This is, of course, a lie. Very on brand. But is there insight in Trump's recent increasingly unhinged boasts, which are out there, even for him.

The unilateral Diesel Deal just smashes the idea of sanctions, but - more than that - it can't possibly make a lick of difference to U.S. retail diesel prices. There just isn't enough of it, and that ignores the very real possibility that Russia doesn't even actually deliver all of it. Point being - it won't move American diesel prices at all, which defeats the purpose of trying to get some midterm-saving gas price relief. That was always a stupid plan anyways, since delivering 12 days worth of U.S. diesel consumption does nothing to the gasoline price anyways, which affects way way WAY more persuadable voters than diesel does.

Then why do it? Keeping in mind he's fully capable of simply lying in childish, absurd ways just from pure idiotic spite. His reliable, obedient smooth brain, mouth-breathing supporters will at least remember "hUrR deRr TrUmP g0t uS deEzul", even if there is zero change to what it costs them to fill up their vehcile today.

Well...if it won't budge diesel prices in a way that's politcally useful, maybe it's purpose is as a pretext for him to do more obvious shitty things to Ukraine. But that's not news and shouldn't be a surprise to any serious minded watcher. For the record - the first Russian tanker as part of this scheme left port on Sept 22nd. This WAS clearly the plan for some time now. But it's an incredibly stupid plan on it's face.

Take several steps back. Trump's conduct in two years has swung from "If I'm president I will have that war settled in 1 day, 24 hours". Then through the usual ham-fisted bullshit of berating Zelensky and the Ukrainians, telling them they 'have no cards', pulling U.S. military and economic aid, now threatening to undo the PURL initiative where Europe buys U.S. weapons (at full cost) for Ukraine without America paying for anything.

All of it is incredibly desperate. Nothing has made a lick of difference to the fundamental state of the war. And it seems like the orders he's being given now matches perfectly with his clinging desperation and fear about what's going to happen in the midterms in a couple of weeks. He always shouts the loudest when he's weakest.

He's a morbidly obsese toddler whose likely lifespan is probably in months, not years. And unless he's able to simply overthrow american democracy in 3 weeks, he's about to have his balls cut off politically for his (probable) lame duck period. He isn't going to be able to operate as freely, and the Russians probably fully realize that too.

Hence why the crazy seems turned up to 12 recently. His pathetic thrashing reveals that he's pissed away any leverage he DID have in influencing the conclusion of the war. The russians, for their part, are using him as a megaphone for their ludicrous maximalist goals. There's a silver lining there that at least they seem to understand that things aren't going to get better for them.

The feared post-Russian election mobilization doesn't seem to have been enacted in any meaingful way. In short - they aren't doing anything that looks like a war-altering strategy, and the loudest piece on the board is Trump flinging handfuls of dookie asking for Ukraine to give up something that, remember, is substantially less than what Russia wanted in Feb 2022.

They aren't in a good position, and neither is he. Ukraine would probably do well to continue to weather this storm for a little bit longer, if they want a truly just and lasting peace.

Thoughts?

This is an underappreciated aspect of large wars. What do you do with the surplus army of vicious beasts and their scheming, competent leaders when the fighting winds down.

I mean - it's premature to even think about this war in the past tense with all the suffering, but my cope is to look at what Russia actually DOES instead of what it says as a lead indicator of where this is all headed.

The North Vietnamese, for example, are widely thought to have ordered the Tet Offensive not because they expected it to work (and it didn't). But rather - they had become pretty convinced they were going to win the war, and decided to let the Viet Cong organization in the south be more or less liquidated by a long-shot gamble in an attempt to consolidate the post-war decision making base for leaders in the North.

It worked. They talked the south-based VC leadership into what turned out to be a complete slaughter, even if it was a political success leading to american defeatism. From that point on, not only was america's view on the winnability of the war damaged, but the war-hardened VC leadership was bled white and had choice but to let the Noth Vietnamese leadership assume strategic control for the last phase of the war.

The Russian version will be different - but this story speaks to their plan about how to deal with the monsters you have created. For the lower-funcitoning grunts - let them die. You're already seeing this with the vastly increased Russian casulaty numbers in the last few months. You don't have to pay benefits, and it keeps them from becoming tomorrow's gangster goons who make trouble at home. As for the leaders? Make them complicit as part of your gangster government. Make them fat and corrupt, and at the same time keep an eye on them so they don't get any ideas about pinning the blame for this failed invasion on you.

What Trump responds to is very telling. He has less curiosity about the world than a geriatric house cat but then suddenly comes out with strong, focused opinions that he acts like the thing he's brought up is revalatory and was previously unknowable. Healthcare was difficult - who knew? Can you inject sunlight and bleach into the body to kill covid? Why not? Why can't we just nuke a hurricance? Suddenly, Ukraine - who had no cards this time last year - is impacting the global diesel market. This is one of those "no shit, sherlock" perk ups.

Here's the well-traveled MO: He only chases things he's personally motivated in, and is given brief, simple instructions on what to care about today from his handlers. And then he just wings it lazily trying to ham-fistedly extort somebody somewhere to do the work for him. Or to be the scapegoat to take blame for whatever he's mad at today. Why did he bring this up today? Because someone told him to. Why and who is the important thing to know. And if whoever asked him to say this could do ANYTHING to stop it, they wouldn't be asking him to impotently plead for relief.

Yes, Donald. Ukraine has attacked Russia's oil & gas capacity. They said they were going to, and they have been for a year now. And it appears to affect you personally, enough to make a statement about it. Maybe that reveals the simple money train from Russian gas to your pocket. You tried to strong arm Ukraine, you cut support, you tried to create global instability by wrecking economies and threatening to invade your allies - but it hasn't helped to restore the money train from Russia to your syndicate. This isn't 4D chess. It isn't even checkers. He tried last week to assign all blame to high diesel prices on zelensky, and surely none to his moronic boogaloo in Iran. What good is that? Only his audience of smooth brain racist goblins is even pretending to listen to him anymore, and what would you like them to do about Ukraine attacking Russian diesel production?

And you should have known this all, dummy. This was very knowable for anyone paying close attention. What feels a bit odd is that this lacks his usual sptittle-flinging bluster and threats against Zelensky. This relative restraint very much smells like desperation. The meekness is what's notable.

Debating his conduct is pointless. He always tries to use leverage he doesn't actually have to push people around. But that's probably not the story here. The story is that he, and Putin, are very, very, very desperately weak right now. Trump wants the money train to resume. He has nothing left to try and blackmail Ukraine into a bad peace. Putin is trying to find a way to stay alive during a failing war that he caused that hasn't given him anywhere near the kind of return that he can call any kind of worthwhile victory.

The point? Ukraine is doing EXACTLY what they should. As expected, they are bringing their Pelican domestic ballsitic missile program online, and Russia probably has no effective defense against it.

They're squealing like stuck pigs. Russia ONLY responds to pain. This is how Ukraine gets them to stop.

Fairly predictable move. But what would it mean and what would it look like?

Lots of people say "No way. He can't, they'd lose badly even to just some the European NATO countries".

Yes. Probably correct. But winning a fight against NATO wouldn't be the point. Concluding Trump's final act of splitting the U.S. and NATO is the goal.

It's not a good move for him to make. But he has made thousands of stupid moves so far and isn't finished. It's a mistake to assume your enemy thinks like you do - or even logically. His world is far, far differnet from the average rational thinker in the west. He's in a war for his very life and legacy. We just want this stupid war to end and Ukraine to survive. Different stakes.

NATO's eastern flank of Poland, Finland, maybe even Romania might decide - FUCK IT. Game on - and decide that it's preferable to lend their air assets for an active defense umbrella over Ukraine, seize shadow fleet ships, sink some Baltic Fleet ships and maybe even put more assets into Ukraine. If a war is inevitable, better to fight it in the neighbor's yard than your own. And maybe a swift, decisive ass kicking keeps Putin where he is.

But again - an attack on the Baltics or Poland is the sideshow. The objective is to get their stooge Trump to refuse to honor NATO Article 5, in theory splintering the mutual defense bedrock of the alliance's biggest partner. And it's VERY likely to happen VERY soon - because Trump is about to get smashed in the mid-terms and is as healthy as a 20 year old diabetic house cat besides. His last effective order from Putin was always going to be to keep NATO distracted and the U.S. out of a final conflict.

Seems crazy right? Yeah, if you're trying to win a war and preserve the lives of your soldiers. But what makes you think Putin cares about that? From his spiteful, homicidal point of view - watching the U.S. convulse because it's corrupted leader refused to support NATO allies attacked by the Russians is a pretty good prize. The Russian propaganda machine will make several meals out of it, and probably use it as a pretext to wind down the war, calling it a victory. Its not that far fetced. You keep what you have in Ukraine for now, and say you've destroyed NATO. Russians have never had much trouble swallowing a big lie that reinforced their chauvanistic view of the world. Hell - they STILL think they're the only country that beat Germany.

The good news is - this is all very obvious. Putin and Trump are not smarter than Macron, Merz, Burnham, Tusk, Meloni et al. The EU will have some plans for whatever TrumPutin syndicate decide to do. Whether you think it will be enough or not is what's at stake. The best idea I've seen is that for any attack on NATO, the first thing you do is seize a percentage of the $300B of frozen assets and give it directly to Ukraine. Then see how the Russians react.

But - what the hell do I know? Thanks for attending my Ted talk. Your thoughts please.

Doesn't say much, but what this does at least signal is that both sides seem to understand how this war ends - with both sides unhappy.

This is Zelensky stating their likely starting postion: Unconditional ceasefire along current lines. Followed by diplomacy and security guarantees. The first part is easier. The second part, less so. Doesn't seem like much, but it IS the first time that they have said even that much.

Russia has spent too much to be content in the long term keeping only what they have now - and the heavy emphasis being on NOW. Including the exorbitant reconstruction costs they would have to pay. And I mean just internally within Russia to repair their oil & gas infrastructure to some new baseline level. But they ARE sort of, kind of, in the traditional bad-faith Russian way, acknowledging that their original war aims of total regime change and Belarus-ization of Ukraine aren't going to happen. Yet.

Unconditional ceasefire means exactly that - no conditions, including no reparations intially. That's what the diplomacy and security guarantees are for. But - who's going to provide security? Not the current U.S. administration, that's for sure. So what would that look like? For sake of argument, let's say a Euoprean NATO ground monitoring force and no-fly zone 100km from Ukraine's borders with Russia and Belarus. Total guess, but not that hard to imagine.

And what about reparations? Ukraine will want and deserves them in any world where justice matters. Russia will never, ever, EVER pay reparations willingly unless they are actively collapsing, like in WW1 with the treaty of brest-litovsk. BTW - the Russians paid only $6 billion marks then - like $160m dollars, or $3.5B dollars today. Seems like a bargain, but that's another story. The important part is there's no way Russia willingly pays out of pocket. Period. Too much pride and ego and nothing would get Putin killed faster than obliging oligarchs to pay a tax on their future earnings to get out of the war he started.

Ukraine might be assessing that an unconditional ceasefire is acceptable, because the future post-putin instability might present new opportunities to regain territory without having to do the bloody business of fighting for it today.

As for reparations - Ukraine COULD probably succesfully seek a portion of the seized assets post-war. Russia will lose their minds, and threaten to restart the war. This often happens in negotiations, but....rarely actually does. Let's assume that they aren't ready to resume fighting midway through peace talks. There would be signals like mobilizations if they were.

But, it's not crazy to think they might accept losing SOME of the $300 billion that Belgium is currently sitting on if it meant getting the rest back. They've lived without it for nearly 5 years, and they absolutely need it for their own post-war reconstruction costs. And it is not quite the political humiliation of outlaying new money. There's probably a way to do it quietly enough that even if the average russian muggle understands that it's reparations by other means, that it comes from already-stolen money that was never going to come to them anyways.

That settlement will be done during the Diplomacy phase. The glass-half full view is that IF the fighting stops per the initial Unconditional Ceasefire, it is hard to restart the war at the same intensity. There's so many issues of logistics, momentum, economic re-configuration and morale. Nobody on either side really wants to be the last person to die while diplomats quibble over semantics far away. Battlefield conditions rarely change much DURING negotiations - that's why they're really significnat even if it seems pointless. We're only JUST at the initial stages where they talk about their opening positions. You don't do even THAT when you think your position will be stronger tomorrow.

All this to say - both sides are going to end up unhappy, at least at first. But - in what seemed hopeless until pretty recently, both sides are publicly stating their positions. That's SOME kind of good news.

Thoughts?

Ukraine was absolutely correct to target Russian infrastrucutre. If this is remotely true, then this is the first time Russia has been figuratively brought to the table.

Guarantees from Putin and especially those backed by the Trump Syndicate are worth less than used toilet paper. But - let's go ahead and be optimistic. This would be a de-escalation.

And if Russia breaks it - which they will - they understand that means Ukraine will resume attacking theirs. Russia's air defense is a shambles and Ukraine's offensive capabilities are increasing.

Funny how this arises just as the FP-9 domestic ballstic missile program is about to come online.

The counterattck north of Lyman is a small area in the grand scheme. And if you're looking for signficance, you shouldn't over react to the push-pull of front lines in small sectors.

But - there is maybe a story behind the story here. Several stories.

• The closest you're going to get to The Truth and an honest insight of Russian thinking and awareness is probably an aggregate of similarly timed and themed milblogger Telegram channel freakouts.

• There's a brittle chauvanism to the Russian invasion mindset that doesn't respond well to ANY step backwards. That's a very inflexible way to fight a near-peer war of conquest. It also indicates a weakness - Ukraine doesn't have to fully expel the Russians to 2014 or 1991 borders for Russia to consider it a defeat. They treat every retreat like an irreversible loss with shrieking hysterics, searching for scapegoats. And usually at the opeational command level, which is kind of dumb. The failure may manifest there, but the real blame is several layers higher in the chain of decision makers.

• Ukraine remains capable of coordinated manueuver warfare. This is after a period where it seemed both sides seemed to accept that mutual drone mass has made zone operations fairly moot. And maybe it is - but that lapses in that drone mass coverage create opporutnity that conventional thinking considered a thing of the past. Ukraine isn't in a mere "hold on" phase - they are capable of offensives, and they may be growing stronger as Russia's man-intensive horde war approach is weakening.

• Taking several steps back - the Russian anxiety reacting to a localized rollback at least implies a palpable fear of a 'turning point'. One that is past 'culmination', where you stop advancing, and instead suggests you're at a point where you start to lose significant pockets that would require limited reserve strength you might not even HAVE to try to get back. That could create a dangerous domino effect both on the physical front lines, and in the collapsing confidence of a slow-but-inevitable strategy of grinding ever forward over a presumably weaknening ukraine.

• For all the talk of a September mobilization, it hasn't happened yet. And the first fresh conscript, whose combat effectiveness is highly debatable, wouldn't arrive to reinforce failing fronts for several months from this sentence if mobilization were announced. Nor is there much certainty that mobilized conscripts would be any good as assault forces in the first place to underwrite Russia's "grind forward, meat bags" strategy. How many more pocket collapses might happen before those conscripts who have less support, less equipment and poorer leadership even arrive at the front to replace the low-funcntioning grunts that are currently being blasted into canned pasta in charred piles of timber and blasted concrete right now?

In short - they are not moving forward and are starting to move backwards. Slowly, then quickly.

That all implies a collective fear among Russky milbloggers that they understand their entire position and philosophy is very fragile. There's lots of examples in history where a small local defeat reinforces a wider fear that the entire approach to the war is pointless.

It's very possible that a few collapsed pockets clustered together makes Russia finally accept defeat and screw off home.

The courage that the Ukrainians show every day is truly historic stuff. Slava Ukraini.

Interesting (if true) - Economist is in the major leagues in terms of reliability. There is a "They", and it's probably the intelligence services. And the actual method would probably be less dignified than a hanging.

Not only is there a "they", but it says Putin is entirely self-aware about the situation, and that he understands that he is personally accountable for this war.

This isn't an optimistic post - frankly the grim truth has always seemed that this industrial murder festival will go on as long as he does. Russia of the last hundred years has been essentially a crime syndicate. To say he's a Tsar kind of misses the point - the REAL power is the intelligence servies, and the Tsar-proxy is kind of a figurehead.

If he said this, it's very telling. He knows the war is going badly, he knows his life is personally depenent on the outcome, he fears "they", he wants to live and he doesn't know what to do. Seems highly likely he'll conitnue to escalate until.....? Russian history suggests that when things don't go well, they purge the leader and put all the blame on him in retirement. Don't think Putin will get the "Kruschev Dacha Retirement" package - he's done WAY too much damage.

Hopefully "They" are paying attention too, and are getting tired of the lack of progress.

Lots of people scoff at the idea that Putin will escalate further, given their floundering impotence in Ukraine. You hear a lot of versions of "He won't do it because he can't possibly win in an open fight against NATO". You're thinking rationally, and not like he does at this point in time. It also badly misses the likeliest reason why he might do exactly that. There's a reason why the CIA director made a surprise visit to Moscow this week.

Conquering the Baltics wouldn't be the point. Shattering Article 5 and further corroding American divisiveness would be the prize. At least in his own sick, vile mind.

He doesn't care about Russian lives. He probably cares more about harming NATO and the U.S. than taking land in the Baltics - but he would take whatever he can get. It's possible he finally understands that he is not getting enough of Ukraine to justify what he's done - and that he pivots to spiteful tantrum mode, as dictators losing wars of their own choosing have done many times before.

Having his forward forces wiped out by a strong NATO response isn't really a strategic defeat, if the trade-off is that Trump does his job and uses it as a pretext to remove the U.S. from NATO.

Russia needs an off-ramp. They don't deserve it, but from a saving face perspective they NEED one. And it can't be "Welp, we tried to take all of Ukraine, but they put up a jolly good fight. Fairplay, little Ukraine. We'll go home now". They can't lose to Ukraine. But - they ARE allowed to lose to NATO. And it would STILL be a credible victory from a russian perspective if the U.S. and NATO split, even if it were only temporary and conditional as long as their stooge Trump remains upright and in control.

It's more likley than most people realize that some kind of attack happens - and the outcome on the battlefield probably isn't what matters. A NATO fracture before Trump dies or is neutered or any limp response to an attack is a win, regardless of how many men, machines or territory is lost.

Its a bad idea - it might force Eastern NATO like Finland, Poland and Romania to act unilaterally, and it certainly will cause London, Paris and Berlin to alter their calculus. The U.S. is a non-factor until they grow up a bit - which is maybe never. But here you are. It seems very unlikely to improve anything for Russia - but what's good for Russia strategically and what keeps Putin alive for another 6 months aren't necessarily the same thing. It's dangerous to think he won't do it simply because their army would lose.

Thoughts?

Seems like another ho-hum russian aburdity story about how to dodge accountability for these warehouse strikes. But it also says a lot about who Ukraine is dealing with. Pretending that Putin is a logical state actor who can be managed with rules and agreements badly misses the point.

Think about this - first, he told private industry that air defence is THEIR business, not the state's. That THEY are liable for not just defence, but damages. And now this - that if they fail to provide 'adequate protection', then the state will take over. But take over what? What person with more than single-digit IQ would think that the sycophant gangster state administrators can even RUN private business effectively, much less provide improved air defence.

This is petromafia of black hearted gangster ghouls. The bigger story that we've failed to grasp is that complete seizure of the entire society was always an option. It's not a country - it's a slave state. Recent bank runs and moronic moves like this will destroy industry. Even if Russia starts taking over WB & OZON for.... failing to protect themselves from Ukrainian drones.... what would change?

Why would any business even TRY to operate in Russia at this point? Not only will you not be protected, not only is inflation spiraling and the economy clearly rocketing towards a dead end. The state will simply seize your assets when they want. There is no law here.

It's truly madness, and probably the event horizon for private business in Russia. But moreover - it shows the idiotic desperation and vile greed that really drives the RF. This war will not end until Putin is dead, full stop.

Russia can't save Wildberries & OZON, and they're not going to. It's the end of e-commerce within Russia, and Ukraine would do very well to keep up the strikes.

Something doesn't smell right about this alleged post-election mobilitzation in Russia.

1. It's Russia. The election's "results' have as much impact to Putin's crime syndicate as shooting rubber bands at the stars. Why would they bother to wait for a false mandate in an election that doesn't matter?

2. They need the troops now. Mobilization that doesn't start until October means those currently-civilian conscripts will not even start reaching the front lines for somewhere between 8 weeks and 6 months.

3. The Russian war strategy has 3 aspects:

• Small infiltration teams pushed into soft areas to probe defenses and hope Ukraine leaves. This uses men as worthless meat.
• Standoff missile and glide bomb terror attacks to soften Ukrainian defenses and destroy society. This uses high cost, high input and hard to replace assets.
• Keep doing both until they give you something to make it stop. Then prepare for the next invasion before Ukraine can recover strength.

A mobilization of say 500k civilians won't have a lick of difference to the tech heavy terror bombing campaign. It will only help perpetuate the meat grinder, but with civlians less capable than the current grunts being blasted into pulp in muddy rainwater puddles today.

All this to say - The Mobilization feels like a bit of a bluff. Something to scare Ukraine into concessions.

And even if it's not, it just gives enough meat to keep the currently failing strategy and death machine griding for a few more months.

Annnnd - It presents new and clear danger to the home front.

Doesn't mean the Kremlin isn't going to do it. They are way beyond the point of madness and hubris. But it won't work and it would serve other purposes than simply "winning" the war.

What do you think?

Not an alarmist, but the notion of a limited attack on NATO as part of Putin's end-game is more credible than many think.

Biggest mistake you can make in war is assuming your enemy thinks like you and wants the same things you do. Most rational thinkers understand NATO vs. Russia would be short, nasty affair that Russia would lose badly. At least on a military basis.

But if you're Putin - you already have fallen short of your goals and want to salvage something other than total conquest of Ukraine. Formally annexing Belarus and fragmenting NATO is MAYBE a prize that the average Russian would accept, or at least keep them from calling for Putin's head.

What does that mean? Poland is too strong, you can't get to Romania, thus the Baltics are the obvious target. Small, right on your border, has water access, and Trump would no doubt refuse to honor Article 5 based on their limited stature. The military outcome is perhaps irrelevant to the real prize - punching NATO's fringes in the face, having a muddled response and thus showing Article 5 to just be words on a page. Even if you don't capture the Baltics, and lose militarily, if NATO doesn't respond overwhelmingly, then he might consider that a victory in itself.

Hell - invading NATO countries and watching the U.S. thrash and get even further divided over their lack of response is probably at least as valuable as any slice of Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia. And they very well could be thinking that an isolationist stance over a 'far-off' war in the Baltics is perfect ammo to energize struggling Trump's base for midterms.

The risk:reward is suprisingly high for Russia, in a world where they've painted themselves into a corner surrounded by bad choices. Trump's likely to be weakened significantly in the midterms. All of their options suck - but the circumstances to get SOMETHING they can point to as a win will probably never be better than it is now. A last, insane move primarily for the sake of damaging NATO & US unity. They could possibly take that back to the Russian nationlist crowd as a minor consolation prize for getting their asses handed to them by inferior little ukraine.

Trump is their last best hope, and he may never be more useful than he is while he still controls the GOP majorities. It's easy and fun to dunk on Russia's struggles - but that only increases the chance that they do something even more desperate and crazy, like invade the Baltics. It's not that unlikely, big picture. Thoughts?