I don’t know who this Axe chap is, but he’s a berk. This is a completely half-arsed article that belings in the Beano.
Rupert
Until February the EU, led by Germany was hot for Russian gas: chances are that the Biden Administration’s insane decision to lift sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in July 2021 to allow it’s completion was the primary trigger for the Ukraine invasion. Putin probably figured the EU would moan, then go along with the latter, and the only reason that didn’t happen was the failure of the Russians to take Kyiv.
Bongo
UA war had been running since 2014 – Russians are nationalist, Putin very much so, likes to protect Russian culture peeps who fell on the wrong side of the border when the Soviet Union broke up.
When UA went all socially fascist on Russian minorities in 2021, banning Russian tv channels, heck they’re shit but some people like to watch the soaps and songs of praise in russian in the east and south, and a couple of the banned channels belonged to a Putin personal mate, Medvedchuk. Restrictions on education, media production, were earlier. Even dual language road signs were banned.
But the troop build up in 2021 dates to when Medvedchuk got arrested.
Interested
The EU may not be able to make weapons but it will resolutely refuse to be invaded by armies which don’t meet the DIE criteria.
Steve
How the Czech Republic has just stopped Putin cold and saved Ukraine
This is the kind of headline they used to make when NATO was still hoping the counteroffensive would cause problems for Russia. Feels antiquated now that most of the serious papers have been gently breaking the bad news about Ukraine to their readers for some months now.
Russia went to war in Ukraine two years ago with twice as many artillery pieces as Ukraine had. But it isn’t the advantage in howitzers that really matters – it’s the advantage in shells
Wrong. You need an advantage in shells, tubes and men.
It’s for that reason that, in charting the supply of artillery ammunition on both sides of a war, you can map the progress of that war. The side with the most shells is probably going to win.
Because the side with the most shells probably also has the most tubes and men and other war necessities.
And it’s why a surprise initiative, led by the Czech Republic and involving more than a dozen European countries, has been so critical to Ukraine’s survival as Russia’s wider war on the country grinds into its third year.
“Survival” in this case means “losing slowly”. Ukraine will never again have a chance to end the war on the favourable terms offered by Russia in March 22, before Boris Johnson flew to Kiev to tell our allies we didn’t have their back if they agreed to peace. We would only support them in war.
Now there are hundreds of thousands of dead Ukranians and there are hundreds of thousands more missing arms and legs. Good work, Boris.
The Czechs found, for Ukraine, nearly a million shells precisely when Ukraine needed those million shells the most: at the peak of Russia’s winter offensive. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Czech artillery initiative probably saved entire Ukrainian cities, by giving the Ukrainian army the firepower to resist a much bigger Russian army.
It probably is an exaggeration, and in fact it’s most likely completely bollocks, floated to sell Forever War to an increasingly war-weary and poor European public. The EU is doubling down on failure in Ukraine as the Americans position themselves for the inevitable cut and run.
Doubling down on failure means continuing to feed billions of pounds into a war which Ukraine has no realistic path to win. When you’re losing a war of attrition, being propped up for a few extra months just means you take more casualties and lose more land before the inevitable. This is the position Germany found itself in from 1943-45. Heroic efforts to shore up fuel and munitions supplies for the Reich ensured the Reich ended in total defeat.
You’re better off doing an Italy instead.
To understand how Ukrainian howitzers that once fired non-stop eventually went idle, you have to understand American politics
To understand American journalists, you have to understand that they’re instinctive liars obsessed with American politics.
No, the Republicans didn’t stop Ukrainian artillery. Fighting a high intensity war with Russia for over 2 years that massively depleted their own plus NATO stocks did that.
At this point it doesn’t matter how much money the West sends to Ukraine, it can’t buy the materiel Ukraine needs to win a war with Russia because that materiel doesn’t exist for sale in Western markets. The West simply doesn’t have the manufacturing capacity to keep up with Ukraine’s needs. We can only do what we have been doing – give them just enough to put up a fight they can’t win.
And anyway, Israel is now a far higher priority customer for what munitions the Americans can make quickly.
So, And because a European Union project to manufacture a million shells for Ukraine was six months late for its 2023 deadline,
Why can’t the EU manufacture enough shells? Because they can’t. The factories, production lines, supply chains, skilled manual labourers and abundant energy supplies they would need to get close to Russian levels of weapons manufacturing simply do not exist in Europe. They aren’t going to exist in future either. You may occasionally read some UK or Euro politician or retired general opine that “we” need to get ready for war with Russia. This is rhetoric, backed up with nothing.
It’s like Rishi opening his mouth and farting out that we need more gas fired power plants – fucking DUH – and also, we won’t get more gas fired power plants, because the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has no authority and even his own government doesn’t obey him.
The simple truth is that disgraced ex-president Donald Trump, who is running for the presidency this year and is weirdly fond of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin
Or we could take the retard’s view of geopolitics and war, which is that Orange Man bad and Putler bad.
Five miles west of Avdiivka, Ukrainian troops halted their retreat, turned and counterattacked. Finally enjoying something approaching adequate artillery support, they stopped the Russian offensive dead in its tracks in villages with names like Berdychi, Orlivka and Tonen’ke.
Retards see war in much the same way they saw The Karate Kid, something that’s essentially entertainment, and in which comforting narrative tropes apply.
So because Ukraine is Daniel San and Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker, the natural culmination of a brutally successful Russian Orc assault (all offensives reach such a point, it’s why wars are made up of a series of battles) MUST mean that we’re entering the Third Act where our hero finally turns the tables and beats up the mean bullies.
In this case, with a little help from the Ewoks (the Czech Republic).
Artillery – a shortage of it – is the main reason the Ukrainians nearly lost a whole eastern oblast to the Russians this winter and spring. And artillery – a million shells brokered by a tiny Eastern European country – is the main reason the Ukrainians didn’t lose that whole oblast.
Narrator: the Russians kept coming, and Ukraine lost that whole oblast.
If artillery is the king of battle, the current kingmaker is … the Czech Republic
CZECH MATE, PUTLER! 😀
If only wars could be won through puff pieces, Ukraine would be the greatest superpower on the planet.
Rupert – Until February the EU, led by Germany was hot for Russian gas: chances are that the Biden Administration’s insane decision to lift sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in July 2021 to allow it’s completion was the primary trigger for the Ukraine invasion. Putin probably figured the EU would moan, then go along with the latter, and the only reason that didn’t happen was the failure of the Russians to take Kyiv.
So the story is, Russia was so excited at the prospect of finally exporting gas through a pipeline they’d invested billions in (which has what to do with the American government?), they decided to invade Ukraine.
Makes sense if we also believe that Commando Comics are 100% accurate.
Achtung!
Jack C
Meanwhile in Cyprus, some of those US Tax Dollars at work:
Or possibly EU Tax Euros, though the result is the same
Van_Patten
Steve
You need to set up a rival Diamond firm to De Beers – great analysis.
I can’t even be arsed to read the original article. At this point I think it’s purely CIA/ MI6 trolls writing puff pieces for each other.
It bears no more resemblance to reality than DIE and Net Zero and at this point I think we’re reduced to trying to stop Russia by offering that as a vision of their future if they don’t confirm.
Paul, Somerset
I was glad we left the moment UK-supplied NLAWs began being unloaded in Kyiv before the full-scale invasion had even begun. Couldn’t be a greater contrast in efficiency.
(Also, there appears to be a straight-line relationship between the length of Steve’s posts and the length of time it’s taking for Steve to see the people of Ukraine surrender; we’ve gone from a pithy “Ukraine is a retarded nation of potato farmers” on day zero to … well, whatever all that is, on day 749.)
The Meissen Bison
Paul, Somerset: «the length of Steve’s posts»
PgDn is a boon these days.
bloke in spain
Steve. There’s nothing particularly challenging about the manufacture of dumb artillery shells or even tubes etc. The production lines already exist for a limited capacity. The designs exist as does the tooling. It’s a case of duplicating it. The same industrial processes currently produce other things. It would be just require repurposing some of them. It’s the will to do so’s lacking.
Steve
Jack – it’s going on at every level of the Ukrainian state, from CO’s pretending dead soldiers are still in the ranks (so they can embezzle their pay and sell their supplies) to the government of Ukraine pretending over 90,000 dead Ukranians are simply “missing” so they don’t have to pay their widows, to omnipresent bribery (at this point, it’s mostly people too poor to pay bribes and too slow to run away who are being conscripted for the Ukrainian army).
People thinking Ukraine ’24 is like London during the Blitz are sorely mistaken. Ukraine is Slavic Zimbabwe, or modern day Liverpool. Everybody’s on the rob all the fucking time, and it’s getting worse as the war situation deteriorates and people with options try to cash out while they can.
I don’t blame Ukrainians for this btw, if war comes to Western Europe I think we’ll find that we also live in a low trust society now. The pandemic showed us what kind of society we now live in, and the ongoing disenfranchisement of white people in Western nations confirmed it.
VP – Thank you.
David Axe is actually one of the better war correspondents. He knows little about war, but is an enthusiastic military hardware nerd.
But the Ukraine war is just another problem our political system helped cause, but is incapable of solving. We can’t procure victory for Ukraine, but we also refuse to stop the war through diplomatic means.
This leaves Ukraine in the shittiest situation imaginable. In the future, all the war cheerleaders will simply pretend they never heard of Ukraine, just like all those people hot to invade Iraq back in the early Aughts shut up and changed the subject a long time ago.
Paul, Somerset – Ukraine is still a retarded nation of potato farmers, it’s just a much smaller and poorer retarded nation of potato farmers than it was in February 22, and may not be able to recover its retarded potato statehood from the consequences of this catastrophic war.
You clearly believe this is a good reason to have continued the fight. Gud wurk, NAFO!
I, on t’other, regret that the Pentagon was wrong when it predicted Kiev would fall in 3 days. That would have been a sweet, merciful miracle for all concerned, compared to what we’ve lost. And are continuing to lose.
Because – and this is what really pisses off the Commando Comics Warspunking Crew – I was right. Ukraine should have surrendered, it’s better to surrender than have your country torn apart and your people turned into refugees, cripples or corpses.
TMB – PgDn is a boon these days.
Yes, if you’re not interested in reading BTL discussion of Ukraine on a post Tim made about Ukraine, feel free to use PgDn and/or change your tampon.
For the men, the Ukrainian war is important and bears discussion. The future of the continent we live on is being shaped in Ukraine. Hopefully we can discuss that without too much feminine snark.
Dennis, Inconveniently Noting Reality
Slavs fighting each other is rather like Arabs fighting each other… The best thing that could happen is both sides lose.
Steve
BiS – Steve. There’s nothing particularly challenging about the manufacture of dumb artillery shells or even tubes etc
There was nothing challenging about it in 1974, when Britain and Europe were choc full of engineering works, steel plants, trained machinists etc. and we had plenty of cheap electricity powered by coal.
But it’s not 1974, is it?
The will is not lacking – we’ve spunked, and continue to spunk, billions upon billions of pounds into the war. But expanding industrial infrastructure that has atrophied to bespoke craft beer levels of capacity is not as simple as printing money. It’s very hard, expensive and time consuming. And it’s completely at odds with Net Zero, which is unacceptable as Net Zero is our new religion.
We’d need a lot of new tooling at a time when European factories are closing down and selling off their machine tools at firesale prices to China and the US. We’d need hundreds of thousands of skilled manual workers at a time when Europe only produces feminist studies graduates and semi-retarded tribesmen from the hills of central Afghanistan. We’d need to rapidly build coal or gas fired power stations at a time when European countries can no longer guarantee the lights will stay on in winter – and can no longer guarantee an electric car factory won’t be sabotaged by “Greens”.
Sorry, mate, you’re wrong about this. You’re right that shells and tubes are relatively dumb and completely unglamorous (which is why we neglected it for so long), and it’s not really a high tech cutting edge endeavour. But you’re wrong in thinking that, just because this stuff is relatively low tech metal bashing, it’s easy.
If it was easy, we’d be churning out millions of shells a year by now. It’s been over 2 years. We’re being outproduced by the economic powerhouse that is North Korea, ffs.
CJ Nerd
From that article: “Those million shells (…) freed Ukraine’s 3,000 or so howitzers to blast away at a rate of at least 10,000 rounds a day”
So does “blast away” really mean 3.3 shells per day? Seems like a lot of boredom to go with the terror.
jgh
“banning Russian tv channels,”
So, just point your aerial over the border. You can get the BBC in Eire even though it’s not a licensed Irish service. Radio waves do not respect borders.
The Meissen Bison
Steve: «Yes, if you’re not interested in reading BTL discussion of Ukraine»
No, it’s specifically your endless theories and suppositions – perhaps you use too many suppositories?
Bloke in Wales
Ukraine should have surrendered, it’s better to surrender than have your country torn apart and your people turned into refugees, cripples or corpses.
I think you’re wrong with this part in particular. Putin wasn’t and isn’t going to be satisfied with what he had captured in 2022. It might have taken a few years to rearm, but he would certainly be back for whatever remained of Ukraine, and the Baltics, and any other scrap of eastern Europe that had once been part of a Russian empire. Even Finland was on the list, before the Greater Russia ambitions convinced them to finally join NATO.
It’s bad luck for the Ukrainian people that he was stopped in his tracks there, but it’s still better for the world that the war is concentrated there rather than spreading out from the Baltic to the Med.
PJF
. . . there appears to be a straight-line relationship between the length of Steve’s posts and the length of time it’s taking for Steve to see the people of Ukraine surrender . . .
Perhaps it’s just a resentment that the Ukrainians choose to fight rather than surrender but to be fair, Steve’s approach to all the various battles that face our civilisation is to self-flagellate with relentless, defeatist bitching and moaning about how shit we are. It’s no surprise that the worthless commie pseudo Pope infesting the Vatican espouses Ukrainian surrender (turn the other arse cheek) whereas Argentina’s Milie can afford a little time out from smashing the leftist state to support Ukraine.
Steve
TMB – Perhaps you should wind your neck in, and stop trying to play Blog Police at Tim’s gaff. x
If you have anything of substance to say, I am as high functioning Aspergerishly happy to discuss or debate that to your heart’s content as I’ve always been.
Otherwise, what is the point of your post, other than a vague distaste for unspecified theories you think I have? Or a dislike of the person you think you’re talking to? Could those electrons have been put to a better use?
BiW – I think you’re wrong with this part in particular. Putin wasn’t and isn’t going to be satisfied with what he had captured in 2022. It might have taken a few years to rearm, but he would certainly be back for whatever remained of Ukraine, and the Baltics, and any other scrap of eastern Europe that had once been part of a Russian empire. Even Finland was on the list, before the Greater Russia ambitions convinced them to finally join NATO.
Similarly, I think you’re 100% wrong, in a wet streets cause rain sort of way.
The Ukraine war is not about territory. Russia had no territorial ambitions in Ukraine prior to this war, save the biggie: protecting their Black Sea naval base, their only major warm water port.
Russia’s record on foreign adventures post 1991 is far more cautious than NATO’s. They had little interest in supporting Donetsk seperatists until the start of the “SMO”, and according to Ukrainian sources were prepared to bugger off, leaving Ukraine intact, as recently as March 22.
As for the Baltics, Finland, etc. it’s a crazy idea to think the Russian Federation wants to conquer and occupy countries that hold no value for them, and whose people hate Russians.
Russia is not a growing society, it’s a shrinking one. A lot of their awful demographics are being papered over through mass migration of central Asian Islamics to the heart of the Motherland. Putin talks a great game about Russian multiculturalism, but he’s only 20 years away from France style societal failure.
This is not a society that’s bent on conquest, and it’s very unlikely they would be able to – or want to – occupy the non-Russian parts of Ukraine where every second person would be collaborating with the resistance.
Look at how difficult it has been for Russia to wrest control over five regions of Eastern Ukraine, full of locals who support them. You think this is Russia being stopped in its tracks, I see it as an indication of how limited their war goals actually are.
In the end, it amounts to the same thing. Russia isn’t going to do a 1945 style Red Army memorial tour of Eastern and Central Europe, but they never were. The Ukrainian war was kicked off with Russian aggression, but it was aggression we’ve carefully nurtured and provoked since 2008. NATO isn’t resisting Russia, it’s baiting Russia. We are not more secure now, we are less secure.
PJF – Perhaps it’s just a resentment that the Ukrainians choose to fight rather than surrender but to be fair, Steve’s approach to all the various battles that face our civilisation is to self-flagellate with relentless, defeatist bitching and moaning about how shit we are.
Give that Straw Steve a good kicking, he can’t stop you.
Do I resent the deaths and maimings of hundreds of thousands of white European Christians? You’re fucking right, I do. This is a horrible, disgusting calamity that should be immediately stopped.
It’s not my fault you live under a regime that despises you on a biological level, is stealing your future to spaff on Net Zero, and is rapidly replacing you with acid-throwing monsters and grooming gang members while hordes of Palestine fans mob your nation’s capital like they own the place, while you better watch your step in case the police ever take a disliking to your opinions.
Don’t shoot the messenger. If it was up to me, I’d improve society somewhat. It ain’t up to me, all I can advise is that Western Man should stop hitting his own crotch with a hammer. Perhaps you feel sure that Operation Hammerdick is going to lead to better outcomes this time, but the track record inspires no confidence.
How about Operation Mind Our Own Business And Secure Our Own Borders, for a change? But I suppose that’s defeatist bitching.
Tim the Coder
If you want to make shells, you need both steel and military HE.
The last blast furnaces in UK are being closed, and the UK no longer makes any military HE, though some quarrying HE is still produced an AMFO slurry by an old ex-ICI plant).
Never mind, we can import it all from China and India…though the new UK assembly factories can only run if the wind is blowing.
Even the Yanks found they hadn’t got enough HE and tried to buy some TNT from Japan, which gave the Japanese serious post-1945 treaty issues with supplying arms to active conflicts.
Like Steve, I lament the loss of life and the inferior result the Ukies will end up with, when any who survive are allowed to make terms by their USA masters. I also despise the attempts to paint Putin as a Bond baddie bent on world domination. That doesn’t mean supporting him, but it does mean understanding Other View Points Exist, and not everyone sees the world through the USA neoclown eyes. There are times when I wish our politicians were as serious about the UK and its people as he is about his country and people. If you bomb and shell russians for 8 years, what did the Ukies expect? A thank-you card?
When the shooting finally stops, we will still have to deal with a world with an angry Russia, provoked by NATO, so it’d pay to be thinking about how that peace might be shaped, rather than fanning the flames of what could easily become annihilation. “Just one little tactical nuke, to stop dem rooskies in their tracks…”you can already see Slim Picken’s hat, yee hah.
Keep up the comment (and the sarcasm) Steve, it’s very thought-provoking, and propaganda-busting.
Meantime, only Death wins.
PJF
– TMB –Perhaps you should wind your neck in, and stop trying to play Blog Police at Tim’s gaff.
Lol, where does he do that? Capitan snark can’t take a bit of snark back so makes up stories.
.
– Give that Straw Steve a good kicking, he can’t stop you.
[sigh] It’s more that you can’t stop yourself.
The Meissen Bison
«Otherwise, what is the point of your post, other than a vague distaste for unspecified theories you think I have? Or a dislike of the person you think you’re talking to? »
You’re a bore, Steve.
Paul
How do you win a war? How do you win a campaign?
You bring sufficient force to bear. Normandy, North Africa etc were all about supply and material. The finesse of the commanders there is in getting a victory with the lowest butchers bill, the battle having been won by supply and logistics.
The UK ‘won’ the first and second world wars by outproducing the enemy. The UK could not beat the Germans in 1940. It could not beat the Germans until it has built it an alliance, until it had harnessed US (and Canadian) production capacity and had the vast human resources of the USSR to grind down the Germans.
It could also escalate further than the Germans could – you blitz London? Ok we destroy whole German cities.
Apply this understanding to Ukraine.
Can we escalate? Not really – Russia has nukes.
Can we out produce them? Not if we don’t make the effort to up our industrial capacity which we have largely offshored to our strategic enemies.
Can we supply more warm bodies to attrit the Russians to the negotiating table? Not really Ukraine is smaller than Russia.
So then tell me how this ends? How does Ukraine win?
This scenario is more like the winter war between the USSR and Finland to my mind. Russia / USSR is looking to get back some territory along an ill-defined border with a former part of their empire that was imposed on them when they were weak. After a heroic defence and colossal Russian incompetence the tide has turned in favour of the biggest, most ruthless and best resourced combatant.
How does it end? Well the final score for Finland was loss of territory and having their biggest neighbour have a veto on their foreign policy decisions. Seems to me this is what Russia wants here.
Grikath
Let’s be fair……
If this was left up to British (God Save the Qing).. usual mode of operation, the ammo would have been delivered two years late, below/wrong spec, and twice as expensive…
Grikath
Paul… The bit of WWII patriottism is ..nice.. but the while the UK produced much during that particularly nasty era, I could only do so because of a constant stream of US-supplied raw materials, material, and warm bodies. By Convoy. Hence the U-boats, and….
Absolutely tremendous effort by all involved, but it was already *GONE* by the late 50’s early 60’s when the Unions took over, and you get stuff Monty Python, the “Carry On” productions, “Yes Minister”, Top Gear… you can fill in the rest.
From the 70’s on… weeeeellll…. Thatcher tried, but…
Current UK is more or less *why* the French adapted the guillotine…
Paul
An utter tragedy for Ukraine and another embarrassing humiliation for the west. If ‘Steel not Flesh’ was the motto of WW2 allied planners our current politicos work on the principle of ‘Feels not Steel’.
Steve
Tim the Coder – Thank you for saying that, and I sincerely hope we’ll see peace soon. War is disgusting.
Look at the emotions it can provoke here – among people who are very lucky to be comfortably far away from the front.
The hippies and St Thomas Aquinas were right. I’m not bambi, I’m just keenly aware that there isn’t a single war we’ve fought since 1982 that hasn’t been a strategic disaster for Britain. We should stay out of the war business at most costs. We should be in the peace, getting rich, and shagging the missus businesses instead.
PJF – [sigh] It’s more that you can’t stop yourself
You’re right, and I wish I could be 2010 era Steve with the funny one liners instead, but we’ve both seen some pretty unreasonable shit since then, haven’t we?
You can’t see it, man, but here’s my 1000 yard blog stare: 0.0
TMB – You’re a bore, Steve.
AH! Excellent! I much prefer aggression to passive aggression.
Yes, I’m probably boring to some on topics that I care about. So when I get an opportunity to share my thoughts in mid-form, btl, on a blog that’s notoriously liberal on free speech and has an intelligent group of commenters… I ramble.
But I suspect it’s not that I bore you, I believe my opinions have offended you. In that case, I am sorry to say that my thoughts are the ones that originate in my own head and not yours. Quite possibly yours is the wiser. It could scarcely be more foolish.
But I’m an honest fool, in that i genuinely enjoy discussion and debate, and rarely play the man instead of the ball. Except of course, you’ve been expressing some negative thoughts towards me for a little while now.
Why can’t we be friends? x
PJF
– This scenario is more like the winter war between the USSR and Finland to my mind.
I’m not against 1930s analogies per se (exit stage left Putler; give it up everybody, for Staltin!), but there are glaring differences. Most obvious is the level of support for Ukraine vs essentially nowt for Finland.
A closer comparison could be made with the Soviet – Afghan conflict. A weak neighbour is invaded by a leviathan with vast resources, but their willingness to fight combined with constant supply from a coalition of supporters makes the invasion untenable for the economically weakening aggressor.
No previous war is fully predictive of new wars but the Afghan example does offer a reframe of the current scenario into one where Russia can lose. Just make the whole adventure too expensive for them to continue with. Keep sinking their ships, killing their troops, destroying their armour and dropping their planes. Blow up the Kerch bridge, and (in something very different to Finland and Afghanistan) hit their infrastructure deep in country.
All the West has to do is supply the Ukrainians for as long as they’re willing to fight and keep (and up) the sanctions. Keep tipping it in, the Russians will fold. Just as they have done before; pragmatic defeat is not new to them. This, of course, is why there is so much agitprop for the West to give up. CIA! Nuland! Globohomo!
Ottokring
Grikath
British performance in the air and on the ground in Desert Storm was pretty good considering that it was a small part of the operation.
Serbia, Iraq II, Afghanistan, Libya have all been disasters you are 100% right there.
The time to have dealt with this matter was in 2014 and the annexation of the Crimea. What has happened since has been completely predictable. I did not think that Putin would be mad enough to invade and would salami slice Ukraine instead. But I see in retrospect that inasion was always on the cards, because Putin has to cement his legacy at home and he thought that he could score a quick victory.
Luckily for Ukraine the Russian military is still as inept as it has ever been, but this luck will not last and I fear that it will succumb like Finland finally had to, despite Western aid and become a satellite of Russia ( I remember studying “Finlandisation” in the 1980s, but I think Ukraine will be more like a Hungary or Czechosolvakia a recalcitrant colony ).
Trump was right about Russian gas and the Germans laughed at him. Well serves them right, this whole energy debacle has wrecked their economy and it will take a hard hastard ( of which there are none in the main parties ) to rectify it. So arms production will have to be taken up by the Poles and Czechs, where some primary industry still exists.
PJF
– So when I get an opportunity to share my thoughts in mid-form, btl, on a blog that’s notoriously liberal on free speech and has an intelligent group of commenters… I ramble.
. . .
But I’m an honest fool, in that i genuinely enjoy discussion and debate, and rarely play the man instead of the ball.
That may be how you see yourself, Steve, but that’s not how you come across. Your clown nose off / clown nose on snark routine is precisely passive-aggressive playing of the man instead of the ball. That’s not really a problem (fun insults are still fun); the real issue (especially of late) has been what seems to be a combination of you having a quiet day at work along with an OCD hit or summat. Reams of text bashing out opinions and wit and data and diversions and despair and news and larfs and deceits and conceits . . . . .
. . . and then – you just fuck off.
Anyone who takes the time in the evening to respond to your daytime deluge is mostly met with tumbleweed. It’s usually quiet for a few days until Tim makes some oblique reference to Ukraine and – whooosh, out it comes again. There’s no point in engaging with that, tempting as it may be.
Van_Patten
I think this is an old argument – what I would say is that this Forum is a good deal better than Samizdata where any comment that isn’t 100% behind Ukraine is pulled from publication. Tim, as Steve says allows pretty much anything to go – and long may it continue.
While the Ukraine War is utterly demented it does serve as a great distraction from the real agenda of the UK political establishment which is severe restrictions on basic freedoms and total state control. This regardless of which bunch of pygmies nominally prevail in the coming election.
And while we squander billions on a war which even the most partisan can see no path to victory in, the ‘Four horsemen of the apocalypse’ ride in unabated
– Net Zero
– Unlimited migration and the Great replacement
– Collapse of paper money and the introduction of digital currency
– ‘Disease X’ and permanent lockdown
But hey, priorities, right?
At least we have the right flag on our ‘X’ profile.
Steve
PJF – Ah! I see. This may be a misunderstanding of blog etiquette.
My schedule is usually busy but often repetitious, as you’ve noticed. I often sadly have to sit in on bullshit, yet necessary, Teams based conversations and have a bad habit of bashing out the thoughts of chairman Steve to anybody who cares. But to me this is rarely more than a 2 minute diversion. I’m a quick reader and writer.
In the evenings I might get 5 or even as many as 10 minutes total to read and respond, if that. These are stolen moments, like a quick fag break used to be. Right now, for example, I am playing pool with some blokes. I am the only one without hand tattoos. I am also winning.
I try not to spam Tim’s blog with my opinions, and although I’ll check in and usually* respond to any direct call outs of Steve when I can, even my gold-plated bullshit work (it isn’t, but that’s a whole other tragic story of corporate offshoring) doesn’t afford me much time to check back on yesterday’s discussions.
And I was sort of under the impression that continuing to post btl on old posts was frowned on, somehow.
To anyone who (understandably) thought I was being rude, I apologise. I will happily talk to or fight you during UK daylight hours when I can. I love and/or hate you all. xxx
*The exception is when people say something nice. I’m always dumbfounded by kindness.
rhoda klapp
Both sides seem to have no path to an actual victory. Ukraine doesn’t have the power to get its territory back unless Russia just gives it up pragmatically. And Russia, even if they were to take all of Ukraine, would need to occupy it for who knows how long and with serious numbers of troops, FSB, police, whatever. If Ukraine went partisan we would see just what can be achieved by a small movement with ATGWs, mines and drones with plenty of targets.
Oh, and just a mention of all the parties which brought us to this pass. The US State department, Pentagon and CIA. The EU equivalents. The whipped puppy UK equivalents. Probably a whole bunch of industrial and energy interests. And Russia’s own deluded leadership supported by its own FSB and corrupt forces promising that everything worked when nothing did. A stunning array of cunts.
Van_Patten
Rhoda Klapp
Kudos for the phrase ‘A stunning array of cunts’
There’s plenty of them around!!!
Tim the Coder
There is a lot of nonsense about “international boundaries” which are somehow sacrosanct,
So all of Ireland is British then, Alsace-Lorraine (and most of Poland) is German, and Korea and Manchuria are Japanese, yes?
It all depends on when you draw the baseline.
Fact is, pre-1991, the Ukraine/Russia boundaries were internal administrative borders: think municipal counties.
With the end of the SU, these become international country boundaries, at wild variance with whoever lived there. Much like Africa 1920. Another success.
Supposedly the West is supposed to pay great attention to Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points (God himself had only ten) of which self determination was a very big one.
So allowing areas full of ethnic Russians to become part of Russia doesn’t seem so radical, when you see the arbitrary starting point. But to just to make it clear, it was the ethnic Ukrainians bombing the shit out of the ethnic Russians that made the whole thing into a war.
I am only surprised Putin had so much patience, and faith in Werstern ‘justice’ that it took him 8 years to catch on. Merkel blew the gaff: the Minsk treaty was never meant seriously by the West, it was a deception used to buy time to rearm Ukraine. And now he doesn’t believe anything the West says!
I wonder why.
I’m far from a supporter of Putin’s government. But the behaviour of the West make me puke.
PJF
– But to just to make it clear, it was the ethnic Ukrainians bombing the shit out of the ethnic Russians that made the whole thing into a war.
I expect it’s clear to you, but it just isn’t true. There was a low grade war and both sides were firing stuff. Damage and death was inflicted on both sides of the line. And all the while the Ukrainians were on their territory, defending their territory against the Russians and their puppet separatists. The notion of a one-sided slaughter is straight up Russian propaganda for children and the dim.
Pcar
@Bongo, March 14, 2024 at 10:01 am
@Steve, March 14, 2024 at 10:49 am
Well said
More BS in press
Iain Duncan Smith: The Vatican needs a new strategy for dealing with dictators
The Pope’s suggestion that Ukraine ought to ‘raise the white flag’ is utterly inexplicable
– No Ian, it’s eminently sensible and Zelensky was prepared to settle in ~April 2022 until Boris & Biden blackmailed & bribed him to continue war. Result would have been Crimea and Donbas recognised as free states – as they voted for in 2014. The war started in 2014 would then have ended https://archive.ph/zXV0q
“Why the Pope should speak of raising the white flag to a people who have suffered so much at hands of Putin is utterly inexplicable”
Perhaps he’s also thinking of all in East Ukraine who have suffered so much at hands of Zelenenky and predecessor
IDS also equates Russia with Soviet Union. Confirms what I and many say: politicians refuse to accept Russia is Not the USSR
.
Andrew Neil: Russia is beating us in Ukraine
– “Us”?
China’s Navy outnumbers the US. The Army is collapsing – and the Air Force is falling from the sky
The notion of a one-sided slaughter is straight up Russian propaganda for children and the dim.
– Yet Putin is the ‘New Hitler’ and the Ukrainians are beyond reproach, right? Are you Richard Murphy?
Jim
“I’m far from a supporter of Putin’s government. But the behaviour of the West make me puke.”
This is pretty much my view. Most of what the West (read America) has done in the last 30 years has been self serving shitholery. The idea we are ‘the good guys’ is for the terminally naive, or stupid. The war in Ukraine is basically a fight between Russia and the US by proxy, where one evil empire has provoked another, with the Ukrainians caught in the middle doing the actual dying.
I think we in the West need a new law – if the politicians start a shooting war, they get sent to the front line immediately to participate personally.
Steve
Pcar – IDS also equates Russia with Soviet Union. Confirms what I and many say: politicians refuse to accept Russia is Not the USSR
There is a strong generational preference at work here, older chaps tend to be a lot more aggressive on Russia. IDS is 69, which seems to be prime Russia-fighting age. Andrew Neil is 74. Maybe the Cold War never ended.
PJF – I expect it’s clear to you, but it just isn’t true. There was a low grade war and both sides were firing stuff. Damage and death was inflicted on both sides of the line. And all the while the Ukrainians were on their territory, defending their territory against the Russians and their puppet separatists
It’s certainly true that the Russians repeatedly agreed to Minsk formulas that would have calmed down the problem in Eastern Ukraine (Zelensky was elected promising to implement Minsk, before – as Tim the Coder notes – he and the former chancellor of Germany admitted Minsk was just a trick and that they’d lied to Russia and the rest of the world in order to buy time for war).
The “puppet seperatists” are just normal ethnic Russians who don’t like being beaten up or murdered by Nazis, of which Ukraine has plenty. The Nazi militias celebrated the 2014 Maidan coup by burning 42 people to death in a building in Odessa, a crime for which nobody was ever arrested because it’s Ukraine.
The Ukraine war certainly isn’t a battle of Good versus Evil (the whole thing is evil), but it’s absolutely true that Ukraine was – and remains – choc full of people who openly admire Nazi war criminals and want to ethnically cleanse Ukraine of anybody they regard as insufficiently Ukrainian. Including Greek Orthodox, Russians and Poles.
So you can probably understand why so many blokes who live in Donetsk took offence to Neo Nazi paramilitaries and decided to take up arms against them.
None of this was necessary. Ukraine inherited the best part of the former Soviet Union, and turned it into a dirt-poor kleptocratic shithole. Much like Russia in the 90’s. If Ukrainian politics had been less toxically retarded, they wouldn’t have picked a fight with their own people.
Zelensky himself didn’t speak a word of Ukrainian until recently, and his new chief of staff is a Russian whose relatives are fighting on the other side. This Slav brother war was unnecessary, but NB the amount of foreign investment in turning Ukraine into a conflict zone:
CIA builds 12 secret spy bases in Ukraine along Russian border
US agency has trained and equipped Kyiv’s intelligence officers in underground bunkers, some of which are buried in thick forest
The CIA didn’t build these secret bases since 2022, they’ve been there for years. But perhaps you think the CIA only wants good things for Ukraine.
Mitch
Being in the metal bashing trade I could easily be making artillery shells on our machines, the funny thing to me is the carbide tooling most commonly used is Israeli.
Van_Patten
Steve
But perhaps you think the CIA only wants good things for Ukraine.
When it comes to PJF and the CIA I remain convinced it’s a case of ‘not biting the hand that feeds you’ given his steadfast support for the misadventure.
Steve
VP – PJF said something similar, which startled me a little:
All the West has to do is supply the Ukrainians for as long as they’re willing to fight and keep (and up) the sanctions. Keep tipping it in, the Russians will fold. Just as they have done before; pragmatic defeat is not new to them. This, of course, is why there is so much agitprop for the West to give up. CIA! Nuland! Globohomo!
I don’t believe any of the commentors on Tim’s blog are in the pay of the Russians or the CIA, but PJF believes there is anti-Western agitprop aimed at sabotaging Ukraine’s Inevitable Victory, which will surely come about if only we keep doing the same things that have failed before.
If it’s agitprop, as opposed to just people drawing their own conclusions, surely it must be state-funded or organised?
I’ve never been offered a rouble in my life, although I have gotten drunk with Russian and Ukrainian friends, many times, back in the olden days when we had normal business and academic relations with Russia.
I don’t think the Russians are capable of spreading agitprop in Western societies, they’re far too crude and obvious for that.
But another thing I wanted to mention, because there seems to be a misunderstanding that Russia is an impoverished shithole backwater* whose people have to steal toilets from Ukraine (you can buy exquisitely molded and painted military figurines of Russian soldiers carrying toilets and radiators as war prizes – I shit you not).
People who believe the above tend to also believe that Ukraine is some sort of beacon of Western values that has been targeted by Russia because Russia is jealous of their wealth and success.
So here’s the facts:
Russian GDP per capita: $12,194.78 USD (2021)
Ukraine GDP per capita: $4,835.57 USD (2021)
Russia is getting a very poor return on their agitprop budget since they’re being completely trounced in the court of Western media by a country whose citizens aren’t even half as wealthy as Russians.
Anyway, I’m holding out for China’s agitprop money. That’s where the big bucks are. Ching chong Taiwan wrong!
*It’s all relative, most Slavs living in the West are disarmingly honest about their home countries
Van _Patten
Steve
You’re probably right re: CIA funding – they’re probably too busy chasing down January 6th insurrectionists and setting up voter frauds in advance of November!
Anecdotally football supporters who attended the 2012 Euros (held in Poland/ Ukraine) and the 2018 World Cup (in Russia) were more impressed by the infrastructure on display in the latter. However, that won’t be permissible sentiment in the next decade.
Totally agree re: Slavs in the West! Definitely don’t mince words…
Pcar
@Steve
There is a strong generational preference at work here, older chaps tend to be a lot more aggressive on Russia. IDS is 69, which seems to be prime Russia-fighting age. Andrew Neil is 74. Maybe the Cold War never ended
I don’t think it’s an age thing, more an easy politcal diversion from China threat as many still remember and gullibly accept Russia = USSR. At same time they see China as a third world country. Mostly due to politicians and msm pushing this narrative
Grant Shapps (age 55 years), David Cameron (age 57), Boris Johnson (age 59), Richard Tice (age 59) are all in the Russia/USSR are the huge threat and are about to invade us camp
Bev Turner, Andrew Pierce, guest I’ve forgotten all shredded Tice when he expressed establishment Russia bad, Ukraine good narrative
My mother, 84, view is evil USSR long gone and Ukraine a much worse country than Russia
Boganboy
I tend to have a lower opinion of China than Russia.
But of course a lot of that’s because China is closer to Oz than Russia. And therefore represents a bigger threat to ME personally.
As always, my opinions are based firmly on selfishness.
I don’t know who this Axe chap is, but he’s a berk. This is a completely half-arsed article that belings in the Beano.
Until February the EU, led by Germany was hot for Russian gas: chances are that the Biden Administration’s insane decision to lift sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in July 2021 to allow it’s completion was the primary trigger for the Ukraine invasion. Putin probably figured the EU would moan, then go along with the latter, and the only reason that didn’t happen was the failure of the Russians to take Kyiv.
UA war had been running since 2014 – Russians are nationalist, Putin very much so, likes to protect Russian culture peeps who fell on the wrong side of the border when the Soviet Union broke up.
When UA went all socially fascist on Russian minorities in 2021, banning Russian tv channels, heck they’re shit but some people like to watch the soaps and songs of praise in russian in the east and south, and a couple of the banned channels belonged to a Putin personal mate, Medvedchuk. Restrictions on education, media production, were earlier. Even dual language road signs were banned.
But the troop build up in 2021 dates to when Medvedchuk got arrested.
The EU may not be able to make weapons but it will resolutely refuse to be invaded by armies which don’t meet the DIE criteria.
How the Czech Republic has just stopped Putin cold and saved Ukraine
This is the kind of headline they used to make when NATO was still hoping the counteroffensive would cause problems for Russia. Feels antiquated now that most of the serious papers have been gently breaking the bad news about Ukraine to their readers for some months now.
Russia went to war in Ukraine two years ago with twice as many artillery pieces as Ukraine had. But it isn’t the advantage in howitzers that really matters – it’s the advantage in shells
Wrong. You need an advantage in shells, tubes and men.
It’s for that reason that, in charting the supply of artillery ammunition on both sides of a war, you can map the progress of that war. The side with the most shells is probably going to win.
Because the side with the most shells probably also has the most tubes and men and other war necessities.
And it’s why a surprise initiative, led by the Czech Republic and involving more than a dozen European countries, has been so critical to Ukraine’s survival as Russia’s wider war on the country grinds into its third year.
“Survival” in this case means “losing slowly”. Ukraine will never again have a chance to end the war on the favourable terms offered by Russia in March 22, before Boris Johnson flew to Kiev to tell our allies we didn’t have their back if they agreed to peace. We would only support them in war.
Now there are hundreds of thousands of dead Ukranians and there are hundreds of thousands more missing arms and legs. Good work, Boris.
The Czechs found, for Ukraine, nearly a million shells precisely when Ukraine needed those million shells the most: at the peak of Russia’s winter offensive. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Czech artillery initiative probably saved entire Ukrainian cities, by giving the Ukrainian army the firepower to resist a much bigger Russian army.
It probably is an exaggeration, and in fact it’s most likely completely bollocks, floated to sell Forever War to an increasingly war-weary and poor European public. The EU is doubling down on failure in Ukraine as the Americans position themselves for the inevitable cut and run.
Doubling down on failure means continuing to feed billions of pounds into a war which Ukraine has no realistic path to win. When you’re losing a war of attrition, being propped up for a few extra months just means you take more casualties and lose more land before the inevitable. This is the position Germany found itself in from 1943-45. Heroic efforts to shore up fuel and munitions supplies for the Reich ensured the Reich ended in total defeat.
You’re better off doing an Italy instead.
To understand how Ukrainian howitzers that once fired non-stop eventually went idle, you have to understand American politics
To understand American journalists, you have to understand that they’re instinctive liars obsessed with American politics.
No, the Republicans didn’t stop Ukrainian artillery. Fighting a high intensity war with Russia for over 2 years that massively depleted their own plus NATO stocks did that.
At this point it doesn’t matter how much money the West sends to Ukraine, it can’t buy the materiel Ukraine needs to win a war with Russia because that materiel doesn’t exist for sale in Western markets. The West simply doesn’t have the manufacturing capacity to keep up with Ukraine’s needs. We can only do what we have been doing – give them just enough to put up a fight they can’t win.
And anyway, Israel is now a far higher priority customer for what munitions the Americans can make quickly.
So, And because a European Union project to manufacture a million shells for Ukraine was six months late for its 2023 deadline,
Why can’t the EU manufacture enough shells? Because they can’t. The factories, production lines, supply chains, skilled manual labourers and abundant energy supplies they would need to get close to Russian levels of weapons manufacturing simply do not exist in Europe. They aren’t going to exist in future either. You may occasionally read some UK or Euro politician or retired general opine that “we” need to get ready for war with Russia. This is rhetoric, backed up with nothing.
It’s like Rishi opening his mouth and farting out that we need more gas fired power plants – fucking DUH – and also, we won’t get more gas fired power plants, because the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has no authority and even his own government doesn’t obey him.
The simple truth is that disgraced ex-president Donald Trump, who is running for the presidency this year and is weirdly fond of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin
Or we could take the retard’s view of geopolitics and war, which is that Orange Man bad and Putler bad.
Five miles west of Avdiivka, Ukrainian troops halted their retreat, turned and counterattacked. Finally enjoying something approaching adequate artillery support, they stopped the Russian offensive dead in its tracks in villages with names like Berdychi, Orlivka and Tonen’ke.
Retards see war in much the same way they saw The Karate Kid, something that’s essentially entertainment, and in which comforting narrative tropes apply.
So because Ukraine is Daniel San and Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker, the natural culmination of a brutally successful Russian Orc assault (all offensives reach such a point, it’s why wars are made up of a series of battles) MUST mean that we’re entering the Third Act where our hero finally turns the tables and beats up the mean bullies.
In this case, with a little help from the Ewoks (the Czech Republic).
Artillery – a shortage of it – is the main reason the Ukrainians nearly lost a whole eastern oblast to the Russians this winter and spring. And artillery – a million shells brokered by a tiny Eastern European country – is the main reason the Ukrainians didn’t lose that whole oblast.
Narrator: the Russians kept coming, and Ukraine lost that whole oblast.
If artillery is the king of battle, the current kingmaker is … the Czech Republic
CZECH MATE, PUTLER! 😀
If only wars could be won through puff pieces, Ukraine would be the greatest superpower on the planet.
Rupert – Until February the EU, led by Germany was hot for Russian gas: chances are that the Biden Administration’s insane decision to lift sanctions on Nord Stream 2 in July 2021 to allow it’s completion was the primary trigger for the Ukraine invasion. Putin probably figured the EU would moan, then go along with the latter, and the only reason that didn’t happen was the failure of the Russians to take Kyiv.
So the story is, Russia was so excited at the prospect of finally exporting gas through a pipeline they’d invested billions in (which has what to do with the American government?), they decided to invade Ukraine.
Makes sense if we also believe that Commando Comics are 100% accurate.
Achtung!
Meanwhile in Cyprus, some of those US Tax Dollars at work:
https://cyprus-mail.com/2024/03/06/our-view-lack-of-clarity-over-movement-of-cash-does-not-help-islands-reputation/
Or possibly EU Tax Euros, though the result is the same
Steve
You need to set up a rival Diamond firm to De Beers – great analysis.
I can’t even be arsed to read the original article. At this point I think it’s purely CIA/ MI6 trolls writing puff pieces for each other.
It bears no more resemblance to reality than DIE and Net Zero and at this point I think we’re reduced to trying to stop Russia by offering that as a vision of their future if they don’t confirm.
I was glad we left the moment UK-supplied NLAWs began being unloaded in Kyiv before the full-scale invasion had even begun. Couldn’t be a greater contrast in efficiency.
(Also, there appears to be a straight-line relationship between the length of Steve’s posts and the length of time it’s taking for Steve to see the people of Ukraine surrender; we’ve gone from a pithy “Ukraine is a retarded nation of potato farmers” on day zero to … well, whatever all that is, on day 749.)
Paul, Somerset: «the length of Steve’s posts»
PgDn is a boon these days.
Steve. There’s nothing particularly challenging about the manufacture of dumb artillery shells or even tubes etc. The production lines already exist for a limited capacity. The designs exist as does the tooling. It’s a case of duplicating it. The same industrial processes currently produce other things. It would be just require repurposing some of them. It’s the will to do so’s lacking.
Jack – it’s going on at every level of the Ukrainian state, from CO’s pretending dead soldiers are still in the ranks (so they can embezzle their pay and sell their supplies) to the government of Ukraine pretending over 90,000 dead Ukranians are simply “missing” so they don’t have to pay their widows, to omnipresent bribery (at this point, it’s mostly people too poor to pay bribes and too slow to run away who are being conscripted for the Ukrainian army).
People thinking Ukraine ’24 is like London during the Blitz are sorely mistaken. Ukraine is Slavic Zimbabwe, or modern day Liverpool. Everybody’s on the rob all the fucking time, and it’s getting worse as the war situation deteriorates and people with options try to cash out while they can.
I don’t blame Ukrainians for this btw, if war comes to Western Europe I think we’ll find that we also live in a low trust society now. The pandemic showed us what kind of society we now live in, and the ongoing disenfranchisement of white people in Western nations confirmed it.
VP – Thank you.
David Axe is actually one of the better war correspondents. He knows little about war, but is an enthusiastic military hardware nerd.
But the Ukraine war is just another problem our political system helped cause, but is incapable of solving. We can’t procure victory for Ukraine, but we also refuse to stop the war through diplomatic means.
This leaves Ukraine in the shittiest situation imaginable. In the future, all the war cheerleaders will simply pretend they never heard of Ukraine, just like all those people hot to invade Iraq back in the early Aughts shut up and changed the subject a long time ago.
Paul, Somerset – Ukraine is still a retarded nation of potato farmers, it’s just a much smaller and poorer retarded nation of potato farmers than it was in February 22, and may not be able to recover its retarded potato statehood from the consequences of this catastrophic war.
You clearly believe this is a good reason to have continued the fight. Gud wurk, NAFO!
I, on t’other, regret that the Pentagon was wrong when it predicted Kiev would fall in 3 days. That would have been a sweet, merciful miracle for all concerned, compared to what we’ve lost. And are continuing to lose.
Because – and this is what really pisses off the Commando Comics Warspunking Crew – I was right. Ukraine should have surrendered, it’s better to surrender than have your country torn apart and your people turned into refugees, cripples or corpses.
TMB – PgDn is a boon these days.
Yes, if you’re not interested in reading BTL discussion of Ukraine on a post Tim made about Ukraine, feel free to use PgDn and/or change your tampon.
For the men, the Ukrainian war is important and bears discussion. The future of the continent we live on is being shaped in Ukraine. Hopefully we can discuss that without too much feminine snark.
Slavs fighting each other is rather like Arabs fighting each other… The best thing that could happen is both sides lose.
BiS – Steve. There’s nothing particularly challenging about the manufacture of dumb artillery shells or even tubes etc
There was nothing challenging about it in 1974, when Britain and Europe were choc full of engineering works, steel plants, trained machinists etc. and we had plenty of cheap electricity powered by coal.
But it’s not 1974, is it?
The will is not lacking – we’ve spunked, and continue to spunk, billions upon billions of pounds into the war. But expanding industrial infrastructure that has atrophied to bespoke craft beer levels of capacity is not as simple as printing money. It’s very hard, expensive and time consuming. And it’s completely at odds with Net Zero, which is unacceptable as Net Zero is our new religion.
We’d need a lot of new tooling at a time when European factories are closing down and selling off their machine tools at firesale prices to China and the US. We’d need hundreds of thousands of skilled manual workers at a time when Europe only produces feminist studies graduates and semi-retarded tribesmen from the hills of central Afghanistan. We’d need to rapidly build coal or gas fired power stations at a time when European countries can no longer guarantee the lights will stay on in winter – and can no longer guarantee an electric car factory won’t be sabotaged by “Greens”.
Sorry, mate, you’re wrong about this. You’re right that shells and tubes are relatively dumb and completely unglamorous (which is why we neglected it for so long), and it’s not really a high tech cutting edge endeavour. But you’re wrong in thinking that, just because this stuff is relatively low tech metal bashing, it’s easy.
If it was easy, we’d be churning out millions of shells a year by now. It’s been over 2 years. We’re being outproduced by the economic powerhouse that is North Korea, ffs.
From that article:
“Those million shells (…) freed Ukraine’s 3,000 or so howitzers to blast away at a rate of at least 10,000 rounds a day”
So does “blast away” really mean 3.3 shells per day? Seems like a lot of boredom to go with the terror.
“banning Russian tv channels,”
So, just point your aerial over the border. You can get the BBC in Eire even though it’s not a licensed Irish service. Radio waves do not respect borders.
Steve: «Yes, if you’re not interested in reading BTL discussion of Ukraine»
No, it’s specifically your endless theories and suppositions – perhaps you use too many suppositories?
I think you’re wrong with this part in particular. Putin wasn’t and isn’t going to be satisfied with what he had captured in 2022. It might have taken a few years to rearm, but he would certainly be back for whatever remained of Ukraine, and the Baltics, and any other scrap of eastern Europe that had once been part of a Russian empire. Even Finland was on the list, before the Greater Russia ambitions convinced them to finally join NATO.
It’s bad luck for the Ukrainian people that he was stopped in his tracks there, but it’s still better for the world that the war is concentrated there rather than spreading out from the Baltic to the Med.
. . . there appears to be a straight-line relationship between the length of Steve’s posts and the length of time it’s taking for Steve to see the people of Ukraine surrender . . .
Perhaps it’s just a resentment that the Ukrainians choose to fight rather than surrender but to be fair, Steve’s approach to all the various battles that face our civilisation is to self-flagellate with relentless, defeatist bitching and moaning about how shit we are. It’s no surprise that the worthless commie pseudo Pope infesting the Vatican espouses Ukrainian surrender (turn the other arse cheek) whereas Argentina’s Milie can afford a little time out from smashing the leftist state to support Ukraine.
TMB – Perhaps you should wind your neck in, and stop trying to play Blog Police at Tim’s gaff. x
If you have anything of substance to say, I am as high functioning Aspergerishly happy to discuss or debate that to your heart’s content as I’ve always been.
Otherwise, what is the point of your post, other than a vague distaste for unspecified theories you think I have? Or a dislike of the person you think you’re talking to? Could those electrons have been put to a better use?
BiW – I think you’re wrong with this part in particular. Putin wasn’t and isn’t going to be satisfied with what he had captured in 2022. It might have taken a few years to rearm, but he would certainly be back for whatever remained of Ukraine, and the Baltics, and any other scrap of eastern Europe that had once been part of a Russian empire. Even Finland was on the list, before the Greater Russia ambitions convinced them to finally join NATO.
Similarly, I think you’re 100% wrong, in a wet streets cause rain sort of way.
The Ukraine war is not about territory. Russia had no territorial ambitions in Ukraine prior to this war, save the biggie: protecting their Black Sea naval base, their only major warm water port.
Russia’s record on foreign adventures post 1991 is far more cautious than NATO’s. They had little interest in supporting Donetsk seperatists until the start of the “SMO”, and according to Ukrainian sources were prepared to bugger off, leaving Ukraine intact, as recently as March 22.
As for the Baltics, Finland, etc. it’s a crazy idea to think the Russian Federation wants to conquer and occupy countries that hold no value for them, and whose people hate Russians.
Russia is not a growing society, it’s a shrinking one. A lot of their awful demographics are being papered over through mass migration of central Asian Islamics to the heart of the Motherland. Putin talks a great game about Russian multiculturalism, but he’s only 20 years away from France style societal failure.
This is not a society that’s bent on conquest, and it’s very unlikely they would be able to – or want to – occupy the non-Russian parts of Ukraine where every second person would be collaborating with the resistance.
Look at how difficult it has been for Russia to wrest control over five regions of Eastern Ukraine, full of locals who support them. You think this is Russia being stopped in its tracks, I see it as an indication of how limited their war goals actually are.
In the end, it amounts to the same thing. Russia isn’t going to do a 1945 style Red Army memorial tour of Eastern and Central Europe, but they never were. The Ukrainian war was kicked off with Russian aggression, but it was aggression we’ve carefully nurtured and provoked since 2008. NATO isn’t resisting Russia, it’s baiting Russia. We are not more secure now, we are less secure.
PJF – Perhaps it’s just a resentment that the Ukrainians choose to fight rather than surrender but to be fair, Steve’s approach to all the various battles that face our civilisation is to self-flagellate with relentless, defeatist bitching and moaning about how shit we are.
Give that Straw Steve a good kicking, he can’t stop you.
Do I resent the deaths and maimings of hundreds of thousands of white European Christians? You’re fucking right, I do. This is a horrible, disgusting calamity that should be immediately stopped.
It’s not my fault you live under a regime that despises you on a biological level, is stealing your future to spaff on Net Zero, and is rapidly replacing you with acid-throwing monsters and grooming gang members while hordes of Palestine fans mob your nation’s capital like they own the place, while you better watch your step in case the police ever take a disliking to your opinions.
Don’t shoot the messenger. If it was up to me, I’d improve society somewhat. It ain’t up to me, all I can advise is that Western Man should stop hitting his own crotch with a hammer. Perhaps you feel sure that Operation Hammerdick is going to lead to better outcomes this time, but the track record inspires no confidence.
How about Operation Mind Our Own Business And Secure Our Own Borders, for a change? But I suppose that’s defeatist bitching.
If you want to make shells, you need both steel and military HE.
The last blast furnaces in UK are being closed, and the UK no longer makes any military HE, though some quarrying HE is still produced an AMFO slurry by an old ex-ICI plant).
Never mind, we can import it all from China and India…though the new UK assembly factories can only run if the wind is blowing.
Even the Yanks found they hadn’t got enough HE and tried to buy some TNT from Japan, which gave the Japanese serious post-1945 treaty issues with supplying arms to active conflicts.
Like Steve, I lament the loss of life and the inferior result the Ukies will end up with, when any who survive are allowed to make terms by their USA masters. I also despise the attempts to paint Putin as a Bond baddie bent on world domination. That doesn’t mean supporting him, but it does mean understanding Other View Points Exist, and not everyone sees the world through the USA neoclown eyes. There are times when I wish our politicians were as serious about the UK and its people as he is about his country and people. If you bomb and shell russians for 8 years, what did the Ukies expect? A thank-you card?
When the shooting finally stops, we will still have to deal with a world with an angry Russia, provoked by NATO, so it’d pay to be thinking about how that peace might be shaped, rather than fanning the flames of what could easily become annihilation. “Just one little tactical nuke, to stop dem rooskies in their tracks…”you can already see Slim Picken’s hat, yee hah.
Keep up the comment (and the sarcasm) Steve, it’s very thought-provoking, and propaganda-busting.
Meantime, only Death wins.
– TMB –Perhaps you should wind your neck in, and stop trying to play Blog Police at Tim’s gaff.
Lol, where does he do that? Capitan snark can’t take a bit of snark back so makes up stories.
.
– Give that Straw Steve a good kicking, he can’t stop you.
[sigh] It’s more that you can’t stop yourself.
«Otherwise, what is the point of your post, other than a vague distaste for unspecified theories you think I have? Or a dislike of the person you think you’re talking to? »
You’re a bore, Steve.
How do you win a war? How do you win a campaign?
You bring sufficient force to bear. Normandy, North Africa etc were all about supply and material. The finesse of the commanders there is in getting a victory with the lowest butchers bill, the battle having been won by supply and logistics.
The UK ‘won’ the first and second world wars by outproducing the enemy. The UK could not beat the Germans in 1940. It could not beat the Germans until it has built it an alliance, until it had harnessed US (and Canadian) production capacity and had the vast human resources of the USSR to grind down the Germans.
It could also escalate further than the Germans could – you blitz London? Ok we destroy whole German cities.
Apply this understanding to Ukraine.
Can we escalate? Not really – Russia has nukes.
Can we out produce them? Not if we don’t make the effort to up our industrial capacity which we have largely offshored to our strategic enemies.
Can we supply more warm bodies to attrit the Russians to the negotiating table? Not really Ukraine is smaller than Russia.
So then tell me how this ends? How does Ukraine win?
This scenario is more like the winter war between the USSR and Finland to my mind. Russia / USSR is looking to get back some territory along an ill-defined border with a former part of their empire that was imposed on them when they were weak. After a heroic defence and colossal Russian incompetence the tide has turned in favour of the biggest, most ruthless and best resourced combatant.
How does it end? Well the final score for Finland was loss of territory and having their biggest neighbour have a veto on their foreign policy decisions. Seems to me this is what Russia wants here.
Let’s be fair……
If this was left up to British (God Save the Qing).. usual mode of operation, the ammo would have been delivered two years late, below/wrong spec, and twice as expensive…
Paul… The bit of WWII patriottism is ..nice.. but the while the UK produced much during that particularly nasty era, I could only do so because of a constant stream of US-supplied raw materials, material, and warm bodies. By Convoy. Hence the U-boats, and….
Absolutely tremendous effort by all involved, but it was already *GONE* by the late 50’s early 60’s when the Unions took over, and you get stuff Monty Python, the “Carry On” productions, “Yes Minister”, Top Gear… you can fill in the rest.
From the 70’s on… weeeeellll…. Thatcher tried, but…
Current UK is more or less *why* the French adapted the guillotine…
An utter tragedy for Ukraine and another embarrassing humiliation for the west. If ‘Steel not Flesh’ was the motto of WW2 allied planners our current politicos work on the principle of ‘Feels not Steel’.
Tim the Coder – Thank you for saying that, and I sincerely hope we’ll see peace soon. War is disgusting.
Look at the emotions it can provoke here – among people who are very lucky to be comfortably far away from the front.
The hippies and St Thomas Aquinas were right. I’m not bambi, I’m just keenly aware that there isn’t a single war we’ve fought since 1982 that hasn’t been a strategic disaster for Britain. We should stay out of the war business at most costs. We should be in the peace, getting rich, and shagging the missus businesses instead.
PJF – [sigh] It’s more that you can’t stop yourself
You’re right, and I wish I could be 2010 era Steve with the funny one liners instead, but we’ve both seen some pretty unreasonable shit since then, haven’t we?
You can’t see it, man, but here’s my 1000 yard blog stare: 0.0
TMB – You’re a bore, Steve.
AH! Excellent! I much prefer aggression to passive aggression.
Yes, I’m probably boring to some on topics that I care about. So when I get an opportunity to share my thoughts in mid-form, btl, on a blog that’s notoriously liberal on free speech and has an intelligent group of commenters… I ramble.
But I suspect it’s not that I bore you, I believe my opinions have offended you. In that case, I am sorry to say that my thoughts are the ones that originate in my own head and not yours. Quite possibly yours is the wiser. It could scarcely be more foolish.
But I’m an honest fool, in that i genuinely enjoy discussion and debate, and rarely play the man instead of the ball. Except of course, you’ve been expressing some negative thoughts towards me for a little while now.
Why can’t we be friends? x
– This scenario is more like the winter war between the USSR and Finland to my mind.
I’m not against 1930s analogies per se (exit stage left Putler; give it up everybody, for Staltin!), but there are glaring differences. Most obvious is the level of support for Ukraine vs essentially nowt for Finland.
A closer comparison could be made with the Soviet – Afghan conflict. A weak neighbour is invaded by a leviathan with vast resources, but their willingness to fight combined with constant supply from a coalition of supporters makes the invasion untenable for the economically weakening aggressor.
No previous war is fully predictive of new wars but the Afghan example does offer a reframe of the current scenario into one where Russia can lose. Just make the whole adventure too expensive for them to continue with. Keep sinking their ships, killing their troops, destroying their armour and dropping their planes. Blow up the Kerch bridge, and (in something very different to Finland and Afghanistan) hit their infrastructure deep in country.
All the West has to do is supply the Ukrainians for as long as they’re willing to fight and keep (and up) the sanctions. Keep tipping it in, the Russians will fold. Just as they have done before; pragmatic defeat is not new to them. This, of course, is why there is so much agitprop for the West to give up. CIA! Nuland! Globohomo!
Grikath
British performance in the air and on the ground in Desert Storm was pretty good considering that it was a small part of the operation.
Serbia, Iraq II, Afghanistan, Libya have all been disasters you are 100% right there.
The time to have dealt with this matter was in 2014 and the annexation of the Crimea. What has happened since has been completely predictable. I did not think that Putin would be mad enough to invade and would salami slice Ukraine instead. But I see in retrospect that inasion was always on the cards, because Putin has to cement his legacy at home and he thought that he could score a quick victory.
Luckily for Ukraine the Russian military is still as inept as it has ever been, but this luck will not last and I fear that it will succumb like Finland finally had to, despite Western aid and become a satellite of Russia ( I remember studying “Finlandisation” in the 1980s, but I think Ukraine will be more like a Hungary or Czechosolvakia a recalcitrant colony ).
Trump was right about Russian gas and the Germans laughed at him. Well serves them right, this whole energy debacle has wrecked their economy and it will take a hard hastard ( of which there are none in the main parties ) to rectify it. So arms production will have to be taken up by the Poles and Czechs, where some primary industry still exists.
– So when I get an opportunity to share my thoughts in mid-form, btl, on a blog that’s notoriously liberal on free speech and has an intelligent group of commenters… I ramble.
. . .
But I’m an honest fool, in that i genuinely enjoy discussion and debate, and rarely play the man instead of the ball.
That may be how you see yourself, Steve, but that’s not how you come across. Your clown nose off / clown nose on snark routine is precisely passive-aggressive playing of the man instead of the ball. That’s not really a problem (fun insults are still fun); the real issue (especially of late) has been what seems to be a combination of you having a quiet day at work along with an OCD hit or summat. Reams of text bashing out opinions and wit and data and diversions and despair and news and larfs and deceits and conceits . . . . .
. . . and then – you just fuck off.
Anyone who takes the time in the evening to respond to your daytime deluge is mostly met with tumbleweed. It’s usually quiet for a few days until Tim makes some oblique reference to Ukraine and – whooosh, out it comes again. There’s no point in engaging with that, tempting as it may be.
I think this is an old argument – what I would say is that this Forum is a good deal better than Samizdata where any comment that isn’t 100% behind Ukraine is pulled from publication. Tim, as Steve says allows pretty much anything to go – and long may it continue.
While the Ukraine War is utterly demented it does serve as a great distraction from the real agenda of the UK political establishment which is severe restrictions on basic freedoms and total state control. This regardless of which bunch of pygmies nominally prevail in the coming election.
And while we squander billions on a war which even the most partisan can see no path to victory in, the ‘Four horsemen of the apocalypse’ ride in unabated
– Net Zero
– Unlimited migration and the Great replacement
– Collapse of paper money and the introduction of digital currency
– ‘Disease X’ and permanent lockdown
But hey, priorities, right?
At least we have the right flag on our ‘X’ profile.
PJF – Ah! I see. This may be a misunderstanding of blog etiquette.
My schedule is usually busy but often repetitious, as you’ve noticed. I often sadly have to sit in on bullshit, yet necessary, Teams based conversations and have a bad habit of bashing out the thoughts of chairman Steve to anybody who cares. But to me this is rarely more than a 2 minute diversion. I’m a quick reader and writer.
In the evenings I might get 5 or even as many as 10 minutes total to read and respond, if that. These are stolen moments, like a quick fag break used to be. Right now, for example, I am playing pool with some blokes. I am the only one without hand tattoos. I am also winning.
I try not to spam Tim’s blog with my opinions, and although I’ll check in and usually* respond to any direct call outs of Steve when I can, even my gold-plated bullshit work (it isn’t, but that’s a whole other tragic story of corporate offshoring) doesn’t afford me much time to check back on yesterday’s discussions.
And I was sort of under the impression that continuing to post btl on old posts was frowned on, somehow.
To anyone who (understandably) thought I was being rude, I apologise. I will happily talk to or fight you during UK daylight hours when I can. I love and/or hate you all. xxx
*The exception is when people say something nice. I’m always dumbfounded by kindness.
Both sides seem to have no path to an actual victory. Ukraine doesn’t have the power to get its territory back unless Russia just gives it up pragmatically. And Russia, even if they were to take all of Ukraine, would need to occupy it for who knows how long and with serious numbers of troops, FSB, police, whatever. If Ukraine went partisan we would see just what can be achieved by a small movement with ATGWs, mines and drones with plenty of targets.
Oh, and just a mention of all the parties which brought us to this pass. The US State department, Pentagon and CIA. The EU equivalents. The whipped puppy UK equivalents. Probably a whole bunch of industrial and energy interests. And Russia’s own deluded leadership supported by its own FSB and corrupt forces promising that everything worked when nothing did. A stunning array of cunts.
Rhoda Klapp
Kudos for the phrase ‘A stunning array of cunts’
There’s plenty of them around!!!
There is a lot of nonsense about “international boundaries” which are somehow sacrosanct,
So all of Ireland is British then, Alsace-Lorraine (and most of Poland) is German, and Korea and Manchuria are Japanese, yes?
It all depends on when you draw the baseline.
Fact is, pre-1991, the Ukraine/Russia boundaries were internal administrative borders: think municipal counties.
With the end of the SU, these become international country boundaries, at wild variance with whoever lived there. Much like Africa 1920. Another success.
Supposedly the West is supposed to pay great attention to Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points (God himself had only ten) of which self determination was a very big one.
So allowing areas full of ethnic Russians to become part of Russia doesn’t seem so radical, when you see the arbitrary starting point. But to just to make it clear, it was the ethnic Ukrainians bombing the shit out of the ethnic Russians that made the whole thing into a war.
I am only surprised Putin had so much patience, and faith in Werstern ‘justice’ that it took him 8 years to catch on. Merkel blew the gaff: the Minsk treaty was never meant seriously by the West, it was a deception used to buy time to rearm Ukraine. And now he doesn’t believe anything the West says!
I wonder why.
I’m far from a supporter of Putin’s government. But the behaviour of the West make me puke.
– But to just to make it clear, it was the ethnic Ukrainians bombing the shit out of the ethnic Russians that made the whole thing into a war.
I expect it’s clear to you, but it just isn’t true. There was a low grade war and both sides were firing stuff. Damage and death was inflicted on both sides of the line. And all the while the Ukrainians were on their territory, defending their territory against the Russians and their puppet separatists. The notion of a one-sided slaughter is straight up Russian propaganda for children and the dim.
@Bongo, March 14, 2024 at 10:01 am
@Steve, March 14, 2024 at 10:49 am
Well said
More BS in press
Iain Duncan Smith: The Vatican needs a new strategy for dealing with dictators
The Pope’s suggestion that Ukraine ought to ‘raise the white flag’ is utterly inexplicable
– No Ian, it’s eminently sensible and Zelensky was prepared to settle in ~April 2022 until Boris & Biden blackmailed & bribed him to continue war. Result would have been Crimea and Donbas recognised as free states – as they voted for in 2014. The war started in 2014 would then have ended
https://archive.ph/zXV0q
“Why the Pope should speak of raising the white flag to a people who have suffered so much at hands of Putin is utterly inexplicable”
Perhaps he’s also thinking of all in East Ukraine who have suffered so much at hands of Zelenenky and predecessor
IDS also equates Russia with Soviet Union. Confirms what I and many say: politicians refuse to accept Russia is Not the USSR
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Andrew Neil: Russia is beating us in Ukraine
– “Us”?
China’s Navy outnumbers the US. The Army is collapsing – and the Air Force is falling from the sky
So, as Biden inexplicably Cuts defense budgets, Neil blasts: Does he have a death wish?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13193211/
The notion of a one-sided slaughter is straight up Russian propaganda for children and the dim.
– Yet Putin is the ‘New Hitler’ and the Ukrainians are beyond reproach, right? Are you Richard Murphy?
“I’m far from a supporter of Putin’s government. But the behaviour of the West make me puke.”
This is pretty much my view. Most of what the West (read America) has done in the last 30 years has been self serving shitholery. The idea we are ‘the good guys’ is for the terminally naive, or stupid. The war in Ukraine is basically a fight between Russia and the US by proxy, where one evil empire has provoked another, with the Ukrainians caught in the middle doing the actual dying.
I think we in the West need a new law – if the politicians start a shooting war, they get sent to the front line immediately to participate personally.
Pcar – IDS also equates Russia with Soviet Union. Confirms what I and many say: politicians refuse to accept Russia is Not the USSR
There is a strong generational preference at work here, older chaps tend to be a lot more aggressive on Russia. IDS is 69, which seems to be prime Russia-fighting age. Andrew Neil is 74. Maybe the Cold War never ended.
PJF – I expect it’s clear to you, but it just isn’t true. There was a low grade war and both sides were firing stuff. Damage and death was inflicted on both sides of the line. And all the while the Ukrainians were on their territory, defending their territory against the Russians and their puppet separatists
It’s certainly true that the Russians repeatedly agreed to Minsk formulas that would have calmed down the problem in Eastern Ukraine (Zelensky was elected promising to implement Minsk, before – as Tim the Coder notes – he and the former chancellor of Germany admitted Minsk was just a trick and that they’d lied to Russia and the rest of the world in order to buy time for war).
The “puppet seperatists” are just normal ethnic Russians who don’t like being beaten up or murdered by Nazis, of which Ukraine has plenty. The Nazi militias celebrated the 2014 Maidan coup by burning 42 people to death in a building in Odessa, a crime for which nobody was ever arrested because it’s Ukraine.
The Ukraine war certainly isn’t a battle of Good versus Evil (the whole thing is evil), but it’s absolutely true that Ukraine was – and remains – choc full of people who openly admire Nazi war criminals and want to ethnically cleanse Ukraine of anybody they regard as insufficiently Ukrainian. Including Greek Orthodox, Russians and Poles.
So you can probably understand why so many blokes who live in Donetsk took offence to Neo Nazi paramilitaries and decided to take up arms against them.
None of this was necessary. Ukraine inherited the best part of the former Soviet Union, and turned it into a dirt-poor kleptocratic shithole. Much like Russia in the 90’s. If Ukrainian politics had been less toxically retarded, they wouldn’t have picked a fight with their own people.
Zelensky himself didn’t speak a word of Ukrainian until recently, and his new chief of staff is a Russian whose relatives are fighting on the other side. This Slav brother war was unnecessary, but NB the amount of foreign investment in turning Ukraine into a conflict zone:
CIA builds 12 secret spy bases in Ukraine along Russian border
US agency has trained and equipped Kyiv’s intelligence officers in underground bunkers, some of which are buried in thick forest
The CIA didn’t build these secret bases since 2022, they’ve been there for years. But perhaps you think the CIA only wants good things for Ukraine.
Being in the metal bashing trade I could easily be making artillery shells on our machines, the funny thing to me is the carbide tooling most commonly used is Israeli.
Steve
But perhaps you think the CIA only wants good things for Ukraine.
When it comes to PJF and the CIA I remain convinced it’s a case of ‘not biting the hand that feeds you’ given his steadfast support for the misadventure.
VP – PJF said something similar, which startled me a little:
All the West has to do is supply the Ukrainians for as long as they’re willing to fight and keep (and up) the sanctions. Keep tipping it in, the Russians will fold. Just as they have done before; pragmatic defeat is not new to them. This, of course, is why there is so much agitprop for the West to give up. CIA! Nuland! Globohomo!
I don’t believe any of the commentors on Tim’s blog are in the pay of the Russians or the CIA, but PJF believes there is anti-Western agitprop aimed at sabotaging Ukraine’s Inevitable Victory, which will surely come about if only we keep doing the same things that have failed before.
If it’s agitprop, as opposed to just people drawing their own conclusions, surely it must be state-funded or organised?
I’ve never been offered a rouble in my life, although I have gotten drunk with Russian and Ukrainian friends, many times, back in the olden days when we had normal business and academic relations with Russia.
I don’t think the Russians are capable of spreading agitprop in Western societies, they’re far too crude and obvious for that.
But another thing I wanted to mention, because there seems to be a misunderstanding that Russia is an impoverished shithole backwater* whose people have to steal toilets from Ukraine (you can buy exquisitely molded and painted military figurines of Russian soldiers carrying toilets and radiators as war prizes – I shit you not).
People who believe the above tend to also believe that Ukraine is some sort of beacon of Western values that has been targeted by Russia because Russia is jealous of their wealth and success.
So here’s the facts:
Russian GDP per capita: $12,194.78 USD (2021)
Ukraine GDP per capita: $4,835.57 USD (2021)
Russia is getting a very poor return on their agitprop budget since they’re being completely trounced in the court of Western media by a country whose citizens aren’t even half as wealthy as Russians.
Anyway, I’m holding out for China’s agitprop money. That’s where the big bucks are. Ching chong Taiwan wrong!
*It’s all relative, most Slavs living in the West are disarmingly honest about their home countries
Steve
You’re probably right re: CIA funding – they’re probably too busy chasing down January 6th insurrectionists and setting up voter frauds in advance of November!
Anecdotally football supporters who attended the 2012 Euros (held in Poland/ Ukraine) and the 2018 World Cup (in Russia) were more impressed by the infrastructure on display in the latter. However, that won’t be permissible sentiment in the next decade.
Totally agree re: Slavs in the West! Definitely don’t mince words…
@Steve
There is a strong generational preference at work here, older chaps tend to be a lot more aggressive on Russia. IDS is 69, which seems to be prime Russia-fighting age. Andrew Neil is 74. Maybe the Cold War never ended
I don’t think it’s an age thing, more an easy politcal diversion from China threat as many still remember and gullibly accept Russia = USSR. At same time they see China as a third world country. Mostly due to politicians and msm pushing this narrative
Grant Shapps (age 55 years), David Cameron (age 57), Boris Johnson (age 59), Richard Tice (age 59) are all in the Russia/USSR are the huge threat and are about to invade us camp
Bev Turner, Andrew Pierce, guest I’ve forgotten all shredded Tice when he expressed establishment Russia bad, Ukraine good narrative
My mother, 84, view is evil USSR long gone and Ukraine a much worse country than Russia
I tend to have a lower opinion of China than Russia.
But of course a lot of that’s because China is closer to Oz than Russia. And therefore represents a bigger threat to ME personally.
As always, my opinions are based firmly on selfishness.
…and Victoria is next door