The Thin Red Line Runs Through the Heart of Every Man
Let's put a bookmark in this.
This last week has been another week of escalations aimed at Russia. From just what crossed into my info feed recently, I noticed the following:
Kiev bombing random civilians in several places in Russia, dropping cassette bombs (cluster munition) on beach-goers in Crimea wounding hundreds
Long-range strikes conducted against !nuclear facilities! and warehouses deep in the Russian interior
Russian gas flows across Ukraine (Nazi) to the EU (Satan) increasing
Peaceful, patriotic Rossiyans with Muslim-sounding names (who had direct connections to the feds in Moscow) ambushing and massacring Russians priests and 15 cops in yet another display of spontaneous Antifa values. Take that, Nazis!
On that last point:
“State Duma deputy from Dagestan Gadzhiev believes that the intelligence services of Ukraine and NATO countries are behind the terrorist attack in the republic.”
So then is this terrorist attack by Ukrainians with fake beards and spray tans a violation of the red line ultimatum? Surely, Putin will get serious now, no? Like when he took Odessa as revenge for the Crocus terror-attack by neo-Banderaites. Remember that?
That is, in their opinion, it turns out that the priest’s throat was cut, the church guard was shot, two Orthodox churches were attacked - this is not a terrorist attack committed by radical Islamists, no not by Wahhabis based on religious hatred, but it is actually the Ukrainians who are to blame.
Now everything can be blamed on them.
This is what I wrote about, that this is exactly what they will sing about. (https://t.me/iotrakovskiy/3476) They started singing already. The authorities brought in a huge number of followers of radical Islam - Wahhabism. Consciously replacing Russian and indigenous peoples of Russia. According to the authorities, despite the blood and the increasing manifestation of hatred and intolerance towards the infidels, that is, towards you and me, we still have a friendly nation.
As I have said more than once, a second front has been opened.
Russian media reports that the terrorists had connections in high places and spook sponsorship because of course. Here:
Dagestan is, apparently, a province in Western Ukraine now and filled with Banderaites.
…
Telegram is particularly incensed by the bombing of the beaches in Crimea. Here is what the governor said:
Sevastopol, governor:
The death toll has risen to 3 people: we have lost two children and 1 adult.
The criminal Kiev regime, which has renounced its faith, launched a ballistic missile attack on Sevastopol with cluster munitions in broad daylight.
The number of wounded increased to almost 100 people. The entire healthcare system has been mobilized, doctors and medical staff are at work. The operating rooms are deployed. The victims are provided with all necessary medical care.
Today, on the bright holiday of Trinity, we have great grief. The enemy struck on the sly, at a time when civilians, some were returning from service, some had already gone to the sea with their children.
(…)
Judging from the comments, Russians are extremely fed up with Moscow’s non-response and the empty threats of the Kremlin. Here:
Sevastopol - have these red lines been crossed or not yet? Or until the children of State Duma deputies and ministers begin to die en masse, will there be no red lines [enforced]?
Another indicator of the leaky air defense of the S-400, which, as always, was over-praised, but in reality shows zero results.
Naturally, there are no analogues in the world. That’s why the Patriots shoot down our Kinzhals, but we can’t shoot down an old American missile.
I am now forced to make a decision as an analyst: do I believe my own lying eyes in the comments sections all over Telegram, internet forums, my own experience living in Russia, and so on that indicate that Putin is significantly less popular than the Kremlin’s own polling data suggests?
Or, do I trust Western intelligence agents who blog in defense of Putin, religious authorities with criminal backgrounds, and the non-Russian speaking masses who also believed in QAnon until very recently.
The moral choice is to, of course, simply believe what the spooks tell me to believe.
“Mr. Kinzhal” Sends His Regards
But what I still don’t understand is when/where the red lines have gone. I was told that a red line encircled Russia’s territories, drawn there by Putin and his team, which protected Russia from enemy aggression. And yet, there has been two years of increasing escalation against Russian targets now.
Now I am fairly certain that within a month or two I will be writing up a report about Russians dying in Moscow from drone strikes.
This isn’t a particularly impressive prediction because many people have died in strikes on Russian territory, but it has been in small towns like Rostov or Belgorod or Nizhniy Novgorod or Sevastopol. Eventually though, drones will come flying down on residential areas in Moscow. No other city counts, really, in Russia, so this will be a significant development when it does occur, eventually.
And what will happen as a result of these predicted strikes?
Well, each time that the supposed red line has been crossed and yet another of Putin’s limp-wristed bluffs called out by Kiev, the MoD has let out a wave of missile strikes in retaliation. But it is very much still unclear what these strikes are hitting. The Ukrainian media is tight-lipped about it, so, as a result, we are regaled with lurid fantasies about thousands of NATO officers being wiped out in secret bunkers near Lvov that fill in the blanks.
There have been several big fake news stories about secret Kinzhal strikes, in particular, and they are believed by pretty much everyone I know who supports the Russian side in the war. There is also nothing that I can do (so far) to dislodge faith in the efficacy of these strikes. This is because, as I have postulated many times before, on a subconscious level, the strikes are the only thing left that reassures Putin-believers that the situation is under control and that the good guys are still winning.
The internal logic behind the “Mr. Kinzhal Shadow Bunker Decapitation Strike” narrative makes sense, but is based on faulty assumptions. It goes something like this:
Kiev and NATO are not talking about the hits from the strikes,
thus they must be covering them up and
they were launched as a retaliation for violating a red line so they
have to be serious to send a warning to Kiev and NATO, otherwise
it would imply that Moscow is not serious about enforcing any red line, which
would raise strange questions about what Putin and his cabal are doing, exactly
to prosecute this war now that the front hasn’t budged in almost two years
Now, I have explained many times before that I believe these strikes are done for domestic PR reasons and not to achieve any military objectives. Furthermore, I suspect that there is a coordinated media response between Ukraine and Russia (and NATO) to cover up the result of these strikes.
Without the strikes, what are we even left with?
Remember that whole invasion from the north to take Kharkov that I simply refused to cover because of how tiny and insignificant it was? Well, it has been pushed back already. Russian forces have proven unable to end the stalemate anywhere. Here:
There is no particularly positive news from the front. In the Kharkov direction our offensive stopped. We only walked a few kilometers from the border, which is clearly not enough to form a “sanitary zone.” We ran against fortified areas.
We cannot take Volchansk.
The lower sky is controlled by VFU drones. There are an incredible number of them. It is impossible to bring the equipment and get into battle formations for the assault. What remains is the tactics of small infantry groups. The VFU also has enough shells, and help has arrived from NATO.
Opening the northern front was the right decision. But for a serious offensive here, a group of not 35 thousand, but 350 thousand was needed. And not just with machine guns, but with military equipment and artillery in the appropriate quantity. We do not have such reserves. There is not so much equipment and artillery, even if we recruit soldiers.
We need, for example, new self-propelled guns "Coalition". And not 10 pieces, but 1000. There are none. We need powerful electronic warfare. Against their UAV brigades.
As long as all this is not there, there will be a sticky positional war along the entire front.
The good thing is that we have the strategic initiative in our hands. The economy and society are quite confident in withstanding the current level of stress due to the war. Apparently, they consider it inappropriate to increase the level of escalation and the level of mobilization. Perhaps they have data on the limit values beyond which failures may begin to occur.
An alternative solution is to get a lot of new weapons from the same DPRK.
Maybe this will come true. Let's see.
With the offensives, once the initial disinfo hype subsides, we can see where the contact lines are. And ZAnon and NAFO both can’t quite just outright lie and claim that entire cities have swapped hands. Although, who knows. Perhaps it will come to that and Kharkov will be declared under Russian control and anyone who says otherwise will be branded a traitor.
This is a very strange war and anything is possible at this point.