Have been up since 3:30 AM today (had to drive friend to airport). Tired. Go at it.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Thursday, April 3, 2025
About This Cavoli Statement ...
... which everyone discusses. It is for Senate Armed Services Committee, and it is filled with 404 propaganda.
Russian forces on the frontlines of Ukraine are now at over 600,000, the highest level over the course of the war and almost double the size of the initial invasion force. Russia is not just reconstituting service members but is also replacing combat vehicles and munitions at an unprecedented pace. Russian ground forces in Ukraine have lost an estimated 3,000 tanks, 9,000 armored vehicles, 13,000 artillery systems, and over 400 air defense systems in the past year—but is on pace to replace them all. Russia has expanded its industrial production, opened new manufacturing facilities, and converted commercial production lines for military purposes. As a result, the Russian defense industrial base is expected to roll out 1,500 tanks, 3,000 armored vehicles, and 200 Iskander ballistic and cruise missiles this year. (Comparatively, the United States only produces about 135 tanks per year and no longer produces new Bradley Fighting Vehicles.) Additionally, we anticipate Russia to produce 250,000 artillery shells per month, which puts it on track to build a stockpile three times greater than the United States and Europe combined. Not all of Russia’s military capability has been degraded by the war.
I have news for those who read this. There was never any doubt that Russia outproduces a whole NATO combined, but Russia didn't lose "400 air defense systems" or "13, 000" artillery pieces. Combat math simply doesn't support these fictitious numbers. Russia surely did lose some AD systems and a number of artillery pieces, but those numbers are nowhere near this fantasy. Well, at least he admitted the other part. Numbers of tanks and armored vehicles are also extremely exaggerated. Especially when considering COFM.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Nothing New Here ...
... and it was discussed on so many occasions.
The US military would be unprepared for a protracted war with China due to shortcomings in the defense industrial base, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said. In his written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday – part of the confirmation process – retired Lieutenant General John Caine stressed that rivalry with China remains one of the most pressing issues facing the US. ”The threat posed by China to American interests in the Indo-Pacific is real and growing. The US needs to work with allies and partners to deter China’s aggression in this region,” he claimed.
Let's rewind a little bit. It is 1971 and Nixon jumps off the ship of the Gold Standard. Behind all "investment" and monetary psychobabble hiding the reason for that was, of course, Vietnam War, which towers as the main reason for Nixon Shock. The US of 1971 industry-wise would make modern US look like a third world country but even then, the US couldn't sustain it.
John Caine is correct, however, when pointing this out:
He added, however, that Beijing “still has deficiencies in commander proficiency, long-distance logistics, urban warfare, and… modern warfare experience writ large.”
What he forgets to say is that the US also lacks such an experience and in terms of combined arms of scale the US, largely self-proclaimed, "lead" is gone forever--continental warfare imposes a completely different set of conditions and requirements on the nation-state with which the US is simply unfamiliar. Not to be outdone, however, are these guys:
FIRST ON FOX: A group of influential conservatives and lawmakers is warning the Trump administration that the U.S. does not have the tactical nuclear weapons to fight China if war breaks out in the Indo-Pacific. A 13-minute video obtained by Fox News Digital and set for release Thursday by the Heritage Foundation argues the U.S. nuclear arsenal is outdated, with the newest weapons nearly 40 years old – about as modern as a grandpa's vintage Corvette. Military experts across Washington have begun gaming out the potential scenario if China invades Taiwan and the U.S. comes to the island democracy’s aid.
They are also not wrong when stating that the US nuclear arsenal is outdated. No, these are not physical nukes which are outdated, these are delivery systems which are nothing more than classic ballistic ICBMs which are facing their greatest challenge of preserving the credibility against the background of (primarily Russian) fast developing anti-ballistic and anti-hypersonic capabilities. But whenever the term "democracy" is used--I laugh. So, popcorn, popcorn ... bring it on))
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
At First I Thought It Was A Joke ...
But then, it was not:
Сербская армия самостоятельно освободила свою страну от немецко-фашистских захватчиков во время Второй мировой войны, помощь Красной Армии была ограничена, заявил президент Сербии Александр Вучич в интервью блогеру Марио Науфалу. «Да, мы получили помощь Красной Армии, но в основном это была наша армия. Помощь была ограниченная», — сказал он.
Translation: The Serbian army liberated its country from Nazi invaders on its own during World War II, and the Red Army's assistance was limited, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in an interview with blogger Mario Naufal. "Yes, we received help from the Red Army, but it was mostly our army. The assistance was limited," he said.
Well, Fyodor Ivanovich Tolbukhin and 300, 000 of his men of the Third Ukrainian Front, including legendary 4th Armored Stalingrad Guards Corps and 17th Air Army, are spinning today in their graves. Yes, the guys who conducted Belgrade Strategic Offensive Operation. But ... but ... let's rewind back to 1877 ...
P.S. "Serbian Army" then was called People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia.
When You See This ...
... thing--don't despair)) This is merely a representation of the kill chain, as well as the decision (Probabilities) tree.
All this is in the foundation of C2 (Command and Control), and I explain why it is easy to spot weakness on the battlefield operationally.
The Best Comment ...
... of the day)) She looks like what I imagined she would look like.
So, this is the face of the so called "left", but in reality, of the sheer madness which was imposed on the West by ... the West itself.
Monday, March 31, 2025
Why They Are Not Bright.
The US is a fractured nation (or using Huntington's lingo--a torn one) and against the background of a precipitous (always not very high) decline of cognitive abilities of the best of the best the US "elite machine" produces, be them politicians or military, one has to question motives of those so called "elites". Going back to this NYT piece (of shit), Larry did a good write up about it yesterday:
I can summarize the massive story in one sentence — Ukraine would have destroyed the weak, incompetent Russians if only the Ukrainian generals had followed the guidance from the US military. If you’re looking for a signal that the war in Ukraine is on its last legs, this article is it. This is a ridiculous attempt to burnish the image of the Pentagon and US European Command as strategic and tactical geniuses who could have beaten the Russians if only those damn Ukrainians had followed their advice.
But here is the critical point which is very interesting for Russian General Staff and military academies where, now confirmed by the NYT, intellectual impotence of Pentagon will be studied in astonishment for years to come. Here is this phrase.
One European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said.
Let me translate it to you: using one of many definitions (all of them very similar) we define the Kill Chain as: kill chain is the ability of an organization to rapidly and accurately execute all the steps from locating to killing an enemy target. It represents the essential contest in modern warfare. In other words, cretins from NYT confirmed what Russians knew all along--the US was in full command and control of VSU top-bottom. Well, apart from the moral aspect of the story that the US military excelled primarily in attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure, the conclusion is not only warranted but inescapable--US military knows very little about modern warfare, especially in the C2 (Command and Control) field where even modern Comms, Computers and ISR are no match to a much more experienced and technologically advanced opponent with an immense advantage in kinetic means.
For those who still do not understand the depth of this loss for--now we can openly state it--the US Armed Forces in 404, I want to remind you one thing which has been repeated by Russian military non-stop--Russian Army never lost operational initiative. American generals, however, have been looking, as it is now a pattern, in all the wrong places for planning and, as is always the case, descended into the tactical minutiae and PR-based assessment of the battlefield. The fact that they also bought 404's propaganda about casualties also tells everything you need to know about Pentagon. By the time they started to suspect something--it was too late. And then there was a "counter-offensive". It was planned by the US generals and, naturally, it ended in catastrophe for them and those unlucky 160,000+ VSU who have never reached even the first line of Russian defense and have been slaughtered in the forefield (security zone). This is what I wrote about this disaster for NATO and, naturally, strategic victory for Russia.
The most stunning factor in this whole situation was the fact of not classifying the so-called “counter-offensive” by AFU, while classifying the assessment which, correctly, forecasted some serious issues for the AFU. This assessment was definitely driven by a common military sense and basic understanding of what is called the Correlation of Forces and Means (COFM). Of course, the problem for the West was that the Russian side was preparing to turn those “shortfalls” into unmitigated military catastrophe for Ukraine and the Biden Administration, who had pushed for this amateurishly planned adventure. But even this “classified” assessment—a marked departure from the Biden administration’s public pronouncements about the vitality of Ukraine’s army—should have given the planners in the White House, State Department and Pentagon a serious pause. But it didn’t. The reason it didn’t lies in both the U.S. military’s lack of expertise with real modern warfare of the 21st century across the board and in a precipitous intellectual decline of the fully “echo-chambered” Washington elite, whose insulation from reality and lack of serious competencies in any matters of military strategies and national governance reached grotesque and deadly proportions for both the remnants of Ukraine and for the United States itself.
I can go off on a tangent of sorts here (again) while describing a dramatic cultural and institutional difference between American "way" of war and Russian one, but that is just the part of problem--the problem is in incompetence of American elites who are the products of a completely confabulated history and of fragile insecure view of themselves. The US is not the "finest fighting force" and it never has been and because of that, as Michael Brenner astutely noted:
Americanism provides a Unified Field Theory of self-identity, collective enterprise, and the Republic’s enduring meaning. When one element is felt to be in jeopardy, the integrity of the whole edifice becomes vulnerable. In the past, American mythology energized the country in ways that helped it to thrive. Today, it is a dangerous hallucinogen that traps Americans in a time warp more and more distant from reality. There is a muted reflection of this strained condition in the evident truth that Americans have become an insecure people. They grow increasingly anxious about who they are, what they are worth and what life will be like down the road.
By getting involved with 404 and trying to destroy Russia, the US and its chihuahuas from European NATO collapsed this edifice and exposed a rather unimpressive structure which convinced itself that it can fight and win a conventional war against military superpower of Russia which has been such a superpower longer than the United States existed as a nation. A few good (and competent) men cannot fix the mechanism which was broken for decades and the SMO confirmed it fully. NYT, however, gave us an ample confirmation that the US ran the whole damn thing from military standpoint, and this is a critical admission. Or as they say on the street--FAFO. I thank you, NYT, for not being bright and exposing, accidently, the truth.
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Well, Too Bad.
I can sense the frustration, but Trump needs to understand the game--warfare, real one, not some BS from Afghanistan and Iraq.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” when Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leadership, adding that the comments were “not going in the right location.” Agence France-Presse reported that Putin on Friday called for a transitional government to be put in place in Ukraine, which could effectively push out Zelenskyy. “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump said in an early-morning phone call with NBC News on Sunday.
Well, I get his frustration, but he seems to not understand the reality still, despite obviously better (sort of) intel he begins to get. Nobody in Russia cares who Trump assigns the blame to--Russians have a very good understanding of the workings of American politics and military. That is why most of the comments in Russian social media as a reaction to NYT piece about US involvement in 404 was met with laughter and even mockery. Trump's time on SMO is running out--he, the US that is, in no position to dictate conditions, Russians are.
Trump now begins to come across as this "tough guy" who never fought in real war with real enemies.
He rages inside, because Russia stood against combined West and defeated it. He also doesn't understand the real war, because his "experiences" simply do not fit into the 21st century warfare but he cannot accept reality--this is precisely why the US loses its wars and then champions pseudo-military "excuses" for not winning those. Trump still has some lucid moments, but it seems his nature takes over him, despite the fact that on personal level I applaud some of his actions on the domestic front.
Speaking of history. 211 years ago, Russian Army entered Paris:
Trying To Run ...
... interference by whitewashing a catastrophic defeat and trying to blame it on VSU and, maybe, Trump. US military incompetence is on parade. But we knew it all along.
I Guess They Will Have To ...
... make ships and tanks out of papier mache and ... capitalization of banks.
Well, what can I say ...
British Steel will consult on the closure of its two blast furnaces, steelmaking operations and a reduction of steel rolling mill capacity in Scunthorpe. British Steel will consult on the closure of its two blast furnaces, steelmaking operations and a reduction of steel rolling mill capacity in Scunthorpe. Since 2020 the shareholder of British Steel, Jingye, has invested more than £1.2bn to maintain operations amid ongoing production instability and significant financial losses of around £700k a day.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
Saturday, March 29, 2025
Now, This Is What To Expect ...
... especially for Europe which begins to be taught some lessons about its position. Not a very good position, considering the number of PTSD and outright nutjob cases they imported from 404 and serious weaponry which is streaming to Europe (and not only--Mexican cartels anyone?). Kudos to British tourist.
Dutch police have revealed the identity of the suspect who seriously injured five people with knives in Amsterdam. Local media reported on Friday, citing security sources, that the suspect is 30-year-old Ukraininan citizen Roman D. He is originally from Donetsk Region – a former part of Ukraine that voted to join Russia in 2022. On Thursday, five people were stabbed in the Dutch capital, when a man armed with several knives attacked passers-by in the historic city center. The suspect was stopped by an unnamed tourist, reportedly from the UK, who chased the man and restrained him.
Now, those who are sensitive--a warning.
This is Olgovka village, and this is how Kursk borderlands look like nowadays. Here is also a proper use of the legendary guitar duel from Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Also, not for sensitive people. These are the realities of modern war, and this is just a small part of it--tactical and operational pictures are much more intricate and complex. Russian forces develop success in Sumy region.
Friday, March 28, 2025
And Again ...
... for those who still do not get nuances. Here is official from Russian Foreign Ministry. Zakharova verbatim.
Translation: Question: According to the Russian Defense Ministry, on the morning of March 28, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a double strike using, according to preliminary information, HIMARS rockets at the Sudzha GIS. How could you comment on this?
Answer: I am aware of this report. At the same time, there is reason to believe that the guidance and targeting of the strikes was carried out through French satellite systems, and the input of coordinates and launch were carried out by British specialists. The command was given from London. A week ago, on March 21, this facility was already subjected to a terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime, which ordered its militants to blow it up during its retreat from the Kursk region. Now, after the rocket fire, the Sudzha GIS has been practically destroyed.
Immediately after that loser Guterres comes up and states that 404 government is "legitimate". Chihuahuas decided to simulate the game. Too late.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
A Superb Review ...
... from Larry.
Following up on my critique of the current US intelligence community’s conclusions in the current Annual Threat Assessment regarding Russian losses, this is not an aberration or departure from standard operating procedure. Instead, it is the natural result of political pressure and bureaucratic cowardice preventing analysts from telling hard truths to political masters.
These are professional's insights.
In Russian, But Important.
First fully domestic Russia-Belarus 350 nm lithography machine already works in Moscow.
130 nm is next. Rumor has it--next year.Only Sublime Would Doubt It.
This is also about hysterical posts elsewhere on this blog, that Russia talking (mind you--just talking with the US) about hypothetical relaunch of NS-2 somehow will contribute to "rearming" EU. It will not, due to the fact that EU, even if to imagine that NS-2 (2 out 4 pipes) will be relaunched, will continue to buy gas at a market price--that is very expensive. And here we are.
Minister of Defense Boris Pistorious shut down suggestions that Germany could reverse its decision to buy the F-35A Lightning II following recent tensions between Europe and the United States. Speaking to German media, Pistorious said “The United States is and will remain an important ally for us – also for the Bundeswehr’s equipment. This applies not only to the F-35, but also to our other projects”. Proposals to cancel Germany’s order for 35 F-35A Lightning IIs have come while the current defense and security relationship between the United States and Europe faces criticism from high ranking members of the new U.S. administration.
EU cannot "rearm" itself for the real war. It is still stuck in the warfare of the 1990s with capabilities, or rather lack thereof, matching those 1990s views. So, chihuahuas will continue to buy expensive and unreliable US weapons and they still don't have capability to move into the XXI century, period.
Meanwhile, brand new German coal power plant (6 years) is demolished a few days back.
Germany is over.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
For Each Measure ...
... there is always a counter.
As per this--Russian children, executed by VSU and its NATO accomplices. Their blood is also on Washington.
That is why no Westerner from establishment media should be viewed as completely human.
It Merely Underscores ...
... how far the US is removed from the realities of warfare and that even in assessments for public viewing the US intel and military still cannot grasp scales and numbers.
U.S. intelligence agencies sounded the alarm on Ukraine’s dwindling battlefield prospects against Russia in an annual report released Tuesday. The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community — released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in conjunction with top officials’ testimony at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing — warns that Moscow has “seized the upper hand” in the war over the past year and “is on a path to accrue greater leverage” to force favorable terms in its negotiations with Ukraine and the West. Intelligence agencies see continued Russian military resilience despite heavy battlefield losses — replenishing personnel and ratcheting up its industrial capacity.
Russian losses, while significant, are not "heavy" for such an operation. Its scale is beyond the grasp of Pentagon and, in general, American war experiences since Korea. You can read the whole thing by following this link. But as I write non-stop, American combat "thermostat" as far as combat losses go is set extremely low and shows an extreme sensitivity to own losses which has been pointed out on many occasions even by the most atrocious warmongers such as late fanatic Richard Pipes:
The United States is accustomed to waging wars of its own choosing and on its own terms. It lacks an ingrained strategic tradition. In the words of one historian, Americans tend to view both military strategy and the armed forces as something to be “employed intermittently to destroy occasional and intermittent threats posed by hostile powers.” This approach to warfare has had a number of consequences. The United States wants to win its wars quickly and with the smallest losses in American lives. It is disinclined, therefore, to act on protracted and indirect strategies, or to engage in limited wars and wars of attrition. Once it resorts to arms, it prefers to mobilize the great might of its industrial plant to produce vast quantities of the means of destruction with which in the shortest possible time to undermine the enemy’s will and ability to continue the struggle. Extreme reliance on technological superiority, characteristic of U.S. warfare, is the obverse side of America’s extreme sensitivity to its own casualties; so is indifference to the casualties inflicted on the enemy.
For the military and "academic" community of the country which was busy rewriting the history of the WW II starting from 1945, it remains inconceivable that fighting REAL war is not a Desert Storm Operation; and that no matter how court "historians" in the US (and Europe) try to rewrite the history, objective laws of warfare are unchanged and represent non-linear (quadratic) dynamics of the losses of warring sides and Russia has a decisive upper hand and much lighter losses, somewhere between 1 to 10-12, while NATO force, which VSU and its appendices of NATO personnel managed to kill in excess of 1.2 millions of own personnel, while NATO's operational planning was exposed for what it is--a blind following of the templates without understanding a real Correlation of Forces and Means (COFM).
So, repeating beaten to death cliches changes nothing, while the US has to accept its highly diminished role, always grossly exaggerated, as a land power and stop referring to Iraq campaigns as a standard in war fighting--they are not and never were. As even Stephen Biddle had to point out:
The startingly low loss rate has had important policy consequences. In fact, it made the Gulf War a shaping event for defense planning today in much the way the painful defeat in Vietnam came to shape U.S. planning in 1980s. U.S. forces are now sized and structured against a Gulf War yardstick.
This is not a yardstick; it is delusion and fantasies of people who, by the virtue of several favorable factors, geography included, missed completely all the realities of continental warfare and in doing so lost the arms race, while developing PR and media skills. Meanwhile, this is the girl, a REAL military correspondent, who Russia lost today. Channel One, Anna Prokofieva. Killed by 404 drone.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
To Those Who Still Read Press.
Here is Russian Foreign Ministry response to one of the many a stream of media BS in the West who go apoplectic about Russian-American consultations.
Translation: In connection with the speculations circulated in the media on the possible transfer of the Zaporizhzhya NPP (ZNPP) to Ukraine or the establishment of some kind of "joint control" over the station with Ukraine, the United States or representatives of international organizations, we would like to clarify the following. ZNPP is a Russian nuclear facility. Following the referendums held at the end of September 2022, the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions became part of the Russian Federation as full-fledged subjects. On October 5, 2022, Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 711 "On the specifics of legal regulation in the field of atomic energy use in the territory of the Zaporizhzhya region" was signed, securing the status of ZNPP as a facility under Russian jurisdiction. The return of the station to the Russian nuclear industry is a long-standing fact that the international community can only acknowledge.
The transfer of ZNPP itself or control over it to Ukraine or any other country is impossible. All the station's employees are citizens of the Russian Federation, their lives cannot be played with, especially considering the atrocities that Ukrainians have committed and continue to commit on the territory of our country. Joint operation of the Zaporizhzhya NPP with any state is also unacceptable. There are no such precedents in world practice. In this case, for example, it is impossible to properly ensure nuclear and physical nuclear safety, or regulate issues of civil liability for nuclear damage. An important aspect is that close cooperation between NATO intelligence services with Ukraine, which have impressive sabotage potential, makes it impossible to even temporarily admit representatives of these states to the Zaporizhzhya NPP.
The idea of any international organizations participating in the operation of the station also seems absurd, since neither the mandate nor the competence of any of them allows them to participate in the operation of nuclear facilities. In accordance with international law, including key specialized conventions, the states themselves bear the primary responsibility for ensuring nuclear and physical nuclear safety on their territory. In the case of ZNPP, it is the Russian Federation, and nothing else.
This is for those who still buy into media hype, much of it generated by the obvious divergence of European (a euphemism for globalist fascist governments) "interests" and the US which is looking for the offramp. We are only at the starting point. Lavrov's characterization of Europe as Nazi enablers is spot on.
Monday, March 24, 2025
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