I'm really hoping I have some time this weekend to sit down and read through the material that's come out but, probably not until next weekend.

It goes back to the part of the Russian psyche in which "Respect=Fear".  The Russians have a need for other peoples people to submit out of fear.  Putin thought that he could leverage European greed + fear to enlarge "Russiaworld", and many Russians (not just Putin) were annoyed that the West didn't "respect" (fear) Russia enough.  Unfortunately for Russia, the Western reaction to their newfound "respect" for Russia has been to start handing out baseball bats (diplomatic, economic and military) to anyone who wants to take a shot at what the West sees as a problem.  Cowering is a response to fear, popping mags and shooting until the threat is over is another response, and taking a flamethrower to the problem is something else that can alleviate fear.  Russia is in the position where they are the ones who have to initiate the de-escalation cycle with serious action against their own interests or face some form of national destruction.  When the West "fears", you get things like the absolute destruction of the Japanese Empire, enough nukes to obliterate the problem several times over, or major wars that ravage entire continents.  Putin played his cards well for many years.  I even had some sympathy for the Russian arguments prior to the invasion of Georgia, and was jealous that Russia had a leader who could at least say "national interest" without it looking like a comedic punchline (as is usually the case with Western politicians).  Putin played his cards well, bluffed like a champ, and would often walk away from the table with most of the pot despite not having the best cards.  In this case, he is sitting on a low pair and everyone with better cards is raising the pot.  I can't see any realistic scenario where this ends well for Russia, especially with all the new players getting in on the game.

That is likely what is going to happen. Putin is like the head of a mafia family who went rogue, threatening the established order and the survival of his people. The ICC marking him as a common war criminal is the signal that he is sanctioned for a hit by all the other members sitting at the table. Take him out, and you will receive applause from the Western world for delivering justice.

The legendary 93rd separate mechanized brigade "Kholodny Yar" works in Bakhmut. pic.twitter.com/LsMukGBxWL

— Getty \uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDE6 (@slavaukrainewin) March 31, 2023

I think Wikileaks went over to the "dark side" when Western Governments (particularly our own three-letter agencies) started going after them in a big way after the Bradley Manning and Snowden affairs.  The whole "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing.  Of course, letting the FSB in on your operation tends to work as well as making deals with the Devil works for your spiritual health.  At this point, they are mostly- or wholly-compromised and everyone I am familiar with in certain circles just assumes anything released by Wikileaks has been, at the very least, vetted in some form by the Russian government before release.

A pipeline is still feeding Europe that transits Ukraine, believe it or not. Russia is still paying Ukraine a transit fee.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but here's the way I understood it.

The only NG Nordstream 2 carried was to test it for the certification process and keep it pressurized until certification was complete, but it didn't happen because of the invasion.

There are signed contracts between Russia and European countries that neither side can break without massive penalties, so Russian NG still flows through the pipelines. Whether the flow rate is reduced flow now I don't know, and hopefully someone who does know can jump in here.

Europe was going to have serious economic troubles IF their usage rate didn't change and it had been a cold winter even with extra LNG from Norway (?) and the US. They reduced their usage, had a very mild winter, and got a lot of LNG from the US. So much so, that other US LNG customers didn't get theirs on time because it went to Europe instead.

Again this is my understanding of how things happened and I could be wrong so someone please jump in here if I'm incorrect.

@Freiheit8472
Konstantine made it out of the country as the door was closing. He later brought his family with him. He is in one of the stans, Uzbekistan I think. He plans to use this country as a temporary place until he moves to his final destination. He is not willing at this point to reveal where that will be. He currently is surviving on his youtube income which is not good enough for a proper living, but is good enough to survive. I watch him very frequently. As he was going through the border to get out of russia, people in the same line as him were getting denied. He got lucky as it was normal for him to leave the country for business, so they let him through at that point.

you're correct.   many can recall Mitt Romney's comments on Russia during the 2012 Presidential race -- he was basically laughed off the stage for saying Russia was a major threat.   many were sleeping but Romney -- as much as we bash him as a RINO - was prescient.  of course as you say -- our 'sights' were zeroed on GWOT - GWOT - and more GWOT.   24/7 GWOT...

-------------------------------------------------

It’s time to admit it: Mitt Romney was right about Russia

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/politics/mitt-romney-russia-ukraine/index.html

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large    Updated 10:30 AM EST, Sun February 27, 2022

CNN  —

A decade ago, Mitt Romney went on CNN and made a statement that was widely perceived as a major mistake.

“Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe,” Romney, who would be the Republican presidential nominee in the 2012 race against President Barack Obama, told Wolf Blitzer in March of that year. “They — they fight every cause for the world’s worst actors.”

Obama and his team pounced on the comment, insisting that it showed Romney was hopelessly out of touch when it came to the threats facing the US.

In the third presidential debate between the two candidates in October 2012, Obama went directly after Romney for that remark. “When you were asked, ‘What’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America,’ you said ‘Russia.’ Not al Qaeda; you said Russia,” Obama said. “And, the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

The 80s called! Boom! Roasted!

At the time, the attack worked. Obama cast himself as the candidate who understood the current threats – led by al Qaeda. Romney was the candidate still stuck in the Cold War age, a black-and-white figure in a colorful – and complex – world.

But today, after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into eastern Ukraine, Romney’s comments look very, very different. And by “different,” I mean “right,” as even some Democrats are now acknowledging.

“This action by Putin further confirms that Mitt Romney was right when he called Russia the number one geopolitical foe,” California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu said on CNN Monday night.

Given that, it’s worth revisiting the context around what Romney said and why.

He was reacting to a hot-mic moment between Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier in 2012. In that exchange, Obama told Medvedev: “This is my last election. And after my election, I have more flexibility.”

Republicans were up in arms, insisting that Obama was taking a hard line with Russia publicly while, apparently, making clear to the country’s leader that he was open to compromise.

In his original interview, Blitzer was asking Romney about Russia in the context of that Obama hot-mic moment. And while his comment about Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe” is what drew the most attention and derision, it was far from the only comment Romney made about that subject in his interview with Blitzer.

“Russia is not a friendly character on the world stage,” Romney said at one point. “And for this President to be looking for greater flexibility, where he doesn’t have to answer to the American people in his relations with Russia, is very, very troubling, very alarming.”

Pressed by Blitzer on his assertion about the threat posed by Russia, Romney added this:

“Well, I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation that lines up with the world’s worst actors. Of course, the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran. A nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough.

“But when these – these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them, when – when Assad, for instance, is murdering his own people, we go – we go to the United Nations, and who is it that always stands up for the world’s worst actors?

“It is always Russia, typically with China alongside.”

What looked like a major flub during the 2012 campaign – and was used as a political cudgel by Obama – now looks very, very different. It should serve as a reminder that history is not written in the moment – and that what something looks like in that moment is not a guarantee of what it will always look like.

---------------------------------------

What is his YouTube channel?

That second one was the embodiment of "You can run but you'll only die tired."

I”ll take Left-Wing Russian assets for $50, Bob.

I’m inclined towards useful idiot. At the time, the MSM reported he hired Manafort because he had experience on the Convention when he worked for Ford’s Re-Election bid…..and most importantly was about the only experienced hand willing to work for him. And the press was full of Manafort’s kvetching that Trump wasn’t listening to most of his advice. You make a good case that Manafort was working in Putin’s interest…but I’m not convinced Trump is/was doing so wittingly. I have come to the conclusion he’s clueless and easily manipulated by anyone willing and able to do it.  Thoroughly disqualifies him for Re-Election in my book.

As far as Page, wasn’t he working with the CIA?

It shook that initial hit off pretty well.

That is a body flying up about 100 feet and to the right I think.

Is that where OneWeb had its stolen sats?

That's a few months old

Weeeeeeeeeee pic.twitter.com/TYzEx6H4Nm

— svbl \uD83C\uDDFA\uD83C\uDDE6 (@svblxyz) March 31, 2023

When the second tank hit the mine you can see a crewman going for the record body-toss...

beaten. But I will argue that THIS IS the world record for body-tossing!

Some of that might be true. But how do you explain why Putin attacked Ukraine before Trump and after Trump but never during Trump's term AND Trump was the first and only one to send lethal weapons to Ukraine?

That is super cool. Do we have any open-source info on range? Hopefully that rocket hit something good.

Cool, but why stop at Trump?  The Ruskies have done a hell of a job infiltrating our so-called "leadership" class.  The "Kompromat" goes a lot deeper than a few Trump key advisors.  The Obama Administration was famous for it's "Reset" buttons and it's "flexibility".  The only reason Hillary "turned" on Russia was to try to win an election that was going sideways; the ink was barely dry on the Uranium One contract when her run for President failed and she needed a scapegoat for domestic consumption; Putin must have seethed at the betrayal after all the money he funneled into the various Clinton Slush Funds "initiatives" over the years. To be fair though, her husband's State Department helped put him into power to "stabilize" Russia and corrupt oligarchs were good friends and honored guests of the Clintons both in and out of office.  Got to ensure the spice continued to flow.  Most (if not all) of our major banks, energy producers, auto and equipment manufacturers, etc assisted the Russian state through access to economic and technical data (as well as money).  Let us not even talk about the ties between the "Deep State", academia and Russian-aligned and financed "think tanks" focused on Eastern Europe and Central Asia, or all of the Russian-sponsored conferenced these folks vied to attend, usually directly or indirectly on Uncle Sugar's dime, as there is nothing cooler than getting per-diem and an honorarium + gift basket + hotel upgrade at the same time! Someday, when the KGB FSB files open up again, the level of Kompromat exposed will result in crying, finger-pointing, and a lot of sudden flights by private jet to places with no extradition treaty with the US.  It will be worse for the UK, as there is enough stuff there to crash the City of London three times over (at least), and for France and Germany it could discredit their entire Political/Government/Diplomatic/Military/Academic classes (from hard-left to nationalist right, and everyone in between) to the point that the uncompromised national-level leadership of both France and Germany could have their meeting at one of the short tables at a small Gasthaus like the Wackernheimerhof in Rheinland-Pfalz and have seats left over!  Making this about Trump is like focusing on one of the skin legions instead of the stage-four cancer.

There was a few recycled footage postings making the rounds today on Twitter.   I filtered them out but forgot this was a repeat too.  Thanks.

Regarding Carter Page, Yes.  He was Naval Intelligence and a major DIA/CIA source.  They were so desperate to get Trump that the FBI burned a CIA/DIA asset in the process.

For any of the crowd that -does- want to get out of the boat for a few laughs, the "Bahkmut Has Fallen!!!!" thread is pants on head, weapons grade pluturdium pro-Russian talking points.

Around 8km based on open source.

lol.