Announcement

It seems that I will be busy for the next month or so. I was asked to help (to the best of my limited Runglish abilities) with translation of my friend's book about the veterans of the Great Patriotic War. So, I may not be too active in my blog, since the volume of work is fairly large, while time is fairly limited. So, no expansive posts. I want, however, to make a several points on the present situation in and around Donbass. 

1. It is clear that Kiev can not win militarily in Donbass, even if the United States will decide to provide weapons. Some sources say that some of those weapons are already being delivered by proxies. Well, doesn't matter. The madness in Washington, however, continues being lead by whom else--Senator McCain and his pal  Lindsey Graham. Throw in here a new SecDef Ash Carter whose Physics Ph.D. and being defense bureaucrat for years, evidently, didn't add him any geopolitical wisdom and you get the picture. Those guys simply refuse to live in the real world and study real history of the 20th century. They also refuse to understand real war. 

2. It is clear that, yet another, military humiliation of the US' stooges in Kiev directly  humiliates D.C. "elite" too. But as I said many times in this blog--the incompetence of this so called "elite" in fundamental issues of war, peace, geopolitics, history etc. is appalling. The recycling of the Ivy League "educated" neocon hawks, which is a euphemism for ignorant sociopaths, continues unabated and goes contrary to the real American national interests. But in culture dominated by media appearances, skewed public opinion polls and looks without substance, admitting a mistake is not an option. So, the United States will continue to foment a trouble in Ukraine and will continue to waste its greatly diminished political capital and refusing to call a spade a spade. It is a fact that US, in the last 15 years, basically lost a huge chunk of this capital. Even Stephen Walt in his "The Way We Were" piece in September 12, 2014 issue of Foreign Policy admits that.

3.  Kiev, now, wants to blockade Russian peacekeepers in Trans-Dniester area, who are there legally. Well, Kiev, certainly, can do that. It shows how desperate both Washington and its puppets in the region (Moldova, for once) are to start a really big war there. Can Russia respond? It can and responses could be multi-prongue, including a purely military ones. In the end, Russia can simply play Kolomoyski game and help this disgusting crook achieve his desire to topple present Kiev cabal of crooks. After all, "he is our SOB" principle is as old as humanity. US had no problems supporting Nazis in Ukraine. But, in the end, Russia holds the cards with Novorossia, which does have an army (as in organized military force) and whose mobilization reserve is significant, in fact--very significant. Most likely, the response, if Kiev goes through with its threat, will, yet again, be something unexpected and very swift.

4. Last point--the West has committed a cultural suicide in Russia and so did so called Russian "liberals" who today are despised by the overwhelming majority of Russians. Until Western media clowns and the hordes of those BS spewing "analysts" will not get that Putin is not leading but is being led by Russian national consensus and that is why he, as shrewd politician and statesman, has an overwhelming support of population--the media circus will continue. That is why sanctions do not work and that is why Russia "elite" is nationalizing itself so fast--many of them understood that the only thing which separates them from being hung on the lamp posts all over Russia is Putin. 

"Despite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this was not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former battles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and they all shunned one another's eyes- only a de Beausset could fail to grasp the meaning of what was happening.

But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of a battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that the least accident might now- with the fight balanced on such a strained center- destroy him and his army.

When he ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian campaign in which not one battle had been won, and in which not a flag, or cannon, or army corps had been captured in two months, when he looked at the concealed depression on the faces around him and heard reports of the Russians still holding their ground- a terrible feeling like a nightmare took possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy him occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing, might break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray cannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles he had only considered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like a dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian is coming to attack him, and raises his arm to strike that ruffian a terrible blow which he knows should annihilate him, but then feels that his arm drops powerless and limp like a rag, and the horror of unavoidable destruction seizes him in his helplessness"

Leo Tolstoy, War And Peace, Book 10, Chapter XXXIV.