The Safari

Things are going badly for Ukraine in the East. This can be seen by an increased activity of trolls here on this blog…

Ukraine is desperate for fresh troops to be sent to the meat grinder of Eastern Ukraine, and so the unfortunate working class of Ukraine is a target of unscrupulous recruiting campaign to defend Zelensky’s shitshow from the inevitable destruction.

In the city of Odessa, they are grabbing men off the street…

On Sunday, between 9 and 10 o’clock AM, near the shop “Ideal”, which is on Bugaevskaya street, unknown people in uniform, have taken hostage my son by force, without showing any documents authorizing such behaviour. This is against the law and is liable for prosecution. We have reported the kidnapping to the police. The man is still held on Zenkovetskaya street in former recruiting office. He is being held already a third day, he was kidnapped while he was out to shop for medicine as he was feeling sick. He is being held with an elevated temperature. He is being held by force and intimidated into signing a contract.

Isn’t this cute? Asking police for help in Ukraine…

You don’t want your boy to be taken from you. He has only seen a rifle in Counter Strike. Give donation to soldiers or to volunteers. Support their lifestyle so that they don’t take away your boy.

Source

Why You Lying, Why You Always Lying?

If there isn’t any peremoha to report, we will manufacture a peremoha. The cannon fodder… I mean the Ukrainian people will believe anything…

So it says: The armed forces of Ukraine have 26 time destroyed here sic enemy gear. The Russians have returned after every “babovnya” (god knows what this means, probably bombing) and they have gotten it again.

I think they wanted to make the impression that they shot down a Russian helicopter but they forgot that on the tail it say Nebezpechno which means Danger but in Ukrainian. So drawing a Z on a piece of gear is not enough…

Source

The Expendables

For a while, several commentators have been mentioning that should the Ukrainians fail in their job of giving Russia a bloody nose, the Western powers will throw into the cauldron their other East European pets like the Poles, or Romanians, or gods forbid, the Czechs. There already are a number of mercenaries in Ukraine. I read somewhere that 1200 Polish mercenaries have died but I could not independently verify this story. Also, it is claimed that the Western supplied weapon’s systems are often manned by foreigners.

Needless to say, there are forces that will be very unhappy if Ukraine fails because it would be totally contrary to their discourse of weak Russia and the ability of the West to force a change of behaviour in Russia. I mean, they will somehow rationalise this for the normies, the latter will buy anything but will the people that matter be happy with this outcome?

And when it comes to great powers with nuclear potential, they will avoid conflict but there is the temptation to fight Russia through East European proxies after this worked very well with the Ukrainians…

Ukraine is Getting Billions Now

I remember clearly that in 2013, the administration of the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych led by the Prime Minister, Mykola Azarov, was not against signing the Association Agreement with the EU. However, they understood what it will do to Ukrainian economy and asked for some €300 billion to readjust the economy from oriented to the East to one that would be linked to the collective West. The major reason for Yanukovych not singing the agreement was Western refusal to foot the bill.

Instead of negotiating with Yanukovych, the West activated its agents in Ukraine to stage a several months long protest to remove him from office. I guess it was a cheaper to remove Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, and replace him with a compliant puppet. But little did they realize that the dancing and jumping troglodytes on the Euromaidan have awakened the Russian bear from slumber.

While this festival of life was going on in Kiev, Yanukovych was with Putin on the Russian Black Sea coast attending the Winter Olympics. It was a truly memorable winter. I bet that he told Putin everything about Ukraine, and Putin went like WTF?

You see, contrary to popular wisdom. Until roughly 2013, the Russian establishment barely noticed Ukraine. People like Kosachev and Chernomyrdin that were directly responsible for relations abroad treated Ukraine as if it was still part of the USSR. I could count Russian TV documentaries about Ukrainian nationalism and Svidomism on the palm of my hand. And they weren’t aired in prime time on state TV. Today there are several dozens of these documentaries, and Ukraine has become the most discussed topic on TV news, whereas in the days of old news about Ukraine were rather rare.

Ironically, the pro-Russian Ukrainians, who before 2013 were marginalized and abandoned by the Russian state have gained greater influence after they fled to Russia, the separatist republics of the Donbas, or took up arms against the post-Maidan regime. Before 2013, they were ignored by the Ukrainian media, chased by the Ukrainian secret service, the SBU, and thoroughly marginalized. It is not that their ideas weren’t popular among segments of the society but without organization and money, they were losing ground to pro-Western forces.

And even more ironically, today Ukraine is literally getting billions in military and humanitarian aid, and in simple financial injections. I mean, I don’t know the exact figures but the West must be spending the kind of money Yanukovych and Azarov demanded in 2013. Actually I think the Ukraine situation costs the West far more if you add damage from accommodating refugees, and sanctions.

So let me ask, wouldn’t it have been easier to just pay Yanukovych for the transition, use the fact that the Russian state completely neglected soft power, and slowly integrate Ukraine in a completely peaceful way, pulling the rug from under Russia? I mean, some Zapadniks believed Ukraine will become somewhat of an alternative to Russia to the chagrin of the Ukrainian nationalists. Or was the West interested in fomenting the violent standoff that we see today? Because quite frankly, the cost of the violent option is bound to cost much more at this point.

And in the end, if the choice was war from the get go, do the architects of this realize the impact this will have on the Ukrainian project, and Western hegemony? Now the West decided to put all the chips on Ukrainian victory. This is truly a drunkard’s gamble. Somebody will be thrown out of the casino.

Zrada: Dozhd’ Closes in Latvia

From |FT:

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The trigger to ban TV Rain came last week when Alexei Korostelyov, a news anchor, asked Russians drafted into the army and their relatives to send information about their often dire living conditions. The grim news from the front has been an important topic for independent outlets like TV Rain, which have reported on men being press-ganged into fighting, forced to buy basic equipment and slaughtered en masse in artillery strikes.

But Korostelyov provoked an outcry by saying TV Rain hoped “we have been able to help many servicemen with things like equipment and basic comforts” — a sign taken in Latvia that even exiled Russians supported the war effort.

Dzyadko said Korostelyov’s comments “do not reflect the position of the channel,” which he said TV Rain had proved by firing him.

Though the channel quickly apologised and fired Korostelyov, the incident capped tensions that had been evident since the channel started broadcasting in Latvia. TV Rain was under investigation for two incidents apparently demonstrating its support for Russia — calling Russia’s armed forces “our army” and showing a map of Russia with the Crimean peninsula, which Putin annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

I was laughing my tits off when reading the above.

Zrada

Financial Times Names Zelensky: Man of the Year

I wish anyone who expresses fawning over Zelensky on the grounds of liberal democracy to live in a liberal democracy of the kind they have in Ukraine. But perhaps these people want us to live in Ukrainian democracy, they just can’t do it yet.

I am not sure the Ukrainians show any particular resilience, what Zelensky has done is use Russia’s initial weak charge in Ukraine to present the latter as a sign of weakness, and to sell the Ukrainian public a vision of peremoha. This is quite frankly criminal and will cost Ukraine dearly.