The thing I love most about NZ is that when something truly huge happens, like Russia invading Ukraine, the Project/7 Sharp shallow news models have all the intellectual depth of the ZM Breakfast Show & watching our faux journalist broadcasters struggle is divine.
Putin’s live rant/demented history lesson explaining why he’s going to start a war was as glorious as it was crazy!
The American media shat its collective pants that they had to livestream a Russian leader giving them a perspective that was about as close as the Anti-Christ taking confession.
It’s a fascinating insight into Putin’s paranoia – starting at the Bolshevik Revolution with arguments Lenin used!
If only America started wars like this!
I loved how Putin had all his officials on screen telling him they agreed with his plan so that there was no worming out of it, that is in of itself an interesting insight into the balancing act Putin will be walking with this own Military and Government.
I think Putin made his call to invade the Ukraine when he saw the West attempt a coup to his South last month with the sudden explosion of violence in Kazakhstan.
Russia was always going to send troops to support the Kazakhstan government, the country is simply too important for Russian strategic interests to allow a revolution to sweep away their pro-Moscow regime.
The Russians have their Cosmodrome there, their secret hypersonic missile test range and Russian owned uranium mines.
Russia saw this attempted revolution as part of a hybrid war strategy that America and the West are conducting by seeding Western NGOs into civil society to ferment populist uprisings, which is what also happened in the Ukraine in 2014.
For Russia this is existential meddling in their neighbourhood and the likely response was always going to be a push back in the Ukraine with an invasion.
Launching the war at the opening of a UN Security Council was just so gangster.
There are of course winners and losers.
WINNERS:
A New White Angry Christianity: Annexing Eastern Ukraine and stealing a land corridor for Crimea makes geo-political sense if Putin is responding to the West’s attempted coup in Kazakhstan last month and is wanting to reassert Russian dominance in its sphere of influence, but invading Kyiv makes no sense UNTIL you over lay the greatest winner in all of this, White Angry Christianity.
Because we have the attention span of 1 season of Married At First Sight, we don’t appreciate the power and importance and motivator Russian Orthodox Christianity plays out in all of this.
In 988AD, Vladimir the Great, whom Putin takes his name from, mass baptised 1000 Russians at the River Dnieper in what has become the founding spiritual moment in Orthodox Russian Christianity as the moment Russia became Christian and led to a cultural narrative structure that Moscow is the third Rome and was a homeland for Christianity.
What isn’t widely known is that Putin himself is a very staunch Russian Orthodox Christian and that he has used the Russian Orthodox Church as an enormous control mechanism over the Russian people.
Putin has spent billions rebuilding the Churches smashed down by Communism and uses his relationship with the Church for political advantage. It was the Orthodox Church who first praised Putin for annexing Crimea, a region with much religious importance for the Church.
Recently the Ukrainian branch of the Orthodox Church severed ties with the Russian branch because they felt Putin was having too much influence over it.
If Moscow is the third Rome, Kyiv is the second Jerusalem.
Putin is taking Kyiv and I believe will actually annex it, along with the Ukrainian East and the Crimean land bridge, leaving Western Ukraine as the shattered corpse of left overs.
Putin won’t occupy the Ukraine, he’ll just take what he believes is already Russia’s and leave Western Ukraine as his evidence that he isn’t occupying because he’s just moved the borders.
Taking Kyiv will be celebrated by the Russian Orthodox Church as the great Christian defender Putin recovering the Cross Christ was crucified on. The Church’s support will garner him enormous domestic power over Russians.
Putin sees himself as part of a long line of Christian Defenders of the faith, we have utterly missed this in the West because the baseline intelligence software to be able to see Putin as a Communist AND a Christian isn’t possible because we are using up too much memory tweeting about our feelings being triggered.
A new angry white Christianity is erupting here with intense violence, and misreading the drivers of Putin means we will fail at stopping him.
Next stop will be Bosnia/Herzegovina…
As The World Watches Ukraine, Possibility Of Disintegration Looms In Bosnia
…Putin is doing this for God. We should all be very very very very frightened.
Stock Market, Oil Barons & the Military Industrial Complex:The Dow Jones just remembered they make money from war and after initial stock market implosion, bounced back spectacularly. The Oil Barons are dancing with oil back over $100 barrel and the Military Industrial Complex is already licking its lips in grotesque profit anticipation.
China: Xi told Putin not to invade during the Olympics. Putin did as he was told. China wins.
A View From Afar: Thank God there is this NZ podcast to explain what the bloody hell is going on.
LOSERS:
Ukrainians: Their dream to live an agency within Russia’s shadow has been crushed. Pity and weep for their invaded hopes and the vast mass of innocent who will live under a Soviet tyranny.
Biden, Pax Americana and NATO: They have ignored Russia’s insecurity and played hybrid war games to erode Russia’s buffer. Their weakness at being able to stop Putin meaningfully attacks their credibility, not his. Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal will punish him in the 2022 mid term and lay the ground for Trump’s return.
Global Economy: This will hurt the economy globally…
What a Russian invasion of Ukraine would mean for the global economy
Why it matters: If there was a Russian invasion, there would not only be geopolitical shockwaves and human tragedy, but it also could upend markets and strain the global economy.
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- The largest country on earth by land mass, Russia is a commodities giant, ranking as a top producer of natural gas, oil, nickel, palladium, copper, coal, potash, wheat and more.
- Disruptions to Russian exports — either at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s say-so or due to sanctions — would drive up commodity costs, adding to global inflationary pressures and supply chain disarray.
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State of play: Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas and crude to the European Union.
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- Oil prices briefly jumped above $96 a barrel on Monday — the highest since 2014 — as investors grew skittish about continued access to Russian crude.
- Natural gas is an issue too. Europe — particularly Germany — is most exposed should supplies of Russian natural gas stop flowing. More than 20% of Germany’s gas flows from Russia, so a gas shutoff to the European economic and export giant could hurt growth and reverberate throughout global supply chains.
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Yes, but: The impact of a disruption of Russian raw materials would be broader. It’s difficult to predict how the dominoes would fall.
Worth noting: High prices are also incentivizing American energy production.
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- U.S. oil and gas giants have discussed plans to boost production, particularly in the Permian Basin in West Texas.
- American liquid natural gas exports to Europe have surged, amid a push to replace lost Russian supply.
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What we’re watching:
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- Inflation: If oil prices hit $120 a barrel — as analysts think could happen if Russia invades — that could make the recent inflationary surge more long-lasting than economists now think. (Central banks are watching. More on that later.)
- Autos: An invasion could break another link in the rickety auto supply chain. Russia is the world’s biggest supplier of palladium used in catalytic converters that scrub auto emissions.
- Wheat: Russia is the world’s third-largest wheat producer — Ukraine too is a massive wheat farmer — and prices for the grain could spike on an invasion, even without major disruptions of shipments. (That’s what happened during Russia’s 2014 takeover of Crimea.)
- Aluminum: When Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska — who controlled Russian aluminum producer Rusal — was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2018, it set off a 30% price surge.
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Western Hypocrisy: Listening to the West denounce Russia’s invasion would be fine if I hadn’t watched us invade Iraq the first time, invade Afghanistan and invade Iraq a second time.
Not to mention America’s funding of far right paramilitary death squads throughout South America in the 1970s.
The West lost our moral high ground a long time ago!
NZ TV Media: Russia invades Ukraine and SevenSharp is asking ‘are you using your dishwasher properly’. This is why our media are a joke – this is why our fellow citizens are so blind. 7 Sharp and The Project are happy meal current affairs based on the ZM Breakfast Madhouse level of intellectual curiosity.
People of Russia: Over 1700 arrested on the first day of invasion. The People of Russia want peace and right now we all need Sting!
PREDICTIONS:
My guess is Putin will take Eastern Ukraine and carve out strategic assets along the Black Sea. He would require at least 450 000 troops to occupy the whole of the Ukraine and he’s only mobilised 200 000 so I don’t think he’s taking the whole country, he’s moving troops into regions that are already in dispute, however along the coast where he will attempt to clear a path to Crimea there may well be heavy fighting.
I didn’t think Putin would invade Kyiv, but its role in his own religious faith and the importance of it for Orthodox Russian Christians makes it symbolically too important.
Putin won’t go any further West than Kyiv and leave the scattered bones of whatever is left as Ukraine to limp away mutilated.
His taking of Kyiv will be celebrated by Orthodox Russian Christians and bolster his mad gamble domestically.
The focus now goes on Biden’s response.
If Biden takes the ‘nuclear option’ of sanctions, he will cancel all international SWIFT banking from interacting with Russian banks. Biden is seen domestically as weak after the Afghan fiasco and he will need to look tough and the severing of Russian Banks from the global banking network is the most muscular move he can make.
Russia who see their invasion of the Ukraine as geopolitical even stevens however will consider such a move as a provocation that goes too far rather than a legitimate response.
Maybe this is the over reaction Putin is looking for to launch a far wider level of conflict chaos?
Consider the following, Russia responds to Biden’s banking over reaction with grey war tactics and launches cyber strikes while tearing open conflict in the Middle East by giving Iran the last pieces they need for nuclear capability.
Iran gaining nuclear technology is a red line for Israel and the Russians know that.
Israel responds with a massive never before seen military strike on all Iranian nuclear assets which causes oil prices to explode and supply chains to freeze to a stand still.
And Putin supports the Bosnian Christian nationalists and brings about a coup in the heart of Europe.
If Putin as defender of the Homophonic Christian faith finds a new home narrative amongst the Right in the West, his power builds enormously in America and Europe.
If conflict spreads, inflation jumps to double figures as global economies implode.
This starts in the Ukraine but could end with Israel bombing Iran and a Bosnian revolution.
Chaos would reign and Russia wins when chaos is unleashed.
Watch for China to attempt its own symbolic show of strength while Biden is dealing with Putin.
Constant external geopolitical shock waves are the new post Covid normal.
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Other’s would see this as Putin’s last gamble. He is not the most loved man in Russia. Not least with the middle classes just getting used to having true middle class income stream and assets.
The other side off the loss of resources the rest of the world needs, is the loss of currency coming into the USSR.
Never underestimate the power of the Russian oligarchs. Putin is in their pocket. If the oligarchs lose income or influence through Putin not doing what is required to keep them as feudal overlords, they will remove him pronto.
This is what happened in the Ukraine. Oligarchs out Russian troops in. Old news from May 2021 but still relevant.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57198736
shhhhh gerrit I don’t wanna be the one to break the news to you, BUT the USSR doesn’t exist anymore.. but keep it under your hat
Nitpicker. yep you are right Russia it is.
Though Putin would love to put the USSR back together.
New red hat “Make Union Soviet Socialist Republics Great Again”. Not the same gravitas as the Trump hat.
I’d buy that hat for a ruble
just in case note sarcasm
He wants the Tsarist Russia that existed before 1917.
so not the reincarnation of the former USSR then?
No. Putin is not a communist or supporter of communism. While he uses Soviet imagery and USSR-style rhetoric at times, it is purely for political purposes, to gain the support of old Russian boomers who long for the Soviet era.
He wants the Old Orthodox Holy Russia of old, and with him as a Tsar-like figure.
he uses the orthodox church and the cult of the GPW just like ‘the greatest generation’ the ‘dunkirk spirit’ and the kiwi obsession with ‘gallipoli'(more nzers killed on the somme)…..so his advisors are good at empty PR tropes seems to be your charge…not alone amongst worlds leaders in that is he?
Have I missed something? Or is it that war is escalating out of nothing in particular?
I don’t get it.
The U$A has everything one could need or want, the UK retains it’s tea sipping pomp, the EU has confusion which leads to tears, Russia has bitter cold and beautiful people so they can be proud of their stoicism in good company, the Chinese are rooting like Gerbils while eating deep fried chicken tonsils so they should be happy, Sou East Asia is peaceful and sanguine in their Paradise and we, us lot, are lucky to such a point that it should surely redefine the word ‘lucky’.
So what the fuck’s going on?
You never get requests to ‘occupy’ instead of the threat of ‘invasion’ do you? Where the enemy invites you over for a month long orgy to sample the best Ecstasy and Sildenafil the once-were weapons labs could make and if you survived you’d get a medal and a Skoda to carry your smoking genitals home in.
None of that. Oh, fuck no. It must all be about vicious cruelties and terrible violence… but why?
That wanker in that russian war ship? He said to those guys on Snake Island ” Stand down and drop your weapons.” They said ” Go fuck yourselves” So the russians murdered all 13 of them.
What the russians should have done is taken the good advice offered to them. They should have also made light of what was said. Hearts would have been won over, see. But oh no. Out come the small penises then boom-boom-boom. Jizz-jizz-jizz.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/ukraine-soldiers-told-russians-to-go-fuck-yourself-before-black-sea-island-death
Yes countryboy, those Ukaraine soldiers were slaughtered, it wasn’t even a fight, they lost their freedoms.
Losers:Land occupiers in Wellington and Free Tamaki protesters crossing the harbour bridge on understanding what real freedoms look like.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/?ref=nzhps-generalnorthisland
they were offered surrender, they chose their fate…brave fuckers though…war is a silly fuckin game and should be avoided…
Ok the dirty politics team will be brain washing and mobilising the right wingers to blame the Russian invasion on Labour and Jacinda because we didnt send our tiger moths to support Ukraine. The Tory times and TorytalkZB are already edifying seymore and luxon as great white hopes to save the right in Aotearoa from the communist labour party.
TM. While I agree with you on most of your posts I’m sucking my cheeks in on “ beautiful people” If any other nation has elevated cheating and lying into an art form it is Russia. I suspect a massive inferiority complex by their leaders and right wing voters!
The bit about Putin’s lackeys all agreeing with him reminds me of the Simpsons Mr Burns “yes men” sketch. In any other situation it would be funny but here it is bizarrely droll.
Imagine if there wasn’t a NATO, and the US running interference?
Imagine this conflict being played out on US soil?
Imagine Jacinda flying to the Ukraine and Russia to talk to Zelensky and Putin to bring peace in the East!
She would then become the Queen of the world of peace making!!
Then she could come home and speak to the protesters on Parliament grounds. Just imagine the PM having the courage to do that?
Imagine Jacinda dropping a bomb on parliament grounds or the harbour bridge to rid those who have broken away from N.Z.? She would be the pride of the world.
With Germany changing their mind and deciding to supply weaponry.
It’s going to turn into another War in Europe. They want regime change in Russia and it’s gonna cost them. Berlin should get nuked and so should Washington for instigating all this.
It’s the beginning of the end of capitalism. Green Washn Capitalism didn’t last long!
I don’t think the russians want to take kiev purely because you don’t take tanks into urban warfare, the germans learnt that at stalingrad and the russians did in berlin…so all in all I think putin is looking for no nato in the ukraine and annexation of the donbass…countries are easy to invade but difficult to hold as the west knows only too well from recent history.
Totally agree. Just look at the toll taking tanks into urban areas in Syria. Like roman candles the tanks were.
I still think he will enter Kiev and try to take the government down. Put in a puppet government.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10551327/Chechen-special-forces-hunters-unleashed-Ukraine-detain-kill-Kyiv-officials.html
As all war history shows, one thing to occupy, another to hold. So one does a surgical cull of the leaders and fill the vacuum with friendly to the cause puppets.
Here’s a fantastic piece by Russell Brand. Yes. The actor/performer. I know, I know. Give the guy a chance though. He’s a bit brilliant and he has a great woodshed.
YouTube.
“Russia has invaded Ukraine – according to the much of the MSM and certain politicians it’s as simple as Putin being the new Hitler. But is it that simple? What role did our own governments play? And are we headed towards WW3? ”
https://youtu.be/595Esg6Mz0U
That brand of stirrer, probably great for beating up eggs and frothing coffee with his finger, or perhaps his tongue. If it was a woman she would be derided doing on like that. So watch out, maybe he’s a turncoat or whatever the name is, you may not know! Some women I know could be even zanier so take care whom you listen to.
“who will live under a Soviet tyranny” – say what? The USSR hasn’t existed for three decades
100%, Russia attacks a former ally, who can trust the Russian leadership, they’re a international disgrace.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/462355/is-vladimir-putin-secretly-rich-why-sanctioning-russia-s-leader-over-invading-ukraine-is-so-tricky
There are so many elements to criticise to anything that smells of Russia, except vodka which doesn’t. Russians rich – shouldn’t be. Don’t look at the world economic lurch produced by USA deficit and free markets and how top people there and elsewhere don’t pay any tax, especially many Presidents. And the houses, that they put up in extravagant style and then can’t sell – that is a difficulty for the odd USA pop star. And their Savings and Loan small mortgage collapse which is probably paralleled world-side now.
I still like this short few minutes on video that the young ones enjoyed for a while. Possibly they are all well off but it seems innocent fun to remember. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47T6e7CNHZs
Ukraine – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A03siUGRs0
Sir Tony of Baghdad is a lifelong devout & radical Catholic.
While doing God’s work, he spread his perverse form of crusader kindness around the planet, and interestingly, also found time to mentor our beloved ‘leader’ for her future in the Empire’s ‘New Labour’ boiler room.
This here is a refresher from a passionate young Russian, with a memory of what phony Tony stirred up, lest some of us have conveniently forgotten.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OisJkpGYpAo
And if you’ve a slightly open mind, or are just a teeny weeny bit curious, it might be possible to learn a thing or two from views other than from our myopic mainstream media mantra.
Andrei is well connected in all things Russian & many commentators here are on the ground.
Btw, it was 82 Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered on Zmiiniy (Snake) Island, last reports were they are pow’s now.
https://thesaker.is/day-3-of-the-russian-operation-in-the-ukraine-open-thread/
Just maybe the way to winning hearts & minds doesn’t involve the wholesale slaughter of civilians.
Just saying.
I think a read of Trotter’s article from last Friday is worth reading to get a better understanding and ‘context’ of how hypocritical those Nazis in Europe are.
“ON CHRISTMAS EVE 1991, Germany and Austria, without warning or consultation, recognised the independence of Slovenia and Croatia.
Six months earlier, on 25 June 1991, these hitherto constituent republics of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had declared themselves independent states. Naturally, the Yugoslav Government objected in the strongest terms and sent its army north. NATO’s Secretary-General, the former British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, attempted to negotiate a peaceful settlement.
Sufficient progress was being made for the Yugoslav Government to order the army’s tanks back to their bases. Its consternation, when the newly re-united Germany recognised the breakaway republics’ independence, and Austria partially mobilised its armed forces along the Slovenian border, is readily imagined. The Americans, the EU, and the United Nations were equally non-plussed.
Yugoslavia may have been crumbling, but the unilateral recognition of Slovenian and Croatian independence by Germany and Austria undoubtedly hastened its disintegration. The tragic consequences: civil war, murderous ethnic cleansing, NATO’s assault on Serbia (the largest of the Yugoslav successor states) cost tens-of-thousands of innocent lives.
Were Germany and Austria punished for their deliberate fracturing of another European state? Did the United States, the EU and NATO impose a devastating regime of sanctions upon them? Were massive supplies of weapons shipped to Yugoslavia in an attempt to keep its fragile constitutional architecture standing? Was the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, vilified across the Western news media as another Adolf Hitler? Did his neighbours manoeuvre hostile battle-groups along his country’s borders?
Of course not….” https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-west-will-ignore-putins-weary-anger.html
DP. Your knowledge of what’s happened and happening in the Ukraine and Slavic states is impressive. I did read Chris’s analysis and got some understanding from that. As we know most of the human war and destruction comes from ethnic and religious differences. Europe is no different. The fragile peace between these factions is delicate indeed. As you say NATO has played its part in in the disruption and demise of some of these states. But it seems to me a special kind of madness takes the final decision to make war. Putin’s obsession with his version of history may be accepted in the disputed regions but not in the majority of Russia or Ukraine. So we are looking at extremists actions. In my opinion that’s why Putin is widely condemned because he is extremist. Most people just want to get on with their lives. I believe he’s a loser whether he succeeds or not. He’s overplayed his hand and even if he takes Kiev most will look upon him as an arsehole. Which of course he is. Whether he wins this battle or not he won’t be acceptable to most countries in the world. He is now also a liability to the Oligarchs. He may need to lock his door at night.
This is our Poland. Re-democratization and return to truth from proof after the devastating decline of these since the Freemarket revolution. If we all remember WW 2 then the polies around the world certainly do. It is our only universal framework for this challenge.
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