This is #theGreatDecoupling between the West and Russia. Economic linkages will be cut down to only energy and a few other commodities & chemicals that Europe is dependent on Russia for. The West controls and has weaponized their entire economy in their war to break Russia. 1/-
^ 2/- Political, social and cultural linkages will also be severed to a high degree. Weaning Russia off this dependence will be hard and immiserating. But with Chinese and some other Eurasian support, Russia may just weather it. The entire global economy will suffer as well.
^ 3/- But once the dust has settled and new domestic and import substitution formed - Russia will at least be economically & financially independent from the West. They will never again be able to weaponize their economic hegemony to coerce, blackmail, or wage war on Russia.
^ 4/- The same weaponized economic war too will also soon be turned on China and the Rest of the world's holdouts from US-led Western Hegemony. The Unipolar world will truly be over, but the Multipolar world will be stillborn by US attempts to hang on to their hegemony.
5/- Instead US/Western pressure will directly result in the formation of an anti-Western bloc led by China and Russia for survival and independence. Neutrality will be difficult to maintain. A new Bipolar world is coming into being, just decades after the last ended.
6/- The Golden Age of the Global Internet is also now over resulting not from Russia closing itself off, but by censorship and exclusion by Western and the social media platforms and the internet fixtures they control - because they don't trust their own people to hear alternate
7/- perspectives and narratives and judge on their own.
The world's internet will now break down into regional spheres with limited connectivity. It will be a new, much smaller, less connected, more localized and divisive world.
8/- We are of course already seeing the physical connections around the world break down - with closures of entire swathes of the globe's surface to each others' airlines and global shipping connections being severed one by one as we speak.
9/- Global distribution networks will be disrupted & chaos result for months. Because Russia & Ukraine are primary sources of so many of the world's commodities - energy & food costs around the world will skyrocket. In the First world prices will go up, in the Third - starvation.
10/- Ultimately the cause was the US-led West trying to maintain and extend their Hegemony, while they can and Russia resisting it. NATO expansion east in waves. US meddling and hybrid warfare to bring into power pro-Western/anti-Russian govts in formerly neutral, unaligned,
11/- national identity-divided post Soviet states was the endgame of this NATO expansion to geopolitically consolidate all of Europe under US-led Western Hegemony up to Russia's borders. Russia resisted this geopolitical flipping by color revolution in Georgia, Belarus & Ukraine
12/- And now the ultimate target of this economic war on Russia is forcing regime change in Russia itself for having the temerity to resist the Hegemon's geopolitical expansion right on her very borders.
13/-The great Realist IR scholar Mearsheimer foresaw all of this. As did Kissinger, George Kennan US Ambassador John Matlock and many others. They tried to warn what the consequences of the US trying to geopolitically flip Ukraine would be, but to no avail
16/- For Russia the only path forward, the goal to survive is, must be - separation, autarky (self-sufficiency), and independence from US-led Western Hegemony.
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"International 🦘 Court" not recognized by Russia, Ukraine, the US, China and others issues headline-generating propaganda as part of the information war, while conveniently ignoring the West-backed Putsch regime in Kiev repressing & mass murdering its own people for 9 years.
^ For the "crime" of east Ukrainians moving their own children & orphanages out of the conflict zone and range of the West-backed Putsch regime in Kiev that has been shelling them for 9 years. @bopanc
^ What the "ICC" has actually done here with this absurd geopoliticized attack is made themselves irrelevant and practically ensured the death & dissolution of this kangaroo court. Political suicide. @bopanc
NATO feels they can hit Russia through Ukrainian Putsch regime proxies anywhich way they want because they no longer fear a Russian escalatory response, except against said Ukrainian proxies which they don't care about.
1/- archive.is/tcZOE
^ 2/- Russia needs to hit back at NATO to let them know there are consequences. Otherwise NATO will continue to strike Russia & escalate with impunity because they believe that Putin is weak.
Some potential Russian responses:
^ 3/- 1. Provide militia forces in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhe with long range weapons capable of hitting NATO military bases in Poland, Romania, and Slovakia where NATO military hardware, repair and training for their proxy forces in Ukraine are assembled
A Russian military retreat from Kherson will be an enormous political cost to Putin, ends any foreseeable future move on Nikolaev and Odessa, and puts the Crimean Canal and defense of Crimea itself in question.
^ If Putin signs a ceasefire or peace settlement in the near future (something I still think unlikely), surrenduring a significant city that he had recognised as part of Russia to Kiev & the West, it will be his political end. The Russian people will not accept such a defeat.
^ The Russian MoD may argue that they are preserving combat forces but for what - will they use them in the future?
Manpower, the numbers Thread🧵
Manpower: the numbers:
The Kiev regime started the conflict with approximately 250,000 trained armed forces
Through volunteers, territorial defense (now regularly thrown into the front) and mass forced conscription they have raised that number to around 700,000 total, though many have next to no training or experience.
Russian forces have had and still have approximately 150,000 professional troops as part of the self-limited "SMO"
This has been supplemented by about 50,000 (former) East Ukrainian militia from the Donbass
The situation in Ukraine is becoming clearer. The biggest Kiev regime counter-offensive is yet to come, most likely in the SouthEast from the Ugledar direction towards Mariupol and potentially even Donetsk city. 1/-
^ 2/- The New Kiev regime counteroffensive in the SE contains a substantial armored first of Polish-supplied modernized T72s and IFVs. Lacking sufficient manpower in the intervention force to protect all occupied territory, the Kremlin prioritized & sacrificed the Kharkov region
3/- in order to have enough reserves to combat this coming southern thrust, Russian forces actually began withdrawing from Kharkov a week ago in secret. The biggest and most decisive battle of the year is yet to come.