Dec 20, 2024
A new speech by Georgian pretender Salome Zourabichvili to the EU Parliament is a must-see. It is the very apotheosis of the Rules Based Order’s terminal decline, on which we’ve enlarged at length here. As things get down to the wire and the European ruling elite squander their mandate from the people, they have no avenue left but to ratchet up totalitarian policies to stay in power—and to keep the system, that interconnected grid of elite deep state power in control. As that occurs, their anti-democratic calls become increasingly naked, as they’re forced to say the quiet parts aloud:
It is in the context of what recently happened in Romania and elsewhere that her speech is seen in its most egregious light. She essentially calls on European powers to intervene in her own country, to act against her own people and government, which she calls illegitimate; for the record she’s now called both the parliamentary and presidential elections illegitimate and has vowed to illegally stay past her deadline.
There are so many outright shockingly hypocritical and treasonous statements it would be too long to list them all. Right from the getgo she blames Russian “imperialistic tendencies” for wanting to influence Georgia, yet almost in the same breath declares that Georgia is a “strategic interest” for Europe, and that Europe should therefore move in to take control of it. Is that not imperialism by the same name?
She goes on along the tack of saying the unspoken by naming every strategic advantage that NATO and the EU would see with Georgia under their control, such as control of the Black Sea, Armenia, the Caucuses, amongst other things.
She hails the illegal nullification of the Romanian election, which is met with resounding applause by the corrupt unelected bureaucrats.1And this shows the flagrant corruption of the system—a dying empire seeks only absolute power and expansion at all costs, nothing else matters. Laws, rules, democratic principles are mere frivolities to be used as bargaining chips or talking points as means to an end.
This speech has particular significance because Zourabichvili’s term expires on December 29, when the newly elected ex-Dream Party president Mikheil Kavelashvili is set to take office. The treasonously mad madame has openly vowed she will not step down, which means a culminating point of unprecedented proportions is due in a week and a half’s time.
But the wise leaders of the Global South have hearkened to the misprisions of the West’s corrupt puppet satraps. One must but listen to how keenly they apprehend what is going on. At a time when Macron’s government is collapsing, Scholz lost a parliamentary confidence vote leading to early snap elections in February, Biden was virtually couped and replaced, Trudeau set to resign according to rumors, with the entire Western order in terminal crisis, wise leaders like Azerbaijan’s Aliyev understand everything. Here he observes Macron is turning France into a ‘failed state’:
This comes just as alarm signals sound off on Germany’s coming economic failure:
Well, what do you know?
The article goes on to describe the darkening malaise:
As living standards erode, voters cast around for someone to blame, and the social tensions drive away the foreign talent the country desperately needs. The toxic cocktail of caution and resentment would then ripple out across Europe.
“Everyone’s life, little by little, gets a little bit worse for the rest of their existence,” said Webb.
Meanwhile, in today’s big Q&A Putin actually pointed out something much-overlooked: that while inflation in Russia was 9%, Russian wages actually grew around ~9% over the same period, thus equalizing the inflation. Russia’s economic problems can be characterized more as: “too much of a good thing.” And this is a far better problem to have than what most of Europe is experiencing.
As a last general reflection: As the institutions which have governed the globe since the Cold War slowly become undone, the world begins entering an active ‘strongman’ phase. One governed by the likes of Netanyahu and Erdogan, who no longer fear for the brakes and baffles previously in place owing to the respected international institutional norms which the West has now ineptly eroded. Years upon years of total disregard for true Rule of Law by corrupt, coopted Western rulers has resulted in the complete discrediting of everything from the UN, ICC, OSCE, IAEA, and tens of other adjacent bulwarks against chaos.
Now, we likely enter a phase of madmen running rampant, taking advantage of the time of global lawlessness to expand their would-be empires. Erdogan again hinted so much in a new speech, declaring that Turkey will no longer be bound to its original geographic magnitude:
This stands to initiate a cascade effect of other smaller nations all over, in Africa and elsewhere, seeing their chance to settle old geopolitical scores, or exact revenge. Russia of course is party to that with its invasion of Ukraine only because the West’s unrestrained antidemocratic overreach, addiction to imperial expansion, and the attendant abrogation of international law has led to the fracturing of this system which Russia was forced to react to. The recent hype around MRBM missiles and Oreshnik is just one example—it is a system that would not have existed were it not for the US’ brazen refusal to honor the INF Treaty.
Israel will likewise seek to carve up the remainder of Palestine and Syria due to the feckless collapse of the West’s moral authority and institutional power. For instance, infamous Likudnik Bezalel Smotrich again spoke of depopulating Gaza and the formation of an Israeli ‘empire’.
This is why inevitably the world must turn to the polestars of the east, with China as primary benevolent anchor and center-of-gravity of Order.
Turning to Ukraine, there’s one interesting update I’d like to cover.
In the latest issue of France’s Le Monde, Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Syrsky makes a stunning statement:
Despite the initial Ukrainian victories, and Russia’s failure to conquer Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa – in other words, to subdue the country – «the number of Russian troops is constantly increasing,» he said. «This year, we estimate that there are 100,000 additional Russian troops on Ukrainian soil.»
Wait a minute. So despite all the blather about unprecedented Russian casualties, Russian troops have increased by 100,000 in Ukraine just this year alone?
Consider this: Just a few reports ago I covered Meduza’s new report which claimed that Russia is now suffering a net loss in troops. Remember this?
They claimed to use “federal budget data” to show Russia now dropped to potentially as low as 14,000 recruits per month, with losses claimed to be well over 30-50k a month. How is it possible that its army grew by a massive 100k this year then?
In fact, we have Putin’s numbers that Russia still enlists around 30k a month. In order for 100k to have been added for the year, Russia needs to be gaining 8k per month net gain, as 8k x 12 months is 100k. Does that mean Russia is sustaining 22k a month losses? Well, we know the recruitment was not all going to the SMO but also towards building Russia’s various reserve armies and units, particularly for the new military districts meant to bolster Russia’s western flank against NATO buildups. Russia also has many servicemen who finish contracts and demobilize from the SMO, needing to be replaced. Only the original mobilized 300k as far as I know are mandated to stay “to the end” while other enlisted volunteers can enlist for given periods of time like 6 months to 2 years. I’ve posted several interviews with servicemen who finished their contract and chose not to re-enlist as proof of this. Ukraine on the other hand does not allow anyone to “demobilize”, so they must go AWOL.
So who is lying here? And who is closer to the numbers, the actual Commander-in-Chief or Western propaganda rag Meduza?
This is the clearest proof yet that Russia cannot possibly be sustaining net losses or even “high losses” as it would entail Russian recruitment efforts to be monumentally larger than any Western source is likely to ever admit.
But what we do have are actual first hand reports I’ve covered here multiple times from Ukrainian officials or officers that state it is Ukraine now suffering a net monthly loss. This should put the issue to bed once and for all.
Onto the last topic, an intrepid analyst has reportedly ordered up his own batch of satellite photos of the Oreshnik attack on Dnipro’s Yuzhmash plant. We now have high quality satellite photos for the first time, which Western analysts were so loath to order up for some reason:
Yuzhmash and Oreshnik Demystified
15 hours ago · 38 likes · 15 comments · Amerikanets
It’s a bit inconclusive due to the fact that some have pointed out a few of the holes are from previous strikes in both 2022 and 2023, but it does show a few major collapses of buildings which are actually huge. If you study the size of that plant and compare to some of the large apartment blocks on and around its property, you note the factory workshops are massive in scale—as Amerikanets notes:
Also important to note is that the buildings at Yuzhmash are big. Really big. Many are taller than three stories with over 500,000 square feet per floor. Others are over ten stories tall. Keep that in mind when viewing the images. This kind of analysis has a learning curve.
Just by virtue of coincidence, Ukrainian pundits published satellite photos of yesterday’s alleged strike on Russia’s Rostov Kamensk-Shakhtinsky plant:
In case you missed it in the above, here’s the damage to one building from an alleged Storm Shadow or ATACMS. The building in question is at 48.29657145504684, 40.18249951977653 and measures precisely 158ft across:
Note the paltry holes above, measuring about 15ft in diameter each.
Some of the Oreshnik hits on the other hand appear to have totally demolished buildings or building sections of approximately equal length, ~150ft:
This one had a 183ft span of destruction:
Recall that this was a single missile with multiple warheads, and Reuters reported from their Western intel sources they were inert kinetic ‘test’ versions at that, with their explosive warheads removed.
That being said, I’m not convinced that Oreshkin is economically viable as a regular use type of weapon, given that ICBM style weapons typically cost tens of millions of dollars each. Or do they? One source claims in the early 2000s, Russian Topol-M single-missile cost was supposed to be 18 million rubles, which at that time’s exchange rate should be something like $700k if my math is correct.
Now after Putin’s announcement of Oreshnik going into mass production claims vary as to how many Oreshniks Russia can manufacture:
Following Russia’s first combat use of the Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile on November 21, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry publicised an intelligence assessment on Russian industry’s production capacity for the new weapons system. Russia is estimated to be able to produce up to 25 Oreshnik missiles monthly, which equates to production of 300 missiles per year.
The above claims GUR’s numbers of 25 a month, but I have not been able to verify that anywhere, which suggests it’s phony. In fact, Ukraine refuted it and in this case I agree with them. 25 per month is a huge number even for Kalibr or Kh-101 style missiles, for Oreshnik this is absolutely impossible. More realistic is maybe a couple a month to a few dozen per year at most, at least for now.
That said, what do you think of Putin’s new ‘technological challenge’?
It should be noted that immediately after Oreshnik’s debut, perhaps struggling to catch up and save face, the US launched into a test of its own Dark Eagle or LRHW (Long Range Hypersonic Weapon):
The test demonstrated the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), achieving hypersonic speeds exceeding Mach 5. With a reported operational range of over 2,775 kilometers (1,724 miles), the «Dark Eagle» missile offers the longest reach of any land-based strike system currently in the U.S. inventory. The weapon’s warhead is engineered to deliver immense destructive power, capable of neutralizing heavily fortified military installations, command centers, and critical infrastructure with pinpoint precision. This makes the missile a decisive asset in scenarios requiring rapid engagement of high-value, time-critical targets.
It was the first ever live fire of the full system from erector TEL. With claimed speeds of “Mach 5”—compared to Oreshnik’s Mach 10+—and a range of 2700km—compared to Oreshnik’s 5000-7000km—it’s not exactly groundbreaking.
—
As a send off, here’s a French TV channel lampooning of Zelensky visiting a fictitious French ‘Groland’ to solicit more arms:
Your support is invaluable. If you enjoyed the read, I would greatly appreciate if you subscribed to a monthly/yearly pledge to support my work, so that I may continue providing you with detailed, incisive reports like this one.
Alternatively, you can tip here: buymeacoffee.com/Simplicius
Der Friedensstifter 