Let’s start off with the debate which indirectly segues us into Ukrainian war developments.
First off, we all know the debate is inconsequential and nothing more than a charade. That being said, it’s obvious a large psyop was pulled off given the fact that Biden was in no way any worse in the debate than he has been in any of his recent interviews or speeches. In fact, if you really had to objectively score it, it’s arguable he won the debate against Trump, given that despite his obvious mental decline, he at least was able to recite the memorized facts given him after CNN undoubtedly leaked all the questions to his camp. But even despite those advantages, Trump rarely cited any facts or semblance of a plan, and merely squandered his time defensively backbiting, repeating the same three talking points or tediously boasting how everything associated with his administration was ‘the greatest ever’ and anything of his opponent’s is ‘the worst ever’.
So what I mean to say by that is: the sudden, totally coordinated “outrage” and faux-shock from pro-regime media pundits and MSM outlets is clearly orchestrated in order to merely use the debates as the springboard to let Biden off gracefully. They couldn’t do it before because it would have required them to admit Biden was mentally compromised at a time they were still hoping to hold out and prop up the desiccated corpse. But the concerted nature of the now contrived apoplexy allows them to use the debate as a smokescreen to sort of collectivize their hypocrisy and previous covering for Biden by hiding each individual voice in the loud chatter of the wider corporate media cacophony—this way you can’t call out a particular one of them for being a hypocrite, but are rather forced to chalk it up to an organic process, which it clearly wasn’t.
But to attuned observers, the fabricated nature of the outrage is clear to see because Biden is obviously no worse today than he was just a day ago, a week ago, or even months ago. The debate showed no sudden inexplicable “change”, apart from his slightly hoarse voice, claimed to be the result of a ‘cold’. As other commentators have noted, it’s obvious they moved the debate up to a much earlier date than normal (the first 2020 debate was nearly in October) in order to give the DNC time to dump Biden and find someone new. That much is indisputable and is only confirmed by the contrived “shock” by people who long knew—but purposely concealed and dismissed—Biden’s total mental incompetence.
In essence, the conversation went like this: “Look, something’s gotta be done—we need to get rid of him. But for now let’s hold the line and continue pretending everything’s rosy. Once the debates go down, we’ll announce he’s suddenly suffered a catastrophic decline and declare him unfit in unison, in order to protect us individually from accusations of contradicting ourselves.”
It was, nonetheless, amusing to see how quickly corporate media switched up on Biden, here suddenly characterizing his administration as ruled by the ‘oligarchy’:
With that baseline covered, let’s move on to connected events.
Something strange is brewing under the surface the last few days, which appears connected to Biden’s controlled demise. It began when Zelensky did a sudden about-face and started talking not only about peace, but even strangely admitted that Ukraine is suffering major casualties:
All of the sudden, there’s not much time left, according to Zelensky, and he doesn’t want to have this war drag out for ‘years’ because there are many dead and wounded.
He then pushed this idea, claiming they are developing productive capacities just in case, but are now seeking to put together a peace proposal by the end of the year:
This comes after MSM itself has again begun spotlighting Russia’s productive achievements in the military sphere:
The new report grimly states:
Western sanctions have failed to undermine Russia’s weapons production and Moscow has even managed to ramp up the manufacturing of key weapons to fuel its war against Ukraine, according to a new report by a London-based think tank.
It even gives an insightful breakdown of some of the key munitions expansions:
In 2021, before Russian forces invaded, Moscow produced 56 Kh-101 cruise missiles a year. By last year, it had manufactured 460 cruise missiles, according to the report. Russia’s stock of Iskander ballistic missiles also has increased dramatically, from about 50 before the invasion to 180, even though Russia has launched large numbers of the missiles on the battlefield, it said.
Of course, this earlier report citing hundreds of North Korean factories working ‘at full capacity’ may have something to do with the West’s sudden consternation:
One supposes such manufacturing power makes the West’s eyes water and causes them to think twice about a war of attrition against the Russian-led bloc.
This may have something to do with it as well:
Remember when the narrative was that it was Russia totally reliant on Western-supplied parts in its weaponry? Here an American general literally admits the entire U.S. military structure would collapse in a day if China issued an embargo against them:
‘If we were in a war with China and it stopped providing parts, we wouldn’t be able to build the planes and weapons we needed,’ he said.
A startling report released earlier this year revealed Chinese firms have a stranglehold across 12 critical technologies that are vital to US national security, including nuclear modernization, hypersonic and space technologies.
The study, which was carried out by defense software firm Govini, delivered a damning indictment on the American armaments industry.
‘U.S. domestic production capacity is a shriveled shadow of its former self,’ the report said.
‘Crucial categories of industry for U.S. national defense are no longer built in any of the 50 states.’
Remember when it was Russia using Western chips in all of its missiles?
Perhaps most worryingly, Govini found that more than 40 per cent of the semiconductors that sustain Department of Defense (DoD) weapons systems are now sourced from China.
How the tides have turned.
It seems the West is slowly coming to its awakening moment: it stands no chance in a long term conflict against the manufacturing powerhouse of the Russia-China-North Korea-Iran bloc.
The establishment appears terrified that there’s a real chance the coming wave of patriotic political figures will can the entire deepstate project. Not only did Trump just say that Russia, China, and North Korea are not true enemies of America, implying that under him they won’t be, but other populist figures are looking to curb or scuttle the neocons’ global plans:
The leader of France’s far-right National Rally, Marine Le Pen, has warned that President Emmanuel Macron will not be able to send troops to Ukraine as army chief if her party forms the next government.
“Armed forces chief, for the president, is an honorary title as it’s the prime minister who controls the purse strings,” National Rally’s leader in parliament said in a newspaper interview.
This bodes very badly for Ukraine’s prospects.
And establishment mouthpieces have already recently been crying alarm that without the U.S., NATO itself will collapse:
Not to mention many other small cracks forming in the “unified front” meant to buttress the Ukrainian simulacrum:
Another recent article after the failed Swiss peace summit stated:
“If Zelensky’s summit showed anything, it is that international support for eternal war is on the wane and the time of ugly compromises is beginning,” the article says.
The latest rumor from Legitmny channel states that Zelensky’s team is panicking over what Trump specifically will do upon taking office, and it does sound like a realistic set of possibilities:
We confirm the information colleagues in the Office of the President panic after the debate of Biden and Trump.
Zelensky and Ermak began to worry even more that Biden could lose power, which would affect them.Our source points out that Trump can accuse the Ukrainian leadership of corruption, start a large-scale audit and call for democratic elections in order to have a legitimate president of Ukraine with whom to conduct a dialogue. Until that moment, all funding will be suspended.
As you understand, elections are death for Zermak, which means that they will now try in every possible way to remove their competitors and rivals (there may be accidental deaths and the work of the Russian DWG).
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The other major worry that has now spooked the Western establishment is the reluctant realization that Russian elites have fallen into line, dashing countless propaganda longshots about Putin due to be overthrown ‘any moment’ by his revolting “oligarch class”. The latest issue of CFR’s Foreign Affairs bites down on the bitter pill:
When the war in Ukraine began, the Russian elite entered a state of shock. As the West imposed sanctions and travel bans, Russia’s rich and politically connected citizens became convinced that their previous lives were over. Battlefield losses quickly piled up, and many deemed the invasion a catastrophic mistake.
But that was then. As 2023 wound on, elites started endorsing the war. More musicians began traveling to perform in the occupied territories. In October, Fridman returned to Moscow from London, having decided that life in the West under sanctions was unbearable and that the situation in Russia was comparatively comfortable. And there have been no new recordings of oligarchs grousing about the war. In fact, it is hard to imagine such conversations happening.
And why have these elites stopped worrying about the war? Foreign Affairs spells it out—they can now clearly see that Russia is winning:
This quote epitomizes the slant of the article:
“It’s bad to be an outcast as a winner, but it’s worse to be an outcast as a loser,” one Russian oligarch, who had criticized the war before but now seems to understand it, told me. (He, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity, to protect his safety.) The oligarch said that everything in Russia has changed: attitudes toward Putin, views of Ukraine, and outlooks on the West. “We must win this war,” he told me. “Otherwise, they won’t allow us to live. And, of course, Russia would collapse.”
The article goes on to note that the only remaining question on the oligarch’s minds is what, precisely, would constitute a Russian victory; or, in other words, how far should Russia go? In discussing the takeover of Kharkov, they state promisingly:
But as horrible as this outcome is, it is the least terrible vision championed by Russia’s elite. According to one businessman with close connections to the Kremlin, Putin won’t be satisfied by winning Ukraine’s northeast. The only outcome he will accept is the capture of Kyiv.
They specify that Putin and Belousov both have a sort of religiose fondness for Kiev and its Orthodox Lavra monastery, a resting place for many venerated Russian saints.
Putin harbors a special, almost mystical connection with the Ukrainian capital, which he views as the cradle of Russian civilization.
They end on this ominous note:
If Russia launches a second campaign to capture the Ukrainian capital, the military would likely begin its offensive in Belarus, just as it did in the winter of 2022. It would probably involve, as it did then, Russian troops driving through the radioactive wasteland surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. But many in Moscow believe that this time, with Russia’s military hardened and Ukraine’s reserves weakened, their country could win. In the view of Russian elites, Ukrainians are simply too tired to put up another tenacious defense.
And it is on that note that we move into the latest strange news. Belarus has done readiness checks and redeployed additional forces on its westernmost border owing to what they state is a Ukrainian troop build up in the Zhitomir region:
RT military correspondent Pridybaylo writes that the plan to seize the territory of Belarus by collaborators, according to him, was approved by Boris Johnson. He notes that strike forces are located in both Ukraine and Poland. The purpose of the operation, in his opinion, is the destruction of Alexander Lukashenko
The Chief of Staff of the Belarusian Ministry of Defence said that Ukraine has intensified the movement of its forces on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. Additional Belarusian army forces are being deployed in the area.
The Ministry of Defence also reported that, in the context of Ukrainian UAV activity, it has also withdrawn air defence forces to cover the border and critical facilities in the republic
One Russian analyst’s take which I naturally agree with:
Ukrainians are massing troops to the border with the Republic of Belarus. At the same time, Ukrainian special services became more active in this direction. For what? The Ukrainian Armed Forces already have a lot of problems at the front. Why drag Belarusians into the war against themselves?
In my opinion, the main goal of Ukraine is to draw NATO into an open and maximum confrontation against Russia. Having provoked Belarus to a military response, NATO will have a more compelling reason to send a “peacekeeping” contingent to the territory of Ukraine on the border with the Republic of Belarus.Thus, sending the Armed Forces of Ukraine, border guards and police from the rear regions into the meat grinder of the eastern front. And right-bank Ukraine will be technically annexed by NATO countries.
Another Belarusian army spokesman confirms this is an attempt by Ukraine-NATO to drag Belarus into the war:
And a Russian expert discusses the developing situation on a Russian talkshow:
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In general, it’s clear that a confluence of negative outcomes is starting to come together to paint a worst case scenario outlook for Ukraine’s prospects. When you take into account the likelihood that Trump will win, that Macron and other European bigs will lose power, with others like Farage and Le Pen ascendant, the rumors of North Korean involvement and Iranian treaties, the destruction of Ukraine’s electric grid and incoming catastrophic winter, the sudden uncharacteristic peace pleas from Zelensky and total failure of Ukraine to secure anything of consequence whatsoever at the assortment of pointless NATO and EU summits, it becomes evident that hope is quickly waning for Ukraine.
Of course, some will claim that the rumors of secret negotiations between Russia and the West have to be taken into account. After all, wasn’t it Putin that extended the first major negotiations offer recently, just on the eve of the Swiss summit? Seymour Hersh followed up with his ‘secret sources’ that Putin and U.S. are carrying out backdoor peace talks.
However, one thing I haven’t seen any other analyst cover is the fact that Russia officially denied any such peace talks are going on—I believe it was Lavrov or Peskov who stated it last week, directly responding to Hersh’s claims.
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In the meantime, Russia continues to build up its military potential and asymmetrically respond to the West’s aggression. There are rumors that Russia has sent overtures toward arming the Houthis and potentially Hezbollah, to which Israel has shown great concern, with one Israeli official pleading that they must be very careful with angering Russia:
Vladimir Putin ‘considered’ providing anti-ship missiles to the Armed Forces of Yemen, stated Middle East Eye, citing an anonymous senior U.S. intelligence official.
US intelligence claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked Saudi Arabia for permission to arm Yemen’s Houthis with cruise missiles. At the same time, there are reports from Sanaa of a series of attacks on ships in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. It is reported that the Yemeni armed forces, together with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, attacked the oil ship “WALER” in the Mediterranean Sea with the help of several drones. There are also reports of a missile attack on the American ship Delonix in the Red Sea, as well as the defeat of the Johannes Maersk ship in the Mediterranean Sea using a cruise missile. In addition, an operation was carried out in the Red Sea against the ship Ioannis, which was attacked by several unmanned surface boats
On top of that, Putin has now announced that Russia may resume manufacturing medium range ballistic missiles—precisely the kinds banned by the previous INF treaty which the U.S. abrogated:
Russian analyst Older Eddy gives his take:
The expected launch of production of new medium-range missiles in order to scare NATO is correct, but it should be understood that it will scare them only in terms of direct conflict with us. And then we must discount the presence of inadequates like the Poles and the Baltics, who may try to start a war purely to draw allies into it. There are people there who seriously believe that nuclear war is better than negotiations with Russia on the fate of Ukraine.
But in Ukraine itself, we will still have to solve everything by our own forces, and nuclear weapons, no matter whether they are strategic or not, will not help us. The West will still be ready to give everything it can, as long as we fight there longer, and the loss of the Khokhl in this process is the last thing it is interested in. The only thing that can seriously hinder the West in this endeavor is the loss of Ukraine’s ability to maintain troop numbers at the front. This can be achieved both by their losses in battles, but this is a long way off, and by the destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure – in which case they will need people in the winter to stabilize the situation in the cities left without light and heat. So the most interesting news now is the results of our strikes on the energy and transportation networks of the khokhlah. It is well within our power to render them inoperable, causing fragmentation of the country with the destruction of the unified transportation and energy system.
That’s not to mention that Russia has now stated the West is in danger of having its ties officially downgraded in their entirety by Russia:
As many know, Russia moves very slowly—slow to saddle, fast to ride, as the mot goes—but when it does, it moves with heavy, enduring consequence.
As I said, all the while, Russia is building up its resources and offensive potential. Unlike the West’s own dismal showing and inability to translate platitudes into action, Russia is sticking to its plans and promises:
The latest above quotes ISW with the news that Russia has created a whole new combined arms army which is now deploying units to Ukraine:
Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW)
Quote: “The Russian military is currently undergoing large-scale reforms, however, including the creation of new combined arms army level formations, and Ukrainian sources’ references to a ’51st Army’ may constitute an early indicator that Russia has formed another combined arms army for deployment to Ukraine.”
And a new Ukrainian report claims that Russia is building up forces this time in the south, in preparation for a new southern offensive somewhere near Ugledar or the Zaporozhye region:
Meanwhile, in NATO:
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There continue to be breakthroughs on the front; in fact, today was so busy, with so many new advances all over the map, that I decided to not even bother covering them all until there’s a bit more decisive consolidation of captures.
But the song isn’t over yet for Ukraine, in fact soon will be an upcoming big piece to discuss how Ukraine could still potentially pull off a ‘win’ of sorts.
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We’ll end with some sundry items of interest:
Here Arestovich describes how 6 separate Ukrainian battalions on the Toretsk front mutinied and fled, which has allowed some of the Russian breakthroughs noted above:
Meanwhile, Aidar big Ihor Mosiychuk just two days ago described how Russian missiles wiped out another officer’s billet in Kharkov, killing at least 15 AFU and wounding dozens more.
The Russian rear strikes are doing massive damage—here’s another from today which blew away an entire Ukrainian train said to be full of armaments and Western gear:
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By far the most ‘presidential’ moment of the debates, really symbolic of what America has become:
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Lastly, I’ll leave you with this new apropos Russian ad:
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