Marko Golob

V glavni vlogi : Jevgenij Prigožin,

Stranska vloga: Aleksander Lukašenko ala “Luka”

Statisti: pripadniki PMC Wagner

Režiser in glavni soigralec: Vladimir Putin

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Pred dnevi sem na Telegramu (Slavyangrad, Intel Slava Z) zasledil naslednjo novico (v prostem prevodu):

“Viri v stiku z “Wagnerjem, so nakazali, da je glavni del privatne vojne koropracije lociran na teritoriju 465 raketne brigade operativno taktičnih raket vojske Belorusije v Mogilevski regiji”.

Vam to kaj pove? Saj vsi vemo, da se je Wagner “umaknil” v Belorusijo. “So what”, bi rekel naš bivši predsednik Borut Pahor! No, ni čisto tako.

Wagner je stacioniran na območju enot, ki upravljajo z ruskimi Iskanderji “state of the art” kvazibalističnimi raketami z dometom do 500 km (Zahod sumi, da bistveno več), ki jih je Rusija v zadnjem času začela opremljati s taktičnimi jedrskimi bojnimi glavami. Kako to, da umestiš “kriminalce” “upornike” in “izdajalce” iz vrst Wagnerja zraven ruskih jedrskih bojnih glav?

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Samo preberite spodnji odličen komentar Matthewa Blackburna, počasi premeljite v mislih in si čez nekaj dni zastavite naslovno vprašanje. Čas je, da v Evropi zelo resno ponovno ocenimo posledice dolge vojne v Ukrajini, namesto da slepo korakamo za Washingtonom v prihodnost nestabilnosti, večne vojne, zatona in nemoči.

For over 15 months, Western leaders have insisted Ukraine’s victory is written in the stars. There are constant reminders of the high stakes: Ukraine defeating Russia is Europe’s guarantee of a peaceful and prosperous future. Volodymyr Zelensky claims that Ukraine is protecting the continent from “the most anti-European force of the modern world.” According to the dominant binary interpretation of the conflict, the alternative to Ukrainian victory is a sordid capitulation to Russian aggression that would drag Europe into a new dark age.

This Manichean vision of present and future is sustained by “war optimism” — the insistence that Russia is on the road to economic, political, and military collapse; and the bright future will come. Recent statements at the G7 in Tokyo and by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Helsinki show little change: negotiations are still rejected, more weaponry is promised, and assurances are made about final victory. The recent abortive mutiny of mercenary maverick Yevgeny Prigozhin will shore up the narrative of Russia as a fragile state barely holding it together.  

Behind the scenes, however, there must be concerns. Russia has not been broken economically, and for all the noise around the Prigozhin incident, no serious political fragmentation occurred, and the regime held firm. Partial mobilization has stabilized Russian defenses, and the Russian army has successfully adapted its anti-drone, infantry and artillery tactics. Russia retains an advantage in artillery production as NATO countries struggle to ramp up military-industrial capacity. The successful expansion and reorganization of the Russian army is part of the reason Prigozhin’s Wagner Group is no longer needed; the regular Russian army has been quite capable of coping with the Ukrainian counter-offensive without them.

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Kot sem zapisal že po prvih dneh ukrajinske ofenzive, je tisti, ki je ukrajinske sile poslal v samomorilsko ofenzivo, Ukrajini naredil usodno medvedjo uslugo – obsodil jo je na konec. Ukrajinska ofenziva že pred začetkom brez premoči v zraku ni imela niti teoretičnih možnosti za uspeh, kar so zahodni analitiki vedeli. Po dobrih štirih tednih te ofenzive, po uničenih  700+ oklepnih vozilih ter pobiti tretjini armade, ki je bila namenjena za to ofenzivo, je to dejstvo na žalost samo še zapečateno s krvjo. Ukrajinska ofenziva je čisti samomor. Kot da bi se celotna armada postavila na vrh skalnega previsa in se na ukaz vrgla v prepad.

Absolutno ni jasno, zakaj nekdo sili Ukrajince v ta samomor. Ta nekdo namreč, paradoksalno ali zavestno, dela vse, da pomaga Rusiji ne samo zmagati to vojno, ampak Ukrajino zbrisati z zemljevida. Kajti s tem, ko ukrajinske sile dan za dnem sili v samomorilske akcije, v katerih dnevno umre v povprečju 500 mladih ukrajinskih fantov, bo uničil celotno tretjo ukrajinsko armado. In ukrajinsko vodstvo ne bo imelo več zadostnih sil, ko bo nato ruska vojska prešla v ofenzivo – iz juga, vzhoda in iz severja (Belorusije). Kajti natanko to se bo zgodilo. Kot je Putin napovedal pred dvema tednoma v Sankt Petersburgu, bo rusko vodstvo sledilo poteku ukrajinske ofenzive in analiziralo stanje ter se nato odločilo za nadaljnje korake. V praksi to pomeni, da bodo ruske sile počakale, da se ukrajinska tretja armada iztroši na postavljenih neprebojnih ruskih frontnih linijah in ko bo popolnoma zdesetkana, bodo ruske sile krenile v svojo ofenzivo.

Spodaj je dober intervju z Johnom Mearsheimerjem, ki zelo jasno pove, zakaj Ukrajina nima niti teoretičnih možnosti za zmago. Nobena nova oprema (od lovcev F-16 do raket srednjega dosega) Ukrajini ne more pomagati. In nobena ameriška vojno-hujskaška propaganda, pa naj bo še tako masovno razširjena po vseh glavnih zahodnih medijih, ne more preglasiti očitnega – v tej vojni izčrpavanja Ukrajina niti teoretično ne more zmagati. In zahodne države, tudi če se neposredno angažirajo s svojimi silami v Ukrajini, ji pri preprečitvi poraza ne morejo pomagati. Ker nimajo več dovolj lastnega orožja (ker so vojaška skladišča izpraznjena, vsa zahodna vojaška industrija pa ni sposobna v enem letu proizvesti toliko streliva, kot ga ruska vojska porabi v dveh tednih), ker se je ruska vojaška tehnika izkazala kot superiorna in ker je Rusija absolutna jedrska velesila, ki ima povrhu še nadzvočne rakete kot nosilce jedrskih konic, proti katerim zahodne države nimajo obrambe.

Edina rešitev za Ukrajino, da je ostane vsaj še zahodna polovica, so mirovna pogajanja. Problem pa je, da se Putin zaveda ruske premoči in da je nihče ne more zaustaviti. Problem je, da ga v tej situaciji nihče ne more spraviti za pogajalsko mizo.

Najbolj depresivno je vedeti, kaj se bo zgodilo (in kar vemo že od 5. marca lani), pa ne moreš narediti nič, da bi to preprečil, ker tisti, ki bi to lahko preprečili, tega ne želijo narediti.

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The fall of Europe

In 2008, the EU’s economy was 10% larger than that of the U.S.

Now? The U.S. is 50% larger than the EU!

Europe has been Japanified.

This is the price of being a vassal of the US, which has stymied Europe in many ways:

• The real estate bubble and subprime mortgage crisis from Wall Street, which pulled Europe into the scam. Europe never recovered from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008.
• Technology: The US made sure that Europe never developed alternatives to the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon – e-commerce and cloud computing, Apple etc.
• Europe has also fallen behind in startups, AI, green energy, quantum computing and virtually every critical thing.
• The number of European companies in the global Fortune 500 list has dropped dramatically as well
• The US bombed countries and forced Europe to accept millions of refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia etc.
• Proxy war with Russia has also forced Europe to become dependent on the US for energy. The deindustrialization of EU continues.

The biggest culprits are the ruling class of EU and individual European countries. Incredible traitors who are destroying their own people.

And the average European citizen is so clueless and brainwashed that this collective suicide is just unbelievable.

Vir: S.L. Kanthan, twitter

V bistvu sta dve najbolj plauzibilni razlagi. Prva je komercialni razlog: glede na to, da je tviter naročnikom začasno omogočil 10-krat večjo količino branja kot nenaročnikom, je možno, da je s to potezo lastnik tviterja Elon Musk želel spodbuditi čim več uporabnikov k temu, da postanejo naročniki (za 8 $ ali € na mesec).

Druga plauzibilna razlaga pa je tista, ki večini smrdi po teoriji zarote: nenadoma se je pojavila množica novih računov, vodenih prek algoritmov umetne inteligence, ki so masovno pobirali podatke iz tviterja. Zakaj? Z namenom detektiranja trendov v konverzacijah in kasnejše manipulacije teh trendov (spodbujanja ali zaviranja trendov). Z algoritmi umetne inteligence se seveda da lepo avtomatizirati manipulacije in cenzoriranje. Kot pravi Mike Benz: če je FBI uspelo vdreti v sistem in cenzurirati 22 tvitov, lahko umetna inteligenca to naredi z 22 milijoni tvitov. To je lahko razlog, da je Musk število branj še bolj omejil za nove, nepreverjene račune. In zato se je ChatGPT pritožil, da nima dostopa do tviterja in zato ne more izvršiti ukaza.

Katera razlaga se vam zdi bolj verjetna?

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Še lani je bil to samo film na Neflixu, ta teden pa realnost v Franciji:

Pred skoraj letom dni je Netflix izdal prvi napovednik za film Athena o prihodnji državljanski vojni, ki se začne, ko afriški in arabski priseljenci začnejo nemire, potem ko je alžirski mladenič ustreljen s strani policije. Ko fikcija prehiteva realnost.

It is American diplomacy that is driving Eurasia and the Global South out of the U.S. orbit. America’s hubristic drive for unipolar world dominance could only have been dismantled so rapidly from within. The Biden-Blinken-Nuland administration has done what neither Vladimir Putin nor Chinese President Xi could have hoped to achieve in so short a period. Neither was prepared to throw down the gauntlet and create an alternative to the U.S.-centered world order. But U.S. sanctions against Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China have had the effect of protective tariff barriers to force self-sufficiency in what EU diplomat Josep Borrell calls the world “jungle” outside of the US/NATO “garden.”

Herodotus (History, Book 1.53) tells the story of Croesus, king of Lydia c. 585-546 BC in what is now Western Turkey and the Ionian shore of the Mediterranean. Croesus conquered Ephesus, Miletus and neighboring Greek-speaking realms, obtaining tribute and booty that made him one of the richest rulers of his time. But these victories and wealth led to arrogance and hubris. Croesus turned his eyes eastward, ambitious to conquer Persia, ruled by Cyrus the Great.

Having endowed the region’s cosmopolitan Temple of Delphi with substantial silver and gold, Croesus asked its Oracle whether he would be successful in the conquest that he had planned. The Pythia priestess answered: “If you go to war against Persia, you will destroy a great empire.”

Croesus therefore set out to attack Persia c. 547 BC. Marching eastward, he attacked Persia’s vassal-state Phrygia. Cyrus mounted a Special Military Operation to drive Croesus back, defeating Croesus’s army, capturing him and taking the opportunity to seize Lydia’s gold to introduce his own Persian gold coinage. So Croesus did indeed destroy a great empire, but it was his own.

Fast-forward to today’s drive by the Biden administration to extend American military power against Russia and, behind it, China. The president asked for advice from today’s analogue to antiquity’s Delphi oracle: the CIA and its allied think tanks. Instead of warning against hubris, they encouraged the neocon dream that attacking Russia and China would consolidate U.S. control of the world economy, achieving the End of History.

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While there is no question Russia invaded Ukraine, the ultimate cause of the war was the West’s decision – and here we are talking mainly about the United States – to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. The key element in that strategy was bringing Ukraine into NATO, a move that not only Putin, but the entire Russian foreign policy establishment, saw as an existential threat that had to be eliminated.

Of course, the opponents of NATO expansion were correct, but they lost the fight and NATO marched eastward, which eventually provoked the Russians to launch a preventive war. Had the United States and its allies not moved to bring Ukraine into NATO in April 2008, or had they been willing to accommodate Moscow’s security concerns after the Ukraine crisis broke out in February 2014, there probably would be no war in Ukraine today and its borders would look like they did when it gained its independence in 1991. The West made a colossal blunder, which it and many others are not done paying for.

This paper examines the likely trajectory of the Ukraine war moving forward. 1

I will address two main questions.

First, is a meaningful peace agreement possible? My answer is no. We are now in a war where both sides – Ukraine and the West on one side and Russia on the other – see each other as an existential threat that must be defeated. Given maximalist objectives all around, it is almost impossible to reach a workable peace treaty. Moreover, the two sides have irreconcilable differences regarding territory and Ukraine’s relationship with the West. The best possible outcome is a frozen conflict that could easily turn back into a hot war. The worst possible outcome is a nuclear war, which is unlikely but cannot be ruled out.  

Second, which side is likely to win the war? Russia will ultimately win the war, although it will not decisively defeat Ukraine. In other words, it is not going to conquer all of Ukraine, which is necessary to achieve three of Moscow’s goals: overthrowing the regime, demilitarizing the country, and severing Kyiv’s security ties with the West. But it will end up annexing a large swath of Ukrainian territory, while turning Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state. In other words, Russia will win an ugly victory.

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