Saturday Primer.

Russian Army took yet another military base in 404. Here is the video from Russia's MoD. 

As was expected, Nazis didn't allow civilians to use humanitarian corridors opened by Russian Army because they need human shield. The offensive resumed. Not to be forgotten--thousands upon thousands of foreign visitors and students are held hostage by Ukraine's nazi formations. India alone has around 1500 students held hostage in Kharkov (in Russian). So, this is what Russian Army has to deal with. A familiar pattern, don't you agree? 

Putin spoke bluntly about the whole ordeal and confirmed what we already know that VSU ceased to exists as armed forces and is mostly a collection of separate formations surrounded in what amounts to Wehrmacht's "festungs" of the Red Army's Operation Bagration of 1944, when the whole Germany Army Group "Center" was demolished in a matter of two-three weeks. After five weeks Red Army reached Warsaw. Some parallels could be drawn here, but only some. 

On the economic front the French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire who declared a total economic war on Russia now sings a different tune and suggests to French companies not to make haste with abandoning Russia and really just put things on "pause" (as Le Figaro reports) and wait and see (summary in Russian). Right, and why not, now that Germany is beaten into utter submission and Russia begins to impose restrictions on Russian exports, French have brighter perspectives. Turks also said FU and refused to introduce sanctions on Russia. India herself is now under the threat of the US sanctions--just a small detail. India also insists on removing the US Dollar in trade with Russia. Good idea. Per Germany committing suicide and living in delusion:

Most Germans support sanctions against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, even if the measures lead to energy supply bottlenecks and increase the cost of living, according to a survey by infratest dimap commissioned by public broadcaster ARD. A total of 66 percent of Germans are concerned that the Russian invasion of Ukraine will lead to cuts in German power and gas supply. An ever higher percentage of Germans, 69 percent, are concerned there will be another major war in Europe.Despite the concerns of reduced gas and power supply, 68 percent of Germans support sanctions against Russia, the survey found. Sixty-six percent support sanctions even if they lead to high energy prices and cost of living.

It is Orwellian reality there and while clueless narrative-mongers from Foreign Policy rag try to cheer Scholz and Germany (in a best BS-spreading tradition of this magazine), reality for Europe, of course, is dramatically different and it doesn't look good for the combined West. I omit here discussing the issue of military aspect--at this stage I know only of a handful real military experts in the US who are prominent in the public space, the rest are clueless parrots, such as a cabal of authors at The Foreign Policy, who fail to grasp what is going on now. No surprise here. These are just a few thoughts for Saturday.