World and Ukraine daily update 8th May 2025

Nothing happens in a vacuum – someone wiser than me (rarely happens 🧐) told me once that every revolution always has a third- party backer behind it.

India – Pakistan ignited overnight and it is now a hot war between them.

Robots fired

Artillery fired

Fighters lost, soldiers captured, reserves being brought up and emotions running high on both sides.

Yes, JD Vance was there and then it all kicked off – a bit of a trend this with senhor😀

I did not know this well enough apparently – I thought the allegiances was Pakistan a friend of the west and US vs India that was independent but largely bought Russian made weapons, and hated China.

China is rushing to Pakistans aid – that one seemed to be correct.

US offered India F35 contract and is not supporting Pakistan with one word so that one I got dead wrong.

And Russia is running in weapons to India – also correct.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-other_news/3989616-russia-supplies-india-with-iglas-air-defense-systems-amid-tensions-with-pakistan.html

US strategy seems to be the odd one out here?

India – Pakistan has all the trademarks of becoming a proxy war – a rather sizeable one between nuclear powers 😶

India is the aggressor and it was preplanned – high probability for that.

The terror attack was the convenient excuse to kick it off, whether it was a false flag or real is irrelevant.

India aircraft carrier set course for Pakistan the day after or so – no preparations needed.

And India could implement sanctions immediately like turning of all potable water to Pakistan (river). India generally seemed better prepared and it is Pakistan that has so far responded only.

It is always a chance they slug it out for a month and then cool down but I get the feeling this is a piece of a much bigger puzzle so likely that it will not die out anytime soon.

I am genuinely stunned here, India… but someone has managed to talk India into this and it is clearly game on.

The bigger picture is that Russia has tried to escalate the situation globally since 2023 when their little expedition in Ukraine turned into a monumental fiasco and a world-embarrassment for Putin.

7^th October 2023 was a dark day and MENA re-ignited – Russia managed to turn up the heat globally a few steps by the lowest of actions.

Syria was a consequence they absolutely did not anticipate, and as far as Russia are concerned Israel did far to well with Hamas and Hezbollah – but their escalation succeeded as intended.

Africa is also on increasing with potential civil wars and nation wars but Syria knocked that off the time table a bit. Ukraine has also sabotaged Russia African adventure by draining them of resources, and also assisting opposing groups or governments with their SOF to cull the Russian heard a fair bit in various countries in Africa.

India – Pakistan is part of the overall global escalation and now we have Russia and Chinas next moves to (not) look forward too.

And US of course – Iran is definitely on the table here and it is no secret US would like to knock China of the piedestal if they could.

China may or may not go after Taiwan in the short term but they have already occupied an island belonging to Vietnam in the South China sea so they are absolutely positioning themselves for what is to come.

Russia has their Zapad 2025 this September, and are now (of course…) genuinely concerned with the constant abuse of Russian citizens in the Baltics.

It is my strong belief that unless Ukraine can deliver some decisive blows soon Russia will proceed with the next step of their plan – Operation Baltic.

First they need the north Koreans to guard their northern border so 11^th AC needs to arrive.

Then they got 150 000 strong strategic reserve that is sensible well equipped and then a further 60 000 troops from the Kursk area.

If Ukraine cannot do that, south east Estonia will see themselves invaded in a couple of months time, and Europe have zero troops in the area.

Estonia has also not mined the border or otherwise made it difficult for the Russian (very minor) invasion.

Russia would like to test NATO and Europe resolve.

In addition Russia sabotage has escalated alarmingly in Europe and they are interfering in many countries elections – this they do good and have lots of experience to draw upon from the cold war.

Being correct is absolutely part of the overall process of providing analyzes – analyze, make a statement, right – wrong. Being correct is a confirmation that the calibration was right to start with so that conclusions and extrapolation on available pieces of information (that are always insufficient) turned out to be correct.

When Ukraine invaded Kursk it was deemed largely political and Ukraine used US against Russia by keeping quiet – as soon as US stood there with fate-compli they implemented some ground rules for UA to follow (best guess) in their invasion of Russia.

Ukraine did not tell the US about the Kursk offensive in August 2024.

We first picked up on the soon to come offensive a few weeks before it happened, I was one of few who believed they had offensive capacity during that time and when Russia called US MoD to complain about “something” (unspecified) – our guess was something like that as it was to be expected, and Ukraine had accumulated troops in the area.

When RU managed to mitigate the incursion, we waited in vain for additional vectors of attack to open up east and west of the Kursk-incursion but they never came. Ukraine could have done it and it would have been easier fighting than what they did now – a low hanging fruit they passed on.

It is fair to assume the reason it did not happen was political and this was Biden still.

Fast forward to Trumps disastrous attempt of becoming Ghandi 2025 (McDonalds Ghandi) and Ukraine left Kursk two days before US negotiators were due to arrive in Moscow. Putin had already stated that he would not talk to anyone unless Kursk was returned to Russia.

A copy of Putin went there in Uniform and it looked rather pre-arranged – a big victory for Russia that had kicked out the annoying Ukrainians.

Almost unanimously all declared that this was a tactical withdrawal from Ukraine due to battle condition.

I disagreed to that.

So why are they now returning to invade Kursk, again, if it was unsustainable?

Which they have done as they have broken in over the border in Tetkino.

Not the first raid into Russia that since they left, third I think.

I suspect that US has pivoted completely on Ukraine – Russia, and that Ukraine knows this – the writing is all over the wall in colourful pens.

Exactly why US has pivoted is not clear, perhaps due to that China has openly showed off their close relationship to Russia just now?

Or that the tariff war backfired spectacularly?

So – it certainly looks like it was a political decision to leave Kursk before and it absolutely was one to not open more vectors of attack into Russias soft underbelly.

But now all that appear to have changed.

First we must see 9^th May and what Ukraine is up to I think – Putin is overeating Omeprazol here when the Ukrainian drone swarms reaches the capital only days before his so very important parade 🤣🤣

Truly independent journalism is important but it is also in every political party, company or other countries DNA to try to exert control so that they are being reported on favourably. Media is forming opinion and control or influence of that is priceless to many actors.

I have come to decide that independent (academic) critical thinkers are needed and that I will continue to report in the format I have done thus far over the last three years since the war in Ukraine started – describe, analyze it yourself and deep dive into our world today without forwarding someone else’s agenda. I never read other peoples or organizations analyzes and only go on information from the events and otherwise available “raw” information. For the Ukraine war this turned out to be highly successful.

As you may have noticed I am moving over to posts in English for the Ukraine and world reporting. We are quickly moving towards full global escalation so the reporting is becoming deliberately wider than just Ukraine now, any developments in Ukraine will still be monitored and reported on.

Up until mid-2024 it was my belief that if Ukraine solidly beat Russia the global escalation of our time could be stamped out. This is no longer the case and the world is moving towards global conflict. However – if Ukraine succeeds it will be hugely beneficial to Europe, thus why it is critical still.

At weekends the intention is to post Sweden-relevant reporting in the Swedish language. I am well aware of that those sometimes discusses difficult-to-read topics but this must be raised and discussed, and I will continue to do so.

I hope this transition over to english is acceptable to the Swedish speakers that have subscribed thus far on Substack 😀

You have a chance to become a subscriber on Substack still, or otherwise follow on Bluesky or check out the awesome webpage below – loads of good comments there.

Most important, johanno1.se has the legendary Fredagsfylla you do not want to miss. If you want to learn about Swedish culture – that is all you need to know, that is us.

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