Nukes in Belarus: open thread
Edward's weekly Russia news roundup & open thread
Welcome to Edward Slavsquat’s Sunday link dump & open thread. Feel free to shill URLs in the comments section.
So … what’s the latest and the greatest?
Tactical nukes will be stationed in Belarus (apparently in response to the UK’s eagerness to supply depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine): “There is nothing unusual about this … The United States has been doing this for decades. They have long placed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territories of their allied countries, NATO countries, in Europe…,” Putin said. True. [TASS]
About 5 million tons of wheat and about 700 thousand tons of sunflower have accumulated in warehouses in the Rostov region. Exports have been hampered by sanctions and logistical problems. [donnews.ru]
Magnit Pay—a cashless payment system introduced by one of Russia’s largest supermarket chains—is being discontinued. Cash is still king? Rubles or bust? [VC.ru]
Ukraine wants to increase the cost of transit of Russian oil that it sends to Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic via the Druzhba pipeline. Ukrainian pipeline operator Ukrtransnafta believes the price hike is necessary to cover the cost of “restoring the oil transportation infrastructure destroyed during hostilities [with Russia].” Read that again very slowly, pour yourself a cup of chacha, and quietly cry yourself to sleep. [Kommersant]
Kazakhstan is launching a tracking system to “to demonstrate compliance with Western sanctions against Russia and sanctioned parallel imports.” [Vedomosti]
“The Kremlin continues to ignore the betrayal of the oligarchs.” [Katyusha.org]
Links from around the interwebs
Rolo’s recap of the Not-War [Rolo Slavskiy]
Many fancy poisons were used to murder old people during the “pandemic” [Daily Beagle]
Was the collapse of SVB deliberately orchestrated? The latest from Iain Davis [Geopolitics & Empire]
Monitoring social media for Thought Crimes: Yes, it’s also happening in Russia [Anna Rudneva]
Your correspondent spoke with James Corbett about friendly NGOs in Georgia [Corbett Report]
We also had a nice chat with Jesse Zurawell [TNT Radio]
It was also fun to catch up with John OLoughlin. At some point during our talk we confused the terms sovok and vatnik, but these things happen [McDuff Lives!]
Have a restful Sunday.
I listened to this one,
https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/e/riley-waggaman-on-perspective-with-jesse-zurawell-22-march-2023/
Riley Waggaman on Perspective with Jesse Zurawell - 22 March, posted 3/23/23, 56 minutes.
They start by talking about events in Georgia, including the recent short-lived “Maidan” and the situation there. They follow with a very extensive conversation regarding the Russia/Ukraine war. Russia’s alleged winter offensive to end the war has….evaporated. The city of Bskhmut is about the fall, same as it has been for the last several months. Analogy to “COVID” and “two more weeks.” And even if, so what? Riley, presenting the perspectives of Military Review, a Russian patriot web page run by military and retired military people, and of analyst Rolo Slavkskiy, pours scorn on the analysis pushed by western commentators/analysts (unnamed, i assume he means the likes of Scott Ritter and retired US officers as well as political commentators like Matt Ehret) who keep talking up the Russian prospects.
Excellent point about how the pivot role in the Russian military effort is being played by a private company, Wagner Private Military Contractor, the Russian equivalent of Blackwater, which is also involved in Africa, and how the western analysts are totally silent about this matter. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the oligarch (and close Putin friend) who “founded” Wagner, has stated that at the minimum, it will take another two years for the Russian military to secure even the Donetsk Basin. There is no way either side wins this war, it is a needless slaughter.
In the meantime, Russia/Ukraine business ties continue, including the shipment of oil and gas from Russia to the rest of Europe through pipelines traversing Ukraine. Zurawell also brought out interesting business development in the Congo, where recently Russian oil giant Lukoil bought two off-shore fields jointly with Italian oil giant Eni, one of the world’s 7 largest oil companies. Eni has also made deals with Chinese multinationals. So much for a fight to the death between BRICS and the “collective West,” aka the US empire.
They then discussed the Russian biosecurity state, which has subtly become a part of daily life. For instance, more and more schools have instituted rules requiring their students to undergo daily temperature checks. The idea that the multipolar world order will bring more freedom to the people of the world by pushing the evil US empire out of the way is utterly ludicrous, shows the pathetic poverty which afflicts the ranks of political activists in the “collective West.”
My extra 4 cents worth: the capitalist system has since its emergence in history a few hundred years ago always had at its core two essential and contradictory dynamics. One is the inexorable tendency toward centralization and concentration of wealth and power. The Great Reset is an example of this, and explains much of what i’ve discussed in the previous several paragraphs. The other is an inexorable tendency toward competition and atomization, as competing interests develop even within what initially appears to be absolute consensus. There can be only one top dog in a global order based upon competition, being at the top simply means everyone else will be gunning for you. Sooner or later, the factions of the powers-that-be will go to war, even while they jointly implement the Great Reset. At any instant, it’s impossible to say which tendency will prevail. But the basic dynamic in the universe is toward higher entropy, meaning that fragmentation will be favored in the long and perhaps even not-so-long run.
Russian football clubs are struggling to fill stadiums as fans protest against ID requirements. Some tickets going for 10 rubles (US$0.13).
https://www.rt.com/russia/573474-football-rpl-fan-zenit/
I don’t suppose it’s enough to cancel the post-human future on its own, but well done, malchiki.