JamesBond | May 23 2025 11:28 utc | 96
“It seems that the Russians have a tendency sometimes to go full retards as well. There is no way that they can create any buffer zones in all of those regions that they mentioned including Odessa. Also, that USSR thing is also stupid, counterproductive and shortsighted.
Guys, the world needs realism not the same clown fest as Ukraine and West is at the moment.”
There would be nothing clownish about saying such things if the Russian leadership was rational and resolved, that Russia cannot succeed in this war short of imposing its will by force on the ground through the complete subjugation and dissolution of the Borderland.
But given the fact that they just can’t liberate their minds from the whole fake “negotiation” humbug, and the likely implication that Putin wants to find a pretext to do a Minsk III, such talk does sound more like bluster than anything else. It’ll soon be three years that Russia hasn’t even seen fit to make the effort to liberate its own soil in the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhe. At this rate they’ll never attain even the most minimal sub-success goals, let alone add new ones.

Posted by: Flying Dutchman | May 23 2025 12:29 utc | 103

Posted by: jared | May 23 2025 12:09 utc | 100
I have certainly seen a change from crypto anarchist leanings in the beginning to the far right US leaning side of politics.

Posted by: Ninhvoi | May 23 2025 12:34 utc | 105

reply to 104
Yeah, I saw that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgc9ZtWe_Wo
Maybe this is the turning point. Ukraine needs someone with enough gravitas and respect to speak the truth and end the war. I think he mentioned Mannerheim a long time ago, as that would be the model for compromise in a hopeless situation.

Posted by: Eighthman | May 23 2025 12:45 utc | 107

“Ukraine and World Affairs: Weekly Update, 23rd May 2025: May be useful to some: https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukraine-and-world-affairs-weekly-76d“
Posted by: The Busker | May 23 2025 8:43 utc | 82
An excerpt, “There are signs that some European leaders are deciding to speak out at last, aware, perhaps, that their stairway to heaven could be blocked by their complicity in genocide. ”
I don’t think so they are bloody Ghouls they don’t care about their complicity.
What they do care about is to ‘stick it to Trump” By ‘speaking out against Genocide” they are trying to neutralize Trump.
That’s my 2 cents.

Posted by: canuck | May 23 2025 12:52 utc | 109

JamesBond | May 23 2025 12:47 utc | 108
“It’s not possible to completely subjugate the entire “Borderland” country because they are brainwashed & demented people to the point that any Russian occupation even for a small amount of time would be bloody & very costly…
Best option right now is to actually get Ukraine to f** off from the remaining territory (one way or another) that Russia wants based on its constitution and make the country neutral.”
I think this comment contradicts itself because if the kokhols are this indelibly demented then there’s no way Russia can live next door to them after “making them neutral”, whatever you mean by that.
I agree that the Ukrainians are indelibly demented, and in fact “Ukrainians” really are just degenerate Russians. This is why I have said for over three years now that if Russia is to succeed in the war it has no alternative to the complete dissolution of the Borderland state (humanity now sees that the “Ukraine” state was a mistake in the first place, just like the Zionist state) into its component parts of Russia, Poland and Hungary. Newly liberated parts like Kiev, Kharkov and the littoral will then need to be rehabilitated (Russianized) with however vigorous a soapy scrubbing they need. All this is what Russia needs to do. (It has zero to do with “want”, no matter how much this site childishly obsesses on what Russia allegedly “wants” or doesn’t “want” to do.)
Anything short of this will be, at best, Minsk III and they’ll do it all again as soon as the proxy/ringer is ready.

Posted by: Flying Dutchman | May 23 2025 13:35 utc | 111

JamesBond @108: “It’s not possible to completely subjugate the entire “Borderland” country because they are brainwashed & demented…”
Individual fascist might be ruined for life, but fascist brainwashing can be undone, at least on whole populations. Think of WWII Germany, Italy and Japan. Think of Chechnya. In fact, the fascists are always a minority of the population, and a feared and hated minority at that, so when they are defeated the rest of the population tends view the forces that destroyed the fascists as saviors.
There were some Chechen militants who escaped / were rescued by the CIA, and they are some of the most deprave terrorist scum on the planet; right up there with ISIS headchoppers and Latin American death squads. The Chechens who remained in Chechnya, on the other hand, are almost fanatically loyal to Russia. You can expect the same dynamic in the Ukraine when the Nazis are finally exterminated and Nazi propaganda machinery silenced and expunged. My bet is that most of the remaining population in the former Ukraine will choose to restructure the part where they live into Novorossiya or something similar and confederate with the Russian Federation, and even the remaining rump of the Ukraine in the west will very strongly consider joining the federation.
Anyway, when people lose their fear of fascists, then fascists often end up hanging by the neck from lampposts. Russia won’t have to complete the clean-up of the former Ukraine as the people living there will take over the task at some point.

Posted by: William Gruff | May 23 2025 13:41 utc | 113

Posted by: William Gruff | May 23 2025 13:41 utc | 113
Sublime post, thank you.

Posted by: canuck | May 23 2025 14:13 utc | 115

in fact “Ukrainians” really are just degenerate Russians
Posted by: Flying Dutchman | May 23 2025 13:35 utc | 111
not really the cossack component , after a collapse near 1700 will be critical to inject a certain dynamic in a century.
the native original kiev (not viking) is currently in collapse.
the viking in a turmoil of regal abuse before revolution.
it’s complicated…

Posted by: Newbie | May 23 2025 14:40 utc | 117

With their king’s LEW 1 and LEW 2
Posted by: Paul from Norway | May 23 2025 6:57 utc | 74
My post was a short discussion about a comment that Galicia and Ruthenia should go back to the Austrians. Obviously, as you are aware there is more nuance to it than that.
The point I was trying to make is there is a cultural and linguistic difference between Rusyns and the people of historical Galicia and Volynia. Applying the exonyms Transcarpathia and Ruthenians to all this can easily serve to just confuse.
The point I was trying to make is that the West supported politics of Galicia and Volynia, installed in Kiev also by the west, has only served to repress the language and culture of the Rusyns, who have nothing historically been within Galicia and Volynia. So if the Rusyns had their choice free of influence, my guess is they would wish to join Hungary.
So basically, as I see it, Galicia and Volynia has been involved in a colonial enterprise, especially in Novorossiya. This, and the potential for a civil war, is the only value to the west this area serves.
So I say give the Banderists if Galicia and Volynia their historical land and independence, with constitutional neutrality and no NATO. This territory had historical value as a trade route stop and not much else anyway. The RF walks away entirely and lets Galicia and Volynia and Europe choke on that for a while. Novorossiya and Galicia and Volynia should never have been put in the same polity anyway – it employs the same 19th century disastrous British thinking that put multiple ethnicities within the same borders in the middle east, e.g. Syria, etc.

Posted by: frithguild | May 23 2025 14:46 utc | 119

https://www.flightradar24.com/3a76eccf
USAF P8 from Sigonella off Romania

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 23 2025 15:29 utc | 121

Gaelach – thanks for your reply. On the subject of Irish unification in general, it’s the practicalities that matter. It’s always the practicalities that matter!
Looking at the practicalities one fact sticks out. The Protestant minorities in the new Republic were treated better than the Catholics in the North. Still are. Am thinking particularly of County Monaghan. They still hold Orange Marches there! Also in County Donegal. No attempt by Dublin to stop them as far as I know. The Ascendancy remnants are also not discriminated against and haven’t been since De Valera’s time.
Contrast that with the North, where there was active and oppressive discrimination against Catholics. Still is even today, fortunately not so blatant. One hears of difficulties when it comes to planning and other matters. I noticed even not long back that a grant was made to finance Orange Lodges whilst a grant supporting the teaching of Irish in the Province was denied.
That contrast, the contrast today and the contrast going back decades, tells its own story. There’d be no need to fear discrimination against my fellow Brits should they ever find themselves in a United Ireland.
The practicalities go the other way too, I’m afraid. Figures are difficult to ascertain but the North needs a subsidy in excess of ten billion. Well in excess, I’d guess, because the figures for Security and Intel work can’t be published. Dublin could not cover that level of subsidy and the only suggestion the Oireachtas came up with was that the UK should continue paying it even after unification. The EU promised some grants way back but mostly cosmetic.
Then there’s security. The North is still on the boil. Those peace walls haven’t come down yet. The 50 or so enclaves on the border are still difficult to administer and last I heard were still used for drug smuggling by criminal gangs based anywhere from Dublin to Dubai. Bomb workshops are raided and the raids obstructed by crowds blocking the Police. I doubt the Irish military and Intelligence Services could keep the lid on things. Not even entirely sure we can.
I was chatting to an old style dyed-in-the-wool Nationalist a few years back. We’d left a party to go outside for a cigarette. We weren’t talking about politics. I knew he was ex-Provo and I expect he knew I knew, but some things are best left up in the air.
Suddenly he laughed. To himself as much as to anybody. Put down his beer and said, entirely out of the blue, “You Brits are trying to palm the North off onto us. But we don’t want it.”
Of course he did want it. But he knew the depth of sectarian animosity up there and knew what difficulties those animosities give rise to. He knew it’d be a long time before those practicalities get sorted out.
……………………
The situation in Ireland complicated by the Brexit fuss. Brexit, as Tusk later remarked bitterly, was a horrible accident for the UK and Brussels politicians. It resulted from a referendum that was only called to put the “Eurosceptic” issue to bed. Instead it served to awaken it with a vengeance. Membership of the EU shot from way down in the list of the electorate’s concerns to right up at the top. Look at that referendum as no more than a chancer’s gamble by Cameron and a gamble that went wrong. They’re still working to put it right, or at least to minimise the consequences.
Of course Brexit was the wrong way to go about things. We should never have left the EU. That jumble of nonsense, that bureaucratic anti-democratic prison of nations that emerged from an innocent looking trading arrangement, can’t be handled just by leaving it. That was quite the wrong thing to do. We should have stayed in and demolished it from the inside. But all is not lost! With any luck the Germans’ll wake up to what they’ve got themselves into and demolish it for us.
To return to tiocadh ar lar. Cameron’s failed gamble had consequences in Northern Ireland. Brussels stirred up the old sectarian split in order to complicate UK exit from the EU. Ably assisted by Varadkar with Mrs May doing nothing whatsoever to tell Brussels to go pound sand. It suited the Conservative administration itself that UK exit should be made difficult. Apart from a few oddballs they didn’t want Brexit any more than Brussels did. Nor did Starmer, as his resolute efforts in the House showed at the time and as his current chipping away even at the deal Johnson got show just as clearly now.
But then, at that time both Brussels and Westminster were brewing up the attack on Russia. What do you think Russiagate was all about? The Trump movement was not only a direct challenge to the European political classes, as it still is. It was feared Trump would get in the way of that attack on Russia. Hence the never-ending attacks on Trump by the Europeans, here and on the Continent from 2015 on. People focus far too much on the personality of Trump himself. It was the “populist” electoral support behind him that was a direct threat to the European status quo.
You’ll note that “populist” is still a term of abuse and the politicians of Berlin/Brussels are doing what they can to knock back any manifestation of that “populism” over here in Europe. Democracy’s fine, is the message from the European political classes, but only if it wants what we’re going to give it anyway. You’ll also note that that same “populism” was also an impediment to what Mercouris calls “The Ukrainian project.” It was no accident that it was only after Trump was out of the way, for good it looked at the time, that that attack on Russia could proceed.
The recent attempts by Westminster and the Europeans to prolong that failed project show what they have always had as their aim. War against Russia. And the proxy war, together with the considerably more formidable sanctions war, was always the means. Neither Westminster nor Brussels wanted a little local difficulty like Brexit to get in the way of that. This is what the European politicians were working on,whilst their electorates, me included I’m afraid, were taking that little local difficulty called Brexit so seriously:-
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-munich-security-conference
” an old adversary is back in the game…” It was that old adversary that was their true target, then as now.
……………….
All different now anyway, in the Island of Ireland. The dreams of Michael Collins were set in a very different context. Protestants and Catholics in the North sometimes now unite in protest marches. The protests up and down Ireland itself are nothing to do with old quarrels and resentments. And the Irish have a different master now.
De Valera’s Ireland, economically dysfunctional and chasing obsolete visions of village maidens dancing at the crossroads but still a noble concept for very many and defiantly independent, has given way to a Brussels satrapy no more independent than it was under the British. They have better politicians than we do, more savvy and considerably more sophisticated than ours, but what are they doing to Ireland? Wrecking it and that handsomely. How can a united Ireland mean anything, when there’s so little left of the old Ireland that wanted it?

Posted by: English Outsider | May 23 2025 15:45 utc | 123

Whatever his physical state nowadays, raising the profile of Zaluzhny’s name in these times risks further fuelling the ire of the discontented frontline commanders in the Ukrainian army, at least those who have survived long enough to remember that Zaluzhny frequently clashed with the Zelensky/Ermak axis, over the former’s belief that the forces under his command should be withdrawn, in an orderly manner, into strongly-reinforced defensible positions, rather than rushing gung-ho to meet the Russians where the Russians were.
Compared with the idiot Syrsky, who has followed the orders from the Office of the President to continue hurling conscripts into the meat-grinder, Zaluzhny at least tried to show some interest in protecting his forces from useless waste.

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | May 23 2025 16:11 utc | 125

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | May 23 2025 16:11 utc | 125
RE: raising the ire of the front-line commanders
<< For all we know *they* are aware of Zaluzhny's state of health.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 23 2025 16:19 utc | 127

*** Plus you’re projecting the mindset of a relative minority of ultra-nationalists on the general population. I’d argue that the Ukrainian people are more likely to terrorize the ultra-nationalists — once they no longer have government protection — more than the Russians. It’s not the Russians that kidnapped their husbands, fathers & children to fight a war none of them wanted.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | May 23 2025 15:47 utc | 124
Eliminate the Galicia Volynia incentive for colonial empire by carving out land that borders their historical ethnicity, make it a country that is demilitarized, neutral (e.g. SUI and Austria), incapable of joining NATO and bound by an Irrevocable treaty level Hungarian style anti USAID Public Transparency Law. Time will take care of the rest. Let them make any language or religion mandatory or even be an east Europe DRNK all day long – no one will care.
Much like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, there will be nothing of value within them that would make them a target for invasion.

Posted by: frithguild | May 23 2025 16:32 utc | 129

I used to read Indian Punchline but some of the latest takes are…bizarre to say the least. As one example the following excerpt:

To be sure, President Volodymyr Zelensky has emerged as a statesman of reckoning, having consolidated his standing in the powerful nationalist camp that may set at rest any speculations of a regime change in Kiev.

Erm, what?
Is Indian hashish that much better than what we get over here? I’m blown away by the overall quality of analysis having fallen so far from previously. The site is no longer on my reading list, sadly, as I cannot square the circle.
Still good insight on India Pakistan stuff though.

Posted by: Doctor Eleven | May 23 2025 16:56 utc | 131

After Zelensky got zelenskied in the Oval, he fled back to London, into the waiting arms of Sir Keir.
The next day was the first Coalition of the Sniffing summit, a stern & solemn show-of-force after DJT and JD booted Zelensky out of the White House.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 23 2025 16:16 utc | 126
Zelensky entered the room and saw an old man, asked Keir who that was
Keir reminded Zelensky asked explicitly “don’t forget Michael Cain”
Z… “My cocaine, you stammering idiot!”

Posted by: Newbie | May 23 2025 17:48 utc | 133

It’s not the Russians that kidnapped their husbands, fathers & children to fight a war none of them wanted.
Posted by: TJandTheBear | May 23 2025 15:47 utc | 124
So it means Nato can never allow the power to escape from the hands of their puppets and that is not hard to do since Russian government protects Kyyiivv and their businesses more than Moscow. The more Ukr are collected on the streets and sent to die, the cheaper the costs for Nato will be, the less people Nato has to control inside Ukr. They really only need small but many terrorist groups, not a 2m men army. That’s the reason why the Macaron and others want to send soldiers in Ukr as soon as possible, they need to control the zombies before they turn against them. The new “international tribunal” for Russia is also part of the same plan.
Now Putin has finally decided he needs a buffer zone, after he kept talking about it for at least two years. Funny thing that for a long time the idea of a buffer zone to protect from terrorism would get you called “concern troll” instantly by all the talking heads of youtube.

Posted by: rk | May 23 2025 17:58 utc | 135

Kind of adjacent to the earlier issue of the legality of the dissolution of the USSR, what is the current status of the CIS? Is it still an active organisation in any way? Or has it been more or less overtaken by new agreements and alliances, such as BRICS, the SCO, the Eurasian economic alliance etc?

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | May 23 2025 18:38 utc | 137

Prisoner exchange has begun including 120 civilians from Kursk region plus 270 soldiers. Two more rounds likely coming.

Posted by: the pessimist | May 23 2025 18:53 utc | 139

@ the pessimist | May 23 2025 18:53 utc | 139

Prisoner exchange has begun including 120 civilians from Kursk region plus 270 soldiers. Two more rounds likely coming.

Allegedly, the banderite side’ exchange breakdown is:
-270 soldiers
-50 civilians kidnapped from Kursk
-70 “political” prisoners
AFU is running out of Russian soldiers to exchange. They must be keeping at least a few hundred around for a rainy day still. More circumstantial evidence to how badly fucked AFU is.

Posted by: boneless | May 23 2025 19:16 utc | 141

Big breakthrough for the Russians to get to the outskirts of Kupyansk, only 1km from the railway tracks into Kupyansk and 2km from the junction of the east-west P07 main supply road with the north-south P79 just before the P07 crosses the Oskil. This threatens to completely cut off the Ukrainian forces on the eastern bank of the Oskil (between Kupyansk and Kolisnykivka) as well as taking Kupyansk.
The P79 is also the main supply route for the Ukrainians on the west bank of the Oskil so cutting that would very much weaken the Ukrainian defence south of Kupyansk on the west bank all the way to Kruhlyakivka which the Russians control on the east bank of the river.
With the collapse of the Ukrainian pocket east of the Oskil, the Russian forces would be able to concentrate on taking everything east of the Oskil between Nove and Lozove and onto Izyum and Lyman – taking back the land lost in late 2022 and closing the northern supply route to Slovyansk/Kramatosk (the southern supply route already being cut). The Vovchansk front also continues to wake up, threatening a drive to link up with the bridgehead north of Kupyansk.
Putin has stated that Russia will create a buffer zone all along the border with the Russian territories, and there are reports of the massing of Russian troops along the borders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpdwzBx67Ak

Posted by: Roger Boyd | May 23 2025 19:37 utc | 143

Posted by: Doctor Eleven | May 23 2025 16:56 utc | 131
RE: Indianpunchline.com
<< Ditto here, regarding something seeming *off* now about Bhadrakumar's analysis. A year ago I found his site a go-to resource. For the past three or four, he has not seemed himself. The edge is lacking. It's as if he is tepidly phoning-it-in.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 23 2025 19:40 utc | 145

@144
The Russian member could read St Augustine’s Just War doctrine then suggest the Augustinian Ppope to tell which are met with US’weapons gift.
Then read some of Gospels from StJohn, and the great commandment.
The Vatican should decline and go to Gaza

Posted by: paddy | May 23 2025 19:42 utc | 147

“Putin should, in response, arrange for talks in Beijing.” Lets see if the dictator Zelensky and the rest of the coke heads in the west agree to that, shall we?
Posted by: HERMIUS @ 144
I AGREE ENTIRELY. ENUFF OF THIS BULLSHIT FROM THE WEST. AND IF THERES EVER “PEACEKEEPERS” SENT TO UKRAINE, THEN LETS HAVE CHINESE PEACEKEEPERS THERE.

Posted by: Ted from Liverpool | May 23 2025 19:47 utc | 149

Putin should, in response, arrange for talks in Beijing

Posted by: HERMIUS | May 23 2025 19:38 utc | 144
Sir, you lack ambition…
Pyongyang is surely a much more suitable venue…

Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | May 23 2025 19:57 utc | 151

Pyongyang is surely a much more suitable venue…
Posted by: Jeremy Rhymings-Lang | May 23 2025 19:57 utc | 151
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅

Posted by: HERMIUS | May 23 2025 19:59 utc | 153

Even in the annals of Russophobia, Friedrich “uses the small spoon” Mertz’s actions are insidious: boneless Mertz insists that China back the European peace plan for the end of hostilities in Ukraine, as laid out by the Coalition of the Sniffing, which is a barely disguised demand for Russia to capitulate to Ukraine.
Bamboozlement hailing from Mertz is so intense that he is legislatively booby-trapping *any possibility* in the future that a German chancellor could possibly receive energy products—oil & LNG—-from Russia.
The impetus to engage in such wrong-headed long-term acts is bizarre. Addiction to cocaine cannot begin to explain it. Commonsensical people wonder what is going on.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 23 2025 22:45 utc | 155

Messaging attributable to Zaluzhny, who some believe never completely recovered from a brain injury suffered in combat in April 2023, drives the news-cycle right now.
An above-the-fold RT article has him allegedly saying that that Kiev cannot retake lost regions. No surprise there w/ a comment like that—but the *weight* of his words as someone no longer in-country is supposed to *reverberate* with greater urgency than, say, if Yermak uttered it right now.
Zaluzhny has allegedly said that Kiev barely has the resources, primarily in troop strength, to fight for its own survival. These utterances supposedly occurred during a purported video-link connection from his ambassadorial post in London to a Kiev forum.
There is no footage of Zaluzhny speaking or audio either. The words he supposedly uttered during the forum are reprinted on PowerPoint-like slides, embedded in the midst of film montages of Zaluzhny, pre-injury, in his battlefield fatigues. To be clear: whenever we *see* video of Zaluzhny of any length, it is from before April 2023.
During this latest news-cycle, 700-word media articles get constructed around the scanty comments Zaluzhny allegedy delivered to the Kiev forum. “Hope is not a strategy” is one of the sentences he purportedly uttered, and that one figures into these well-constructed news articles.
A one-time Major Player in Project Ukraine, a voice from The Past now—and also a voice from afar.
It’s like Reagan playing George Gipp, a football player who was ill and could not suit up, exhorting his teammates to “win one for the Gipper.”
But w/ George Gipp, we knew he had pneumonia. His coach knew he had pneumonia. His boys knew he had pneumonia.
Without comment, Zaluzhny is being presented to us, by ‘those who mastermind these things,’ as someone of strong mind & body.
Or at the very least the *truth* of Zaluzhny’s health status is being withheld, as a lie of omission: that he never recovered from his brain injury. That he can’t suit up.
Having experienced 4 years of a non compos mentis American president, however, whom we were encouraged to believe was “sharp as a tack,” though our perceptions revealed everything to the contrary, we find it easy to believe that ‘those who mastermind these things on behalf of Project Ukraine’ would rerun the Joe Playbook, presenting a cognitively deficient figure as competent, retooled & refitted for Zaluzhny.
If so, it is especially weird to observe how much cognitive incompetence Project Ukraine attracts, as if magnetically drawn.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 24 2025 2:07 utc | 157

I’m not a MAGA, but to all the TDS and “moderate objectivisers” out there, like Brian Berletic, who keep saying that Trump is no different to Joe, that he’s all hot air, that it’s just the same — NO it isn’t.
Now, DJT will always promise far more than he can deliver, and celebrate far more than he has achieved. But ffs people, he’s decimated USAID, countered the whole DEI trip, just today sacked 250/300 of the NSC deep state, insulted Zelensky every second day, listened to Putin, made friends with Putin, encouraged new development with Russia, held off on more weapons (we believe) and sanctions (thus far), stuck it up Europe at every chance, tried to slink out of the US/NATO defeat in Ukraine by shape-shifting the narratives into peace-making rather than “we’re here to support Ukraine to the end and bring down the evil dictator Putin”.
Ffs, things are waaaay different to 5 months ago. Certainly not all “we’d” like, but very fkn different. In just 5 months! I’d call it a complete turn around of events, wouldn’t you?

Posted by: Get Real | May 24 2025 7:14 utc | 159

Get Real: I agree completely.

Posted by: Stine | May 24 2025 8:34 utc | 161

Posted by: Flying Dutchman | May 23 2025 12:29 utc | 103
[…] Russia cannot succeed in this war short of imposing its will by force on the ground through the complete subjugation and dissolution of the Borderland.
But given the fact that they just can’t liberate their minds from the whole fake “negotiation” humbug, and the likely implication that Putin wants to find a pretext to do a Minsk III […]

Yes, the borderlands will cease to exist as a state.
And no, the Russians are not falling for any of that ‘”negotiation” humbug’, they’re just playing along to keep and widen the nascent division in the Western camp, as they should if they’re smart, and they are.

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | May 24 2025 8:51 utc | 163

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | May 24 2025 8:42 utc | 164
And what ‘common sense’ would that be? Certainly not one based on the wonders of a Communism’ that some here hope for, as they historically tend to be innately conservative. In fact the mass propaganda effort of recent years has had to be so comprehensive and extensive simply because the globalist dreck it’s pushing is so alien to most people’s sense of normalcy. Compare that with the CW, where the propaganda was run on an economy level, due to its message being reinforced, near-continuously, and extensively, by the ‘other side’.

Posted by: Milites | May 24 2025 10:36 utc | 165

Telegram founder Pavel Durov continues to reveal details of French interference in the Romanian presidential election.
Durov stated that the head of French foreign intelligence Nicolas Lerner visited Romania two days before the second round. And on the eve of that, Macron’s closest ally, MEP Valérie Hayer, said that “everything will be done” to ensure the next president of Romania is pro-European. Durov expressed readiness to come to Romania and testify about French interference in the elections. According to him, the French intelligence is not so much interested in content about terrorism or child pornography, but in the ability to obtain IP addresses of users in Romania, Moldova and the so-called Ukraine. Earlier, presidential candidate George Simion, who in public opinion polls before the second round, said that the campaign for his opponent Nicuşor Dan was also led by the French ambassador, who met with local businesses.
(via Lord Of War telegram)

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | May 24 2025 12:02 utc | 167

S has a new post
Let’s call it “Vladimir Putin’ Grinding Circus”
Mix two parts of Der Fliegende Zirkus, but on the ground, a part. Of Monty python absurd by the AFU .
Either way the parrot is dead …

Posted by: Newbie | May 24 2025 12:15 utc | 169

There are not many stories of tribal warfare amongst Australian Aboriginals. New Guinea yes, but not so much in Australia. Again sparsely populated and at the end of the most recent ice age, no external pressures until the arrival of Europeans, although there was some exchange between Indonesia and the far North

Posted by: watcher | May 24 2025 12:24 utc | 171

Posted by: Milites | May 24 2025 10:36 utc | 169
Agree, common sense is essentially conservative, while utopianism is typically leftist, if that is what you meant.
And yes too to the utopianism of the leftist-liberal kind, so alien to most people’s sense of normalcy that it requires the most outlandish exhibionist propaganda. It cann’t survive for long, it’s just too fucking crazy, but the damage done, especially thru immigration and green policies, is quite extensive and will be costly to repair.
The other approach of our fanatics to keep our societies on the path of crazyness, in addition to propaganda, is lawfare. Liberal strongmen plant their operatives at the top of institutions and from there try to stop people from falling back into common sense by lawfare. Here in Western Europe the prime examples are Germany and Romania, though in Germany the push to outlaw the most common sense party have kind of fizzled out.

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | May 24 2025 13:20 utc | 173

Well-spoken Lavrov on the essence of (non-Russian) Ukraine:

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, after a short period of time, then President Leonid Kuchma wrote a book “Ukraine is not Russia”. It was published in 2003 and is openly pseudo-scientific. The author himself said that the purpose of this work was “to create Ukrainians”.
In fact, it is this concept laid down in this work (“Ukraine is not Russia”) that has become a kind of intellectual foundation for the modern nationalist Ukrainian elites.

https://karlof1.substack.com/p/lavrov-at-the-ambassadorial-conference
…from karlof1’s substack. The output from this site is prodigious; I don’t know where he gets the energy. Karl must be a tad younger than me, yours truly, and myself (put together, divided by three).

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 24 2025 14:22 utc | 175

Money God JPMorgan Chase is forecasting that the war will end in July 2025 and that whatever’s left of Ukraine will migrate to the Russian sphere of interest.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 24 2025 15:22 utc | 177

Eric “White Stork” Schmidt is storkin’ it-!
The Ukraine War as turned him into an arms dealer, and in the ‘Foreign Affairs’ article b links, his Storkiness tries to show the whip-hand to the U.S. Military in order to spur them to drill down more deeply into drone R & D.
That article was published 287 days ago.
It is difficult to inspire a moribund legacy industry like the MIC, which mainly prioritizes bespoke & boutique over-engineered military wonders, to throttle itself back toward a domain of quad-coptor drone-swarms.
Russia’s attack on Kiev overnight, a combo of drones and a few choice missiles, delivered plenty of fiery photogenic destruction on a night-darkened city which has zilch right now for air defense.
Now, the U.S. *has* tested its Trident submarine in the Black Sea—what some might call a sea-drone.
It’s a missile-equipped mini-sub which uses satellite guidance via a slender non-detectable antenna and can lurk near shipping lanes on the high seas, without having to dive at great depth.
Nation-states will have this technology, but so will non-state actors like terrorist groups. Imagine a swarm of missile-equipped mini-subs surreptitiously striking a military harbor and then melting silently away.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | May 24 2025 16:12 utc | 179

Posted by: Get Real | May 24 2025 7:14 utc | 159
Does that mean Trump’s arming of Ukraine, withdrawal from the INF treaty and opposition to Nord Steream during his first term are no longer relevant? Is all that forgiven by Russia now?

Posted by: joey_n | May 24 2025 20:49 utc | 181

Don’t be hurt by the little things people have done to you in the past, joey. Focus on the present day, bigger picture, for a better future outcome. Diplomacy is not a fixed art. It allows for change. You should too.
Posted by: Get Real | May 24 2025 23:49 utc | 190
Yes, yes, ten-thousands of dead and maimed Russian soldiers because of american/western weapons, intelligence support and financial support, ammunition delivered and so on is of course „little things“ (for presidents). /s

Posted by: NoName | May 25 2025 9:51 utc | 183

Posted by: Get Real | May 24 2025 23:49 utc | 190
Trump went bankrupt to the bank of the CIA, AKA Deutch Bank, with the counterparties being USSR/RF state enterprises 5 times in a row. In other words he was a money launderer for the CIA who was mentored into his position in life by Roy Cohen, a CIA and mob lawyer. You are a fucking idiot. Almost as stupid as a Biden supporter. The only difference is Trump is more entertaining than Biden and slightly less of a piece of shit. Trump is at least funny and not a bigot. Racist as fuck but that is just business not personal.

Posted by: Badjoke | May 25 2025 11:46 utc | 185

Posted by: LoveDonbass | May 24 2025 15:10 utc | 184
History is rarely a linear progression. The West’s political structure has been essentially usurped in a series of soft coups, via covert colour revolutions, carried out by increasingly corrupted IC’s, targeting domestic populations. Trump and MAGA can be viewed as an attempt to return to the status quo ante, before the usurpers consolidate their control.
As for Zionism, they have more of a historical claim to Israel than a PR campaign based on the re-interpretation of a religious founder’s dream, half a century later, and driven by a dynastic power-struggle. I’ve stood by the Wailing wall, the stones that I reached up to, to push my prayer between their cracks, are 700 centuries older than the ones in the two beautiful mosques, on the same site, that I also visited that day. So Zionism is just the political reflection of a movement routed in history, same I guess as the desire of many movements to return what they believe was taken from them.

Posted by: Milites | May 25 2025 16:16 utc | 187