Mene, Tekel, Perish!

Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan draws on historical parallels to analyze the likely consequences of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Mene, tekel, perish!

by H. Numan

We’re about one month into the Russian invasion. The fog of war covers everything. It’s pretty clear Russia is not winning this war. Let’s have a look at the big picture.

Germany, before that the German Empire, and before that the Kingdom of Prussia, developed Blitzkrieg. Not the word; that was coined by British journalists in 1939. The Germans called it (still do) Bewegungskrieg. It was their answer to most of their military problems. Attack aggressively with everything you’ve got as fast as possible. It worked pretty well for them.

Russia has a very different strategy. They made sure their borders were far, far away. Really far away. No matter who attacked, they would invariably get stuck in the snow before reaching Moscow. Even Napoleon capturing the city didn’t deter them. They burned it down themselves, and continued the fight. That worked pretty well for them. Supposing the Wehrmacht had captured Moscow, it certainly wouldn’t have ended the war.

After World War 2 the USSR set up a large security zone to extend that wide border. Most of it consisted of occupied countries and Nazi allies during WW2, turned into vassal states. Other states, Finland, for example, were forced into benevolent neutrality. All gaps were closed or under Soviet control. Mother Russia was finally secured!

Socialists know nothing about economics. That’s a given. All they can do is spend money. Eventually they run out of it. A major contribution to the collapse of the USSR was the Chernobyl disaster. The cleanup costs exceeds $700 billion. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The USSR collapsed soon afterwards in 1991. The Warsaw Pact was dissolved. Many former republics within the USSR gained their independence. Among others, Ukraine.

The date 1991 is important. That’s forty-one years, or in Gettysburg terms: two score and a year ago. In other words: a very long time. That’s where Putin got it wrong. You see, people change over time. So do nations. Wishing for something doesn’t make it right. Putin firmly believes Russia deserves secure borders. Nothing wrong with that. So do I. In my opinion, the Dutch borders are only secure when we can observe German and French movements from our trenches just outside Paris and Berlin. (That’s a joke, folks!) See where Putin is wrong? He looks at a map. Picks the largest extent ever of Russia’s borders and works to reestablish them again. Regardless of what others think about it. Most do not want to be part of Russia again.

Times change. As simple as that. Time hasn’t been kind to Russia. One of the reasons why Ukraine among others does not want to be part of Russia again is the economy. Russia and North Korea have more in common than Putin likes to admit. Both have a pathetically small economy supporting way too big an army. The only real difference is the number of nukes. North Korea has just enough to secure its existence. Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Both use theirs to prop up their economy. It’s not a coincidence that from the start of the war Putin threatened to use nukes, if he doesn’t get his way. To give you an idea, the German economy is slightly smaller than the Russian economy. If the Benelux together with Sweden and Austria compete economically with Russia, Russia loses.

The invasion idea wasn’t a bad one. “Let’s march into Ukraine, stomp some people and change the government.” It worked very well in the past. Kazakhstan and Belarus were reconquered that way. They are independent countries in name, but in reality parts of Russia. It worked to a lesser extent also in Georgia and Moldova. There they didn’t change the regimes, but set up “independent” enclaves. Just enough for the moment. Georgia and Moldova are more independent than Belarus, but not a lot. By the way, reconquering Moldova was also part of the invasion plan for Ukraine. The troops are already there.

At first Russia did the same in Ukraine. The Crimean peninsula was annexed, after a rather silly referendum. A referendum the way dictators always want it: with a nearly unanimous yes vote. Had Hitler and Putin been really clever, they would have invited the entire world to witness the referendum. Made scrupulously sure the referendum was fair and honest. In both cases it was certain more than 65% would vote yes, far more than required. By going for the illusive 99% they showed the world it was all bogus.

A bit later Putin annexed parts of the Donbas. That’s where he went wrong. Disastrously wrong. You see, part of Ukraine has a Russian population. Most of it has not. By annexing those Russian speaking parts, he antagonized everybody else. The more he took from Ukraine, the more resistance he created. The Ukrainian army in 2014 was a joke. Russian, in other words. They knew what was coming, and started to modernize. They weren’t capable of resisting the Russian army taking Donbas, but are now ready. Exactly on time.

Russia went into that war with some severe handicaps that are killing the Russian army right now. They went into Ukraine with a ‘handbrake invasion’. It was intended to be a lightning strike, forcing the government to surrender or flee, and the Ukrainian army wasn’t supposed to resist. That utterly failed. The government and the army didn’t surrender. Far from it! Even worse: the people rallied behind their government.

A ‘handbrake invasion’ is an invasion with minimal force. Something the Russian army is not very good at. Traditionally the Russian army is very strong in artillery. We have a machine gunner supported by riflemen. They have loads or artillery and mortar batteries supported by infantry. The standard procedure is to saturate the area with artillery, and send in the infantry to kill any survivors. They couldn’t do that; hence the handbrake.

Another age-old Russian tradition is their lack of and disdain for maintenance and logistics. That’s not something from the last couple of years; it goes back to way before the Russo-Japanese War. Lack of logistics lost them the Crimean War, even. Putin is one of the richest man on earth. Not bad, for a middle-rank KGB officer! Come to think of it, it might be the rank: Thaksin Shinawatra was also a lieutenant-colonel.

How did Putin get so rich? By being utterly corrupt, of course. In the army, corruption is very democratic. Everybody needs a cut. A general can order cheapo tires in China, but he’s in for a lot of trouble if he doesn’t split his profits down the line. Of course the generals knew the Russian army wasn’t ready for war. Their problem was how to tell Putin that, without being sent to Siberia. Putin himself simply had to look the other way, otherwise he would have to send all his commanders to count trees. So they told each other exactly what they wanted to hear. Happens often, in dictatorships. Remember World War 2? When the logistics staff of the Wehrmacht told the OKW they’d be running into trouble about 700 km inside Russia, Halder’s reply was: Don’t worry. We’ll fake it.

Putin’s biggest miscalculation was the response of the West. He was certain the West would accept it. Of course they would issue some sanctions, for appearance’s sake. Boy, he couldn’t have been more wrong if he tried! Putin showed his hand, when he invaded Ukraine. The plan is simply to re-institute the old USSR borders. Something the Baltic Sea states aren’t particularly keen on, not to mention Finland. Or everybody else, for that matter.

Putin did the impossible: he united both the EU and America. Even staunchly neutral countries, such as Finland and Sweden, now want to join NATO. Before the invasion, there was talk NATO was no longer necessary. It was a relic from the Cold War. You don’t hear that a lot nowadays.

The next huge miscalculation was the sanctions. Putin knew he was going to be hit by sanctions, but on this level? Not even in his worst nightmares. The EU doesn’t have nukes, because we don’t need them. We can blast a country into oblivion with economics.

What you probably don’t know is that oil and gas were already developed during the USSR period. Europe could have become dependent on USSR oil 40 years ago. Just when production became viable, the USSR collapsed. With it, the oil industry. Oil has to flow, literally. If the flow stops, it solidifies everywhere. When the USSR collapsed that happened. It took them at least one-and-a-half score (30) years to start up again. All pipes have to be heated, to melt the oil in it. Every seam in every pipe had to be checked. Wellheads had to be re-drilled. That solidifying process goes much faster than you’d think; it’s already happening — again. If Putin doesn’t surrender within a month, Russia will be in a much worse position than in 1991.

Related to this is how to ship oil to other customers. Russia doesn’t have any deep water oil ports. Large oil tankers cannot dock. At best, smaller tankers can be filled in port, and transfer their oil at sea to a large tanker. That’s a very expensive and lengthy process. It might work, if the price is low enough. There are plenty of customers for it, especially India and China. However … the idea that NATO will allow Russian tankers to resupply at sea well inside NATO waters is somewhat ludicrous. It ain’t gonna happen.

Russian banks and the aerospace industry are also victims of Western sanctions. You can’t buy a candy bar with a Russian ATM card abroad. About 150.000 Russians are stuck outside Russia. In Thailand, about 5,000 Russians (and <1,000 Ukrainians) are caught between a rock and a hard place. They can’t fly back; all Russian airlines are boycotted from flying. They can’t pay their hotels, as their ATM cards are refused. The Thai government allows them to stay, but there is a big difference between staying in a hotel or being a refugee in Thailand. At least they won’t be sent to the immigration prison. That’s something.

What worries me most is how Putin has painted himself inside a corner. There is no way he can get out without serious damage. It’s not the first time in history a Russian army simply dragged on for months, regardless of the consequences. The only option Putin has now is what the Russian army is very good at: scorched earth tactics. Bomb the cities, force farmers to flee. Create immense streams of refugees. Allow those refugees to go to NATO countries. So far, two million refugees have fled. Expect at least another 10 million (!) to follow. Probably a lot more.

That’s two strokes in one for Putin. 10 to 15 million Ukrainians fleeing the country are 10 to 15 million people you don’t have to worry about. They will be a huge drain on the EU. Perhaps that will help convince the EU to negotiate. Just as important is that 10 to 15 million refugees are 10 to 15 million less people you have to control. Depopulate the cities (they are already doing that) and shoot every farmer who even looks at a tank. Let alone takes one. It’s standard Russian practice to first send in the army to conquer the land, followed by the troops of the Ministry of the Interior to pacify it. They need a lot fewer Ukrainians before the ministry can safely send in its troops. That’s the moment real genocide starts. A page ripped straight from the history books. Stalin and Hitler were experts in it. It seems Putin has no problem with that kind of odium.

As long as NATO doesn’t commit itself, there is no risk of a nuclear war. Great, but the Russian army has a very different doctrine. NATO doesn’t allow battlefield commanders control of smaller tactical nuclear weapons. A nuke — big or small — is a political weapon. Brussels decides when to use them. A Russian general is trained, in theory at least, to use tactical nukes.

Putin may threaten to use nukes, but he certainly won’t use the big ones. Smaller nukes are a very different story. He may be tempted, or desperate enough, to use a small battlefield nuclear weapon, just to show how far he is willing to go. Remember that NATO supply dump just across the border with Poland? What if such a dump is attacked with a small nuke? I’d rather not.

Is it possible Putin will disappear? Yes. Is it likely? Not really. Don’t forget we think very differently from Putin, or Russians. Russia has always been an autocratic country. Putin sort of rose through the ranks, and built his own power structure. Most top people are in with him, whether they like or not. There is some talk that another ex-KGB officer might possibly replace him, but what would that solve for us? It’s like Hitler being replaced by Goering or Hess. The plan — reconstitute the old USSR borders — probably remains the same.

It’s even worse than you might think. We have a global economy. That means this war will have a global impact. Expect food prices to rise seriously this year. Both Ukraine and Russia have other things on their minds than harvesting. Next year, there won’t be a harvest. Simply because there won’t be enough men and material available for seeding, let alone harvesting.

Oil and gas prices are rising sky-high. That makes your daily commute unaffordable. Not only that, it will affect food prices, too. Next year we will also have a severe shortage of fertilizer. Much of it is produced with oil and gas, and potash normally comes from Belarus.

By then Russia will be a Chinese colony. Where do you think Chinese technology comes from? They bought it in 1991 for bargain prices when the USSR collapsed. Russia will have no other option but to sell everything, again for bargain prices.

No matter what happens, we’re in for very serious trouble.

— H. Numan

54 thoughts on “Mene, Tekel, Perish!

  1. The Special Operations in Ukraine is eerily reminiscent of the Russian attack on Finland during the Winter War, except that the Ukrainians are being armed by the west.

  2. 1991 is thirty one years ago. I would have kept quiet but you made me lose 10 years for a moment. It was unsettling.

  3. mene, mene, tekel, uparsim; weighed, weighed, numbered, divided. So the writing is on the wall.

  4. Interesting read but there’s an incorrect claim: “To give you an idea, the German economy is slightly smaller than the Russian economy. If the Benelux together with Sweden and Austria compete economically with Russia, Russia loses.”

    Germany GDP is 3.806 trillion USD (2020).
    Russian GDP is 1.483 trillion USD (2020)

    The above facts can be easily found online.

      • Such as: The EU doesn’t have nukes, because we don’t need them. We can blast a country into oblivion with economics.

        The EU does have nukes. Prior to Brexit include UK and France.

        The US also has nukes in Germany and Italy. I would also assume they still have them in England.

  5. I am shocked. The levels of russophobia are getting so intense it even infects an article at GoV.

    There is so much nonsense here I won’t even begin. Perhaps someone else will tackle it. I am not pro-Russia in this war. In fact, I am against this war altogether. I hail from a country that had been abused by the Soviet Union. But the levels of nonsense wafting from near everywhere these days are getting ridiculous, and I don’t stand for two minutes of hate against anyone.

    I will only mention Crimea, since I just bothered to look up a few details. The referendum vote was around 95-96%. The Russian speaking or identifying population there is/was recently: “According to the last census held by Ukraine in 2001, more than 58 percent of Crimea self-identified as ethnically Russian, and 77 percent of Crimeans said their native language was Russian.” While the referendum wasn’t squeaky clean, it does not surprise that the most Crimeans would want to be part of Russia, given the fact of Ukraine merrily sinking even then (2014) into a failed state status, and that anti-Russian hatred was encouraged by the Kievan powers that be; they even tried to outlaw russian language. When Crimea broke off, the Ukrainians cut off its water and electricity; a great way to show people you are wanted back. I have a feeling that the Crimeans are pretty happy about their status right now. Oh, and a historical note. Crimea had been Russian since… way back to Catherine the Great? Something like that.

    I think everybody should have a chance to break away. Like Slovakia (which did not get a referendum, even a dirty one, and should have). Maybe Corsica will be next. Will they go for independence or join Italy? The world seems to be shifting once again…

    • There’s lots of reasons why Russia is doing this. Crimea was never historically a part of Ukraine but was conveniently lumped into the country by Khrushchev (another Ukrainian). I have no doubt that the pro-Russian sentiments are real both in eastern Ukraine and Crimea as the Ukrainian nationalists that took over in an illegal coup in 2014 wanted to ban the Russian language. They have acted in a similar manner to Hungarians in Ukraine as well. The cutting off of the water supply and power to Crimea post annexation was a serious act of aggression by Ukraine in response to the annexation. The continued shelling of the separatist regions is further motivation for Putin to act, as well as the continued violations of the Minsk accords by Ukraine that promised more moderate behavior toward the separatist regions.

      Historically NATO had a verbal agreement with Russia not to expand eastward after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Under Clinton that all changed, and NATO rapidly expanded eastward. Now Ukraine was asking for NATO membership. Russia does not view NATO as some benign thing, but an aggressive expansionist anti-Russian entity. Russia faces the same issue in Georgia as they too wanted NATO membership. What does all this look like from the Russian perspective? The borders of NATO would be at the very doorstep of the Russian capital. If Hitler had such an advantage the war would have been lost.

    • Everyone says “Russia is winning/losing this war because they are taking cities/heavy losses after advancing quickly/slowly.” Yet the Russian objectives, timetables, doctrine, ROE, etc for this war, are either completely unknown by the West or simply ignored.
      What are the Russian objectives?
      What is their timetable?
      If their objective is to completely seize the entire country in one week with minimal losses: fail.
      If their objective is to destroy the Ukrainian military in the countryside and absolutely stay out of the urban death traps, limit civilian casualties, and take six months to do it, we get a different answer.
      And if they’re objective is to lure Reddit faggots to the Ukraine so they can slaughter them without chance of respawn, well, that sounds pretty amazing.

    • Given that you are “not pro-Russia in this war”, eagerly awaiting your critique of Russia’s role in it…

      As for the 96% vote in the Crimea referendum, Saddam Hussein “won” elections in Iraq, by an even bigger margin!

      But given the region broke away from Ukraine, not sure why its residents would expect to buy things like water and electricity from it?

      People expect Russia to turn Crimea into a paradise… So why can’t it provide even the electricity and water?

      In any case, maybe Crimeans should be grateful their cities don’t look like Mariupol, right now.

      • I was criticizing Numan, and adding some more accurate details.

        Russia now provides Crimea with electricity and water. Formerly, naturally, it got it from a canal coming from the north. You see nothing wrong with blocking it off with concrete without further notice and letting their agriculture die? Seems to me, the civilized way would have been negotiation.

        I am quite sure the Crimeans are very happy their cities don’t look like Mariupol. That was part of my point.

        As for Russia’s role in this war? War kills. War devastates. It never should have allowed itself to be pushed into it, or chosen it, as the case may be, despite the Minsk agreements going nowhere. And denazification sounds good on paper; it is a very hard thing in day to day reality. Did Germany ever denazify? I think it’s more that the Nazis eventually died out.

        I read somewhere the banderistas were also dying out. But in the end, the seed sprouted again…

        • Nope, no issues. Standard practice, in places like Israel/Jordan, or Nile region. If the water came from Ukraine, why should it still flow to the now-Russian region of Crimea, without a deal?

          As for Russia being “pushed into it”, seems you don’t believe Putin to be that strong… If he were, why would he allow himself, to be “pushed” into anything?

          But as for “Nazis” – If we look at typical Nazi behaviour: Invasions, deportations of civilians, terrorising them, then who is the more Nazi? Maybe the “denazification” should first be done, at the Kremlin…

          • Standard practice, yes, if you want to abuse and antagonize people.

            I don’t know Putin’s mind, though a lot of people seem to these days. Sorry. My impression is that he is winning the war, and the West is lying about his weakness.

            As for “typical Nazis” — even they were shocked by what the banderistas were doing in Volyn. Look it up. None of the horror pales, regardless of what Kremlin does. If you want to be an apologist for somebody, you’ve picked the wrong cause.

          • Banderistas were 80 years ago now…

            Yes they
            committed terrible massacres which should never be forgotten, but now is a different era and this is not the time…

            Eastern Europe has been threatened by Russia, and Polish people, as well as others in the region, are united behind Ukraine – whatever their political persuasion.

          • I’m also curious what you mean, when you say Putin is “winning” this war…

            For example, in the “best-case scenario” – if Russia takes over a wasteland full of rubble, formerly-known as Ukraine, with Russian soldiers always in danger of guerilla attacks from an ever more angry population, a la Afghanistan, while Russia is isolated as the biggest pariah state in the world… Would you see that as a “win”? (And for whom?)

          • Swastikas and heiling and adoration of Bandera is not enough for you? How about burning 48 people to death in Odessa, and then sweeping it under the rug? How about shooting kids and women in Donbas for 7+ years? Will that be enough terror to maybe, just maybe, call them neo-nazis? Or what would be your preferred noun? (That’s a rhetorical question.)

            I support Ukraine’s long suffering people. I do not support Kiev’s puppets and mafioso who have “run” Ukraine into the ground. Neither do I support Putin’s war.

            Putin is not reducing Ukraine to rubble, the way Americans did Serbia and other places. Most of the infrastructure will remain intact. And it will be a definite victory for the people of the Donbas, I hope, who will be able to have a life again, instead of having to hide from the shelling, year after year. Will it be a pyrrhic victory in many other ways? Yes, of course it will. War kills.

            Thank you for the conversation.

          • If you really “support Ukraine’s long-suffering people”, then you should know that the last thing they want is “liberation” by Russia… As for the 48 people burnt to death in Odessa – you could’ve also mentioned how it all started: “pro-Russian activists attacked a peaceful march in support of Ukrainian unity.”…

            https://cepa.org/russias-lie-machine-fans-flames-of-odessa-massacre/

            Likewise, you could’ve mentioned the shelling by separatists in Donbas, meaning people couldn’t go back to their homes near the front line… (By the way, we could also use how Russia treated its separatists, eg in Chechnya, as a reference).

            But I guess you have your reasons for painting Ukraine in the darkest colours, just like I have my reasons for being furious at Russia.

  6. The author began this article by stating that the Russians are losing. If he listens to Westerm media, which is wall-to-wall anti-Russian and pro-Ukranian propaganda, it is understandable why he might think so.

    But according to retired Army Colonel Douglas McGregor, and also retired Marine Corps Colonel Andrew Milburn, the opposite is in fact the reality. In recent days Col. mcGregor has said that Russian forces have already neutralized or surrounded virtually all of the Ukrainian army, and a Russian victory is virtually assured. Similarly, Col. Milburn, who is on the ground in Ukraine, says that in spite of some early mistakes, Russian forces have adapted their tactics and are slowly but surely rolling up the Ukranian resistance.

    So with all due respect to the author and his otherwise well-written article, I do not think the Russians are losing.

    • George True: The author lost me immediately. First, he acknowledges the fog of war. Then, in the next sentence, he claims that Russia is losing. From an rhetorical perspective, that’s a terrible way to start an article. “We don’t know, but, here’s what what we know.”

      Also, to claim that the war “united” the US and the EU is what the White House, the U.S. State Dept., Brussels and the MSM want people to believe. Not even the EU itself is united. They may say they are, but, you know darn sure that every country in the EU has its own interests to defend, above all else. That’s reality, not rainbows and unicorns.

  7. H. Numan writes, “Germany, before that the German Empire, and before that the Kingdom of Prussia, developed Blitzkrieg. Not the word; that was coined by British journalists in 1939. The Germans called it (still do) Bewegungskrieg.”

    I was about to add this historic factoid to my treasury of tropes, when four paragraphs later I read the mathematical factoid that 2022 – 1991 = 41. Uh-oh. That kind of discredits Mr. Numan. So I checked his first factoid with a bilingual dictionary: the English-German section says that the English term “blitzkrieg” is “Blitzkrieg” in German, but the Deutsch-Englisch section does not even list “Bewegungskrieg”, although Wikipedia translates it as “maneuver warfare”.

    H. Numan is still interesting to read, but no longer trustworthy.

  8. Another way to read H. Numan is as a very-high-level humorist, although this imposes on the reader the time-consuming burden of checking his every reference.

    For example, if you follow the link supporting his assertion that “Putin is one of the richest man [sic] on earth”, you will learn, “a lot of Putin’s money comes from extortion and theft. As a result [sic], the Russian economy has experienced unprecedented growth.” Aha! Pace Adam Smith, the way to make an economy grow is to foster extortion and theft.

    Also, “Oil has to flow, literally. If the flow stops, it solidifies everywhere.” So before you can have an oil “gusher”, you have to liquefy the oil that has been in the ground for millions of years; see
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaZvcj6sWCk

    • Been around oil/oil production all my life, never seen petroleum solidify. Yes, it often is heated in certain cases in colder climes, e.g. the North Slope, and in cases of a high paraffin, a.k.a. wax, content, to make it flow more easily. On the other hand you get a certain amount of heat simply from pressurizing a pipeline. I am skeptical that the entire Russian petroleum industry would “solidify” simply by stopping it from flowing for a period time. Can’t imagine what process would cause that.

  9. Perhaps Bill Gates can whip up some GMO fortified tree bark to feed the hoi polloi?

  10. The average Russian will endure the sanctions much better than the average EU citizen will endure life without Russian oil. I doubt there is any staying power in the sanctions regime. On the other hand I think the memory of Stalin is fresh enough in the minds of the oligarchs and generals that they will remove Putin for their own safety.

    A tank or artillery piece that can’t be towed or moved for want of fuel or a truck or fired for want of ammo is as good as destroyed or captured. How many artillery rounds do you think the Russians brought with them and how many do they have left? As soon as those high altitude SAM missies get into Ukraine hands I think the tide will shift rather decisively. The Russian generals probably know that. Are they going to sit around and let Putin lay the blame for this fiasco on them or take him out first?

    • The sanctions may actually backfire and signal the end of the U.S. petrodollar. Russia now demands payment in Rubles for oil.

    • This isn’t the Soviet Union anymore. People expect more than a sack of potatoes these days. Russians especially love Western cars, fast food eg McDonald’s, social media. (See viral video of Russian “influencer” crying over losing her instagram).

      And the very rich Russians love the French Riviera, London, Italy etc. So the changes will cause a bit of a shock.

  11. “The EU doesn’t have nukes, because we don’t need them. We can blast a country into oblivion with economics.”
    There cannot be any soft power (economic sanctions), if not backed by hard power.

    “inside NATO waters”
    this would need further clarification, a map would be great to understand what we are talking about and who controls what…

    “We have a global economy.”
    I would say had, because now the iron curtains are being fully restored… globalism is over since Huawey has been put under sanctions and “free” market block. Actually the west (once claimed to be the champion of liberal economy) is not able to compete (remember darwinism and capitalism? only the best must survive because this optimizes efficiency) and had to interfere in the “free” market to save itself from foreign colonization. Globalism is an ideology based mainly on soft power, that could be summarized in this: conquer the world by commerce. It simply didn’t work… It turned out to lead to the opposite, instead, ending up being colonized by foreign countries like China.

    “By then Russia will be a Chinese colony.”
    That is exactly what has happened to the west.

    • I read the same article and it squares much more with my own experience with readiness rates during my time in the USAF. Unz’s analysis of why so many vehicles would have appeared to have been “abandoned” makes perfect sense to anyone who has actually been to war.

      The Russians appear to be trying to avoid getting sucked into door-to-door fighting inside of cities, and the fact they have left electricity, water, and even internet alone for the most part seems to indicate that the objective isn’t slaughter of the civilian population. Far more useful to leave the internet alone in order to scare the populace into fleeing to the West or making it easier to locate foolish foreign volunteer fighters who can’t get off of their non-confiscated phones so their barracks can be targeted with hypersonic missiles. Western former general talking heads have little to crow about when it comes to supposed Russian setbacks. After all, these were the same anus-clowns who managed to bugger up every single war the US has been involved in since WWII.

      The point is that Russians don’t think or fight like Americans. They think and fight like russians, and have a patience and stoicism that has never existed in western countries. Their national pastime is chess. And no one except Putin knows what Putin thinks. Perhaps the whole reason for the war was to irrevocably break economic dependence with the West in a manner guaranteed to maximize plausible deniability for the hardships to be endured by the working-class Russian as the country sobers up from its collective drunken flirtation with the Western way of life.

    • Yes, many Ukrainians have pure hatred for Russia these days. Also shared by ethnic Russians.

      I was shocked when I saw it, last year. But then again, my country is not being invaded by Russia.

    • Can somebody translate? The book is called The Rebel’s Alphabet, and seems to celebrate the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army), a guerrilla organization which was active during the war and then into the late fifies. It was founded by Stepan Bandera. And the entries I can recognize are A for alarmist or alarm-bringer?, B for bofoni (money issued by the UPA), I for Iberia (Spain), D for decalog, R for Reichslandia (about Nazi Germany), M for Moscovia (“kingdom of fear”), and J for Yosipko (talking about “Joey and Dolphie”), and V for Volyn (the birthplace of the rebel forces) — [also the place of the infamous massacres of Poles and Czechs by the UPA forces].

  12. Face it. The Amerikan response is to CYA, lie, and obfuscate since Vlad has invaded the Biden-Pelosi-Romney Crime Family’s money laundry. You may not like Mr. Putin, but he is securing his nation’s borders. I was in high school in 1962 when JFK threatened to blow the Soviet Union to Kingdom Come because they put IRBMs in Cuba. The country was behind him. And, when the dust cleared, we moved our IRBMs out of Turkey.
    There is an old proverb: Show me who you are with, and I will tell you who you are. The fact of the Levin-Bolton-Nancy Boy Graham war monger cabal being on board with the Marxist-Abortionist Party over this pending catastrophe is reason enough for anyone with half a brain to figure out it is all about following the money. This would not have happened had not Victoria Noodleman and the CIA engineered the Maidan Coup in 2014 and installed Mister (((Dual-Citizenship))) Zelensky as their NWO sock puppet.
    So grab some popcorn and a cold one. You are about to watch the Miley-Austin Tranny Troops drop into a Kessel. I foolishly drank the Purple Kool-Aid in 1969 when I signed up to voyage and die for the MIC in SE Asia. I have seen the Elephant. This corrupt, syphilitic country is so overdue for a huge chastisement. Bleib ubrig.

  13. I gree with that the Russians are fighting with both arms tied behind their backs or as it is mentioned with a handbrake.

    While I do not want to cause suffering I would really like to know how the Russian amry would fight if they would be totally unleashed. (I remember that the US Army in Vietnam was equally hamstrung and the Generals wanted to use nukes – lots of. So I think that the USA would have won the Vietnam war. How North Vietnam would have looked like – I shudder. So I dare to ask the question: How would Ukraine look like, if Russia would go all-in?)

    Regarding economics: The CEO of Blackrock mentioned that this war will start the end of globalization.
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/03/24/blackrock-ceo-larry-fink-says-russia-ukraine-war-is-upending-world-order-and-will-end-globalization/?sh=321247e257eb

    And in another article (Did I mention I dont have an eidetic memory…) it was said that if the global supply chain collapses because of the war, we will look at something like the Bronze Age Collapse or the Roman Empire Collapse.
    Found it: https://unherd.com/2021/11/this-is-how-civilisations-collapse/

    And if those two articles are predicting the future: Welcome Dark Ages. (And it could have all been avoided if we would accept certain rules, that are known since centuries: Powerful countries control the smaller countries surrounding them. Those smaller countries may have some freedoms, but they must accept that someone else has the power. So why Ukraine gave up its nukes, I will never understand.)

    And to turning the Ukrainians into refugees?
    Sorry, but why not?
    In a war ypu maximize your chances of success and if your enemy leaves a door open, you use it. Especially if it weakens him.
    I say it again: Our so-called humanitarian feelings are our weak spot.
    Not only do we have to take them in, we dont know how many Spetznaz operatives could be smuggled into our countries.
    (And dont ask me about how many muslim extremists are already living among us. Just remember: One of the Paris assassins fled to Bruxelles-Molenbeek and lived there for more than a month and not one of his muslim brothers and sisters – and he was recognized! – betrayed him to the police.)

    • How appropriate the CEO of Blackrock has the surname “Fink”.

      A most appropriate name for such an evil man.

  14. Been around oil/oil production all my life, never seen petroleum solidify. Yes, it often is heated in certain cases in colder climes, e.g. the North Slope, and in cases of a high paraffin, a.k.a. wax, content, to make it flow more easily. On the other hand you get a certain amount of heat simply from pressurizing a pipeline. I am skeptical that the entire Russian petroleum industry would “solidify” simply by stopping it from flowing for a period time. Can’t imagine what process would cause that.

  15. I can go down every paragraph by your Dutch correspondent H. Numan to show the numerous errors in every one of his analogies and presuppositions are being regurgitated in much the same manner if you listened to CNN, NPR, MSNBC, and FOX. But I find I’m not much in the mood for such masochistic endeavors these days. Nowhere is there more socialism these days then in every European country that makes up the European Union, or as some refer to it as the EUSSR and the U.S. Mister Numan has his good-think cap sitting snuggly in this long diatribe of non-factual opinions most likely garnered from the official narrative being daily transmitted to him where he lives. I find such over opinionated individuals very disappointing in the type of juvenile rhetoric they seem much willing to toss everywhere they go.

    MENE MENE TEKEL UPARSIM – Here’s the interpretation: The Almighty One had numbered your days and you have reach the end of them. Except that this was about Babylon, Babylon the Great whose successor today, according to the history books is the Western countries, Europe and America. Read about her fate, why don’t all of you? Read Isaiah 47 and Revelation 18 about the fate of the great Harlot of Babylonian-western tradition. The western Roman Empire ended in 476AD while the eastern Byzantine Empire lasted around another millennium! Which one would last longer now if all of your technologies disappeared tomorrow? Russia would because their people are more resilient then the European people, who are more dependent on their technologies then the Russian people are.

    But I dare say the current pathetic sycophantic display for the puppet proxy socialist nationalist regime is something I find most repelling. Are there any real Human Beings who are the Son’s of Adam left in this world? This is like 1938 in National Socialist Germany. Except now it’s the whole western world! But let me give you a clue as to the real Harlot whose writing MENE MENE TEKEL UPARSIM is for in today’s world . . .

    “And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTRY AND OF THE ACCURSED ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” ~ APOKALYPSIS 17.5

    “. . . for your merchants were the great ones of the earth; for with your PHARMAKEIA all the nations were deceived. In her was found the blood of . . . all that were slain upon the earth.” ~ APOKALYPSIS 18.23-24

    Some of you don’t understand where you are in this world and at what stage it’s in. Hint: the final stage. I’ll suggest you go over to read at dilyana.bg and armswatch dot com to see who uses PHARMAKEIA the most in deceiving the nations.

  16. The Ukies did not really give up nukes. They had soviet nukes stationed there. When USSR fell apart, they traded gaining independence for giving the nukes back to Russia. (In the Soviet days, they were never really independent, only pretended in order for the bolshies to get another seat in the UN, is what I heard.)

    The news on the war I hear is that Mariupol is being cleaned up, and troops are moving into the Donbas area. When that cauldron is finished, the war is finished. Rumors have it the Russians have begun another phase where they focus on local conditions, governance, medines, food.

    What really gets me is when people talk as though they KNOW what Putin had in mind. They know what Russia’s plans were, and gosh look how they failed. It’s nonsense. The Ukies have fought well, but never really had a chance. And they never had a chance for a decent life after the corrupt hordes moved in on Ukraine, years ago. (Their vultures and the west’s too.)

    I hope their ordeal is over soon.

    • And here I thought I was the only one whose subscription to the Russian Ministry of Defense’s ‘Plans and Intentions Quarterly’ had been lost in the mail, since it seems everyone and his brother has a complete set of Russian plans on their kitchen table. Likewise the entire might of the U.S. Senate could not produce Blasey-Ford’s therapist’s notes, but apparently, from what one sees on the news, Putin’s notes are printed on the toilet paper used at Rockefeller Center. The BS being generated for U.S. consumption is nearing singularity mass levels.

      We are being driven, like steers to the knocker.

    • “they traded gaining independence for giving the nukes back to Russia.”

      You should have also mentioned, that in the Budapest Memorandum, Russia agreed to:

      “Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.

      Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan or Ukraine.”

      And now, we learn how much treaties signed by Russia are worth.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances?wprov=sfla1

      • Have you noticed that Zelensky threatened to ignore the Memorandum and nuke up? (in Munich, recently)

        Neither Russia nor the West has shown respect for Ukrainian sovereignity.

        Is there support in Poland for taking back Galicia?

        • Even if Zelensky threatened to “nuke up”, that takes time… And the chances of it happening were probably even less, than Nato agreeing to a “no-fly zone”…

          But in a just world… After Ukraine agreed to get rid of its nukes in exchange for Russia respecting its borders, as soon as it was clear Russia was doing otherwise, maybe Ukraine should have been given some nukes? With some nuclear submarines, and a button in Zelensky’s HQ…

          As for Poles wanting to take back Galicia – haven’t heard of any myself… Although there was one very drunk English guy on a train once, who declared he’d go to Lwów on his own, and capture it for Poland.

          Saying that, Poles do like to travel to “former lands” in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, and visit places of Polish heritage. I went on such trips myself, to formerly-Polish areas of Lithuania and Belarus.

          Apart from that though – history is full of Poland gaining and losing territory from its neighbours, and we know they could always come knocking for “their” land too.

          So we accept, that “it’s not how much you’ve got – but what you do with it that counts”, and prefer to work with them these days, and mutually prosper through trade…

          Maybe Russia should try the same. (It’s not exactly short of land?!)

          • Czech press is talking about the Poles wanting not only Lvov, but Kaliningrad also (which they never had).

            And how is it going with the “peacekeeping mission” to Ukraine the Poles have been threatening Putin with?

          • One clarification: Ukraine never had control over the nukes. The Soviets stationed them there, but control was always from Moscow. Moving them to Russia became part of the negotiation. Then Ukraine gained independence and the rest of it is moot.

            Yes, Zelensky was bluffing… but he may have access to materials to put together a dirty bomb, and pretty quickly. I think that was the real threat behind his words.

          • The “peacekeeping mission” is also looking about as likely, as the no-fly zone… And if there’s any hint the Polish government is colluding with Putin RE Ukraine, there’ll be a revolution. My guess is that it’s just another badly thought-out idea of this government, but I guess you can never be sure.

          • “Kaliningrad” – that’s a new one, and nothing in Polish press about it…

            But as Russia’s position becomes ever weaker, so various countries will make ever more “outrageous” demands.

            Japan and Moldova already did so, while not even Kazakhstan, one of Russia’s “best friends”, supports their war… Various Russian “republics” a la Ingushetia, Dagestan, Tatarstan etc will probably start making demands soon…

            And maybe even Poland or Lithuania, with respect to Kaliningrad. (Which, before 1945, had as big a Russian presence, as Polish – ie zero).

            It’s what happens when you start a stupid war, which only makes your country weaker.

  17. https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2022/03/26/wsj-biden-expands-nuclear-doctrine-to-protect-ukraine/

    The Masters have determined, unequivocally, that we will enter into a permanent Eurasian war. How they intend to keep it from being a Global, i.e. nuclear, war is less clear.

    Their toadies are working diligently to convince the Russian population that this is an existential conflict aimed at destroying Mother Russia and meeting quite a bit of success. One should not underestimate the historically proven capacity for Russian suffering in defense of the Motherland. Nor the enduring hatred for the defilers of the same. When the word Nazi is used by Westerners it conjures visions of death camps and crematoria. For a Russian it is a brutal invader. Nazi, International Bourgeoisie Interventionist, German, Turk, French, Turk again, Swede, Prussian, Pole, Tartar, all the same; soon to add American for the second time. That the current mental midgets in the State Dept. think they could ever be qualified to hold Keenan’s hat is astounding.

    https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/congress-punts-decision-on-draft-registration-into-2022-or-2023/

    Expect this to be pushed forward soon. No reason to excuse women from a draft when No such person exists epistemologically.

    https://www.foxnews.com/media/usa-today-ketanji-brown-jackson-marsha-blackburn

    • It’s all about getting white Christians to slaughter one another into extinction as a race.

      Same reason Brandon’s handlers are maneuvering the USA into involvement, or if that’s unsuccessful, into the civil war they had been steering us into before the CCP virus temporarily derailed that train.

      • And why are they such idiots and amenable to manipulation?
        As Abrahamists write there: “Let the dead bury their dead.”

  18. According to personal feelings, some kind of bloody Potlatch is going on in full swing between Ukraine and Russia.

    In me, too, something turned on at the genetic level – terrible, strange and unknown.

    When Suvorov in the 18th century conquered these territories, which are now at war, from the Turks for Russia, he wrote in a letter to his daughter:

    “We all had fights stronger than you tear out your hair in a fight (in the boarding school for noble maidens) …. but when I got out – cannon buckshot in my side, a hole in my left hand from a bullet, and under me the horse’s muzzle was shot off.”

    У нас все были драки сильнее, нежели вы деретесь за волосы …. а как вышел — в боку пушечная картечь, в левой руке от пули дырочка, да подо мною лошади мордочку отстрелили.

    All the nouns of this message are written in diminutive terms, I can’t convey it in English, but in Russian it sounds both funny and creepy.
    That’s how we live.

  19. This is quite possibly the worst article I’ve ever read on Gates of Vienna.

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