Only 30% of the Weapons Are Even Making it to the Frontlines
Discover more from The Slavland Chronicles
Only 30% of the Weapons Are Even Making it to the Frontlines
This just came out.
We talked about the topic of arms deliveries on the blog before.
There is a constant stream of videos coming out on Telegram of Ukrainian troops complaining that they have no weapons or have inferior weapons and that wages are going unpaid.
We were left with a dilemma last time: how do we square this with the information we have about billions of dollars being sent to arm the Ukrainian army?
Well, now we have yet more proof that indicates that the money is being stolen and the weapons being resold somewhere else.
A screenshot from the preview of the CBS documentary:
Andrew Anglin thinks that the money could be being sent to arm terrorists in Europe.
He might be right and I’ve entertained similar ideas.
The key takeaway here for us though is that the West + Ukraine is too corrupt to fight an honest war against a peer or near-peer opponent. Stealing 70% of a war arsenal paid for by the Western taxpayers is a level of graft that makes winning wars impossible. I wrote an article musing that this war is bleeding the West dry and wondering whether or not the West was getting enough bang for its buck (dead slavs) for the obscene amounts of money they were spending and the damage that they were inflicting on their own countries with the sanctions.
But a lot more money appears to be unaccounted for, or at least, not being put to use for the purpose that it was supposedly allocated for. It would be interesting to see an analysis, any analysis really, of the funds and the weapons to see where they actually ended up. More and more though, it seems that we have an Afghanistan 2.0 on our hands where Western taxpayer money is sent over in crate-loads, but very little of it actually seems to go towards either the war effort or state-construction or anything related to the supposed mission objectives.
I left the questions somewhat in the air then, but I’m going to have to revise that analysis now.
Put simply: the war is indeed bleeding the West dry.
Ukraine was supposed to be a quagmire for Russia, but it appears that it has become a quagmire for the West instead. The West, could, in theory, pull out of the Ukraine, which Russia cannot do, but the political will has to be there for that. The spook agencies are making a lot of money on this, as are their friends in the military industrial complex and the politicians and oligarchs who now have access to the Ukraine weapon slush fund. The media has whipped up a moral panic over Ukraine, making it difficult for the peasants to voice opposition to it, providing cover for the looting operation. Why the Deep State would put down this cash cow when the milk is flowing so abundantly is beyond me. There are no adults who care about balanced budgets and the national interests of Western states anymore. It’s all just non-stop looting and graft.
Ukraine, however, does appear to be fading out of the news cycle at the time of this writing. Zelensky’s view count is way down, as an example. He released a video a day ago about the Russians trying to cause a Chernobyl by firing at a nuclear plant that has only gathered 8500 Western audience views at the time of this writing:
This all indicates to me that the Western public is losing its enthusiasm and interest in this war and that perhaps the Ukraine psy-op won’t be renewed for another season.
So, on the one hand, all the people with their snouts in the trough are stealing billions of dollars of Western tax money. They’re also damaging Russia, their Authoritarian mortal enemy. All opposition to this war has effectively become banned. All this seems to indicate that the West will continue its Ukraine operation.
On the other hand, enthusiasm and interest has dwindled to a trickle. I see this reflected in my own articles and other Russia bloggers’, as people are no doubt talking about monkeypox and COVID and the midterms and other topics now. Furthermore, the Pelosi stunt in Taiwan put the spotlight on China again.
I don’t know what to make of it all, but my gut instinct tells me that the attention of the spook agencies, the politicians and the media will zero in on where there is the most money to be made stealing from the public coffers. Is there money to be made sending money to Taiwan for defense against China and stealing 70% of it with the help of local corrupt officials? Sure.
But, Ukraine is quite unique in its ability to achieve new heights of excellence and innovation in the field of organized graft. The entire spook apparatus, government and military is completely committed to looting as much as possible and the West would be sad to see such a lucrative money-laundering operation go under.
Russia would no doubt liked to have knocked out Ukraine in the early days of the war with its push on Kiev and prepared covert operation, but, despite that failure, the unexpected runner-up prize of bleeding the West dry is starting to look quite good as well.
Only 30% of the Weapons Are Even Making it to the Frontlines
«the money is being stolen and the weapons being resold somewhere else. [...] Andrew Anglin thinks that the money could be being sent to arm terrorists in Europe.»
There was a commenter on another site who was hungarian and wrote that during the wars funded and supported by the USA for the breakup of Yugoslavia and in particular after the war of aggression against Yugoslavia to split Kosovo, Hungary and nearby countries were flooded by weapons sold by the albanian (and bosnian) gangs, that also being flush with weapons moved into them. This is going to happen again.
That is just "collateral damage", consider this famous Z. Brzezinski interview:
https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview
“Q : When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan, nobody believed them. However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war." Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime , a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
What's more important? Some agitated eastern europeans or regime change in the RF and then setting up a chain of DOD/CIA bases on the northern and western chinese borders from which to train, fund and arm armies of "freedom fighters" inside China?
«The key takeaway here for us though is that the West + Ukraine is too corrupt to fight an honest war against a peer or near-peer opponent. Stealing 70% of a war arsenal paid for by the Western taxpayers»
There were huge rumours that during the wars in Chechnya and against the georgian war of aggression against Ossetia the RF military also was very corrupt and many units sold weapons to the opposite side, well funded by the USA. I guess that the reforms put in by V. Putin since 2004 and especially since 2008 have improved matters on the RF side.
On the ukrainian side the USA strategists know very well what is the state of thing; for example in the past pre-war years several military warehouses in Ukraine have been destroyed in fires, so many that it is hard to believe in accidents, and easier to believe that the local garrison and mafias has sold all the contents on the black market and then burned them down to hide the fact that they were empty.
«is a level of graft that makes winning wars impossible.»
My guess is that the USA medium term aim is to *lose* the ukrainian war, even if as slowly as possible, in order to create resentment against the RF by most ukrainians who would then fight an insurgency for many years, inflicting maximum economic damage on the RF. The worst outcome possible from an USA elite point of view is a quick ukrainian victory.
A quick RF victory would be preferable to a quick ukrainian victory, because it would still create an opportunity for a large insurgency for a long time. After WW2 the USA funded a Bandera insurgency in Ruthenia (western Ukraine) for over 10 years that killed up to 35,000 USSR officials and troops, and this despite not having any direct borders with Ukraine, behind which "freedom fighters" could safely retreat to rest, resupply and rearm after operations (they were several years of insurgency in Lithuania as well). Now that Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania+Moldova all have borders with western and south Ukraine, it will be much easier to keep training, funding and arming a long term insurgency after a RF victory.
«it seems that we have an Afghanistan 2.0 on our hands»
That's exactly the goal: a mix of USSR Afghanistan war, and of the USA Afghanistan insurgency, but with the RF as the occupiers this time.
«where Western taxpayer money is sent over in crate-loads, but very little of it actually seems to go towards either the war effort or state-construction or anything related to the supposed mission objectives.»
Most of the money allocated went not to Ukraine but to domestic rea-armament programmes, I guess mostly in anti-China function.
«Put simply: the war is indeed bleeding the West dry.»
Perhaps, but the question for the USA strategists is whether it will be the RF or the USA that will be bled dry first, and they are pretty sure about the answer.
As to that the USA have been able to fund, with "tax cuts", two on-and-off twenty year old wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and during them as a Marine Corps general said "The corps is at war, and americans are at the mall". These hugely expensive wars and occupations have lasted much longer than the USSR war in Afghanistan.
Also in this war the situation of the USA is much better, because while in Iraq and Afghanistan most of the fighting was done by USA troops, in this war and the insurgency war that will follow the fighting will be done by ukrainians and volunteers. "Let's you and them fight!" is a much better situation.
Also the damage on the european vassals is also pretty good for the USA, and their oil&gas and military-industrial complex are going to make big profits from the europeans.
As usual it is silly to think of abstract entities like "the West" or "the USA", what matters is which powerful lobbies are winning or losing.
I was wondering what all Russia was gaining with the continuation of the war but I see that the drain on the West is a good reason. Thanks Rolo. I don't know how to send crypto yet but hang in there.