Putin Sets The Stage For The Next Phase
That seems to be the takeaway from recent events in Munich, Moscow, and Warsaw. Putin is preparing for the next phase of the “Special Military Operation”—in a global context—while the collective West, now increasingly limited in scope to the US, Poland, and the UK, reacts. There are other participants, of course, but we’re speaking of effective participants. As we’ve noted lately, the unease in much or most of the West is palpable.
So, first, the global context. China and Russia are inching toward a formal mutual security pact. I say “inching”, but in fact the events of the past year have greatly accelerated what had previously been a gradual process. Clearly the two nations see this closer relationship as a high priority in view of the increasing belligerence of the US towards both Russia and China. As the two Alexes say in the two videos below, Well done, Neocons! In what world is a close security pact between Russia and China a positive for the collective West?
BREAKING: US sending up to 200 more troops to Taiwan as China tensions grow. Who’s growing the tensions. Yes, the Neocons. This move is a direct affront to China’s sovereignty, a repudiation of our commitment to a One China policy. One assumes—at least I do—that this is a move aimed at the rest of the world that is gravitating away from the West toward the new Eurasian bloc. A message to the world that the US stands ready to utterly destroy the emerging Eurasian bloc, so keep your distance from it and submit to the American Empire. However, this is a bluff, in my opinion, that will one day be called.
These two videos from yesterday are relatively brief by Duran standards—18 and 32 minutes. They provide an excellent summary of the West’s reaction to the Russia - China developments—basically, hysteria.
These are a major developments in the geopolitical landscape.
In the last two days we’ve discussed the signs of continued significant civil war in DC, pitting the Neocon War Party, centered at the State Department and the NSC, and increasingly alarmed more military and intel oriented segments of the US government:
Interestingly, Elon Musk—who has weighed in on a variety of issues that are highly significant to America’s future—has weighed in very briefly on this:
We also discussed the continuing unhinged rhetoric coming out of Poland:
However, please note. Poland does nothing that is not cleared in DC—nothing with regard to Russia. Having a willing poodle of the size and weight of Poland, therefore, doesn’t truly increase US leverage substantially. That’s the point of Poland asking for US troops beyond the current 11k already in Poland as well as permanent US basing. That will undoubtedly feed into the American civil war. US bases in Poland will be sitting ducks for Russian missiles. The Pentagon will want a say in any such decisions.
Now, Simplicius the Thinker has a new article today that contains a number of interesting observations:
In fact, the title doesn’t provide much of an idea of the contents, except that Simplicius does, as usual, cover a lot of ground. Here are the portions that I considered most important for our generalist purposes.
Simplicius begins by observing that Putin, in his address to the Russian Federal Assembly, by avoiding a heavy focus on the war per se, conveyed a clear message about the direction in which the Russian nation will be moving:
… the focus of Russia will be on the human development of its people, its culture and values, and that Putin will not allow the country’s spirit and operations to be overshadowed by the SMO, or to fall into the trap of letting Western Atlanticist powers use the SMO to degrade the social fabric of society.
Putin, in short, is determined to avoid the militarization of Russian society, instead:
… continuing the status quo of society ‘as is’, and not letting the war detract from important socio-economic and human-index development.
Which is not to say that the speech didn’t contain important strategic elements. The suspension of the Start III treaty was one. Simplicius believes this move, and the reasoning that Putin advanced to justify the suspension, may point toward an imminent updating of Russia’s nuclear doctrine—as usual, in response to the aggressive new US nuclear doctrine, not in an aggressive move on Russia’s part. The new US doctrine suggests that the US could resort to nukes for a broad range of strategic purposes, not merely to defened against nuclear attack. Thus:
Rumors already swirled, last month, that Russia would ‘soon update its nuclear doctrine’ (not confirmed) to include the ability to use nuclear weapons not only in the scenario of ‘existential crisis’, but also that of 1. a mass-casualty terror event on Russian soil 2. critical Russian infrastructure being struck 3. Russian strategic infrastructure being struck (which has already happened, when Ukraine struck Russia’s strategic airbase holding the nuke-carrying Tu-95’s last year).
And what Putin said was true—the reason he gave for the suspension of the START III treaty was that the U.S. helped Ukraine strike the Russian strategic nuclear bases of Ryazan and Engels Airbase. The Tu-143 Soviet jet-powered drone used was proven by Russian investigators to have been modified with the technical help of U.S. engineers, likely in the area of the guidance system (adding GPS ability, etc).
So Putin’s reasoning was: why should U.S. inspectors be allowed (as ordained by the treaty) to come inspect our nuclear bases so that they can draw up intricate maps/charts of them to give to Ukraine for future strikes? …
Yes, the Neocons are playing a dangerous game of nuclear brinkmanship.
From there Simplicius runs through dense discussions of economic and war related matters. However, for now, the important area is the subject of Moldova and Transnistria. For readers who aren’t up on Transnistria, here it is on a map:
Transnistria and Moldova—a very unstable country next to Ukraine—have been in the news lately. In fact, Moldova’s president—another WEF girl—flew to Warsaw to receive the Zhou/Neocon pledge of unending support.
Why is this important. Simplicius writes that while Russian military moves have been heating up:
… the CIA/SBU are not sitting idly by. As we said last time, it’s turning out that Transnistria (PMR) is in fact culminating into a dangerous thorn of hybrid activity. A raft of escalatory reports have come in today which weigh dangerously on the direction things are headed in.
We reported last time how the Moldovan president suddenly and belligerently announced that Russian troops need to be ‘expelled’ from Transnistria. Followed by the announcement of military exercises to be held Feb 21. - Feb. 23. Today, this was followed by Arestovich again releasing a statement (in deja vu of last year), that if only given the word, the AFU can seize the Russian garrison in Transnistria “in 3 days.”
Putin’s response was to cancel a decree that obligated Russia to respect the sovereignty of Moldova. Who thinks Moldova is doing this unprompted, on their own? Me neither.
Here are three of our previous posts on Transnistria, and why it’s important:
Now here’s Simplicius explaining what’s up:
Now, there are reports the AFU moved border guard units to within 2km of the Transnistrian border.
This isn’t far away from Kobasna, the location of the ‘largest ammo depot in all of Europe’—the same we mentioned last time, which Ukraine threatened to attack in April of last year:
It contains over 20,000 tons of armaments, something the depleted AFU would kill to get their hands on.
A Ukraine move on Transnistria could lead to serious fireworks—literally and figuratively. So it’s something to keep an eye on.
Simplicius also goes into the possibility, once again, of a nuclear false flag event on the part of Ukraine. He quotes the Russian MoD:
Days ago, the Russian MoD (Ministry of Defense) released this statement:
⚡️Ahead of the Eleventh Emergency Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Kiev regime continues preparing for a major provocation to accuse the Russian Federation of allegedly ‘gravely violating’ the obligations of the Convention on Nuclear Safety during the special military operation.
To implement this provocation, several containers with radioactive substances were delivered to Ukraine from the territory of a European country without passing through customs inspection. These containers will be used to stage local contamination of a region close to one of the radiation-hazardous facilities controlled by the Kiev regime.
The provocation is aimed at accusing the Russian Armed Forces of allegedly launching indiscriminate strikes on radiation-hazardous facilities in Ukraine, leading to the leakage of radioactive substances and terrain contamination.
That’s it for now. That should be plenty. What a world.
I wish we had traded Victoria Nuland for Brittney Grimes. I wish Russia had asked for Nuland. I wish.
I read an interesting comment on Larry Johnson's site yesterday that had a good explanation behind the overall reasons for why Odessa and Transnistria are important, along with what Russia has already taken along the Black Sea. For the psychopaths, it's all about the control of the Black Sea and locking out Russia. Put a great deal into perspective!