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Petroyuan Getting Ready

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China’s global economic juggernaut status could get major boost through power of petroyuan

Saudi Arabia is ready to “do what’s in its best interest” and “try new things,” including as far as the possible use of the yuan in settlements for crude oil is concerned, Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Al-Khorayef told media this week.

The comments, made on the eve of Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s trip to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to discuss expanded cooperation with the oil rich Gulf kingdoms, signal a “new dawn” in relations between China and the Gulf, Dr. Wang Zhimin, director of the Institute of Globalization at China’s University of International Business and Economics, told Sputnik.

“In energy cooperation between China and the Middle East, settlements using the yuan have become an important topic. The expansion of the use of the currency in settlements for energy transactions is a gradual and long-term process that requires step-by-step reforms, opening up, and natural market selection. In addition, given the relationship with the United States, the process of using the yuan to settle cross-border oil transactions by countries such as Saudi Arabia may encounter certain difficulties,” Wang said.

Commenting on the broader trend of “dedollarization” in China-Middle East trade, Wang cited the currency swap agreement reached between Beijing and Riyadh last year, and cited interest in the yuan for oil payments as a reflection of a “growing trend of diversification of the international monetary system, including the decline of the dollar’s share in international payments.”

Russian economist Nikita Maslennikov says the petroyuan has good prospects as a major alternative to the petrodollar, despite “strong pressure, including political pressure, from other market players.”

Military Affairs

Dumb as they Come: Scholz and Pistorius

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by Gilbert Doctorow

For well over a year, we have known that Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock is a disgrace to the government she serves. The lady is not smart enough to flip hamburgers at McDonalds let alone sit in the federal cabinet and make pronouncements bearing on war and peace. She will never live down her remark that Vladimir Putin must change his course by 360 degrees.

However, I had always thought of Chancellor Olaf Scholz as a wily fox. Of course, I believed that he is an out and out coward, a sell-out to American interests at the expense of his own nation. His silence on the sabotage of the Nord Stream I pipeline was proof positive. But stupid?

What he and his Defense Minister Boris Pistorius were saying these past two days on the sidelines of the Ramstein gathering of donors to the Ukrainian war effort leave little doubt that he is also a damned fool.

I have in mind Scholz’s announcement that Germany will now budget for new procurement of air defense capabilities for itself and will join other European countries in their plans to build what might be called an iron dome, if we may borrow from the Israeli lexicon, to describe an impenetrable screen against incoming airborne attack.

If such an announcement might have appeared to be patriotic and an investment in the security of his nation, say, a week ago, the events of the past week have trashed all such thoughts. Following the successful Russian missile attacks on Poltava, on Lviv, on Krivoy Rog and on several other towns in Ukraine where there were large concentrations of NATO officers, high level advisers and instructors, the notion that there is any defense whatsoever against Russian hypersonic missiles was disproved beyond any doubt.

The Russians say that their attack on the communications institute in Poltava, which may have killed 200 and sent to hospital with grievous wounds another 500, was executed with a variant of the Iskander missile, which has a maximum speed of Mach 6.

If we concede that Poltava may not have enjoyed very good protection from anti-missile defense, the situation was precisely the opposite in Lviv, which was protected by an American Patriot system plus additional systems manufactured in Germany, Italy and elsewhere within NATO. For this hardened target, the Russians used their Kinzhal missile which travels at Mach 10. If this were not enough, they also have the Avangard family of missiles which reach Mach 20. There is absolutely no known air defense which can protect against these missiles now in the Russian arsenal, and we may well assume that by the time the Germans will actually acquire and set up what they now are thinking of buying, the Russians will have still more advanced attack missiles that remain invincible.

As for the long range nuclear armed missiles that the United States is planning to deliver to Germany in 2026 with the consent of Mr. Scholz, that only has the effect of painting a very big bulls-eye on his country. Moreover, it is a provocation that could prompt a preemptive strike from Russia.

Would it not make more sense for the German leadership to face up to the facts: namely that Russia’s ability to destroy their country is for the foreseeable future beyond their own ability to protect themselves, with or without American help. That admission should lead them to do the obvious: sit down with the Russians and come to terms over a new security architecture for Europe that everyone, EVERYONE can live with.

I close with a couple of further observations about what the Russians were doing this week. In Lviv, they not only killed numerous NATO personnel but destroyed a newly arrived train from Poland carrying a large amount of advanced weaponry for Ukraine. By choosing as targets installations in various cities where NATO officers are living, the Kremlin was delivering an unmistakable message to the Alliance, to its main decision maker, the United States, that it has the will and the wherewithal to take on NATO directly wherever and whenever it believes that its ‘red lines’ are being crossed. It may well be that even in Washington this message was received …and understood. To my knowledge, Zelensky’s bleating at Ramstein for permission to use long-range NATO supplied missiles to attack the Russian heartland fell on deaf ears.

Saving Ukrainians from Themselves

Kiev is sitting on a “Trillion Dollars’ Worth of Minerals

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US Senator Lindsey Graham has openly said Washington needs Ukraine’s natural resources and that, therefore, military aid to the country must continue until Kiev is able to “win” its conflict with Russia.

The South Carolina Republican, one of the top backers of Kiev within the US establishment, made the remarks on Friday in Kiev, speaking alongside leader Vladimir Zelensky. He praised the Ukrainians and their purported resolve to fight Moscow no matter what, noting that this means that Americans themselves don’t have to do this, only to provide the weaponry.

“They [the Ukrainians] are sitting on a trillion dollars’ worth of minerals that could be good to our economy. So, I want to keep helping our friends in Ukraine. We can win this. They need our help,” Graham stated.

The senator has long been very open about Washington’s true goals in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, repeatedly bringing up the “trillions worth” of resources in the hands of the Ukrainians as a crucial asset and the ultimate prize for the US. He also previously described the deaths of Russians in the conflict as “the best money we ever spent” and an all-round solid investment for the US.

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Kamala as President – Governing the Way Trump Promises?

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by Claudiu A. Secara

How to interpret the latest re-configuration of U.S. electoral groupies vs. the stalemate in Ukraine? Well, apparently there is a recognition by the governing Globalists that their anti-Russian policies failed, in the short term, to cause Russia to capitulate. In the long term, this will generate a new chapter in the Cold War containment policy. But Russia is prepared to go back to closing itself up within its own shell. That would mean another generation or two of Cold War, at best (for the U.S.), that would give the U.S. some breathing space. But the U.S. is no longer in the same position as in its youthful days. Now it is an aging, sclerotic, dysfunctional state – so that the most likely scenario is that the dollar’s dominance cannot survive for another generation or two.

This is what Trump’s people see, and they are flipping from their “Make America Great Again” slogan to “Let’s not lose the dollar as the world’s currency and become a third-world country overnight.”

Interestingly, the Democrats have seized on that very real possibility and are dumping the extra-bellicose Biden for Kamala. The difference? She has now embraced Trump’s position, which is, “let’s save the dollar (and focus less on Ukraine).”

On the Russian side, the options are not much better. In Ukraine they could start a Gaza-like offensive, a scorched-earth military campaign, maybe even using tactical nukes. But that would definitely give NATO a casus belli, to intervene directly. And as Putin has emphasized several times, 150 million Russians cannot succeed against an 800-million NATO+ alliance of a total of 57 nations in an all-out total war.

Without a quick, decisive military victory, Russia will be confronted with diminishing economic options. The sanctions are starting to bite pretty deeply into Russia’s real economy. Despite President Putin’s up-beat presentation at the Far East Economic Forum in Vladivostok, and the grandiose future plans for development especially in the Far East, Russia’s economic situation is becoming quite difficult. The Power of Siberia II gas pipeline to China has been cancelled by the Chinese. The big Chinese bank Sinopec has stopped doing business with Russia. And worst of all, as revealed by Izvestia, as of August 15 the bank-to-bank window of foreign exchange with China has been torpedoed by the sanctions. Down by 98%, it is mostly relegated to the cumbersome route of Russian central bank to China’s Central bank. This has already caused a significant (3%) decline in imports to Russia. More Western sanctions against Chinese entities will further impair Russia’s economy. After only two and a half years of war in Ukraine, the Russian economy is starting to suffer. Imagine another ten years on this course of sanctions extended to third-party countries. That would really damage Russia.

The two giants are definitely hurting, and more sickness lies ahead for both of them. Meanwhile China, India, even Iran are continuing to flourish. Not a good perspective for the two giants. The question is: Who is going to blink first? The odds are that Kamala will win the Presidency, according to Alan Lichtman – who claims he’s accurately predicted the US Presidents for the last 40 years.

Are we going to have a Kamala presidency with a Trumpian platform? Quite possibly.

Economics/Statistics

Has the US Finally Succeeded in Choking Off Russia’s Biggest Trade Lifeline?

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by Henry Johnston, a Moscow-based RT editor who worked in finance for over a decade

With the threat of secondary sanctions being felt acutely by Chinese banks, Washington may be winning a single battle – but in an economic war being decisively lost.

The resilience of the Russian economy in the face of harsh Western sanctions sent those cheering the rise of multipolarity into victory laps. And it has been a huge embarrassment to the West. But Russia’s burgeoning problem settling payments with China demonstrates that this resilience isn’t without setbacks.

This past June, the US Treasury put the local banks of countries that trade with Russia in the crosshairs for secondary sanctions. The legal foundation for measures against companies or individuals found trading with sanctioned entities was originally implemented back in December, but it was in June that Washington expanded this framework and sent strong signals that this time it was serious. These threats were felt particularly acutely in China, Russia’s largest trade partner.

What happened and when

It started with the big state-owned Chinese banks, which began shying away from dealing with Russia at the beginning of the year. But there were always smaller, regional banks, which were seen as less exposed to the Western financial system, which would take their place. For a while, it seemed these banks would carry the day. But now even these institutions have followed suit.

By the summer, Chinese banks were rejecting and returning about 80% of Russian payments made in Chinese yuan, Kommersant reported in late July. An article in Izvestia from mid-August claimed that things were even worse: 98% of Chinese banks were refusing to take direct yuan payments from Russia.

The result has been delayed and disrupted payments for many Russian importers. A Reuters report from last week discusses how transactions with Russia are being shut down “en masse” and billions of yuan worth of payments are being held up, according to a government source.

“At that moment, all cross-border payments to China stopped. We found solutions, but it took about three weeks, which is a very long time, trade volumes fell drastically during that time,” the government source told Reuters.

Many Russian businesses have had to use various chains of intermediaries in third countries to handle their transactions, which has driven up both costs and processing times. The problems have mostly affected smaller companies doing business in consumer goods. Bilateral arrangements for large companies – such as Russian commodity exporters – appear to mostly still function, although there have been some hiccups there, too.

Meanwhile, the tighter restrictions have led to a drying up of yuan liquidity in the Russian market. In other words, it has become harder and more expensive for Russian companies needing yuan to get ahold of the currency. Given how much of Russia’s trade now takes place in the Chinese currency, this is certainly an issue.

The cost of raising yuan for one day (overnight rate) on the Moscow Exchange has exploded. The situation had actually begun deteriorating at the end of August. On August 30, the final business day of the month, the overnight rate surged from 8.5% per annum to 42.2%. Bankers explained this as elevated demand at the end of the month. But this week – already in the new month – the rate only kept rising, reaching an unprecedented 212% on Wednesday, before coming down somewhat. Such market behavior points to an acute yuan liquidity deficit. It has also pushed the ruble to its lowest level against the Chinese currency since April.

As a result of the squeeze, more and more firms are having to turn on a regular basis to a channel previously used as a last resort – expensive swaps with the Russian central bank (whereby entities post rubles as collateral in exchange for yuan). At the start of September, Russian banks raised a record 35 billion yuan through this facility, well up from the 20 billion daily average in August and 10 billion average in June. Essentially, the Bank of Russia is being forced to fill the gap left by Chinese private banks operating in Russia.

Banks are now calling on the Russian central bank to increase the offer of yuan through swaps. “I think the central bank can do something. They hopefully understand the need to increase the liquidity offer through swaps,” said Andrei Kostin, CEO of state lender VTB, emphasizing that exporters, many of whom are paid in yuan, should sell more of the Chinese currency into the market as well.

The problems with payments this year have already affected imports, although the current figures come with a lag and do not reflect the most recent surge in yuan costs. Russian imports from China dropped by more than 1% to $62 billion over the first seven months of this year, according to official Chinese data. Russia’s central bank forecast that the country’s total imports of goods and services will fall by as much as 3% this year. But it will be important to watch how the figures for China’s exports to Russia – whether direct or transshipped through other countries – shape up the rest of the year in light of the surging transaction costs.

In the short term, of course, a certain amount of friction will continue to be experienced. Alex Isakov, a US-based Russia analyst, told Bloomberg that “Russia’s yuan money market hasn’t recovered, which suggests that Russian banks are struggling to find reliable workarounds.” The Russian central bank will almost certainly have to play a larger role, and exporters will probably also step in to provide liquidity. But there is no quick and easy fix.

In making sense of these issues, first of all, it is important to note that this problem is well understood in Russia and is freely discussed, including at the highest levels of government and in the media. No façade is being erected; there is no attempt to suppress this story. It’s been on the front pages of the Russian financial press.

It also bears keeping in mind that Russia-China trade is not exactly collapsing. In fact, despite the problems, turnover actually grew overall by 1.6% in the first half of this year. More importantly, the experience of the last few years has shown that whatever headwinds emerge end up being a strong driver of change.

In this context, a comment made by Russian economist and presidential aide Maksim Oreshkin this week at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok is important. Responding to a journalist’s questions about the payment issues, he said: “There is a problem with payments, but, as we have seen over the past years, any type of problem leads to new financial innovations, to the appearance of new payment methods.”

This is not just empty rhetoric or the face-saving cliché of a Russian official. It’s exactly what’s happening. As Business Insider admitted, the West’s tightening sanctions are pressuring Russia, “but Moscow keeps finding ways to keep the country’s economy going.“ A number of initiatives are afoot.

What solutions may be forthcoming

In July, China’s ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, floated the possibility of cooperating via Russia’s Mir payment system, stating that Russian and Chinese institutions were studying the possibility. While China would likely not view the Mir system as a long-term solution, it could be a stop-gap measure. Such rhetoric also demonstrates the seriousness that the Chinese side is bringing to the task of finding a solution to the roadblocks thrown up by Washington.

Meanwhile, in a significant policy shift, Russia earlier this summer embraced the use of cryptocurrencies for international settlements. In commenting on the regulator’s softening stance toward digital assets, Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina emphasized the need to embrace new financial technologies to navigate the current challenges.

Thinking longer-term, Anatoly Aksakov, who chairs the State Duma committee on financial markets, recently touched on what will almost certainly be a key element of the future financial landscape – central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) – which are like cryptocurrencies but backed by central banks. Both Russia and China have been at the forefront of pioneering such infrastructure.

However, Aksakov, who has spoken about CBDCs before, has been careful not to oversell the initiative, saying earlier: “Fundamentally, there are few countries that have made serious progress in using national digital currencies. This is why technologically they are simply not ready to launch a digital currency in mutual settlements with other countries.“ Nevertheless, he is optimistic, predicting that CBDC settlements “will be common practice within five years.”

He is not alone in thinking so. More than half of the world’s central banks are either studying or already developing CBDCs, according to the IMF. As these CBDCs become increasingly interlinked it would essentially recreate the network of correspondent banks that underpins the current system. Such a CBDC-based network, buffeted by bilateral currency swap lines, would enable central banks to serve as intermediaries for currency flows between local banking systems.

Legendary analyst Zoltan Pozsar, who sees CBDCs as likely to revolutionize the financial landscape, explains that instead of correspondent banks – which form the backbone of the Western financial system – there will be what he calls “correspondent central banks.” This means that transactions that were previously dealt with between commercial banks in two different countries, for example, will be settled at the level of those countries’ central banks.

This is important because it is precisely commercial banks that are on the front lines of enforcing sanctions. They have both the responsibility and the authority to block transactions involving restricted entities. But what if these banks are entirely removed from cross-border trade? Would the US resort to sanctioning the central banks of countries trading with Russia?

Certainly, as Aksakov and many others admit, a large-scale CBDC-based system won’t be rolled out next week. Such infrastructure will require strong cooperation among central banks and use of a single technical platform, or some kind of unified clearing system. None of those are presently in place; but nor are they impossible to create. The Bank for International Settlements, an international institution owned by member central banks, is already overseeing testing of a CBDC platform for wholesale cross-border payments.

Washington’s Pyrrhic victory

Let’s come back to the issue at hand and try to get a sense of what it all means. The West has been deeply frustrated by its inability to put a significant dent in the Russian economy. Having doubled and tripled down on its approach, it is now treating Russia’s payment problems as confirmation that sanctions, if applied rigorously enough, can have the intended effect. Washington apparently feels that treading all over other nations’ sovereignty is a reasonable tradeoff for the benefit of pushing up the transaction costs for Russian businesses and proving that the yuan hasn’t achieved the stature of the dollar.

Furthermore, some Western commentators are pointing out with glee that for all the rhetoric of the “friendship without limits” between Moscow and Beijing, when forced to choose between doing business with Russia and retaining access to the Western financial system, China is choosing the latter. But those celebrating China ostensibly coming to heel over the sanctions don’t want to acknowledge that it is a choice made under duress. China would prefer to trade freely with both the West and Russia and deeply resents being hindered in doing so. Chinese officials have stated as much on numerous occasions. The US is behaving like a jealous lover who has locked the object of his affection in the basement and then claims that her not fleeing is a sign of devotion.

That Western commentators and officials can only see the Russia-China relationship through the lens of power dynamics – looking for signs that China could be abusing its ‘junior’ partner – says more about the Western fixation on one-sided relationships than about the true state of things. China is a sovereign nation that is naturally looking out for its interests, and Russia expects nothing less of it. There are no hard feelings. As cliché as it sounds, it really is a relationship defined by mutual respect for sovereignty. In the current situation, Beijing has to act pragmatically, but the erosion of goodwill toward the US this episode is producing in Beijing will find its outlet.

It is also argued that the huge disparity in interest rates between Russia and China points to the fact that the two countries’ economies are fundamentally misaligned. This is an exaggeration but insofar as it contains a kernel of truth, it is largely an artificially imposed misalignment and one that should prove temporary, especially once Russian rates eventually come down. The Russian and Chinese economies are actually quite complementary.

So are the travails with payments a victory for US sanctions? Yes, undeniably. But it is a rather short-sighted and ephemeral victory. It is a single battle won in an economic war being decisively lost. Far from a demonstration of strength, Washington’s overbearing meddling in the trade relations of sovereign nations across the globe is more akin to burning the furniture to keep warm. It will eventually be self-defeating.

The fading hegemon still has a few trump cards it can play with some effect – and it is playing them now. But every time it does, it brings closer the day in which those cards will be rendered obsolete.

Health, Mind, Wellness

Aging Process: How Can You Slow It and Reduce Risk of Related Illnesses

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via Sputnik

While the average life expectancy has increased significantly over the past 100 years, humanity should not settle for just living a bit longer, says Olga Tkachyova, chief consultant geriatrician of the Russian Ministry of Health and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Life expectancy in Russia has been on the rise since 2003 and has already reached 73.4 years today, she noted.

“But we should not focus on simply increasing life expectancy. We must strive to increase the length of active, healthy life devoid of age-related illnesses,” she said. “Today in Russia the length of this period of life approaches 62 years and our goal is to increase it to at least 67 years.”

“People should live for a hundred years and not suffer from age-related illnesses by the time of their death,” Tkachyova stated.

The improvement of the overall quality of life – better food, better living and working conditions, better and more available healthcare – in the recent past gave a tremendous boost to life expectancy, and the time is nigh for humanity to start “managing the processes of aging,” Tkachyova suggested.

“We are also witnessing another tendency: while life expectancy is increasing nonstop, the maximum life span – which currently stands at 122 years – does not,” she added. “Perhaps in order to achieve a breakthrough in this field and increase the maximum life span we need to develop the technologies of gene-engineering therapy and regenerative medicine.”

What is Known About Aging?

While there are about 300 “theories of aging”, all of them can be divided into two large groups, Tkachyova explained.

The first group postulates that aging is a “preprogrammed process” – it is inevitable, the only question is how fast this process progresses and how people can influence it.

According to the second group of theories, aging is essentially the result of “errors” – which occur in human body cells all the time, during protein synthesis, DNA replication, etc. – gradually accumulating.

“On one hand, the aging process is preprogrammed in the human organism, but we can influence it,” Tkachyova mused. “On the other hand, if those ‘errors’ in the human body accumulate then the aging process accelerates.”

So far, twelve “mechanisms of aging” have been discovered and confirmed, with two more such possible mechanisms being investigated, she noted.

Research into the process of aging involves studying people from various age groups and tracking how aging progresses in each case, including people who age early and those who live very long.

“There are many theories, and the mechanisms of aging are being actively researched. Problem is, such mechanisms have been studied during experiments on cell cultures, but there are not many studies related to translating knowledge from laboratories to clinical medicine,” said Tkachyova.

She also noted that the speed of aging is determined not only by a person’s health in their later years but also by how they live since birth. One theory even suggests that the speed of one’s aging may be determined during the fetal stage.

How Can Ageing Be Affected?

Methods through which the aging process can be influenced are various and many of them have nothing to do with medication, Tkachyova explained.

“There is physical activity – so far nothing better has been invented for prolonging a healthy life,” she said. “There is a protein called myostanin that blocks the replication of muscle cells. If we block it, a person’s muscles won’t atrophy, and he or she won’t grow frail and will be able to stay young and active for longer. One would think that we have a target to influence. But today we cannot block this protein with any kind of medication. But we can affect it via physical exercise. If a person is physically active then age-related atrophy of muscle tissues progresses slower.”

What one eats and how much one eats also affects aging, Tkachyova noted, pointing out that long-living people never overeat, and that there are special diets and types of food that help slow down aging.

“Often we eat things that not only give us energy but also pollute the body,” she remarked, adding that one’s body sometimes simply cannot handle the sheer amount of food that needs to be processed and excreted.

“Thirdly, there is cognitive activity. It is well known that the higher one’s education is, the longer he or she lives. This is why there are so many long-living persons among scientists,” Tkachyova claimed.

She also suggested that perhaps the aging of the brain may be the key issue in the aging process as a whole, seeing how the brain regulates the activity of all other organs and systems that comprise the human body.

Olga Tkachyova
© Photo : Scientific Russia / Elena Librik

There are various medications for treating cardiovascular diseases, which have additional geroprotective effects.

“So far, however, there are no medications labeled ‘recommended for slowing the aging process’,” Tkachyova warned. “Such research is being conducted and, in some cases, has even progressed to clinical trials. But no medicine for slowing the aging process has been made yet.”

Finally, it seems that remaining optimistic and finding joy in your life may also help you live longer, with Tkachyova citing examples of long-living people who apparently lived that long in no small part due to doing things that gave them positive emotions, like dancing.

“Positive emotions have a colossal effect on longevity,” Tkachova said, arguing that people often overlook the importance of “positive emotions.”

What Compounds Age-Related Research

The main problem with researching means of slowing and perhaps even reversing the aging process is the fact that in order to confirm that some medication does slow down aging, it requires either monitoring the test subject/s their whole life or using “biological age calculators” that aren’t fully developed yet, Tkachyova said.

She noted that genetic engineering and regenerative medicine may help deal with aging – for example, via transplantation of lab-grown human organs that could be used to replace the damaged or worn-out, aged tissues.

Tkachyova also postulated that in this day and age, it is important for people to understand what exactly is happening to their bodies, for doctors to explain to their patients why exactly this or that regimen or medication was prescribed.

“When it comes to aging, a person must consciously affect their own longevity and understand exactly what they are doing,” she said.

That said, children who are being born today, with the current level of scientific advancement and healthcare, have a 50-percent chance to live up to 100 years, Tkachyova remarked.

“By the time they turn 60, they will have 40 more years – nearly half of their life,” she says, arguing that we should strive to make it so that they could, even at that advanced age, “be useful to society and to their families, and to enjoy their long lives.”

Military Affairs

The War in Ukraine Is Already Over—Russia Just Doesn’t Know it Yet

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by Paul Schwennesen via Reason

Dr. Paul Schwennesen is a military affairs analyst and environmental historian.

A front-line report from the Kursk offensive reveals that in the battle for hearts and minds, Ukraine’s resolve outpaces Russia’s crumbling morale, signaling an inevitable conclusion.

Wars end long before armistices are signed. A war’s end, after all, is a matter of will, of spirit—and popular will is only haltingly, grudgingly reflected in the political machinery of peace talks.

Though it may seem astonishingly premature to say so, my impression after returning from the Russian front is that the war in Ukraine is over and that the powers that be haven’t realized it yet. In the Kursk salient, at least, I can personally attest to the eerie, almost surreal inversion of spirits between the people of Ukraine and Russia. The moral scales have now firmly settled on the side of the Ukrainian defenders, and it is far likelier that Russia itself splinters into its constituent republics than that Ukraine falls to its erstwhile invaders.

I was in Irpin and Bucha nearly three years ago, while they were still smoldering from Russian occupation. The mood then, as we pulled burned bodies with bound hands from the tree lines, was a tragedy-enforced grim determination. Evidence of Ukrainian resistance was everywhere: crates of Molotov cocktails on street corners, invective-laced messages scrawled on storefronts, spent shell casings piled behind makeshift barriers against the intruders—all of it unequivocally pointing to a deep-seated resolve.

In Russia today, it is entirely different—it is a moral vacuum. Its citizens in Kursk fled the Ukrainian advance like smoke in the wind, leaving homes and possessions without so much as a whimper. I saw exactly one makeshift roadblock, consisting of a few chairs and a rake. Russian civil resistance is (or was) desultory at best. The comparison is stark: Despite Russia’s enormous advantages in mass and material, the will to fight is fundamentally absent.

Ukrainian morale, meanwhile, is topping the charts—bordering on euphoria even. A fervent passion for taking the fight to their enemies has infected the front and operations are conducted amid a general scrum of units desperate to be part of the action. A sense of Wild West–like possibility draws a cast of aggressive fighters, many eagerly engaging in their own semiprivate pirate operations in the free-for-all. This does not necessarily imply a lack of Ukrainian command and control, only that a willingness to take the fight into Russia is pervasive—the Ukrainian armed forces are like a spirited charger, barely reined in. The ambiance is almost party-like—battle-hardened and battle-hungry troops alike joke and banter at the last gas station before the Russian border, glad and relieved to be free of the grinding stalemate of the last months as they race toward the expanding front.

In Russia meanwhile, there is silence. Of the tiny handful of remaining civilians in the Kursk area, some eagerly interact with the occupiers while the rest furtively attend to their habitual routines. One woman we spoke to turned down an offer of Ukrainian cash (a gift from my daughter), asking bitterly, “And where would I spend that?” Dogs and cats wander the streets forlornly, while herds of sheep move in from the countryside to gorge on the town’s unharvested fruit trees.

Those Russians left behind engage in petty low-grade looting of their former neighbors’ homes. The overriding sense is one of poverty—physical as well as moral—a kind of community-wide bankruptcy. A faded plaque on a home proclaimed a “Veteran of the Great Patriotic War” once lived there, and my Ukrainian comrade noted how sadly decrepit his home was. “Russians are known for brutalizing their neighbors,” he said, “but it is the Russians themselves who are the most brutalized of all because they do it to themselves.”

Ukrainian occupiers, for their part, are too busy dashing into and through these small Russian towns to bother much with the spoils of war. Moreover, the comparatively wealthy Ukrainian forces laugh at the grimy and obsolete possessions of their neighbors—continually surprised at the degree of pervasive shortage. Ukrainian soldiers instead feed the abandoned dogs, then move quickly onward to press their advantage at the far fringes of the active front line.

The action in Kursk is a reminder to Westerners that the Russian behemoth is far from a monolithic, integrated federation. It is instead a tentative, demoralized, loosely adhered tissue of a nation, held together primarily through fear and learned dependence on the state. Separatist sentiment, never fully extinguished, is rising rapidly in regions like Chechnya and Karelia and across some 85 other autonomous regions spanning 11 time zones, most of which have long traditions of independence.

Leo Tolstoy famously wrote of the Russian army: “This horde is not an army because it possesses neither any real loyalty to faith, tsar and fatherland—words that have been so much misused!—nor valour, nor military dignity. All it possesses are, on the one hand, passive patience and repressed discontent, and on the other, cruelty, servitude and corruption.” Things have not appreciably improved since.

Russia’s incursion into Ukraine has simply run out of moral impetus. It has the resources, of course, to engage in a substantial amount of lingering mayhem. No doubt it will. But the Ukrainians I’ve met simply cannot envisage a scenario in which they lose. They are prepared to fight in the streets to the last man, and their commitment to freedom is overwhelming. In contrast to the current Russian mood, which seems largely to be one of confused apathy, Ukrainians have the decided advantage.

Wars are won in the heart of a people, not through the rational calculations of military planners. While there is momentum left in the Russian war machine, it is only a matter of time before reality sinks in that the Russian heart is not in this fight. Whether the war ends in the shattering of its fragile federation or in some half-hearted armistice measures to mitigate its appalling losses, Russia simply cannot go on. The Kursk offensive, for all its complexities and contradictions, has, if nothing else, opened a clear window into the popular wills of each side.

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Russian Offensive in Ukraine Stalls. What’s Going On?

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by Sergey Markov

The Russian army’s offensive in the direction of Pokrovsk can be said to be on pause, after a long success. In Selidovo, even the Ukrainian Armed Forces counterattacked and the Russian army retreated from the outskirts of Selidovo.

That is, after the entire August of a relatively rapid retreat, the Ukrainian Armed Forces managed to stabilize the situation a little.

The Russian army is more active in the direction of Ugledar. And it is developing in the direction of Ukrainsk and Kurakhovo.

But in general, the Russian army’s offensive is less active in this entire section of the Donetsk front. That is, the collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ front did not occur.

Meanwhile, Zelensky is knocking out new arms deliveries at the Ramstein base. Meetings with European leaders. 77 Leopard tanks have already been announced, they will be handed over to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

But Zelensky’s main goal is to get a lot of long-range missiles and permission to fire them at Moscow. He names 250 military targets, that will happen too.

But the main thing is to fire missiles at Moscow. Zelensky is confident and is persuading the US and Europe that this will lead to a turning point in the war. That after this, Russia will accept the demands of the West. And that there is no need to fear Russia’s nuclear weapons, since Russia does not have the political will to use them.

There is a discussion going on in the Western elites on this issue. Zelensky wants to influence this discussion.

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Is Zelensky Preparing His Exit from Ukraine?

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by  Germán Gorraiz López – Political analyst

Since the Biden administration sees the possible start of Israel’s war against Lebanon and Iran and Putin’s dangerous approach to Vietnam to prevent the formation of a nuclear arc against China as its priorities, the Pentagon is presumably weighing up the need to sign a peace agreement with Russia. The Pentagon must have already seen its objective of preventing Russian expansion fulfilled by having it surrounded on its borders, while Congress and the Senate already consider the Ukrainian conflict as a bottomless pit that should be immediately closed.

With the US preoccupied with the campaign for the November Presidential elections, France, Poland and the UK became the trident chosen by the globalists to implode the Ukrainian front before November with the aim of provoking the entry of NATO into an open conflict with Russia.

The presence of Polish, French, British and American soldiers in the offensive on Kursk confirms that NATO has engaged in open conflict with Russia. The incursion in Kursk is the largest attack against Russian sovereign territory since the military conflict with Ukraine began; a minimum of 5,000 Ukrainian soldiers led by NATO Elite forces and supported by tanks and armored vehicles, they invaded Russian territory and reached about 10 km deep, while Russia, after overcoming the initial surprise, decreed a special “anti-terrorist operation” in three regions bordering Ukraine: Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk.

The stated objective of the Ukrainian-Russia offensive was to force the Russian command to withdraw troops from other sensitive areas of the front, to occupy the nuclear power plant near the city of Kurtsov, and to subsequently consolidate the positions reached and use them as weapons of pressure in future peace negotiations. However, the offensive did not achieve its initial objectives, as we witness the unstoppable Russian advance in the Donbas, the worsening of the energy crisis caused by the Russian attacks and the uncertain future of Ukraine’s suicidal offensive on Kursk which will probably end with the flight or surrender of Ukrainian troops.

Russia’s attack with two ballistic missiles against the Military Communications Institute in the city of Poltava, which claimed more than 200 victims, has also generated criticism from military analysts who accuse the Ministry of Defense of “negligence on the part of military commanders in allowing such a concentration.” For the time being, the Russian Armed Forces have chosen to use the three-ton FAB-3000 aerial bomb over a zone of concentration of troops and weapons of the Ukrainian Army in the Sumi region, from which “Kiev launched its ground incursion into the Kursk region,” according to the Russian Ministry of Defense and the “cauldron or encirclement” tactics used by the Ukrainian troops.

This situation is extremely dangerous for the pocket force because it cannot receive supplies or reinforcements and because they can be attacked from different sides, and since withdrawal is not feasible, they must choose surrender or die in the attempt.

Zelensky’s presidential term expired on 20 May and although the Ukrainian Constitution allows for an automatic extension of office in case of martial law, part of the opposition questions the legitimacy of this extension on the grounds that the position should pass to the current Speaker of the House, Ruslan Stefanchuk.

According to The Washington Post, Zelensky has dismissed officials close to the US who sought to fight endemic corruption, among whom the figure of Alexander Kubrakov stands out, Minister for Infrastructure, who was responsible for the reconstruction of the country. Corruption is an endemic problem in Ukraine, as according to the Transparency Index it scores 32 points out of 100 and according to the NGO Transparencia Internacional, by 2021, 23% of public service users had to pay some form of bribery.

At present, we are witnessing the resignation or dismissal of half of Zelensky’s Executive office, including the Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba. These resignations expose the isolation of Zelensky who is burdened by the unstoppable Russian advance in the Donbas, the worsening energy crisis caused by the Russian attacks and the uncertain future of the Ukrainian suicide offensive on the Russian region of Kursk,

Is Zelensky, cornered, making decisions on his own? Zelensky has already become a burden for the US which they would like to rid themselves of immediately. A coup by Lieutenant General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the real leader of the Ukrainian army, due to their tactical disagreements, cannot be unexpected. Such a coup would have the blessings of the US and, after being accused of corruption, Zelensky could be forced into exile in the U, to be replaced by the Troika formed by Lieutenant General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, and the former Minister of Infrastructure, Alexander Kubrakov. They would be responsible for negotiating the peace agreement with Russia, the subsequent task of rebuilding the country and the design of the new cartography of Ukraine.

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Netanyahu and the Rebellion of Israeli Society

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by Germán Gorraiz Lopez- Political analyst

Kamala Harris is desperately trying to get a declaration from Netanyahu of “an indefinite truce” that would allow the exchange of the Jewish hostages still in Hamas hands as well as restore the movement of humanitarian aid trucks. Thus, Harris would be a major diplomat and would wash the image of the Democratic Party as Israel’s necessary collaborator in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and allow him to present himself before voters on the left-wing Democrats as the To win the vote of this segment of the population.

Netanyahu and the trivialization of evil

Netanyahu would have trivialized evil because of the total absence of morality in his actions that leads him to commit crimes against humanity without thinking about their consequences and without discerning the good or bad of their acts. Thus, the asymmetric punishment of the Gazan population and other evil practices would not be considered by Netanyahu from its effects or its final result because the deities have chosen him to «the high mission of eliminating Hamas from the face of the earth and building the Great Israel», a dystopian situation that has led the Jewish civil rights activist and Holocaust survivor, Israel Shakak to affirm «The Nazis made me fear being a Jew and the Israelis make me ashamed of being a Jew».

Netanyahu would be aware of his precarious political and judicial situation, so using the invisible dictatorship of the fear of the Third Holocaust, took advantage of the bloody offensive of Hamas to declare the State of War (defense of Israel’s security) and launch a devastating offensive in the Gaza Strip that would allow him to postpone the trial in which he is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.After the asymmetric punishment inflicted by Israel, all basic infrastructure, Schools, mosques, hospitals and 90 per cent of buildings in Gaza were reportedly destroyed by systematic aerial bombardments resulting in more than 41,000 Palestinian civilian casualties and several thousand more buried among the rubble.

The rebellion of Israeli society

The growing disaffection of Israeli society due to its disastrous management of the crisis with Hamas and its lack of interest in rescuing the Israeli hostages alive, would have triggered the movilizaciones of the families of those kidnapped by Hamas.Thus, following the unfortunate death by the Israeli army of three of the Jewish hostages mistaken for members of Hamas, there would have been an increase in the mobilizations of the families of those kidnapped by Hamas in front of Netanyahu’s residence “personally responsible for his return home alive” and protests have escalated following the rescue of six Israeli hostages and corpses.

In this context, the Forum of Hostage Families representing the relatives of some of the detainees in Gaza stated that ” the death of the six captives is a direct result of Netanyahu’s failure to reach an agreement to stop fighting and bring his loved ones home”.Protests supported by the Israeli opposition have taken place in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and a dozen points across the Israeli state to call for Netanyahu’s resignation and demand a truce with Hamas that would allow the release of the 97 hostages (of which one third would have lost their lives) continuing in Gaza. In this context, the country’s largest trade union organization, Histadrut, has already called for a general strike with the aim of paralysing the Israeli economy as a sign of support for the protest movement demanding a permanent ceasefire, The release of hostages held by Hamas and the entry into Gaza of urgent humanitarian aid in the form of food, fuel and medical supplies.

Has Netanyahu lost the support of the United States?

Following the decision of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Galant accused of «crimes against humanity», Netanyahu is aware that once the asymmetric war against Hamas has ended, he risks an international criminal prosecution. Thus, Joe Biden, in an interview published by Time magazine, admitted that «Netanyahu would be prolonging the war for political reasons and to stay in power at the head of a complex coalition government».

For his part, Kamala Harris desperately tries to get a declaration from Netanyahu of “an indefinite truce” that would allow the exchange of the Jewish hostages still in the hands of Hamas as well as restore the movement of trucks of humanitarian aid. Thus, Harris would be a major diplomat and would wash the image of the Democratic Party as Israel’s necessary collaborator in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and allow him to present himself before voters on the left-wing Democrats as the To win the vote of this segment of the population.

However, Netanyahu’s political shortsightedness makes him refractory to the dictates of the Biden administration, so that a coup led by former member of the Israeli Emergency Government, Benny Gantz, and the Minister of Defence would not be impossible.This coup would have the blessings of the Biden administration and AIPAC and after ending the invasion of Gaza and the exchange of hostages in the hands of Hamas, would lead to the early calling of new elections with the declared objective of forming a Government of National Unity of Benny Gantz with Yair Lapid and whose primary task will be to reissue the Oslo Accords that make possible the peaceful coexistence of two peoples in two States.While Netanyahu, a nefarious politician who attempted an autocratic coup d’état to subsequently establish a presidential regime, could face criminal prosecution where he will be accused of negligence and crimes against human rights, what could mean a criminal conviction and his definitive exit from the Israeli political scene.