بهمن شفیق

5 اسفند 1401

24 فوریه 2023

Oil

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/02/22/are-sanctions-hurting-the-us-more-than-russia/

“Urals crude” continues to flow at levels — roughly four million barrels a day — unchanged from pre-war levels, not least through Indian, Turkish, Chinese, and Senegalese refineries, whence it moves unimpeded into European gas tanks and power plants.

Such blatant circumvention of the sanctions regime is studiously ignored by the sanctioneers, since it is necessary to ward off catastrophic energy price inflation in western economies.

China

https://sonar21.com/are-russia-and-china-moving-towards-a-mutual-defense-pact/

A U.S. manufacturer of X-ray equipment had a decade-old patent invalidated by a Chinese legal panel. A Spanish mobile-antenna designer lost a similar fight in a Shanghai court. Another Chinese court ruled that a Japanese conglomerate broke antitrust law by refusing to license its technology to a Chinese rival.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/us-hegemony-at-war-with-chinas-global-security-initiative.html

On February 20 its foreign ministry released a paper about US Hegemony and Its Perils. It is full broadside against U.S. foreign policy behavior. Its chapter are:

Introduction

I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around

II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force 

III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation

IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression

V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives

Conclusion

On February 21 China released a Global Security Initiative Concept Paper.

When asked about the State Department Ned Price's response Wang Wenbin fired another salvo against the U.S.:

CCTV: The US is concerned because China and Russia share a vision, the Spokesperson for the US Department of State Ned Price said. What’s your comment? 

Wang Wenbin: The China-Russia relationship is built on the basis of non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-targeting at any third party. It is a factor conducive to world peace and stability, which is no cause for concern. What is truly concerning is the destructive role the US has played to peace and stability in the world.

The US is the No.1 warmonger in the world. The US was not at war for only 16 years throughout its 240-plus years of history. The US accounted for about 80 percent of all post-WWII armed conflicts.

The US is also the No.1 violator of sovereignty and interferer in the internal affairs of other countries. According to reports, since the end of WWII, the US has sought to subvert more than 50 foreign governments, grossly interfered in elections in at least 30 countries and attempted assassination on over 50 foreign leaders.

The US is also the No.1 source of antagonism and bloc confrontation. The US-led NATO is responsible for wars on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria that killed more than 900,000 and created 37 million refugees. It has also made the Eurasia continent a less stable place. The impact of US-initiated Quad and AUKUS on Asia-Pacific security and stability also calls for vigilance. 

As long as US hegemonism and belligerence still exists, the rest of world will hardly get the peace it deserves.

Speech

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8182781.html

In general, the message was primarily intended to show that the state has the resources, capabilities and strategy for waging a long-term war with NATO in Ukraine on a solid economic foundation, covered by a nuclear umbrella.

https://en.topwar.ru/198798-doktrina-gerasimova-ili-pochemu-rossija-ne-otvechaet-na-obstrely-gorodov.html

https://rueconomics.ru/23908405-_luchshe_dlya_rossii_ne_pridumaesh_kedmi_otsenil_pozor_baidena_v_varshave?utm_source=politobzor.net

https://rueconomics.ru/23907524-kedmi_putin_udaril_zapad_v_samoe_bol_noe_mesto_oni_etogo_ne_ozhidali?utm_source=politobzor.net

In a message on February 21, Putin announced the suspension of Russia's participation in the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty (START III). According to Kedmi, this was a blow to the most painful place of the United States and its allies, and the Western reaction shows that Putin's move was completely unexpected for Washington, London and Brussels. The expert recalled that strategic weapons are the main guarantee of Russia's security and a segment in which Russia's superiority over NATO is overwhelming.

"Judging by the reaction, they didn't expect this. Again he surprised them, again they didn't understand. The most interesting thing is that the blow was on their most sensitive place. What they always fear is Russia's strategic power. Therefore, they are afraid of a military clash with the Russian Federation. You can say as much as you like that it was possible to achieve a greater effect in conventional weapons – this is all true. But the main thing that measures Russia's security is strategic weapons. And here Russia has achieved unprecedented success, and Putin quite rightly appreciated it, " Kedmi said.

The Russian leader knows the real state of the US and UK nuclear forces, the expert is sure. The share of modern nuclear weapons in the Russian Federation has already exceeded 91%, and the next generation of strategic missiles is on the way. At the same time, the US nuclear arsenal continues to be based on the Minuteman missiles developed in the 1970s and the slightly newer Trident missiles (developed a decade later).

Kedmi clarified that American missiles are 20-30 years older than Russian ones, and this does not take into account hypersonic systems and weapons characteristics. In conventional weapons, the situation is no better for the West, contrary to the prevailing opinion about the superiority of NATO.

"The British Defence Secretary says that the British army is not ready. The chief of the General Staff of the Czech army, a good professional soldier, said: "What are you talking about? The Czech army is not ready for military action in any area." Maybe some of the accusations against the Russian army are fair, but in the West the situation is ten times worse in all weapons, starting with tanks and ending with nuclear weapons, "Kedmi said in the program"Evening with Vladimir Solovyov".

https://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/702314/Deutscher-Exportueberschuss-wegen-teurer-Energie-eingebrochen

Der deutsche Exportüberschuss ist im vergangenen Jahr wegen stark gestiegner Preise für die Einfuhr von Energie so gering ausgefallen wie seit 2020 nicht mehr. Die Exporte übertrafen die Importe nur noch um 79,7 Milliarden Euro, wie das Statistische Bundesamt am Donnerstag mitteilte. 2021 hatte der Überschuss noch bei 175,3 Milliarden Euro gelegen.

https://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/702422/PCK-Mitarbeiter-schreiben-Brandbrief-an-Habeck-Brandenburg-hofft-auf-Einschreiten-des-Bundeskanzlers

Mit Erstaunen und Befremden haben die Beschäftigten der PCK Raffinerie die Nachricht aufgenommen, dass die Bundesregierung sich gegen einen Neubau einer zweiten Pipeline von Rostock nach Schwedt entschieden hat und dass Polen weiterhin über die Druschba mit russischem Öl versorgt wird.

Die Abhängigkeit von Polen ist riskant, weil die dortige Regierung inzwischen eine offen konfrontative Politik gegenüber der Bundesregierung verfolgt und ihre Öl-Lieferungen von Gefälligkeiten abhängig macht.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/german-energy-reprieve-too-little-too-late-to-save-factory-jobs-1.1879204

BASF announced in October it would make €500 million ($541 million) in cost savings as it adjusts to permanently higher energy prices in Germany. Gas prices have dropped 40% since then, but BASF’s board is sticking with the cuts and wants to stop producing the most gas-intensive products at its Ludwigshafen plant, the company said.

Industry group Aluminium Deutschland said a recent survey of metal producers showed that two-thirds confirmed a slight improvement in energy prices in recent months, while 86% of the companies described the prospect of long-term gas and electricity supplies in Germany as “not good.”

Marx

http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me09/me09_164.htm

Die russische Politik gegenüber der Türkei - Die Arbeiterbewegung in England

London, Freitag, 1. Juli 1853

Es gibt eine drollige Geschichte von zwei persischen Naturforschern, die einen Bären untersuchten. Der eine, der noch niemals vorher solch ein Tier gesehen, fragte, ob es lebendige Junge würfe oder Eier lege. Der andere, der besser informiert war, erwiderte: "Dieses Tier ist zu allem fähig." Gewiß, auch der russische Bär ist zu allem fähig, besonders solange er weiß, daß die anderen Tiere, mit denen er zu tun hat, zu nichts fähig sind.

Society

https://vz.ru/opinions/2023/2/24/1200023.html

Dmitry Grunyushkin

In all this confusion, it is very interesting to take a closer look at what is happening with the revaluation of values in Russia. The fact that a revaluation is taking place – and a fundamental one! – there's no doubt about it.

The great exodus of people "with beautiful faces", and most importantly, the attitude of the overwhelming majority of Russians towards this stampede as a cleansing, perfectly demonstrated that the universal values that these fugitives personified and which they imposed on society in every possible way, were absolutely alien to this society.

I am ironic about people who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union and dream of returning to that time. It was too controversial a time, with enough lies, filth, and hypocrisy to worry about. But there was also something in the ideology of the USSR that could not but bribe. And it couldn't help but stick in our hearts like a splinter that can only be removed by killing a person. These are two things. Justice and Victory.

Yes, the struggle for a better life and people's happiness was bloody and degenerated into terror. But her absolutely biblical impulse shaped the essence and character of the people. The character is desperate and uncompromising, the character of a people-hero, capable of mass self-sacrifice for the sake of something more, ideal, common. "I can't go back this time, I'm leaving – another one will come" is an extremely impractical way of thinking and acting. You will not see this "other" and you will not even know if he will come. But this very character made me believe in it and not doubt that it would come. And it will do what you didn't have time to do.

https://svpressa.ru/blogs/article/363250/

Sergey Udaltsov

Only modern Russia, unlike the USSR, does not have any full-fledged ideology and a unique project of the future that could rally a broad anti-imperialist, anti-colonial front around it. And most importantly, Putin is going to conduct a long-term confrontation with the global capitalist West, playing by the rules established by this very West. And how to win here?

If the hope is that China will start supplying Russia with everything it needs, as the West is doing with Ukraine, then the Kremlin will be disappointed. Putin's bourgeois Russia is perceived in China not as an ideological ally, but as a resource-rich partner, at the expense of which it is possible to solve its economic and political problems. As they say, nothing personal, just business. But Beijing is clearly in no hurry to sacrifice its strategic interests in favor of the Kremlin regime. And you can't quote Chinese people from Stolypin and Ilyin.

For representatives of the left-patriotic opposition, it is quite obvious that without radical changes in the economic basis, without a "left turn" and a real mobilization of the entire country on a just socialist basis, it will not be possible to win a protracted war with the West. At the same time, many lives will be lost for the further development of the country, our gene pool may be undermined, because in the course of SVO, young, energetic men, in fact, the color of the nation, are killed and injured first of all. And all this for what? For the sake of the prosperity of "patriotic" oligarchs and extending the power of Putin's inner circle?

Odessa

https://www.stalkerzone.org/the-us-and-uk-have-started-building-nato-naval-bases-in-ukraine/

https://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/150435-ochakov_base_destroyed/

20%

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWvDmBNqmA

Army

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/the-coming-russian-offensive-2023

And further, those ‘360k’ are arrayed in a ratio of roughly 65/35 of contracts to conscripts, although the exact number is not 100% known and is mostly estimated. Some western think-tank sources have it 60/40 or less.

This means that, nominally, out of those 360k, only about ~215-230k are contracted “professional” ground troops (kontraktniki), while the remainder are ‘conscripts’ fulfilling their compulsory service. As most know, conscripts are forbidden from serving in actual combat in the SMO, and would remain forbidden unless war was officially and legally declared.

1. let’s be generous and say 30-40k Russian fighters in the Kremennaya line.

2. nearly none in the Bakhmut line (mostly Wagner)

3. nearly none in north Donetsk (Avdiivka line) as this is mostly DPR units

4. probably about 40-50k total between Zaporozhe and west Donetsk (Ugledar area).

5. Another 10-15k watching the remainder of the Kherson region, mostly a token sentry force to guard against Dnieper River landings.