Month: August 2018

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 30 AUGUST 2018

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

PENSIONS. Responding to protests, Putin addressed the nation. He explained the necessity of reforming the pension system so as to keep it funded, explained other alternatives the government considered and explained why it rejected them, and made some softening modifications. As I expected, a little exercise to show that Batyushka listens. In essence, he has said “trust me”. And, because they do, I would expect the protests to die down. And, changing the system is both necessary and appropriate.

RUSSIA INC. Industrial production January to July 2018 is up 3.1%. A bit better than the USA or EU.

FOREIGN CURRENCY. The Central Bank of Russia will not purchase foreign currency for the next month. No doubt to see what happens next.

LONG GAME. “[Stolypin said] ‘Give Russia 20 years of internal and external peace and quiet and it will change beyond recognition.’ Vladimir Putin and his team follow this dictum to the letter.” Read it.

SYRIA. The final battle is being prepared. An informed opinion on the coming Idlib battle. Russian warships are gathering. Another faked up chemical attack is in the news: Moscow says it has evidence of preparations being made; Washington is warning. (Will the trained sheep again bleat “Assad has once again done the one thing that could stop his victory!”) A new twitter girl has appeared on cue. Should there be another “attack”, I have no idea what FUKUS will do. I am mystified: the last two US-led strikes could not have been less militarily effective; noisy indeed, but just blowing up stuff to no effect at all. Fake CW attacks met by fake responses; all I can think of to explain this is that it’s theatre for the simple-minded to distract from some deeper game: well, Washington is talking to Damascus. Iran and Syria just made a military agreement. Iran has become stronger and more influential. This is an unplanned consequence of the failed neocon/liberal-interventionist wars wars in the area.

US SANCTIONS. Trump says he would consider lifting sanctions in Russia “if they do something that would be good for us.” What I think he is doing here is preparing the ground for lifting sanctions. It’s part of the art of persuasion. Up until now sanctions have had no conditions on them: Russia’s bad and must be sanctioned until some future unstated something happens: don’t forget that the years-obsolete Jackson-Vanik sanctions stopped just as the faked-up Magnitskiy sanctions began. Sanctions never end, only the excuses change. Trump has just moved the horizon a bit: “something good”. Well, that’s anything he says it is, isn’t it? For those who don’t understand what I’m saying, read this.

WHO KNEW? The USA imports oil from Russia. Quite a lot too: 15 million barrels in May. Canada’s pipeline confusions create another market for Russian oil. Something else for counter-sanctions.

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. The departure of McCain may reduce the passion for a time.

PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. “Russia trolls ‘spreading vaccination misinformation’ to create discord.” (Don’t forget to read “Why you can trust BBC News” at the bottom.)

PROBLEMS WITH THE NARRATIVE. The interesting fact is that, despite the non-stop hysteria over Russia and Putin that we have seen for what – decades? or just one decade? – it’s not really having such a strong effect. A recent Gallup poll shows 58% of respondents think it is more important to improve relations with Russia than to take steps against it. 58%!!!! The “Russia interfered” story has been sold to the masses but Dems think it affected the outcome and Repubs do not (which is evidence of confusion as to just what the “interference” was.)

NEW NWO. Some people think Putin’s meeting with Merkel was very big: Ishchenko, Escobar, Doctorow, Bloomberg. Wait and see: it will be a long, complicated process of small moves, some forward, some back. But see below.

EUROPEANS ARE REVOLTING. Or are they? On the one hand, Macron says Europe must stop depending on Washington for security and have more cooperation with Russia and again today; the German Foreign Minister says much the same; the German Finance Minister says Europe must develop its own payments system. On the other, Siemens is pulling out of Iran, Total has already gone, Airbus is scrambling. Does Europe still have “two feet” to stand on? EU’s loss is Russia’s and China’s gain.

THE EMPTINESS OF FORMER FLAPS. As the excitement over last year’s Zapad exercises ends, it’s time to wind up the alarm for the Vostok exercise. (Dumbest comment is, and will remain, this one: “One of the reasons that Russia invited Chinese forces to the exercise was to defray any concern in Beijing that the wargames are directed towards China.“)

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 16 AUGUST 2018

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

TURKEY. As everyone knows, Ankara-Washington relations are bad and getting worse. There are many factors involved in Turkey’s economic problems but Washington’s pressure is exacerbating them and it is using the opportunity/excuse to force Erdoğan back into line. The situation creates, to put it mildly, a tremendous opportunity for Russia and China to offer a better deal, thereby weakening NATO and strengthening their own “Eurasian bloc”. Erdoğan spoke to Putin on Friday and Lavrov has just been in Ankara, possibly presenting the bill. Erdoğan is changeable and could go either way, but it’s a major decision point: going Washington’s way would be a big surrender whereas a deal for Chinese and Russian investment in return for leaving NATO and getting out of Syria could be a big win. Turkey’s value to NATO was never the “common values” tripe we hear so much about today but instead its large army and important real estate. Possibly a huge development in the new New World Order coming.

DEFENCE. More steps to protect against what Medvedev calls “economic warfare“. Putin has signed a law allowing Russian-owned foreign operating companies to be re-registered in two areas in Russia. The Finance Minister speculates about abandoning the USD in oil trade. An argument that Russia didn’t sell as many US Treasuries as thought but moved some elsewhere.

VISAS. Many complain that the cumbrous Russian visa system is a deterrent to tourism. The World Cup was a great victory for Russia in the information war, and it’s interesting that they have decided to extend visa-free entry for holders of fan IDs until the end of the year. I think people saying what a good time they had there is a powerful counter to anti-Russian propaganda.

CASPIAN. After years and years the Caspian Sea Convention has been signed by the five littoral countries. Not every last detail is nailed down but the generality is clear: local economic zones, relatively free use and no foreigners. This is essentially what I foresaw in 1998 although it has taken much longer than I anticipated. We are reminded that, thanks to the Kalibr, Russia’s Caspian Flotilla has a greater significance than Washington ever suspected.

MAGNITSKIY MOVIE. An authorised version is available on Vimeo here. I urge you to watch it: not only does it complete destroy Browder’s case, it is an interesting detective process as the film-maker gradually perceives the inconsistencies and manipulations. Browder’s story has been extremely important at setting up the anti-Russia dancing mania: if it’s a lie, then what?

EUROPEAN REVOLT? Well, will they defy Washington? Tough talk from Mogherini, also Britain, France and Germany. The “blocking statute” is being activated. Meanwhile a reminder of the cost of Washington’s last sanctions effort: food exports to Russia cut in half. (And China just snapped up France’s business in a gas project in Iran.) In short, there must be more than a few Europeans realising that the cost of joining Washington’s crusades is too high. But it’s rather hard to imagine Europe’s current rulers daring to think outside the “Atlanticist” box let alone acting on such thoughts.

WESTERN VALUES™. In the Cold War the USSR undertook an enormous (but futile) exertion to block our news and propaganda; we, confident that we were in the right, didn’t bother. Today Facebook, advised by Atlantic Council people, is blocking “Russian propaganda”. To defend against this attempt to impurify our precious bodily fluids, a US Senator (Dem of course) is floating a proposal for more government-imposed controls. Those who are mostly telling the truth don’t do this. Maybe NATO could buy old Soviet jamming equipment.

SYRIA. More endgame. UN observers, with assistance from Russian Military Police, return to the Golan Heights. China may participate “in some way” in the battles around Idlib. The Russians and the UN say there are about 6.6 million Syrian refugees in foreign countries of whom 1.7 million say they are ready to return. So far this month 16 UAVs have been shot down at the Russian airbase. Apparently the YPG has switched sides. Peter Ford’s assessment. Pat Lang’s.

SKRIPALMANIA. Dumb, dumber, dumbest and dumbester.

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. “U.S. senator says Russians have penetrated Florida election systems“; “Governor Demands Bill Nelson Back Up Claims That Russia Hacked Florida Voting Systems“. Well, ummm errrr.

NEW NWO. Not there yet, but more steps: Turkey, Caspian and EU defiance. (I haven’t stopped thinking that this may be just what Trump intends.)

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer

THE NOVICHOK TALES, PART √-1, SECTION DUMBER

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn ACCUSATIONS, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, PUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, WAR ON RUSSIA

(Overheard in the Kremlin by our secret source)

Bad news Boss! Those damned Brits have figured it out.

What now?

Remember all those BSL-4 labs that Ivan Ivanovich said we should set up in public toilets all over Britain?

Yeah.

That fool thought it would be a good idea in case we wanted to whack somebody out and then remix the binary agents so we could re-package them in perfume atomisers.

Da da da. The guy with all the bright ideas, the Elon Musk of the Cheka we used to call him.

Anyway, the Brits have finally figured out that that’s where we do our preparations and they will be shutting them down all over the place. More millions wasted.

Yeah Ivan. Well, he’s going on an all expenses paid tour of the cold parts of Siberia. Won’t be seeing him around any more. But thank heavens that Durakchok can be made anywhere and Russians are naturally immune to it.

LATEST AMERICAN SANCTIONS

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn WAR ON RUSSIA, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

Response to a question from Sputnik. https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201808141067172415-usa-russia-opcw-inspection-absurd/

The official justifications for this latest set of sanctions proves that they are not the real reasons because they are too ridiculous to be taken seriously by any thinking person. The ever-changing Skripalmania story, preposterous at the outset, has descended into incoherence as the crack Russian assassination team is now said to be using public toilets to remix “novichok” to put into perfume atomisers. The OPCW certified last October that Russia had eliminated its CW stocks; who is supposed to certify that it still has? “Election interference” is a loose and shifting collection of accusations, with no evidence presented, which is said to have made no difference to the final result but is nonetheless Pearl Harbor, Kristallnacht and 911 rolled into one. These so-called reasons are the leaky krisha erected over Washington’s latest attempt to make Russia submit to its diktat or break it. The upshot? The Moscow-Beijing alliance will be strengthened and Moscow’s determination to reduce its exposure redoubled.

Now that Washington punishes countries and businesses that do not go along with its sanctions, the sanctions will hurt its allies. And probably, as with the earlier sanctions and counter-sanctions, hurt them more than Russia. The upshot? Following the abrogation of the Iran agreement by Washington, relations between Washington and its minions will be further strained. One of these days, they will break.

This move is also part of the deep state coup against US President Trump (concisely described here) because it curtails his freedom of action. The upshot? The USA moves a bit closer to terminal dysfunction. Or has the second civil war already begun?

Altogether another small step in the Decline and Fall of the Imperium Americanum.

I think it is time for Moscow to educate the many in the US government who believe it is a weak fragile minor state that “makes nothing”. Time to show them that it makes rocket engines, Boeing’s titanium and ISS taxis. And one of America’s favourite guns. And, if we’re talking about closing air routes, the largest country on earth. And the supply route into the endless American war in Afghanistan. Or demand payment for oil and gas in anything but USD? But I’m sure the clever people in the Kremlin can think of many more things than I can.

NATO TRUMPED

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn NATO, THE WORLD IS CHANGING, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

First published at Strategic Culture Foundation

Picked up by The Duran; JRL 2018/135/17; Zenith News; South Front; Straight Line Logic;

Those of us who regard NATO as one of the primary sources of international instability thanks to its wars of destruction in the MENA and provocation of Russia were looking forward with delighted anticipation to Trump’s appearance at the NATO summit. We were not disappointed. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Trump came late to the meeting where Ukraine and Georgia were banging on about the Russian threat, started ranting about spending and blew up the decorous charade. Ukraine and Georgia were then dismissed and a special meeting was convened. (A side effect of his “creative destruction” was that the Ukrainian President delivered his speech to a practically empty room). He started his assault before the meeting, opening Twitter fire on Germany, returning to the attack in his breakfast meeting with NATO’s GenSek:

Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they will be getting from 60% to 70% of their energy from Russia, and a new pipeline, and you tell me if that’s appropriate because I think it’s not and I think it’s a very bad thing for Nato.

Good fun for some of us but a stunner to the Panjandrumocracy: “meltdown“, “tantrum“, “latest diplomatic blowup“, “making bullying great again” and so on.

As ever, Trump’s statements were extreme and his numbers might not stand up to examination but most commenters (typically) left out the context. Which was a piece by German Chancellor Merkel herself in which she called for NATO to focus on the threats from Russia: “the alliance has to show determination to protect us”.

This gave Trump the opening to pose these questions (posed in his own way, of course, in a strategy that most people – despite the example of North Korea – have still not grasped). You tell us that NATO ought to concentrate on the Russian threat. If Russia is a threat, why are you buying gas from it?

        1. You tell us that Russia is a reliable energy supplier. If Russia is a reliable supplier, why are you telling us it’s a threat?
        2. I hope you’re not saying Russia is a threat and its gas is cheap but the USA will save you.

Good questions to be sure; questions that crystallise the contradiction of NATO. If Russia is such a big military threat to them – as NATO communiqués incessantly say it is – then why aren’t the Europeans, presumably first on Moscow’s cross hairs, doing more to meet that threat? And, if, as their doing so little about their defence suggests, they don’t fear Russia, then why do they say that they do? From the latest NATO communiqué:

meeting Russia’s aggressive actions, including the threat and use of force to attain political goals, challenge the Alliance and are undermining Euro-Atlantic security and the rules-based international order.

I always like to count words in these cliché-ridden screeds: it gives a metric of importance and saves force-marching my eyeballs through 12,000 words of self-satisfied pap. In the countries where NATO forces are actually deployed, the communiqué mentions Afghanistan twice, Kosovo six times and Iraq 14 times. NATO destroyed Libya but it only gets six references; it’s doing its best to repeat the performance in Syria (nine). But Russia leads with 54 mentions, none of them complimentary. Why even NATO’s favourite mush words, “values” (16) and “stability” (26), appear fewer times. Ukraine, on the other hand, has 25 appearances, all in what could be called the phantasmagorical verbal mood: “We welcome significant reform progress”. So, in NATOland, Russia’s back. By contrast, the Riga Summit communiqué in 2006 mentioned Afghanistan 17 times, Iraq eight times and Russia ten times (“values” and “stability” scored 15 each). But NATO was still looking for a purpose then:

It recognizes that for the foreseeable future, the principal threats to the Alliance are terrorism and proliferation, as well as failing states, regional crises, misuse of new technologies and disruption of the flow of vital resources.

The logic of NATO’s very existence creates the contradiction. NATO, having lost its raison d’être when the Warsaw Pact and the USSR disappeared, having floundered around in out-of-area operations and the “War on Terror”, has returned to “the Russian threat”. (But in a bureaucracy nothing ever actually stops: this week’s meeting approved a NATO training (!) mission in Iraq Year 15 and more British troops in Kabul Year 16.) Without the “Russian Threat” there would be no reason for NATO to exist, and certainly no big arms contracts, and all the warm butterscotch sauce of “common values” or “projecting stability” could not keep it together. Because, the brutal truth is that military alliances are kept together, not by common values, but by common enemies.

But, no question about it, it’s Washington that bears the major responsibility: Washington pushes NATO expansion, adding monomaniacal anti-Russian members; Washington foments colour revolutions; Washington blew up Ukraine and tried to snatch the Sevastopol naval base; Washington “twists arms“; Washington demands European sanctions and Magnitskiy Acts; Washington’s failed wars in the MENA suck in NATO members; Washington dropped the ABM Treaty inspiring Russia to create its super weapons. The truth is that, whatever might have happened otherwise, Washington drove NATO in the anti-Russia direction.

But Donald Trump is not that Washington: he is the anti-Washington. He tosses bombs into gatherings of complacent apparatchiks: if you believe what you’re saying, act on it; if you don’t act on it, stop saying it. Then he threw the spending bomb. For years there has been a vague commitment that NATO members should spend 2% of their GDP on defence; the commitment appears to have been formalised in 2014. (14) But the members aren’t paying much attention. Few have achieved it and the downward trend, begun at the end of the Cold War, has continued. Regardless of whether “2%” makes any sense or how it is calculated, Trump was right to remind NATO members that they themselves agreed to it. Again Trump raises the pointed question: why don’t you act as if you believe what you’re saying?

Indicators of European NATO members’ actual readiness and combat capability are stunning; the latest being “Only 4 of Germany’s 128 Eurofighter jets combat ready — report“; “Ground force: Half of France’s military planes ‘unfit to fly’“. “Britain’s ‘withered’ forces not fit to repel all-out attack“. “Europe’s Readiness Problem“. Obviously they’re not expecting a Russian attack any time soon. NATO is, as I have argued here, a paper tiger. It is questionable whether NATO members can conduct any operation without the USA providing satellite navigation and observation, air defence suppression, airborne command and control, inflight tankers, heavy lift and ammunition resupply to name a few deficiencies. So, either the Europeans are not worried; or, as Trump likes to say, they are free riders.

Six months ago I suggested that Trump may be trying to get out of what I called the “Gordian knot of entanglements”

President Trump can avoid new entanglements but he has inherited so many and they are, all of them, growing denser and thicker by the minute. Consider the famous story of the Gordian Knot: rather than trying to untie the fabulously complicated knot, Alexander drew his sword and cut it. How can Trump cut The Gordian Knot of American imperial entanglements? By getting others to untie it.

 

He stamps out of NATO leaving them quaking: if you say Russia is the enemy, why do you act as if it isn’t; and if you act as if it isn’t, why do you say it is? And firing, over his shoulder, the threat: 2% by next January.

I believe it is a threat and a very neat one too:

If you don’t get up to 2% (or is it 4%?) and quickly too; I warned you. Goodbye.

If you do get your spending up, then you don’t need us. Goodbye.

Another strand of the knot gone.

 

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 2 AUGUST 2018

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

TREASON. Among the super weapons Putin described in March were hypersonic missiles and warheads. The story is that details (some? many?) have been leaked to the West by people working at research centres. The FSB is investigating and arrests have been made. Apparently the recipient of the information was a scientific institute in Belgium which which there was an agreement. I don’t suppose we’ll ever learn what actually happened nor be able to fully believe what we are told. There was an earlier case involving China.

RESERVES. Sputnik tells us that Russia’s reserves are worth about US$460 billion. It’s selling off US Treasuries (now US$15 billion down from US$92 in December) and buying gold (now 1944 tonnes). It’s clear that Russia Inc is getting out of US securities, probably for protection in case of more sanctions, and getting into gold. I would expect this to continue. Is China doing the same?

PENSION REFORM. Protests are occurring – significant ones organised by the KPRF last week. The plan is to raise the age qualification gradually over time. This is, in fact, quite reasonable and even necessary as life expectancies increase. My bet is that the government will announce a compromise (already planned and worked out), extend the time period and the issue will die away.

BROWDER MOVIE. A Russian documentary maker believed everything Browder said and started a film to justify him. As it progressed, he discovered anomalies and came to realise the story was false. See here. It is moving around the Net now and it’s worth looking for because Browder’s story is a primary founding myth of the Putin hysteria. The film is fatal to Browder’s story.

MILITARY. For twenty years the US military has been attacking people who can’t fight back (but who are, nonetheless, beating it. An intriguing paradox: my explanation here; a similar one here.) The Russian activity in Syria is a wakeup call. First there were complaints about Russian air defence bubble, now EW. I doubt the US military has much of either and we may be certain that the Russians aren’t using their best and latest. Without guaranteed communications and GPS, the US military cannot operate; in a war with Russia they would have neither. Here’s the effect of an anti-ship missile and there’s Poseidon. In short, and I hope it’s sinking in, the US has lost the future fighting war with Russia. Time to talk.

WHO BENEFITS FROM THE RUSSIA HYSTERIA? Not you or I, that’s for sure. A good summary and analysis here. “The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy“.

SKRIPALMANIA. Latest information from my secret source.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. “After A Week Online, NATO’s Latest ‘Counter-Disinfo’ Facebook Game Is A Complete Flop“. Not complete: people at the NATO Centres of “Excellence” were paid.

NEW NWO I. Trump says he’s ready to talk to Iran, Washington is talking to the Taliban, covert program to arm Syrian jihadists rebels ended. Cutting the Gordian Knot. Why the Establishment hates him so.

NEW NWO II. Turkey attends BRICS. US sanctions Turkey. What next?

TRUMPUTIN DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. A collection of cartoons covering the meeting.

AMERICA-HYSTERICA. As I suspected, it was The Dossier. And I’ll bet there’s a Skripal connection.

WESTERN VALUES™. “Republic of Latvia, Apartheid State within the EU“. But they’re only Russians, so it doesn’t count.

RUSSIAN “INVASION OF UKRAINE”. Ivan Katchanovski has examined records of 1000 Donbass PWs: only 1.5% were Russian military and 4% Russian citizens. It’s a civil war, not a foreign invasion. “If Russia had invaded, you wouldn’t have to ask; if you have to ask, it hasn’t.“

UKRAINE. The longest-lasting legacy of the US-EU coup in Ukraine may be a nuclear disaster. And it’s not just the overstrain of the existing reactors added to corruption and incompetence, there’s also the fuel issue. The Ukrainian reactors are Soviet-era VVER reactors and they are designed to take Russian (ie Soviet) fuel cores. “Nuclear fuel assemblies are specifically designed for particular types of reactors and are made to exacting standards“ says the World Nuclear Association. A Russian supplier is, of course, doubleplusungood in today’s Ukraine. Well the first reactor has just been fuelled with Westinghouse cores. This was tried at Temelin in the Czech Republic and they had to go back to the Russian fuel. Read this and feel worse. (BTW, it took me some time to find references to Temelin’s fuel problems in Western sources. Buried it seems. Here’s TASS on the issue.)

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer