Britain broke his ultimatum and nobody says a word about it. Good. It’s not like something to rejoyce over. He might remember his ultimatum to Great Britain about not allowing Storm-Shadow long-range missiles to be sent. Let’s remember it: The ambassador in London hand-delivered the ultimatum. It was an ultimatum. It was in the media. Zhakarova announced it herself too (without make-up like always for that day). It was a solemn ultimatum, like “if you send long-range weapons and they’re used, there will be a direct retaliation against G.B.”
I’d be lying if I said I was worried about that ultimatum. I wasn’t because it was obviously not well conceived and, like all such things in something so grave, it was not serious. For days now, Ukraine and Britain have spoken publicly about increasing the number of British long-range missiles for Ukraine, in front of TV cameras.
Alas, no reporter asks about the ultimatum (good, but weird). I wonder if moon of Alabama and Ritter and Johnson remember it. If they don’t, what does it mean (chuckle)? Is it ignored in Russia?
I don’t think it’s ignored in Russia. There have to be normal people who remember and see that it’s being broken. Ukraine already used them in October. It said what it struck and the exact location 220 miles from Moscow. Russia only said that it had not “detected” them. I guess Putin could say that “it’s broken” but Putin won’t do it. The only time in which Putin fulfills this ultimatum is in a nuclear war that ends all, and under no other circumstance. This is why it was known that it was a poorly conceived and false ultimatum.
Was the war decision poorly conceived? Of course it was. It was wrong, and the implementation was as bad as Prighozin used to decry often in public (desperate). He was asking for Gerasimov to be removed, his biggest demand. Well, events since then have made clear that he just knew what he was talking about; of course, he was ideally placed to know it. I thought he was an FSB agent playing an act, but the realization of the enormity of the truth, assuming he was really speaking honestly, as now we know that he was, was apparent too. How Putin exploded his plane in the sky. This is not a likelyhood. We know for a fact he did. He finally said, in public, that they were drugged and drunk and exploded themselves with their own grenades, and the results of the “investigation” were never released after he said that. And nobody asks him about the result of the investigation into Prighozin’s death.
Is this bloody invasion of Russia something anyone should support? Maybe at the beginning, but meanings change with time and circumstances, as more information comes in. Any such support today is very poorly conceived. It’s clear it didn’t invade just to stop a “genocide.” It invaded for all the different reasons it has said that it invaded for, where the Russian hubris of owning Ukraine is looking as even a stronger reason than any “security guarantees.”
They make clear the laws of war must be respected/followed, that to the victor belong the spoils, and all must accept that. The problem for Russia is that it doesn’t even have a correct assessment of the state of the war. Let’s say it has the Gerasimov assessment of the war. Prighozin would not accept it. No one should by now. Russsia is doing all it can to occupy Pokrovsk, but Putin made a false assessment of the situation there because it wasn’t, and it isn’t, really encircled, and it was silly to be so eager as to invite the international media to go. The final result of the battle could go either way. It would not be surprising if Rusisa wins this battle at a great cost, but it won’t be soon, apparently.
Putin looked good before. He saw an opportunity in the NATO expansion motive and went for it. So, was the mainstream view correct in saying that Russia had an aggressive design in this invasion? I did not think so at the beginning but it turns out that they were more right than wrong in that, and that I was wrong (I lacked info.), and it’s been a long, long time since they have mentioned the original strongest reason for the invasion (the genocide reason). That’s the last reason now, and the first are the war reality. If it at least they read it well, but it’s Gerasimov there, and Putin in the Kremlin…
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