Russia: Four oblasts, neutrality, and freedom for the Russian minority in the Ukraine.
The Ukraine: What? That is worse than Istanbul Two.
Russia. Next time it will be eight oblasts.
The difference between Istanbul Two and now is that the Ukrainian offensive failed, and the Ukrainian army is rapidly shrinking while the Russian army is growing. If it continues to shrink, in a little while, will be eight oblasts.
Did you get that from VD, or upstream of him?
who is VD?
The Ukrainian rendering of this conversation is “Next time it will be five oblasts”.
However the Russian rendering of this conversation was “Next time it will be eight oblasts.”
Which is more accurate, probably no one quite remembers, but the Ukrainians have an incentive to exaggerate current Russian demands, and minimise the prospect that Russia will escalate their demands as the war continues to its conclusion, while the Russians have an incentive to exaggerate the likelihood that they will escalate their demands as the war continues to its conclusion.
But obviously Russia will escalate its demands as full military victory looms closer, and the likely cost of rendering rump Ukraine an empty desolate wilderness diminishes.
People are talking escalated sanctions, but we are drifting into a dollar crisis, as SWIFT loses its grip. Trump wants to rescue SWIFT from its self inflicted injuries. Escalating sanctions will escalate the dollar crisis.
The sanction that would be effective is military action against Russian shadow fleet oil tankers. But once great power conflict escalates to shutting down each other’s sea transport, America is more vulnerable because it has greater dependency on sea.
Maybe attacks on russian oil ships would get no response, yet another red line crossed, and nothing happens. A lot of Russian red lines have been crossed, and nothing happened. Until it did.
VD = Vox Day
The chap who Neurotoxin is not inordinately fond of
What purpose do these talks serve for Russia? Anything short of total victory in Ukraine is bound to cause trouble down the road. My guess is that this message is more directed towards EU than anyone else, and especially not (agreement incapable) Ukraine.
To the extent that US involvement in Ukraine has always been a demoKKKrat money laundering machine, all I can continue to say is: Go Vlad! Beat Obama!
Men like General William Sherman, Major General Terry Allen, and General George Patton are legends for their extraordinary accomplishments. Why are such men missing from our military leadership today? Where did they go?
Turns out many such men, if not most, eventually catch a legal case. Once that happens, they get ‘rehabilitated’ i.e. put on something like ‘vacation’ for quite a bit of time. Long term effect is that promotions become much harder to obtain, a combination of the loss of work experience from the ‘rehabilitation’ and how negative paperwork is factored in on promotion boards. They tend to not break through the Major bottleneck, and they never survive congressional scrutiny for promotion above Col. That’s if they’re not administratively separated first. All those military legends I used as examples would have been separated early into their careers in today’s military.
The type of man who is effective in combat and leadership, who will close with and destroy the enemy, is to HR’s ire, an aggressive, some might say ‘colorful’ and disagreeable man. The type of man who will say it as it is because he is conscious of the reality and what has to be done. The complete opposite of the smooth talking, inoffensive, visionless, PR obsessed, bureaucrat progressive civil society desires. Result is a plethora of ‘leaders’ like General McChrystal.
Reposting an all time classic https://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed-s-blog-about-military-matters/60879683-the-u-s-military-s-marathon-30-year-single-elimination-suck-up-tournament-or-how-america-selects-its-generals