"We Bear Heat And Light"(c)

No, it is not Gazprom or Rosatom's motto in the headline. The motto in the headline, although a joke and a meme, is the motto of RVSN, aka Russian Strategic Missile Forces. Hey, it is a proper one, indeed a variety of missiles and MIRVs RVSN operates do, indeed, provide a lot of heat and light upon delivery. Behind the stream of news from 404 we all, understandably, forgot that life in Russia didn't stop. RVSN today launched, successfully, new ICBM RS-28 Sarmat, which is about to enter IOC. 

That thing can carry pretty much any munitions, including hyper-sonic Avangards, which brings us to other related news which may slip unnoticed in the informational bacchanalia in Western media. 

As TASS reports, Amur Shipyard already laid down first sections of the third serial production corvette of the Pr. 20385 (in Russian). Four of those 3M22 Zircon carriers are planned for the Pacific Fleet and are surely to change the whole concept of naval warfare in the Western Pacific. 

They are nice looking ships and now that we know the actual range of Zircons (1,500 kilometers), together with Gorshkov-class frigates (also Zircon carriers) it may explain why Borisov was stand-offish on carriers in his interview a couple of days ago.

As for aircraft carriers, such questions are often discussed at defense meetings in Sochi. In general, the development of high-precision and hypersonic weapons sometimes renders aircraft carrier groups useless, overshadowing their potential. And besides, the US may need a powerful aircraft carrier group, since they are far away and need to cross the ocean before they reach any theater of operation on this continent. Russia, on the contrary, has always pursued a defense strategy, so the need for these types of vessels is debatable. But I think that you can’t just stop using this type of naval equipment altogether, you must think about it all the time. But this costs a lot of money.

Now that Shoigu confirmed yesterday a radical increase in the speed of targeting information exchange between ISR and high-precision weapons carriers, which include Zircon carriers (in Russian), the carriers issue for Russia really becomes a moot point, albeit it is clear that with the commissioning of large amphibious assault ships such as project 23900 Russia may (don't quote me on that) bring to the sea some version of STOVL aviation. In all, Russian Navy does not completely abandon carrier aviation plans but in real war the utility of modern CVNs is really questionable, especially for the astronomical expenditure and high psychological significance attached to these beautiful and mighty looking, but fast becoming obsolete, ships. 

So, Russia continues to build her weapons and, while Mikhail Mishustin admitted that Russian economy "sagged somewhat", that sagging was expected under well-known circumstances and the growth will return starting this year. But here is my beaten to death point: combined West grossly miscalculated in terms of the size of Russian economy. No, it is not just the matter of crucial Russian exports ranging from energy, to metals, to food, it is about the actual size of Russian economy. And by size I mean, of course, real, physical economy which produces real products. Just one look at Russia's aerospace industry, both commercial and military, should have given a hint to Western "economists" but they failed, naturally. 

Netflix shares plummeted to their lowest point since January 2018 as investors reacted to the streamer’s first subscriber loss in more than a decade — bringing years of booming growth to a screeching halt. The stock was around $222 per share in midmorning trading Wednesday, down 36% from the previous closing price and sinking to a more than four-year low (its lowest since shares ended at $220.46 on Jan. 19, 2018). The latest tumble came after Netflix posted a Q1 loss of 200,000 subscribers and projected that it will lose another 2 million subs in Q2, prompting a wave of analyst downgrades. Netflix shares have shed more than 60% of their value over the last six months.

In related news: Netflix is "valued" more than Gazprom. I mean "shares". That explains why Russia doesn't care anymore about all those BS "rating agencies" and IMF and World Bank "projections"--the idiots live in a virtual world of virtual money. The new Russia's strategy for participation in WTO in metallurgical sphere  should be ready by June 1st, and Vladimir Putin was very clear today that behavior of the West towards Russia will not change (in Russian). It will be very interesting to see this strategy and how defense of the domestic producers will be reflected in it. Expect new developments in the extraction sphere because Russia has ALL critical resources ranging from Uranium to Titanium to what have you in industrial volumes and the only reason that Russia was not developing those deposits was because it was somewhat cheaper to buy them from other countries.  Circumstances changed dramatically, and Russia has enough cash to do it all. 

In SMO news, Patrick Lancaster is finally getting the recognition he deserves, with  more than 400,000 subscribers. I believe it is two days old report.

The dude has the balls of steel and is a real war reporter, old-fashion, down and dirty but that what real war is. Patrick has to stay safe, together with his gutsy cameraman. There are some reports of VSU simply abandoning villages and towns and the stream of POWs continues. Many of them do not even look like military men anymore: completely warn down and broken down, many say that the stream of surrendering VSU would have been even larger if not for many trying to surrender being shot in the back by Nazis. Well, we knew that from the get go, didn't we? 

Just Yesterday I Posted About It.

Bang, today--another iteration by Tucker and Glenn Greewald of this simple idea, which so much has been written and talked about, especially by Michael Hudson, that "financial capitalism" and system it produces is basically a BS which not only does not produce anything but metastasizes into political instability both internally and abroad. 

The only thing I disagree with is this "Silicon Valley" products, much of them being as virtual as any "financial engineering". Enough to take a look at this news.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics on Thursday commented for the first time on Intel's decision to outsource more of its chipmaking, but declined to talk about any possible partnership with one its key rivals. Intel, one of the few remaining firms that both designs and makes its own chips, said last week it would lean more heavily on outside factories, or foundry manufacturers, and could even licence technology from outside firms.

It is clear the United States is being demolished as an industrial country and, if to follow a rather convincing, albeit not perfect, theory that the United States is merely a vehicle for global finance then it inevitably leads us to a conclusion that the life of the United States as a useful economic vehicle is over and the demolition is in progress. This view, certainly, has its merits. I am sitting here with a bucket of pop-corn waiting to see the sequence of the largest cognitive dissonances in the camp of fanatic libertarians and laissez-faire enthusiasts, primarily from GOP--I do not count Democratic Party as sane political organization--who will have to now try to defend a real economy's demolition by the ideology which is in the foundation of their MO--making money, anyway they can. Again, let's recall that day in 2000. 

This is the start of the US industry being shipped in earnest to China. Do you see those red colors enthusiastically voting "Yea", in fact, they voted it with "fuck, yes". Those are all GOPers, and while outsourcing chipmaking is not China-related, it makes little difference for average Joe or Jane since, in the long run, they are screwed all the same. Right, the idea was: let's remove all those industries elsewhere, while we, in America, will strategize, conceptualize, interface and prioritize(c). 

In other words, do nothing but steal. I know it is almost unfair to use Russia as an example but here is how real economy looks like. This is a gigantic shipyard being built in Murmansk Region by energy giant NOVATEK. The shipyard will produce floating natural gas liquification plants, aka GBS LNG platforms. The scale is massive. 

Or this:

You can see the video (in Russian) here. 15,000 people are building this monster with a dry dock of 415 meters. Considering that the whole thing is also needed for "other" projects which may or may not be of pure LNG nature (wink, wink). Having said all that, here is another picture which gives the impression of an immense scale of the construction.

So, Russia taking the third place in global shipbuilding is not just inevitable but merely a matter of a relatively short time. This also is a cushion, of sorts, if Europe succumbs to US pressure and rejects Nord Stream-2, Russia's LNG will still be much cheaper than any alternative. Rostislav Ishenko recently stated that NS-2 for Russia is now primarily a political matter, rather than economic one, because Russia will do just fine without NS-2, which I happen to agree with, but she shouldn't give up on it for geopolitical reasons. Maybe, but in the end, Russia is not responsible for Europe and if the US manages to shut down NS-2, let Europe live with the consequences. European intransigence is Europe's problem, Russia's future in any case is NOT with Europe in general. But as they say, we'll see about NS-2. Maybe Germany will find a spine at some point of time. If not, to hell with them all in EU. But this was my position for years now, for all my OK awareness of the geopolitical factor, but at some point of time one has to consider pure economic sense.