Morning music
On this day a year ago
Saturday quiz
Well, once again I achieve victory over political journalist John Rentoul, having scored 8/10 this week as against his 6/10. I did not know the answers to questions 1 and 5.
Tweets seen
When was the last time that SIS/MI6 had a real coup not involving a walk-in (so not Gordievsky, not Mitrokhin etc)? I suppose it will be claimed that their successes are all too secret to reveal, which is plausible up to a point, but leaves plenty of scope for unmerited praise based on unmerited reputation, and for the covering-up of mistakes and disasters.
Why is he obsessed with this? Is it to distract people from whatever else? Seems eccentric in the extreme.
More tweets, and some thoughts about the Ukraine situation
Really? The author says that the Russians “had the advantage of tactical surprise“. How so? They did everything but send out engraved invitations! No doubt for good reason.
If I myself, not a professional military strategist, and not an intelligence officer, could very accurately predict (on my blog) where, when, and how the Russians would attack, I am sure that the Ukrainian Intelligence, and whatever they have in the way of a General Staff, also could work it out easily enough, even if most Western msm commentators and political drones were getting it wrong.
It is true that the initial Russian advance was sluggish. In fact the invasion should have happened 2 or even 3 weeks ago and been far more of a Blitzkrieg.
Putin’s main weakness overall lies in the absence of ideology beyond “Great Russian” chauvinism. Lenin, Stalin, and even their successors, had an ideology which underpinned straight geopolitical Great Game-ing. The same of course was true of Hitler, and even the later tsars; Nikolai II had the slogan Orthodoxy-Autocracy-Homeland. When Putin makes a major move, it is simply a rather basic nationalistic power exercise.
I agree that Putin’s problems will not end with repression of immediate resistance in Kiev, the parts of Ukraine east of the Dnieper, and the Black Sea littoral. In a sense, that is when his problems will begin.
There is something else. If, as now seems likely, NATO/NWO will support irregular warfare based on Lvov, and by supplying whatever is left of the forces of the Kiev regime with more and more powerful weapons, and with training in neighbouring countries such as Poland, the possibility grows of direct confrontation between Russian forces and those of NATO.
At the same time, the NWO’s sanctions regime will somewhat impoverish both Russia and the West and Centre of Europe. This may lead to greater political instability across the continent.
I feel that the “nuclear war” clock hands just moved a little closer to midnight.
As to the existing military situation, it has become far more messy than need have been the case, but the Kiev regime is fast running out of air support, fuel, food, ammunition. It will be defeated; the question is when. Personally, I shall be surprised if the Kiev government is still in place in Kiev beyond this weekend, though it may be able to relocate to Lvov.
More tweets
The whole situation renders even more vital the need to think beyond the present, into the possible future: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/.
At this point, Boris-idiot is essentially beyond parody.
More music
More thoughts on the developing situation in Ukraine
I don’t know what to make of Zelensky’s apparently brave stance. It may or may not be genuine. We shall see whether he is, in the end, extracted (but with Russian troops all around, and looking for him, it would have to be a “hot extraction”…).
For me, the resupply issue is key. The Russians are said to have resupply problems, but the Ukrainian troops must be close to running out of food, ammunition, and fuel. As to those civilians issued with a weapon, I wonder how much ammo they get. 20 rounds? 40? Not much if the weapon is automatic.
In fact, it seems to me to be very irresponsible of the Kiev regime to issue weapons on request to just anyone. A move of desperation, of course, but how effective will such volunteers be anyway? Many seem to be completely untrained in the use of such weapons, and moreover will not have much ammunition issued to them, probably. If the Russians catch them with weapons, even if unfired, they may well end up being shot as “irregular forces” or, in an old term, “francs-tireurs” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francs-tireurs].
Late tweets
There are quite a few idiots such as Kelvin MacKenzie who believe that the date is 1914 rather than 2022.
People do not want to hear facts, they just want to comply with the latest System attack campaign. Now, it is Russia.
Chris Bryant is no leader; a freeloading second-tier NWO/ZOG System drone.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 
“What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They’re not! They’re just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?”
— Alec Leamas, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
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Uatu:
Ha. I know that scene well (from the film adaptation). Thank you. The irony is that John le Carre himself, in later books, eventually became a significant part of that popular idea that heads of organizations such as SIS are almost like abbots of monasteries (monasteries for failed or exiled monks?); an idea given more power via Le Carre’s “Smiley” and “Karla” characters. I suppose that the only publicly-prominent one to come close to that literary ideal “in real life” was Maurice Oldfield (or maybe, “on the other side”, Markus Wolf).
I have always regretted missing what was apparently an excellent talk by “le Carre” (David Cornwell) sometime around 1982, at the GB-USSR Association (a now-defunct Foreign Office-funded cultural body of which I was a member in the early 1980s).
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Zelensky has issued weapons, but at the same time put Ukrainians under curfew from 5 p.m. Saturday until Monday morning.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10472625/Home-Office-admits-spending-5million-DAY-housing-asylum-seekers-hotels.html. I can’t think about that woman without raging! 😠
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10556181/HALF-Boris-Johnsons-Cabinet-lose-seats-general-election-held-poll-reveals.html. Interesting!
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Watcher:
Indeed, though “tweedledum/tweedledee” if the present clowns leave, only to be replaced by Starmer’s NWO/ZOG drones.
As that report says, Labour is benefiting in the opinion polls *by default* (only?), because Boris-idiot and his Cabinet of Clowns are so hopeless.
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