So here I sit in Southwest Florida, a Canadian, rooting for the Russians. I’m not against the Ukrainians. In fact, I think they are patsies and very much the victim of a larger geopolitical conflict. They are the tragic fall guys.
I’m against the Americans, NATO and the west. We provoked this war. I’m also embittered by the jingoistic propaganda that I’m being fed. Really, our society is ridiculous. My neighbours are ridiculous. My family members are ridiculous. Clueless. They swallow the propaganda bait, hook line and sinker.
It’s a weird feeling rooting for the Russians. I know it’s against my interests but I think so is America’s forever war machine.
Regarding the propaganda I, too, felt like something was amiss back in late 2022. I then subscribed to Asia Times just because they seemed to have a balanced reporting structure - that's where I came across Mr. Bryen and have been reading his work ever since.
Warning: Asia Times is still quite biassed! It depends a bit on the author of each article. But it definitely offers a different perspective from the united Western MSM.
How old was this guy? Doesn't Poland give its generals regular medical checkups so they don't just up and croak for no particular reason? And whatever happened to good old-fashioned "helicopter crash", "car crash" or "training accident"?
The "official" story about the Polish general is what we used to call in government "reasonably vague". Some time long after this conflict is over, real numbers about the deaths of NATO country troops in Ukraine are going to come out....and I think we'll be surprised at how many are on that list.
The Scholz story is amusing - the US & the EU are always talking about how its all up to Ukraine. If the talks are between NATO countries, then Ukraine wasn't invited, along with the Russians. Odd way to achieve peace between two parties in conflict. But, these are the same clowns who crammed into the Volkswagen heading towards catastrophe for 2 years, pedal to the metal with no brakes.
Can someone tell me why the Russians allow US drones in the Blacksea? Each time one of these drones flies around Crimea we see an attack on the peninsula...
The U.S. drones are in international territory, like that Russian spy plane off the coast of Syria that got hit by Syrian missiles when Israeli airplanes hid behind it.
Regarding Prigozhin, I'll suggest that his move can't be reasonably thought of either as an invasion or an attempted coup or as supporting Ukraine. I'll suggest that his move on Moscow was a "Hail Mary" pass to Putin, motivated by military honor as his men were at risk of being senselessly ground up as cannon fodder. He put himself at their head to announce his commitment to their survival.
Perhaps he had enough of Putin's softness. There are many voices in Russia wanting to finish off Ukraine once and for all.
The West would love to see Putin being toppled. It's very unlikely that Putin would be toppled by a moderate pro Western person. It would be quite the opposite.
It seemed to me, from a distance, that Prigozhin never stopped being personally loyal to Putin. I never saw any reason to doubt that both Prigozhin and the senior Russian military command were/are in line with Putin's not-so-soft Plan A: Focus on grinding down the Ukrainian military, with big territorial gains on the back burner.
I give you that. But please don't forget that grinding down Ukrainian military forces cost Russian lives, too. The biggest losses Russia had were around Bakhmut. Prigozhin may have asked "what are we dying for? Ukrainian civilians can still have a normal life while we bleed". Please don't forget that electricity and water are still working in Ukraine. Young people of the upper class still go dancing in Kiev.
Please also note that this is the first war since WW2 where the civilian casualties are lower than the military ones, at least Arestovych made this statement recently.
With other words, Putin has been holding back, valuing Ukrainian civilians lives while sacrificing Russian soldiers. Noble but perhaps naive, considering that nobody in the West is willing to negotiate with him anyway.
Because of Putin's restraint, Russia has been winning the propaganda war in the darker-skinned countries, especially Africa, with India emerging as the middle-man to sell sanctioned Russian oil to Europe (at a marked-up price, of course). In other words, those who foam at the mouth for military conquest miss the bigger picture and other "asymetrical" fronts, including the progressive erosion of the Almighty Dollar as the international reserve currency at the hands of patient Putin.
Prigozhin moved on Moscow after the Bakhmut campaign was over, and in that campaign there was indeed a period of excessive slaughter of the rapists and murderers who were given a get-out-of-jail-free pass if they joined his army and survived. It was AFTER Bakhmut, with another move to burn through his soldiers in a different meat-grinder attack, that Prigozhin's column made its quixotic charge toward Moscow.
At the moment, the individual countries are finding countless excuses, but death will come that the legend can no longer be hidden. Then the peoples of the Western world will begin to ask questions that can no longer be explained by accidents.
Why are we still passing a lot of time, because the propaganda is still catching on with the masses. I personally think that max. 20% of the German population have woken up, the rest are trapped in Heinrich Mann's novel "Der Untertan". Everyone outside of Germany who wants to understand the Germans should watch this film about the novel. The actor Werner Peters: in the role of Diederich Heßling and how he walks alongside the carriage of the German emperor katzbuckeln characterises 80% of Germans. Instead of Volker Pispers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chK2KHGx_yo once expressed stopping the train, the 80% hope that they are sitting in the last wagon that gets stuck on the cliff top.
This is probably the case for many other peoples in Europe and North America
The American assumption is that they can fight the Russians until the point at which it is absolutely clear Russia will win, and at that point the Russians will accept a negotiated settlement.
The Americans perceive themselves to be the subject of history, and that the Russians are an object of this history. When the Americans decide the war is over, as such, it is over.
You're right, it's all rather Hegelian, and America's religious faith in its unlimited Agency is fundamentally threatened at the End of History it initially welcomed.
We're getting deep into the dialectic of Master and Slave, and America's postwar (hot and then cold) global serfs are flexing their muscles as they plan their revenge.
My great worry is the Gun Problem that expresses America's false idea of agency since 1620.
They have a small arms problem enshrined in the Second Amendment at home, but a Big Gun Problem abroad. 'The business of America is business' and their gun problem abroad is amplified by the domestic power of the MIC, the Big Gun Lobby like a global NRA, so central to the American idea and practice of its 'business' in the wider world.
Pure Russian disinformation. Why am I the only person here who even notices that the link about the destroyed bunker takes you to an article which has been up since April of 2022? There is no actual reason to believe that this fat 52-year-old general died (in 2024) of anything other than a heart attack, as happens to fat people of that age group every day. And why would NATO build a bunker in unstable front-line Chasiv Yar, anyway? LOL, ever hear of those new technologies, telephone and radio? Everything in the article is confidently misinterpreted In Russia's favor, including the link about Scholz and the meeting to strategize how to win the war. No wonder the Yorktown Institute fired Bryen so quickly, and expunged his info from their site.
Meanwhile, Budanov says that Ukraine has almost everything it needs to destroy the Kerch Bridge. (Basically, Ukraine has received Taurus missiles, which is why we suddenly stopped hearing the constant mewling for them.)
If this were not obvious enough, yesterday Ben Hodges said that “the siege of Crimea had begun”..
If this one died anywhere in Ukraine, the exact location is an unimportant piece of trivia. Like all other NATO staff, he had no business being in the country at all
So here I sit in Southwest Florida, a Canadian, rooting for the Russians. I’m not against the Ukrainians. In fact, I think they are patsies and very much the victim of a larger geopolitical conflict. They are the tragic fall guys.
I’m against the Americans, NATO and the west. We provoked this war. I’m also embittered by the jingoistic propaganda that I’m being fed. Really, our society is ridiculous. My neighbours are ridiculous. My family members are ridiculous. Clueless. They swallow the propaganda bait, hook line and sinker.
It’s a weird feeling rooting for the Russians. I know it’s against my interests but I think so is America’s forever war machine.
Regarding the propaganda I, too, felt like something was amiss back in late 2022. I then subscribed to Asia Times just because they seemed to have a balanced reporting structure - that's where I came across Mr. Bryen and have been reading his work ever since.
Warning: Asia Times is still quite biassed! It depends a bit on the author of each article. But it definitely offers a different perspective from the united Western MSM.
You're speaking for me .... a west Australian
I’ve been to Perth, it was very beautiful and hot.
I'm inland north of Perth so not as picturesque but if anything hotter....(45 to 48 degrees celsius blows) Thankfully that has passed now
Beauty, small world eh
How old was this guy? Doesn't Poland give its generals regular medical checkups so they don't just up and croak for no particular reason? And whatever happened to good old-fashioned "helicopter crash", "car crash" or "training accident"?
It's natural to get medical problems when hit by a bunker buster - but hardly unexplained.
Well, in Poland this general "died for natural reasons" somewhere in Belgium ...
He worked depending on the version in the Belgian Mons or French Strassburg
At the funeral, however, none of his alleged colleagues from Eufor
but also nobody from Ukraine
Ciekawy.
The "official" story about the Polish general is what we used to call in government "reasonably vague". Some time long after this conflict is over, real numbers about the deaths of NATO country troops in Ukraine are going to come out....and I think we'll be surprised at how many are on that list.
The Scholz story is amusing - the US & the EU are always talking about how its all up to Ukraine. If the talks are between NATO countries, then Ukraine wasn't invited, along with the Russians. Odd way to achieve peace between two parties in conflict. But, these are the same clowns who crammed into the Volkswagen heading towards catastrophe for 2 years, pedal to the metal with no brakes.
Can someone tell me why the Russians allow US drones in the Blacksea? Each time one of these drones flies around Crimea we see an attack on the peninsula...
The U.S. drones are in international territory, like that Russian spy plane off the coast of Syria that got hit by Syrian missiles when Israeli airplanes hid behind it.
International waters or not... these drones gather data and strike coordinates that are being given to Ukraine. Russia should shoot them down.
What an irresponsible thing to say, unless you're lusting for World War III.
WW3 because someone shot a drone down? Please...
Trump was on the brink of war against Iran because they shot down a drone, but then he got cold feet.
Regarding Prigozhin, I'll suggest that his move can't be reasonably thought of either as an invasion or an attempted coup or as supporting Ukraine. I'll suggest that his move on Moscow was a "Hail Mary" pass to Putin, motivated by military honor as his men were at risk of being senselessly ground up as cannon fodder. He put himself at their head to announce his commitment to their survival.
Perhaps he had enough of Putin's softness. There are many voices in Russia wanting to finish off Ukraine once and for all.
The West would love to see Putin being toppled. It's very unlikely that Putin would be toppled by a moderate pro Western person. It would be quite the opposite.
It seemed to me, from a distance, that Prigozhin never stopped being personally loyal to Putin. I never saw any reason to doubt that both Prigozhin and the senior Russian military command were/are in line with Putin's not-so-soft Plan A: Focus on grinding down the Ukrainian military, with big territorial gains on the back burner.
I give you that. But please don't forget that grinding down Ukrainian military forces cost Russian lives, too. The biggest losses Russia had were around Bakhmut. Prigozhin may have asked "what are we dying for? Ukrainian civilians can still have a normal life while we bleed". Please don't forget that electricity and water are still working in Ukraine. Young people of the upper class still go dancing in Kiev.
Please also note that this is the first war since WW2 where the civilian casualties are lower than the military ones, at least Arestovych made this statement recently.
With other words, Putin has been holding back, valuing Ukrainian civilians lives while sacrificing Russian soldiers. Noble but perhaps naive, considering that nobody in the West is willing to negotiate with him anyway.
Because of Putin's restraint, Russia has been winning the propaganda war in the darker-skinned countries, especially Africa, with India emerging as the middle-man to sell sanctioned Russian oil to Europe (at a marked-up price, of course). In other words, those who foam at the mouth for military conquest miss the bigger picture and other "asymetrical" fronts, including the progressive erosion of the Almighty Dollar as the international reserve currency at the hands of patient Putin.
Prigozhin moved on Moscow after the Bakhmut campaign was over, and in that campaign there was indeed a period of excessive slaughter of the rapists and murderers who were given a get-out-of-jail-free pass if they joined his army and survived. It was AFTER Bakhmut, with another move to burn through his soldiers in a different meat-grinder attack, that Prigozhin's column made its quixotic charge toward Moscow.
People believing in meat grinder attacks also believe in Santa Claus.
Read it and weep:
"Prigozhin's meat grinder"
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/yevgeny-s-prigozhin-s-meat-grinder-a-moment-of-truth-for-russia-s-wagner-group-in-bakhmut-a-f306a3c2-0e90-4085-8b90-ad36ef3d81ab
Good point. Putin's the devil you know versus the devil you don't.
At the moment, the individual countries are finding countless excuses, but death will come that the legend can no longer be hidden. Then the peoples of the Western world will begin to ask questions that can no longer be explained by accidents.
Why are we still passing a lot of time, because the propaganda is still catching on with the masses. I personally think that max. 20% of the German population have woken up, the rest are trapped in Heinrich Mann's novel "Der Untertan". Everyone outside of Germany who wants to understand the Germans should watch this film about the novel. The actor Werner Peters: in the role of Diederich Heßling and how he walks alongside the carriage of the German emperor katzbuckeln characterises 80% of Germans. Instead of Volker Pispers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chK2KHGx_yo once expressed stopping the train, the 80% hope that they are sitting in the last wagon that gets stuck on the cliff top.
This is probably the case for many other peoples in Europe and North America
The American assumption is that they can fight the Russians until the point at which it is absolutely clear Russia will win, and at that point the Russians will accept a negotiated settlement.
The Americans perceive themselves to be the subject of history, and that the Russians are an object of this history. When the Americans decide the war is over, as such, it is over.
This is absolutely not correct.
You're right, it's all rather Hegelian, and America's religious faith in its unlimited Agency is fundamentally threatened at the End of History it initially welcomed.
We're getting deep into the dialectic of Master and Slave, and America's postwar (hot and then cold) global serfs are flexing their muscles as they plan their revenge.
My great worry is the Gun Problem that expresses America's false idea of agency since 1620.
They have a small arms problem enshrined in the Second Amendment at home, but a Big Gun Problem abroad. 'The business of America is business' and their gun problem abroad is amplified by the domestic power of the MIC, the Big Gun Lobby like a global NRA, so central to the American idea and practice of its 'business' in the wider world.
The end of the end of history will be extremely difficult for the "blob" to internalize, and will likely involve them lashing out with white hot rage
Pure Russian disinformation. Why am I the only person here who even notices that the link about the destroyed bunker takes you to an article which has been up since April of 2022? There is no actual reason to believe that this fat 52-year-old general died (in 2024) of anything other than a heart attack, as happens to fat people of that age group every day. And why would NATO build a bunker in unstable front-line Chasiv Yar, anyway? LOL, ever hear of those new technologies, telephone and radio? Everything in the article is confidently misinterpreted In Russia's favor, including the link about Scholz and the meeting to strategize how to win the war. No wonder the Yorktown Institute fired Bryen so quickly, and expunged his info from their site.
but more seriously
Of course, a guy a year older than me can die of a heart attack, stroke, stroke or boredom - nothing unusual
but why give him a non-existent position in a non-existent staff?
Why claim he was at an event when the photos show he wasn't there?
why introduce strict censorship of discussions about it in Poland?
such things are not accidental
Could he have died in the military complex near Chasiv Yar, built a long time ago?
https://yandex.eu/maps/27431/chasiv-yar/?l=sat&ll=37.857339%2C48.576552&mode=whatshere&whatshere%5Bpoint%5D=37.856866%2C48.577644&whatshere%5Bzoom%5D=19&z=17
well that is also possible
the more the authorities lie, the more likely it is
SKW welcome!
Meanwhile, Budanov says that Ukraine has almost everything it needs to destroy the Kerch Bridge. (Basically, Ukraine has received Taurus missiles, which is why we suddenly stopped hearing the constant mewling for them.)
If this were not obvious enough, yesterday Ben Hodges said that “the siege of Crimea had begun”..
French troops to be deployed in April.
https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/106736
The West only continues to double down while Russia dithers.
The Anadolu Agency story is from April of 2022.
If this one died anywhere in Ukraine, the exact location is an unimportant piece of trivia. Like all other NATO staff, he had no business being in the country at all
Txs for the always interesting info!