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DENYING RUSSIA’S ONLY STRATEGY FOR SUCCESS
Institute for the Study of War ^ | 27 March 2024 | Nataliya Bugayova and Frederick W. Kagan with Kateryna Stepanenko

Posted on 03/28/2024 8:30:10 AM PDT by MeganC

Russia cannot defeat Ukraine or the West - and will likely lose - if the West mobilizes its resources to resist the Kremlin. The West’s existing and latent capability dwarfs that of Russia. The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of NATO countries, non-NATO European Union states, and our Asian allies is over $63 trillion.[1] The Russian GDP is on the close order of $1.9 trillion.[2] Iran and North Korea add little in terms of materiel support. China is enabling Russia, but it is not mobilized on behalf of Russia and is unlikely to do so.[3] If we lean in and surge, Russia loses.

The notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia’s dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin’s real strategy and only real hope of success. The Kremlin must get the United States to the sidelines, allowing Russia to fight Ukraine in isolation and then proceed to Moscow’s next targets, which Russia will also seek to isolate. The Kremlin needs the United States to choose inaction and embrace the false inevitability that Russia will prevail in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s center of gravity is his ability to shape the will and decisions of the West, Ukraine, and Russia itself. The Russian strategy that matters most, therefore, is not Moscow’s warfighting strategy, but rather the Kremlin’s strategy to cause us to see the world as it wishes us to see it and make decisions in that Kremlin-generated alternative reality that will allow Russia to win in the real world.

Those whose perspective aligns with the Kremlin’s are not ipso facto Russian dupes. The Kremlin links genuine sentiment and even some legitimate arguments to Russia’s interests in public debate. The Kremlin is also an equal opportunity manipulator. It targets the full spectrum of those making or informing decisions. It partially succeeds on every side of the political spectrum. Perception manipulation is one of the Kremlin’s core capabilities — now unleashed with full force onto the Western public as the Kremlin’s only strategy for winning in Ukraine.[4] That is not a challenge most societies are equipped to contend with.

The United States has the power to deny Russia its only strategy for success, nevertheless. The United States has allowed Russia to play an outsized role in shaping American decision-making, but the United States has also made many sound choices regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine.[5] The key successes achieved by Ukraine and its partners in this war have resulted from strategic clarity.[6] Lost opportunities on the battlefield, on the other hand, have resulted from the West’s failure to connect ground truths to our interests quickly enough to act.[7] Fortunately, the United States faces an easier task in overcoming the Kremlin's manipulations than Russia does in closing the massive gap between Russia's war aims and its capabilities. The United States must surge its support to Ukraine, and it must do so in time. Delays come at the cost of Ukrainian lives, increased risk of failure in Ukraine, and the erosion of the US advantage over Russia, granting the Kremlin time to rebuild and develop capabilities that it intends to use against the West — likely on a shorter timeline than the West assesses.[8]

The United States must defeat Russia’s efforts to alter American will and decision-making for reasons that transcend Ukraine. For the United States to deter, win, or help win any future war, US decisions must be timely, connected to our interests, values, and ground truth, but above all – these decisions must be ours. The US national security community theorizes a lot about the importance of US decision advantage over our adversaries, including timeliness. Russia presents an urgent and real-world requirement for America to do so in practice.

I. The Kremlin’s Strategy

The Kremlin’s principal effort is to force the United States to accept and reason from Russian premises to decisions that advance Russia’s interests, not ours. The Kremlin is not arguing with us. It is trying to enforce assertions about Russia’s manufactured portrayal of reality as the basis for our own discussions, and then allow us to reason to conclusions pre-determined by the Kremlin. Accepting Russia’s premises and reasoning from them may proceed in a formally logical way but is certainly not rational, since it is divorced from actual reality and from our interests. Soviet mathematician Vladimir Lefebvre defined this process as “reflexive control”– a way of transmitting bases for decision making to an opponent so that they freely come to a pre-determined decision.[9] A key example: Putin takes the false assertion that discussions of Ukraine’s NATO accession posed a clear and imminent danger to Russia along with the false assertion that Ukraine is not a real country and builds them into a false conclusion that he was justified in launching a war of conquest.[10] Another assertion: Russia has the right to a self-defined sphere of influence, and, therefore, a right to do whatever it wants to those within this sphere – including invading, killing, raping, and ethnic cleansing – with no repercussions.[11] The degree to which Western discourse includes serious consideration of these falsehoods marks the success of long-running Russian information operations.

Some sincerely accept the Kremlin’s false predicates and resulting conclusions. Others may accept the predicates but stop short of leaping to conclusions that any of these arguments justify the Kremlin’s invasion and atrocities. Many can see past the Kremlin’s manipulations and recognize that Russia’s war is an unprovoked war of conquest, however.

The Kremlin then targets this last category on a different level of reasoning – the predicates that inform our will to do something about Russia’s war and the lengths to which we are willing to go. The Kremlin targets our perceptions of costs, priorities, risks, upsides, alignment with our values, and effects of our own actions. Two main categories of false assertions that the Kremlin is trying to enforce in this respect are that: a) Ukraine cannot win this war; supporting Ukraine is a distraction from ‘real’ US problems; Ukraine will be forced to settle; the United States is at risk of being stuck in another “forever” war; and b) the risks in helping Ukraine defend itself, let alone win, are higher than the risks of failure in Ukraine for the United States - it is too costly, too risky, and that Ukraine is not worth it. ISW and many others have thoroughly debunked these assertions, yet they remain pervasive in US discussions about opposing Russia.[12] The Russian goal is to have us freely reason to a conclusion that Russia’s prevailing in Ukraine is inevitable and that we must stay on the sidelines — and Moscow is succeeding far too well in this effort.

It is important to emphasize that by no means all who oppose continuing or expanding support for Ukraine are doing so as the result of Russian reflexive control measures. The point, however, is that Americans must recognize the enormous effort the Kremlin is putting into these and other assertions in order to create a picture of reality that, taken in its totality, is false — Russia had no right to invade Ukraine, has no rights to control Ukraine, was not provoked into such an invasion, will not inevitably win, will not inevitably escalate to fighting a full-scale war against NATO, and helping Ukraine liberate its strategic territories as the only viable path to a durable peace remains the most prudent course of action to secure US interests.

The Kremlin is also flooding Western discourse with false and irrelevant narratives, forcing us to expend energy, time, and decision bandwidth on irrelevancies rather than solutions. It is not an accident that the Western debate often becomes impaled on arguing about basic well-established facts about this war. This phenomenon is not merely a function of Western knowledge gaps or short memory. It is also a result of the Kremlin’s effort to saturate the Western debate with its assertions. A key example is a myth about Russia protecting Russian speakers in Ukraine.[13] Russia has obliterated predominantly Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine, killing, torturing, forcefully deporting, and forcing to flee many Russian-speaking Ukrainians.[14] Russia harmed the very people in the name of whom it waged the war. Despite this well documented reality, discussions about letting Putin keep “Russian-speaking provinces” to stop the war persist in Western debate. These discussions proceed from a false premise that Russia’s war aimed to protect Russian speakers to a false conclusion that ceding portions of Ukraine that have Russian speakers can resolve the war and is, furthermore, reasonable or justifiable. Many other basic facts are in question daily as the Kremlin floods the Western debate with its narratives. Putin deliberately chose to focus his interview with an American media personality on historical justifications for the war.[15] Putin is retroactively creating casus belli by twisting a historic narrative on the record. The history of Kievan Rus is as irrelevant to the current war as the history of the Roman Empire was to World War II. Every country in the world has a historical basis to claim rights to some or all of the territory of its neighbors. The world avoids a Hobbesian war of all against all by rejecting the validity of such arguments. Yet the Kremlin’s constant driving of them continues to divert Western discussions about what to do now into these historical irrelevancies. The Kremlin also forces the West to dedicate energy to an equally irrelevant discussion about whether Ukraine has the “right” to be a state or a nation. No country with a seat in the United Nations and recognized by the overwhelming majority of states in the world has an obligation to prove its right to exist no matter how small or ethnically like another state it might be. This principle is central to the current world order, and its destruction would open the floodgates of war around the world as predators used such reasoning to justify attacks on would-be prey. But the flood of false Russian narratives forces us to engage in such irrelevancies rather than focusing on war-winning strategies and our interests.

Russia is hijacking and substituting key concepts of Western debate about this war, such as notions of peace and defense, contributing to Western category errors about both.

Peace = Surrender. The West naturally and understandably gravitates toward peace. Our default instinct is to seize the first opportunity in any conflict to “stop the fighting.” The Kremlin has mastered using the Western predisposition to peace as a lifeline for Russia’s wars – from Syria to Ukraine.[16] The Kremlin has not once supported its euphemism of “peace” with action in the context of Ukraine. The Kremlin has had continuous opportunities to choose peace, including a choice not to invade Ukraine – a country that Putin considered to be so militarily unthreatening that Putin assessed he could conquer it in a matter of days. Allowing Russia to keep its gains in Ukraine in 2015 and having a peace framework in place for seven years did nothing to stop the Kremlin’s reinvasion in 2022.[17] Every single version of the Kremlin’s euphemisms of “peace” since 2022 has included a demand that amounted to the destruction of Ukraine’s sovereignty.[18] Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev’s recent “peace formula” explicitly called for the elimination of the Ukrainian state and its absorption into Russia.[19] The Kremlin’s use of the term “peace” has been incompatible with its actions, including Russia’s campaign to eradicate Ukrainian identity in the occupied territories.[20]

The Kremlin’s exploitation of the Western argument for “stopping the bloodshed” conceals another critical nuance. Stopping the fighting does not stop the killing when it comes to Russia. The killing continues in Russian torture chambers on territory that Russia occupies – a process that is less visible to Western audiences and in a place where victims are stripped of the means to defend themselves.[21]

The Kremlin dangles the concept of “peace” to steer the West towards Ukraine’s surrender - the outcome that Russia seeks but cannot accomplish militarily on its own. When the Kremlin “signals peace,” it actually signals a demand for Ukrainian and Western surrender. Western debate continues, nevertheless, to indulge the Kremlin’s false overtures for “‘peace,”’ despite the total lack of evidence to support any reasonable assessment that letting the Kremlin freeze the lines in Ukraine can lead to peace rather than more war.[22]

Resisting Russian Aggression = Escalation. No one should be confused about verbs when it comes to Ukraine’s actions. Russia imposed its war on Ukraine. Ukraine chose to defend itself. Ukraine’s action is resisting death, occupation, and atrocities at the hands of Russian forces. Yet, the Western debate periodically accuses Ukraine (or the West itself) of “escalating” or “prolonging the war.”[23] The Kremlin has greatly invested in framing Ukraine – and anyone who dares to resist the Kremlin – as an aggressor (and Russia as a victim). The West’s legitimization of Russia, a belligerent in Ukraine since 2014, as a mediator in the Minsk agreements also gave the Kremlin eight years to falsely frame any Ukrainian self-defense action or unwillingness to bend to the Kremlin’s will as Ukrainian aggression.

No one should be confused about verbs when it comes to Western actions regarding Russia. The West has been non-escalatory toward Russia for years to the point of self-deterrence and ceding its own interests. The West has consistently chosen a path of negotiations, resets, and concessions with Russia.[24] The United States did not prioritize Russia, while focused on counterterrorism, largely until 2016 when the Kremlin openly interfered in US politics.[25] NATO has been self-deterring for years, discussions about Ukraine’s NATO accession have stalled, and Putin expected the Western response to his invasion of Ukraine to be so weak that he could conquer Ukraine in a matter of days.[26] Russia has been a self-declared adversary of the US and NATO, but neither the US nor NATO took meaningful steps to defend against Russia, let alone attack it, until after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.[27] The West nevertheless periodically views its actions regarding Russia as by default escalatory, conceding the Kremlin’s reasoning. This includes Western actions to defend itself or its partners against unprovoked Russian aggression or measures to limit Russia’s access to Western technologies and markets – neither of which Russia is entitled to and certainly not when it uses both to sustain its unjust war. The Kremlin’s framing that any Western action to resist Russia is aggression does not make those actions aggression. But the Kremlin has conditioned the West to think that way, forcing us yet again to reason from the Kremlin’s assertions, not ones based in reality. The West also indulged Putin’s grievances and grudges and reasoned to a false conclusion that we are somehow responsible for the Russian crimes that the Kremlin voluntarily committed against other states and its own people.[28]

These Russian efforts benefit from and strengthen trends already strong in Western discourse, such as the belief on both sides of the political spectrum that US or Western interventions are the source of all or most problems in the world. People, again, are entitled to their own views on these matters—but all should be aware of the degree to which the Kremlin seeks to weaponize our own internal discussions and disagreements to advance the Kremlin’s own aggressions and protect itself from the consequences of its atrocities. One can in principle condemn US or NATO policies and actions in the past and also condemn Russian aggression—but not in the Kremlin’s world, and not in the false reality the Kremlin seeks to impose on our internal discourse.

The Kremlin’s focus on degrading US decision making is not opportunistic, new, or limited to Ukraine. Perception manipulation is a key element of Putin’s offset strategy – a way to achieve goals beyond the limits of Russia’s power. In 2020 ISW assessed that Putin’s center of gravity is increasingly his ability to shape perceptions of others and project the image of a powerful Russia based on limited real power.[29] We wrote: “The Kremlin often generates gains based on perception without changing Russia’s capabilities. These gains emerge at the nexus of the Kremlin’s efforts to manipulate perceptions and the West’s inherent blind spots about Russia’s intent and capabilities. Minimizing the West’s perception of its own leverage over Russia is a core component of this effort.”[30]

The Kremlin depends on this strategy in Ukraine. Russia does not have sufficient military capability to achieve its maximalist objectives if Ukraine’s will to fight persists alongside Western support. Degrading US decision making is one of the few, possibly the only way, to narrow the gap between Russia’s goals and means in Ukraine.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: 10percent4thebigguy; globohomo; globohomouberalles; isw; killkillkillforpeace; nato; putin; russia; ruzzia; ruzzians; strategy; ukraine; zeeperporn
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To: MCF; TexasFreeper2009

[ “Russia is a 3rd world joke.”
With thousands of nuclear weapons ]

Russia has ‘thousands of nuclear weapons’ the same way they went into the war against Ukraine with 12,000 main battle tanks.


21 posted on 03/28/2024 9:46:35 AM PDT by MeganC ("Russians are subhuman" - posted by Kazan 8 March 2024)
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To: MeganC

Thank you for this post from the think-tank “Institute for the Study of War.”

Always a good resource. :)


22 posted on 03/28/2024 9:49:07 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com (Pray for God 's intervention to stop Putin's invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇸 )
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To: MeganC

lol this is fun to know:

“As to their nukes the majority of them are expired and can’t be reprocessed due to sanctions preventing the rebuilding of the Mayak processing and assembly facility.

By 2027 and definitely by 2035 Russia will no longer be in the nuclear club unless they can get their weapons program started up again.”


23 posted on 03/28/2024 9:50:23 AM PDT by Sunsong
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To: UMCRevMom@aol.com

You’re most welcome!


24 posted on 03/28/2024 9:53:30 AM PDT by MeganC ("Russians are subhuman" - posted by Kazan 8 March 2024)
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To: PreciousLiberty

WOW!

Your article from the https://thebulletin.org
certainly likes to quote TASS as a source:

TASS. 2016a. “Russia’s Podmoskovye Project 667BDRM Sub Undergoes Sea Trials After Upgrade.” October 24. https://tass.com/defense/908288

TASS. 2016b. “Шестая Атомная Подлодка Проекта ‘Ясень’ Заложена На Севмаше.” July 29. https://tass.ru/armiyai-opk/3496273

TASS. 2017. “Russia Upgrades Tupolev-160M2 Bomber.” October 6. https://tass.com/defense/969348

TASS. 2018a. “Russia Picks MiG-31 Fighter as a Carrier for Cutting-Edge Hypersonic Weapon.” April 6. https://tass.com/defense/998221

TASS. 2018b. “Su-57 Jets Will Be Equipped with Hypersonic Missiles Similar to Kinzhal—Source.” December 6. http://tass.com/defense/1034559

TASS. 2018c. “Источник: ВМФ России Получит На Вооружение Подводные Беспилотники ‘Посейдон’.” May 12. https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/5194368

TASS. 2019a. “«белый Лебедь»: ПОЛЁТ В БУДУЩЕЕ.” https://tu160.tass.ru/

TASS. 2019b. “Key Facts About Russia’s Special-Purpose Nuclear-Powered Submarine Belgorod.” April 23. https://tass.com/defense/1055135

TASS. 2019c. “Russia May Build Borei-K Nuclear Subs with Cruise Missiles-Source.” April 20. https://tass.com/defense/1054714

TASS. 2019d. “Russia to Test Next-Generation Stealth Strategic Bomber.” August 2. https://tass.com/defense/1071613

TASS. 2020a. “First Batch-Produced Su-57 Delivered to Regiment in Southern Military District — Source.” December 25. https://tass.com/defense/1239789

TASS. 2020b. “First Batch-Produced Su-57 to Be Used for Testing Hypersonic Weapons.” December 25. https://tass.com/defense/1239869

TASS. 2020c. “First Newly-Built Tu-160M to Make Maiden Flight in 4th Quarter of 2021.” December 30. https://tass.com/defense/1241341

TASS. 2020d. “Russia Begins Construction of the First PAK DA Strategic Bomber-Sources.” May 25. https://tass.com/defense/1160253

TASS. 2020e. “Second Experimental Tupolev-160M Undergoes Ground Testing.” December 30. https://tass.com/defense/1241361

TASS. 2020f. “Tu-160M2, Tu-22M3M Bombers to Get Communications Suite from Latest Su-57 Fighter.” August 12. https://tass.com/defense/1188883

TASS. 2020g. “Tupolev Aircraft Maker Confirms Testing Upgraded Tu-22M3M Bomber at Supersonic Speed.” May 27. https://tass.com/defense/1160887

TASS. 2020h. “Two Borei-A Strategic Nuclear Subs to Be Laid Down in 2021 — Defense Ministry.” December 29. https://tass.com/defense/1241183

TASS. 2020i. “Two More ‘Borei-A’ Strategic Submarines Will Be Built at ‘Sevmash’ by 2028.” November 30. https://tass.com/defense/1033658

TASS. 2020j. “В Северодвинске заложили две атомные подлодки проекта 885М ‘Ясень-М’.” July 20. https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/9006561

TASS. 2020k. “Вторую Подлодку-носитель ‘Посейдонов’ Планируют Спустить На Воду Весной-Летом 2021 Года.” November 6. https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/9936435

TASS. 2021a. “Development of Russia’s New-Generation ICBM to Begin in 2023-2024 — Source.” April 2. https://tass.com/defense/1273711

TASS. 2021b. “Russia Re-Adjusts Sarmat Intercontinental Ballistic missiles’ Test-Launch Program – Source.” November 8. https://tass.com/defense/1358929

TASS. 2021c. “Russian Navy to Decommission Delta IV-Class Strategic Nuclear-Powered Submarine in 2022.” April 28. https://tass.com/defense/1284099

TASS. 2021d. “Russia’s Latest Yasen-M Subs to Get Capability to Salvo-Launch Cruise Missiles.” April 20. https://tass.com/defense/1280259

TASS. 2021e. “Russia’s S-550 Missile Defense System to Intercept Warheads Free of Nuclear Blast — Expert.” November 16. https://tass.com/defense/1362271

TASS. 2021f. “Russia’s Upgraded MiG-31 Fighters to Provide Security for Northern Sea Route.” November 26. https://tass.com/defense/1366999

TASS. 2021g. “Shipbuilders to Deliver Project 955A Next Nuclear-Powered Sub to Russian Navy in 2023.” December 9. https://tass.com/defense/1373065

TASS. 2021h. “Submarine Severodvinsk Carries Out Underwater Launch of Tsirkon Missile.” October 4. https://tass.com/defense/1345401

TASS. 2021i. “Носитель ‘Посейдонов’ АПЛ ‘Хабаровск’ Спустят На Воду Осенью.” April 17. https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/11179651

TASS. 2022a. “Russia Looks into Building Four Extra Borei, Yasen-Class Submarines – Source.” July 13. https://tass.com/defense/1479217

TASS. 2022b. “Russian Navy to Get Strategic Nuclear-Powered Sub, 12 Surface Ships in 2023.” December 30. https://tass.com/defense/1558025

TASS. 2022c. “Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine is Purely Defensive, Says Russian Diplomat.” November 9. https://tass.com/politics/1534537

TASS. 2022d. “Shoigu Reveals Kinzhal Hypersonic Missile Was Used Three Times During Special Operation.” August 21. https://tass.com/defense/1496419

TASS. 2023a. “Base for Poseidon Nuclear Super-Torpedoes to Go on Stream in Kamchatka Next Year — Source.” March 27. https://tass.com/defense/1594763

TASS. 2023b. “Defense Contractor Delivers 2nd Batch of Su-34 Frontline Bombers to Russian Troops.” October 9. https://tass.com/defense/1686869

TASS. 2023c. “Tu-160 Bombers Outfitted with Novel Cruise Missiles – Top Brass.” September 16. https://tass.com/defense/1675823

TASS. 2023d. “First Batch of Nuclear-Armed Drones Poseidon Manufactured for Special-Purpose Sub Belgorod.” January 15. https://tass.com/emergencies/1562553

TASS. 2023e. “First Sarmat ICBMs Regiment to Go on Combat Duty in December 2023 – Source.” November 19. https://tass.com/defense/1708349

TASS. 2023f. “Over 20 Ukrainian Warplanes Downed by S-400 System Jointly with A-50 Radar in Past Days.” October 25. https://tass.com/politics/1696579

TASS. 2023g. “Perm Sub with Tsirkon Hypersonic Missiles to Enter Service with Russian Navy in 2026.” January 4. https://tass.com/defense/1559017

TASS. 2023h. “Russia Creating Testing Base for Next-Generation Strategic Bomber.” December 6. https://tass.com/defense/1716897

TASS. 2023i. “Russia to Continue Mass Production of Kinzhal Hypersonic Systems — Putin.” February 22. https://tass.com/defense/1580705

TASS. 2023j. “Russian Submarine Completes Ballistic Missile Test Firing.” November 5. https://tass.com/defense/1701939

TASS. 2023k. “Russia’s First Upgraded Tu-160M Strategic Bomber Enters State Trials.” July 6. https://tass.com/defense/1643307

TASS. 2023l. “Submarine Force Armed with Poseidon Torpedoes to Come into Operation in Kamchatka in 2025.” April 3. https://tass.com/defense/1598329

TASS. 2023m. “АПЛ ‘Белгород’ завершила бросковые испытания макета торпеды ‘Посейдон’.” January 9. https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/16763771

TASS. 2023n. “Источник сообщил, что число АПЛ семейства”Ясень” доведут до 12.” November 18. https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/19322805

Tsukanov, I. 2023. “Russia Builds Test Facilities for Next-Gen PAK-DA Bomber: What’s Next?” Sputnik. December 15. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231215/russia-builds-test-facilities-for-next-gen-pak-da-bomber-whats-next-1115606302.html


25 posted on 03/28/2024 9:55:39 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com (Pray for God 's intervention to stop Putin's invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇸 )
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To: MeganC

Lot of words, but...

The US currently doesn’t have a strategy (or capability short of nuclear war) to stop the Russians from prevailing in Ukraine.


26 posted on 03/28/2024 10:03:17 AM PDT by glorgau
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To: MeganC
Neocon propaganda, it's not just for breakfast

Warpigs one and all.

A roadmap for the defeat of neocon propaganda:
https://rumble.com/v4lkg1l-russian-art-of-war-w-jacques-baud-live.html

27 posted on 03/28/2024 10:05:54 AM PDT by Fighting Falcon (God Bless Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh MAGA DITTOS :))
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To: Sunsong

You might also like some detail as to why I say this:

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-nuclear-accident-mayak-facility-new-evidence-2020-6#:~:text=In%20late%202019%2C%20the%20scientists,Europe%2C%20Scandinavia%2C%20and%20Italy.

If you go on Google Earth and start in Mayak, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia you can see the abandoned facilities and you can also see the newer facilities that have been under construction since after 2017. Using the Google Earth feature that allows you to see the area in the past you can see how busy it was (see railroad cars and the parking lots) prior to the 2017 disaster.

Mayak is critical because it WAS Russia’s only plant capable of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from VVER-440 type reactors, nuclear weapons, and spent fuel imported from other countries like North Korea. The plant, to its credit, was Russia’s most effective producer of plutonium and so-called yellow cake. It is also thought that nuclear weapons were produced and assembled onsite.

Rosatom is the company or organization that runs Mayak and has been unable to obtain sanctioned/embargoed Western nuclear equipment since 2014.

The clock is running out on the Russian capability to produce and maintain nuclear weapons. Regardless of any propaganda Russia will be denuclearized by 2035 at the latest.


28 posted on 03/28/2024 10:10:35 AM PDT by MeganC ("Russians are subhuman" - posted by Kazan 8 March 2024)
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To: MeganC

Written by neocon, never met a war they didn’t like and want to make worse regardless of the cost to everyone else, war lovers. Pass.


29 posted on 03/28/2024 10:11:25 AM PDT by GrumpyOldGuy
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To: Allegra; AndyJackson; ANKE69; bimboeruption; Candor7; dforest; doorgunner69; fireman15; ...
Victoria Nuland’s sister runs The Institute for the Study of War.

Also deranged.

ZEEPER FOLLIES PINGLIST!

(((PING!)))

... to be added to the best Zeeper-provided entertainment since Paul Shanklin parodies, ping me bro.

30 posted on 03/28/2024 10:12:08 AM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: glorgau

“The US currently doesn’t have a strategy (or capability short of nuclear war) to stop the Russians from prevailing in Ukraine.”

Ukraine does and is stopping the Russians from prevailing in Ukraine. Lots of dead Ruzzians and lots of destroyed Ruzzian ships, tanks, and aircraft can attest to this fact.


31 posted on 03/28/2024 10:13:57 AM PDT by MeganC ("Russians are subhuman" - posted by Kazan 8 March 2024)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

There you are! Good morning! Or is it ‘good afternoon’ where you are?


32 posted on 03/28/2024 10:14:41 AM PDT by MeganC ("Russians are subhuman" - posted by Kazan 8 March 2024)
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To: UMCRevMom@aol.com

IBTZ


33 posted on 03/28/2024 10:16:04 AM PDT by grey_whiskers ( The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: MeganC
“Russia has ‘thousands of nuclear weapons’ the same way they went into the war against Ukraine with 12,000 main battle tanks.”
They have approximately 1500 strategic nuclear weapons available for immediate delivery https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60564123
34 posted on 03/28/2024 10:18:50 AM PDT by MCF (If my home can't be my Castle, then it will be my Alamo)
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To: MeganC

Just woke up two hours ago.

Now that Victoria is undercover, I see you are posting her sister’s propaganda.


35 posted on 03/28/2024 10:22:28 AM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: MCF

“They have approximately 1500 strategic nuclear weapons available for immediate delivery”

That’s actually a fair number and I would say that’s close to accurate.

However, that’s not aligned with the 5,977 and 5,580 the scaremongering propagandists are yelling about.

1,500 would be about the right number of useful or capable devices given the decline of expired devices since 2017.


36 posted on 03/28/2024 10:24:20 AM PDT by MeganC ("Russians are subhuman" - posted by Kazan 8 March 2024)
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To: MeganC

Russia already has more than 20% of the world’s resources but only 1.8% of the population. So it’s got more than 10x its fair share of the resources, yet it invades its neighbors, kills their people, seizes their lands and steals their resources. It’s pure greed.


37 posted on 03/28/2024 11:41:01 AM PDT by Brilliant
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To: grey_whiskers

Authored by brother-in-law of Victoria Nuland.


38 posted on 03/28/2024 12:36:26 PM PDT by stateofit
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To: grey_whiskers

IBTZ

I’m sorry, I don’t know what this abbreiation is or what you are trying to say.


39 posted on 03/28/2024 1:20:09 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com (Pray for God 's intervention to stop Putin's invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇸 )
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TYPO CORRECTION:

I’m sorry, I don’t know what this abbreviation means or what it is you are trying to say.


40 posted on 03/28/2024 1:22:53 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com (Pray for God 's intervention to stop Putin's invasion of Ukraine 🇺🇸 )
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