Massive Demonstrations...

 ... in Budapest. No, not tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands--watch videos on X, gigantic. 

Good for you, Hungary. Your future, preservation of indigenous culture and people, sanity and prosperity based on true sovereignty is not in dying EU, it is with new world of BRICS.

France Has Been Warned...

First Petr Tolstoy, now no less than Mr. Nebenzya:

UN, March 22 — RIA Novosti. Paris should keep in mind that Moscow will consider the French military in Ukraine as a priority target, Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said at a meeting of the Security Council. "Planning to send regular troops (to Ukraine. — Ed. An important thing Paris should remember is that they will be seen as a legitimate and even priority target for our army," he stressed.

It is especially funny (for Russians) when receiving these contradicting messages, first from a collection of petulant children in Paris and then from the Big Boss: 

US officials have repeatedly warned Ukrainian military commanders that their attacks on Russian oil infrastructure could trigger global energy price hikes, the Financial Times revealed on Friday. Washington is reportedly worried that this could threaten Joe Biden’s re-election bid. The White House has “grown increasingly frustrated by brazen Ukrainian drone attacks” on Russian refineries, terminals and other oil infrastructure, the British newspaper quoted one of its sources as saying. Washington’s objections come months before a presidential election in the US, where “Biden faces a tough re-election battle this year with petrol prices on the rise, increasing almost 15% this year,” the newspaper noted.

Good Lord! Does Washington establishment know anything beyond elections? Of course, not. They do not have even basic skills in governing, have zero understanding of war, but they sure as hell know how run election campaigns, which is a euphemism to BSing the public into a complete cognitive dissonance and then into stupor, that it loses any resistance to manipulation. And this is not the end of it for the West. A lot of opinions are flying today about Europeans willing to send troops to 404, the main problem which is excluded from the discussion, however, is WHAT troops can, say, France, Poland and Netherlands send to 404? And the issue is not just sending troops there--let's imagine, for the sake of argument, that Paris somehow is able to put together up to 100,000 troops--how are they going to sustain them? Remember Libya? France and UK ran out of precision-guided munitions in three days. And, of course, one needs to feed and replenish ammo stocks for these troops--good luck with that. 

Now, for those who are getting over-excited about prospects of a nuclear war once NATO "official" forces get their asses kicked, which is a probability approaching one (100%), the US will not get involved--in fact, the United States desires  nothing more than seeing a lovely war in Europe, while staying behind Atlantic "ocean wall". Of course, US troops in Europe will be annihilated if it escalates, but by now it is just the matter of speculation. At this stage I am getting sick and tired of European excuses about "we didn't elect" Macron, Scholtz, Meloni et al. Enough, you did elect them, unlike 2020 elections in the US, Macron's victory over Le Pen was a landslide--you cannot fake such a massive gap in elections. Germans tolerated insidious economic and cultural suicide by Merkel regime, which is also responsible for wrecking much of the European economy, as long as Germany lived relatively well--this time is over. There is always a hell to pay for our sins on a global, as opposed to personal, scale. This revelation:

”Nothing terrifies a sitting American president more than a surge in pump prices during an election year,” former White House energy adviser Bob McNally told the FT.

should tell Europeans, granted they even comprehend ramifications, that: 

And don't tell me that I didn't warn you all...

In related news, Victor Orban congratulated Vladimir Putin with reelection and stressed Hungary's desire to increase cooperation with Russia (In Russian). You see how it works between normal people? 

I Wonder...

 ... why Fidesz and Victor Orban again won Hungarian elections in the landslide. Hm. 

Could it be, just guessing here (wink, wink), that he expresses desires of the majority of Hungarians? No way, should be something else... I kid, I kid. I think Orban is a consummate anti-Globalist and nationalist and that really shouldn't surprise us anymore. The world out there, beyond the grasp of globalists is a rather strange and, often, vibrant place. Obviously Hungary is a EU and NATO member, but something tells me that Hungary and, possibly, Slovakia may become the only channel for EU to trade with Russia on Russia's conditions. That means Rubles. I can only speculate what a huge economic benefit for Hungary and Slovakia this may become. 

In related news, I, for the love of God, could have never thought that I will live to see Russian and Pakistani troops participating in joint exercises (and not for once--but regularly) and many Pakistanis expressing friendly feelings towards Russia, not to speak, of course, about growing economic cooperation from energy to weapons, to cultural exchanges. Unbelievable.  But here we are today. 

Per Ukie propaganda and fakes, which all eventually will be debunked, as were many previous ones, here is Bernhard's excellent take:

Gonzalo Lira proves without doubt that four different Ukrainian propaganda clips with different actors were all filmed at the exact same location, a 'battlefield' with several long destroyed Ukrainian tanks --> Propaganda BTFO (video)

Yesterday evening a Ukrainian station showed a video of Ukrainian troops driving through Bucha, north of Kiev, with several 'dead' people lying in the street allegedly 'killed by Russians'. There are two difficulties with these claims:
- One of the dead appears to move his arm: video
- Bucha was declared 'completely liberated' of Russian troops by its mayor on Thursday, March 31. Are we to believe it would take three days for such an 'incriminating' video to come out? Or that those 'dead' were lying there for three days with no one bothering?

But now for people who still worry that Russia "lost" propaganda war in the West, I will reiterate--Russia didn't "lose" anything because at this stage Russians don't give a rat's ass about what Western public thinks. As long as Russians believe in cause, and they overwhelmingly do, not to mention having a level of contempt towards the West unprecedented in the Russian history, it really doesn't matter. West becomes not that important for Russians anyway. It lost its allure long time ago and now that it revealed itself as a traditional mortal enemy of Russians, there is nothing to discuss with anyone there. By West, of course, I mean old classic Western Europe and the US.

Is Hungary An Example...

...of what pragmatic non-ideological approach to foreign policy should be?  In many respects it is. Victor Orban is a man who cares about his nation's prosperity and stability. Among major prerequisites for that is a foreign policy, which in case of a relatively small nation such as Hungary, serves interests of Hungarian people and business, not some ideological purposes. Apart from Hungary having a contract with Russia's giant Rosatom for new reactors for Hungary's only Paks nuclear power station, Hungary did this now:

Budapest signed a new long-term contract on Monday with Russia’s energy giant Gazprom for gas supplies bypassing Ukraine, Reuters reports. The agreement was sealed by Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller and Hungarian energy group MVM executives at the Hungarian Foreign Ministry.The deal was signed after Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto announced last month that Budapest had agreed with Moscow on all the conditions for a new supply contract to take effect from October 1. The minister said that under the new deal, Hungary will buy gas “at a much better price than under the expiring contract,” which was signed in 2020.

You see how simple it is? Be nice to Russia and Russia will pay back in kind, a really win-win situation. Obviously Ukraine went bananas immediately and manifested 404's main trait which is envy, which automatically transforms in hatred for Russia. Ukraine immediately ran to...of course, European Commission and promised to halt all gas transit to Hungary through Ukraine. You see, these miserable people cannot reconcile themselves to the fact that not only they managed in 30 years of Project 404 turn their country into the utter shithole and poorest one at that in Europe. No, they still cannot face the reality of Russians agreeing with them that Russians and Ukrainians "are non-brothers". Russians say fine, let's be non-brothers. Since you are not relatives, plus your "leadership" is a collection of Nazi-sympathizers or sanctimonious ass holes who care only about themselves, get in line and face consequences. 

 

Maria Zakharova pointed out in her Telegram-channel that: 

Когда в следующий раз наши западные партнёры будут отмечать «дни жертв тоталитаризма», кивая в сторону постсоветского пространства, пусть вспомнят, что питательной средой для его становления являются доносы на соседей по случаю зависти.  

Translation: The next time our Western partners celebrate the "days of victims of totalitarianism", nodding towards the post-Soviet space, let them remember that denunciations of neighbors on the occasion of envy are a breeding ground for its (totalitarianism) formation.

 

You can almost feel desperation of 404 and her curators in Europe (and the US), but the issue is extremely simple: Gazprom fulfills all its contractual obligations to European customers. Anything above it or when politics is involved, which is always, either pay more or go and freeze to death. Russia is not a charity, and as Putin is on record Russo-phobia has a price. Yes, the price is steep. But when politics takes precedent over normal mutually beneficial relations, well, what can I say--let them live with the consequences. New possible German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (from German Social Democratic Party) already started the same tired tune: Russia needs to keep Ukrainian transit and that Germany really "cares" about "energy security" of Eastern Europe (in Russian). 

 

What most of German politcos fail to understand, of course, is the fact that Russia is not beholden to Germany or Europe. Considering economic and political dynamics of EU, Russia is already hard at work with rerouting her energy supplies to the East, where there are very many customers hungry for Russian energy and, most importantly, those customers do not give a shit about LGBTQRC4ISR rights, about the "freedom of speech" and other propaganda BS the combined West uses for its nefarious purposes, and will gladly pay for what will be (and is being) rerouted from Europe. The objective of Russia's energy policy is to remove EU from the position of primary energy customer and supply it on the bases "as needed" or as "what is available". US "ministry of truth" is already hard at work:

Russia is pumping a lot less natural gas to Europe all of a sudden — and it is not clear why

Then it goes into the same "Russia is bad" tropes until in the very cellar of the article it gets to a sensible conclusion that: 

Another theory, although analysts consider it somewhat less likely, is that because Gazprom believes Nord Stream 2 will soon be fully operational, it may not need to book further capacity elsewhere.

Generally speaking, one cannot communicate with EU and NATO in normal language anymore and the drifting apart will continue. But Hungary is an excellent example of how bilateral relations can work. As you can see the trend in EU-Russian economic relations is very pronounced:

And compared to volume of trade China alone (I underscore it--alone) and despite a dip in exports in 2019 due to pandemic--the trend here is also obvious, the trade grows. 

This trade also begins to increasingly substitute the trade with EU. Once one considers Russia's trade with Japan, Republic of Korea, Vietnam and other countries in Asia (such as steadily increasing trade with Indonesia as one example), one can get a clear idea of a steady diminishing in importance of Europe for Russia, not to mention the fact of a dramatic, tectonic shift in Russian attitudes toward the combined West which is viewed (correctly) as hostile, decadent, perverted and unattractive. As I said many times--I never experienced such level of contempt towards the West in Russia, even during the Cold War 1.0 it was different. Never. These attitudes do have a bearing on economy in the long run. But Hungary is definitely not covered by these attitudes because of both personality of Victor Orban and bilateral steady relations. In the end, even such an uncomfortable partner (due to Erdogan's expansionist aspirations) as Turkey sees her trade relations with Russia on the level ANY EU nation, including totally confused Germany, can only dream about. 

Turkey pledged its commitment to gradually enhancing commercial relations with one of its top trade partners, Russia, as the two nations look to reach their trade volume target, according to Trade Minister Mehmet Muş. “We want to develop trade with Russia in a balanced way on a win-win basis,” Muş said following his visit to Moscow last week, stressing Turkey's determination to bring the volume of commercial exchange to $100 billion (TL 845.4 billion), a goal set by the leaders of the two states. “We have serious cooperation in the field of energy. We want to expand and shift our cooperation there to different areas of energy,” Muş told Anadolu Agency (AA) Sunday.

$100 billion? Absolutely. As I said, Europe is becoming not that important for Russia and it is all for the better. So, Germany should keep in mind that one day she may wake up and find no good will left in Russia and for that she can blame only herself. Eventually, the transit through 404 will be stopped and this shithole of a nation will exist only on the handouts from those who helped to turn it into what it is today. Germany played and continues to play a huge role in creating this cesspool in the middle of European continent and Russians do keep the score.