Dreams In the End of Summer.

Not that it is not expected, it is fully expected. 

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer called on Sunday for the EU to impose a cap on power prices and decouple electricity charges from the price of gas. The Austrian leader said failure to do so would let Russian President Vladimir Putin “determine the European electricity price.” "We must finally stop the madness that is taking place in energy markets. And that can only happen through a European solution,” read a statement from Nehammer’s office. “Something has to happen at last. This market will not regulate itself in its current form. I call on all the EU 27 to stand together to stop this price explosion immediately.”

I have news for Nehammer--there cannot be "European Solution" to anything, because Europe, with some few exceptions, is not a subject of modern geopolitics. We can discuss reasons for this state of the affairs in Europe until hell freezes over, but I am on record for years that EU is America's lunch, period. This is not to say that this will extend America's lifespan greatly, but that was the plan from the git go. I think EU leaders should concentrate on believing Ze's promises and act accordingly:

President Vladimir Zelensky said in his daily evening address on Sunday that Ukraine will recapture Donbass, which is now almost fully seized by Russian forces. “We have not forgotten and will not forget any of our cities and any of our people,” he said. “Now Donbass is almost destroyed by Russian strikes, devastated. The proud and glorious Ukrainian Donetsk was humiliated by the Russian occupation and robbed. But Ukraine will return. For sure. Life will return. The dignity of the people of Donbass will return. The ability to live will return. The opportunity to live safely and happily,” Zelensky added. According to him, this is what the Ukrainian flag will symbolize “when we set it up in Donetsk, Gorlovka, Mariupol, in all cities of Donbass, Azov area, in all areas under Russian occupation – in Kharkov, Zaporozhye, Kherson regions. And definitely in Crimea.” “Ukraine remembers everything,” he concluded.

No? Doesn't work anymore? Who would have thought? I think EU should also support Kiev's space exploration ambitions and its Artificial Intellect research (I kid, I kid, none exists in 404) because present intellect of EU in particular, and West in general, can be easily substituted with 8 bit Atari program and it will still do better. Which, speaking about such sewer as The National Interest rag, get a load of that--an "analysis" from a typical BSer in polit-sci who laments a tsunami of pseudo-military crap which dominates US SMO narrative from the git go, which demonstrates utter incompetence of Pentagon and US "intel", but this guy, obviously, has issues with reality of modern warfare (hint: 99% of people in D.C. and Arlington have) and he cries out:

Take, for instance, the purported certainty in the West that Russia’s military sought to conquer a heavily populated and fervently nationalistic country nearly the size of Texas—and initially, intended to do so in a matter of days, no less. This belief is entirely baseless. In fact, even the U.S. military is incapable of pulling off such a feat in that little time. And yet, the falsehood, which formed the West’s perception of Russia’s intentions, remains unabated. So too is Washington’s incessant deflection of holding any responsibility for provoking the invasion, despite its ubiquitous and escalatory involvement in the precipitating crisis.

Seriously? I have news for this "scholar of warfare", the United States never conducted anything close to the likes of SMO, against the actual standing army of 600,000 while having a force three times smaller and judging by "even the US military" triumphs in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, with a short break for turkey shoot against backward Saddam's Army and the performance of the US military technology in the REAL war environment in a complex terrain, which is dismal, this use of copium is rather silly. The fact that the US hasn't won any serious military campaign since Korea is, obviously, not a fact known to the author, which is not surprising for the US "geopolitical" rag which still publishes this shit:

U.S. Javelins Are Stopping Russia’s Armored Advance in Ukraine.

Yes, the US "expert" community today is nothing more than a collection of parasites who lack understanding of the subject matter, but if it is forgivable to such clown as Kris Osborne, when US generals continue to humiliate themselves publicly by spewing amateurish pseudo-military BS, it is a whole other matter. The depth of ignorance is such, that, as it became known, those people in Pentagon and "intel" thought that Russian Army would use... chemical weapons in SMO. They believed it. It is a systemic institutional failure, which cannot be addressed without redesign of the whole system. 

Russian troops in Ukraine are “exhausted” and may “crack” before the year is out, according to a retired US army general. Ben Hodges, who served in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, disagreed with predictions that the conflict could extend into drawn-out war of attrition.

Do I need to explain now why the US cannot fight a real war? With military leaders like that, who needs enemies. But then again, Hodges doesn't know what real war is, they don't teach this anymore in US military academies. How could they--that means a de facto admitting being a loser. I will expand on military education in the West later. Ben Hodges is one such "example".