The Tver Arsenal Going Up in Flames Raises Uncomfortable Questions
Putin is all sugar and spice and everything nice!
I find myself wondering what the implications of the follow-up strike on the ammunition depots in Tver imply.
Clearly, after the first strike that we covered the other day, ostensibly by a drone swarm, there should have been ample warning and time to prepare for subsequent strikes. And yet, the mushroom clouds speak for themselves. Here:
Ukraine said it hit two Russian munition depots overnight, in attacks that illustrated its growing capability to strike targets deep inside Russia.
A statement by Ukraine’s military general staff said the munitions depots were at Tikhoretsk in southern Russia and Oktyabrsky in the western region of Tver.
“The [Tikhoretsk] facility is in the top three largest munitions storages of the occupiers, and is one of the key points in the Russian military logistical system,” the general staff wrote in a statement on Telegram.
It said Ukraine had information that a train carrying 2,000 tonnes of munitions, including from North Korea, had been on the territory of the depot at the time of the strike.
Reuters was unable to verify the report independently. Russia did not immediately comment.
A Ukrainian security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said drones were used in the attacks.
Question: how is it that these drone swarms are able to a) get past Russia’s air defenses and then b) break through Russia’s state-of-the-art bunkers?
We tackled the second question last time.
We concluded that it was probably the shocking scale of graft presided over by Putin’s top guy, the former Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu.
As for the first question, we are left with three possibilities:
that Russia’s air defense capabilities have been severely degraded
that Russia’s air defense can’t deal with drone swarms for some reason
that the air defense was turned off to allow the bombings to be carried out
It is the third option that has me going, “hmm …”.
Silly bloggers will continue to try and analyze this war through the lens of military-technical capabilities as if that has ever been the deciding factor in this conflict anywhere, anytime, at all.
Me, I take the view that if these drones are getting into Russia, it is because of a deal that was made to let them in. Every single step of the way in this conflict, the Kremlin has been helping Kiev out along the way. Just off of the top of my head, here are some of the helpful measures that were taken:
Putin donated an entire column of vehicles and supplies after ordering a “good will gesture” pull-out from Kiev
Refusal to target key infrastructure like bridges across the Dniepr used to supply war materiel to the Donbass
Surrender of Snake Island as a “good will/humanitarian gesture”
Refusal to enforce naval blocade on Ukraine
Release of Azov prisoners as act of humanitarian good will
Refusing to reinforce Lugansk despite the clear massing of UAF troops there leading to the loss of these territories
Keeping the border to Kursk open because of “good faith guarantees” from Washington
“Gentleman’s agreements” between Kiev, Washington and Moscow about where Russian missile strikes would be allowed to hit
So many other moments, all listed in the archives of this blog
Now, Putin’s Russia is a moralitarian hyperpower, a veritable Camelot or Kingdom of Heaven on this earth, of that there can be no doubt, NAZI!.
Yes, the historians will be sure to note just how humanitarian and generous Putin was to his esteemed Western partners and give the Russian people a fair and measured treatment as well. Like they did with the German people in the wake of WWII. That’s a good template, yes. Why, just this week, we learned that the money seized from Russian government accounts abroad is finally being used to finance Kiev’s war effort, somewhere to the tune of 35 billion dollars. Here:
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a loan of up to 35 billion euros ($39 billion) for Ukraine during a visit to Kyiv on Friday, saying it was needed to defend the country against Russian attacks and help it get through the winter.
Standing beside her at a joint press conference, Zelenskiy said the loan would be used for energy, air defences and arms procurement, and urged allies to approve by the end of the year a "victory plan" he has drawn up.
Visiting Kyiv at the start of her second term at the helm of the European Union's executive branch, von der Leyen said Ukraine needed the 27-nation bloc's continued support in the face of Russian attacks.
The loan is part of a wider plan among countries in the Group of Seven industrialised powers to raise funds using proceeds from Russian assets frozen to sanction Moscow for invading its neighbour.
"We will spend the money, these 35 billion, primarily on energy, on defence, as well as on bomb shelters for children in schools, nurseries and universities - this is a big deficit for us," Zelenskiy said in front of the Ukrainian and EU flags.
"And on weapons, primarily those produced domestically, drones, missiles. Today, our long-range drones strike the enemy and they are cheaper than those (made by) our partners."
The G7 froze around $300 billion worth of Russian financial assets soon after Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They pledged to use the funds to help their ally, but spent months discussing how exactly such a mechanism could work.
"Russia keeps targeting your civilian energy infrastructure in a blatant and vicious way to try and plunge your country into dark," von der Leyen said. "I am here to tell you... that the European Union is here to help you in this challenge to keep the lights on."
She said on Thursday that the sum of 160 million euros from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets would be allocated to meet Ukraine's urgent humanitarian needs for this winter.
Why did Putin leave all that money parked in the West?
Was giving them billions a clever 5D strategy to own da globalist-analists?
No, Putin left it there because he was given assurances by his handlers/partners in Washington that the so-called “SMO” was OK. This operation was run by Washington first, and green-lit by them as well. We’ve talked about this ad nauseum at this point. It was just like Saddam’s incursion into Kuwait. He also sought American permission before going in and, (surprise surprise!) he ended up walking right into a trap. This is exactly what happened again with this SMO. Putin was given guarantees via his FSB that Washington would let him do his SMO. Then, once again, his partners ended up tricking him, as he loves to whine nonstop about in all of his interviews.
Putin left the money in the West because that money is literally what his whole job as president of Russia is.
He is a colonial administrator parking billions upon billions of Russian national wealth in Western financial institutions to prop up the Globalist Empire. That’s literally his job. That’s what Jeffrey Sachs and Henry Kissinger and all the others hired him for in the 90s. The money is being sucked out of Russia in various ways, but the most obvious one is all the money that connected politicians park in the West in the form of properties and investments. That’s the stuff that we end up hearing about in the press as they bicker and bite each other and spill dirty laundry to the press in the process. But there is a far larger, far more systematic transfer of wealth that is going on literally all the time on the industrial, governmental level.
Despite this so-called existential struggle against Anal-Satanic-Nazism-NATO, the milk and honey of the land continues to flow out of Russia via severely discounted natural resources. That is, this is what we can visibly see happening. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the money continues to flow in other ways.
Remember: Putin’s case to the West is that he is still a capable colonial administrator who can be relied upon to milk Russia for all that she’s worth and to keep Russian nationalists out of power with his secret police goon squad dragnet.
If you understand this context, all of his non-stop pleading and the assurances of the disgusting xenocrat lizards in his government like Lavrov start to make sense. They’re trying to prove to Washington that the cost of dislodging them from the Kremlin would be too great (stick) and that they are uniquely capable of fleecing Russia to a level that no one else could pull off (carrot).
So, if we keep that in mind, as well as previous instances where the MoD turned off the air defense to allow Washington to bomb Russian soldiers in Syria …
Or when Shoigu shot down 19? Russian planes over the Azov sea.
… then the idea that the air defense might have been turned off, deliberately, doesn’t seem all that far-fetched.
I have no proof for this as of yet though.
Key word: YET.
All we really have is a conceptual framework for understanding Putin’s “5D” maneuvers. He has the “stick” which is essentially making things difficult for Washington by raising the cost of taking him out like they did Saddam, Milosovic, Noriega and the dozens of other dictators installed by the Western transnational spook state. And the “carrot” is him demonstrating just how compliant and loyal to Washington he is. As if to say, “why would you get rid of me when I’m so sweet to you? Master, I have done everything that you asked! Why oh why must you spurn me!??”.
Thus, all we have to do is figure out how much “sweet” Putin is going to throw into the recipe as opposed to “spice” to temper the taste. Where will he dig in his heels and where will he demonstrate his compliance? The military type analyses focused around measuring the barrel diameters of NATO v Soviet weaponry to determine the course of the war is for all of the clever-idiots who read AI-written articles based on FSB-supplied propaganda bullet point lists (Absurdicus).
No, the best name for Putin’s strategy vis a vis Washington and their Western colonies should be: the Powerpuff Girl Geostrategy.
The meme should be self-explanatory at this point.
Rurik poses a very interesting question: why does the globalist spook Deep State of the West depose its most effective servants like Ghaddafi, Hussein, Noriega and the Shah of Iran? And, according to Rurik, Putin.
I thought about it, taking a lot of ideas from Matt Ehret, and here are my thoughts. The Deep State is interested in a globalist world government. Countries will, at the most, be dependent provinces with local administration always under the control and supervision of the central Deep State.
The leaders who were stabbed in the back after being put into power were exactly those leaders who began developing their own identity and their own base of power in their countries. They were bringing out the idea of being a coherent country to their own nations. Even though they paid homage to the Deep State, they were developing the potential to strike out on their own. The Deep State would prefer to have a failed, flailing country than a coherent nation. So, any leader making a name for himself on the basis of his personality had to go. Saddam Hussein was deposed. Iraq is now a weak region dominated by Iran. Can you name the Iraqi leader now? Similarly, strongman Ghaddafi of Libya was deposed; Libya is now a faceless collection of bandit states led by no one in particular. Assad of Syria was a popular, effective leader bringing Syria together: he had to go.
If my hypothesis is correct, Zalinsky may or may not be able to hold onto power during the war, but 100% certain he will be deposed when the war ends. He's got too much personality and charisma for the Deep State to allow him to stay on as Ukraine's leader.
So in sum, it's much more important to the globalist Deep State to dissolve national identity than it is to be served effectively. This is why it stabs its more effective servants in the back. Trump drives the globalists mad not because he's a revolutionary; he's not. He's a reformer. But, he bases his appeal on the concept of the US as a nation with it's own interests. This idea is a direct threat to the globalist Deep State.
Weakness invites aggression in geopolitics, and 30+ years since the dissolution of the once vaunted Red Army is now reaping bitter fruit for the Russian people whose lives have been upended by this tragic & senseless fratricide--er, "Special Military Operation"--now approaching its third year, and with no end in sight. Pity that Prigozhin's abortive putsch last year didn't succeed, since it was perhaps the last, best opportunity to avert a direct clash of arms between an expanded & emboldened NATO vs. the RF.