Kursk invasion - the beginning of the end of the war?

 

In a copycat maneuver to the Russian invasion to create buffer zone in Harkov last spring the Ukrainians decided to copy them and launch an invasion in Russia's Kursk region. They gathered everything they had, newest equipment, best units and launched the attack on August 6th. 

Initially they had success, the border was protected by border patrols, conscripts and militias allowing Zelenski's troops to occupy several dozen villages including the small town of Sudza. But Russians reacted quite quickly limiting this pocket of occupation and limiting Kiev's army's advance further.

Fierce aviation, artillery and missiles strikes hit the invaders inside this pocket while Russia informs that more than 5000 invading soldiers were eliminated together with large numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, etc. 

Conditions also deteriorate in the occupation zone where Russian civilians now ask the Ukrainian military administration set under occupation to provide for utilities, food, medicines and such putting an even greater strain on the already depleted capacities of the Ukrainian military. 

And in the meantime Russian armies continue their slow and steady advance in southern and eastern Ukraine, reaching Torestsk and closing in on Pokrovosk. Ceasov Yar is seeing hard battles with its eastern part already under tight Russian control.

A look back in history can't shake the feeling the Ukrainian offensive is just a desperate Battle of the Bulge type of attack, with sacrificing their best troops and equipment in the hope Russian will ease the pressure of the other fronts and hastily redeploy large units and divisions in Kursk. Allowing then the Ukrainian a counteroffensive that would fail shamefully as their last one during summer 2023.

But such a hope is far fetched and it was wishful thinking to believe Russian will fall for such a trap, actually they are pretty content with a larger front as their numerical superiority allows them to win the long game of attrition war.

Donald Trump versus Kakamila Harris

 After the senile-looking old man quit the presidential race (probably they can't accomodate diapers in the Oval Office) his good for nothing side-kick went into the race blazing. She is Indian, she is Black, she is Migrant, she is Quack? 

Showing the hypocrisy of the leftard extreme Americans are asked to vote for her just because she's not White. To discriminate in a positive manner. But that's long a modus operandi of the extreme leftards, if you are White, if you straight, if you are a man, if you are Christian they hate you with a passion from all their narrow rainbow colored brains.

In the meantime Donald Trump, while not the best choice either, is marching forward towards his second term. We are all looking forward to see the wokes crying in November and old mc Donald back at his oval farm. 

Ukraine is in the toilet

 I think there is no point in arguing the war in Ukraine goes from bad to worse ...for Ukraine. Sure Russia is losing a lot of troops, tanks, vehicles and such but they are still winning in a war of attrition. 

Each week the Russian troops push deeper and deeper into Ukrainian territory even by a few kilometers "liberating" villages and closing in on their next target cities. Ceasov Iar is partially occupied, Konstaninovka is being reached and Ukrainian troops are retreating each day. Especially in Donetsk the situation is looking bleak with massive Russian artillery strikes that pummel and obliterate enemy positions.

There is still not sufficient western assistance and despite western useful idiots rhetoric and brown-nosed journalists another Ukrainian offensive simply doesn't stand a chance. More and more Zelenski is kicked and pressured into entering negotiations with Russia and these talsk won't be easy nor pleasant. 

Recalling how the "experts" said the Russian economy won't resist to western sanctions more than two month, maybe six then, and we are in the third year of war it is clear that the western markets aren't dominating the economy anymore. China, India, Brazil, the global South, the new emerging countries are capable of sustaining Russia's economy and even help it grow.

And with Donald Trump soon in the White House it will be check mate for poor Zelenski. 

Banks are falling down? First Republic Bank is next?

 After Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse it looks like there is still trouble in the banking sector and mass-media is reporting it.

Recently the news is Deutsche Bank will let go about 800 fresh headcounts, business could be slow? And what about First Republic Bank losing 40% of it's stock value in a heartbeat?

Shareholders are getting more and more concerned while the top banks are trying to assure everyone that they have everything under control, but do they? People are scared about the safety of their deposits, loans are accessed harder and harder and there are few eager to get into debt now.

What do you think about 2023? Will be get another Credit Suisse crash? Another Silicon Valley Bank meltdown? 

Will Ukraine really launch a counteroffensive?

 More than one year passed since Russia invaded Ukraine and the war seems to head to a front stalemate with Russians chipping away a village or two every month and an alley in Bakhmut every week. 

Starting with February there were numerous news about an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive which will obliterate the Russian forces and liberate a lot of territory, being Crimea or Zaporzje or Donetsk. The counteroffensive was then delayed to March so the Ukrainian army can get more equipment and tanks from NATO countries and then delayed again in April to get better weather conditions.

Now the counteroffensive is delayed even more to May while Bakhmut is on the brink of falling with Russian troops controlling close to 90% of it. So the question arises , when can we expect to see this counteroffensive? If ever?

Russian media already boasts that Ukrainians tried to launch it twice and failed twice with the amass of troops being detected by Russians, bombed and dispersed with huge casualties. Can the Ukrainians amass a critical force without Russians detecting it or hide it from their enemy? Time will tell. 

Beware the coronavirus! Virus! Ruuuun!

With the recent news panic is getting more and more widespread in Europe. A month ago the coronavirus was a remote piece of news in the international news column and most people were saying : eh, it happens somewhere in China, it's a Chinese thing, doesn't impact us.

Then the news became more and more concerning, the number of sick and dead went spiralling out of control. Most people still didn't care, they couldn't imagine happening to them so they just ignore it.

Recently there started to be outbursts in Europe and even in America authorities are considering it's just a matter of time. From almost indiferrence and calm people went crazy, you see them assaulting the hypermarkets and buying provisions for months , wearing surgical masks in the open, arguing desperately the government should do something now and end it! Magical powers the government has no?

Meanwhile the markets are plummeting hard, the economies are starting to take damage, international trade is down and ... could this be the start of a recession or a new economic crysis? We can only hope!

Resource wants to buy a house

Every now and then there comes a time in the life of a resource to move to a bigger house. Generally this happens when the resource's family grows, usually with the birth of the first or second child.

Faced with the need to move resources start assesing their opportunities. Depending on their luck the real-estate market can be low or high, rarely do resources wait and expect a price fall. More than that there is usually a gap between what they want and what they can afford as resources tend to earn to little money and save very few to none.

Let's be honest here, each of us wants a nice house with large rooms, storage areas, a nice backyard to relax, parking space in a quiet area with good infrastructure, nice neighbours, good schools and kindergardens and ... wait a minute, all these come with additional cost. And when finally adding up expenses and looking into our wallets and accounts we are considerably short of money. We sigh and we hope for a market fall.

Happy New Year 2019 , what it brings in politics and economics.

Happy New Year 2019, may we have a better year than the last - but will we?

The beginning of the year brings a tense situation all over the world, with the US entering partial government shut-down due to the lack of funds (which they will resolve by borrowing another sum to their already enormous amount of debt) as well the Mexico border wall and trade war with China, with France facing another weekend of protests, the Yellow Jackets won't back down, with the EU presidency passed to Romania, the newest in the long list of European countries renouncing the liberal democracy (after Hungary and Poland), with Russia finalizing the Syrian war with a conclusive victory and focusing on pressing Ukraine further. Crimeea is already lost, Donetsk and Luhansk are basically lost too, will Mariupol follow and join the anti-Kiev insurgents?

Only time will tell and 2019 looks like an interesting year to say the least!

Macron's failure and the Yellow Vests revolution

It seems I was right and it wasn't even a long time to wait to for my prediction to be true. For several weekends in a row Paris as well as other big cities in France are in turmoil. Angry citizens rallied by the famous Yellow Jackets are protesting violently and demanding a real change.

I wrote when all naives were enthusiastic about Macron's elections victory that things weren't going to milk and honey for long. The French society has difficult problems that couldn't be solved just by talking gibberish, putting a big smile, posing as a cool guy and being funny. Truth is that is was easy to see the shallowness, populism and incompetence covered under the fancy suits. And now most of the French people seen it, they realized they were fooled and they aren't happy. While the big EU and liberal democracy supporters who crapped in their pants at Brexit or Trump's victory fooled themselves there is still support for their ideology with the poor and angry masses.

So they are prepared to show Macron how to do a proper En Marche and end the clown's career!

How soon will Macron fail to meet people's expectations?

It's no secret that nowadays president Emmanuel Macron won the French presidential elections decisively as well as his party did the same with the legislative elections. The question is why and how much hopes put the French people in his promises? 

You could always argue that people are fed up with the same old rusty politicians, with their old wooden tongue speech but is this a plausible reason to unconditially surrender to a new unexperimented politician?

Macron's policies had been targeted at pushing away conservative voters, but he has also unveiled proposals to please the left as well, such as his call for better pay for teachers working in poor, socially diverse areas. He also promised to reform the pensions and welfare, key areas where the stacks are definetely against him. 

We will soon see if the general enthusiam will melt down and if Macron will join the long line of politicians who promised big and delivered very small.

Trump, Comey and commiting to article 5 in NATO

Well who would have thought? A press conference held together by US President Donald Trump and his Romanian counterpart Klaus Werner Johannis (German guy right) offered the world some answers long awaited.

First the American journalists who cared little about the conference scope and ignored the Romanian president as if he was just a decorative statue in the background started asking Trump about James Comey, the FBI director being sacked following alleged discoveries of Russian involvement in the US presidential campaign.

Then a Romanian journalist asked the blunt question everyone back here in Europe is interested in, will the US back-up any NATO country in the event of a Russian attack? Praising Romania for taking his advice and increasing the GDP percentage for military to 2% Donald Trump assured the 5th article of NATO chart will be respected and the US and entire NATO are ready to go to war is such an attack happens.

London under terrorist siege

I was talking with a friend a couple of months ago and he was always giving me United Kingdom as example on how to combat terrorism in response to the attacks in France and Germany. There is a way he argued as long as you control the islamic propaganda, keep an eye on the mosques and evict the clerics that preach violent speeches.

I wasn't convinced and I replied that the islamic propaganda is not found only in the mosques, we live in the age of information and the young Muslims can view different internet pages, listen to recorded speeches from islamists all over the worlds, browse forums, etc. Evicting some clerics from the country is not a solution and don't stop young men and women search for material on Islamic State or other similar terrorist organizations. The problem is that these men an women, often at the second or even third generation feel unwelcomed in their countries. The different set of values, the different culture make them harder to integrate with the peers in their generation, more difficult to socialize and to be accepted. Thus resentment grows and looks for someone to blame. It's incredible how many Europeans fans these terrorist organization get to have from simply the inability of the Western society to integrate these youngsters and offer them better opportunities and ideals.

I didn't speak to my friend recently but I take it he has changed his mind.

US attack on Syria, Russia threatens

After playing the cat and mice game for a couple of years training and helping the anti al Assad "moderate rebels" US found itself in a tough spot, the Russian decisive intervention with ground troops, navy and aircrafts for the Syrian goverment. The long chain of following battles meant the same number of victories for al-Assad forces including the much discussed battle of Aleppo.

Currently the US backed "moderate rebels" are losing the war by a wide margin, their controlled territory shrinked considerably. So it made sense that their patrons, US, would look for a pretext to intervene and turn the tide or at least try to. This pretext was the possible use of chemical weapons by the government forces so it triggered a missile attack obliterating a Syrian airbase.

Of course Russia reacted strongly and condemned the attack, they don't like competition and al-Assad is to important to them as an ally to allow him deposed of power. Let's see the consequences...

When will the DJIA bubble burst? Dow Jones or Down Jones?

If you haven't been paying attention to the stock market lately (past few years) or never checked it let me assure everything is was peachy. DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) went on steroids after Trump's winning the elections and it's at historical heights. Actually it passed the 20.000 points level, a fact considered impossible only a few decades ago.

But what goes up must come down no? And the current environment starts to look awfully close as 2007.  Stocks goes up and up, everyone knows the best tip and your doorman even shares it with you. Everybody is happily buying to get those huge profit margins like the guys who cashed last year. However those guys aren't buying anymore.

The Trump victory really encouraged the last spark of the markets so the fall is now only a matter of time. Make sure it doesn't catch you with your pants down.

Obama wanted to listen Trump's phones?

I can only imagine the secret service connecting Obama to another one of Trump's promising phonecalls.

- Get me the car, yes the full-options one and I want it red! How will I pay? I don't know, stop annoying me, cash or credit, ask my frickin secretary! I'm gonna be president and you waste my time with silly questions, I say I waaaant the car and that's that!

Or another one for the books:

- Yes I want an exclusive table, I will be there in the evening. No no doesn't matter, it may be 6 or 7 or 8 or later, just damn reserve it for ten hours. And put the lobster and champagne on the ice, I need to celebrate I will be president. And it better be good not that 1978 crap you served last time or you're fireeeed!

You can only imagine the hard work the secret services has to do to decypher these complex day to day operations of the former Republican candidate. And of course to cover all those f**k that clown Obama, I will make America great again with beeeeps.

Putin is not a killer, many of us are says Trump?

Well first time I have heard that I thought it was a joke. Or maybe a Russian hacker changed the content of a news website. But then I realized he actually said it.

So it's clear that Donald Trump has an interest to win Putin's good graces by praising him. The Russian leader obviously has a weak spot for praising so maybe acting as a good businessman Trump is just hitting the target.

Of course there was a lot of outcry after this declaration but all in vain. Putin is a great leader to his people even if he's not democratic, maybe Trump thinks he can do the same? Time will tell.

Trump builds a wall between US and Mexico

So he really means it, the president Trump confirmed today the US will build a wall on the frontier with Mexico and then send the bill to their souther neigbours to pay for it. It makes sense as the wall is there to help Mexico keep its population in their country no? As you know thousands of tequila driven Mexicans loose their way every month and wind up in the US. And then they don't rememeber how to get back so they have to stay in US.

Obviously the Mexican president said his country will not pay a pesos for the wall. Try and make us was his message. Last time a Mexican president dared this was back in the 1850's. And we know how it went, without that the wall would have been built now through Arizona and California.

So the Great Wall of China will finally have a rival after thousands of years ... Who would have guessed?

Trump, Putin and the Chinese president walk into a bar

.... and get drunk like happy jolly fellows for New Year! Well that's not gonna happen so let's see what they might do instead.

With the end of the Obama disastrous administration in terms of foreign policy both Russia's Putin and China try to secure what they have gained (Crimeea, eastern Ukraine, Syria and respectively the South China sea exclusive zone and the artificial islands they built there). It's hard to imagine that Trump will be weaker than Obama so both countries prepare for rougher times ahead.

With the oil price rising Russia's economy is slowly recovering and Putin is less and less inclined to pay attention to the West economic sanctions. After all the Ukrainian story is getting old and these sanctions will have to be lifted eventually.

China on the other hand is again facing concerns their economic growth might slow down, that housing bubble will burst, that overall production or sales might diminish. Therefore she is flexing its muscles by sending its first aircraft carrier Liaoning to patrol the South China sea troubles area.

Until 2017 let's take a break and wish you Happy New Year!

Trump and the US Iran nuclear deal

OK so we all know it, good old jolly Obama being such an idiot a nice president made a nuclear deal with the ayatollah of Iran, supreme religious leader of the country, all-mighty judge, chief of the armed forces and the only one eligible for huge discounts at McDonalds.

Of course there was outcry everywhere (Israel prime minister even cried and refused to eat anything else than cookies that day even the White House warned they will take his Nintendo away for the day). Well maybe there wasn't outcry everywhere as Putin opened a champagne he was holding for when he would annex the Baltic states and the Iran nuclear scientists got to work on the nuclear bomb.

Now Trump comes to office and he warns he will cancel the deals? Easier said than done mr future president, not sure how many business deals he cancelled in his careers but this might not be so simple. And it would make US look stupid in agreeing one thing and than taking it back shortly. So let the Iranis build their bombs, I mean even North Korea has them. And North Korea doesn't even have enough food.

Trump trumped them!

In a somehow suprising fashion for the general public Trump smashed Hillary in the elections. The media-washed brained-programmed cosmopolitan youth who manifested support for Clinton together with their Hollywood idols and Wall-Street owners  received a hard kick in their behainds. That's not bad for them, maybe it's gonna be the wake-up call and show them how full of rubbish is the political corectness and multiculturalism.

What will Trump do further? Choose his team and start making America great again? Not high hopes though he might continue to smash the current hypocrisy, bureaucratic and polticianist model started by Obama and Hillary. We can only hope something better comes out of it.