Aryan race lol on the left coast. That would be a new one. Its plainly obvious you are either here or north of the border. And not elsewhere overseas.
A lot of sanction discussions flying around today. Most sounding really flaccid. Not much left to sanction that has not been overly discussed. The usual Germany gas discussions, and the like, and a couple more of the Russian banks that were left untouched for all the overly discussed reasons. Joe keeps responding with "sanctions". It will be bigger and ballsier this time." Okay, whatever. And some pundit on Bloomberg was just saying that there might be bigger and more sanctions on more of the oligarchs. WOMP! Just recycling the same old stuff now. Mayber bring Kamala and Blinken out again and have them declare how sanctions are designed to deter. Then next day Joe says "we never said they were to deter." And around and round we go.
Welp, this is best situation map in approximately 40 days. The war moves to the east now… There’s lots to think about if you’re Ukraine. With troop turnover impending on the Russian side, do you want to settle in and let fresh conscripts replace the current batch that should be pretty beat up or do you want to start moving on them now? I don’t know. There’s lots and lots of repositioning going on right now. I will say this though as I have been drilling this down, the Ukrainian forces are now mostly veterans and have built strong units who know how to work together. It’s a distinct advantage over the Russian forces who failed at almost every objective and are in a state of retreat now. Im thinking the proper way for the Ukrainians to take the offensive is moving into the Kherson area trying to roll the Russians back to the east.
A lot of this is Germany and gas, as you have said. The German defense minister has now publicly said the split needs to happen. He understands the Russian threat from the Europeans paying for gas is a return of less friendly mini Soviet Union. Try to wrap your minds around that, a Soviet Union worse than the previous version. Let’s see what they do but I don’t think the Europeans are in any kind of loving mood right now.
This is hilarious - from RIA - Russia's "Information Agency": On the left is April 1st. On the right is April 3rd. The red striped "Zone of active military operations" has changed to "Zone of holding back Ukrainian army". Oh an the title changed from "Successes of the special operation" to "Conduct of the special operation". Quite a change in 2 days wouldn't you say?
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland announced that they will completely close their borders with Russia and Belarus within 48 hrs. That is, nothing goes in or comes out. No cars, trucks, trains or people. Which (look at the map) basically cuts Russia off from Europe completely.
There was a report this morning that the Ukrainians engaged Chechnyan/sp fighters in the east and the Chechnyans either folded or did not prevail. It may just be one engagement but when one becomes two and if the same thing happens with the big, bad syrian foreign fighters then that is a bad sign for Vlad's attempts to fight his evil war with mercenaries. He is counting on them a bit too much. Yes, the Ukrainians are experienced fighters now, but in addition they are being advised and supported by the Americans. The American military is excellent - smart and capable and adaptive when left to themselves. When the Beltway politicians and generals get involved they become a complete clown show, so that is equally true. The american military is designed to work in units that are flexible and use their own brains and skills to adapt. Just what the Ukrainians need. This is in contrast with the Russians whose military is still a top down command and control structure. They put a massive force together and point it at the enemy and send them out to hammer away. It works when it works. The minute they need to adapt to some changed situation though, they dont know why they were there in the first place nor do they know how to collaborate and put together a unit by unit strategy. Not saying the Americans are on the ground there . Not saying they are not either. Their influence and support are though.
Belarus is the one that "gets lost in the shuffle". The West should be trying to put the squeeze on them just as hard to set an example of those who would cooperate with Master Pu Putin.
Sort of a complicated and ironic situation there in Germany because Sholtz owes his ability to put a coaltion together to form a government to the Green Party. And the Greens are 150% against activating Nordstream 2 or getting gas from anybody anywhere even if the whole country freezes to death or if dirtier sources of energy are then developed elsewhere. Just saying, Sholtz has more support now from the hawk-ish "screw Russia" types but just as a twist of fate his granola-brie-and-chablis party is on board too. Although warm weather a/k/a springtime also lets them be more flexible too. Politics......strange bedfellows...etc.