Zeihan is on a Ukraine explainer tour

28. März 2022

src: click
Gems: Rus­si­an troop buil­dup star­ted, when the US con­ti­nued sup­ply­ing hig­her levels of mili­ta­ry assi­s­tance in novem­ber, and for the first time allo­wed Ukrai­ni­ans to use some of tho­se wea­pons (Jave­lins) in the rus­si­an occu­p­ied ter­ri­to­ries in the east. Rus­sia, then rea­li­zed, that if they want to act, they “had to act now”, and star­ted the troop build up, …

Stuff like that, you know… Unimo­portant stuff.

This is the first con­ver­sa­ti­on with him on topic - I’m cur­r­ent­ly still in the pro­cess of watching, which is Zei­han sel­ling a cra­zy, drop dead dumb, slow, man­ly and axes in the back­ground you­tuber his ide­as, while the you­tuber is sel­ling their books, and his man­ly­ness.. But you know - its Zei­han, so I’m watching any­how… (Second, Third, edit: Fourth)

edit: Is it me, or is Zei­han more in “pro­jec­ting mode” than usu­al.. 😉 (“If same hap­pens to china…”)

Hallelujah! Oh, no…

28. März 2022

Ukrai­ne is wil­ling to beco­me neu­tral and com­pro­mi­se over the sta­tus of the eas­tern Don­bass regi­on as part of a peace deal, Pre­si­dent Volo­dym­yr Zelen­sky said on Sunday, after a Ukrai­ni­an nego­tia­tor said the next round of face-to-face talks with Rus­sia would be held in Tur­key on March 28-30.

src: click

No Selenskyj/Putin talks, no Jeru­sa­lem, neu­tra­li­ty final­ly on the table, com­pro­mi­se over the sta­tus of eas­tern Don­bass. Issue: Rus­si­ans cur­r­ent­ly not con­fir­ming that they will part­take in this round of peacetalks.

Then -- one day later…

KIEV, March 28. /TASS/. Ukraine’s prio­ri­ties at talks with Rus­sia remain the same, Ukrai­ni­an Pre­si­dent Vla­di­mir Zelen­sky said on Mon­day. Accord­ing to him, they invol­ve Ukraine’s sov­er­eig­n­ty, ter­ri­to­ri­al inte­gri­ty and secu­ri­ty guarantees.

A new round of nego­tia­ti­ons is ahead, becau­se we are loo­king for peace. Our prio­ri­ties in the nego­tia­ti­ons are known. Ukraine’s sov­er­eig­n­ty and ter­ri­to­ri­al inte­gri­ty are bey­ond doubt. Effec­ti­ve secu­ri­ty gua­ran­tees for our sta­te are man­da­to­ry. Our goal is obvious - peace and the res­to­ra­ti­on of nor­mal life in our nati­ve sta­te as soon as pos­si­ble,” he said in a video address publis­hed on his office’s Tele­gram channel.

Sh*t, Selen­skyj got on the inter­net again!

But wait, this is TASS, so that must be rus­si­an propaganda!

*goog­le­fu on*
NOPE, checks out.

Can someo­ne take that guys mic away?

Also, while we are still tal­king about mas­ter communicators:

Biden says he wasn’t cal­ling for regime chan­ge in Russia
US Pre­si­dent Joe Biden said on Sunday that he was not cal­ling for regime chan­ge in Rus­sia when he said on Satur­day that Pre­si­dent Vla­di­mir Putin “can­not remain in power.”

No,” Biden said as he left a church ser­vice in Washing­ton when asked by a repor­ter whe­ther he was cal­ling for regime chan­ge in the country.

src: click

That must have been a pret­ty elo­quent “No” from Biden, lea­ving church ser­vice on Sunday, there…

edit: Times Radio insists, that the­re is a rus­si­an PR ang­le to this and not just Selen­skyj being Selen­skyj… (Selen­sky­js poli­ti­cal aides being who they are…)

edit2: Ori­gi­nal inter­view (Selen­skyj with “non main­stream” rus­si­an journalists):

Biden: The polish pope and Kierkegaard told me, Putin can not stay in power

26. März 2022

Not liter­al­ly, but you get the drill…


Star­ting at a litt­le after 27 min in.

So the­re you have it.

Play­book complete.

edit: The speech has a who­le sec­tion on how Mear­s­hei­mer is a liar. Nato is a defen­si­ve alli­an­ce, not offen­si­ve! You have to know, that in sci­en­ti­fic cir­cles this argu­ment is ent­i­re­ly void - btw, as “defen­si­ve” lies in the eyes of whoever con­trols the main nar­ra­ti­ve at the time. Thats what the con­cept of “fal­se flag attacks” is about, btw not that its necessa­ri­ly used that often… Read this arti­cle on epis­te­mes to under­stand the concept.

Goo­g­led Nato defen­si­ve just for the kicks of it.

This is the third search result: click just the­in­ter­cept, you dont have to read it, but damn… This is the new pos­tu­la­ted rea­li­ty. The pre­do­mi­nant com­mon narrative.…

edit2: The speech also has a sec­tion in it, that “this war threa­tens the rules based inter­na­tio­nal order estab­lis­hed sin­ce WWII”. On that you should read up on the Bret­ton Woods sys­tem and the gold-dollar stan­dard, which was later repla­ced by the petro­dol­lar (you’ll under­stand the impor­t­ance of “rare com­mo­di­ties” paya­ble only in a sin­gle cur­ren­cy in the next few mon­ths… 😉 ), oh - and on natio­na­lism vs. free­dom, read this, and watch Cur­tis’ Cen­tu­ry of the self - Part 1 should suffice.. 🙂

Oh, last point, in Bidens speech, its the rules based inter­na­tio­nal order that gua­ran­te­ed peace in euro­pe for the last 70 years. Stran­ge whe­re I’m from that was always the merit of the Euro­pean Union…

edit3: One more. Arte just brought up the pax ame­ri­ca­na con­cept in its “quick exp­lai­ner” seri­es. Best pri­mer for that one I know: click (Ger­man, has a lucid intro, but its good. Arte production.)

edit4: Neue Aus­re­de für Voll­idio­ten, und Jour­na­lis­ten die kom­plett nichts mehr raffen:
“Bidens Rede macht sein Team ner­vös”.
Ich bin mir sicher der Biden hat sei­ne zwei Tele­promp­ter aus den US und den Text der dar­auf lief im Flug­zeug auf dem Weg nach Polen selbstgeklöppelt.
Es gibt wohl kaum einen inte­gra­le­ren Bestand­teil des “Teams” um einen Prä­si­den­ten, als sei­nen Speech­wri­ter. “Anschei­nend stand der Satz so nicht im Manu­skript.” Jo, schei­be, dann hat er den noch vom Briefing…

Was ist eigentlich Geostrategie?

26. März 2022

Jetzt wo sich Chi­na ja in sei­ner Sank­ti­ons­kri­tik dar­auf bezieht

Ich klatsch mal den fefe Bei­trag zur Gän­ze hier rein.

Auf die RAND Cor­po­ra­ti­on ist wenigs­tens noch Verlass.

Dis­c­lai­mer vor­ne weg, Putin hat der Ukrai­ne in einem völ­ker­rechts­wid­ri­gen Angriffs­krieg den Krieg erklärt. Sonst argu­men­tiert mir das noch jemand weg…

Hier ist einer für die Bingo-Freunde unter euch. Die RAND Cor­po­ra­ti­on hat 2019 mal einen Plan für Russ­land aus­ge­ar­bei­tet. Den kal­ten Krieg hat­ten die Ame­ri­ka­ner nicht mili­tä­risch gewon­nen, son­dern öko­no­misch. Selbst der Afgha­ni­stan­krieg war nicht per se ein mili­tä­ri­scher Sieg gegen Russ­land son­dern ein lang­sa­mes Aufreiben.

In stra­te­gi­schen Begriff­lich­kei­ten: Over­ex­ten­ding Rus­sia. Dafür sor­gen, dass die sich mehr Ver­bind­lich­kei­ten auf­hal­sen, als sie balan­cie­ren kön­nen. Das PDF heißt Over­ex­ten­ding and Unba­lan­cing Rus­sia, und die RAND-Strategen schla­gen fol­gen­des vor:

1. Expand U.S. ener­gy pro­duc­tion. Die Rus­sen leben von ihren Ener­gie­ex­por­ten. Wir soll­ten ihnen Kon­kur­renz machen, um den Preis zu drücken.

2. Impo­se deeper tra­de and finan­cial sanc­tions. Mit der Fra­ge, wie man die begrün­den soll­te, ver­schwen­den die gar kei­ne Zeit. Da zieht man sich halt irgend­was aus dem Arsch bei Gelegenheit.

3. Incre­a­se Europe’s abi­li­ty to import LNG from sources other than Rus­sia. LNG ist das ver­flüs­sig­te Erd­gas, für das der Scholz jetzt schnell-schnell Schiff-Terminals bau­en will.

4. Encou­ra­ge emi­gra­ti­on from Rus­sia of skil­led labor and well-educated youth. Das emp­feh­len sie nicht wirk­lich, weil das zu lan­ge dau­ert, bevor es Russ­land ver­nich­tet. Kann man ja neben­her lau­fen lassen.

Ja gut, das sind jetzt Ideen für die Poli­tik. Kann man nicht sonst noch was tun, um Russ­land Kos­ten auf­zu­drü­cken? Klar! Hier sind die kon­kre­ten Vorschläge:

1. Pro­vi­de let­hal aid to Ukraine

2. Incre­a­se sup­port to the Syri­an rebels

3. Pro­mo­te libe­ra­liz­a­ti­on in Belarus

4. Expand ties in the South Caucasus

5. Redu­ce Rus­si­an influ­ence in Cen­tral Asia

6. Flip­ping Transnistria

Von denen hal­ten die RAND-Leute den ers­ten (Ukrai­ne mit Rüs­tungs­gü­tern auf­rüs­ten) und drit­ten (Libe­ra­li­sie­rung in Weiß­russ­land) für am vielversprechensten.

OK das ist ja alles schön und gut, aber kön­nen wir nicht noch was im Pro­pa­gan­da­krieg machen? Aber klar! Hier sind RANDs Vorschläge:

1. Dimi­nish faith in the Rus­si­an elec­to­ral system

2. Crea­te the per­cep­ti­on that the regime is not pur­suing the public interest

3. Encou­ra­ge domestic pro­tests and other non­vio­lent resistance

4. Under­mi­ne Russia’s image abroad

OK aber war­te mal, die Air For­ce will auch mit­spie­len. Was könn­te denn die Air For­ce machen? Hier sind die Vorschläge:

1. Repos­tu­re bom­bers (“wit­hin easy striking ran­ge of key Rus­si­an stra­te­gic targets”)

2. Repos­tu­re figh­ters (“so that they are clo­ser to their tar­gets than bom­bers as a way to achie­ve hig­her sor­tie rates”). Das wür­de Mos­kau noch ner­vö­ser machen als die Bom­ber, meint RAND, aber es wäre auch riskanter

3. Deploy addi­tio­nal tac­ti­cal nuclear weapons

4. Repo­si­ti­on U.S. and allied bal­listic mis­si­le defen­se systems

Bleibt noch die Fra­ge, wofür das Mili­tär sei­ne For­schungs­gel­der aus­ge­ben soll­te. RAND emp­fiehlt Droh­nen und Raketen.

Oh und die Navy? Die könn­te im Schwar­zen Meer mehr Prä­senz zei­gen. Dann müss­ten die Rus­sen auch da Geld ausgeben.

Ich könn­te hier noch län­ger wei­ter auf­zäh­len, ihr könnt euch das PDF ja sel­ber kli­cken. Wich­tig sind in mei­nen Augen vor allem noch zwei stra­te­gi­sche Zie­le, die RAND for­mu­liert: “Incre­a­se Euro­pean NATO mem­ber ground capa­bi­li­ties” und “Gene­ra­te a mass mobi­liz­a­ti­on of Euro­pean NATO mem­ber forces”.

Na, hat irgend­je­mand noch freie Fel­der auf dem Bingo-Brett? (Dan­ke, Stephan)

src: click

Selenskyj is so brave to face Putin in negotiations!

26. März 2022

What do you do, when you have lai­ed out a public nego­tia­ting posi­ti­on of - total ter­ri­to­ri­al sov­er­eig­n­ty of Ukrai­ne in the bor­ders of 1991, dis­cus­sions only with Putin, no demi­li­ta­ri­sa­ti­on, total draw back of all rus­si­an tro­ops, just for you to think about mee­ting the only per­son you’d go into nego­tia­ti­ons with, no for­eign inter­fe­rence on talks, no deman­ds of the oppo­sing side, becau­se they sound like ulti­ma­tums. Then cer­tain­ly no deman­ds on demi­li­ta­riz­a­ti­on or den­azi­fi­ca­ti­on (becau­se you cant be made to deal with them on princi­pal, and thats the point whe­re you step away from nego­tia­ti­ons), topp­ling other governments with “popu­lar demo­cra­cy”, if they dont sup­port Ukrai­ne being accep­ted by Nato. A nati­on­wi­de refe­ren­dum to be able to refrain from aiming for Nato mem­bers­hip, in a war torn coun­try, sei­ze fires, to “think about how to deal with the “brain­wa­s­hed peop­le” in “tem­pora­ri­ly occu­p­ied ter­ri­to­ries””, all pri­or nego­tia­ti­ons not having been nego­tia­ti­ons at all, you as a pre­si­dent per­so­nal­ly sol­ving the most pro­ble­ma­tic issu­es (sur­ren­de­ring of Cri­mea and Don­bas) in direct talks with Putin, deman­ding 200 tanks from your part­ners to be able to libe­ra­te Mariu­pol, but also made con­ces­si­ons, that you would be wil­ling to not accept full Nato mem­bers­hip for now, if you have secu­ri­ty gua­ran­tees by Tur­key and Ger­ma­ny - two coun­tries you dont want to influ­ence your peace nego­tia­ti­ons in any way, mind you - to act as peace­kee­pers and to come to your aid une­qui­vo­cal­ly the next time rus­sia is pre­pa­ring any mili­ta­ry actions near your bor­ders, while insis­ting on 500 Stin­gers and 500 Jave­lins per day from the US, and con­ti­nued US mili­ta­ry aid flowing into your coun­try unrestric­ted­ly. While the rus­si­an side, can basi­cal­ly nod and accept your nego­tia­ting posi­ti­on, becau­se you cant give up a sin­gle city, becau­se of the hero­ism and deter­mi­na­ti­on of the ukrai­ne peop­le in gene­ral, and rus­si­an clean­sing ope­ra­ti­ons, that you see coming?

YOU HAVE CNN DO A WRITEUP ON THIS TO SOUND -- well, chee­ry? Con­ven­tio­nal? Pro­per? Sane?

And if you think such a writ­e­up can only go poor­ly - you have no idea…

Inde­ed, the­re is an incre­a­singly appa­rent chan­ge in tone of Ukrai­ni­an Pre­si­dent Volo­dym­yr Zelensky’s appeal to the West. Late Thurs­day, in an address to the Euro­pean Coun­cil sum­mit in which he once again plea­ded for EU mem­bers­hip, the war­ti­me lea­der iden­ti­fied each coun­try which was late or reluc­tant to pro­vi­de assi­s­tance to Ukrai­ne. Tar­ge­ted were Ire­land, Ger­ma­ny and Por­tu­gal, as well as Hun­ga­ry for its neu­tral stance.

Well, lets go into detail then. Ger­ma­ny was atta­cked for not having stop­ped North­stream 2 ear­lier, which could have made Rus­sia more vul­nerable (self assess­ment, as a hypo­the­ti­cal) and ther­eby not have star­ted the war (hypo­the­ti­cal). Thats the US posi­ti­on on Nord­stream 2 jux­ta­po­sed with a demand on enac­ting eco­no­mic sanc­tions proac­tively, based on the even­tua­li­ty of war, while pres­uming a coun­ter­fac­tu­al, name­ly that Rus­sia nee­ded Nord­stream 2 to feel con­fi­dent to start a war.

src: click

The very same day, after cal­ling on NATO to dedi­ca­te at least 1% of its mili­ta­ry assets to Ukrai­ne, Zelen­sky drasti­cal­ly expan­ded his wish-list for mili­ta­ry equip­ment from the United Sta­tes -- say­ing Kyiv needs 500 Jave­lin and 500 Stin­ger mis­si­les per day. That’s in addi­ti­on to the jets, attack heli­co­p­ters and advan­ced anti-aircraft sys­tems alrea­dy requested.

Thats the we want 200 tanks demand btw. In case you mis­sed the word tanks in the writeup…

Zelensky’s rela­tively new stra­te­gy to publicly name and shame coun­tries that Kyiv belie­ves to be sit­ting on the diplo­ma­tic fence appears to be his way to leverage soa­ring glo­bal popu­la­ri­ty. (Some of my Ukrai­ni­an friends joke that the TV comedian-turned-politician is more popu­lar abroad than in his own home­land). But whe­ther it will move world lea­ders such as US Pre­si­dent Joe Biden to pro­vi­de such items as jets -- which could make it appe­ar as a bel­li­gerent to Moscow -- is doubtful.

You think? Selen­skyj open­ly voi­ced, that in that case the peop­le will rise up in popu­lar demo­cra­cy and topp­le the demo­cra­tic lea­ders­hip of the coun­tries, whe­res that part. Could you add that part to your sum­ma­ry, please?

Incre­a­singly, Ukrai­ni­ans from many walks of life tell me that they feel as if the coun­try is exe­cu­ting a pro­xy war for the West -- pushing back a super­power so as to pro­tect coun­tries on NATO’s eas­tern flank. In several pas­sio­na­te addres­ses to various par­lia­ments, Zelen­sky has pret­ty much said as much. 

Well, first you hold a speech in rus­si­an, publis­hed on rus­si­an tele­gram for tik­to­kers, influ­en­cers, artists, mothers and father to rise up and “con­vin­ce their government” to not start a war. Then you have the first mis­si­les fly­ing wit­hin the next two hours, then you spend a mon­th pum­ping up the hero­ism of the defen­se effort of your coun­try, make that aspect go viral, have it ampli­fied by con­ven­tio­nal media, THEN ask for total Nato invol­ve­ment and a no fly zone against a nuclear power in the name of huma­ni­ty. Not once, five times. I guess the pro­xy war is all yours. Here - have some wea­pons. You are such heroes. The­re is an addi­tio­nal nar­ra­ti­ve here, whe­re weig­hing opti­ons of direct Nato invol­ve­ment is still on the table becau­se cer­tain US gene­rals “dont belie­ve, that Rus­sia would launch nuclear wea­pons in respon­se to lets say - a no fly zone only over the wes­tern part of Ukrai­ne”, but then you alrea­dy esca­la­ted this into a direct con­flict bet­ween Rus­sia and the US. But then at least your pro­xy war has beco­me some­thing much lar­ger by then…

In the days and weeks ahead, Ukrai­ni­ans will be ner­vous­ly watching as their pre­si­dent enters into high-level peace nego­tia­ti­ons with Rus­sia pro­po­sed by Zelensky.

Ok, this is a rewri­te of the “only wil­ling to talk to Putin, becau­se I think I need to talk to Putin to tell him why he should hand over Don­bas and Cri­mea, which will sol­ve the situa­ti­on” state­ment Selen­skyj made twice. So nice of CNN to make that less “insa­ne” sound­ing. “In the days and weeks ahead” means we have no clue when. “Enters high level peace nego­tia­ti­ons” is a rewri­te of Selen­sky­js “everthing so far were ulti­ma­tums, I dont do ulti­ma­tums”, Selen­skyj spo­ke of star­ting peace nego­tia­ti­ons only with Putin direct­ly - of cour­se as CNN you cant wri­te that, becau­se they were alrea­dy ongo­ing for weeks, its just that Selen­skyj rejec­ted the outcomes/counter posi­ti­ons so far as “Ulti­ma­tums” becau­se he cant be made “to even give up one city”. Becau­se of the valor of ukrai­ni­an peop­le. Oh, I dont think he used valor, and even men­tio­ned, becau­se of the undy­ing hate of ukrai­ni­an peop­le once, but - hey, that man knows what hes doing, espe­cial­ly with words, but also when invi­t­ing the pope one day to give a peace speech, and then laun­ching a coun­ter offen­si­ve the day after. Or was it two days after?

One can safe­ly assu­me that the Krem­lin, in the final pha­se of nego­tia­ti­ons, will demand con­ces­si­ons that no Ukrai­ni­an pre­si­dent could ever agree to: giving up ter­ri­to­ry sei­zed by Rus­sia, for­mal­ly reco­gni­zing the occu­p­ied Don­bas and Cri­mea as part of the Rus­si­an Fede­ra­ti­on, for examp­le, and swea­ring off mem­bers­hip bids for alli­an­ces such as NATO.

One can safe­ly assu­me my ASS, tho­se were direct points made for why rus­si­an deman­ds could not be met under any cir­cum­s­tan­ces. The last point is made up, becau­se Selen­skyj alrea­dy made public con­ces­si­ons in that regard. Not very mea­ning­ful ones, as the out­co­me in his mind would be a secu­ri­ty alli­an­ce with Tur­key and Ger­ma­ny that would act like Nato, while still having incre­a­sed mili­ta­ry aid flowing in from Nato mem­ber­sta­tes while Rus­sia can go fuck them­sel­ves, oh, and of cour­se have to remo­ve all their mili­ta­ry first, befo­re Selen­skyj would even be wil­ling to think about “per­so­nal nego­tia­ti­ons with Putin”. Becau­se “first” (well, second, actual­ly) - you estab­lish secu­ri­ty gua­ran­tees being in place and enac­ted on the ground, then he is wil­ling to enga­ge in negotiations.

Con­ces­si­ons that the ukrai­ni­an pre­si­dent “could never agree to” is fal­se con­jec­tu­re, the cor­rect phra­sing here is “is not wil­ling to”. He doesnt want to give up even one city, he wants Cri­mea back, he wants the Don­bas back, he wants rus­si­an tro­ops to go back to rus­sia, and he wants 200 tanks. For Mariu­pol. Just to get the base­li­ne some­what - rought­ly cor­rect here.

The “peace talks” Selen­skyj is aiming for are “fuck off you are beaten”.

Alt­hough Zelen­sky and his ambassa­dor to the UK have touched on the idea of NATO neu­tra­li­ty for Ukrai­ne, it is unclear whe­ther it would gene­ra­te widespread popu­lar support.

Thats a rewri­te of the INSANE Selen­skyj demand, of hol­ding a public refe­ren­dum during a war. On whe­ther they can even remo­ve the sta­ted aim to beco­me a Nato mem­ber­sta­te from the constitution.

To face off against Putin at the nego­tia­ting table, the comedian-turned-politician who was trans­for­med into a war­ti­me pre­si­dent liter­al­ly over­night will need extra­or­di­na­ry skill and deft­ness. With so much spil­led blood, sen­seless dest­ruc­tion and dis­pla­ce­ment on a mas­si­ve sca­le, Ukrai­ni­ans will not be in the mood to give Zelen­sky much space for concessions.

Just bull­shit as con­jec­tu­re, why not - with an out­co­me of - let them fight some more, shall we? May­be someo­nes mood chan­ges? “Will need extra­or­dena­ry skill”? thats a slight under­state­ment, no?

And even if they did, the Rus­si­ans have a well-deserved repu­ta­ti­on for not hono­ring their promises.

Thats set­ting up a catch 22, only to be “resol­ved” by topp­ling the rus­si­an government. OH DID I FORGET TO MENTION THAT THATS THE ENTIRE AIM OF THE US STRATEGY SO FAR?

(Ger­ma­ny (Scholz) is on the public record ‘hopeing’ for a quick end to the war. Schrö­der has stamm­e­red some­thing simi­lar by now in a public set­ting, but let me spa­re you that speech…). Also, gua­ran­tees in life, lets talk about that phi­lo­so­phi­cal noti­on, with an ongo­ing war in the back­ground. That CNN jour­na­list is so begui­ling in the way he urges the rea­der to deba­te phi­lo­so­phi­cal con­cepts with them­sel­ves and their emo­tio­nal­ly char­ged noti­on of “if Putin will keep a pro­mi­se”. Hey, we can ask 100 peop­le - and then go with the top ans­wer! Popu­lism? Why? Never.

So with so much at sta­ke, what’s the West to do? Mee­ting Kyiv’s requests for more wea­pon­ry and assets such as sophisti­ca­ted sur­face to air mis­si­les -- inclu­ding more of the US-made armed switch­b­la­de or kami­ka­ze dro­nes -- should be a no-brainer.

They alrea­dy sup­ply tho­se, CNN repor­ter got high on their own con­cept of him/herself.

At the end of the day, the West has the choice of inter­vening now in the Ukrai­ne war in a game-changing way by eli­mi­na­ting Rus­si­an advan­ta­ges in the air, cut­ting off sup­ply lines and con­ti­nuing to squee­ze the Rus­si­an eco­no­my. Bet­ter to act now on the West’s own terms -- and pre­vent the dest­ruc­tion of the Ukrai­ni­an nati­on -- or be for­ced to do so later on Putin’s terms after thousands more inno­cent Ukrai­ni­an men, women and child­ren have been slaughtered.

Thats not how that cal­cu­la­ti­on goes. Thats dis­tinct­ly not how that cal­cu­la­ti­on goes.

But just for the fun of it, lets com­pa­re that to the para­graph in the begin­ning of the fuck­ing PR Mas­ter­pie­ce CNN wro­te into exis­tence here --

Lviv, Ukrai­ne (CNN)In a grin­ding war such as the one in Ukrai­ne, one learns how to read sub­t­le chan­ges in the public mood. So it was on Thurs­day -- one mon­th sin­ce Rus­si­an for­ces inva­ded and just as NATO lea­ders pled­ged con­ti­nued sup­port to Ukrai­ne -- that I spot­ted out­side my apart­ment win­dows, on the edges of Lviv’s old city, con­struc­tion workers in high-visibility jackets and tall yel­low lad­ders busi­ly boar­ding up the neigh­bo­ring church’s magni­ficent stai­ned glass windows.

It’s a sce­ne that’s being replay­ed across this UNESCO world heri­ta­ge city, from schools to shop­fronts and government buildings.
It is also a clear sign that Ukrai­ni­ans are dig­ging in for the long haul.

Then come to terms with the fact, that the aut­hor does demand the con­ti­nua­tion of a “pro­xy” war - by any rea­son­ab­le stan­dard of what “peace nego­tia­ti­ons might look like” (you scram, I keep all the cities, and Nato light, and unli­mi­ted mili­ta­ry assi­s­tance and buil­dup capa­ci­ty, oh - and of cour­se, you give Cri­mea back, dont pro­du­ce deman­ds, becau­se I see them as “Ulti­ma­tums”, dont pres­su­re me with other for­eign nati­ons chip­ping in, oh - and I’ll nego­tia­te with you per­so­nal­ly only (oh sor­ry “in high level nego­tia­ti­ons only” based on a CNN reframing without any source sta­ting tho­se words so far) -- and thats exact­ly what you want.

While Selen­skyj can go fuck­ing mean­de­ring from one government to the next, in public video spee­ches asking for full Nato mem­bers­hip, direct Nato invol­ve­ment, but in case that doesnt fly - more wea­pons will do as well? How about them 200 peace tanks?

src (of the CNN PR mas­ter FLUFFPIECE): click

You see, what Selen­skyj meant, when he was utte­ring insa­ne shit was… that he isnt at all an auto­cra­tic lea­der! He wants a refe­ren­dum now! You see, becau­se, when Biden utte­red that insa­ne reli­gious shit about ame­ri­can excep­tio­na­lism, and them being the only cul­tu­re foun­ded on an ide­al, and them being in a fight bet­ween demo­cra­ci­es, and auto­cra­ci­es - only three days later, thats what Selen­skyj meant to say also. Obviously.

Dont you see?

Oh yeah, and the recap­tu­re of Cher­son by ukrai­ni­an For­ces is cur­r­ent­ly under way of cour­se. While no expert belie­ves that this has sei­zed being an asym­metric war. But the hero­ism I tell you - the herosim…

edit: Oh, one cor­rec­tion actual­ly. Selen­skyj did utter, that he wants high level talks now. Also 200 tanks for Mariu­pol, sor­ry high level tanks, I mean talks now. He said it five days ago. Befo­re he wan­ted direct tanks with Putin exclu­si­ve­ly, sor­ry, I meant talks with Putin.

Reu­ters:

Zelens­kiy sug­gests Isra­el as good place to hold talks with Russia

March 21 (Reu­ters) - Ukrai­ni­an Pre­si­dent Volo­dym­yr Zelens­kiy said on Sunday that Isra­el was under­ta­king many efforts to arran­ge top-level peace talks bet­ween his coun­try and Rus­sia and sug­gested they might take place in Jerusalem.

src: click

So CNN wro­te that up as “high level peace talks that will take place in the com­ing days or weeks”, becau­se you know - Putin in Jeru­sa­lem, befo­re tanks, I mean talks, would be a good place to start.

Bennett’s efforts to help end the war have been met with skep­ti­cism by some at home. Vete­ran jour­na­list Nahum Bar­nea asked him ear­lier this week “if the media­ti­on efforts real­ly have any significance.”

The prime minis­ter has been accu­sed in par­ti­cu­lar of over-inflating his nego­tia­tor sta­tus to magni­fy his poli­ti­cal sta­tu­re and to pro­vi­de a fig leaf for poli­ci­es of neu­tra­li­ty toward Rus­sia, such as a refu­sal to send arms to Ukrai­ne and a fail­u­re to join inter­na­tio­nal sanctions. 

Mean­while, Israel’s for­mer consul-general in New York, Alon Pin­kas, said he was skep­ti­cal of the ent­i­re nego­tia­ti­on pro­cess bet­ween Rus­sia and Ukrai­ne given his belief that signi­fi­cant pro­gress could ulti­mate­ly only be made bet­ween Moscow and Washington.

The neu­tra­li­ty that is necessa­ry for such a media­tor role could give the per­cep­ti­on that Isra­el is not stan­ding stron­gly with Ukrai­ne, the U.S. and the West, he [Micha­el Oren, for­mer Israe­li ambassa­dor to the United Sta­tes] said.

At what pri­ce neu­tra­li­ty?” he asked. “How much is an open chan­nel to Moscow worth?” 

Isra­el can’t afford to be seen as not stan­ding by a demo­cra­cy that is figh­t­ing for its free­dom, to say not­hing of one that is led by a fel­low Jew,” Oren said.

Moral­ly, poli­ti­cal­ly and mili­ta­ri­ly, Isra­el can’t afford to wea­ken its alli­an­ce with the West.”

Lets hope no one at CNN finds that writ­e­up by nbc­news, publis­hed yes­ter­day… src: click