The Absolute State of This War (I)

My new sit-rep series!

None of the observations below merit an entire article. But they pile up from week to week. May as well jot them down as sit-rep reports going forward.

The Volunteers

If you talk to the volunteers who went over to fight in Donbass in the early years, you realize that you’re talking to a mix of desperados and idealists. Few from the Russian side actually liked the Russian government or considered themselves Kremlin loyalists. Most went over to fight because they believed that they had to; that the responsibility was on their shoulders seeing as the Kremlin wouldn’t do anything to help. They were proven right, for the most part.

I remember reading the account of one Russian White Nationalist who went to fight in the Donbass. He recalled the looting by the authorities there, the FSB, the oligarchs, the complete and total bedlam and the side deals being made with the Ukrainians, who had it just as bad as the Donbassians.

There are few of the original volunteers left in Donbass. Those that are, are even more anti-Kremlin than before. Just check out “Donbass Boomer Cowboy” who was once both Trump’s and Putin’s greatest plan-truster and who now believes that the Donbassians have been left to dry.

He got blacklisted by the other “Z-Boomers” - a collection of pro-Kremlin bloggers and vloggers who still believe that the plan is coming along nicely. Anyone who doesn’t march in lockstep gets blacklisted. I haven’t seen this guy around since.

The Soldiers

The war is being fought now with mobilized men. These are not exactly the kind of people who can fight for an ideal like a greater, united Russia and fight for this ideal despite being resisted by the very government of the greater nation that they’re fighting for. Does that make sense? These are much simpler people being deployed now. People who are there, mostly, because they were told to gear up and show up and then deploy. They’re not as “open-minded” or “passionate” I guess you could say.

From the videos we see coming out of Donbass now, we can observe that soldiers in Wagner are now openly calling their higher-ups “faggots” without even bothering to cover up their unit designations.

Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 @bayraktar_1love

Russian mercenaries from Wagner insult the Chief of Russian General Staff with obscene words and complain that they have no ammunition

Instead, they get a reward and a visit from their baron, Prigohzin. This is because Russia is running a feudal army. Different lords vying for weapons, money, resources. Above the battalion level, there doesn’t seem to be a coherent strategy. Soldiers are beginning to start asking questions and starting to get disgruntled.

This war that isn’t a war against nationalism and communism and Nazism and NATO against the brotherly Ukrainians who are shooting at Russians, but who are actually Poles in disguise who are actually Nazis in disguise, who, actually, Hitler was a secret Jew with one testicle, is rather confusing and difficult for the average soldier to understand. And the average soldier doesn’t read English 5D Twitter - the sacred abode of the Putinanon Prophets - who can explain the hidden ways of the Kremlin’s Plan to the commoners.

The Ideology of Victory

People like Strelkov and Dugin and others that you associate with the right-of-Kremlin Russian political spectrum all believe that a coherent “Russian Idea” needs to be put forward and that the government refuses to do so because they are afraid of doing anything to get the Russian people a bit too patriotic. Feelings of patriotism and nationalism within the peasantry could eventually topple the government, they fear. They prefer apathy and dog-eat-dog individualism on the part of the people that they rule over.

But an idea or at least a coherent explanation for why Russia is involved in this policing operation against Ukraine and close to the entire military might of NATO might help Russian soldier morale.

Furthermore, a stated mission objective should, in theory, cut down on the backroom dealings between the farmers and the pigs that everyone with half a brain acknowledges are occurring on the sidelines now.

Who is Running Out of Time, Really?

Both Ukraine and Russia have run into supply shortages that will only worsen in the foreseeable future. The only problem is that Ukraine will soon switch to NATO weaponry, and there should be, in theory more supplies of Western weapons and ammo available once they use up their Soviet stores entirely.

Russia, on the other hand, is running low on their Soviet stores. What’s funny is that there were literally so many weapons and ammo produced by the USSR that Russia could have fought the next century of wars on that arsenal. Instead, the FSB, the Oligarchs and the Kremlin sold it all off for cheap profits. Now Russia is running out of shells. They ran out of vests, non-rusty AKs and drones much much earlier in the war. It’s sad, really.

No efforts to reopen up the massive Soviet-era forge worlds to fill in the demand have been made so far.

This can only mean that the Kremlin doesn’t have the stomach for a long fight.

Sabotage or Incompetence or …?

Strelkov says that there is no difference, really and that the results speak for themselves. Dugin declared that the Kremlin were traitors who ought to be overthrown when Kherson fell. He quickly deleted his Telegram post. They are far and away not the only ones who feel this way.

Me, I say convergence.

This was supposed to be a simple tolchok at NATO, to get them to back off a bit and come back to the negotiating table and make good on at least some of the terms they offered to Gorbachev when he dissolved the USSR. They’re still hoping to force the West to come to the table. I don’t know why they think this will ever happen.

Will they finally post proofs that the moon landings were fake or something?

Normie Morale is Flagging

Does the Kremlin ever come up for air? We are almost one year into the special two-week surgical policing operation on brotherly Ukraine nation who taken by Natsisti-Banderovtsi-Terroristi! [Actually, it was by the same tribe of Yidividualists who run America.]

Luckily, we see President Putin’s rhetoric changing.

But, actually, the first person to start using this language was General Surovikin. In an interview he gave when he first assumed his command, he explained his support for the war in simple terms: “mol, we are reuniting the Russian people, lol”, he basically told the journalist.

I half-expected him to get fired then and there for that statement.

But war allows for a lot of rhetorical wiggle room. However, the Kremlin is walking a fine line. If it suddenly becomes OK to talk about “Russians” and “Russian interests” among rootless Rossiyans, then the patriot-right will enjoy a groundswell of support that will threaten the ruling coalition of spooks and crooks.

Remember: the sheep only think or speak in terms that are allowed them by their shepherds. They like being slaves to whatever the ideological priests tell them to believe in. It could be a desert demon named Yahweh. It could be a modern-day Moses like Lenin. It can even be a belief in not believing in anything too strongly, which is the reigning ideology in the West and pre-SMO Russia as well.

Bakhmut: the Great New Stalingrad or Whatever

I am shocked by the low level of commentary and discussion on Twitter. When asked why Bakhmut is worth so much blood and ammo, the new idiot-approved answer I get back now is, “doncha know, war is about taking land *hyuk-hyuk*” before I get banned for being a pro-NAFO shill.

Mind you, these are the same people who were saying that land was useless and that K/D ratios were more important in the summer and fall. Now though, when Prigozhin the cook-crook is fighting to win some extra ribbons and medals in a bid to outshine his feudal competitors in the Russian armed forces, it’s all of a sudden a-OK to lose many lives to secure or seize a position. You know, like what the Ukrainians did to take Kharkev? Yeah. I hope these accounts are getting Wagner bucks sent to them because shilling for a corrupt Yidividual who runs his own mercenary outfit in the mistaken belief that this is the pro-Russia, pro-Patriot and pro-Orthodox??? position is really next level stupidity.

Of course, the correct, sane, common-sense understanding of war states that some land is important if it serves a greater strategic objective and isn’t too costly in terms of lives and ammo. But, we are dealing with very very stupid people - people who I would not want in the trenches with me or commanding anything beyond a kitchen crew.

Belarus or Belaruse

The same people who said that the Kiev offensive was just a feint were quick to say that Belarus was just a ruse and then that, actually, there might indeed be something going on here. How the worm turns.

If I had to guess, the Kremlin’s plan is as follows:

• Attack weaker points in the Ukrainian defenses. [Genius!]

• Grab some land in the north with a winter push.

• Use it as a bargaining chip to negotiate a cease-fire.

I can’t take the Belarus grouping too seriously as of now because there are still too few troops on the Russian side. There are supply problems as well that the military can no longer cover up. In other words, what they have in Belarus is not enough to take Kiev.

If there is a 5D play here, it is to gain a card to play in these mythical negotiations that they seem so sure will happen soon.