Scottyboi
Well-Known Member
A big read so apologies in advance just an interesting assessment.
PUTIN’S RUSSIA WILL FALL
Posted on December 14, 2024 by The Analyst
In this article we’re going to look at the increasing pressure on the regime, both from inside and outside Russia. We will look at the causes of deterioration in the regimes position – much of it self inflicted. This will cover the latest economic news, military indicators and major geopolitical alterations, In addition, we’ll look at how these are no longer being successfully hidden from the general population, because eventually the information gets out. we’ll also look at what the regime is doing to prop itself up and to obscure the truths around what’s going on – and why that in itself is a contributor to regime weakness.
Economic misery brings a daily struggle in a remarkably unequal Russia
ECONOMICS
The next Russian central bank interest rate rise is likely to be announced at the board meeting on December 20, 2024. Financial analysts expect the central bank to increase the key interest rate by 200 basis points to 23% due to the recent depreciation of the ruble and persistent inflationary pressures.
The rouble recently underwent an improvement in its valuation from a weak point of 115 to $1 USD, back to 104. However this was yet another smoke and mirrors campaign as the rouble is not being freely traded, only available to selected brokers friendly to Russia, such as the UAE who have a vested interest because of their recently concluded trade agreement with Moscow.
In order to improve the valuation, Gazprom was ordered to divest itself of its foreign currency holdings said to be around $25 billion in euros and USD. This caused the rouble to improve to 104 per dollar, but it has already begun sliding down again and is passing 105. Even the idea of getting back to 100 per dollar seems impossible right now. Russia has no more money spare to do the job from state coffers.
Urals Crude – the price Russia gets for its oil is around £67 which is a slight overall improvement, but legal trading is still barred above $60 on non-Russian owned tankers. However Russia has purchased almost the entire global fleet of ‘old and grey’ tankers tottery and maximize the price it gets. Western sanctions on the tankers are increasing at quite a pace, banning them from individual nations waters and ports and denying them insurance. There’s also a bigger effort to stop inter-tanker transshipment in international waters by monitoring the ships taking part and pursuing their owners and finances.
It has to be said that in the new year an oil price war is imminent as 1.1 million extra barrels per day starts shipping out of Saudi Arabia and the next US administration increases production further, creating what amounts to a glut in supply. That will knock prices down as much as ten dollars per barrel – hitting the Russians at the real rate for Urals Crude as well as the imposed rate. This is seen as a potential financial disaster for Russia that will cause income to drop alarmingly.
Gasoline prices in Russia are around 58 Roubles per liter to the customer. Prices are rising and have risen around 9.1% since 2023. Diesel prices are 69.34 roubles/liter which is the highest it’s been ever, achieved on December 9 2024. This is because of high military demand, but as much, the reduction in refining capacity inside Russia caused by Ukrainian action. Reduced profitability has further cut refining capacity by owner action . The need to import diesel from Kazakhstan and others has forced prices ever higher, which knocks on to the industrial sector and food production costs, further stoking inflationary pressure.
If you’ve been reading these articles recently, there is plenty of information I won’t repeat here. Take a look at this article for more information. However the trend towards what amounts to a war economy melt down is almost impossible to reverse now. Shortages from sanctions of key equipment from components to machines required to manufacture weapons components, have become dire. Even if they get hold of the Chinese equivalent, they’re usually not precise enough or fail to be reliable.
Payment issues with banks around the world simply unwilling to endure sanctions for some near valueless trade with Russia have hastened the economic demise. Getting that trade back post war could take a decade – if it can even be revived.
Another big interest rate rise is going to see many Russian businesses fail. Putin seems ready for that to happen if it means maintaining the war. He is quite literally all in, chips down, cards on the table. All it needs is for someone to call his bluff and the game’s over, that really is how tight things are.
Russian soldiers die in droves for Putin. Nobody really knows why anymore.
MILITARY INDICATORS
I’ve said before and will repeat here, there is a level of desperation to prove a point on the Russian side that’s absorbing vast amounts of their available material, and without question, their manpower. The death rate is way ahead of the recruitment rate by as much as 7:3. Recruits are repeatedly low quality and these days much older than would be regarded as viable in any other army.
The purchasing of North Korean forces and their integration into Russian units is another sign the Russian military just doesn’t have it in it any more. Experienced troops are rare because the lifespan is so short. While the Russians fight on much of the front, they’re making fewer advances at higher cost – only Pokrovsk which they have doubled down on is actually progressing. Retaking Kursk – the tiny fragment that Ukraine holds of it, will be used as propaganda. However the inverse is that the reality is, it’s likely to have taken nearly six months for the mighty Russian military to have reversed a situation that should have been easy. It was their own built in incompetence that dragged it out this long.
On top of this the Russian military has been denied the use of its glide bombs on the scale it was using them, because ATACMS puts the air bases in range. Increasing use of HARM, JDAM’s and other short range air launched missiles and guided bombs, suggest Russian air defences on the front are weaker and thinner than they have ever been.
Increasing Ukrainian drone sophistication and innovation has given them a battle field advantage. Increasing Ukrainian weaponry in the strategic sphere – longer range cruise drones, tactical night operating drones and ultra-long range drones, have and are, playing a vital role in destroying the Russian army support mechanism.
This is a war of attrition. Overall Ukraine is winning it, we’re nearing a decisive point. American aid is piling in to Ukraine at present, right when it’s needed. Aid is peaking at the very point the Russians are almost at maximum – one is grinding down the other faster and more effectively. We are in the Germany 1918 end game scenario. Ukraine just needs to hold on and fight like mad with no holds barred. I believe they can, eventually break the Russian army and render it almost incapable of offense, while the Russian economy undermines it from behind. These two aspects will prove fatal for Russia.
GEOPOLITICAL FACTORS
SYRIA
The situation in Syria has been a major disaster for the Russians, and they know it. The Z-bloggers on the Telegram channels are shocked and disappointed. They know this spells doom for the bases there. They know that in turn, spells doom for their disruption campaigns in N.Africa. Those campaigns are about instability, forcing migration and undermining European society.
The 2 million Syrians allowed in to Germany could be looking at leaving – its estimated at least half of them will, and that will be major relief for the left and centre right under pressure form the extreme right and pro-Russian AfD. German elections will be crucial in February. The next most likely chancellor is willing to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine and step up aid.
The Russian media are discussing Syria. It’s as if they don’t realize what they are responsible for and what the ‘Butcher of Aleppo’ General Surovikin, inflicted on the country during his tenure. They think on the one hand they made an agreement with the Assad regime to keep the bases there for another 48 years in 2017 – and that the new regime should honor that agreement. They won’t I’m sure of it. Turkey is telling the HTS to let the Russians leave, don’t engage them. Many Russian trucks are heading for Turkey, where they will travel overland and sea to Russia. Evacuation is happening.
Its been revealed that Turkey requested and assisted Ukrainian drone operators to aid HTS in the overthrow of Assad, as many as 20 were assigned with FPV drones, although it seems the course of events was too fast for them to be deeply involved. The fact that Ukraine was willing to do this and in conjunction with the Turks speaks volumes.
Again I cannot emphasize sufficiently that Russia has been made to look weak. Syria is a reality they cannot get away from and its made them look at themselves. Z-Bloggers, who are ultra-patriotic and support the war, are pointing out to their own followers – who number in the several hundred thousands each, what it reveals. They’re actually writing this stuff and so far getting away with it.
What has happened that we didn’t know. Where was the GRU and the FSB?
What else don’t we know that we should?
Our army is still stuck in villages obliterated by war and our advances are hard and costly, why haven’t we won yet?
The economy is in trouble, everyone knows it and yet nobody seems to be doing anything about it.
Nobody wants to talk to us anymore, not even our neighbors and supposed allies.
Everyone is drunk and nobody wants to pay any attention to what really matters.
Nobody wants to volunteer to fight, nobody cares if we win.
We look weak, anyone can see that fact.
What is our leadership doing about any of this? Will they see something needs to happen?
This sort of tone is truly extraordinary. They have finally been faced with a reality that’s impossible to escape, the government itself can barely believe it’s occurred, and can barely explain it. Even when it does it speaks in a tone that is unbelievable, it speaks as if it has something it can do about Syria, that its is powerful. And it isn’t and it can’t and anything that involves a threat is as hollow as an empty Russian Babushka Doll. This realization has shocked the entire country to its core. Its powerless.
Which brings them to the inevitable question, ‘why are we powerless?‘ The answer is simple: The war on Ukraine. And finally they’re beginning to see that the war isn’t making them powerful, or feared. It’s draining the life out of them, literally and economically. The war is the cause of all their problems. And this dawning realization has shocked its way through the system at an unusual and for Russian authorities, terrifying pace. Everyone knows and everyone gets what it means. And that single fact is one of the biggest psychological breakthroughs of the war so far. Do not underestimate its scale.
THE HOUSE OF CARDS IS FALLING DOWN
Georgia – the pro-Russian forces who rigged the election know they are on a slippery slope. They know they can’t be sure Russia really has their back. It all came undone so fast for Assad, they could be next, the country is teetering on insurrection. Nobody wants what the Georgian Dream leader, a billionaire who owns a Zebra wants – more ties to Russia and a loss of freedoms so hard won. He isn’t their dream, he’s their nightmare. Money is keeping the law enforcement officers on side and the army loyal for now. It won’t last. they’re on the wrong side of history and only a fool can’t see it. Presidential elections this weekend are going to be a watershed.
Just to make things worse the area of the coast occupied by Russia and Osetia both lost power in the last couple of days because Moscow isn’t paying the subsidies or keeping the generating capacity maintained. It seems they ran out of money.
Transnistria – that ridiculous fake state that sits barely a couple of kilometers wide between Ukraine and Moldova has also lost its Russian financing. Power cuts have been taking place. 2,000 depressed Russian troops who want to go home and have been stuck there for nearly three years, and have little to do except annoy people. The government there – it’s basically a monopolistic billionaire dictatorship run by a company called Shariff that owns everything, may be facing the loss of its backer.
Romania – the botched attempt to hijack the presidential election has shocked Europe. Germany, France, Bulgaria and other’s facing possible elections next year have been made very aware of Russian manipulation tactics – assisted by the Chinese – and are attempting to find ways of preventing similar electoral interference.
India – India has cancelled a Putin state visit due to happen in early January. The initial analysis I’ve been told, is that Prime Minister Modi thinks it would make him look weak by association. India, quietly, and with little fuss, has consigned Russia to the basket case category. Being associated with it and with Putin, so publicly now looks foolhardy. India always hedged its bets and now its seeing the odds go against Russia, its bailed out. It already has a problem on its hands of its own making. Excessive reliance on Russian military technology and equipment, especially for its army and air force. If India isn’t building it under license, future purchases seem unlikely. The Russian war machine hasn’t proved to be the advertising hoarding for the best equipment.
Russia gets this and despises it. It feels the Indians have used them for cheap oil but no longer sees it as the powerful supporter of Indian nationalism it once was. The fact is India has outgrown Russia and its dependency on it. It can find its own way.
Iran – Iran has suffered a shock of similar and equally fundamental size to Russia over Syria. Russia in their eyes, lost Iran its position there. The Russians blaming Iran for it has cooled relations. Iran has enabled and assisted Russia for nothing more than idealogical reasons – getting at Israel and the United States via Ukraine. The Ukrainians won’t forget it and they have an enemy for life in that country. Iran has to now decided if its ties to Putin and Russia will enable the theocratic regime’s survival, or hasten its end. They have no wish to be ousted form power in what would be a very ugly change of regime. Iran has played its cards badly and lost. Russia has been no help and in fact, worsened its position. That is not how things were supposed to go.
Africa – The Russian position there has been totally undermined by the loss of Latakia. Russian forces there know they have been cut off in part and the regimes they support and prop up will be wondering how long they’ll last. Turkish influence in Libya is growing, and the tide of change in Africa can swing quickly the other way. The Russians know this, the Z-bloggers know it, they lament it, they know they’re on a fools errand. They know it makes Russia look weak and it looks like it can loose. All the nukes in the world don’t change these facts – and that’s another reality they can’t comprehend clearly. Russia is a nuclear super power and what use has it been?
OBSCURING TRUTH
Russia has lived in a bubble of falsehoods for nearly three years. Nothing was going to stop it winning the war. Nobody dared to complain. A diet of Russian superiority from TV pundits left nervous speechless and stunned by the loss of Syria, has come at a time when the reality of what it means has hit everyone – except the one person it needs to.
Russians have suddenly realized the war is the cause of all of their problems. They will never have a true victory over Ukraine and they now know it. They have already failed, even if they still advance.
And it’s that crucial national awakening – that realization the war is pointless and always was, that by its end a million men will have died for an area the size of South Carolina. The economy will be wrecked, the country impoverished and loathed and it will have Ukrainians on its doorstep who will never trust them again for at least three or four generations, if ever.
And why? That god forsaken ridiculous idealogical clap trap that was behind it? Some schoolboy level regurgitated nonsense about Ukrainians being Russians and were never really anything else? The whole nazi government thing now barely mentioned, it was such a vacuous concept in the first place? The basis for war was never even vaguely reasonable. It was about conquest, and it was wrong, and deep down the more decent minded know it, because even in Russia they exist. The oligarchs know it, some of the military do and that number is larger than we realize in my opinion.
It’s this point that marks the turning point for Russia. Finally the blinkers are off. And that means it really is just about when, not if, Putin and his version of Russia is removed from the world stage.
How it happens, who knows? But it will. The pendulum has gone as far as it will go, it’s on its way back, hovering momentarily in that split second of hesitation between upward swing and downward return.
Russia in the next year is going to change. And it will happen when we least expect it and in the blink of an eye. What will it bring? An end to the war, but for Russia? That’s as open a question as you can ask.
The Analyst
MilitaryAnalyst.bsky.social
PUTIN’S RUSSIA WILL FALL
Posted on December 14, 2024 by The Analyst
In this article we’re going to look at the increasing pressure on the regime, both from inside and outside Russia. We will look at the causes of deterioration in the regimes position – much of it self inflicted. This will cover the latest economic news, military indicators and major geopolitical alterations, In addition, we’ll look at how these are no longer being successfully hidden from the general population, because eventually the information gets out. we’ll also look at what the regime is doing to prop itself up and to obscure the truths around what’s going on – and why that in itself is a contributor to regime weakness.
Economic misery brings a daily struggle in a remarkably unequal Russia
ECONOMICS
The next Russian central bank interest rate rise is likely to be announced at the board meeting on December 20, 2024. Financial analysts expect the central bank to increase the key interest rate by 200 basis points to 23% due to the recent depreciation of the ruble and persistent inflationary pressures.
The rouble recently underwent an improvement in its valuation from a weak point of 115 to $1 USD, back to 104. However this was yet another smoke and mirrors campaign as the rouble is not being freely traded, only available to selected brokers friendly to Russia, such as the UAE who have a vested interest because of their recently concluded trade agreement with Moscow.
In order to improve the valuation, Gazprom was ordered to divest itself of its foreign currency holdings said to be around $25 billion in euros and USD. This caused the rouble to improve to 104 per dollar, but it has already begun sliding down again and is passing 105. Even the idea of getting back to 100 per dollar seems impossible right now. Russia has no more money spare to do the job from state coffers.
Urals Crude – the price Russia gets for its oil is around £67 which is a slight overall improvement, but legal trading is still barred above $60 on non-Russian owned tankers. However Russia has purchased almost the entire global fleet of ‘old and grey’ tankers tottery and maximize the price it gets. Western sanctions on the tankers are increasing at quite a pace, banning them from individual nations waters and ports and denying them insurance. There’s also a bigger effort to stop inter-tanker transshipment in international waters by monitoring the ships taking part and pursuing their owners and finances.
It has to be said that in the new year an oil price war is imminent as 1.1 million extra barrels per day starts shipping out of Saudi Arabia and the next US administration increases production further, creating what amounts to a glut in supply. That will knock prices down as much as ten dollars per barrel – hitting the Russians at the real rate for Urals Crude as well as the imposed rate. This is seen as a potential financial disaster for Russia that will cause income to drop alarmingly.
Gasoline prices in Russia are around 58 Roubles per liter to the customer. Prices are rising and have risen around 9.1% since 2023. Diesel prices are 69.34 roubles/liter which is the highest it’s been ever, achieved on December 9 2024. This is because of high military demand, but as much, the reduction in refining capacity inside Russia caused by Ukrainian action. Reduced profitability has further cut refining capacity by owner action . The need to import diesel from Kazakhstan and others has forced prices ever higher, which knocks on to the industrial sector and food production costs, further stoking inflationary pressure.
If you’ve been reading these articles recently, there is plenty of information I won’t repeat here. Take a look at this article for more information. However the trend towards what amounts to a war economy melt down is almost impossible to reverse now. Shortages from sanctions of key equipment from components to machines required to manufacture weapons components, have become dire. Even if they get hold of the Chinese equivalent, they’re usually not precise enough or fail to be reliable.
Payment issues with banks around the world simply unwilling to endure sanctions for some near valueless trade with Russia have hastened the economic demise. Getting that trade back post war could take a decade – if it can even be revived.
Another big interest rate rise is going to see many Russian businesses fail. Putin seems ready for that to happen if it means maintaining the war. He is quite literally all in, chips down, cards on the table. All it needs is for someone to call his bluff and the game’s over, that really is how tight things are.
Russian soldiers die in droves for Putin. Nobody really knows why anymore.
MILITARY INDICATORS
I’ve said before and will repeat here, there is a level of desperation to prove a point on the Russian side that’s absorbing vast amounts of their available material, and without question, their manpower. The death rate is way ahead of the recruitment rate by as much as 7:3. Recruits are repeatedly low quality and these days much older than would be regarded as viable in any other army.
The purchasing of North Korean forces and their integration into Russian units is another sign the Russian military just doesn’t have it in it any more. Experienced troops are rare because the lifespan is so short. While the Russians fight on much of the front, they’re making fewer advances at higher cost – only Pokrovsk which they have doubled down on is actually progressing. Retaking Kursk – the tiny fragment that Ukraine holds of it, will be used as propaganda. However the inverse is that the reality is, it’s likely to have taken nearly six months for the mighty Russian military to have reversed a situation that should have been easy. It was their own built in incompetence that dragged it out this long.
On top of this the Russian military has been denied the use of its glide bombs on the scale it was using them, because ATACMS puts the air bases in range. Increasing use of HARM, JDAM’s and other short range air launched missiles and guided bombs, suggest Russian air defences on the front are weaker and thinner than they have ever been.
Increasing Ukrainian drone sophistication and innovation has given them a battle field advantage. Increasing Ukrainian weaponry in the strategic sphere – longer range cruise drones, tactical night operating drones and ultra-long range drones, have and are, playing a vital role in destroying the Russian army support mechanism.
This is a war of attrition. Overall Ukraine is winning it, we’re nearing a decisive point. American aid is piling in to Ukraine at present, right when it’s needed. Aid is peaking at the very point the Russians are almost at maximum – one is grinding down the other faster and more effectively. We are in the Germany 1918 end game scenario. Ukraine just needs to hold on and fight like mad with no holds barred. I believe they can, eventually break the Russian army and render it almost incapable of offense, while the Russian economy undermines it from behind. These two aspects will prove fatal for Russia.
GEOPOLITICAL FACTORS
SYRIA
The situation in Syria has been a major disaster for the Russians, and they know it. The Z-bloggers on the Telegram channels are shocked and disappointed. They know this spells doom for the bases there. They know that in turn, spells doom for their disruption campaigns in N.Africa. Those campaigns are about instability, forcing migration and undermining European society.
The 2 million Syrians allowed in to Germany could be looking at leaving – its estimated at least half of them will, and that will be major relief for the left and centre right under pressure form the extreme right and pro-Russian AfD. German elections will be crucial in February. The next most likely chancellor is willing to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine and step up aid.
The Russian media are discussing Syria. It’s as if they don’t realize what they are responsible for and what the ‘Butcher of Aleppo’ General Surovikin, inflicted on the country during his tenure. They think on the one hand they made an agreement with the Assad regime to keep the bases there for another 48 years in 2017 – and that the new regime should honor that agreement. They won’t I’m sure of it. Turkey is telling the HTS to let the Russians leave, don’t engage them. Many Russian trucks are heading for Turkey, where they will travel overland and sea to Russia. Evacuation is happening.
Its been revealed that Turkey requested and assisted Ukrainian drone operators to aid HTS in the overthrow of Assad, as many as 20 were assigned with FPV drones, although it seems the course of events was too fast for them to be deeply involved. The fact that Ukraine was willing to do this and in conjunction with the Turks speaks volumes.
Again I cannot emphasize sufficiently that Russia has been made to look weak. Syria is a reality they cannot get away from and its made them look at themselves. Z-Bloggers, who are ultra-patriotic and support the war, are pointing out to their own followers – who number in the several hundred thousands each, what it reveals. They’re actually writing this stuff and so far getting away with it.
What has happened that we didn’t know. Where was the GRU and the FSB?
What else don’t we know that we should?
Our army is still stuck in villages obliterated by war and our advances are hard and costly, why haven’t we won yet?
The economy is in trouble, everyone knows it and yet nobody seems to be doing anything about it.
Nobody wants to talk to us anymore, not even our neighbors and supposed allies.
Everyone is drunk and nobody wants to pay any attention to what really matters.
Nobody wants to volunteer to fight, nobody cares if we win.
We look weak, anyone can see that fact.
What is our leadership doing about any of this? Will they see something needs to happen?
This sort of tone is truly extraordinary. They have finally been faced with a reality that’s impossible to escape, the government itself can barely believe it’s occurred, and can barely explain it. Even when it does it speaks in a tone that is unbelievable, it speaks as if it has something it can do about Syria, that its is powerful. And it isn’t and it can’t and anything that involves a threat is as hollow as an empty Russian Babushka Doll. This realization has shocked the entire country to its core. Its powerless.
Which brings them to the inevitable question, ‘why are we powerless?‘ The answer is simple: The war on Ukraine. And finally they’re beginning to see that the war isn’t making them powerful, or feared. It’s draining the life out of them, literally and economically. The war is the cause of all their problems. And this dawning realization has shocked its way through the system at an unusual and for Russian authorities, terrifying pace. Everyone knows and everyone gets what it means. And that single fact is one of the biggest psychological breakthroughs of the war so far. Do not underestimate its scale.
THE HOUSE OF CARDS IS FALLING DOWN
Georgia – the pro-Russian forces who rigged the election know they are on a slippery slope. They know they can’t be sure Russia really has their back. It all came undone so fast for Assad, they could be next, the country is teetering on insurrection. Nobody wants what the Georgian Dream leader, a billionaire who owns a Zebra wants – more ties to Russia and a loss of freedoms so hard won. He isn’t their dream, he’s their nightmare. Money is keeping the law enforcement officers on side and the army loyal for now. It won’t last. they’re on the wrong side of history and only a fool can’t see it. Presidential elections this weekend are going to be a watershed.
Just to make things worse the area of the coast occupied by Russia and Osetia both lost power in the last couple of days because Moscow isn’t paying the subsidies or keeping the generating capacity maintained. It seems they ran out of money.
Transnistria – that ridiculous fake state that sits barely a couple of kilometers wide between Ukraine and Moldova has also lost its Russian financing. Power cuts have been taking place. 2,000 depressed Russian troops who want to go home and have been stuck there for nearly three years, and have little to do except annoy people. The government there – it’s basically a monopolistic billionaire dictatorship run by a company called Shariff that owns everything, may be facing the loss of its backer.
Romania – the botched attempt to hijack the presidential election has shocked Europe. Germany, France, Bulgaria and other’s facing possible elections next year have been made very aware of Russian manipulation tactics – assisted by the Chinese – and are attempting to find ways of preventing similar electoral interference.
India – India has cancelled a Putin state visit due to happen in early January. The initial analysis I’ve been told, is that Prime Minister Modi thinks it would make him look weak by association. India, quietly, and with little fuss, has consigned Russia to the basket case category. Being associated with it and with Putin, so publicly now looks foolhardy. India always hedged its bets and now its seeing the odds go against Russia, its bailed out. It already has a problem on its hands of its own making. Excessive reliance on Russian military technology and equipment, especially for its army and air force. If India isn’t building it under license, future purchases seem unlikely. The Russian war machine hasn’t proved to be the advertising hoarding for the best equipment.
Russia gets this and despises it. It feels the Indians have used them for cheap oil but no longer sees it as the powerful supporter of Indian nationalism it once was. The fact is India has outgrown Russia and its dependency on it. It can find its own way.
Iran – Iran has suffered a shock of similar and equally fundamental size to Russia over Syria. Russia in their eyes, lost Iran its position there. The Russians blaming Iran for it has cooled relations. Iran has enabled and assisted Russia for nothing more than idealogical reasons – getting at Israel and the United States via Ukraine. The Ukrainians won’t forget it and they have an enemy for life in that country. Iran has to now decided if its ties to Putin and Russia will enable the theocratic regime’s survival, or hasten its end. They have no wish to be ousted form power in what would be a very ugly change of regime. Iran has played its cards badly and lost. Russia has been no help and in fact, worsened its position. That is not how things were supposed to go.
Africa – The Russian position there has been totally undermined by the loss of Latakia. Russian forces there know they have been cut off in part and the regimes they support and prop up will be wondering how long they’ll last. Turkish influence in Libya is growing, and the tide of change in Africa can swing quickly the other way. The Russians know this, the Z-bloggers know it, they lament it, they know they’re on a fools errand. They know it makes Russia look weak and it looks like it can loose. All the nukes in the world don’t change these facts – and that’s another reality they can’t comprehend clearly. Russia is a nuclear super power and what use has it been?
OBSCURING TRUTH
Russia has lived in a bubble of falsehoods for nearly three years. Nothing was going to stop it winning the war. Nobody dared to complain. A diet of Russian superiority from TV pundits left nervous speechless and stunned by the loss of Syria, has come at a time when the reality of what it means has hit everyone – except the one person it needs to.
Russians have suddenly realized the war is the cause of all of their problems. They will never have a true victory over Ukraine and they now know it. They have already failed, even if they still advance.
And it’s that crucial national awakening – that realization the war is pointless and always was, that by its end a million men will have died for an area the size of South Carolina. The economy will be wrecked, the country impoverished and loathed and it will have Ukrainians on its doorstep who will never trust them again for at least three or four generations, if ever.
And why? That god forsaken ridiculous idealogical clap trap that was behind it? Some schoolboy level regurgitated nonsense about Ukrainians being Russians and were never really anything else? The whole nazi government thing now barely mentioned, it was such a vacuous concept in the first place? The basis for war was never even vaguely reasonable. It was about conquest, and it was wrong, and deep down the more decent minded know it, because even in Russia they exist. The oligarchs know it, some of the military do and that number is larger than we realize in my opinion.
It’s this point that marks the turning point for Russia. Finally the blinkers are off. And that means it really is just about when, not if, Putin and his version of Russia is removed from the world stage.
How it happens, who knows? But it will. The pendulum has gone as far as it will go, it’s on its way back, hovering momentarily in that split second of hesitation between upward swing and downward return.
Russia in the next year is going to change. And it will happen when we least expect it and in the blink of an eye. What will it bring? An end to the war, but for Russia? That’s as open a question as you can ask.
The Analyst
MilitaryAnalyst.bsky.social
