11:23
In Russia’s case – they are getting nowhere in Ukraine and probably need to come up with something new, and the Baltics are close at hand.
I believe China will try to establish itself in Belarus, Serbia, Hungary, and Slovakia in some form, it doesn’t have to be military in the first three – their representatives have repeatedly flown to China for meetings with Xi.
It is absolutely in China’s interest to get the EU to turn inward just as we want Russia to turn inward.
But they will not be linked to any of what is happening, but we know they are trying to influence the US election so they are now active in destabilizing the West.
Everything happening in the EU’s backyard is probably good for China, I think?
China has recently opened some base in Cuba and then the first plane arrived in Belarus on July 1.
13:34
I wrote “That all of Europe shut down its dispatchable nuclear power” so I see how you could interpret it that way if you wanted 😀
I also know that France has managed brilliantly with its nuclear power, that Poland is building nuclear power, and that Finland has just launched a new reactor. Yes, it is mostly Germany that has gotten itself into trouble but they were a dominant country in the EU and they were blackmailed by the gas weapon in this war.
You know just like I do that the winter of 2023 absolutely sent electricity prices soaring.
But yes, all of Europe’s nuclear power is not shut down.
10:55
The Lions,
https://x.com/ukrainiansquad/status/1810015566628835463?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
The UK was lightning fast with a new support package for Ukraine, so far Starmer has not disappointed us 👍
Did you see that Ukraine has formally asked Poland to take over air defense in western Ukraine?
That would free up all the air defense and aircraft Ukraine needs to deny Russian air access to the frontlines.
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kwpehclq6w2l
Near Kherson, Ukraine has set fire to the land where they can, and it is high summer for the already thirsty Russian diggers – Kherson looks good and it would be fun if our prediction about acute dehydration comes true where they run around coughing in the fire smoke.
Here you have a drone flying at 400 km/h, drone weaponry is advancing quickly.
https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1809985098206372004
Putin is currently pushing various peace proposals very hard and that naturally means he has some mischief in mind, so I thought it might be a good Monday to speculate a bit below about different outcomes of Putin’s scheming.
Yesterday we mentioned that China has landed its version of the Globemaster with SOF in Belarus, and that Orban has now arrived in China as the EU presidency country (which the rest of the EU is moderately amused by).
https://x.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1809981225651610035?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And that Russia has moved 2 landing ships from the Northern Fleet to the Baltic Sea.
https://bsky.app/profile/johanno1.bsky.social/post/3kwpgpexlwv2f
Considering that Russia has an open embassy in Åland, it is not far-fetched that they would multiply embassy staff there in uniform and with some S400s to protect the Russian minority in Åland – basically an enhanced embassy guard.
We always talk about Gotland but the islands west of Estonia (Saaremaa?) are also a decent lock if you get in air defense and anti-ship missiles. Russia flatly denies everything and accuses the West of defamation and Russophobia and that it is the local population rising up after years of oppression.
Both are a peaceful Russian military exercise away from happening according to the West.
In Belarus there are 7,000 Wagner operatives who have a dual role – partly to protect Lukashenko and act as a deterrent for Putin, but also to train the Belarusian defense forces.
Belarus can probably muster about 200,000, of which the majority would be infantry in soft vehicles with maybe 300 tanks and some armor – that includes reservists who one can assume Wagner has trained.
What we know is that ex-Wagners HAVE trained their defense forces but to what level we do not know.
Poland has the Suwałki Gap to deal with (since the West is the West) and we know Russia has the capability for remote mining and also a functioning drone weapon. We also know Russia still has attack helicopters and advanced aircraft as the West refuses to let Ukraine shoot them down, and that FAB bombs are an unpleasant weapon.
We also know Russia has saved up a serious strike with missiles if we consider production numbers versus what they have fired away and that they have excellent reconnaissance through drones.
As PerraG wrote, Russia has also built up some capability inside the country (again) and at least one Air Corps is to be deployed against the Baltic states. Whether it is there, I do not know, but Russia has deployed its strategic reserve near Kharkiv so they have had strategic reserves.
The Russian armed forces have learned some things after 2.5 years of war but are hopelessly outclassed by Ukraine – but how would they fare against the Baltic states which have no combat experience?
I don’t know what Russian military exercises look like this year but NATO seems to take this seriously as the number of NATO exercises this year is quite many.
The risk that the Baltic states would be overrun must be considered imminent given their insignificant defense forces and that they have not started their Maginot line after 2.5 years of war in Ukraine.
NATO has a few thousand in these countries as a tripwire to act as a deterrent but it is just a tripwire that can be run over in a cloud of FAB bombs.
What will NATO’s response be to a completed invasion – will they retake the Baltic states by force with 200,000 Belarusians, 7,000 Wagner operatives and 30,000 Russians in the countries spreading out in all the settlements they can find and using civilians as human shields?
It is possibly here that China in Belarus comes in, there is nothing preventing them from grouping air defense and some brigades in Belarus to defend against the “terrorists” so Belarus cannot be invaded. China is there as a peacekeeping force simply and in no way involved in the country’s highly unexpected invasion of its neighbors. They absolutely do not like it but carry out their mission as a peacekeeping force according to the mandate. And happen to shoot down some Polish F-16s and apologize profusely – the commander of the air defense regiment was fired immediately for having drunk too much Muay Thai.
What decision-making power does Orban have in the EU during this period (I don’t know that), can he slow down the EU’s response to such an attack – a week would be enough?
If Trump wins, when is Biden a “lame duck”?
Will Poland go rogue or are they worried about China’s brigades in Belarus that then stand at the Polish border?
Poland’s armed forces are probably being expanded but are by no means significant at present and above all have no experience with drone weapons and FAB bombs.
Will the governments in the EU individually decide to send their sons to death?
One might have to be content to note that if Putin intends to invade the Baltic states, it is optimal to do so soon and that he and Belarus have built up a capability for it.
Now to the next speculative scenario –
I am of the opinion that the West’s China policy has now failed.
How Putin is run over by China is not interesting. You remember the guy in the thread who usually writes that China has thrown Russia under the bus and then there are always lots of strange counterarguments that China still supports and is Russia’s best buddy.
China now has military in Belarus and has welcomed Serbia, Hungary, and Slovakia with open arms while Xi did not visit Moscow. China is also working hard on the old -stan countries to bring them into their sphere of influence and is infiltrating the Far East economically.
China has used Russia as a Trojan horse and the phrase “thrown under the bus” is highly applicable.
Russia no longer has any defense along the border with China so Putin probably does not dare say anything if one guesses.
Remember Pearson’s book, it still holds up, right? Russia starts a war that paves the way for China.
And here we are now if China starts moving forward – then it is up to the West to push China back and to do that we need to declare war and attack a country that has not declared war on us.
So what until now was a decision to send weapons to Ukraine so they could win the war and stamp out our time’s global conflict is soon a decision on whether we shall declare war on China or not. We are not there yet but 2025-2026 this will develop in a direction unfavorable to the West.
There were some comments yesterday about China and that they would never be able to station troops in Belarus, but it should be reminded that Belarus has joined China’s security initiative.
-Does Lukashenko feel threatened by a possible popular revolution that the West would like to see happen?
-Is his army incapable of defending itself against infiltrating Belarusian units and others?
-Does Ukraine want to see Belarus democratized?
-Is Lukashenko terrified of being invaded by Russia?
-Would China like to have a platform in Belarus in the EU’s backyard?
If the answer is a resounding yes, then there will soon be troops in Belarus.
China has close to zero trade exchange with Belarus as a country; it is the proximity to the EU that is attractive.
https://kyivindependent.com/chinese-military-personnel-arrive-in-belarus-for-joint-exercises/
And you, for observation number three.
Putin controls both the far left and the far right, and the left of center always calls the right of center Nazis.
What happened in Europe post WW1 – over time communist movements grew stronger with support from the Soviet Union, and in Germany the socialists emerged victorious from that street fighting and became the Nazis.
I don’t think the EU should dismiss the danger yet because what looked like a right-wing wave is becoming a left-wing wave, and the movements that in recent years have been BIGGER militant, autonomous, and revolutionary have come from the left. If it escalates, we will naturally get a stronger response from the right, and then the temperature will rise further. Today in the EU, we have a third movement – extreme Islamism – and so far it has chosen to coexist with the left.
I don’t believe for a second that calm will settle over the EU after the elections in the UK and France because that is not in Russia’s interest.
I like to challenge established truths – it’s simply fun when information drops that crashes the narrative that has become consensus just because no one questions anything anymore.
It is precisely such a consensus that has made us taxpayers vouch for 80 billion to Northvolt or all the green environmental initiatives that Jens Nylander is now exposing, where money has been thrown at entrepreneurs who have run subsidy schemes and gotten rich on our tax money. No one listens to the sensible voices that, for example, say that the forest in Sweden has doubled in 100 years or that we need regulating power in the electricity system.
And regulating power in the electricity system is a national security issue that has been completely neglected for a good cause.
This one was highly interesting; one didn’t think so at the time 😲
https://x.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1809852189780705295?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
This one is worth looking at regarding Russian subversive activities and understanding that this engine is running at high speed right now. Unrest in the EU and all the wrong decisions that one doesn’t believe are possible are not always there by pure chance. That all of Europe shut down its controllable nuclear power and became dependent on Russian gas a few years before Russia started a war in Europe was interesting. At the very least, one must conclude that it strongly benefited Russia.
https://x.com/drtallinger/status/1810077208729256157?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Since the Tidö Alliance is very positive about helping Ukraine and has clearly distanced itself from Russia, there is naturally an influence operation ongoing to portray them as an authoritarian dictatorship that must be overthrown to save the country. I am very positive about the government’s actions in the Ukraine war so far compared to how Sweden behaved during WW2 or the Cold War – we have taken a clear stance and we show our friends in Europe that we do not betray them. There is very little to complain about except perhaps the mess around Gripen, but that was not Sweden’s fault.
Then I can think that a certain party took the conflicts to new levels ahead of the EU election, which was not very statesmanlike, but that was not the issue here.
The UK looks like it will be able to land correctly also on the UA question, and Starmer should get credit for that; France remains to be seen, perhaps, but if I understand this correctly, Macron has quite a strong mandate over foreign policy?
I already see a campaign on social media against Labour in the UK – it started as soon as they won, so it became very clear, and it is the usual pro-Russian accounts behind it.
This domestic politics, which always makes the tolerant intolerant when you bring it up, is what risks influencing the West in the wrong direction more than anything else because it affects our political leaders directly as it risks crashing their political careers.
When in a few years we stand fingering an AK4 at a mobilization depot in Östergötland in pouring rain, we think we will fight like this;
https://x.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1810007973822885932
But this is the form we will be in and completely without combat experience.
https://x.com/matt_pinner/status/1809571923220713940?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Europe is still heading straight towards a global conflict, and at some point, a win in Ukraine will no longer be able to slow down the development. The street fights in the EU between right, left, and Islamists will increase, and the mudslinging in politics will reach storm strength.
The group China has on its side in this is 40-50 countries, and considering that they have most of the manufacturing in China and the other countries have the natural resources and then are buyers, they are no longer the children nobody wanted. They can very well get their own currency going and start an enormous arms race in these countries.
The West has already given walkover in Africa, and now the first pro-Russian alliance has been formed – the “Confederation of Sahel” – a mugshot of dictators.
https://x.com/globeeyenews/status/1809678813431013456?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
Europe does as we always have – we argue about the protest note when the war is already in full swing. The US and Germany’s strategy not to escalate is well on its way to leading us into the next global conflict, and that is why I usually write that a decisive moment (the big brushstrokes) must be painted in 2024.
If this goes into 2025 – 2026 without it looking like Russia will lose, this probably cannot be reversed anymore.
And that is why the West’s ban on invading Russia or not being allowed to fight their air and army air forces, which stand neatly lined up at the air bases, is so absolutely devastating. At some point, Ukraine will also have had enough; it will come without warning, and then the West will be left with the whole mess in its lap.
This is not about Russia not being allowed to have internal civil war anymore; we are past that.
Give Ukraine everything they want and remove all geographical restrictions and other things that slow them down – it simply must be the right decision considering how this is developing.
Two depots were knocked out yesterday in the darkest Donbass
https://x.com/noelreports/status/1809849897446724032?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
And a main depot in Voronezh was knocked out creating a moon crater.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1809909214380220859?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
This is significant because this type of knocked-out depots causes acute ammunition shortages at the fronts, and since the locations of the depots are known and the coordinates have been entered into the Excel sheet for a long time, they are taken out at the right time – when one wants Russian ammunition shortages at the fronts.
The Karelian night patrol is added to volunteer units fighting for Ukraine that will be liberation fronts in Russia going forward.
https://x.com/_freyafae/status/1809913815791718511?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w
I choose 728,000 KIA
Considering how much the drone weapon has developed and the cameras confirm the losses today, I think many losses in rear functions in 2022-2023 were never registered. The HIMARS campaign in 2022, for example.
https://x.com/kyivindependent/status/1809916065989722585?s=46&t=Vah3JXV31B9lXwZOK5gF7w