Russian lawmaker and Vladimir Putin ally Aleksey Zhuravlyov went on national TV Friday to warn that Poland has “probably started to realize that they are next.”
“Another question is to you, guys in the West, what are you going to do about it?” Zhuravlyov asked in reference to Putin’s imperial ambitions. “They understand very well that Ukraine is finished. So what’s next? Sweden is getting ready and so are the Balkans. The Poles have quieted down a bit, they probably started to realize that they are next. Of course, we have no illusions, but we understand that all of them are getting ready for the next stage of war.”
Full article, HERE.
The real question is, is this hyperbole or an actual plan based on what Putin thinks he will be able to get away with in the next year?
If the Ukraine falls, will the Russians even have enough of a military to go against Poland or anybody else?
Personally, I don’t think they do, but I’m not an Army type so I’ll defer to the experts. And if they do try Poland, what does NATO do? Poland is a member of NATO now, and there are mutual defense requirements that would come into play.
Given the amount of western hysteria about the “Russian Empire” and the cherry picking of comments (often out of context) to “Support” we MUST destroy Carthage, err Russia before…
Odd how this hysteria surges every time the Military Weapons Complex fears their gray train is drying up a tiny bit. Seems our spokesman told the world that until Congress prints more money for Ukraine we are done sending anything just a week ago.
Odd that.
When I read the transcripts, the message I read was very similar to the message sent to the former Great Britian. Deploying troops into Ukraine is declaring war against Russia.
I.E. you daft morons do you really want to party with us? AKA WAKEY WAKEY you morons, the USA is talking *hit but they will drop you like Taiwan (READ Bidens comments that they don’t support the two China situation) and Ukraine when it gets real.
Oh well, from my understanding the Gaza situation is eating what’s left of our dumb bombs/155mm shells in war storage (Ukraine screaming heard) and the Houthis are emptying our carrier escorts of their anti-missile systems.
Who said a Carrier is a bladder of jet fuel, wrapped around high explosives?
Who said False Flag if the Biden jackoffs need a 911 to “Win” a election or stop a election due to an emergency?
Either way the MIC gets their money.
I am interested in the fall of Rome, never thought I’d get a ringside seat.
Ukraine, Afganistan,
X2
X3
Rome started to fall when they stopped aggressively responding to attacks on the Pax Romana.
When the the barbarians realised that they could attack Rome – including its provinces and colonies – then break off whenever they chose because outside the borders was “safe” territory, they knew that they could not be defeated in the long term.
Lose a few men on a raid? Just retreat to your safe space until you feel like trying again.
That is what being terrified of “escalation” tells your enemies. That they can always know what a given action will cost them, and calculate accordingly. Deterrent requires a willingness to make your enemies pay a price higher than any benefit they gain.
As Sir Charles Napier wrote, the best way to establish peace is to give your attacker a damned good thrashing, then treat them with great kindness afterwards.
As for maundering about the “military-industrial complex”
A good deterrent may cost you 3-4% of GDP.
A full-scale war will cost you 40-50% of GDP…. if you WIN.
LOSING will cost you far more than that.
It is especially weird to hear Americans whining about it, when most of the $$ spent on military preparedness goes to providing American jobs and a significant proportion of that is recouped by American taxation and sales of American arms to America’s allies.
Complaining about something is easy. Providing a better alternative is HARD
Am I the only one thinking this is beginning to feel like Europe in 1914? Wasn’t it George Washington who warned against entangling foreign alliances?
You mean like the major support our Revolution got from France? Or the Prussians who trained/supported the Colonial Army?
Well ask yourself what it would be like to do without “entangling” foreign TRADE.
A major reason why America entered both World Wars was because foreign powers attempted to dictate what, and with whom , Americans could do business…. and they were prepared to kill Americans to enforce that.
….And yeah, that includes the Japanese oil embargo. The Japanese got pissy with the US because the US refused to sell them AMERICAN oil, not because the US stopped them from buying from everybody else.
Oh… War of 1812? Ostensibly because the British were interfering with American trade and sailors. Tripoli? …. pirates attacking American trade, ships and sailors.
Peter,
my fuzzy memory is that the US was the ONLY oil source willing to sell to the Japanese. (I’ve never seen an explanation why.) When we stopped, they had an 18 month store of oil on hand to run their country and military. Our military experts told Roosevelt that Japan would be FORCED to respond, as they were not going to allow their nation to die like that. FDR wanted in on the Euro war, but congress wouldn’t allow it, so he found another way to get involved. Twelve months later he got his war.
I don’t think Russia can take Poland even if they want to. But they are more likely to try and roll up the Baltic states first and that leads them to the same NATO issues. The Finns, Poles Estonians and other Baltics have all been closely watching what has been going in in Ukraine and they have well armed forces that definitely work and are at full strength.
If they try any of this then Kaliningrad gets taken by Poland as step 1 and St Petersburg gets blockaded by all the various NATO members with Baltic ships and aircraft as step 2. Pulkovo airport is 80-100 miles from NATO territory which makes it in easy range of all sorts of weapons. And we know Russia has moved a ton of air defense assets to Ukraine and environs from the north. There’s an excellent chance that both Kaliningrad and St P are low on both SAMs and the like as well as trained personnel to use them.
And that’s just the start. All these countries also have 40-80 year old bones to pick with Russia. If Russia wants to lose all its sea ports east of Vladivostock then trying to fight former communist European nations is the way to do it.
That sounds as good as the plans for winning the war in Ukraine. I bet you have even accounted for the two whole army groups totaling 350 men that have been created, trained and equipped since Sweden and Finland set out to join NATO.
Russian standoff precision missiles will destroy any arms production on the continent, but not to worry, in five years the US will be making as many artillery shells in a month as Russia makes in a week.
The bigger picture is this is just jaw wagging started by Germany ‘leaking’ the timetable and plan for Europe to attack Russia. Try to remember back to those halcyon days of the ’90’s when we still had an army. Our plan for the Russians flooding the Sulwalki gap was tactical nuclear artillery because we knew we couldn’t stop them with our conventional forces. Since then all of Europe has become all hat and no cattle as far as armed forces go. And us, we spent the last 30 years tuning our defence establishment into the perfect tool for bullying small countries.
After see how well NATO equipment, training and tactics do in Ukraine, you would be well advised to moderate your bellicosity.
350 thousand, sorry
Russian long-range “precision” weapons can’t even destroy Ukrainian military production facilities. They can’t do more than put temporary dents in the power grid in one country. Shutting down the military-industrial facility of all of Europe? That’s a fantasy.
The artillery production that you imagine Russia to have, is mostly refurbishment. They started the war with a massive soviet-era stockpile, of which they have used over half. Like their tanks, most of it was poorly stored and requiring serious remanufacturing prior to use. Their new-manufacture rate is much smaller.
The US production you are citing comes from just one facility. NATO and NATO-Aligned nations have manufacturing facilities in the Czech Republic, in Germany, in Spain, in Britain, in Japan, in South Korea….. even a certain hot-dry Island with funny wildlife south of the equator is about to open a second state-of-the-art shell-forging facility. But of course, Americans wish to think that only America can do stuff.
Also, Ukraine is not using “NATO” tactics, because they don’t have NATO airpower. Nor do they have the Russian willingness to take stupid levels of casualties in order to take strategically-irrelevent amounts of territory.
Conspiracy-theories about NATO invading Russia without cause, do not help anyone’s case.
I do think Russia will move against Poland but from what I see all of this has been orchestrated by the WEF. China is a member and Putin was also a party in some manner to that group. There goal is to ignite a nuclear war in order to reduce the population by billions of people by any way possible. Is Putin taking marching orders from the WEF fed through the Chinese? I do not know but am suspicious that this is the case. When all is said and done the One World Government will become a reality and freedom will vanish along with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. A new one world religion will be introduced based on satanism. This may sound crazy but it is on the horizon if people get their heads out of their phones and pay attention to what is actually happening in this upside down world.
Starting a nuclear war to reduce the population is not very attractive when you consider that the elites supposedly plotting this will be unable to ejoy their new low-population world until long after they are dead.
Also keep in mind that businessmen are not going to make much profit without plenty of people with the money to buy whatever they are selling. That result was seen after the Great Plague went through.Europe. Peasant wages went UP because suddenly there weren’t enough peasants
The ground idea for Kaliningrad and elsewhere makes about as much sense as taking out the Russian Polar Fleet submarines by sending 6 squadrons of P-3s armed with Harpoons to destroy them at their moorings near Murmansk and Archangelsk, perhaps with F-18 A/B escort. It will get expensive and ugly, very quickly, and impossible to replace.
Poland would be the next one offered up to gut itself, followed by the Baltic States and then Scandinavia. The question is: why?
Recall that Poland has 200-300 year old bones to pick with Prussia and Austria as well. Why should they listen to the Prussians?
Britain and France fought each other – on and off- for hundreds of years. Then fought on the same side in two World Wars. There is hardly a nation on earth that has not been involved in conflict at some point…. but only the idiots can’t get over it if former enemies change.
It’s not about historical arguments. It’s about the fact that Poles don’t want to be under Russian domination NOW , and the German are committed to fight alongside the Poles to prevent that happening. Poles are looking at what is happening in Ukraine right now and going “Hell No”, much to the delight of arms manufacturers in the US and South Korea.
Never mind the US and British.
We went from “go away and never come back” to tight allies.
There is that…. and the sensible amongst us, approve.
How many drones can we send to Poland? Warfare changed last year. And the old plans of Russia overwhelming NATO forces just went out the window. I’ve read somewhere on the internet that Russia is having to break out old tanks from reserve units (t-72/t-56) just to keep up with the losses. Putin may eventually take Ukraine, but the cost is going to be more than Russia can afford. Then to say they are going to take Poland and the Balkans? Pipe dreams.
Tanks are not coming from reserve units. They are coming from reserve stocks, some of which have been parked in the open for years (often with anything sellable ripped out of them by soldiers who don’t think they are getting paid enough) They are being refurbished, but we are still seeing increasing numbers of less-capable models, which tells us that Russian stocks are running down.
They are also building new types (T90m?) but in fewer numbers
When talking drones, ask which drones. The most common types in combat right now are the low-cost FPVs and Mavics. Predators and Global Hawks are a different thing entirely.
With everything going on in the Polish Government right now, don’t be surprised if they join willingly. Poland’s government is in chaos right now and the rule of law seems to be disappearing, not unlike here.
The E.U.(collectively) is a basket case . I don’t believe Putin nor the Russian Federation needs nor wants the ass ache of any of them . My speculation , as good as any one thrown out there , the R.F. wants the referendum approved DPR , LPR , and the other two(3?) Oblasts (Novorossiya) . Why would he need , why would it be in his best interest, to take over a populace of brainwashed progressive/ socialists that rolled over on their own sovereignty to an unelected bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels ? Besides as the E.U. is crumbling in this NATO folly , some former soviet countries may warm up to relations with the R.F. on their own accord . The U.S. almost certainly will bail on Ukraine leaving that country lying on the cold wet spot . The E.U. started as a trade facilitating org to become quite the rule making bully , I don’t see the upside nor the great desire of countries to become entangled with it . Orban has some very insightful views on this , and European elections and parties gaining ground show quite vocal dissatisfaction with the E.U. That’s all I got , just spitballing.
Putin runs a country full of brainwashed people…. It’s what you get when all media is controlled by government.
He doesn’t care what intellectual idiots think, that’s why he has more internal security police and troops in Russia than he has combat troops in Ukraine.
You sound vaccinated! Or are you just the pot calling the kettle black. The West is the winner of the propaganda/b.s. wars. We brag about how we make our own reality(see D. Cheney.)
Putin/Russia doesn’t want Europe. They just want to sell stuff and be left alone, (Gosh, that sounds like me ) but somebody just can’t stand that. What is really happening is the US has run out of hinterlands that can be pillaged and raped for the raw material and profits our empire needs to defeat China.
Heh…
You reveal the level of your thinking when you cite one former politician as though he thinks for and speaks for everyone in America.
Let’s ignore the economic illiteracy and the fact that you can criticise – or even outright lie about – America in public without facing a jail sentence. Let alone a seven-year sentence for just calling a war a war…
Let’s ignore the explicit claim by Putin that Russia should be able to control the trade and foreign policy of countries that border Russia.
Let’s just ask when was the last time the US invaded a neighbour and declared the conquered territory to be A PART OF THE US.
I’ll wait.
Hmm… I’m not sure if the Mexican-American war counts. Or if there is anything more recent than that.
Oh, the indian wars, maybe.
But, I fail to understand, if the sphere of influence argument applies on Russia’s behalf for Ukraine, why it does not also apply on America’s behalf for Russia and Mexico.
At this point, the Russian unwillingness to peacefully coexist makes the same argument that the behavior of the Great Plains Indians did.
I think rolling the dice and nuking Moscow might make a lot of sense.
In general, the USA’s neighbors, Russia, PRC, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, etc., are corrupt hellholes, and a security problem. I’m not at all sure that ‘intervening to protect ethnic Americans in historical Greater America’ and ‘denazifying’ those cultures is any where near as insane as it ought to be.
It sounds like saber rattling to me, but then I thought Ukraine was also…
If they think Ukraine is tough, Poland will be way tougher. They are more unified, more efficient (because they’re less corrupt) and have been training and preparing since 1991.
Given their losses in Ukraine, I doubt they have the strength to take Poland. As mentioned, I suspect they’ll take the Baltic states first since they’re way smaller and have as good or better coastal access.
Hey Old NFO;
Poland remembers what communist and the Russians did to them from 1945 to 1989, and they didn’t forget, although the new government arresting people gives me cause for concern, The polish Military has been arming themselves with modern equipment for several years and training hard, I don’t see Russia having an easy time of it, more difficult than the Ukraine.
And I am over here totally unsurprised. Putin has said many times over the years that the breakup of the Russian ’empire’ (or whatever you want to call it) after the fall of the Soviet Union was wrong.
Apparently, Russia thinks like islam. It’s theirs as long as one drop of Russian blood has fallen on that land. It’s theirs if they’ve planted the flag for more than, well, if they’ve ever planted the flag on a piece of land.
Has Russia overstepped in the Ukraine? Maybe. Yes.
Will Russia in any of its incarnations continue to believe that Poland, Latvia, the Ukraine, parts of Finland, the whole Czech/Hungary/Austria mishmash belongs to them? Yes. Definitely.
And with Russia’s falling birthrate, it’s either now or never.
I’m afraid actual plan is for the US military to spend so much ammo swatting flies we will be Winchester if a serious war breaks out.
Rebuilding ammunition stocks will take months to years if it can be done at all without imported components.
It will only take “years” because too many people are afraid to spend the money and issue the required contracts.
Both our governments have gotten into the habit of using money that should go into Defence, buying votes and engaging in ego-projects. And we keep refusing to vote them out.
Also, you have deep stocks of systems that aren’t being used right now. Most of your air-launched systems are not in play in any significant numbers, as an example.
It takes forever to make artillery shells because the casings, fuses, and filler are all made in different regions of the country. The powder charges are made in a fourth.
This is Congress at work, “defending” their jobs, making everything cost five times as much and take ten times as long as it really should.
Nope….
You are citing a transport problem in a nation with very, VERY large internal transport capacities that are untouched by wartime
A more valid criticism would be that it takes time to allocate the funding, build the factories, tool up and train the personnel. In peacetime, that is true. In wartime, economics go out the window and skilled personnel are diverted from their civilian jobs.
That isn’t happening anywhere in the US or Europe, yet.
All- Interesting comments and all of them bear more thought. Rick, we’ve been ‘discussing’ that in some other locations, and yes, we’re in trouble there too…
And the Finns sharpen their puukko and smile.
90% chance this is hyperbole. Small chance they are serious. But they are beating the war drum for some reason. Trick is figuring out what that reason is.
There is a basic problem with analysing anything said by Russians.
It is that “Maskirovka” or deception, is a formal part of their military-political doctrine.
In other words, they will say anything, if it helps to influence people into thinking the way that they want us to think. They don’t care if it is true. They only care how it makes you think.
The more Americans talk as though they are afraid of escalation – as the Biden administration is doing – or as though they are afraid of a long war and a little expense – Republicans – the more Russia is going to talk up the idea of a long war, Russia being prepared to use nukes (against their own doctrine) and a threat of other wars.
What Putin and his cronies would like to do, and what they are capable of doing if the US and Europe do not surrender, are two different things.
It would be really, really smart if we stopped believing that not everyone values honesty as much as we think we do.
Most likely the Russian Lindsey Graham.
Russia is not the Soviet Union. Putin doesn’t want or need the burden of “Empireing” over phuqued up, degenerate western shit holes. The West is bankrupt, has no robust military(this ain’t the 90’s), is running out of ammo, no longer has an industry to build a military, no longer has enough Southern warriors to join the woke military. Europe has less than the US. Putin wants TRADE, not war, and finally figured out around the middle of 2022 that the US was “agreement incapable”, was “The Empire of Lies”. Putin has enough backing to take back the Russian part of Ukraine, not enough for never ending war to conquer Europe or even Poland.
Russia does have a healthy economy, civilian industry and a rapidly expanding arms industry, when it’s time to negotiate, they will negotiate from a position of strength. Putin has a better track record for telling the truth than ANY Western leaders. Sorry for the rant, but ya’ll seem to get your propaganda from CNN, FOX, NBC and the usual captured MOCKINGBIRD, CIA mouth pieces.
Sorry, Mike, but none of that is remotely credible.
Despite the current levels of debt, none of the major economies opposed to Russia are “bankrupt”. INDIVIDUALLY, the German, British, French and Italian economies are bigger than Russia’s. There is no rational case that NATO could not bury Russia WRT military and economic production, should the member countries stop indulging themselves in luxury-spending as we are at the moment.
Secondly, Putin has more personnel devoted to internal security in Russia, than he has in combat in Ukraine. He’s not a democrat. He does not care what the people in conquered territory think or whether they are “degenerate”. His RECORD in Russia and in every conquered territory is that the people will do as they are bloody well told.
Thirdly, what Putin DOES is a far better indicator of his intent, than what he says. So-far, he has engaged in four conflicts – Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine – none of which “wars of last resort” and all of which were/are excessively brutal. That is not counting the number of conflicts engaged in by Russian PMCs which tend to get “paid” with mines and oil-wells.
Combine that with Putin’s well-established record of using fuel supplies as leverage and there is nothing in his history to support the claim that “all he wants to do is trade and be left alone”.
There are many reasons to be sceptical about Putin’s pronouncements, but when he explicitly states that Russia should be able to control the trade and foreign policy of neighbouring countries AND acts as though he believes this to be true…. well maybe we should believe him.
Well, I’ll just agree to disagree on most of that. We both assume the info we’re getting is credible. The West has out sourced it’s manufacturing base to Chynah,(because CEO’s love profits, not payrolls) the US has no other manufacturing to convert to war time production (like WWll). Russia does. The West has been taken over by pedo, kid phuquing, human trafficking, power hungry, narcissistic, Satanists. Therefore, I believe little of any word from fedgov, media, politicians, medical or any other “experts”.
So that I can get a better idea of your world view, could I ask your opinion on “white replacement”, weaponized weather, weaponized health care? My reality may be a bit more pessimistic than yours. Thanks for engaging.
For all those beating the drums: You must understand that Russia is using a smaller portion of its military in Ukraine than the USA did in Iraq.
Ukraine is what modern war looks like when both sides have teeth and a will to fight. See also the 2nd Nagorno-Karabach war, and how it turned out for the droneless Armenians.
Partly because the US did not have half its personnel in the home country keeping the dissenters in quiet.
Partly because the US was not telling the world that it was worried about being invaded by Canadians, Mexicans or Fish.
Thirdly, because the US and their allies were aiming at a very quick, overwhelming victory while minimising casualties.
What you refer to as “modern warfare” is what you get when neither side has air-superiority or access to the kind of modern technology at levels that the US and Europe have available……or manufacturing at the level that NATO and NATO-aligned nations can devote to war-production if they so choose.
Not a single F22, F35 or any of the thousands of 4th-gen and 4.5gen Western aircraft have yet been brought to bear. Neither have current NATO long-range precision fires or SEAD.
I’m not a believer in “game-changers” and Wunderwaffen as automatic war-winners, but the application of that kind of capability to a Russian military that is already struggling against a smaller opponent would make life very difficult indeed for them.
China is rattling sabers at Taiwan, but watch for them to move into western Russia instead.
Well, the perhaps joke is that the Russian puppets have just taken Poland over, so…
Merkel was a clearly a Putin ally/proxy.
Several things can all be true. The regimes in the EU are mostly enemies of the American people. The Russians are an enemy, and a good kicking cheaply is pretty attractive on general principles. Biden regime is absolutely untrustworthy, and getting our own house in order is more pressing than just about any foreign policy problem. The ‘international community’ is basically malicious. Replacing aging stockpiles is in general a good thing. ‘war profiteers’ has long been a conspiracy theory used in Russian propaganda within the US, and explains conflict between the US and Russia much more poorly than the fact that the Russians are savages, and unable to believe that the US (being foreign to them) can ever willingly reciprocate peace. Building up stockpiles prior to a civil war is of dubious wisdom. If you want peace (1) in a world with Russians, exterminating them might be a way to accomplish that. The Democrats are economic saboteurs (2), and are likely to destroy any level of investment in defense production. Putin is not any sort of fucking champion of Christendom (3) or of Christian values. The path to peace and security for Americans necessarily runs through a long internal cultural war (6).
I do not understand why people over complicate their strategies by insisting that some of these ideas exclude the others, and trying to pretend that some man on a white horse is going to do what they want in place of them needing to do a lot of slow boring work.
You don’t need to concede points, unnecessarily, in order to play game of pretend about having more allies than you actually do.
Lots of people can be bad, deserving of a kicking, with no trustworthy ally reading to do the kicking.
(1) Maybe, just maybe, preparing to fight potential future adversaries is a saner way of dealing with the existence of the Russians than just starting at the goal of exterminating them.
(2) It is absurd for the Democrats to be asking why the 737 Max had the panel issue. When you just shut down half the economy at random, big cost, takt time, or lead time products are going to have some lasting quality issues. Whatever other root causes exist, the Democrats are one of them. (4)
(3) Threatening to send Muslim troops to a nominally Christian nation, as show of force and threat to intimidate. (5)
(4) This is only one element of the Democrat campaign of economic sabotage. They invented environmentalist activism largely because otherwise the 1960s agricultural efficiency improvements would have made everyone far too wealthy to ever care about red shit again. Or rather, the communists invented it, and the Democrats were by that point a subsidiary and wholly participated.
(5) The arabs were the fourth Axis power, and largely protected from justice because of the Russians, and because the Russians wanted somebody to use against Jews and Christians.
(6) This is the non-violent sense of culture war.
Anyone remember President Regan? Every time the Russians say something NATO and the West start a kne-jerk reaction of spending monies we don’t have. Just a thought
All- Thanks for the comments!