russia continues its campaign against Ukrainian forces. Earlier on Tuesday, Gurulev said that “our commander-in-chief has been to the special military operation zone,” referring to Putin. “When it comes to the visit to the special military operation zone, it … was very important that [the president] did not just receive a report on the situation… but talked to every commander personally,” the retired general said, adding that “personal communication provides full understanding of what is happening now and what would happen in the future.” “If he [Gurulev] means the headquarters, where he [Putin] was on Friday, then yes,” Peskov told Russia’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.

Somebody needs to tell Gurulev (a very dubious figure to put it mildly) to shut his yapper once in a while, but since the info is out, let's start the stop-watch before "anonymous official" from Pentagon, State Department, CIA, NASA, USDA etc. (take you pick) will tell NYT that they saved Vladimir Putin's life by telling Kiev not to kill him, right;))  So, here we are today.

Double Whammy From Larry.

 And this is not an echo-chamber at all. Everyone took the notice, especially in the US.

The following video shows you the “success” of the Ukrainian offensive. Pay close attention to the number of large cities they are capturing. Cities? Nope. None. Rolling across wide open plains represents a feel good moment, but this territory is not defensible once Russia decides to counter attack because Ukraine does not have the air power and artillery fires to withstand a concentrated attack. Russia, however, has the air capability, tanks, artillery and rockets to sustain an attack once they decide to move.It appears to me that Russia is baiting Ukraine to take territory and then face the task of trying to take a city Russia holds, such as Kherson. If Ukaine wishes to oust Russia from Kherson it will have to mass forces necessary to conduct the block to block fighting that Russia did when it captured Mariupol. 

Sadly, Blogspot doesn't have a function for embedding Rumble, but you can get acquainted with VSU's "tactics" of delivery of VSU infantry first hand at Larry's blog. Yep, one has to only scratch his head in terms of fire support from APCs for infantry they delivered to combat area. LOL)) Larry correctly concludes:

Important to remember that all of the military action on the ground in Ukraine will be a sideshow compared to the economic warfare that will wrack Europe. The United States and Europe got a big bucket of cold water poured over their heads today with OPEC+’s announcement that they will cut production by two million barrels of oil. No matter how much lipstick Biden and Blinken try to put on this pig, OPEC+’s message to the west is clear–fuck off! If foreigners really believed that Russia was getting its ass handed to it, do you think the OPEC nations would stick their neck out and adopt a policy that helps Russia? I don’t.  

Well, you know how White House reacted:

A White House statement following the OPEC+ decision to defy the Biden administration with an output cut for November vows to find new ways to temper OPEC’s control over energy prices. Earlier on Wednesday, members of OPEC+ said they would cut November production quotas by 2 million bpd, citing the “uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks”. The decision immediately led to a more than 2% increase in Brent crude and WTI prices and goes directly against the Biden administration’s attempts to lobby Saudi Arabia for higher production to bring prices down. Shortly after the release of an OPEC+ press release detailing the output cuts, the White House said, “In light of today's action, the Biden Administration will also consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC's control over energy prices.”

Yes, in human language it is a huge middle finger to Washington. But the reason Larry provided a double whammy is because he sent me this interesting piece by some guy in which he provides excellent summary of the events of the last month. 

All domains now align. Putin and company conceived of this war from the beginning as an existential struggle for Russia, to eject an anti-Russian puppet state from its doorstep and defeat a hostile incursion into Russian civilizational space. Public opinion is now increasingly in agreement with this (surveys show that Russian distrust of NATO and “western values” have skyrocketed), and the legal framework post-annexation recognizes this as well. The ideological, political, and legal domains are now united in the view that Russia is fighting for its very existence in Ukraine. The unification of the technical, ideological, political, and legal dimensions was, just moments ago, described by the head of Russia’s communist party, Gennady Zyuganov:

“So, the President signed decrees on the admission of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions into Russia. Bridges are burned . What was clear from the moral and statist points of view has now become a legal fact: on our land there is an enemy, he kills and maims the citizens of Russia. The country demands the most decisive action to protect compatriots. Time does not wait.”

A political consensus for higher mobilization and greater intensity has been achieved. Now all that remains is the implementation of this consensus in the material world of fist and boot, bullet and shell, blood and iron. 

Read the whole thing--it is worth it. Meanwhile, I saw the footage today from Belaya Tserkov (White Church) and what was done to the barracks of VSU there--something serious "flew in". I will reiterate the issue of VSU "offensives" (they are not real offensives) later. I will just remind you (Larry does this also)--the victory in war is achieved by achieving political objectives of a said war. Wars are won on the operational and strategic levels only.

They Begin To Feel The Pinch. Or, Didn't I Tell You So?

Not that they haven't been warned by real professionals. Ah, wait, they haven't been. What they have for "military experts" cannot be taken seriously by anyone with military background. 

Russia is tightening the noose on Ukrainian troops in the country's east. A fierce ground and artillery assault has seen Moscow's forces advance, and they now appear close to encircling the last two hold-out cities in Luhansk province — which together with neighboring Donetsk forms the Donbas region that has become the key focus of the Kremlin’s war. With Ukrainian officials voicing concern their troops are now outmanned and outgunned, this Russian push could prove a decisive moment in the conflict.

But, but, NBC, haven't you gotten the memo that Russia is losing badly and is about to run out of ammo? Just ask Generals Petraeus or Keane, they'll tell ya.  They know what they are talking about, they won exactly... zero in their careers. Or ask CNN or MSNBC, they will tell you that Putin faces the coup (having almost 80% of public support), has cancer, Shoigu just had a heart attack and Gerasimov is barely alive from his wounds. Hey, you must uphold the reputation of the American MSM as a sewer and primitive propaganda tabloids. 

Of course this also contradicts the narrative of the last 3 months:

Russian troops have taken over the town of Liman in the northern Donetsk region, the government in Kiev admitted on Thursday evening. Ukrainian forces have reportedly withdrawn west-southwest towards Slavyansk. “We have lost the town of Liman,” Alexey Arestovich, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a livestream on Thursday. Though Arestovich cited “unconfirmed reports,” Russian military correspondent Alexander Kots posted a video of Russian troops in the city shortly thereafter, captioned “Liman is ours.” Ukrainian troops “fled” west and southwest, Kots added, while covering their retreat with artillery fire.

Now the new narrative is needed, since by different estimates another 15,000+ VSU are trapped at Severodonetsk-Lisichansk cauldron. So, that means that VSU is about to "win" yet another "victory". Just to remind you how cauldrons are created. And believe me, Russians are really good at creating them. Here is harking back to the closing of Wehrmacht in many of them. Operation Bagration: count yourself how many major cauldrons have been created, the smaller ones are not even counted:

So, Russian Army knows how to close and boil those cauldrons. in fact, has an unparalleled experience of doing this, including by learning from own disasters in cauldrons set up by Wehrmacht during its halcyon Blitzkrieg days of 1941-42. 

The dynamics of VSU collapse is telling and even Kissinger's suggestions to 404 to trade territory for existence are too little, too late. Russia is in no hurry, she can clearly see the economic implosion of the West, and this doesn't add optimism in regards to prices at the pump:

U.S. Refiners Set To Add Just 350,000 Bpd Capacity By End-2023

That, plus this:

Tells everything you need to know for today. As my friend Byron King stated, when speaking to the assembly of investors in Vancouver a week or so ago. Describing the focus of his talk he notes:

the focus was on economics and where sanctions will take the world economy. Along those lines, we all may be far from the front lines and at no risk of getting bombed or shelled. But those sanctions are exploding across the world. They’re blowing back, in fact, and doing grave damage right down the street from wherever you live. It’s as near as the grocery store, gas station or even the electric power meter on the side of your house.

These are immediate effects of failed sanction Byron describes:

Now consider other aspects of global trade that have been adversely affected by sanctions:

• A food crisis looms – fertilizer, wheat, and other grains are less available from Russia. Hey, have you been grocery shopping lately?


• Global air traffic and cargo are disrupted – Russia has denied overflight to “unfriendly” countries, meaning that many flights must fly circuitous routes, adding time and expense.


• Ongoing cargo ship jams – here’s a legacy of Covid disruptions, but now add issues with “Russian” cargo that meets resistance from shippers, insurers, bankers and even dock workers in some locales.


• Energy/food price increases have embedded inflation into the dollar system – inflation undermines the credibility and utility of the dollar as the unit for trade and means to preserve wealth over time.

Sadly, these are us, simple folks who do our considering, people in D.C. do not. And as it begins to emerge more and more--they can't and many are not rational players at all.  Meanwhile, suffering from cancer, gout, acid indigestion and other illnesses, but looking very healthy and energetic, Vladimir Putin, in his conversation today with Italy's Prime-Minister Mario Draghi, stated (in Russian) that, sure, Russia is ready to help with food and fertilizer crisis, once the politically-motivated sanctions will be removed (wink, wink). It is worth noting that it was Draghi who asked to speak to Putin, not the other way around. Per gas? Sure, Russia always fulfills her contractual obligations. But I am sure if it comes to it, EU an American "partners" will help Italy, right? Nah, I am screwing with you.

Just LOL)))

OK, too funny to miss. 

A Florida man, who was pulled over for speeding during a traffic stop last week, attempted to place blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin, authorities said. The unidentified driver was pulled over by a Flagler County deputy in Palm Coast last Thursday for allegedly running a stop sign and going 50 mph in a 30 mph zone, the deputy said in bodycam footage released by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday. According to the footage, the man gave the deputy a myriad of reasons as to why he was spending, including that he had just got the car and was trying to get it out of “sport mode.” The man also argued he saw another car coming and was trying to “get out before them.” Soon after, the driver informed the deputy what he said was “the truth,” according to the bodycam footage. “I just found out that Putin just said he’s gonna launch nuclear thermal war against the world, and I was trying to get back to my house to find out what’s going on,” the man said. “I’m freaking out.”

LOL. Come on, give guy a credit for being really inventive)))

No Way, This Cannot Be True.

I am being facetious, of course. Real economy, not some BS manipulations with finances, has a tendency to bite in the ass in the most inopportune times. 

Brussels, 22 December - The energy-intensive industries call upon EU leaders to swiftly address the exponential increase in energy prices. Today’s period of unbearably high energy prices in Europe is already undermining the structural measures designed to secure affordable low-carbon energy, which is required to meet the objectives of the EU Green Deal. The energy price crisis has hit most of the European countries. In recent months the energy priceshave increased 4 to 5 times, reaching even higher levels over the last days. In parallel, carbon prices have tripled since the beginning of the year. The main reasons for this situation are the financial market speculation from financial players including hedge funds and commodity trading houses, the imbalances in the gas market, seasonally decreased renewable energy production, reduced nuclear energy production, coal mine closures and increased carbon costs passed on in electricity prices. It has consequently forced numerous industrial energy consumers to curtail and/or temporarily close plants.

Well, some tankers with LNG from the US and Qatar did make a dent in gas prices for Europe but that is merely a band-aid on the gaping wound of the "market-driven" pricing of gas in Europe and this roller-coaster will continue. Now, per "Green Deal", that's another main driver behind this catastrophe and it is a good illustration of what happens when the economy is being run by political "science" majors and lawyers. In related news, Europe's "energy transition" is a catastrophe and a wet dream which cannot be implemented, which is obvious to any person with a half-brain and basic understanding of physics. But, there is one way for EU for this "energy transition" and it is de-industrialization which is ongoing as I type it, and eventual turning of EU in primarily service economy with increasing inflation and a good market for the US to dump its energy and products with which Europeans are already unable to compete under present situation. 

I warned for years that Europe is America's lunch and let me tell you--I don't blame the US, everybody wants to live. You--die today, for me to live another day and die tomorrow. It is a cold hard fact of life in global capitalism and, considering the "quality" of EU "elites", those people would rather lick Greta's boots and destroy lives and businesses than taking care of their population. Europe wanted it, EU was and is bureaucratic radically anti-democratic, non-electable structure, so EU now must "eat the cake" it baked. If Europeans, as is traditional in history will decide to look for (final) "solutions" in the East, Europe will be destroyed and will never recover again. I think this is a "secret" (LOL, it is obvious to anyone) desire of no less stupid American "elites" to repeat America's post-WW II renaissance. The problem with them, of course, is the fact that they do not understand that this is not 1945 and Russia can provide for the US real war experiences, but then again--try to explain to Ivy League political "science" majors what is targeting and what are new technologies and operational concepts which are beyond American warfare experiences. 

So, here we are today: Europe begins to feel consequences and I see no redeeming signs that Europeans, who also voted for people complicit in the most bizarre anti-scientific, logic-defying PR stunts, will awaken until it will be too late and the Europe will freeze literally and figuratively. This is how civilizations commit suicide. That is why Russia speaks in broadsides. 

Western media and their people are a joke.

Will China Learn?

Vladimir Putin was explicit a couple of days ago, couldn't get more straight that this, I'll remind you, him verbatim:

 I repeat: the rise in gas prices in Europe was the result of a shortage of electricity, and not vice versa. And there is no need, as they say, to shift from a sore head to a healthy one, as we say, as some of our partners try to do. Sometimes you listen to what is being said about this, and you are surprised, it’s just amazing, as if they don’t see the numbers - I’ll say more about this - they don’t see the reality, they just cover up their own mistakes. Over the past decade, step by step, systemic flaws have been laid in European energy. It was they who led to a large-scale market crisis in Europe. Let me remind you that as long as the leading positions were atomic and gas generation, there were no such crises, there was nowhere for them to come from. I will add that today, thank God, such problems in Russia are unimaginable. A long-term approach to the development of the fuel and energy complex allows us to provide electricity prices for the population and enterprises at the lowest level in Europe. For comparison: the average price of electricity in Russia in terms of euros is about 20 euros per megawatt-hour, in Lithuania - 256, in Germany and France - 300, in the UK - 320.

Yet, as Reuters reports two days ago: 

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's energy crisis deepened on Friday as cold weather swept into much of the country and power plants scrambled to stock up on coal, sending prices of the fuel to record highs. Electricity demand to heat homes and offices is expected to soar this week as strong cold winds move down from northern China. Forecasters predict average temperatures in some central and eastern regions could fall by as much as 16 degrees Celsius in the next 2-3 days. Shortages of coal, high fuel prices and booming post-pandemic industrial demand have sparked widespread power shortages in the world's second-largest economy. Rationing has already been in place in at least 17 of mainland China's more than 30 regions since September, forcing some factories to suspend production and disrupting supply chains.

Obviously, the author of the piece, granted her Indian origin (Shivani Singh) and, evidently, experience in reporting on Hollywood, still cannot reconcile herself to the fact that China's economy dwarfs US economy, not to speak of others, and is the largest economy in the world by far. But we will forgive her ignorance and concentrate on the essence and here is where China's economic disproportions begin to manifest themselves. Yes, China's economy is monstrous but that where the problem is--it grew too fast too much dragging with itself all ills of an explosive development including inability to resolve her energy needs in a proper way. Here is Reutres'  map of severe power outages in China for the end of this September. 

If that wasn't bad enough, Chinese made this statement:

China will strive to achieve carbon peaks by 2030, Vice Premier Han Zheng said in a video message at the Russian Energy Week International Forum, according to state-run news agency Xinhua late on Thursday. He also said that China and Russia are important forces leading the energy transition and they should cooperate and ensure smooth progress of major oil and gas pipeline and nuclear power projects.

Well, there is certainly transition by Russia which develops nuclear technologies and power as if there is no tomorrow, same goes with Russia developing her already immense natural gas pumping and processing infrastructure, including really becoming a shipbuilding superpower. Not only Russia builds those massive LNG carriers, but have you seen what Russia builds in Arctic now? It is a monstrous shipyard in Belokamenka which will build concrete floating LNG and oil processing plants. World barely talks about it, but the scale of the thing is gigantic: 

A variety of buildings, facilities, and dock make up a new skyline like the Russian north has never seen before. Once a sleepy village, the Belokamenka (Russian for “the White stone”) is nowadays the busiest industrial construction site anywhere in the circumpolar north. Over 100 companies are involved in creating what will be the LNG  Construction Center, operated by Russian private natural gas producer Novatek. Few of the workers are from Murmansk. Some are from China, many are from Central Asian former Soviet republics, and some are from southern Russia. Although far from completed, work on fabricating the gravity-based structure for the liquefaction facility for Train 1 as part of Arctic LNG 2 project has already started in the main dock. The giant modular structures with the high-tech factories will, when ready, be towed from Belokamenka across the Barents- and Kara Seas to the coast of the Gydan Peninsula in Ob Bay in Siberia. Here, the production of liquified natural gas (LNG) will start in 2023. A year later, in 2024, Train 2 will start production, while the final Train 3 is set to start operation in 2026. Each of the three trains will have a production capacity of 6,6 million tons per year. The gas supply to the plants comes from Novatek’s Geofizicheskoye and Salmanovskoye fields.

You see? 

So, yes, Russia is preparing energy transition, alright, but not the one totalitarian "Green" cult has in mind. You know why? Here are Chinese coal futures: 

Oh baby, almost three-fold growth since February last year. I am sure "investors" are happy. I need a pop-corn at this stage. That is why I always talk with caveat about China's superpowerdom--it has to come with the balancing act between what is needed and what is possible. But then again, allow me to remind my other table I compiled recently. Remember?

Repeat after me: modern economy, which means productive industries, is energy, economy is energy... Solar and wind are good for wet dreams of EU and US politicos, real world which doesn't want to see its people going hungry, cold (or hot), without proper sanitation, without proper transportation, documentation, conflation, taxation, sedation, playstation, workstation, citation, representation... well, I got carried away here a bit, but you get my idea--all that requires an enormous amount of energy. Because Human Civilization and Energy are one and the same. Remember Kardashev and his famous scale? 

What's the deal with those Russians, they love their energy. But then again, who is Kardashev with his illustrious career in astrophysics and astronomy. What does he really know? Ask Greta Thunberg, she'll tell you, with the help of Al Gore, a political shyster with degree in... journalism. Even Wiki notes: 

Gore was an avid reader who fell in love with scientific and mathematical theories, but he did not do well in science classes and avoided taking math. During his first two years, his grades placed him in the lower one-fifth of his class. During his sophomore year, he reportedly spent much of his time watching television, shooting pool and occasionally smoking marijuana. In his junior and senior years, he became more involved with his studies, earning As and Bs. In his senior year, he took a class with oceanographer and global warming theorist Roger Revelle, who sparked Gore's interest in global warming and other environmental issues. Gore earned an A on his thesis, "The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency, 1947–1969", and graduated with an A.B. cum laude in June 1969.

A perfect, really match made in heaven, combination of "solid" (pseudo) science and publicity stunts. Evidently Chinese followed this primrose path. Boy, are they paying now and there is nothing funny about it. But that is one of the great exhibits of reasons for why the AUKUS was conceived and why the United States is so interested in interdicting China's Indian Ocean SLOCs which supply huge amounts of energy to China. Such an interdiction will assure a collapse of China's economy. Well, Russia, like a good neighbor is always there (sorry State Farm Insurance for using your slogan). It is a huge game, it is not just about managing Western World's departure and, hopefully, its soft landing. It is not even about multipolarity which is a fait accompli for years now. No, it is about the future of human civilization and a real transition towards more just, freer and promising world. We, as humanity, still have to expand into space on a permanent basis and start mining for its riches. Remember that other Russian who said this:

The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.

But that is exactly what Western "elites" want us to do--arrest real development. But then again, intellectually they are pygmies (am I non-PC towards pygmies?), so they don't know any better.   

MOSCOW, May 22. /TASS/. The first mission of Russia’s nuclear-powered transport and energy module, Zeus, will last 50 months, Roscosmos Executive Director for Long-Term Programs and Science Alexander Bloshenko told reporters on Saturday. "The combined duration of the mission is 50 months," he said during the New Knowledge forum. He went on to say that the first flight has been scheduled for 2030. "Together with the Russian Academy of Sciences, were are now making calculations about this flight’s ballistics and payload," he said. According to Bloshenko, the space tug will first approach the Moon, where a spacecraft will separate from it. After that, it will head to Venus to perform a gravity assist maneuver and deliver another spacecraft. Then, it will depart towards Jupiter and one of its satellites.

I wonder if we can build wind generators at Venus--I heard it blows there big time. But I am sure Greta, Al Gore and New York Times will have objections to that, after all--those poor Venusians, wink, wink.

Lie Down With Dogs, Get Up With...

Well, you all know how it goes. Already in 2015, when ukranization of the US foreign policy started in earnest (I wonder how much competition is there between Israel and Ukraine at this stage) one US Senator got himself a flea infestation, when:

The 'exclusive' photos of 'Russian invasion in Ukraine' in 2014 turned out to be easily found in the Web, with at least one of them dating back to 2008. Now, US senator James Inhofe is furious with the Ukrainian delegation for setting him up with the 'evidence'. Questions have been raised about the veracity of reports that claim Russian troops have invaded Ukraine after US Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe confessed that several photos of Russian convoys he obtained from a Ukrainian parliamentary group were taken during the 2008 Georgia conflict, the Washington Free Beacon said. On Tuesday, the Washington Free Beacon ran a story that unveiled "exclusive" photos of victims of militia bombs and Russian armed vehicles seemingly rolling into Ukraine. The photos were provided to Inhofe's office in print by an obscure Ukrainian delegation, led by a Georgetown professor, who said the images were taken at the height of Russia's alleged military incursion between August 24 and September 5, 2014.  

Now America's Ukie "friends" have their own ideas on how the whole NATO proceedings should be conducted and they simply do this:

The White House and the Ukrainian government initially sent out conflicting official accounts of Monday's phone call between President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Why it matters: Ukraine's government initially reported on its official website that Biden had "highlighted... the importance of providing the Ukrainian state with a NATO Membership Action Plan," which would put Ukraine on course for membership in the alliance. The White House denied Biden expressed support for such a step on the call.

• "The Ukrainians mischaracterized the statement and corrected the record," a National Security Council spokesperson told Axios.
• By Monday evening, the Ukrainian government's readout had been changed to remove the reference to NATO membership for Ukraine.

Oh come on, guys. Give poor Ukraine a break, they want to matter so much that "little" lie here, "little" lie there shouldn't matter, really. Why don't the US give Ukraine codes from the US nuclear weapons, that is a swell idea. But in the game who will pay for this shithole of a country one very important step has been made. Not that the promise from D.C. worth anything but Anthony Blinken stated:

....что США намерены "возместить" Украине возможную потерю трансферных платежей и обеспечить, чтобы Россия "не могла использовать газ как инструмент принуждения".

Translation:  The United States have all intentions to "compensate" Ukraine for the possible loss of payments (due to Nord Stream 2) and provide for "Russia not using gas as the instrument of coercion".  

 

That's more like it, after all (don't forget to turn on English subs) this was stated just couple of days ago.

Generally, chutzpah is the MO of Ukraine (also known in Russia as Country 404 or simply 404), so financing killing people of LDNR and alleged "war with Russia" should rest, as 404's thinking goes, on Russia financing 404's armed forces by means of paying for the transit of gas. This is so...Israel-like, who gets free US money to occupy territories, which do not belong to Israel. Well, Russia is no US and is independent from anyone in formulation of her foreign policy and follows this good ol' principle--you broke it, you bought it. The US broke 404 (together with EU), so the US must pay, simple as that. Putin, ever relaxed, meanwhile trolled the new MI-6 boss who insists that Russia is a "declining power". 

I have to admit, the pool of imbeciles ready to spew any kind of propaganda BS in the West is limitless. The decline is not just visible, it is dramatic, if not shocking. As Matt Purple noted (correctly): 

Our Elites Couldn’t ‘Reset’ a Wall Outlet, Let Alone the Global Economy  

So, make your own conclusions. 

Necessary Evil?

You know all my attitude in general towards Western "economic science", which, bar few exceptions here and there, is nothing more than a variety of iterations on monetary theory and, in general, is not economic, per se, but financial only at its very core. As an example--many those "economists" with degrees in "economics" from a variety of Western economics programs are primarily (not all) people who deal in stocks, currency speculations, cooking of books, fraudulent valuations--it is them who introduced risible $23 trillion US GDP to us--many of them are downright bankers who know debit and credit and bank operations but who do not operate and cannot operate (due to lack of background) in a much larger framework of real economy, real politics, geopolitics, power balance etc. Those skills require a completely different intellectual and (true) scientific training. In the end, recall Michael Hudson's recent succinct statement:

The gunboats don’t appear in your economics textbooks. I bet your price theory didn’t have gun boats in them, or the crime sector. And probably they didn’t have debt in it either.

I happen to agree and may even add, that courses on physics, engineering, industrial design, real trade, foreign relations, organization of logistics, modern transportation, maritime security, military power also do not appear in economic textbooks. So, why have I brought this up, again. 

It is a truism now that Western "intelligence" on Russia, quoting Patrick Armstrong, is "very bad", and this is putting it mildly. It is easy to explain--imagine some Western "educated" (quotation marks are deliberate) journo or "economist", people who understand only Wall Street "economic" realities and subscribe to Western "interpretation" of human rights, getting into Russia. They are immediately presented with the set of economic and human patterns they not only never encountered in their lives but never heard of them. Most of those people, in their attempt to get a grasp of that find those who are "culturally" close to them in Russia and this is precisely a narrow strata of fringe Russia's liberals (aka liberda) who use same lingo and value same things as those Western journos, economists etc. use and value. Bingo, it seems that the issue is solved. Well ...no. In fact, this modus operandi is precisely the reason behind Western "analysts" of Russia being a laughing stock and being incapable to find their own ass with their both hands in the brightly lit room, forget about making any sensible predictions (or forecasts) on Russia. They simply have no instrumentation for that. Enter RT's today's piece by Ben Aris. 

I totally get it, that RT has to present a variety of opinions on Russia, including some which may not be positive at all, and we know that Russia is affected adversely both by Covid-19 and Oil Wars, but what Ben Aris of IntelliNews (formerly of Daily Telegraph) writes is a good insight into the minds and operational mechanisms of all kinds of similar fraudster publications pretending to provide "value" for "investors" (I know, it is such a funny term), Ben Aris "covered" Russia since 1993, and the term "covered" should be used cautiously here because British media are leading propaganda outlets in the West when providing a murky stream of BS. So, Ben Aris is no different and he opens with a broadside:

When the pandemic struck, Mishustin was still in the middle of reforming his team, and focused on a technical task: implementing the 12 national projects, not dealing with an economic meltdown. Ministers who performed badly when it came to implementing their policy goals have been sacked, and a new crop of bureaucrats was installed to take over. Mishustin drew heavily on his former colleagues from the tax service, which he ran to great effect for a decade. However, these people do not necessarily make the best HR choices when it comes to crisis management. Their skill has been to fine-tune the machinery of government to make it work more efficiently. The policies now needed are about squeezing an extra 5 percent of revenues out of VAT payments, not shock actions to put a floor under the collapse and reverse the fall.

Immediate first issue: Ben Aris, as well as most of his Western colleagues CANNOT have competent opinion on crisis management anywhere, let alone in Russia, because Western "economics" and experience knows only ONE way of dealing with crisis--it is to print money, period. The way even Covid-19 has been handled in EU and the United States is the best testimony not only to the impotence and incompetence of Western "elites", of which Ben Aris and his "way of thinking" are an exhibit A, but underscored a dramatic deference between the way Russian current elites and Western ones are brought up. One of those gigantic differences, which Aris never heard of, I am sure, is mandatory annual courses, ranging between two weeks-long to months, by top government officials and governors they take in the Academy of General Staff of Russia's Armed Forces. How mobilization plans are developed and implemented is also a thing Aris most likely doesn't understand, especially if one considers a collection of clowns running modern West today, they and Aris have common "education" backgrounds. So, Aris' any opinion on adequacy or otherwise of Russia's crisis management is as valuable as my opinions in Kabuki dramaturgy.

But Aris doesn't stop here and produces another peculiar point. 

Putin is afraid the nationwide vote, now slated to happen sometime in the summer, could be turned into a referendum on his ability to deal with the public health crisis. And that could go badly wrong. Consequently, he has pushed the responsibility for dealing with the crisis onto regional governors, who have put in a mixed showing so far. But even this political damage-control move has already cost Putin politically. More Russians approve of local officials’ coronavirus-response efforts than they do of those initiated by the president and the federal government, according to a newly published survey from the Levada Center.

There is so much to unpack here in what is a characteristic feature of most Western media--making shit up or just simply lying--that we need to start with the data by Levada Center. Levada Center was officially declared in Russia a foreign agent (in Russian) and is a classic example of MO of Western NGOs around the world--growing own "dissidents" and then using them as data sources which are allegedly "reliable" and fit Western "perceptions". I wrote about this so many times that I do not see any reason to dwell on that for much longer. Aris' "independent pollsters" are provided for by foreign governments and NGOs. The only good reason of using anything from Levada Center and similar orgs inside Russia is in affirmation of positive. E.g. "even Levada Center cannot deny this..."  Of course, I am not talking about the fact that Aris does what people like him do--he misinterprets, lies that is, events suited to consumption by people completely isolated from Russia's realities. See highlighted in yellow. Obviously, Aris never took even basic course in civics in any Russian public high school and he doesn't know how many Federation subjects are there in Russia, from Districts, to Oblast, to Krai and who are in charge of those and what is their relation to Moscow, but it is expected from such journalists as Aris. So, he "discovered" suddenly that delegation of authority, which is in the foundation of any practical governing since the times of Roman Empire, to state's subjects is the evidence of... political damage control? Is this Aris dude for real? It is especially fascinating against the background of Putin being omnipresent in Russian media. Including TV. Like yesterday. 

But our indomitable British journo doesn't stop here, he continues to misrepresent a situation and uses ephemera polls (polling is a fraud as an indicator in general, GIGO) to present what is not there forgetting what "Even Levada Center cannot deny..." Putin's still high level of approval which is almost 80% higher than disapproval. That is the only metric which matters. 

This is not to mention VCIOM's very own:

69% of Russians trust Vladimir Putin; 63.5% approve of his presidential performance.

So, what is exactly the problem here? A seasonal fluctuations of polls or that Russia's response to Covid-19 was extraordinarily effective? And even when Aris gets to more-or-less sensible argumentation (not that it is correct, it is not) he already "registered" himself at the onset of his piece as just yet another, run-of-the-mill, Russia "observer" whose only selling point is his fake "expertise" in interpreting political events in Russia from the Western point of view, which, as we could observe for years now, is nothing more than a wishful thinking by people who have zero knowledge and skills in fields which really matter for a nation such as Russia. In this case, the only question which remains is: will they ever learn? Why, in the same time, RT decided to publish this trash remains a complete mystery to me, albeit against the background of the collapse of Western economies and fraudulent "theories" behind them, any product of those in terms of world-view and "education", especially in relation to Russia, will come across as a pretentious ignoramus who needs to be pitied, not taken seriously. Or, maybe, to be taken as a necessary evil to remind us all how such "experts" royally fvcked Western civilization.  

P.S. Completely forgot (in Russian). Goggle Translate will help. 

Russia dramatically increased her oil export in April. Enjoy.