The Lions
For me, it is clear that Putin is like a smoked, dead herring now, lying and floundering.
He simply CANNOT enter peace talks as the guy who needs it, because then he looks weak in front of the rest of the criminal clan, and his instinct tells him (rightly) that Zelensky and Trump will humiliate him in public, and then stand together, grinning and pointing at him just like the kids did in school in St. Petersburg where he was called the brown rat.
Why is that?
Well, because good negotiation is about gaining a position of strength, and we see that from both Zelensky and Trump right now, where the latter hit hard with more sanctions that really hurt. If the plan had been something else, he would have said that it’s good business for the USA to lift the sanctions and then issued an executive order about it already.
Putin is also just a measly little port blockade in the Baltic Sea away from having most of his remaining oil and LNG exports reduced to 0%.
And the countries around the Baltic Sea already have reasons to deny access to the shadow fleet, maritime safety, acute environmental threats, and ongoing and plural sabotage against underwater cables.
What will the Russian Baltic Fleet do, nothing is my guess, because Putin does not want the entire fleet sunk either.
They will, however, continue with a drone here, a runaway robot there, and some collisions with stone boats, but it doesn’t change the situation unless the West backs down. And Finland has awakened.
The downside for Putin is absolutely enormous – such a blockade might even bring him down, and then he’ll be hanging upside down in a gas station deep marinated in gasoline, waiting for the first match?
Yes, that may be considered a bit radical for now, but the economic weapon has been fired against Putin in a violent hailstorm, Ukraine no longer has geographical or other limitations (red/yellow cards) and is dealing damaging blows daily, and the West is now openly talking about troops in Ukraine.
Ukraine will also try to bring down Belarus at least, and the West is tying up all loose ends wherever they can right now.
In the larger context – would it be completely unreasonable to invoke environmental laws and maritime laws to prevent the shadow fleet from docking at Russian ports, and then have the Tax Agency on all Russian attempts to negotiate so that they drown in legal texts and incomprehensible jargon and simply give up?
Then the sanctions are invoked that no “white” ships are allowed to transport Russian LNG and oil – and measures are taken to ensure that this does not happen?
It’s not very difficult to see which port a white ship has visited and where the export is.
I don’t think the step is insurmountable, and above all, it has been politically and diplomatically unlocked for a long time, and if nothing else, Russian-controlled ships have already been caught in the act when cutting undersea cables.
(why can’t they cut the power cable to the continent from Sweden so we get cheap electricity, who should one have to bribe so they do it?).
The Free Baltic Sea has a strong trump card – the Swedish submarines, which are among the best in the world and are a devastating opponent for the Russian fleet. When the USA tested them, a Swedish submarine surfaced in the middle of an American aircraft carrier group that didn’t know it was in the area – that’s how good they are.
If the Russian bastards want to fight, there will be a lot of sunk ships for them until we run out of torpedoes.
Then there is a gray area where Ukraine can take the war to the Baltic Sea with the approval and passive help of the West that cannot be traced, but that doesn’t benefit us if full oil tankers sink.
If I remember correctly, most of the Russian oil and LNG exports go through the Baltic Sea.
Now the entire 76th AAD is up in Kursk, no longer a strategic reserve down by the Dnieper.
It is very unfortunate that the West chose not to equip the UA strategic reserve but wanted to wait for new production in order to benefit the arms industry, cynical and bloodstained.
Otherwise, it would have been great opportunities to maneuver with an additional 14 heavy mechanized brigades and exploit openings. For once, this probably does not depend on the escalation doctrine but on greedy, cynical corporate leaders and politicians.
At Kursk, it looks to me like RU has lost momentum?
The North Koreans are said to be exhausted, and the units fighting there have suffered high losses since last autumn. Zelensky recently said that RU has 60,000 troops in the area, but RU has also lost around 40,000, as previously reported, right?
The highest number I’ve seen reported in Kursk was 70,000 RU troops.
UA has good defense lines and highly competent units in the area.
I bet the VDV units in the area are pretty worn out now, and that was RU’s offensive capacity.
And the unfortunate 155th and 810th marines have probably almost ceased to exist, talk about having constant bad luck in an entire war, three years of continuous bad luck…
Furthermore, you can see, just like I can, that there are some strategic reserves available and that UA has reinforced near the Dnieper, which is great. All other fronts are holding up well, and RU is weakening near the Dnieper.
I don’t think there’s a sense of panic anymore, and there are no sweaty foreheads and shifting glances in the Ukrainian command anymore during meetings?
I also interpret that a lot of equipment is arriving, big and small, and sincerely hope that for the fifth time in this war, I haven’t been duped by the West.
Now the 156th brigade is off to be trained by the West – our constant damn overconfidence that if Ukraine just fights the way we want, they will win, cost us our spring offensive in 2023, and the 155th brigade suffered heavy losses.
The street-smart survivors in existing maneuver brigades are actually what you want as instructors, not a satiated French lieutenant who has never been in combat.
Apparently, Zelensky has finally understood this, and the other new brigades have been disbanded, and presumably, they are reinforcing existing maneuver brigades instead.
The spring offensive of 2023 was tragic – first, Zelensky had to show the West that Ukraine could, as support wavered significantly, but the USA ensured that supplies were delayed (as Ukraine themselves have said) so that things wouldn’t go too well.
Ukraine attacked straight into the most heavily fortified area on all fronts instead of, for example, up in Kursk or Belgorod, which were completely undefended at the time – because they were not allowed to.
The battle plan was leaked directly to the Russians by both UA parliamentarians and especially by the USA, who in their attempts to maintain balance went to great lengths to sabotage Ukraine.
From spring 2023 until New Year 2023, all deliveries, including ammunition, ceased just to make sure that Ukraine wouldn’t succeed too well.
The brigades that were supposed to form the spearhead were trained in the West and were considered more capable than UA elite units that had been fighting for 1.5 years already and had achieved miracles.
Inexperienced officers and soldiers who had undergone training in the West, and everything was to be done according to NATO doctrine. Didn’t care that UA didn’t have air support and that the minefields were 20km deep instead of 100m.
UA was not allowed to strike the airbases so that Russian CAS and army aviation could be decimated, and RU could concentrate their drones and artillery in the areas UA would attack.
Then it went as it did, but RU suffered enormous losses – their tactic was aggressive counterattacks until UA ran out of gas, which they managed, but at a high price.
It’s fortunate that it’s Ukraine that is the warring party and not another Western country because then this war would probably have already been lost.
Do you know what the Germans are cooking up – they are eager for peace talks and to immediately reopen the gas and oil taps from Russia into the EU.
I have only one thing to say about the Germans – I TOLD YOU SO!!
Above all, Germany will try to normalize relations with Russia as soon as they can, with the consequence being zero for Russia.
Or, as long as Scholz/CPD have a say, Germany will probably also change sides.
As I said, it’s fortunate that Ukraine is the warring party and has no intention of letting Russia off easily.
What is needed now is for Belarus to start moving – then it will also become completely unsustainable for Putin.
There are probably more than 10,000 Belarusians (just a guess) fighting in Ukraine who are excellent soldiers today.
Yes, the Belarusian armed forces have been trained by Wagner since the fall of 2023, but when their SOF fought in Kursk, they apparently fled.
Loyalty is crucial, and even soldiers have families, right?
The only thing that kept Lukashenko in power last time was huge numbers of Russian internal troops torturing the demonstrators to death until they gave up.
Why repeat that mistake?
Now the spark is ignited by Lukashenko’s shameless election fraud, and all volunteer forces infiltrate and stand as a shield between the demonstrators and the regime until it reaches a storm strength that cannot be stopped?
There are also “liberation fronts” in Belarus that will participate.
There is a very high likelihood that Belarus will fall in 2025 – in fact, I would be enormously surprised if Lukashenko gives a Christmas speech this year, either the West has stopped this or something has gone very wrong, such as Chinese troops in Belarus.
Then I think the EU should rise above Trump’s threats because now France has started and wants to send troops to Greenland. Stay calm, Macron, and send the troops to Ukraine instead.
It is not unlikely that Trump’s task is to divert attention from Ukraine, and Greenland is perfect for that.
EU could choose to be the adults in the room and completely ignore the worst outbursts, I think?
IF Trump were to send American troops to Greenland AND Europe were to join in – then I’m pretty sure the American administration would put a stop to the adventure. After all, the EU is the most important ally of the USA, and anything goes.
You can’t leave Russia and China alone and start a war with the EU, not even Trump would get away with that move.
Putin looks sick in this video, unclear if it’s a sick copy or a sick original, but he looks sick.
Almost as amusing as seeing Putin pale and coughing sickly is all the refinery attacks during January 2025 – a damaging blow
And of course, Ukraine has not left the pumping stations alone either, and both Druzhba and Belarus pipelines have been droned on the Russian side. I think it’s clear that Ukraine intends to reduce Russian oil exports and LNG to zero and decimate refinery capacity, product in storage, and ammunition to the maximum.
And here to Belarus
There are reports that at certain targets, there is no air defense at all, neither light nor heavy, and the drones dive into the targets with a terrifying scream and a violent explosion that quickly turns into a dangerous fiery ball 💥💥💥
From my little spectator seat now that Dengamle chose to abandon me and Budanov is still sulking about the poisoning so I don’t get any information, this is over now, and Russia has one last desperate move to try to play out.
They will soon (how soon is directly correlated with the amount of high-value targets taken out) approach the West and try to deceive us into negotiations.
Previously, it was the opposite, they had Ukraine on a tight leash through the USA and pretended they wanted to negotiate so the West would pressure Ukraine while RU continued its snail-paced offensive hoping for a decisive outcome.
Now that Ukraine no longer has geographical limitations or narrow target selection, it is becoming urgent for Russia to achieve a ceasefire soon because it hurts too much.
How many nuclear threats do you hear right now because Ukraine is droning away everything of value in Russia – exactly, nothing, they are completely silent.
Previously, they would respond with nuclear weapons to steel helmets – the principle of proportionality, Russian-style, has been abandoned.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about a Russian in this war, it’s that a stinging slap has been dealt when it’s completely silent.
Germany is lost until Scholz is gone, and if nothing else, we saw that in the information above.
I’m actually unsure about Trump, but I guess he will jump at the first ceasefire proposal because he wants to be our time’s Churchill.
The rest of the EU should not fall for the simple Russian rope trick.
What Ukraine should do, and is doing, is to emphasize that they need the best possible negotiating position as a mantra and drag this out to the maximum. They don’t need ammunition from the West for their strategic drone war, and they now have enough for their defense.
Apparently, 40% is now domestically produced, and the Western arms industry is now delivering purchased equipment that no politician can stop without looking very bad.
So the West should have enough impulse control left not to be talked into anything by Russia in the coming months, and then the West gets the whole package completely free from Ukraine in red wrapping paper –
-Belarus becomes pro-Western.
-Kaliningrad demilitarized.
-Russia significantly weaker threat in the future
-New -stans with natural resources we can tie to us.
If nothing else, we can do it out of respect for our shell protection – Finland, the Baltics, and Poland?
So the West doesn’t need to do anything at all, just refrain from doing anything – let’s see if they can manage that 😀
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Thank you, great and positive post! If the support continues, Putin is in trouble.
By the way, I tried to get ChatGPT to create an image with Putin hanging like a piñata next to a burning gas station, with Ukrainians happily hitting him. ChatGPT refused, apparently it was too politically sensitive.
Sweden announced its largest package so far, and even though I would have liked to see Gripen or more CV 90, it’s a lot of money and a large part will go towards procuring equipment that we don’t know yet. It’s good that we and several other countries continue to deliver, it also sends a clear signal to Putin that Ukraine has continued strong support.
https://www.regeringen.se/pressmeddelanden/2025/01/storsta-stodpaketet-till-ukraina-presenterat/
There was probably a lot of TOW emptied from the supplies 😲
A huge support package to say the least.
Haha, here we have a hefty project to create such a video – game on.
Only for you, my friend. 🙂
https://bsky.app/profile/karlxii.bsky.social/post/3lgyqvmg4ic2c
😂👍
Haha it’s coming
Thank you, just missed one thing “positive-positive” because that’s how the whole post felt, basically!
Yes, that’s right, must never forget -positive-positive 👍
It’s starting to brighten up a bit after the desert trek in 2024.
Hopefully, Trump will be busy on the domestic front for a while before he starts doing things for real internationally. As for Greenland, I think one should remember the advice to “take him seriously but not literally,” as someone said about Trump. He wants something more with Greenland, that should be taken seriously, but *what* one must figure out, you can’t be literal. Since the EU is planning to send military forces there, I guess that is exactly what Trump has said he wants through diplomatic channels: Relieve the US defense of Greenland. I don’t think our European leaders have more in mind than just bowing down to Trump 🙂 (Said somewhat jokingly.) Anyway, it is completely in line with Trump’s previous demands that NATO countries should meet their 2% (and more).
Well, that’s how one should think 👍
That is taking a step back and seeing the big picture instead of getting fixated on details!
I think you are on the right track in how to interpret Ts various moves.
Yes, now the arrows are pointing in the right direction again, and more and more countries are also investing directly in production in and together with Ukraine. Such decisions are calculated, and the outcome of the analysis determines what the countries actually do. Unfortunately, I think you are right about the chokehold; the war has been handled as a local conflict without much impact on one’s own country. And not only the USA but also the EU have to some extent acted in that way, with exceptions along the borders with the Moscow realm and the countries that have a history with them. And the UK, of course, they seem to have it in their backbone simply :).
Regarding Ukrainian troops being trained in the EU, I believe it is also about exchange. A golden opportunity for us to learn from their experiences while introducing them to some shiny new hell machine to be used against the Moscow realm.
After the war, Ukrainian instructors and SOF will probably have an easy time finding jobs.