I do not have an anti-western bias.
I served in the Australian military.
I live in Israel which is close to the West but also has a very substantial (20%) population of Russians, Ukrainians and other people from the FSU. They know what is really going on from wide ranging personal contacts and this information feeds into Israeli public attitudes and government positions. That is why Israel is staying neutral.
Israel fought most of its wars against Russian weapons and knows how good they are.
Regarding what is happening on the ground right now:
on the one hand you have the catastrophic failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive with embarrassing wholesale destruction of Western tanks and armoured vehicles;
on the other hand some more crazy theatrics which you have documented above.
In this war the West and Ukraine have consistently engaged in theatrical PR stunts while Russia has engaged in the real business of large scale industrial warfare.
It is increasingly acknowledged by serious military people in the West that Ukraine has lost unless some wild card happens.
I expect all sorts of attempts to create crazy wild cards and this Wagner thing is likely one of them.
At the end of the day when Germany admits it has only 20,000 155mm shells left and Russia fires 10,000 per day you realise that NATO has lost this war. The only remaining question is - how badly.
Well, again, I think youre wrong, just like it was the case with gas prices that have fallen to half of which they were at the time when we discussed global politics last.
On the economic front which you touched upon and the failure of the US dollar, that will happen never imo. The value of the US dollar is a function of the state of the USA in global affairs and they are not going away any time soon.
Assuming that anyone other than Wagner created this event is fantasy unsupported by anything.
Bradleys and Hummvees didnt drive from Texas to Washington, shooting down helicopters and planes, breaking through barricades. They did from Rostov on the road to Moscow.
EU Natural gas prices are still well above their levels pre July 2021. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas
Companies are leaving Germany because of high energy prices. The Germany economy (powerhouse of EU) is in recession.
In any case gas prices are not the real issue.
The real issues are:
the loss of military superiority by the US and NATO, both in tech and numbers;
the rapid move away from the US dollar and western financial system by large parts of the world; and
the loss of respect for and trust in the US by large parts of the world caused by internal loss of core values (rule of law, democracy) and external failures.
The war started February 2022. That is the reference point in this context of Russian energy warfare against EU and the west. It failed. The prices are at 1/3 of the price at that point and falling.
The gas price is absolutely the point, it was a huge part of the overall Russian strategy against the west and it failed.
None of that is tied into the war in Ukraine and same, even more so, can be said for Russia.
I do not see where you see a loss of military superiority of NATO and the USA. The facts show the complete opposite to be true.
The global superiority of NATO and US forces, after the fiasco in Afghanistan is recovering at high pace.
I wonder, is this something positive? Both NATO and US were quite the evil fiasco actors during their recent decades of warfare.
Again, how can one recognize (besides others) the covid betrayal, but then trust the same agents? I just can't wrap my head around that.
As a deterrent to Russian imperialism its a great thing. If NATO attempts another excursion in the middle east, that would then of course be bad.
You should never trust anyone fully. You look at situations and existing facts about what is going on and make your conclusions then.
I would love to fill up in the country where gas prices have fallen to half. In Austria that is by far not the case; to that extend that I can not go and work on the road.
A bit more scepticism towards any power please.
Gas prices, as in natural gas prices.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas
oh, that's a different story. They are really high in the sky, at least at the consumers' end.
Thanks for an impartial appraisal of how Ukraine is losing the current war.