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All those super-clever “analysts” do not understand one thing, because they just repeat each other’s bullshit they got from some “alternative” site and have no clue what’s going on in ukraine.

With this operation a truly new phase of the SMO has started. NATO is now all in. Everyone who believes the rag-tag “ukrainian army” of stupid young men, pathological russophobes and wannabe-rambos lead by the idiot Zalushny who could not even command a group of boy Scouts has pulled this off needs to have their head examined. This is the point that was to be expected from the start: NATO has now finally realized they are fighting for their very survival in ukraine and poured troops, mercenaries and weapons into eastern ukraine to fight the final battle. Russia would be crazy to go all in against that. They have done exactly the right thing, first get their boys out of harm’s way, establish their best defence lines and now they will assess the situation and make new Plans. At 700 kia a day and with NATO now having to keep troops fixed up in their new territories, with supply lines stretching open to artillery fire it is just a question of time. Who knows what tricks NATO still has up their sleeve. They are like a boxer facing the knock-out punch. This is their last attempt to land their lucky punch. Keeping calm and professional is exactly the right thing to do now. Ignore those hysterical war gonzos calling for ukraine to take over russia. NATO is sacrificing its last weapons and ammo supplies for Ukraine. Winter is coming soon, making most of NATO’s Wunderwaffen useless. Ukraine needs 30 more billions just to keep going, bankrupting the west. From russia’s point of view, what’s not to like?

Posted by: Franz Beckenbauer

Putin has been playing with a very weak hand for a long time, which made him very patient and careful – lets remember what Russia was like when he took over. We can see that in Syria and in the response to the 2014 coup. With respect to the SMO, the West forced his hand with Zelenskys talk of nuclear weapons/the planned attack on the Donbass/the biolabs.

Its hard to go from 20+ years of playing it careful because you have a weak hand to taking risks because your hand is much stronger. Perhaps now Putin will start to be a little bolder seeing what being careful has got him, although patience may still be a virtue in the long game. The West is slowly dying, with Europe accelerating the pace for the next couple of years at least. There will be setbacks, but there is a great difference between a single battle and the overall war.

The other part of this is the Rest of the World which is slowly coming around to the China-Russia-Iran alliance etc., but Putin needs to maintain a level of ethical behaviour to offset any attempts by the West to damage his reputation in the RoW. In this respect, the West is playing into his hands by making Europe irrelevant on a geoeconomics level. Being patient is good but it has to balanced with a swift, hard punch now and again to show credibility – Russia could do with delivering that swift hard punch in the next month or so – just like Ali in “The Rumble in the Jungle”.

Posted by: Roger |

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You can’t print fossil fuels, and money printing with a constrained supply just leads to higher and higher inflation. As Europe becomes deindustrialized this winter, supply chains will become more and more constricted and if the printing machine keeps going they will never get control of inflation. This is the idiocy of the massive fuel subsidies which will continue to support nosebleed energy prices in a supply constrained environment, while massively increasing government debt, and massively increasing trade deficits as Western industry starts to shut down.

That is a toxic witches brew for Europe, one which will be in full display by Christmas. Even with GBP170 billion of fuel subsidies a huge number of British households will still be having problems paying their fuel bills. Then add single digit pay raises combined with 15-20% inflation and you have a winter of discontent and industrial collapse. The same will happen all across Europe, and by Christmas the Kharkov “victory” will be long forgotten.

In addition, it looks like Ukraine may have shipped a ton of grain to Europe to pay off debts which will mean Ukrainians will go hungry as well as cold this winter. Expect huge new movements of refugees to Europe, and I hope that Russia enforces visas for Ukrainians to make sure the Banderistas go West.

Posted by: Roger

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Zelensky: 90 days of next winter will decide more than 30 years of Ukraine’s independence and than all the years of the EU’s existence