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Originally posted by second:
CNN reported on March 11 that NATO intelligence estimates that Russia is producing about 250,000 artillery munitions of unspecified caliber per month totaling about three million shells per year.[20] A senior European intelligence official reportedly told CNN the US and Europe can collectively produce only about 1.2 million shells of unspecified calibers per year for Ukraine. CNN stated that the US military set a goal to produce 100,000 shells per month by the end of 2025 and noted that this is less than half of Russia’s current monthly production, but US Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Doug Bush stated on February 5 that this goal of 100,000 shells per month by 2025 only refers to 155mm artillery shells and does not include shells of other calibers that the US produces and that Ukrainian forces use.[21] NATO intelligence estimates of Russian artillery munition production cited by CNN likely include various calibers of munitions, not just 152mm shells that are the analogue to Western 155mm shells, and is likely not a direct comparison to the West’s goals for the production of 155mm shells.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-march-11-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

There is a pattern to their madness, tho. They launched drone attacks near the Zaparozhiy Nuclear Power Plant, a drone attack on a Russian power plant in Rostov, and one of the cross border raids was aimed at a Russian nuclear weapon storage facility, no less. Not that Kiev in trying to steal Russian nuclear materials. Kiev just wants to create a nuclear incident on Russian territory during Russian elections.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

There is a pattern to their madness, tho. They launched drone attacks near the Zaparozhiy Nuclear Power Plant, a drone attack on a Russian power plant in Rostov, and one of the cross border raids was aimed at a Russian nuclear weapon storage facility, no less. Not that Kiev in trying to steal Russian nuclear materials. Kiev just wants to create a nuclear incident on Russian territory during Russian elections.

SECOND: In the real world, paranoid fantasies are most often a means of justifying preemptive atrocities. “If we don’t kill them now, they’ll kill us later” is a staple of right-wing nationalist SECOND'S rhetoric ....

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Europe Panics As Trump Rises From The Political Grave
Saturday, Mar 16, 2024 - 07:30 AM

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

So last week was fun.

It started with the US Supreme Court’s 9-0 beatdown of using the 14th Amendment to punish political opponents.

Then the Wicked Witch of Kiev, Vic(Toria) “Cookies” Nuland was forced out at the State Department after decades of torturing the world with her psychopathy.

Then Donald Trump pretty much sent Nikki Haley back to her Waffle House outside of Greenville.

It ended with French President Emmanuel Macron making “believe me” eyes at the world that NATO was ready and willing to send troops to Ukraine. Whose troops? Clearly not French troops, which are only good at this point for “going on safari in northern Africa,” according to Col. Doug MacGregor.

Also, clearly not British ships, which can’t seem to get out of port. I think I’m noting a kind of tit for tat going on between Boeing airline failures and British naval ones… but I could just be conspiratorial like that.

*bong*

No, the answer has always been that it would be US troops in Europe fighting Europe’s war that everyone — The UK, Davos and their EU apparatchiks, and the US Neocons — thought would be a slam dunk to bleed Russia out.

And I’m sure that’s exactly the way they plotted it out in their Microsoft Project file over at Globalist Central.

That has obviously not taken place and it is Ukraine that is now in serious trouble. Truth be told, which has been in very short supply since the war started two years ago, Ukraine has always been in serious trouble.

And that has led, predictably, to the situation we see now. US support for Project Ukraine is coming to an end, if it hasn’t ended already. And the panic in Europe is palpable.

This was all very predictable if you accepted the framework that there was a split at the top of the US hierarchy. One faction committed to the Davos vision of the future which implied a compliant, even beaten, US and another that looked up from their quote screens and said, “Uh… no.”

The handwriting was on the wall about eight months ago when the big NATO Summit in Vilnius ended with the whimper by then UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace. Wallace was supposed to replace Jens Stoltenberg as NATO General Secretary and was shot down by no less than Joe Biden (JOAH Bii-Den!).

After that, there was no more real talk of Ukraine joining NATO. Zelenskyy went back to Kiev with the big sads after Biden gave him nothing as well. Then, in October, US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was ousted in a coup by Matt Gaetz and a handful of GOP fiscal hardliners.

They immediately got new Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to tie all further foreign aid funding to as many spending cuts and dollars for border security as a slim majority in Congress would allow.

And since then Biden has been forced to look under the couches at the Pentagon for a few spare millions to send to Ukraine. He found 300 of them the other day As bad as things are, that the number starts with an ‘m’ rather than a ‘b’ has to be considered a victory.

The Senate tried to blackmail Johnson with their ridiculous $95 billion aid bill and Johnson just ‘boss moved’ Chuck Schumer by calling a two-week recess. Now, the best they can hope for a smaller bill with a lend/lease contingent with no money going to ‘humanitarian aid’ — a euphemism for pocket lining.

And despite his movement towards the Senate warhawks, Johnson is still using Ukraine aid as a means to push domestic funding reforms first. Every day these things are haggled over is another day which runs out the clock on Project Ukraine as Russian forces take towns and villages daily in the Western Donbass.

Again, not an ideal solution by any stretch of the imagination, but a Pyrrhic victory nonetheless.

But this is the state of play after last week and it’s far better than it was at the beginning of the year, since this money was already expected six months ago.

It’s put Europe in the position of finally removing the mask completely. Because as the US keeps slowly pulling away from Ukraine the calls from the EU for America to stay the course grow louder and more strident.

Remember, that in 2022-23 when it looked like the US was hellbent on going forward in Ukraine, European leaders like Macron and others were more circumspect. They wanted to virtue signal about the dangers of Ukraine escalating. They got to look like the moderates in the war room, while still sending billions in aid and weapons, arm-twisting everyone into compliance.

The mask-off event for Europe’s real position on this war was their threatening Hungary’s Viktor Orban with complete economic devastation if he didn’t allow their $50 billion aid package to go through the European Council.

Now that all of Nuland’s military plans have failed, Ukraine’s army has been destroyed for the third time, and all of their attempts to undermine the US legally and economically (Powell must Pivot!) have fizzled, Europe finds itself in the blind panic.

Because as poll after poll suggests, Trump will return to the White House in January and has plans to end the killing and the other shenanigans in Ukraine quickly. Orban is acting as Trump’s voice of reason to both Eastern Europe as well as Russia itself.:

Orban, who spoke with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Friday, did not explain how exactly the American would do that, but said that cutting the flow of US aid was a crucial part of the plan.

”If the US will not provide the money, Europeans on their own will not be able to finance this war, and then the war will end,” Orban said in an interview with M1 broadcaster on Sunday.

During his presidency, Trump had shown himself to be “a man of peace,” the Hungarian leader claimed. That stance puts him in alignment with Hungary, unlike the administration of US President Joe Biden and many members of the EU, he added.

”The American Democratic government and the leadership of the EU, as well as the leadership of the largest EU member states are pro-war governments. Donald Trump is pro-peace, Hungary is pro-peace. At the bottom of everything lies this difference,” Orban declared.

Trump’s many things, but he is no dummy when it comes to money. Cut the flow of funds and you end the war. The wildcard is the seizure of Russia’s foreign exchange assets which would be the dumbest thing all these people could do. This is why they won’t shut up about it.

For his part, Putin is as done with the current regime in the EU as he is with the Biden junta in the US. He’s tried to reason with them, and all we hear is the most over-the-top vitriol from the usual suspects, like Macron.

Putin understands now that the only diplomacy will occur is at the point of his gun or not at all. And if Ukraine is going to escalate on behalf of Europe to attack critical infrastructure inside Russia he will take the gloves completely off, rather than just carpet bomb the line of contact.

I told you last year that no matter what the West thinks there will be “No Truce With the Heartland.” And the way for Russia to beat the west in Ukraine was to continue letting them think they had a chance to win by leaving just enough hope to have the West keep funneling billions into a slaughterhouse.

But, regardless of any of that, there will be no truce in the Heartland. Russia will not back down. China will back them to the end, as will OPEC+ and the rest of Central Asia. But they will not escalate one inch further than they need to. Allowing the West to keep thinking they can win is the ultimate form of grinding out a superior opponent.

And even if Ukraine winds up being a decade-long meat grinder with no clear victor, it will serve everyday as a warning to the rest of Asia that there is no going back and their future is better served with their neighbors than accepting bribes to remain viceroys on the West’s payroll.

Soulless ghouls like David Cameron and Lindsey Graham think this is the best money ever spent, killing Russians without any real European or American lives being spent.

I guess Slavs aren’t people too.

And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s exactly what has happened, Russia has led Europe into the ultimate cauldron, which now looks more like a political and economic black hole. And we’re far beyond the event horizon.

What it has done has left the world with no doubt what the real agenda behind this war, which really has very little to do with Russia itself.

The real agenda is preserving the colonialist business model of old Europe and Great Britain which the US was seduced into believing we were equal partners in. Clearly we aren’t in their minds.

If I’ve come to understand anything over the past few years of covering geopolitics it is that every time you think you understand the imperatives behind current events, another layer is peeled back to reveal an even deeper truth.

And today that deeper truth is that this is Europe’s war with Russia because with a Russian victory in Ukraine they are at the mercy of all the world’s major energy producers — the US, Russia, the Middle East.

This isn’t about Russia’s aggression, or the redrawing of borders through military means.

So, with their true face revealed and their quislings in the US Capitol calling in every marker, we’re going to watch this tragedy drawn out for another year or two in the hope that the US commits suicide on their behalf. For whatever reason actually motivates them, people like Mitch McConnell, Graham and John Cornyn will happily sell what’s left of the country out to salvage their own pathetic skins.

The fact that they’d do this for a bunch of equally pathetic Eurocrats is the most tragic part of this entire affair.

But this is how change ultimately has to occur, by pushing the real motivators to the front of the stage, shining the klieg lights on them and watching them squirm before unleashing another round of rotten food at them.

And what better humiliation for them than for Donald Trump to be the guy passing out tomatoes…

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“I don’t even know how to respond to such impudence.
The EU has stolen $300 billion worth of Russian assets and is now demanding that Russia return gold to Romania. There is nothing to say except f*** off,”

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Since western media deliberately mangles what Russian officials say, this is what Medvedev posted on social media

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“I don’t even know how to respond to such impudence.
The EU has stolen $300 billion worth of Russian assets and is now demanding that Russia return gold to Romania. There is nothing to say except f*** off,”

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Indeed.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'd need to see the original quotes, in full, and in context.

But you have no interest in truth. Your mission here is to spread lies. Keep up the good work discrediting yourself.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'd need to see the original quotes, in full, and in context.

But you have no interest in truth. Your mission here is to spread lies. Keep up the good work discrediting yourself.



SECOND: I'd like to see the original quote, in full, and in context that convinced you I have no interest in truth.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Son, you post about Medvedev is just the latest example of your disinformation campaign, and I already handed your ass to you on that one.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And now for some real news.

Many of the missiles are being launched from Czech "Vampire" MLRS. Putin has said these attacks will not go unpunished.

I wonder what Russia will do, and who will get punished?

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Originally posted by second:
Putin’s Friends Celebrate Re-Election With Photos of Mass Hanging
YES, THAT’S A THREAT

Images of Russian “traitors” being executed were shown on state TV in a chilling warning about the next six years of the “Supreme Commander.”

By Julia Davis | Mar. 18, 2024 3:16PM EDT

https://www.thedailybeast.com/putins-friends-celebrate-re-election-wit
h-photos-of-mass-hanging

“Everyone understands, Russia is currently in a certain historic stage. It would be incorrect, not to say criminal, not to support the Supreme Commander.”

Referring to the enemies of Putin’s regime as “Vlasovites,” Bulatov said that a picture is worth a 1,000 words and put up a photograph of what happened to Andrey Vlasov, a controversial figure in Russian history. Showcasing a graphic picture of a mass hanging, Bulatov said, “Here they are! This is how they ended up. There is no other way. Enough with half-measures. Traitors have to be dealt with in a radical way.” Serukhanov chimed in, “This is it, this is the only way.”

It should be noted that Russian propaganda uses broad strokes in describing not only armed resistance, but Putin’s opposition leaders as “Vlasovites.” For years, Putin’s top propagandists referred to Alexei Navalny as a “traitor” and argued that he deserved to die. The main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in prison, just in time for Putin’s big show.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Huh. And yet, no picture of "the" picture. So for now, this is more of a "somebody said that somebody said" story.


As usual, the western press and SECOND thrive on snippets, misquotes, and rewrites [lies].

What Putin said was that altho there is no death penalty in Russia, if Russian citizens are found fighting for Ukraine they will be dealt with as traitors, including on the battlefield.
THAT'S a threat

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Seems like Macron, Scholz, and Tusk are burying the hatchets ... In each other's backs.

SIGNYM

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