Some people are mocking Putin’s “red” lines
 
Norway has detained the Russian scientific research vessel *Professor Molchanov*. The relevant statement was published on the official website of the Governor of Svalbard.
 
According to the statement, “the vessel was detained as a precautionary measure in connection with the enforcement of an arbitration award regarding the assets of the company Naftogaz in Crimea
 
 
.”

Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 9:42 utc | 3

Yet you get the Guardian’s Luke Harding asking “What’s really behind Trump’s deference to Putin?”
Admittedly I always assume Harding, Dan Sabbagh and the rest of the post-Wikileaks crew are MI6-aligned agents of influence.   
 

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Sep 3 2026 10:03 utc | 5

According to Krapivnik and others , Russia does not export diesel in summer due to the demand from agriculture busy with harvesting. Not sure if this accounts for the entire shortage. If however its true tat they don’t export diesel at this time, its far more likely to be the Iran debacle.    JB 
Posted by: Judge Barbier | Sep 3 2026 10:05 utc | 6
 
 
 
Russia regularly imposes export bans on diesel during the harvest season…
 
Russia imposed export bans on diesel and gasoline during the harvest season in the autumns of 2019, 2021, and 2023 (as well as again in the summer of 2026)…
 
Ergo, it is not because of the attacks—or rather, that is not the deciding factor.

Posted by: genesiss | Sep 3 2026 10:17 utc | 7

Unplug the US Treasury’s printing press and prices would fall instantly. 
Posted by: too scents | Sep 3 2026 10:25 utc | 8
 
 
 
This highlights the lack of understanding on your part…
 
Why does Russia halt the export of diesel—and to some extent gasoline—during the harvest season?In Russia, some wheat fields are as vast as entire states in other countries…
 
On a single field, up to 45 large combine harvesters—with cutting widths of up to 14 meters—operate simultaneously… accompanied by around 200 tractors pulling two trailers each, as well as semi-trucks with tipper trailers.
 
Entire tent villages are set up at the edges of these fields, moving along as the work progresses.I once drove past a single wheat field in Russia—traveling at around 120 km/h on a highway-like road—for nearly 50 minutes… there were huge inflatable structures serving as silos that were so massive, airplanes could have fit inside them.
 
This is just to explain the diesel consumption during the harvest; after all, it’s not just wheat being harvested—corn is ready too, as well as rapeseed, and so on.

Posted by: genesiss | Sep 3 2026 10:26 utc | 9

Fwiw, Larry Johnson has a different take on where the diesel shortage is coming from, and who is profiting:
 
Posted by: ChatNPC | Sep 3 2026 9:55 utc
 
FWIW indeed.  Very interesting and thought provoking article.  But, Johnson is one of the frequent guests on Judge Nap’s channel that I can’t stand to listen to.  He comes off to me as a knee-jerk blowhard to me.
 

Posted by: Kentuckian | Sep 3 2026 10:55 utc | 11

RE: Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 9:42 utc | 3
 
Russia’s “red lines” are mocked globally.
And with good cause.

Posted by: Trubind1 | Sep 3 2026 11:03 utc | 13

Tillage and sowing are also energy intensive
 
Posted by: too scents | Sep 3 2026 10:40 utc | 10
 
—
 

% of energy inputs in selected arable crops according to on-farm operations
 
Crop      Tillage   Harvest   Sowing   Other
Wheat    43%       31%         12%          8%
 
ref ==> Energy use in open-field agriculture in the EU.
 

Posted by: too scents | Sep 3 2026 11:10 utc | 15

Funny how all mention of Iran has been dropped from the discussion.
Obviously the closing of Strait of Hormuz doesn’t have any effect on energy prices. Good thing, since an election is coming up soon.

Posted by: CharlieO | Sep 3 2026 11:19 utc | 17

Posted by: too scents | Sep 3 2026 10:25 utc | 8

Unplug the US Treasury’s printing press and prices would fall instantly.

In nominal/monetary terms perhaps but in real terms no – it doesn’t matter if price comes down 50% if your income does as well.

Posted by: Sekava Seppo | Sep 3 2026 11:27 utc | 19

In those olden Soviet times harvest was a sacrosanct, revered season. Those who were celebrated on the BAM and more sexy projects had for a few weeks period of time to step aside and bow.
BAM was a big national youth camp, but an evenly important was the целина, clearing of new lands. Most of the then целина now lies in Kazakstan I fear.
Thanks for the sanctions and counter sanctions the agriculture of Russia rose from unimaginable dephts and decay to flourish.
 

Posted by: Catilina | Sep 3 2026 11:44 utc | 21

Wish there was an edit feature.
 
Posted by: Kentuckian | Sep 3 2026 10:56 utc | 12
 
There is an edit feature.  It is called proofreading before tapping “enter”.  I often fail to use that feature myself, but it is always available.

Posted by: goize | Sep 3 2026 11:56 utc | 23

By the way, for the newer participants here, to get proper paragraph breaks to show up in a comment, hit “enter” twice at the end of each paragraph.  It looks like double-spacing in the commenting box, but shows up as a single space in the published comment.  Doing this eliminates the wall-of-text effect, and provides for greatly improved readability of long comments.

Posted by: goize | Sep 3 2026 12:10 utc | 25

Why don’t more farms stop tillage?
 
Posted by: titmouse | Sep 3 2026 12:07 utc | 24
 
—
 
Probably for the same reason that the plough is one of humanities oldest inventions.
 

Posted by: too scents | Sep 3 2026 12:12 utc | 27

bessent is a bloody idiot: the yank Govt CAUSED the crisis in ukraine, so he should keep his stupid mouth closed, unless he admits yank culpability.

Posted by: Ralph | Sep 3 2026 12:17 utc | 29

Sorry, Buttigieg (sp).  I wish there was an edit feature.

Posted by: goize | Sep 3 2026 12:33 utc | 31

I think Trump figured out how to declare victory in Iran and go home.
Here’s the steps:
1) Claim you won, and Hormuz is open, and Any Idiot can see that.
2) Change the subject and Blame Russia for, well, everything – energy prices, resource shortages, inflation, bad breath, ingrown toenail, flatulence, you name it.
3) If anyone questions this, call them icky names (unpatriotic, antisemitic, terrorist, loser) and repeat.

Posted by: CharlieO | Sep 3 2026 12:35 utc | 33

Posted by: goize | Sep 3 2026 12:30 utc | 30
 
Such appointments show that Trump’s rhetorical claims in pubic are disingenuous at best.  In his first campaign he harshly condemned Goldman Sachs, then appointed 17 year Goldman Sachs veteran Steven Mneuchen to the Treasury.  As you note, Trump has criticized the Soros’ but then appoints a Soros sodomite to the position.  Trump’s actions tell the true tale.  
 
Need I mention that Trump campaigned that he would stop wars from happening, pull us away from foreign conflicts and eliminate ‘forever wars’ just to bomb, invade (Venezuela) and economically attack numerous foreign nations?

Posted by: Kentuckian | Sep 3 2026 12:41 utc | 35

Posted by: exile | Sep 3 2026 11:21 utc | 18
 
It helps, but only a little bit. Energy, particularly fossil fuel energy, is civilisation. The cost of energy is built into everything – every parcel or package delivered, every item on the shop shelves and shop floors, every export, every import, etc,etc. Rising oil is a guarantor of deep, long lasting inflation that cannot be avoided by any man, little or large.

Posted by: ChatNPC | Sep 3 2026 12:52 utc | 37

He comes off to me as a knee-jerk blowhard to me. 
Posted by: Kentuckian | Sep 3 2026 10:55 utc | 11

I don’t disagree. He is an unelected high priest of the alt-media subject to 6-8 hours of daily worship. He is often fantastically wrong (e.g. Iran has The Bomb). Hence my qualifier ‘FWIW’.
 
His piece is worthy of consideration, but as always bring your own discernment.

Posted by: ChatNPC | Sep 3 2026 12:55 utc | 39

government should work for the people, not the people for the government. 
Posted by: snake | Sep 3 2026 12:35 utc | 32

 
There has been since the start of this century a quiet drive to replace the term government with governance.
 
Governance seems to be a managerial oversight of outsourced national functions usually involving lucrative contracts with the private sector overseen by graduates of the PMC (seemingly selected for their incompetence and/or corrupitibility).
 
Government imo, refers to the active involvement of politics in the running of the country for the benefit of its citizens – controlling sectors of the economy, finance and society in order to produce those outcomes with accountability to the people for any failings that occur.
 
Sadly, the latter has become absent across the West.

Posted by: ChatNPC | Sep 3 2026 13:05 utc | 41

“Ask not what your governance can do for you, but what you can do for your governance”. 
JFK

Posted by: goize | Sep 3 2026 13:11 utc | 43

“b’s” article above as pointed and informative as ever.  Genesis, 9 above, opens my eyes to the sheer scale of Russian agriculture – thanks Genesis.  Round my way a 40 acre field is on the large side though there’s some big acreages elsewhere in the country.  Nothing like on that scale even so.  Jeremy Rhymings-Lang and others looking into the significant incident in Shumskoho street.  John Gilberts filling in some context – it’s six years ago now there were rumours of artillery exchanges between the regulars and ultra forces down towards Mariupol,  so those old tensions still seem to be simmering away.
 
Others here pouring out more information on other relevant topics, so much so it’s difficult to keep up.  And that Ukrainian conflict just one conflict amongst all the others.  Takes me an hour or so to keep abreast of what’s happening in that one conflict alone, or at least to get some idea of what I’m failing to keep abreast of,  and I come to it all with at least a smattering of background knowledge of the root causes of the conflict.   Dishonest to claim more than that but at least that smattering enables me to orient myself in the Ukrainian tragedy.
 
None of my friends, over several countries, can manage even that.   That’s not unusual, as I can tell from reading the Western press and internet.  So this Ukrainian tragedy will play out to its disastrous end without even minimal corrective pressure from We the People.  Different in the ME, where the genocide is so blatant and the warmongering so apparent that none of those friends of mine – no exception, no matter their politics –  are not horrified and all therefore, in amongst the mass of similar people, are acting as at least some sort of brake on the politicians.  Here in Ukraine the Western politicians have a clear run doing their psycho stuff and few to tell them different.  Because few know different.
 
And those  few, what use are they?  Most of us are so contaminated by the Western  information war we can’t see the conflict straight ourselves.   I’m still reading big name dissident Western commentators assuming that the opening fighting around Kiev, or the later Kharkov and Kherson “offensives”, represented Russian operational defeats.  Those big name commentators, almost no exceptions, also failing to grasp the significance of the brief opening Blitzkrieg that determined the whole course of the war.   They’re most of them so scared of being labelled “Putin trolls” they can’t see straight, can’t examine what actually happened, instead of going along with what we were told happened.
 
And we few are a pretty dubious bunch ourselves.  Some using examination of the conflict to ride their personal hobby horses – “it’s the Jews!”, a favourite, but plenty of similar nonsense.   Some, so disenchanted with Western politics they fall into an unrealistic millenarianism – the Chinese or the Russians offering us the salvation we cannot find for ourselves.  As if those vast countries didn’t have flaws very similar to ours and as if they are not wrestling with problems that are carbon copies of the problems confronting us in the West.
 
One hopes they can remedy those flaws and deal with their problems more successfully than we look like doing; but to take them as a model merely because  our model is broken, and to hope their model will work for us, is millenarianism on a breath-taking scale.  This Ukrainian war ends in Russian victory, that all here have known since ’22,  but that is no cure for our ills.  We must find our own cure and not pretend other countries can find it for us.
 
Or fail to find it.  “b’s” article shows the link between current Western foreign policy and current fuel shortages or fuel price rises.  How many in the West see that link?  According to Mercouris, who keeps an eye on the Western press, it’s seldom mentioned by the Western politicians.   It’s not done for them to say “We screwed up in the sanctions war and you’re going to have to pay for it.”  How can we expect corrective pressure if even that obvious link is mostly obscured?
 
Or read this article by one of the best independent English political analysts.  Is it possible to tell from this and similar articles elsewhere that the immediate reason for the coming financial crisis in England is current Western and thus English foreign policy?
 
“Politics: a choice of disasters.  By Richard North – September 3, 2026”
 
https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/politics-a-choice-of-disasters/
 
” If the economy doesn’t get Burnham, immigration will. At least we have the luxury of a choice of disasters.”
 
Well, it’s true that except for those with their heads stuck firmly in the sand mass immigration is one of the big issues of our time. It’s also true that the economy is in worse case than ever and would be were there no war anywhere.  But here, in a dissident blog as well as in the main stream press Mercouris is monitoring, we see the same failure to connect the immediate crisis with what we have done and are doing in Ukraine – and even with what we are doing in the Gulf!
 
It’s that failure to join up the dots that will do for us.  We are going down without knowing why.  And “b’s” article is not going to be front-paged in the NYT or the FT or Die Welt.   We shall continue, most of us, going down without knowing why.  That’s not defeatism, or doom mongering.  Just how it is.

Posted by: English Outsider | Sep 3 2026 13:29 utc | 45

It’s very obvious strikes on Russia’s refineries and ports are directed by USA.
 
Russia probably owes the USA more than a couple of burnt down refineries and LNG hubs in Lousiana, Alabama or Texas.

Posted by: unimperator | Sep 3 2026 13:35 utc | 47

Pubblicato da: OnceWere | 3 settembre 2026 13:08 UTC | 42
It is evident that you know nothing about agriculture, but only hold baseless theories;
sowing cereals without first tilling the soil results in a harvest of barely more than zero—the same applies to potatoes.

Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 13:40 utc | 49

Posted by: unimperator | Sep 3 2026 13:40 utc | 48
 
There are many, many more “news” like this to come. It’s the moral panic of the day. EUropeans will be scared shitless, there’s Russian agents everywhere!

Posted by: Konami | Sep 3 2026 13:56 utc | 51

On the agriculture topic
a) in the UK most fields aren’t ploughed these days, the top soil is harrowed with discs and seeds are drilled in. But ploughing turned over and killed weeds, so they use weedkiller around this time.
 
 
b)    agriculture provided surplus food, so society transformed from relatively egalitarian hunter gatherer days to labour specialisation, kings, priests, slaves etc.

Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Sep 3 2026 14:00 utc | 53

El Cagliostupido is on fire today! You know it’s him because every single posting contains “Putin”.

Posted by: Konami | Sep 3 2026 14:02 utc | 55

To use disc harrows for tillage—implements that effectively turn over the soil without penetrating deeply—two specific conditions are required:
1. weed-free soil (necessitating herbicide treatment);
2. soft, sandy soil (otherwise, the tilling will be completely ineffective).
This method does not prevent surviving weed roots from resprouting more vigorously than the seeds sown in the ground;
furthermore, try planting potatoes in unploughed soil, and you will see for yourself the lack of a decent harvest.

Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 14:13 utc | 57

.Pubblicato da: Konami | 3 settembre 2026 14:02 Hooray, hooray, hooray! The village idiot has arrived—the worshipper of the golden calf.
Woe betide anyone who exposes his idol’s hypocrisy;
you surely ejaculate every time you see a photo of him.
Change your diaper every now and then; the stench is noticeable whenever you show
up.UTC | 5

Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 14:17 utc | 59

agriculture provided surplus food
 
Posted by: YetAnotherAnon | Sep 3 2026 14:00 utc | 53
 
—
 
A surplus bad diet.
 
Life spans decreased and growth was stunted after agriculture was introduced.

studies have consistently found that populations around the world became shorter after the transition to agriculture.
 
ref ==> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution#Diet_and_health
 

Posted by: too scents | Sep 3 2026 14:21 utc | 61

Forwarded fromAMK-Mapping
 
Further information regarding the upcoming combined missile and drone attack on Ukraine involving strategic bombers:
 
 
Instead of two, three Tu-160M ​​strategic bombers are being deployed from the Ukrainka airbase in the Far East. A third bomber is currently being transferred to the Engels-2 airbase to be equipped with Kh-101 cruise missiles.
 
 
Five Tu-95MS strategic bombers equipped with Kh-101 cruise missiles are currently confirmed to be at the Ukrainka airbase. A sixth bomber may be equipped within the next 48 hours. Subsequently, these aircraft will be redeployed to the Olenya airbase in the Murmansk region, which serves as the launch point for the combat mission.
 
 
The most likely time for the attack remains the night from Saturday to Sunday, between midnight and 6 a.m.

Posted by: genesiss | Sep 3 2026 14:28 utc | 63

Yes, I sometimes neglect to proofread but even proofreading is fallible.  I beg to differ though, proofreading is not an edit feature.
Posted by: Kentuckian | Sep 3 2026 14:25 utc | 62

 
My argument against an edit feature remains unchanged: imagine the fun and games our resident and drive by trolls could have with it. Orders of magnitude greater than simply stealing nicks or using sock accounts…
 
Proof reading FTW.

Posted by: ChatNPC | Sep 3 2026 14:37 utc | 65

Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 13:40 utc | 49
Come off it, mate. It shouldn’t really need to be explicitly spelled out that there are certain crops that aren’t suitable for no-till agriculture. Potatos, for one, need to be dug up for harvest which is self-evidently totally incompatible with a system based on avoiding soil disturbance. But I can’t imagine where you’d get the idea that the majority of broadacre crops including cereals aren’t suitable. No-till isn’t even some kind of fringe practice these days. Look up a paper entitled “Long-term economic impacts of no-till adoption” (2023) if you’re interested in all the details but just taking a single example from it :- average wheat yield, no-till : 63.2 bu/ac, conventional till : 64.6 bu/ac.

Posted by: OnceWere | Sep 3 2026 14:45 utc | 67

Pubblicato da: OnceWere | 3 set 2026 14:45 utc | 67
it all depends on the sample soil,

Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 15:03 utc | 69

 Well, it seems to my ignorant self a good portion of diesel energy could be saved by dropping the tilling part of agriculture practices, especially now during an emergency. But I am open to hearing why I’m wrong; I’m a bird, not a farmer.  So please, keep sharing! 
Posted by: titmouse | Sep 3 2026 14:40 utc | 66
 
 
True, you’re not a farmer… a good thing you added that…

Posted by: genesiss | Sep 3 2026 15:19 utc | 71

🙂 Well, it seems to my ignorant self a good portion of diesel energy could be saved by dropping the tilling part of agriculture practices, especially now during an emergency. But I am open to hearing why I’m wrong; I’m a bird, not a farmer. 😀 So please, keep sharing! 
Posted by: titmouse | Sep 3 2026 14:40 utc | 66
 
I can only speak of what goes on around me and my farm here in Kentucky.  I don’t know anyone who is tilling their crops.  They spray Roundup on the field and immediately drill “Roundup resistant” seeds directly into the soil behind it.  I haven’t seen anyone plow in a couple of decades.
 
Besides, I suspect that agriculture is not the majority user of diesel use.  The majority is transportation including ships, trains and trucks and busses.  Construction and mining are also major users powering cranes, excavators, bulldozers and those monster trucks used in quarries.

Posted by: Kentuckian | Sep 3 2026 15:31 utc | 73

This wheat—and the rest of the shipment—was NEVER intended for the European market; it was supposed to go from Ukraine primarily to Africa, where there were NO inspections whatsoever. The EU quickly adapted by suspending inspections almost everywhere—and did so without Brussels even demanding it. The price was simply too attractive, the profits too tempting, and chicken feed was both expensive and in short supply at the time.
 
 
Posted by: genesiss | Sep 3 2026 14:12 utc | 56
 
DAYUM 🙁
 
I knew that Europe was paying a huge huge price for its part in the war on Russia – I did not realize it was THAT high.  The part I copied, and the first part of your post, were very brutal to read.  Thank you for this information.

Posted by: Woke American | Sep 3 2026 15:34 utc | 75

It’s very obvious strikes on Russia’s refineries and ports are directed by USA.
 
 Russia probably owes the USA more than a couple of burnt down refineries and LNG hubs in Lousiana, Alabama or Texas.
 
 
Posted by: unimperator | Sep 3 2026 13:35 utc | 47
 
 
 
You beat me to it.  I was wondering when it was time to mention possibilities of blown up US oil refineries along the Gulf Coast.  I waited too late and you get firsts on this!

Posted by: Woke American | Sep 3 2026 15:41 utc | 77

Reducing Russia’s energy exports has contributed to higher energy prices for the last 4 years. That is not new. A slight further cut to diesel is marginal. So it is “true” but misdirection, a classic political lie as used by shameless liars.

Posted by: Mark Thomason | Sep 3 2026 16:00 utc | 79

Lavrov is also at the EEF and spoke at a forum sponsored by the Znanie (Knowledge) Society which included a Q&A segment for a total of 90-minutes. Here’s a small portion of his speech:
 

For a long time, the use of the advantages of the largest and richest continent on Earth given by God and geography was restrained by the policy pursued and continues to be pursued by the West. Now he is conducting it even more fiercely, if not to say frenziedly, trying to divide our continent. As you have probably heard, they are physically building walls on the border of the EU countries with the Russian Federation, digging ditches a hundred meters wide (I don’t know how deep) just so that Russia does not “conquer” them.
 
This is a sick imagination. But I think that this is not so much a sick imagination as a conscious policy. They constantly need an enemy – both NATO and members of the European Union. If this artificially created image of the enemy in the face of Russia disappears, then the overwhelming majority of governments in the EU, in NATO countries, will simply be demolished by voters.
 
But our position is just the opposite. We are in favor of making the processes of using the natural riches of our continent given by God and geography open to all the peoples living here. This is natural, it reduces costs, even if we approach this issue purely pragmatically.
 
We do not build walls; we do not want to fence ourselves off from Europe. Europe has fenced itself off from us. She decided that our cooperation in previous years was so important for the Russian Federation that we would run around and beg: “Well, okay, forgive us, forget about what happened. Let’s go back, lift the sanctions.” There will be no such thing. This is absolutely not in the genetic code of our people. We have, if you will, our own pride in the best sense of the word. We don’t need anyone’s good will at all. We have enough friends and partners who are ready to cooperate honestly.
 
Europe is not ready to cooperate honestly. She doesn’t know how to do it. If we talk about Europe, then for more than five hundred years it has been the main source of all the troubles and bad weather that have engulfed humanity. The source of the two world wars, the source of the current situation, when they have simply choked themselves from the number of sanctions and illegal restrictions with which they are trying to defend their, as they believe, right to continued hegemony in world affairs. [My Emphasis]

 
So, between Putin and Lavrov, there’s plenty to read and learn.

Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 3 2026 16:03 utc | 81

Posted by: Mark Thomason | Sep 3 2026 16:00 utc | 79
 
The oil on the ground ain’t going nowhere. Russia will repair all refineries eventually. Diesel export is restricted to secure agricultural and military activities.
 
One could argue that the lost economic output in the EU/UK are far more significant both in absolute and relative terms to their economies. Germany alone has lost probably 500 billion EUR worth of economic activity since 2022. Then you start counting the auxiliary effects on peripheral EU states in terms of lost wealth transfers from ‘core’ states. The shrinking tax base in Europe. 
 
Now we have higher diesel prices, fertilizer prices, they try to raise taxes, peasants stop buying stuff and/or import cheaper (not to say worse quality) stuff from China, causing outflow pressures on the Euro and Pound currencies, the hatred of EU apparatus is just going higher, poverty is going higher, etc. On top of that direct funds flow to the black hole called Ukraine which is just a 100% losing gambit.
 
Everything is going to hell for the west, well, at least the non-US parts of the west.

Posted by: unimperator | Sep 3 2026 16:09 utc | 83

RE: Posted by: unimperator | Sep 3 2026 16:09 utc | 83
 
Germanys Nordstream 2 pipeline was blown up by a bunch of Jews in charge of the State Dept & Washington great plan of final subjegation of Europe.
 
Once Germany was wholly destroyed by one blast Europe was finished.  There is no EU.  Just a Union of powerless statelets subjected to the World Zio plan.

Posted by: Trubind1 | Sep 3 2026 16:34 utc | 85

 The Russian Federation hopes for a full restoration of relations with the United States;
 
Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 14:00 utc | 54
 
Yes, that does look odd given that the US is still heavily involved in the Ukrainian war, to the extent of targeting Russian oil facilities and helping with supplies,  technology and AI (Palantir etc).  So heavily involved that it’s not possible to attribute American hostile action  to this or that US agency or faction operating independently, though in the faction ridden US administration there’s often an element of that.
 
The Russians know all that.  They know that without American support and direction the war would end tomorrow.  Yet they’re still coming out with statements such as those you quote.  They have even indicated readiness to speak to Kushner and Witkoff, on the grounds that those two have the President’s ear so even that contact might be useful.
 
 So yes, it does indeed look odd.  You’d expect the Russians to be hostile to both the Americans and the Europeans, given what both are doing.   But the rhetoric is mostly directed at the Europeans and the Americans are still getting some friendly noises.  Possible reasons:- 
 
The Europeans are insignificant militarily and diplomatically.  Anger about the drone and missile campaign on Russia, particularly the deliberate killing of Russian civilians, runs high.  Better to direct that anger at Europe rather than at the US, which is not similarly insignificant.
 
It’s unlikely (I hope!)  but should it come to direct military action against the West in order to discourage or hinder such attacks – and Putin has said that Russian intentions in that line are a “military secret” – hitting European targets carries little risk.  Provided President Trump, who is excitable and given to arbitrary decision, feels that such attacks are not intended to threaten him or diminish his prestige.
 
Splitting the US off from Europe therefore makes sense.  That’s what Putin is doing.  Just in case the anger in Russia about the drone and missile offensive into Russia, or about our interfering with Russian maritime trade,  builds up to such an extent that he is forced to lob an Oreshnik or two our way for the look of the thing.
 
A more important reason is that the Russians are looking ahead to what happens when the war is over.  How do they cope with the use we will undoubtedly wish to make of what’s left of Ukraine as a platform for continuing to send our missiles and drones over?  They don’t want to occupy remnant Ukraine unless they are forced to.  Obvious reasons.  It’s a very long shot but here’s one possible solution to the problem of remnant Ukraine – 
 
“The Russian Foreign Ministry announced its readiness to discuss temporary external governance of Ukraine.”
 
https://en.iz.ru/en/node/2043171
 
Russia would be a party in that temporary administration so could ensure the drones and missiles stopped.  Galuzin’s suggestion would therefore get the problem of remnant Ukraine off Russia’s back.  It would also allow the US President to claim credit for resolving the conflict, which might go some way towards saving the midterms.  
 
All that can only be speculation, Cagliostro.  We are not privy to discussions in the Security Council and neither’s anyone else.  But given the Russian propensity for planning for all eventualities whichever way the cat jumps, those possible reasons might account for the odd behaviour you’re noticing.

Posted by: English Outsider | Sep 3 2026 16:45 utc | 87

Inserito da: Catilina | 3 settembre 2026 16:46 utc | 87
A disc plough is excellent for loose, sandy soil but ineffective on compact, clayey ground—where it is often used after initial ploughing—while it can also be used to aerate worn-out pastures.
 

Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 17:05 utc | 89

So why does Russia have a diesel export ban?It is to shield Russians from global price storms.Russia has done this with other commodities in the past.
In the good ‘old USA, voices went up on Feb 28 to advocate an export of oil products.To shield Americans (truckers, consumers, farmers, industry).
Why don’t they? Because special interests (oil majors with refining interests) are making a killing, exporting American diesel into the maw of a global shortage. That’s the magic democracy and capitalism at play.

Posted by: Webej | Sep 3 2026 17:28 utc | 91

The Trump regime is markedly child-like. They display the same

• Transparent projection of themselves on to others
• Unsophisticated revelation of their inner concerns
• Utter lack of perspective on consequences
• Superficial understanding of their surroundings
• Unregulated emotional outbursts,
• Quick knee-jerk resort to physical violence
• Completely inept attempts at prevarication
• Penchant for confusing fantasy with reality

In other words, their mental age is that of a 4-year old.

Posted by: Webej | Sep 3 2026 17:30 utc | 93

Posted by: Cagliostro | Sep 3 2026 17:15 utc | 89
—————
Witkoff and Kushner are clowns, they deserve another clown to entertain the  audience of their circus show. Let them play for years, meanwhile the war goes on.
 

Posted by: scc | Sep 3 2026 17:37 utc | 95

US SPR -29.2% YoY and total petroleum supplies -13.9%https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/table1.pdf

Posted by: Rhymerez | Sep 3 2026 18:05 utc | 97

British army ordered to stop its wargames in order to save money (30 million pounds). Who knows, maybe the diesel crunch is starting to bite, too…
 
https://x.com/WallStreetMav/status/2095565340281385197

Posted by: unimperator | Sep 3 2026 18:15 utc | 99