No One Takes Putin Seriously Anymore

Only the deeply deluded or the very well compensated could deny this.

You’ve heard me write essays about these non-existent so-called red lines for months and maybe even years now.

Today, I thought I’d give you a chance to read what someone else essayed on the topic.

Usually, I provide simple news and commentary clippings from Telegram posts, but this time it is a full-fledged post that can stand on its own that I simply translated. It is written by an old Russian living in America who served in the American military (Ivan Muromtsev) and he says pretty much everything that I say here. I came across it because I was doing research on GRU v FSB conspiracy theories by trawling through the archives of Russian schizo-theorists who have been writing on LiveJournal for almost the last two decades, when I came across this recent entry.

There is nothing new revealed in the post, so the reason why I share it is because I continue to cling to the desperate belief that if I just find the right combination or words, or apply the correct appeals to authority, or find someone willing to reference the Great Patriotic Victory Over Anal-Saxon Nazism Over Berlin of 1945 in his articles enough, that the signal rhetoric will trigger the right normie-receptors in folks’ brains and get them to consider the arguments instead of just reflexively shutting down in panic like they do when reading me.

When people read my stuff, many reflexively reject the message for reasons I can’t control or for reasons that I deliberately create (like my constant attacks on Yahweh-anity). But this is not particular to me. All bloggers attract and repulse certain kinds of readers for factors largely out of their own control.

So, it seems possible that someone could say the same thing that I am saying, but say it in a more formal (read: more boring), more patriotic (read: more references to WWII) and with a higher social rank in society (read: a veteran or a spook) and that this combination of factors would work where higher-to nothing else had.

Let’s just dive in and see if I’m right.

Russia does not need to start threatening to use nuclear weapons. Firstly, the Russian Federation drew so many red lines that it later crossed itself that no one here in the West believes that the Russian leadership will have the courage to press the button.

I live in America, served here in the Army, and I had to work in special services, and I saw the reaction to all this:

If you allow your people to burn with impunity in Odessa, (can you imagine that somewhere in Mexico a gang of degenerates would drive 50 Americans into the building, throw Molotov cocktails, burn them alive, and then would finish off those who tried to escape on the sidewalks? Yes, we would invade the 2nd day and would bomb Mexico City to hell!). But you swallowed it.

We scratched the backs of our heads [in confusion].

Then the Turks shot down your plane in Syria. You swallowed it again. We again scratched the back of our head, but some politicians cautiously said that the Turks were great.

Then you watch a 8 years of murder of your fellow citizens, and did not deliver a single retribution strike even on Kiev. Not to mention hitting Brussels or Los Angeles there.

But against you in 2014, an Act of War was implemented. Unconventional warfare. A State Coup in the cradle of Russian civilization – is an Act of War.

After 8 years, you started a war yourself and again gave up by signing Istanbul.

Having captured the bridgehead near Kiev, you then should have stepped up your efforts, stormed the capital, liquidated Zelensky and the General Staff of the Armed Forces, as [the Americans] did in Iraq. We did not allow Hussein to walk around Baghdad, Tikrit, or Basra and invite politicians from the League of Arab States over.

The first blow to the Hussein Palace was delivered 2 minutes after the expiration of the Bush ultimatum. It was not possible to kill him immediately, so he was driven into the basement, from where 6 months later [American] special forces took him out.

An empire must be able to destroy its enemies, otherwise it is not an empire.

Your cowardly president is whining about how they kill statesmen (Hussein, Gaddafi, Suleimani). (…)

You started the war as degenerates, suffered the first serious losses and retreated from Kiev.

Can you imagine if [Americans] entered Iraq and started an assault on Baghdad, suddenly stopped, showed a "great of goodwill" and sent a delegation to Amman to negotiate with Saddam Hussein?
 
Throughout the conflict, you have demonstrated cowardice, indecision and weak leadership, zeroing out the results of your infantry, which bravely fights in close contact fights, which we would not have dreamed of in Iraq or Afghanistan. 

After that, your assets were frozen, the flagship cruiser "Moscow" was sunk, the Crimean bridge was blown up and the North Streams were blown up, thereby annulling the multibillion investments of your taxpayers in these projects.

Instead of drowning the NATO destroyer, blowing up the London or Brooklyn Bridge, nationalizing or seizing our assets by force, or conducting sabotage in NATO countries, you continue to cowardly simply express "concerns" at the UN and to beg for negotiations.

During this time, [the Americans] sent thousands of MANPADS and ATGM to Ukraine, with which we burned your tankers and shot down dozens of your helicopters.

Personally, I think that if you had shot down several of our helicopters in the Middle East in revenge, the supply of weapons would have stopped immediately, since no one here wants to fight with Russia, and the political party that would have unleashed such a war would be buried forever. But you probably like to watch your soldiers burn in tanks. We do not understand this.

As a result, all professionals here got the clear impression that Russians could be killed with impunity. This is already called a"pattern of behavior" – that there will be no reprisal in kind. Therefore, no one here is afraid of your threats about nuclear weapons.

If you don’t have the character to take a trophy MANPADS, bring down a NATO plane or helicopter in Africa and kill 20 people, then who can believe that you have the character to use nuclear weapons and kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions? "

The Russian army is able to win the war in a month, but the Russian army will not be allowed to win.

1. There is a fairly simple and absolutely true way to win the war. I met a description of the way of victory among dozens of experts and the arguments of their reinforced concrete. They object to them, and even then with absolutely vivoral arguments, only publicists who lubricate their superiors.

The method of victory is the demolition of all bridges on the Dnieper.

A millionth enemy group on the left bank thus loses all logistics. Literally in a few weeks, it remains without BC, fuel and lubricants - without everything. And Ukrainian neo-Nazis will be forced to cling to the right bank. And the left bank will be all ours. And this is actually a victory.

We could stay to take Nikolaev, Odessa, and Ukraine then is nothing. A stub left without access to the sea is not viable. 

There are less than twenty bridge crossings on the Dnieper. Less than ten of them are railway, the most harmful to our army. Russia has for these bridges the means of delivery of the necessary tons of explosives. There needs to be desire and political will.

Do you remember the long-standing film "Following the Tiger"? During the Second World War, small units of partisans destroyed bridges in dozens. And now, more than an order of magnitude has come up with ways to destroy bridge crossings.

Sorry, but the tightly guarded Crimean bridge was blown up. Do you really think that in Russia there are no such specialists? And the Dnieper bridges are not so protected. It's about political will. It is necessary that “Stalin gave the order!" And then in a month - Victory!

The philosophers of Ancient Greece also deduced the rule: it is impossible to solve private problems without solving a common problem.

Russia actually belongs to the oligarchs, and power only serves their interests. Therefore, the Russian army is bound by oligarchs and officials on the hands and feet. The influence of the oligarchs on the generals and explains the strangeness of the ongoing war. After all, oligarchs have in their hands a controlling stake in Russian ownership. It was the oligarchs with the help of officials who drew red lines on the map of Ukraine, for which the military was ordered not to enter. We are fighting only here, but here we are not fighting.

The Russian army is forced to wage a muddy oligarchic war, which was given a fair image of the struggle for the liberation of Donbass and part of New Russia. Do not touch the oil pipelines, do not even approach the gas pipelines, do not approach the bridges, hit the critical infrastructure, but not critically! And how much do you fight like that?

For Russian oligarchs, victory is unacceptable. A significant part of large Russian officials is not needed either. Some of the governors, generals and major Russian officials are shareholders of the monopolies, so they are also not interested in winning. This is the end of the transit of oil and gas, the end of profits from trade.

There will be no victory. And victory is not included in the goals of the war. The authorities openly dream of Minsk-3. Yes, the people of Russia do not need any peace treaty, and for the border territories from Belgorod to Crimea Minsk-3 there is only disaster, but you can’t do much against the oligarchs in Russia. 

The oligarchs need a preserved Ukraine. Minsk-3 they need, which will be a defeat of Russia, but which, with the help of patriots on television, can be passed out as a draw, as a obscene but saving peace treaty.

The twists and turns of the war that we observe are the work of the authorities to protect the interests of the Russian oligarchate.

So there will be no blows to the bridges. The oligarchs will not allow it.

(…)
-
Ivan Muromtsev

And there you have it.

Try sharing the post with hard-to-crack ZAnon propaganda victims who have refused your entreaties so far.

And then let me know how it goes in the comments below.

In the meantime, I’ll be busy continuing my research on spook state conspiracy theories.