That just means for every 9 guys aged 20, the unit has a 270-year-old man. And you know, you can still use those to terrorize the Russians.

That’s what I like to see. If Asia finally unites into a common front, they can actually decolonize. Same goes for Africa.

I think we all agree at this point that holding out for better negotiating terms will only result in a weaker position and worse outcome for Ukraine. Zelenskyy needs to wake up and start peace talks immediately.

There’s been efforts to elevate the Azov Nazis in the eyes of Ukrainians recently, and the US has lifted sanctions to equip them. It’s likely that they’ll be used to conduct another coup if Zelensky tries to negotiate too early/give away too much. Or they are being prepared to take power again after peace is signed and Zelensky is gone.

Zelensky this last week started saying that Ukraine will start negotiating by the end of the year.

The recent “peace summit” in Switzerland was a failure, but immediately afterwards we saw a bunch of Western nations ramping up the aid and committing to deploying support personell for the rear (mostly medics and engineers they say). Probably Zelensky promised there will be one last counteroffensive. If some success, he’s probably thinking he will convince the Russians to accept less concessions.

He announced this week that Russia must accept:

• Ukraine joining NATO (no chance)

• Ukraine joining the EU (maybe feasible, as Putin’s last terms did not prohibit this)

• Russia to pay Ukraine monetary concessions for the war and lost territorry (significant that the Ukrainians are backpedalling on 1991 borders; maybe Russia will actually pay as a negotiating chip for further Ukrainian concessions)

He did not talk about:

• demilitarization (which will definitely be a Russian term)

• denazification (which Russia will likely accept symbolically, in favour of other concessions)

• commitment to neutrality (which Russia will definitely demand)

And he still wants to treat Russia through a third party (likely the US/UK, possibly China) which Russia will not accept.

The Biden-Trump debate, as well as the French election results have shown that the West is unlikely to continue supporting Ukraine for long. That Zelensky is willing to negotiate by the end of the year probably has something to do with Biden’s likely exit from the White House in January.

Furthermore, the current situation on the ground could not be more starkingly obvious:

• Russians are sweeping Ukrainian defenses and making massive gains in significant areas.

• The recent mobilization in Ukraine was a massive failure. Newly mobilized troops are either surrendering en masse AND giving up information to the Russians (which has led to an increase in precision strikes on Ukrainian HQs, ammo depots, vehicle depots and areas of troop concentration), or refusing to attack or take up positions for defense, or dying in large numbers due to poor training.

• Ukrainian manpower is completely depleted and Ukrainian losses are climbing to record numbers.

• Lack of defensive works that outlines the massive corruption regarding Western aid

• Removal of commanding officers (like the general that Azov wanted removed) and disagreements between general staff and Zelensky (Zelensky and Syrsky are not getting along - it is likely that Syrsky refused to carry out a counteroffensive - also the aforementioned removed general was Syrsky’s friend/supporter/ally).

It is no wonder that Western media will start actually telling some truth about Project Ukraine. They need to prepare the people for the inevitable defeat of the West in Ukraine.

Yes, from “southern” Cyprus

Certainly the government is kind of panicked right now. There’s this weird thing going on where Hezbolah has accused Cyprus of participating in Israel’s war crimes, but at the same time, the Lebanese government is saying the Cypriot government isn’t involved in any hostilities with Lebanon, and ambassadors have been exchanging friendly compliments.

People in general are not willing to be entangled in war at all. But at the same time, most live in a bubble where they think nothing bad will happen.

Still, the majority of people assume that the government is lying. The communist party (AKEL) has been against whatever Cyprus is doing to aid Israel since almost the beginning, and has been organizing marches in support of Palestine since December. The right-wingers are more apathetic and critical than supportive, with few exceptions. Even parties that are cooperating with the government, are now unsure what to do, and some have started criticizing the government.

I’m Cypriot, and our government for the past 11 years has been neoliberal right wingers. Cyprus has always had a steady line of neutrality. We were one of the very few European countries to recognize Palestine’s statehood since the 70s and we were condemning Israel’s occupation,

These neoliberal idiots have been steadily trying to get Cyprus into the US bossom. They think (or at least present it this way) that being closer to the US will help reunite the island. They’ve even tried to get us into NATO, but thankfully there was too much backlash for that to happen.

One of the first things they did to signal to the US we want to be their vassals was to start getting better relations with Israel. A bunch of blunders occured because of this. Namely and most famously, Cyprus has served as a testing ground and tradehouse for Israeli surveillance technology. There was even a whole international scandal of spyware being found on journalists’, activists’ and politicians’ phones all over Europe, which originated from an Israeli company registered in Cyprus, with ties to the Cypriot government (look up the Predator spyware case).

Long story short, we thought Israel’s military might would help make us secure, so we made treaties with them for bilateral military assistance. Turns out, nobody thought the bilateral nature of those treaties would bite us in the ass, and they did.

There’s something to be said about the 2 british military bases on the island, and 1 american surveillance station, which have been used extensively for Israel’s sake, and obviously Cyprus can’t really consent about that.

There’s also something to be said about Turkey always trying to fuck around with Cyprus in an effort to get their illegal military occupation entity recognized as a state.

But we’ve also fucked up, because we enabled the Americans to start constructing the “humanitarian” dock in Gaza, that was used for that massacre a few weeks ago. Not only that, but our government (before the incident) had been boasting that it was their idea. Essentially they gave Israel and the US the excuse to end UNRWA’s humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

Ukrainians have announced recently that they are mobilizing 5000 a day, but that’s probably just PR. Even if true, the quality of this troops is most likely shit, due to age, health issues, unwillingness to fight and extremely short training.

Last week they lost 15000 soldiers in a week, according to the Russian MoD weekly report.

There was another social media post by another Ukrainian commander (regular army, I think their formation is defending Novovasilevka?) that says that the newest recruits are being blindfolded when transported to the front. The most recent mobilization has been so forceful, that even the Ukrainian government expects their new recruits to surrender immediately and give up information to the Russians.

But those kinds of posts are of course ignored.

Agreed. Putin had been building up to it for years though. The first sanctions made it possible to hasten this process. And the Russian oligarchs aren’t extinct or anything. They are still super-rich compared to the average Russian. They just can’t mess with the government right now, and they have to support the renewed semi-planned economy.

I’m sure the two things are totally unrelated!

The sanctions targeted the Russian oligarchs quite a bit, by threatening their investments, properties and deposits in EU tax havens, like Cyprus and Greece. They were forced to transfer a bunch of assets back in Russia, which gave Putin the opportunity to crack down on their corruption and demanding that their wealth remains in Russia. Also, most importantly, he basically curbed their political power and political meddling. A big reason the Russian economy is doing so well is this returned wealth. So the first sanction packages basically backfired. The Europeans thought the Russian oligarchs would overthrow Putin if pressured. Turns out, Putin overthrew the Russian oligarchs.

The new sanction packages leave the oligarchs alone and target Russian government assets in Europe. And yes, all packages have targeted the ability of simple civilians to interact economically with anybody in the US or Europe.

Oh look at that. The Nazis have very little influence on the government of Ukraine, but one guy from Azov Battalion writes a social media post, and the next day Zelenski abides.

The US national debt is 35 trillion dollars. The interest alone is around 1 trillion dollars, which is about how much the Federal Reserve is printing every year. If the dollar starts losing its backing, all that money printing, used to mitigate the debt, is going to cause such an inflation, that it will essentially make US debts unsustainable. US banks essentially operate with the assumption that that will never happen. So when it happens, and they start calling in the debts they hold to back their other endeavours, and then start declaring bankruptcy, the US economy will collapse. For most people, it will likely be sudden, as it was in 2007.

And this will likely pull the Euro (and the EU) down a similar death spiral.

The US and European governments have a vague understanding of this, which is why they are trying so desperately and dangerously (and unsuccessfully) to weaken China and Russia. The whole point of the Ukraine provocation and the sanctions on Russia were an attempt to break up BRICS before it would become a problem. And ofcourse it backfired spectacularly.

They official Russian statement says that 5 missiles were launched, 4 were shot down, and the fifth detonated over the beach and released its cluster bombs.

At this point, most of them are aware of this stuff. They just choose to not remember them. This is deliberate because it allows them to reconcile their racism, their support for Nazis, and their obedience to their governments, with the fact that they are supposed to be against these 3 things.

Translation: It’s ok to be killing civilians when they have passports from countries we don’t like! These are excellent news! And even better, we get to hear Russia whining like a little baby about its dead people! Man, what a great chance this event has been to show off my moral superiority on the internet!

Wanted to say that I appreciate your insights on this.

Thanks! I appreciate the discussion as well.

Assuming Putin can’t find someone friendly to back, who, in your opinion, would be able to step a top-level position that wouldn’t just be buying time to try this all over again? Does such a person exist in the current political landscape?

I assume Putin would prefer someone pro-Russian to head Ukraine, but I can’t even foresee if he will support anyone. As I said, the only thing the Russians have said publicly is that they recognize the Ukrainian Rada (Parliament) but not Zelenski or his government. There’s talk that Zelenski’s chief of staff, Yermak might take over from Zelenski (and Yermak has also stated that Ukraine should consider the Russian proposal), but Yermak has little popular support, and seems to have participated in the plunder of Ukraine, so it is unlikely he’ll take power any time soon, if the Russians and Ukrainian people have any say about it.

Do you believe there’s really enough political opposition to this war after the elections?

I think so to a degree. Perhaps not right away, but most European states will have presidential or parliamentary elections coming up in the next 2 years. The success of the far right in the Euro-elections have caused a stir. Euro-elections usually have voters vote along party lines, since parties don’t really try to cooperate or deal with each other for the outcomes, except in very few cases. So they serve as a good prediction for national elections (although in general the turn-out is less than national elections). The first analysis have started coming out, and it’s clear that the votes for the far right don’t just have to do with the immigrant crisis or the rise of fascism in Europe.

In Germany for example, 40% of young voters (16-25) who voted for AfD said they did because it’s the only party that talks about reducing inflation, economic relief for people over the cost of living massive rise, restricting the banks, and is against supporting Ukraine and Israel.

In France, Macron’s Renew party got 15% of the votes, and had a really abysmall turn-out among its core voters. What did Macron do to anger them? Well the French have the same economic concerns as the German youth, and are probably angry at Macron’s mismanagement of the economy and his neoliberal policies, as expressed by the recent riots. But Macron is currently serving a second term, and his supporters had voted for him back then, despite the same issues plaguing France, and riots (of a lesser degree) occuring all over the country. So what did Macron do? He brazenly and carelessly tried to install a nuclear war tripwire in Ukraine, by committing himself to sending French troops there. And then he urged other Europeans to do the same. And he kept repeating it over and over. So the French basically told him no.

So yes, the European ruling parties will probably register this. And most of them will consider doing anything to remain in power, even if it means not towing the line that the US dictates. But that’s not a guarantee for sure. Von der Leyen and other crazies have their seats guaranteed, so they will certainly not go along with this, and might produce enough pressure to keep the EU in line. But, I foresee that the riots in France will start repeating everywhere in the next decade for Europe. The people are muttering about spending so much money on Ukraine, while they get shafted with high prices on everything. The connection between sanctions on Russia and the record-breaking gas prices is apparent for everyone. The support for a state in the process of genociding an oppressed people is also not helping the ruling parties.

Agreed, but it’s the first time that Ukrainian politicians in the government (and they are not in low positions either) are coming out and saying publicly they should take Russia’s peace proposal seriously. That’s a big shift, and in conjunction with Russia saying they don’t recognize Zelenski anymore and will not discuss anything with him, that makes it likely that the Zelenski government will eat itself (Note: Russians say that according to the Ukrainian constitution, the legitimate leader is the Ukrainian Head of Parliament).

Yes, the EU is basically a vassal of the US, but they do have the strength to resist. The problem is that they don’t want to. So Putin’s proposal puts pressure on them to want to.

As for Israel vs Ukraine. Yes, the practical thing would be to choose Ukraine over Israel. But US politics are not grounded in practicality. The Israel lobby has far more sway in the US than any other group, which stretches deeply into both parties. The US has lost every shred of diplomatic credibility in the last year after continuing to fanatically support and enable Israel’s genocide (as admitted by the resignation letters of state department officials). They’ve even been trying to pass a law that the US will not be legally able to stop funding Israel. Yet they don’t seem to even trt to stop. This conflict of who to support is playing out right now, and Israel is winning it.

The media are irrelevant here, since a significant number of people in the West no longer trust them. And Putin’s proposal was not targeting them either way. Russia doesn’t care anymore what the West thinks.

However, the recent European parliament elections have shaken things up quite a bit. It has become apparent to the ruling parties that the jingoist anti-Russian rhetoric damaged them instead of helping them. And we can see that by the silence of Macron since then, and the refusal of Scholz to proceed with further sanctions. Furthermore the economic damage to Europe is no longer something to ignore.

Also, Putin was probably targeting non-Western countries with this proposal, so that they would not support the Ukrainian plan for applying pressure. And those ones ARE considering Minsk, Istanbul etc.

Putin’s major target was Ukrainians themselves, and it seems to have worked. Ukrainians have started saying they want peace. That’s the most critical part here. No matter how much the West might want to continue this war, if Ukrainians are unwilling to fight, then it will end.

Finally, the defense ghouls, as you aptly put it, might want to keep selling weapons, but the realities on the ground make them irrelevant as well. There is no more Ukrainian manpower, and without manpower who is going to operate these weapons? The West? Secondly, the Palestinian Uprising is now competing with Ukraine for weapons and the Western industrial complex can only barely satisfy one of them. Who do you think they’ll drop?