@ Badjoke | Jun 11 2025 16:14 utc | 294
What are you on about? I asked a simple question in my post @ 11:23 utc | 217
and you reply with all that gibberish.
But really, never mind. It’s late here and I’m not interested.

Posted by: waynorinorway | Jun 11 2025 18:17 utc | 303

@hopehely | Wed, 11 Jun 2025 17:06:00 GMT | 306

Remarkable how a creativity can fly high when the knowledge is not interfering.

That’s a great observation.

Posted by: persiflo | Jun 11 2025 19:17 utc | 305

Waldorf | Jun 11 2025 12:18 utc | 224
*** Not for the first time they try to sell two propositions –
1. Russia’s armed forces are a joke
2. Russia’s armed forces are a major threat to Western Europe and may even have been seen at Calais with snow on their boots.
When did they stop teaching Logic as a subject in schools?***
It is perfectly logical in context of NATO thinks with forked arse.

Posted by: Cynic | Jun 11 2025 19:26 utc | 307

@Johan Kaspar #215
American financial institutions may or may not benefit – but MIC puppets and board members definitely will benefit. The military? Not so much.

Posted by: c1ue | Jun 11 2025 19:39 utc | 309

– It depends how severe the european countries have weakened that will make the russians re-think a potential attack.
– However, Russia still has enough cards up it sleeve “to weaken” Europe.

Posted by: WMG | Jun 11 2025 19:47 utc | 311

🇷🇺💪 Driven by hubris and greed, Charles XII of Sweden attacked Russia in the early 1700s, but was soundly defeated by Peter I the Great at the Battle of Poltava.
This catastrophic war against Russia led to the tombstone of the Swedish empire. It was a watershed moment in the history of Russia and Europe.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Jun 11 2025 9:02 utc | 197
Abject nonsense. Glorification of the Great-Russian czarist politics under Peter, and vilification of Sweden. Read Marx’ “Secret Diplomacy of the Eighteenth Century.” The historical narratives were retrospectively shaped in order to frame Sweden as the aggressor, when in fact it was encircled and attacked by a great coalition in conjunction with diplomatic moves between Britain and Russia.
Charles XII did not attack Russia. The reverse is the truth.

Posted by: Tichy | Jun 11 2025 20:01 utc | 313

Reference:
https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1857/russia/ch01.htm
https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1857/russia/ch02.htm
https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1857/russia/ch03.htm
https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1857/russia/ch04.htm
https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1857/russia/ch05.htm
Engels:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/russian-tsardom/index.htm

Posted by: Tichy | Jun 11 2025 20:08 utc | 315

james @321: “essentially you are advocating that russia play the same game usa-uk led nato is playing…”
I made the reference to a street fight for a reason. Imagine some asshole starts a fight with you. You can be beating him soundly, but all the while his “posse” is throwing punches at you whenever your back is turned to them. You are free to “not play that game” and try to ignore the sucker-punches and pretend they don’t hurt, but they do hurt, and they cause injury. Furthermore, the more the gang gets away with punching you in the kidneys and the back of the head and whatnot without retaliation from you, the more brazen and forceful their sucker-punches become.
You can “not play their game”, but what good does that do you? You get the moral high ground? Will that really make you feel better when the gang’s attacks are emboldened enough by your lack of response that they knock you out of the fight? You can console yourself that you were the better person while you are on the ground getting stomped?
It would be a mistake to imagine this is some sort of civilized disagreement between gentlemen.

Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 11 2025 20:28 utc | 317

Steele_,porcupine….re USA reducing funding…well this is an indication DT might still want peace but leaving a bit of pressure on so not a complete sop to z, but more importantly any thing sneaky against Russia again it must be them that fully deserves retribution.
Alastair Crooke saying of course USA knew and they know that Putin knows and he does know hence the relative silence ever since from USA, hence USA not admitting have been caught out but this admission means that have been caught out and in a not obvious way are saying oops, now it is over to EU and UK dig their own graves even deeper which lets us off the hook well maybe a little bit.
,???

Posted by: Jo | Jun 11 2025 20:54 utc | 319

@Perimetr | Jun 11 2025 1:22 utc | 140
Certainly those are signficant events, no question.
On the other hand intrusions of RU proper have been taking place since very early on. Just consider Crimea, a crucial strategic spot.
I am aware Helmer has been relaying those critical voices. And doubtless they do not practice group think in General Staff.
I also sense that these sources are a business asset of Helmer´s. This is his trademark. He will stress those.
The generals will also acknowledge that it is not least to the actual war that RU Armed Forces have arisen the best in the world I guess.
Nobody in Moscow would have launched SMO and kill 1M AFU just for that purposes. But that´s how you do it, you go step by step and along the way good things happen and bad things. You can´t win every battle.
If this war offers as much of an opportunity for RU to neuter NATO as NATO thought it would offer them to destryo RU, RU will not let go.
At this moment the mentioned terrorist attacks would be very difficult to carry out without Ukraine.
So to render NATO secondary (except a nuclear war) don´t you think it would suffice to take out UKR?
i.e. to say RU won´t achieve that by launching missiles against London.
The purpose is served if Kiev´s military and political leadership is e.g. killed.
Russia House is only as effective as it can order around other people.
I doubt that Russians went into this not knowing that sabotage will be a major part.
They have been training for this since 1945 if not even earlier.
Larry Johnson will put his interview online tomorrow with retired Lt. General Evgeny Buzhinsky. That will confirm your and Bhadrakumar´s point. Nonetheless I always think these are never just interviews only but also messages.
And he is reitred. You won´t get the 100% legit info from the inside.
Eventually we do not know with certainty what General Staff, FSB, Security Council are thinking and saying and planning.
Nuclear war is nuclear war. There is no walking back from that.
And considering what RU can do to really harm Ukraine and the West without attacking NATO territory RU hasn´t chosen that path so far.
Those gloves…
If Bhadrakumar´s calls restraint weakness and even failure – sorry but that sounds exactly like the strongman ideology in Whitehall they project on RU. It is more fiction and wishful thinking than anything else.
I seriously think that is a major flaw in the understanding of how RU works as a system.
Consider the dependency of car manufacturers on Chinese magnets. Apparently Trump immediately softened.
RU could do similar things. (Uranium delivery for starters.)
Well, you know the neuralgic points better then me. But to stress them once.

Posted by: AG | Jun 11 2025 21:37 utc | 321

@ William Gruff | Jun 11 2025 20:28 utc | 326
thanks william… you’ve used this ( american ) analogy before… it is a good one in a limited sense.. i think there is a much bigger game at play and i think the west is in the process of losing it badly.. at any rate – you might still get your ‘street fight’ here, with much higher stakes involved lol.. for most of the time i appreciate and agree with your commentary at moa.. in this instance i think it is very short sighted, but i am receptive to being shown how this viewpoint is wrong which might be more then others on the opposite side of this viewpoint might continence.

Posted by: james | Jun 11 2025 21:59 utc | 323

I first developed an affinity for Russia in late 2018 simply because it was one of the few European nations to neither have US military bases on its soil nor be a NATO member, ergo freeing it from Anglo-Zionist subordination (or so I thought) and ensuring an independent foteign policy.

257 / Justpassinby // “sometimes i think we germans are beeing set up once again.”
The Anglos pushing the 2 main power of the continent to fight each other again. The Yankees pretending again to get out of Europe, waiting for the two power to exhaust themselves, then returning at the last minute to get all the spoils… Again.

Posted by: Asian Frog | Jun 11 2025 14:29 utc | 264
When I first learned of this, I assumed that the Russian population would be smart enough to heed it as well as the fact that the same Anglo-Zionists have been controlling (West) Germany since 1945. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I’d hate to imagine, 6½ years later, how naive I was.

The Germans come top of the poll – on who Russians think are countries most hostile to Russia – I’d have to say I thought the top spot would’ve been held by the Brits.
“They probably won’t but Germans should pay close attention to a recent news item out of Russia: The Levada polling institute – long internationally acknowledged as serious and dependable – has published the result of a recent survey. It shows that Germany is now considered peak hostile by ordinary Russians: 55% of them name Germany as the country most unfriendly toward Russia.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jun 11 2025 13:57 utc | 251
Meanwhile, attached to the source column is the news article (https://www.rt.com/russia/618794-us-germany-uk-ukraine/ ) in which the Levada Center called “a Western-funded organization which has been designated as a “foreign agent” in Russia”. What gives?

Posted by: joey_n | Jun 11 2025 22:17 utc | 325

Oh, and just to stomp it home, @DunGroanin.
What was the first military battle between Russia and Sweden under Charles XII?
Narva, 1700, where the Russians attacked them, violating peace treaties, and where the Swedes beat the everlasting fuck out of them with an army the quarter of their size.
Next.

Posted by: Tichy | Jun 11 2025 22:24 utc | 327

I will completely translate the Engels quote to modern day to the best of my ability, I don’t like to play tongue in cheek, that’s just laziness.
So:
“Among the American dissidents, too, there still exists a comparatively great ignorance of this side of American history. On the one hand, because in Americ itself only the official legend is tolerated; on the other, with a great many, because they hold the Deep State in too great contempt, believing it incapable of anything rational, incapable, partly from stupidity, partly from corruption. And for American internal policy this is right enough; here the impotence of America is clear as day. But we ought to know not only the weakness but the strength too of the enemy. And its foreign policy is unquestionably the side on which America is strong — very strong.”
That’s a total reversal and it’s not 100% but maybe you now understand what I mean.

Posted by: Tichy | Jun 11 2025 22:40 utc | 329

Are you worked up because you’re Swedish?
Posted by: Konami | Jun 11 2025 22:43 utc | 339
Not at all. I object to this history writing because someone telling me that “Charles XII, driven by his greed and his hubris, attacked Russia” is a staggering lie.
I have no problem admitting various faults of my country. This is a case where in Sweden, Charles was adopted as a national hero by the Nazi Right. It didn’t even factor that even Marx basically described the situation as a situation where two imperialist countries plotted his empire’s destruction and attacked on multiple fronts. I can go into much more detail here.
> I have no idea who is to blame in/for the Great Northern War
Simple. Peter took advantage of a secret alliance with Denmark and Saxony-Poland, facilitated by British diplomacy, to strike Sweden as its monarch, Charles XII, was young and presumed weak.
The first battle between Sweden and Russia took place in Narva, 1700 when Peter attacked a Swedish holding. The Russians were slaughtered.
Charles XII had not given battle until his empire was attacked by Denmark–Norway, Saxony–Poland–Lithuania and Russia combined.
Oh, the greed and hubris!
Charles did not attack Russia. This is a lie meant to serve Russian chauvinism.

Posted by: Tichy | Jun 11 2025 22:57 utc | 331

In today’s “if you’re not for Ukraine, you must be for Russia *and* you’re a bad man” climate, I sometimes bring up the 30 years war as an example: it was destructive enough that we still remember some details but it’s distant enough that even my fellow citizens can agree that it’s silly to assign “good”/”bad” values to either side. Doesn’t really work out though: they refuse to transfer that understanding to 2025 🙁
Posted by: Konami | Jun 11 2025 23:07 utc | 341
I gave you an example of how to translate that understanding to 2025 and I also told you that nobody reasonable will be served by repeating Czarist fabrications about the downfall of the Swedish empire, and how I had to react to DunGroanin’s lies. Let me remind you: “Driven by hubris and greed, Charles XII of Sweden attacked Russia in the early 1700s.” This is a simple, bald-faced lie.
I’m quite able to continue that discussion if you want to.

Posted by: Tichy | Jun 11 2025 23:19 utc | 333

“…the unipolar reality is over… the multipolar reality is happening, but the resistance to acknowledging this on the part of the losers is quite pronounced.. either their is an acknowledgement that we are going for nuclear war here, or acknowledge the west under usa/uk leadership, can’t turn back the hands of time to get what it had previously, or we can hope that someone like trump who outwardly is advocating for a ceasefire – actually means it on some level..
of course speculation is a favourite pastime of armchair warriors and their are plenty of them here on moa, including myself i suppose… time is definitely on the side of russia and china.. the west can come to it’s collective senses and cut with the terrorist tactics, or it can go for nuclear war.. i am not discounting either possibility, but it would be nice if the west took the wise and enlightened approach and changed course..”
Posted by: james | Jun 11 2025 19:54 utc | 321
Please be aware that I am just jumping in after scrolling righthandedly to see who is having a conversation here — not having seen anything previous to this during my day, Wednesday that is. I go out early morning on a long bus journey for provisions, try to bring back what I can pedestrianwise, and in these fraught times one doesn’t know when things will worsen, so I try to do the maximum, not always a rational exercise in the heat (low 90’s so far) but it has to be done.
Anyway, this is a lovely post, james, and I see that your conversation with William is a good one on both sides — I had one with my bus driver, whom I know is a Trump fan. I told him my view that quite possibly Russian has known more about the matter under discussion than we have given him credit for – Putin knows more than he lets on, and this could well have been (I said to my driver) a teaching moment between Putin and Trump, rather than a testing moment as some might wish it to be.
Of course, that depends on whether Trump is teachable. I’d prefer waiting to see over dropping an Oreshnik on the White House lawn.

Posted by: juliania | Jun 12 2025 0:08 utc | 335

“…But the West is nowhere near achieving that realization. Weapons systems in the West are still designed with the primary focus on contractor profits, with real world effectiveness far down on the list of priorities.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jun 10 2025 22:37 utc | 108
Excellent point, William Gruff! Who was it that said it is very hard for such realities to be faced by those whose salaries depend on not doing so — maybe nobody said it that way but it works even better when it isn’t just a salary that’s in question but that nasty idea – ‘profit’. So, it just could take a huge dose of reality to overcome that.
(I will shut up now and just catch up on my reading.)

Posted by: juliania | Jun 12 2025 1:03 utc | 337

@ juliania | Jun 12 2025 0:08 utc | 344
thanks juliania… william gruff makes many good points and i don’t think their is anything wrong in what he says either.. but our 2 viewpoints are diametrically opposite in some respects.. it would be nice to think neither viewpoint is wrong or right, but most people would probably consider this unusual, lol.. i mostly think it is thinking in different time frames..

Posted by: james | Jun 12 2025 1:37 utc | 339

The drone attack on the Russian air bases were conducted through a proxy, even if the idea originated from MI6 and/or CIA.
So I would suggest that the obvious response is to likewise respond via a proxy against either the USA or the UK.
Perhaps some Zircon missiles to the Houthi, with strict instructions that they can only be launched against Royal Navy or US Navy warships?
Maybe the appearance of Oreshnik missiles in Iran would make a few heads spin.
Or go the whole hog, because there’s always Cuba……

Posted by: Yeah, Right | Jun 12 2025 7:53 utc | 341

No2Nato: Episode 35 (& vid)
https://x.com/georgegalloway/status/1933263274231132191
“British war with Russia!”
With Patrick Walsh & Harry Boota

Posted by: JohnGilberts | Jun 12 2025 22:51 utc | 343