In Related News...

 ... BS primarily occupies the space in the brains of NATO military "leaders" where such things as sound military education, experience, logic and Sun Tzu's triviality about "knowing thy enemy et al" should reside instead of this substance of bovine excrement, but who am I kidding.  

WIESBADEN, Germany (Reuters) - NATO will not be cowed by Russian threats but keep up its strong support of Kyiv, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on his first visit to the alliance's Ukraine mission in Wiesbaden, set to take over the coordination of military aid from the U.S. "The message (to Russian President Vladimir Putin) is that we will continue, that we will do what's necessary to make sure that he will not get his way, that Ukraine will prevail," he told Reuters in a joint interview with German public radio Hessischer Rundfunk on Monday. Rutte spoke at Clay Barracks, the U.S. base hosting the headquarters of the new mission, dubbed NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), which will gradually assume the coordination of Western military aid to Kyiv.

Yes, it is always a good idea of creating the commission on managing the previous commissions which have been created for the study of the issue on creating more commissions. 

Speaking in one of 12 green tents that house NSATU as it is built up, Rutte earlier on Monday addressed allied troops from more than a dozen nations already working on the mission that will, at a later stage, move into a nearby hangar and be complemented by Ukrainian troops. NSATU is expected to have a total strength of some 700 personnel, including troops stationed at NATO's military headquarters SHAPE in Belgium and at logistics hubs in Poland and Romania. The Wiesbaden base is also home to the U.S. unit in charge of long-range missiles that Washington will deploy to Germany temporarily from 2026, to counter what both countries describe as a threat posed by Russian missiles stationed as close as Kaliningrad, some 500 kilometres (311 miles) from Berlin.

Say what? How could they have allowed this thing to happen in the midst of... only 12 green tents. There should have been at least... three times more green tents. 

How can anyone plan aid and NATO operations for VSU in only 12 green tents is beyond me, plus--what kind of a joke is this? Why green tents? They should be pink or, at least, of some sort of light reddish hue. 

But, of course, the reality of the resources and scales is not known to such people as Rutte (look up his bio--the guy's background is... fabulous) who from the day one has a firm hand of Washington up his ass to assure that he doesn't deviate from the party line while NATO (a euphemism for the USA) is in desperate search of a solution to this conundrum. After all, in accordance to Pentagon and State Department "planning" Putin's "regime" was supposed to collapse some time late 2022--early 2023. Well, it is the end of 2024, and apart from demolishing best ever American proxy, the news are really bad. Like this:

МОСКВА, 15 окт — РИА Новости. Рубль по итогам августа впервые стал главной валютой для расчетов за импорт товаров и услуг из стран азиатского региона, следует из анализа РИА Новости данных Банка России. В конце лета его доля в платежах достигла рекордных 43,6% против 42,9% месяцем ранее. При этом удельный вес рубля превысил валюты дружественных стран в августе на 0,6 процентного пункта, что позволило российской валюте стать основной для оплаты поставок. Рекордную долю рубль также занял в расчетах за африканские товары, увеличившись на 0,5 процентного пункта — до 69,9%, а также за поставки из Океании, где им оплачивается 84,3%. В целом в августе российская валюта стала использоваться в импорте немного меньше — 44,7% против 45,9% в июле. Одновременно сократилась и доля дружественных валют — сразу на 2,2 процентного пункта, до 31,2%. А вот главными бенефициарами стали "токсичные" валюты, в которых стали оплачивать 24,1% российского импорта против 20,7% месяцем ранее. Главным образом это произошло за счет увеличения доли недружественных валют в расчетах за импорт из Азии (+1,1 процентного пункта, 13,3%), Америки (+8,3 процентного пункта, 71%) и Европы (+6,9 процентного пункта, 49,3%).

Translation: MOSCOW, 15 Oct — RIA Novosti. The ruble became the main currency for payments for imported goods and services from Asian countries for the first time in August, according to RIA Novosti’s analysis of Bank of Russia data. At the end of summer, its share in payments reached a record 43.6% against 42.9% a month earlier. At the same time, the share of the ruble exceeded the currencies of friendly countries in August by 0.6 percentage points, which allowed the Russian currency to become the main one for paying for deliveries. The ruble also took a record share in payments for African goods, increasing by 0.5 percentage points to 69.9%, as well as for deliveries from Oceania, where it is used to pay for 84.3%. Overall, the Russian currency began to be used slightly less in imports in August — 44.7% against 45.9% in July. At the same time, the share of friendly currencies also decreased — by 2.2 percentage points, to 31.2%. But the main beneficiaries were "toxic" currencies, which began to pay for 24.1% of Russian imports, compared to 20.7% a month earlier. This was mainly due to the increase in the share of unfriendly currencies in payments for imports from Asia (+1.1 percentage points, 13.3%), America (+8.3 percentage points, 71%) and Europe (+6.9 percentage points, 49.3%).

These numbers (with minor fluctuations) are the material manifestation of what real military power buys one, not just sovereignty but the ability to trade with your partners in whatever currency and on whatever conditions one wants. And Kazan is coming...  

And That Is Important Exactly How?

Desperate times--desperate headlines. Morons from WSJ want to show how tough and powerful the US is. 

Oil Tanker Is Stopped by U.S. in Transit From Russian Port to New Orleans. Ship carrying oil products was chartered by commodities trader Vitol, which said it complied with sanctions against Russia.  

OK, here is the full story from Reuters: 

June 28 (Reuters) - U.S. authorities have stopped an oil tanker traveling from Russia to New Orleans to check whether it is Russian in origin, a source confirmed to Reuters. The Vitol-chartered vessel was shipping intermediate oil products including vacuum gasoil and fuel oil from Russia's Taman port to New Orleans last week, according to a trading source and shipping data. The products were due to reach a Valero refinery in the New Orleans region, two sources said.

LOL. So, they decided to check it. Sure. That is what customs do. But yes, same as Russia's "default", which is nothing but a PR trick by the financial propaganda outlets in the West, it changes absolutely nothing, since:

1. Russia serviced the debt in Rubles;

2. People have access to those money. 

But Russia doesn't care about all those fraudsters from Moody's, IMF or World Bank. In fact, Russia is having an issue--too much cash, too strong Ruble. 

So, default you say, eh? Russians don't care about US Dollar, they use Ruble, which is supported by huge resources, huge economy and gold. And, of course, rests on a massive fire power of Russian Armed Forces. It becomes increasingly clear that Western ruling "elite" has no idea what real economy is, let alone how it operates. The only thing they know and can do is virtue signalling and PR.

Inevitability Or As They Say...

in the Family Guy, "having sex with Quagmire is inevitable like the fat guy ordering the dessert when everyone else wants to leave." (c) I don't like Seth MacFarlane's politics, but one cannot deny his talent in managing to position a quirky cartoon show as a funny and irreverent encyclopedia of American life for the last 20+ years. I love Family Guy, and same as I always loved Married With Children (remember, when America was fun and funny?), I also can quote many episodes of the life of Griffin family. So, about inevitability, if anyone asks:

The EU has put an end to the lingering ambiguity surrounding how EU members can pay for Russian gas without violating sanctions. Russia has demanded that countries pay for its gas in rubles, although European governments have struggled to find a way to oblige Russia while not running afoul of sanctions. Further complicating matters—until now—was the EU’s lack of clarification on whether such an arrangement would violate the current sanctions.On Friday, Germany and Italy both told companies that they could open up rubles accounts in order to purchase Russian gas, in line with President Vladimir Putin’s request.

You see, that was inevitable. So the piece continues:

As of last week, 20 companies in the EU had opened accounts at Gazprombank, while another 14 had asked for the necessary paperwork to open up accounts. Germany’s VNG had already opened up an account with Gazprombank. With the EU now clarifying that such an arrangement would not violate sanctions, additional companies are expected to file paperwork to open up ruble accounts. But so far, Bulgaria, Finland, and Poland have refused to pay with ruble accounts. Russia has already cut off supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, and Russia said it would cut off gas supplies to Finland on Saturday.

You see, it all works out for those who are not ready to commit suicide yet. Those who are hellbent on killing themselves or, at least, shooting off both of their lower extremities--who is Russia to prevent them from doing so. But all of it is, as is sex with Quagmire, inevitable and Mikhail Mishustin speaking today (in Russian) underscored that West's domination is mostly an illusion, while dedollarization is not. Same as Ruble becoming a major currency in trade with tangibles. You know, gas, oil, actual technology, metals, food, fertilizers and other things without which there is no modern civilization. You didn't think that financial speculations and stock trade are the foundation of modern civilization, did you?  

Meanwhile, those backward Rooskies just launched yet another military satellite. 

I wonder what is it for? Nah, I am screwing with you--this is most likely yet another recon and targeting asset which comes in handy when demolishing the remnants of VSU and controlling NATO's actions around 404.

Larry Johnson Continues Reviewing Of Jacques Baud's Thinking.

Larry elaborates, by means of Baud's thoughts, on the issue of this famous Ukie myth that they were fighting Russian Army for the last 8 years. 

One of the myths readily swallowed in the west is that Russian troops entered Ukraine in 2014 and fought alongside the people in the Donbass who were fighting the Ukrainian Army. Baud says this is not true. 

It is an important point, and this myth was sold to psychotic Ukie public and was amplified many fold by Western propaganda. No doubt, Russia did offer some assistance to LDNR in 2014-2015. But as VSU and many ignoramuses in the West who "planned" VSU assault in March of 2022 on LDNR, the assault which was forestalled by Russian Army SMO, the actual fighting with even numerically inferior Russian Army is a whole other story altogether. Only completely delusional people believe that BSU at this stage exists as well-organized and controlled force and not a collection of separate units with dwindling combat effectiveness. 

As Larry correctly notes:

Think about this for a minute–if the Ukrainian Army could not defeat the militias in the republics of Luhansk and Donetsk over the last 8 years, how in the world is that Army going to defeat the Russian Army? It is delusional.

It is delusional. And so are the West's "planners" who thought that they can impose a long and costly war on Russia. As a good friend of mine, Bonnie Faulkner sent to me today. LOL)) I can confirm: 

As you can see, Russia is dying especially dramatically today. On a lighter note. Russia opened a new bank for especially dense Europeans. You can transfer payments in this bank in any currency you want.

Just no complains about services rendered are allowed in this bank.

So, The Punishment Starts In Earnest.

You already read it, but let me reiterate: 

Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has accused Russia of using natural gas supplies as an “instrument of blackmail” following Gazprom's decision to halt exports to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday. Warsaw and Sofia failed to pay for Russian gas deliveries in April in rubles, Russia's state-owned energy corporation explained. In a statement released on Wednesday, von der Leyen claimed that the "announcement by Gazprom that it is unilaterally stopping delivery of gas to customers in Europe is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail." The Commission president went on to describe the decision as “unjustified and unacceptable,” adding that it further highlighted the “unreliability of Russia as a gas supplier.”

Oh my, so sanctions and stealing financial reserves are not "unjustified and unacceptable",  and so is arming Nazi regime in Kiev, but getting slapped into face for doing so is now bad? We all know what could be said here, but as I stated before Poland and Bulgaria will be made an example to show others that Europe did it to herself and if need be, Russia may stop practically all economic activity with Europe. But not everybody in brainwashed Europe wants to commit a suicide. Here is one, out of many, such an example.

Italian energy giant Eni SpA is preparing to open ruble accounts at Gazprombank JSC, allowing it to potentially comply with Russian demands that gas must be paid for in local currency, according to people familiar with the matter.The move is precautionary as Eni seeks more guidance from the Italian government and European authorities on whether -- and under what conditions -- it may use the accounts to buy Russian gas, the people said. 

Many other European companies already opened Ruble accounts and the "plan" (developed in kindergarten) is simple and transparent here--to buy additional volumes of gas and oil through Ruble account holders and then distribute those volumes inside EU, including to all those "proud" nations as Poland, Bulgaria and it seems Finland too. Sure. As I "warned", Hungary may become a very rich country soon. Even Austria may get on that lucrative scheme (in Russian), which, in the end, raises the question why Austrian Chancellor went to Moscow recently at all? He tried to threaten Putin and was shown to the door immediately. Putin is on record: the refusal to pay in Rubles is a breach of contract, period. 

 

I know how difficult it is for combined West to accept this reality, but resources-based Ruble is here now and not just de facto but de jure and is becoming a very hot commodity. As this, today's, exchange rate testifies to:

that there is a lot of butt-hurt and sore losing is going on in Western capitals and Yahoo News doesn't even bother anymore and simply places this kind of BS on  its front page:

Following the example of Dunkirk: the fighters of Mariupol ask for a procedure that even Hitler agreed to in 1940. 

Per military news, which, as we all know Russia is losing badly, and as UK toy soldiers inform us:

Ukraine retains control over the majority of its airspace, Britain’s defence ministry said, adding that Russia has failed to effectively destroy Ukraine’s air force or suppress its air defences.

I think Sandhurst has to be simply rebranded into the Circus Academy (there is a good one in Tucson, as an example) and just be done with all this military mambo-jumbo because the graduates of the Circus Academy (acrobatics department) can do as swell of a job discussing modern warfare as Britain's Defense Ministry. But then again, Pink Floyd should review and rewrite their  line from The Dark Side of The Moon's immortal track Time: "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English Way". English way is not quiet, it is bombastic, into your face, loud stream of utter hysterical bullshit which comes as a surprise for fans (like me) of the old English culture of the stiff upper lip, delightful humor, acute sense of self-deprecating and great intellect all of which long ago left the shores of the Foggy Albion and gave us this:

Boy, how far has Great Britain fallen. But then again, this is the choice British people made and that's the way the cookie crumbles. But if I would have been David Gilmour and Roger Waters I would have rewritten this line from Time. But that is just me, little insignificant me. Indeed, what do I know.  

Byron King Keeps An Eye On The Real Prize.

I know Byron would hate me saying this, but this Harvard-trained geologist and a former cadre US naval officer with massive experience, when he speaks resources and money--you can take it to the bank. Yes, he is that good. Here is Byron's latest on the geopolitics of the resources and gold-based Ruble.  

If you follow war news from Ukraine, no doubt you’ve seen gruesome images of wrecked tanks, burnt trucks, demolished personnel carriers and more.  Whether it’s Russian or Ukrainian equipment, almost everything you see is based on old Soviet-era designs such as T-72/64 tanks, or boxy BMP armored vehicles, etc. And when a rocket or shell hits those things the internal fuel and ammunition cooks off, and the machines burn like a torch. Bad design, obviously. But there’s another Russian weapon that was also recently deployed, and it appears to be working very well. You won’t find this system on the battlefield, though. In fact this Russian device is an economic weapon, and it may prove to be one of the most impactful implements of war in the modern age.  That is, the government of Russia recently pegged that country’s currency – the ruble – to gold. And right now, Russia’s central bank will buy gold at 5,000 rubles per gram through June 28. (After that, we’ll see.)

It is an excellent piece, which you can read by following the link in the quote and it explains the larger framework of what Russia is doing in Ukraine and why this operation has a massive global impact. I stress it all the time, including in my videos, keep your eyes on the main prize and this prize is a demolition of the remnants of Pax Americana and establishment of a truly new world order where nations will be free to trade how they want and could be treated fairly instead of being bombed into stone age--that is the main prize. This is why such a level of neocon and American "exceptionalists" rage, impotent rage. I highly recommend this article.

For "Financists".

I put quotation marks for a reason but make no mistake--I understand the importance of money for the economy, they are the blood of economy. But here is the problem about which I am on record for many years--unlike tangibles of agriculture, machines, healthcare and education, money, finances that is, whose properties can be described in purely materialistic terms, e.g. "this lathe is 50 years old but it still does the job and does it well", or "this dump-truck sucks, and is about to break, because...", you realistically cannot do this with money. 

Whether you like it or not, but money always carry with them a huge baggage of appropriated mythical qualities which are, unlike it was the personal case with Hank Hill who shed his tear for his truck by watching movie about the "death" of a tractor, money and their effect are omnipresent in human culture and are either extolled or condemned. In the end, Judas sold Jesus out for 30 silver coins, money that is, not for the new Ford truck or X-Box whatever the latest model. Remarkably, it is in the times of serious troubles when money lose all its allure and tangibles become more precious than money. What's the point of money when life-sustaining 125 grams of bread in Leningrad in 1942 could be received only by presenting the coupon (card--kartochka) and you couldn't buy it even if you wanted to no matter amount of money. What is the worth of money when your life depends on tourniquet and a vile of penicillin but you need it now to survive and no amount of money can buy you both, rather inexpensive items. 

You may say my examples are not precise, sure--I do not pretend to cover all bases. But for years I continue to drive this point home: money are just the medium of exchange and as such they are a derivative, however important, because they either have foundation of tangibles or they don't. Bretton Woods and US Dollar emerged primarily due to a fact that the United States in 1944 was the only country among world powers which not only hasn't been devastated by the War, but, in fact, benefited greatly from the war and in 1945 US economy was responsible for 50% of world's manufacturing in goods. Simple as that, anyone who tells you otherwise--they better get back to school and take a basic truthful course of the history of the 20th century. But now we live in the 21st. 

The US dollar is dealing with some of the same challenges that the British pound faced in the early 1900s, before it went into decline, Goldman Sachs said in a research note released on Thursday. The Wall Street bank warns that the greenback could lose its global dominance. According to the research seen by Business Insider, the move by Washington and its allies to freeze much of the Russian Central Bank’s foreign currency reserves has raised concerns that countries could start moving away from the dollar. Analysts explained the risk as due to worries about the power the dollar grants the US. The challenges that Goldman Sachs named include the fact that the US has a relatively small share of global trade compared to the dominance of its currency in global payments. Another issue is that the country has a deteriorating “net foreign asset position,” with rising foreign debts. In addition, the nation faces geopolitical problems, such as the conflict in Ukraine. The Goldman Sachs economists also said the nation’s large debts due to the fact that it is a big importer of goods could be a particular problem.

No shit, geniuses. How about you learn for warm-up what is the national power and how it is formed, before throwing our way all these contrived financial psychobabble and translate it into normal human language for the average Joe on the street, that the US economy is dwarfed by China's, that India, for all her problems is ticking up economically and will overtake the US fairly soon, that Russian economy is larger than that of Germany possibly two to three times, that the only thing which matters in the world is how large your economy is and what you produce and how you can defend your resources and sovereignty. And it goes without saying that the United States and its currency begin to fail across the board on pretty much any criteria. 

And then there is a power element to all this: Russia's massive resources are defended by one of the best armed forces in the world and massive arsenal of both nuclear and conventional high precision stand-off weapons. The United States cannot realistically fight conventionally Russia without sustaining catastrophic loses and immediately escalating to the nuclear threshold. Hence a hysteria about Ukraine and a complete butt-hurt propaganda about Russia "losing" in 404. This is not about caring about Ukraine, it is in full understanding that the US-established zero-sum game militarily with Russia is an excellent demonstration of how US proxies have their asses kicked starting from Georgia in 2008, to Syria and now, the last best hope of neocons, in Ukraine. Against the background of the US having zero prospects in Syria, having been pushed from Iraq and being utterly humiliated militarily in Afghanistan--the US doesn't seem that mighty and invincible, in fact the opposite is true and the world took note. 

The only chance for the US to fight China is on Indian Ocean's SLOCs, where the US Navy still holds the edge, primarily because of its submarine force, but China is building up and will eventually both mitigate her dependence on SLOCs and develop a serious naval deterrent. I don't want to even go into the discussion of the US pretending that it can fight PLA on the continent--this is not even funny. So, there you are. Now Borisov made an announcement that new State Order for Defense (GOZ) will include further robotization and deployment of direct energy weapons (in Russian). Always keep in mind this military aspect--it is what shapes geopolitics.  

Russia de facto introduced the gas Ruble, oil Ruble is coming because both Gazprom and Rosneft exited their EU subsidiaries and now have nothing to do with them--let Germany "nationalize" them (I guess one can always use additional office furniture and empty storage facilities) and now EU doesn't have contracts for gas and oil, since, before the latest events, contracts were signed with... and you have guessed it, EU subsidiaries of Gazprom and Rosneft which now haму no relation to either Gazprom or Rosneft. Good luck, EU, negotiating new contracts with Gazprom and Rosneft. I heard Gazprom Bank is a very good bank, and, most importantly, it is in Russia which precludes the repeat of West's standard procedure of robbing others, such as was freezing Russia's currency assets worth in excess of $300 billion. I know, for German "elites" who still view Russians as subhumans (old habits are difficult to get rid of) this whole thing is so humiliating but Europe made her choices. No contracts, no resources. What is the Euro worth now? And this is just the start. 

Now, we can go back to what I mentioned yesterday about Hungary and Slovakia becoming this proverbial window from EU in order to somehow satisfy its needs. Well, I am 100% sure both Hungary and Slovakia will be only happy to oblige because they have no problems with doing what is profitable for their countries and do not give a shit about ideology. This also explains the fact that Russians are in no hurry to return about 500 Boeing and Airbus planes leased by Russia's air lines and Russians are really stunned by sheer idiocy of the West which thinks that it can steal more than 300 billion USD from Russia and Russia will not retaliate. Those 500 commercial aircraft cover a large portion of $300 billion stolen from Russia and Russians will have no problem servicing them, because Russia has her own massive aerospace and adjacent to it industries capable to manufacture any spare parts. So, you see--physical economy is a very different game than currency speculation and stock trading, and even banking. It is what you have at hand which matters, not what you project. In the times of troubles this is absolutely true.

In related news, Russia continues to lose tremendously in 404, to such a degree that what's left of Marines 503 battalion of VSU (264 people) decided not to risk it anymore:

And surrendered. Good for them, LDNR will need all manpower it can get to restore Donbass cities and towns. Very many VSU POWs are already working clearing streets and rebuilding on the liberated territories. I mean those who were just grunts, Nazis have a very different fate for them. And this is the primer for Monday.

Ah, No...

POTUS made a declaration in Warsaw in his speech, he stated that Russian economy will shrink two fold (hm, what it reminds me about, I wonder, wink, wink) due to sanctions and then stated something altogether strange--he stated that Ruble to US Dollar going rate is: 200 to 1 (in Russian). Well... Here is March 26 (I mean today) and here is the reality:

It is the same ol' story about "15,000 KIAs", this time about economy--it is all desperation that makes them lie non-stop top-bottom. They all lie, because they feel the end coming. Pay also attention to the news (in the picture) mentioning Daily Mail, while NY Post also runs this headline:

Russia’s assertion that President Biden’s son Hunter was “financing . . . biological laboratories in Ukraine” was based in truth, according to e-mails reviewed by The Post.

Well, color me surprised... not. As I state non-stop, one has to even lie professionally, by "professionally" meaning making lies believable--they cannot do that in the West due to incompetents dominating corridors of power and influence from Brussels to Washington D.C. Plus, it is my assertion for a long time that most of them in those corridors do not even understand what real economy is and why, even if it would come this, you know 200 Rubles to 1 USD, it would make little difference because Russians want Rubles, not Dollars and Ruble today, unlike it was in the Soviet Union, buys you anything you want, because Russia IS NOT the country of deficit as Soviet Union was. 

So, basically POTUS lying openly to everyone merely proves the level of desperation in D.C. regarding this whole 404 business, after all, the US wanted to see Russia getting her nose bloodied there, but it turned out quite differently. Again, I reiterate, those who "planned" Iraq and Afghanistan, it goes logically, would have huge difficulties understanding and assessing what goes on in Ukraine today. I just have one advice--hire more lawyers and PR people, they will show you how to plan and assess military campaigns properly, or how to govern (wink, wink). 

Here are VSU soldiers surrendering (Nazis--are a different thing, they will be annihilated or taken prisoners and persecuted):

They will be taken care of (medical, food, bathing, rest) and after filtration will be either sent back home or given an option to form police forces in newly freed regions of Ukraine serving for new Military-Civilian Administrations. Per the amphibious ship Saratov, it is a loss and being a very old ship she will be struck down. The ammo compartment exploded due to hit by cassette warhead and it started a massive fire. The fire was dealt with, but this old ships is a goner.  

Mariupol: a drastic drop in intensity of Neo-Nazi response by heavy weapons is reported (they simply are running out of ammo) and the city sees law and order returning. As War Gonzo reports: the actual size of fanatical Nazi force in Mariupol was around 20,000, most of it is annihilated and two pockets which are left and shrinking both contain roughly of 3,000 each. This was yesterday. Judging by reports of very many Nazis trying to escape Mariupol even dressing in women's clothing Mariupol's operation is at its end and most what is left is smoking out a remainder of what was considered the best fighting force in 404, and de-mining the city. 

Here are some specimen taken POW by Kadyrov people. I think they might be Azov but I am not 100% sure.      

The first thing which is checked for belonging to Nazi groups are their tattoos and then indicators of carrying and using small arms. Then FSB and LDNR Security people take it from there. In Russia, meanwhile, the idea of return to death penalty is now being circulated on the level of State Duma. I think it is about time. Macron meanwhile talks about introduction of coupons for the right to buy groceries in France (Oh, boy, USSR of late 1980s comes to mind) and after watching yesterday people in one of the French grocery stores fighting for vegetable oil, yep, seems like this is coming. Don't tell me that I didn't warn about it. Here is you primer for the weekend. 

This Is How Real Geopolitics Works.

Here are today's quotes for oil. 

For people even remotely acquainted with energy issues and Cold War 2.0 (I suck at the former and have a clue on the latter) it shouldn't be a surprise to recall that Russia, a producer of Urals brand of crude, has (and had for a long time) her budget calculated with the base price of barrel of her crude of around $40. A year ago, ever-wrong Bloomberg--so, you see my conundrum here, it is near to impossible to find competent and objective observers of Russia in the US, so I have to get whatever I can--noted when reporting on Russia's balanced budget: 

So far this year, the figure was actually under $42 as the government raised taxes but was slow to release planned spending, according to Kirill Tremasov, a former Economics Ministry official and now director of analysis at Loko-Invest in Moscow. For the first seven months of the year, the government reported a surplus of 3.4% of gross domestic product, double the full-year target.

That was August 2019. Something tells me that these were not sanctions Putin was preparing Russia for--Russia lives under sanctions non-stop pretty much all her modern history, so there was very little strategic change in the way sanctions apply--slightly more, slightly less, who cares. My point is completely different here--feel free to browse my writing in this blog this year leading and during this whole oil prices snafu. As was stated--Russia did anticipate an implosion of oil prices and was ready for it way-way before the shit hit the fan, and that means Covid-19 too. And that, once one sees Russia de facto reaching today her very comfortable crude prices, while keeping US shale oil, and Saudis, under her thumb, tells about, pardon my pathos here, superb strategic planning and forecasting at Russia's top political level. 

Of course, strategic planning is like that Electronic Countermeasure Thingy--that is if you have enough power to do so (hint: nobody has)--you can drown in noise pretty much a whole frequency spectrum in which combat electronics worked, works or will work. That will be not only modern iteration of Lope De Vega's (or if one wishes ancient Greek's fable) famous play of The Dog in the Manger, where one doesn't use whatever is at his disposal but also doesn't allow this whatever to be used by others. It is stupid, it is extremely energy consuming and in the end you suppress your own capabilities. But, of course, there is another way and this one goes way beyond Electronic Warfare, where modern ECM and ECCM systems detect, identify and counter almost instantaneously any kind of threat in a narrow frequency band. This applies to pretty much everything in life and is known, of course, as OODA loop. Ah those Observe and Orient truisms, when Colonel Boyd was writing about it he, of course, meant that whoever does this OO routine is observing and orienting oneself within reality. This art, however, as I preach for years, has been lost in the US for a long time now, while in other quarters this art transitioned as an organic part into the fully blown establishment dealing with this Observing and Orienting. No, it is not just intelligence alone, albeit it is part of it, very important at that, it is a whole complex of state and even private institutions who look dramatically different from the inside than all of the US think tankdom which is designed for merely one purpose: through providing sinecures for all kinds of characters from US military-political-intelligence and even business top to push all kinds of political agendas by means of "research" which, depending on who finances it, may, often does, arrive to mutually exclusive conclusions.  Iraq's WMD, you know, cough-cough....

I vividly recall triumphalist declarations in all kinds of US compost media ranging from said Bloomberg to NYT, to all kinds of neoliberal globalist rags, on how Russia is about to go broke and Putin is going to lose his grip on power and how riots are about to break out in Russia, so you get the gist of this narrative, another false one in a long-long record of US media and "analysts" who do not seem to be able to get a grip. At that time, however, few paid attention to a rather calm and nonchalant predictions of Russia's energy minister Novak that things will come back to normal for Russia (and this normal is around $40 per barrel) really soon. Well, looks like Novak and this ever "losing popularity" Putin knew better. I will go out an a limb here and even propose such a ridiculous (not really) idea that Russians knew the essence of the game very-very early. Sometime early last year, I guess. And here is the point, yes, there is Moscow Stock Exchange, but it is primarily for as bunch which stole things in 1990s and nobody really gives a flying fvck, including Russia's government, about what is going on at Moscow's Stock Exchange. Feel the difference with the Western World? Yep, it is all about reality. And reality is such that Russian "liberda", which is a pretencious copy of American moneyed class, lost it big time. 

Make no mistake, most of them are losers by definition and they exist only because Russians are civilized people and decided that they indeed reached the limit on revolutions. But get this: 

This is today exchange rates for Ruble and this is in a stark contradiction to all those domestic and foreign "experts" who predicted Russia's demise with all that follows, like Ruble to USD as 200 to 1. For people, who have never been trained in real analysis and in a development of information into knowledge, the fact that, even with the start of oil wars and then "attack" of Covid-19, there was no rush of Russians buying foreign currencies, such as was the case in every modern Russia's crisis since 1990s, should have been the most important observation. But no, who observes anything when one can create own unicorns-run universe and orient oneself in it, instead of facing hard cold reality of a serious geopolitics which is formed by cold reality of power-balance which rests on the foundation of the sound economic theory. Even in 2007 the United States had a chance to change the world. It failed to do so because, as history shows, it can not learn even from own brilliant men and women. But I repeat myself. In conclusion, I increasingly begin to arrive to the point of view expressed by Karen Shakhnazarov that the whole "oil war" thing was conceived not by Saudis alone, but with the US blessing. We all know the result, don't we. It was forecast and anticipated in Russia.