Oh Boy, Now NATO Is Screwed...

 ... again. Plus, never discount the possibility of April's Fool arriving earlier)))

VON YOUR BIKE, URSULA: Euro boss Ursula von der Leyen is in the running to be new head of Nato

Granted, it is The Sun, but still)))

 

Well, it is Friday. One of Canada's greatest. 

Once he starts, it's hard to stop(c)... that's West's "strategy" today.

Some Friday Business.

Starting from Pepe, who brilliantly observed from Moscow:

In Moscow, their toxic ghosts are always lurking in the background. Yet one cannot but feel sorry for the psycho Straussian neocons and neoliberal-cons who now barely qualify as Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s puny orphans. In the late 1990s, Brzezinski pontificated that, “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical center because its very existence as an independent state helps transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.” With or without a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, Russia has already changed the narrative. This is not about becoming a Eurasian empire again. This is about leading the long, complex process of Eurasia integration – already in effect – in parallel to supporting true, sovereign independence across the Global South.

Speaking of which. I do not particularly care about Trump the person, or as POTUS, for that matter--he was and remains an empty suite who never was equipped for dealing with the swamp he so proudly declared he would drain. But his indictment, indeed, opened the can of worms which this country, which goes to hell with a tremendous acceleration, may not survive. As James Kunstler, ever eloquent, notes:

It’s a little early to assess the knock-on effects of the Left’s ecstatic Trumpgasm. A common theme flying across the Web is that Alvin Bragg’s jerry-rigged case will only make a martyr of Mr. Trump, neatly illustrating and personifying the government’s apparent war against its own citizens — making it clear that they will stop at nothing and no one to enforce the corrupt bureaucracy’s will against the public — and that the net result will be to ensure Mr. Trump’s reelection in 2024.

I, of course, am interested in sociopolitical impact of the indictment, but after I researched the "artistic" career of Stormy Daniels, I would say that Trump's taste in women, despite being married to a beautiful woman, is rather an extension of his political tastes--kitsch and low brow. In the end, there are way more attractive pornstars, not to speak of very high level prostitutes, laboring as high end escorts, he could have easily afforded. But that's just me, what do I know. 

Now about EU "peacekeepers" in 404. Sure--more coffins for EU. The whole idea is risible and Russia will wipe them out. As for Lukashenko's attempts to stay relevant against the background of inevitable unification of Russia and Belarus, his "peace gesture"(c) was met, as expected, with this:

Belarusian proposals for a suspension of hostilities in Ukraine can be discussed but they don’t change Moscow’s analysis of the conflict, the Kremlin spokesman has stated. Dmitry Peskov noted that the initiative formulated by the key Russian ally could not be directly compared to the roadmap for peace in Ukraine set out by China. The latest proposals for a truce, which were outlined by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, involve a ban on the movement of troops and weapons, so neither Russia nor Ukraine could use the armistice to regather their forces.

So, it is same ol', same ol' with Lukashenko, who never abandons his pathological habit of occupying two, or better three, chairs simultaneously, whilst sensing that the logic of the geopolitical events leads him into the irrelevance. Meanwhile in interview to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 404's Deputy Foreign Minister Melnik admitted:

"Мы не хотим начинать контрнаступление, которое не подготовлено. У нас сейчас приблизительно 50-60 танков с Запада, но русские как сейчас, так и прежде способны ежедневно производить или приводить в боеспособность до десяти танков. А это означает, что мы еще долгое время будем неспособны добиться решающего преимущества на поле боя", — сообщил дипломат.

Translation: "We don't want to start a counter-offensive that is not prepared. We now have about 50-60 tanks from the West, but the Russians, as now and in the past, are capable of producing or bringing combat capability up to ten tanks a day. And this means that we will still have a long time we will be unable to achieve a decisive advantage on the battlefield," the diplomat said.

No shit, geniuses (not Melnik, he understands nothing in the matter), finally someone in Pentagon and London did calculate a required force. Well, I guess attending Army War College and Command and General Staff College finally paid off. Somebody finally got a hold of a real economic capability of Russia--yes, 10 tanks a day x 365 days = 3, 650 tanks a year--and finally calculated that whopping 2 tank battalions of Western tanks is about a week or so of work for Russian tank and anti-tank crews and those pesky Ka-52s and Mi-28s. Ah, yes--the reality is a bitch. But sure, Russians are waiting for the last hope dash of the remnants of VSU and its NATO "allies" and then... well, only Kremlin and General Staff know what's then. Unleash your imagination.

What Ivan Knows That Johny Doesn't

Thank you Periscope Films channel for providing incredible historic insights. Yes, USSR in 1962. 

Remember this simple fact: an average Soviet public school graduate had three times more instruction in Math, Physics, Chemistry and Biology than it was stipulated for the acceptance to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In many respect Soviet system of education is being returned in Russia. Even the return of children's military-patriotic games Zarnitsa is one of the signs of finally parting with cancerous debilitating liberal system of education (in Russian).

You Will Hardly Find This In The News...

 ... in the West, unless it is in the cellar of the news streams, but... heads of central banks of ASEAN nations have in the agenda of their upcoming meeting in Indonesia... well, judge for yourself. 

Страны АСЕАН — Ассоциации государств Юго-Восточной Азии — обсудят отказ от основных валют, таких как доллар и евро, и переход к расчетам в местной валюте. Этот вопрос будет на повестке встречи министров финансов и управляющих центральными банками стран, которая пройдет в Индонезии. Издание уточняет, что речь идет о цифровой системе, благодаря которой жители одной страны объединения смогут платить за товары и услуги другой страны в собственной валюте. Индонезия, Малайзия, Сингапур, Филиппины и Таиланд уже подписали соглашение о сотрудничестве по этому проекту. Стоит напомнить, что в середине марта президент Индонезии Джоко Видодо призвал региональные власти отказаться от Mastercard и Visa. Он предложил использовать кредитные карты, выпущенные местными банками, чтобы защитить денежные транзакции от «возможных геополитических последствий».

Translation: The ASEAN countries - the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - will discuss moving away from major currencies such as the dollar and the euro and moving to local currency settlements. This issue will be on the agenda of the meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the countries, which will be held in Indonesia. The publication clarifies that we are talking about a digital system, thanks to which residents of one country of the association will be able to pay for goods and services of another country in their own currency. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand have already signed a cooperation agreement on this project. It is worth recalling that in mid-March, Indonesian President Joko Widodo called on regional authorities to abandon Mastercard and Visa. He suggested using credit cards issued by local banks to protect money transactions from "possible geopolitical consequences."

It is happening right now, right here. Two major geopolitical factors are at play here:

1. Sanctions on Russia and stealing Russia's assets;

2. The way Russia successfully stands alone (initially) against combined West and grinds its combined forces into dust.

Now, with Saudi Arabia moving closer to becoming a full fledged member of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, one can only imagine what resources the BRICS will command, since Saudi Arabia is very keen on joining BRICS too. 

That's strategy, meaning matching your resources to political ends, because any war, a real one, not some PR BS which US elites "fight" primarily in media, and the outcomes are calculated and predicted with certain probabilities. Ah, yes, those Markov Chains, probability matrices and Graph Theory which serious organizations such as general staffs and strategic forecast entities use, after collecting and systematizing all available facts. Unlike it is done in Washington D.C. where they are primarily into the business of juxtapositioning things to produce easily consumed BS by political shysters who infest today America's decision-making circles.

But to succeed in forecasting one must operate with verifiable data--this is not the case with the West. Do we even comprehend a true depth of a crisis. I can only speculate. I speak about it in my latest video:

Elmo Zumwalt's fears have come true in the 21st century. And don't tell me that I didn't warn about it, wink, wink;))

Larry Makes Some Excellent Points.

At Judge's show.  

Excellent Discussion.
 

Strategic Inevitability.

Sasha Rogers wrote three days ago an excellent--typical Rogers with his laser guided sarcasm and acerbic tone--piece which is titled "The Meat Storm" (in Russian). In it he posted Rusvesna video on how what's left of VSU and 404 simply have no options in purely military terms but to conduct much promised and spun by morons from Western media "offensive" with disastrous results. 

Here is how one Russian unit deals with four Ukie APCs (looks like M-113) and this tiny tactical action projected against the realities of a huge, 1000+ kilometers long, front demonstrates perfectly how VSU is going to be dealt with in case of their "offensive", now promised by Kiev regime to be along... several axes. Yeah, sure. 

The reason I call strategic inevitability is because neither Pentagon nor Kiev "planners" know what to do at this stage, and, considering the fact that most wars by the US are driven by PR, they need to undertake something--call it anyway you want: counter-offensive, offensive, massive attack or simply attack but it has to be repeated time after time--not on  a single occasion VSU took any ground or settlement as a direct  result of their combat activity. Each time these were Russian forces who have been withdrawn from operationally and strategically insignificant positions to save personnel. Enough to recall VSU "operations" around Kherson when they couldn't take anything around Kherson, not a single village, until the decision was made to save civilians and personnel and abandon Kherson. Only after Russian withdrawal VSU "captured" abandoned villages and the city. 

Naturally, illiterate media and military "professionals" touted it as a huge success, even calling it stunning, because in the West the "victory" is defined only through TV picture and spin. What, of course, those "experts" do not understand is that the "stretching" of VSU forces is ongoing the picture, such as demonstrated in the video, repeats itself every single day with VSU and their "allies" being slaughtered in some catastrophic numbers. But that is strategic inevitability now not only for remnants of Kiev regime forces but NATO as a whole which exposed its military illiteracy in the most dramatic way. In doing so they "ensured" the picture which you can see in the video being replicated everywhere in 404. 

Here is what Svechin wrote and was noted about Strategy in the preamble to his seminal work. 

I criticize many of my colleagues in the study of problems of military history and tsarist Russia, in that they usually strove, immediately following a factual statement of events, to develop their deductions and conclusions, which often had rather limited scope and depth. A truly scientific approach consists of, once the facts have been stated, shifting to a reflection of them. "The difference between the terms, conclusion [vyvod], on the one hand, and contemplation [razmyshlenie], on the other, reflects different understandings of the relationships between theory and real life." 

The problem with modern Western military as a whole is that it fails both in theory and real life with equally disastrous results and that is a strategic inevitability framed by illiterate military-political class of the combined West. They refused to do the homework (Svechin also writes about homework) and failed the test not just in 404, but globally. 

Meanwhile...

 ... the world continues to move on. 

Москва. 29 марта. INTERFAX.RU - Россия и Индия рассматривают возможность создания трансарктической контейнерной линии и строительства перерабатывающих мощностей рядом с Северным морским путем (СМП), заявил министр РФ по развитию Дальнего Востока и Арктики Алексей Чекунков в ходе рабочего визита в Индию. Как сообщает Минвостокразвития, главной темой состоявшейся во вторник встречи российской делегации с министром портов, судоходства и водных путей Индии Сарбанандой Соновалом стало использование СМП для надежной и безопасной транспортировки грузов. "Обсуждалось создание альтернативного пути доставки грузов из Индии в Европу - не по южному или западному маршрутам, а по восточному, через СМП, с задействованием как российских, так и индийских портовых мощностей. Особо отмечено, что стоимость доставки контейнера из Владивостока до Индии на треть ниже, чем стоимость доставки контейнера из Москвы", - приводятся в сообщении слова Чекункова.

Translation: Moscow. March 29. INTERFAX.RU - Russia and India are considering the possibility of creating a trans-Arctic container line and building processing facilities near the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Russian Minister for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic Alexei Chekunkov said during a working visit to India. According to the Ministry for the Development of the Far East, the main topic of the meeting of the Russian delegation on Tuesday with the Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways of India Sarbananda Sonoval was the use of the NSR for reliable and safe transportation of goods. "They discussed the creation of an alternative route for the delivery of goods from India to Europe - not along the southern or western routes, but along the eastern one, through the NSR, using both Russian and Indian port facilities. It was especially noted that the cost of delivering a container from Vladivostok to India is one third lower than the cost of shipping a container from Moscow," Chekunkov said in the message.

Not to be outdone, Saudi Arabia adopted the memorandum on the partnership with the members of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as reported by Saudi media and by TASS (in Russian). Also, barely noticed Russia finished the final preparation for the serial production of TU-214 and... launched it. This year three new TU-214 will be transferred to airlines and by 2025 the manufacturing will ramp up to 20 a year. Before 2025 eleven more of reborn and modernized TU-214 will be transferred to customers (in Russian). Mind you, Russia continues to manufacture SSJ-New and MC-21. 

Finally, about the failed test of the USAF very own hypersonic ARRW.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force’s March 13 test of a hypersonic weapon was “not a success,” the service secretary told lawmakers Tuesday.Frank Kendall indicated the Lockheed Martin-made AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon program may be in jeopardy. The service, he said, is “more committed to HACM [the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, the service’s other major hypersonic weapon program] at this point in time than we are to ARRW.” The ARRW effort “has struggled a little bit in its testing program,” Kendall told the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel during a hearing on the fiscal 2024 budget request. He said an ultimate decision on whether to continue with the program could come as part of the FY25 budget process next year following a study of the failed March test and possibly two more test launches. Hypersonic weapons travel at speeds topping Mach 5 and are highly maneuverable, making them difficult to track and shoot down. China and Russia have invested considerable resources in developing these weapons for their militaries, and several U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern that the country is not doing enough to field its own hypersonic capabilities.

Again, read my lips: the US eventually will be able to come up with some type of hypersonic weapon, most likely of a glider variety but neither China nor US will have anything even remotely equal to 3M22 Zircon. Moreover, it seems that US legislators and journos need a constant reminder of a huge difference between quasi ballistic systems and full power systems such as serially produced and deployed to Russian Navy's surface fleet Zircon. The only hypersonic thing which allegedly could get IOC is US Army's Dark Eagle but it is clear that there are "issues" with this system too. Well, doesn't look like Russia sweats too much about it. Plus S-300V4 and S-500 are specifically designed for dealing with such kind of threats and those are in serial production. 

Last, but not least--two can play "strategic ambiguity" game. Russia's Foreign Ministry has stated that Russia will stop prior informing of the American side about launches of her strategic weapon systems. Well, let them guess and start calling Moscow each time. In conclusion about strategy of SMO:

There is no possible political or diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict with Ukraine at the moment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has insisted. He added that Moscow regrets other avenues for resolution are not open. Speaking to Russian journalists on Wednesday, Peskov reiterated Moscow’s resolve to reach its goals, which were outlined by President Vladimir Putin at the start of the military operation over a year ago. “We have repeatedly said that Russia’s goals … can be achieved in various ways. These are politico-diplomatic or – if politico-diplomatic are currently impossible, and in the case of Ukraine, they are impossible, to our regret – through military means, that is, through the special military operation,” Peskov stated.

The annihilation of the remnants of VSU and its "allies" from NATO continues and will continue till utter demilitarization of NATO. This is your primer for Wednesday.

This Is An Old School SNL...

 ... when SNL was hilarious and Jim with his goat and "Joe Pesci show" was a huge part of it. Well, George Karlin is not with us anymore, but Jim does a damn good job himself ...

It is as hilarious as it is sad, because it is true. BTW, in real life Jim is an upstanding guy and a good father. 

About Composites.

Ah, look at that. Funny, I spoke about it in my yesterday's video:

МОСКВА, 28 марта. /ТАСС/. "Аэрокомпозит" изготовил и поставил на испытания в ЦАГИ прототип крыла российско-китайского широкофюзеляжного дальнемагистрального самолета CR929. Об этом в ходе форума "Композиты без границ" заявил гендиректор "Аэрокомпозита", первый замгендиректора корпорации "Иркут" Анатолий Гайданский. "Мы в этом году закончили и сейчас поставили на испытание в ЦАГИ прототип крыла композитного для самолета CR-929. Это вы знаете наш совместный с нашими китайскими партнерами проект, который мы сейчас готовим к испытаниям и до середины наверное этого года проведем испытания", - сказал он. Как уточнили в пресс-службе корпорации "Иркут", куда входит АО "Аэрокомпозит", крыло перспективного широкофюзеляжного дальнемагистрального самолета будет представлено на авиасалоне МАКС-2023. Самолет несколько лет разрабатывался ОАК совместно с китайской CRAIC. Планировалось, что российская сторона возьмет на себя инженерные работы, а в Китае будет налажена окончательная сборка воздушных судов. Самолет планировалось вывести на рынок в 2025-2027 годах. Он должен был быть представлен в трех версиях. В базовой комплектации авиалайнер должен был перевозить 280 пассажиров.

Translation: MOSCOW, March 28. /TASS/. "Aerocomposite" has manufactured and tested at TsAGI a prototype wing of the Russian-Chinese wide-body long-haul aircraft CR929. Anatoly Gaidansky, General Director of Aerocomposite, First Deputy General Director of the Irkut Corporation, stated this during the Composites Without Borders forum. "We have finished this year and have now put a prototype of a composite wing for the CR-929 aircraft for testing at TsAGI. You know this is our joint project with our Chinese partners, which we are now preparing for testing and will probably be tested by the middle of this year," he said. According to the press service of the Irkut Corporation, which includes JSC Aerocomposite, the wing of a promising wide-body long-range aircraft will be presented at the MAKS-2023 air show. The aircraft was developed for several years by the UAC together with the Chinese CRAIC. It was planned that the Russian side would take over the engineering work, and the final assembly of aircraft would be arranged in China. The aircraft was supposed to be put on the market in 2025-2027. It was to be presented in three versions. In the basic configuration, the airliner was supposed to carry 280 passengers.

I will repeat it again: Russia does not need China for CR 929 because Russia has the state-of-the-art IL-96 400, PD-35 in development and all composite industry she needs. Flying from Kaliningrad to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky could be done in one stop by TU-214 or MC-21 somewhere in Novosibirsk or Krasnoyarsk, or, eventually, with MC-21 Extended Range non-stop. 

Yes, they are flying the thing in experimental mode now. 

Per situation with children and their psycho-bitch murderer. I can not easily take this, but I 100% agree with Larry:

This has the potential to be a watershed moment and mark the start of the political pendulum shifting from demanding that all sane people genuflect at the altar of transgender fantasy towards the traditional belief grounded in biology — i.e., transgenderism is a phantasm.

I am on record--most of the US media and "intellectual" class are war criminals and criminals against humanity. There are no normal people working for the US MSM--none.

LOL))

What can I say? LOL...

Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone

The author is some Bulgarian sore loser with all the boxes required for ignoramus checked. 

Georgi Kantchev is an award-winning freelance journalist, Member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, based in Sofia, Bulgaria. He has been published in The Economist, Deutsche Welle and Kurier Vienna, among others. Georgi has international work experience across a range of media (print, online, radio) in the UK, Austria, Bulgaria, Belarus, Germany and Switzerland. He has covered the fields of politics, economics, business, technology and the media. Working in English, German and Bulgarian, he has proven multimedia expertise. Georgi holds a MA with Distinction in Media Management from the University of Westminster in London and BA Journalism Summa cum laude from the University of Vienna. 

That's the WSJ for ya and the "level" of their coping. I would suggest them to visit Kensington Ave or Skid Row and ask "locals" for their expertise in geopolitics. 

In related news, as was expected, Russian Air Defense started to intercept yet another American wunderwaffe:

Russian troops have shot down a long-range Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) in Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday. It is the first time Moscow has reported downing such a weapon. In a statement, the ministry said that Russian air defenses “had intercepted 18 HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System] missiles and one GLSDB guided missile.” While Russian forces have on numerous occasions thwarted attacks by US-supplied HIMARS, it is the first time the ministry has reported the destruction of a GLSDB smart bomb. The munitions were promised to Ukraine by US President Joe Biden in early February as part of a $2.17 billion military assistance package. In total, since the start of the conflict, the US has committed more than $32.5 billion in security aid to Ukraine.

Read my lips--I repeat it--for Tor-M2 and S1 Pantsir GJSDB and similar munitions are STANDARD, typical that is, targets. Tor M2 just recently shot down a few Excalibur rounds. Yes, Russian AD is that good, I dare to say it is the best in the world and by a gigantic margin. That is why Washington today stated that 404 doesn't need US fighter planes at this time. Sure. Just some points for this Tuesday.

In Order For Me...

... to not repeat myself while elaborating on Putin's and Patrushev's interviews, I decided to give a very short, radically insufficient, overview: 

Their desperation is palpable.

Russia’s crude oil exports by sea have held above the 3 million barrels per day (bpd) mark in the past six weeks, after the EU ban on fuel imports from Russia took effect and after Moscow said it would lower its production by 500,000 bpd, tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg shows. In the most recent week to March 24, Russia’s seaborne crude oil exports fell by 123,000 bpd but were still above 3 million bpd, at 3.11 million bpd, per the data cited by Bloomberg’s Julian Lee. While weekly shipments can be very volatile, tanker tracking in the six-week period to March 24 also showed a similar small decline in Russian shipments. This suggests that Russian crude oil exports have held resilient this year, and the voluntary production cut hasn’t shown yet in Russia’s crude exports to the global market. Most Russian exports are headed to China, India, or “unknown destinations” in Asia, which, history shows, usually means that the cargoes end up in one of the two biggest Asian importers of crude.

But Tolstoy left us with those insights which are true and universally applicable: 

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. 

Don't expect the crowd inside the beltway ever reading this novel, let alone understanding and learning from it. 

And To Conclude This Weekend...

... with this news.  If anyone wants to know where the West is headed--enjoy. 

Any chance this wonderful female TSA agent will have her pay rate increased? She absolutely deserves this raise for being a bulwark against insanity.

You Don't Even Need To Know Russian...

... to understand what SMO woke up in Russian people. Look at these two twin sisters from Makeevka, 25 years old. Children, but here they are running their truck with radio comm equipment.  

They can drive the tank too. To say that this wakes up a genetic memory of overwhelming majority of Russians about the Great Patriotic War is to say nothing. That is exactly what SMO woke up. The images are overwhelming and are beyond life and intellectual experiences of those (majority) people in the West who "planned" their Ukrainian debacle before 2014 and, then, in 2022. I am on record--they don't understand what they've got themselves into and why the West has been lost.

This And That.

 First about this:

Russian tactical nuclear weapons might arrive in Belarus as early as this summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed on Saturday. Moscow is completing the construction of a specialized storage facility for such arms, amid repeated calls by Minsk to deploy them on its soil, he added. The site in Belarus will be ready by July 1, Putin told Russia 24 TV. The president also said that Moscow does not plan to hand over control of any tactical nuclear weapons to Minsk and that it would only deploy its own arms to Belarus. He did not specify when exactly the weapons would be transported to the new site.

There is absolutely nothing sensational about it and this message is primarily for Poland, just in case. Good ol' Iskander's range is 500 kilometers (it doesn't mean that longer range Iskanders will not appear soon) and when placed slightly West of Minsk it covers exactly half of Poland and also "improves" behavior of Baltic states. Moscow and Minsk are parties to union state of Russia and Belarus and it is only natural to do militarily whatever allied countries decide to do within their borders. 

Now about real economy, Putin is not bluffing:

"Поджигатели планируют направить на Украину 400 с лишним танков. Все то же самое, что и по боеприпасам. За это время мы произведем новых, и модернизируются имеющиеся тоже, свыше 1600, а общее количество танков РФ будет превышать в три раза количество танков ВСУ, даже более, чем в три раза", - добавил Путин.

Translation: "The arsonists plan to send more than 400 tanks to Ukraine. The same goes for ammunition. During this time, we will produce new ones, and the existing ones will also be modernized, over 1,600, and the total number of tanks of the Russian Federation will exceed three times the number of tanks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, even more than three times,” Putin added.

I know, some people in Pentagon scratch their heads but, as I mentioned in my video too, the actual number of produced and modernized tanks in Russia this year may reach 3,000, with majority of them the tanks of new types, primarily of T-90M Proryv type. For T-14 Armata, nobody knows the actual number, what is known that there are now more than a hundred of them and at least couple of battalions (around 60 tanks, give and take) are training for the deployment to the front line. I am on record for years about "revelation mode". Meanwhile the fossil of Henry Kissinger also had a revelation recently when concluded that the new Cold War is much more dangerous than the old one. No shit, genius--in related news: water is wet, sky is blue and Western establishment is ignorant. 

I speak about it here:

And while at it, you might as well pay attention to this decent video about British carriers, granted that some facts there are somewhat debatable, but in general it is a worthy one. Per "third" and "fourth" rules of thumb, they are tied to a business known in Russia as "Coefficient of Operational Tension" (КОН--Коэффициэнт Оперативного Напряжения) and it is the science onto itself and staffs of formations deal with that. 

But there is no doubt that HMS Prince of Wales so far is an embarrassment, even when allowed for the issues of being a new design. 

In related news, Ukies begin to evacuate Avdeevka, whose "position" looked like this yesterday:

There were some convulsions by VSU on Kupyansk axis, naturally, they ended bad for VSU and when people ask me (this was the question from one of the viewers on YT) what war Russia is getting ready for producing these monstrous quantities of war materiel from shells and missiles to tanks, my answer is very simple--Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum. Russia is preparing for facing down any threat emanating from the combined West with such military advantage that even psychopaths need to think twice. But then again, the narrative did change, noticeably. Somebody in Pentagon must know that Russian reserves have not been deployed yet. They will when and if needed. This is your primer for Sunday. 

 

P.S. Ah, yes. Comrade Xi still didn't call Mr. Ze as Western media assured us was his intention. What could have possibly go wrong, wink, wink? 

Open Thread.

 Go at it.

I Don't Know What's The Deal.

But there is very little doubt that the US illegitimately occupies part of Syria's territory and conducts a favorite business of training terrorists. 

BEIRUT (AP) — A strike Thursday by a suspected Iranian-made drone killed a U.S. contractor and wounded six other Americans in northeast Syria, and U.S. forces retaliated with airstrikes on sites in Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the Pentagon said. Activists said the U.S. bombing killed at least four people. While it’s not the first time the U.S. and Iran have traded strikes in Syria, the attack and the U.S. response threaten to upend recent efforts to deescalate tensions across the wider Middle East, whose rival powers have made steps toward détente in recent days after years of turmoil. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the American intelligence community had determined the drone was of Iranian origin, but offered no other immediate evidence to support the claim. The drone hit a coalition base in the northeast Syrian city of Hasaka. The wounded included five American service members and a U.S. contractor.

I don't know who sent the "message", but this event is a great testament to a military fallacy of the American bases around the world, because not only they will continue to lose the "power projection" value but will continue to increase their value as fat and mostly indefensible targets against modern battlefield delivery systems. Nobody in their own mind would believe that US air defense systems such as Patriot PAC3 can handle a serious salvo of even relatively unsophisticated subsonic means of delivery. 

Meanwhile butt-hurt BSer Sebastien Roblin "reports" based on propaganda doctored "data" from 404 that Russia... finally ran out of tanks and reactivated T-54/55 ones. 

Russia is dusting off the cobwebs from military deep storage facilities in the country’s Far East, for the first time railing un-upgraded Cold War T-54B tanks westward, possibly bound for Ukraine. Now, a video of the T-54s transported by rail has surfaced. 

What uneducated hack Roblin doesn't know, because with degree in "conflict resolution" and "social and global studies" you can not know anything of value, is that Russia was using older T-54/55 since War in Chechnya not for tank operations but as a very helpful  artillery units for... drum roll... block posts, thus increasing their combat stability and as a good caliber response in case of attacks on numerous block posts. Generally Western pseudo-academic fields in "strategic studies", "conflict resolution" or "foreign relations" produce unemployable office plankton with minimal skills even for 7/11 janitor, but when you are also getting paid by Ukies, what kind of "reporting" one provides becomes abundantly clear. In general, SMO exposed all, without exception, US MSM and popular "alternative" media as uneducated hacks and unprofessional losers, including a large portion of the US "military experts" with hefty C.V.s in "fighting" in Iraq and Afghanistan, but with minimal expertise in modern wars and combined arms operations of scale. 

But that brings us to issue of military education in the US and the new crop of America's present and future military leaders. I wrote about it before and quoted Tim Bakken:

Academic standards are also nonexistent. I believe this trend started approximately ten years ago, and it has continued to get worse. West Point has stated standards for academic expectations and performance, but they are ignored. Cadets routinely fail multiple classes and they are not separated at the end-of-semester Academic Boards. Their professors recommend “Definitely Separate,” but those recommendations are totally disregarded. I recently taught a cadet who failed four classes in one semester (including mine), in addition to several she had failed in previous semesters, and she was retained at the Academy. As a result, professors have lost hope and faith in the entire Academic Board process. It has been made clear that cadets can fail a multitude of classes and they will not be separated. Instead, when they fail (and they do to a staggering extent), the Dean simply throws them back into the mix and expects the faculty to somehow drag them through the academic program until they manage to earn a passing grade. 

And this is one of very many testimonies of a collapse of professional military education in the US. 

In related news, I spoke today with Vera and famous Russian REAL war reporter Marat Khairullin--the rough estimate of just wounded in and around Bakhmut is roughly 20,000. As Marat says, who spends most of his days at the front line and communicates with serious tactical and operational level officers, they all are unanimous--combat medicine in VSU ceased to exist several months ago, and just inside Bakhmut today there are more than 2,000 wounded who still cannot get even stabilization procedures. That means they will be dead in a day or two. Reality of the 404 "offensive" is absolutely not what is being portrayed by Western media. This is not from some shitty TG channels, this is from people of repute and first hand operational (forget tactical) knowledge of the combat zone. Yes, Marat is a constant presence,  from the front lines, on Russian major TV networks. So, here is your SitRep of sorts for Friday.

Friday Is Coming...

 ... We know things which have been lost. But what is going to be taken to the future...

Or maybe this... 

Can you believe this seat of pedophilia and perversion once were making these masterpieces.  

But then there is this genius Canadian guy...

You remember this kid, right?

Simon is only good at plastic surgeries...  

So, enjoy... Friday is coming. 

P.S.  Before there was any Star Wars, Russians have been thinking about what they will take to the future in 1973. 

Enjoy...

Another American Icon Is Gone.

It is sad, but the new generations of cucks in the US is what kills anything good what was about the US. Another American icon is gone.

New York CNN  — General Motors announced Wednesday that it’s ending production of the latest generation of the Chevrolet Camaro, leaving the Ford Mustang as the last gasoline-powered American performance coupe. 

I owned Camaro after Porsche 928--I loved it. Not this one.

I used to own exactly like this one. Yes, it was red.

This was a beauty in every respect. Sad...

Great Talk.

 Judge and Larry. 

Some very good strategic talk.
 

Duh!

Wow, what a secret has been disclosed, not. 

Soldiers of Ukraine’s ‘Thor’ special operations group use satellite data provided by the CIA to choose targets when conducting drone strikes against Russian forces, the unit’s commander told the Times. The 27-man group, which is formally a police special operations unit, functions independently from the Ukrainian army and works in close collaboration with Ukraine’s military intelligence, the GUR, which provides them with ammunition and intel. According to the Times, the unit has complete license to select its missions, where they barrack and when they fight. The unit’s commander, whose name is said to also be Thor, claims he uses a special application on a tablet that is synced to a CIA satellite to select potential targets for their attacks. “We select targets in the program, and targets can be placed there both by the CIA satellite and by our own satellite, which our volunteers pay for. Information is collected from all kinds of sources there. We choose, then we arrive and conduct our own reconnaissance,” Thor told the outlet.

In related news--water is wet, fire is hot and the sky is blue. The US runs a tight routine here between completely discrediting itself as "the finest fighting force in history" which cannot fight a real war and a power who hides behind proxies. As I stated not for once, in real war with Russia the US satellite recon and navigation constellation would have been gone in about 72 hours. But then again, Washington knows the ultimate outcome, not for 404 which de facto doesn't exist as a real state anymore, but for itself. 

Medvedev, meanwhile, is on a roll:

Russia is rapidly boosting its military production capacity to meet the demands of the Ukraine campaign, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of the country's national security council, has told journalists. “Our enemies thought that our industry would be overwhelmed,” the official, who also has previously served as Russian president and prime minister, said by videolink on Wednesday. “There were endless claims: munitions are running out, tanks are running out, missiles are running out.” Medvedev said he'd witnessed military factories working round the clock during his inspections. And new manufacturing capacities are being built, he added. “Sure, we didn’t think it would be necessary sometime ago. But it became a necessity,” he said of the expansion.

And here is the trick, Western "democracies" and FIRE "economies" cannot do that even if they will allocate (print, that is) needed sums of money. Recalling what Jeffrey Sachs once said about Russia:"We cut the patient open and learned that it has a different anatomy." I continue to write about this for years--Russian economy differs dramatically from those of the combined West. As Medvedev stated:

Where Russia lags behind, Medvedev acknowledged, is in designing and producing large strike drones. However the country has “several models that have already gone into series production.” “I am certain that [putting these to use] is a matter of several months,” he promised.

This is the point, at this stage Russian Military-Industrial Complex and economy in general are the only entities in the world capable to R&D, introduce and ramp up dramatically the mass production of the advanced weapon systems in a very short period of time. Guess what Main Organizational Mobilization Directorate of Russian General Staff does? Yes, it constantly plans and counts, counts, counts and, believe me, they know how to count. They also know when and how NATO nations lose any capacity to measure up to a modern war--and that holds the answer to the puzzle of Russia's strategy in SMO.

Larry's Excellent Elaboration...

 ...on possible Bakhmut Offensive by VSU. 

I want to remind you of a point I have made in previous pieces on the Bakhmut situation — this is not the only point of attack for the Russian side. The Russians are pressing forward on multiple fronts and forcing the Ukrainians to make some hard choices about where to deploy scant reinforcements and munitions. Unlike Ukraine, Russia has trained, experienced and well-equipped reserves near the front. The Russian responses will either confirm the claims of Western analysts, who insist the Russians are inept and poorly trained, or it will destroy that meme. A Russian defeat in Bakhmut will not alter Russia’s objectives in this war. It would lead to a shakeup in military command and a significant escalation in Russia’s use of force against Ukraine. It would buy Ukraine some time and re-energize the West’s commitment to expand support to Ukraine.

This is a must read since Larry gives some very good operational and even strategic reminders. 

Garland, Scott and Me.

Discussing things. 

I think it was a good discussion.
 

Ouch!

It is clear that we are beginning to live in the wake of Moscow's Summit, which may well be defined as historic. But get this:

НИЖНЕВАРТОВСК (ХМАО), 22 марта. /ТАСС/. Россия намерена создать свою, альтернативную систему поставок энергоресурсов, что будет выгодно почти всему населению в мире. Об этом сказал первый заместитель министра энергетики России Павел Сорокин в ходе пленарной дискуссии "Образ будущего: прогнозы и возможности ТЭК" шестого международного молодежного научно-практического форума "Нефтяная столица". "Мы как продавали, так и будем продавать [энергоресурсы] и оставаться надежными партнерами. Прожить - все проживут. Но это большой шанс для нас и 7 из 8 млрд людей на планете создать альтернативную систему [поставок энергоресурсов]", - сказал он. "Мы увидели, что очень сильно увеличились логистические маршруты. Та система транспортировки нефти, которая существовала последние 50-60 лет, была сломлена. Рыночная экономика всегда стремится к наиболее эффективному состоянию, минимизации логистических издержек, маршрутов", - добавил Сорокин. По его словам, Минэнерго считает временной ситуацию с высокой стоимостью доставки российской нефти на внешние рынки, стоимость фрахта будет меняться в сторону снижения.

Translation: NIZHNEVARTOVSK (KhMAO), March 22. /TASS/. Russia intends to create its own, alternative energy supply system, which will be beneficial to almost the entire population in the world. This was stated by First Deputy Minister of Energy of Russia Pavel Sorokin during the plenary discussion "Image of the Future: Forecasts and Opportunities for the Fuel and Energy Complex" of the 6th International Youth Scientific and Practical Forum "Oil Capital". "We both sold and will continue to sell [energy resources] and remain reliable partners. To live - everyone will live. But this is a great chance for us and 7 out of 8 billion people on the planet to create an alternative system [of energy supplies]," he said. "We have seen that logistics routes have increased greatly. The oil transportation system that has existed for the past 50-60 years has been broken. The market economy always strives for the most efficient state, minimizing logistics costs, routes," Sorokin added. According to him, the Ministry of Energy considers the situation with the high cost of delivering Russian oil to foreign markets to be temporary, the cost of freight will change downward.

In reality, however, this trend was only one of many trends on Russia's decoupling from the West, and now that the Power of Siberia-2 received a huge boost the FUD crowd from Honk-Kong's own South China Morning Post started to spin.

China, Russia gas-pipeline statements raise questions on Power of Siberia 2 progress

• Putin says agreement with China, Mongolia to build Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline is ‘practically’ finalised, as Russia looks to divert gas from Europe to Asia
• But analyst says such deals between Russia and China ‘complicate the ongoing China-US confrontations’ and raise geopolitical risks among major economies 

Let me explain who those "analysts" are--those are primarily boys and girls with degrees in economics from Western schools and who are desperate now observing not just decline, but ongoing collapse of the combined West and understanding that their (lack of) skills, education and careers become absolutely meaningless in the emerging world based on tangibles, REAL economic development and geopolitical trends which all those "analysts" cannot grasp, because they were taught, basically, a pseudo academic shit. It can be stated very clearly that most Western "geopolitical risks assessments" are worthless garbage detached form the reality. 

Now, where are we going from here? Simple, everything alternative from finances to energy. Remarkably, the more combined West protests and tries to sabotage it, the heavier the economic and geopolitical consequences for it are. A classic no win situation, zugzwang, Catch-22, or damned if you do, damned if you don't. This is what General Kellogg calls "ACME professionalism". With generals like this... I think many of those American generals learned how to pronounce words Strategy and Operations, but in reality they do not know what those words mean. I do not exaggerate. It is now about 7 out of 8 billion people who deserved and want a better and peaceful life.        

But It Can Continue...

 ... and it will, despite Clare Daly saying that it cannot. 

She needs to understand that all NATO top brass, all those three-four star generals, do not know what real war is. Yes, they are that incompetent. Secondly, most of them are compromised and are not so much military men as politicos protecting their careers, including by toeing "a party line" formulated by even more incompetent and even more corrupt and cowardly West's political top. As I am on record--the only thing they can do is PR. Now, some of them begin to feel that they fucked up royally and some may face down the road some serious legal, forget about moral, they long ago lost morals, issues. 

Here Larry explains a bit the issue. 

Those creeps never knew what they were getting themselves into. As I am on record--Petraeus, Keane or Kellog wouldn't be allowed to command a fucking regiment, forget about division, let alone army, in Russian Armed Forces--this is how delusional they are operationally and strategically. And whilst it is good that some voices of reason are present in European Parliament, it has to be clearly understood that those are lone ones. 

I have a good acquaintance, who also reads this blog, and he was a member of the board in one of the major, in fact legendary, European economic institution. When we spoke to each-other on many occasions last year, this acquaintance stated that Europe will have any chance of reforming itself only when it experiences a catastrophic social and economic collapse. Yes, those very average Europeans. This collapse is coming. But to demonstrate an appalling state of Western Civilization, here is the news:

A disagreement between Paris and Berlin over nuclear energy and combustion engine vehicle policies is casting a shadow over an upcoming EU summit on Ukraine, Politico reported on Monday, citing multiple sources. According to the outlet, the impasse between Germany and France is feared to disrupt a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday, in which the officials are set to discuss economic competitiveness, as well as ammunition deliveries to Kiev. The latest row was initially ignited after Germany tried to mount a late blockade of the EU’s zero-emissions legislation, which includes a ban on the sale of polluting cars and vans by 2035. Berlin wants a clearly-worded exemption for e-fuels – a synthetic alternative to fossil fuels that is beneficial to the German automotive industry. However, Berlin’s demand has already been rejected twice before in the European Parliament, as member states refused to back a binding loophole for such fuels last year.

Europe--this is YOU. You chose them. And you are beginning to pay the price. Here, meanwhile, are true American and British heroes. 

It long ago became more than just geopolitical clash--it became indeed a proverbial fight of good against evil. 

"I only wished to say that ideas that have great results are always simple ones. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. Now that’s simple enough."

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.