Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0

We are heading into Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0. 

But first, a few words on the sanctions that the U.S. and its European groupies just dropped on Russia this weekend. 

Among other things, “the powers” have announced they will strongarm the SWIFT network to cut off major Russian banks from world commerce.  They have set out a bunch of “exceptions”, allowing the Germans and others to pay for their Russian gas, and to facilitate exports of German medical equipment, etc., to Russia, but that won’t help much.  SWIFT won’t be able to process the exceptions requests fast enough, and anyway, this isn’t how the private sector works.  Either Russia is radioactive or it’s not, either you can do business with Russia—the world’s top exporter of natural gas, chemical fertilizers, nickel (for electric car batteries), wheat, etc., etc.,—or you can’t. 

We can expect commodities futures to go through the roof, starting tonight.  This will strongly impact every American, sooner or later (certainly, before year-end.)  You will be paying for standing up to Russia, get used to it. 

On top of that, in a form of theft, they are cutting off Russia’s Central Bank from being able to sell (or at least, redeem) its hundreds of billions of Euro’s worth of European bonds.  The MSM hasn’t caught on to the impact, yet, but they will.  If this goes through, Russia won’t be able to afford to, will have to stop servicing its (mostly private, but nonetheless) foreign debt, which now stands at about $470 billion.  (They will have to keep all available funds inside Russia.)  It will be a slow-managed, effective default.  On top of that, in a counter-sanction, Russia’s Central Bank has just told Russian brokers or whoever, to reject foreign client orders to sell Russian stocks.  That’s potentially hundreds of billions more dollars frozen now.  

In other words, it could be the “Greece 2010” crisis, but the 2.0 version, and more than thrice the size.  At the same time that oil and commodities are going through the roof.  As I’ve been saying, if they pull the trigger, everything will blow up.  They seem to be pulling the trigger. 

Also, in line with the state-corporate merger in the USA (conservatives know all about this), Fedex and UPS and a bunch of other companies are cutting all ties with Russia, effectively immediately, without even being asked.  Russia’s being cancelled, LOL.  It’s funny to watch. 

Now, about Cuban Missile 2.0.  Probably ten or more European countries (e.g., from leaders Germany and France to little Czechia, Slovakia, and Estonia) have said they will ship or fly high-end weapons into the Ukraine in the very near future.  Previously, Germany and other countries were committed to sitting it out, but you see, “no one” (besides the Dreizin Report) expected Ukraine to start folding so quickly.  They’re panicked, and they have to “do something.”

Russia’s Ministry of Defense has said (not in these precise words, but the meaning was clear) that anyone trying to send weapons into Ukraine now, will get blown up.  You see, the Russians are working on surrounding Kiev, they’re paying a blood price, and they need to maintain their advantage.  How can they allow foreign planes to land in Kiev now, and disgorge weapons and perhaps even U.S. Marines or the 82^nd Airborne?  Just to make sure that we got the message, Putin put his nuclear forces on alert. 

It could get ugly.  The pressure on Team Brandon to “do something” (besides sanctions) will be enormous.  

A lot of the “Let’s go Brandon, FJB, we’re not going to war for Hunter Biden’s crack money” folks—I can see them starting to crack.  Hopefully, it’s not many of my readers, but I can see the cracks out there.  Even some highly-intelligent people are reverting to their “rah-rah” programming and conditioning.  Like, “I don’t want to get involved, but, by gum!, we can’t take direction from that evil baddie, Putin.” 

Hello!!!  By not getting “involved”, we’re already taking direction from Putin, we have been taking direction from Putin since this whole thing started.  If you want to get “involved”, if you’ve got that itch, just come out and say it.  Call your senator and tell them what your pain threshold is—they need to know. 

Now, I owe you another “war dispatch.”  The Russians have finally entered Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, very close to the Russian border.  Previously, they had bypassed it the same way that America bypassed every town in southern Iraq to reach Baghdad in 2003.  On Saturday night, they finally wasted all significant, organized resistance with a rain of thermobaric death in the outskirts.  Today, they started to go in and mop up.  Of course, it’s not a job for one day. 

Overall, KIA figures claimed by the Ukrainian side are ridiculous, it’s pure “Baghdad Bob” material.  At this time, I estimate less than 400 killed on the Russian side and less than 800 on the Ukrainian side, along with up to 1000 Ukrainian prisoners.  One should understand, this isn’t World War 2.  The Ukrainians won’t stand and fight to the death.  They will pop off a few shots, talk some smack, post it on TikTok, and fall back.  (On the other hand, all Russian soldiers had their phones taken away before the invasion.)  

Incidentally, all the anti-Russian smack-talking I’m hearing is in Russian.  In all the videos I’ve seen, I’ve not heard one guy talking Ukrainian.  During an ambush against some Russian tanks, one genius said, “After this war, we need to shut up in Russian (i.e., learn Ukrainian.)”  I know, it seems unreal.  In the Ukrainian army—at least, when they get excited—literally no one speaks Ukrainian.  Now you see why I’ve called Ukraine the un-Russia.  It’s like “7-Up the Un-Cola”, only, the country version.  

(I left my infants with a mixed Ukrainian-Moldovan babysitter last week, at the start of the war.  We speak in Russian.  She told me, “I despise those Russians, they are nationalists.”  LOL, what does that make her?  I retorted, “What language are we speaking in?”  She said, “Well, uh, we can speak in English if you want.”  But she doesn’t know English.  Just to mess with her, yesterday, when we saw her again, I started speaking to her in Ukrainian.  I am great with accents; it was nice and clean.  She responded that her English isn’t that good.  She thought I was speaking English.  She doesn’t know Ukrainian from a hole in the ground.  True story, I could never make this up, it would be too dumb.  This tribal stuff makes no sense.  People are crazy.)

The Ukraine should have been decentralized peacefully along its tribal lines.  Instead, Uncle Sam backed one tribe in 2014 to violently suppress and dominate the other, so as to use the whole country as a weapon against Russia.  Then, he acted like it was all holy and democracy and stuff, typical Washington bullsh*t.  (There’s no “democracy” today in Ukraine, if anyone bought that one.)  It was a fatal mistake for the Ukraine.  

The Ukrainian army is falling back (mostly in organized fashion) throughout the Donbass.  They have largely evacuated Mariupol, a very pro-Russian, major steelmaking and steel-shipping center (responsible for billions of dollars in exports) on the Sea of Azov.  The sole garrison in Mariupol is now said to be the Azov regiment, a group of bona fide, tattooed Nazis—you know, your typical Ukrainian democracy guys, the ones the MSM doesn’t tell you about, and our State Department prefers to ignore.  The kind of guys you have to use to garrison a pro-Russian city that hates you. 

The “real” army looks to be falling back to Dnepropetrovsk, about 60 miles west of Donetsk, if the Russians don’t cut them off—that’s now the big “if.”  Either way, they’ll get hit badly from the air.

They are leaving behind lots of brand spanking new, British and American weaponry.  I wish I had time to make a photo collage for you.  It turns out, the stuff doesn’t work well.  Among other things, you have to charge the battery on those Javelins or whatever.  No charge, no fire.  No one told them.  I guess they had so many dumped on them, it was not realistic to plug them all into the wall, and sit there and wait.  I can relate, I don’t even like waiting to charge one new smartphone.    

And, no, the Russians have not really begun to kill civilians yet.  If it’s going to happen in large numbers somewhere, it would be in Kiev.  As I’ve said before, it may be a bad idea to go into Kiev.  Too many people, and most of them really don’t want Russia there.  It’s better to let things get so bad that the government just flees to London, and then the Russians can end the siege and let the place become Somalia, which is sort of the Ukrainian trajectory anyway.  But, I’m no general.  The Russians don’t need my advice, they have already exceeded everyone’s expectations as it is.  (If they hadn’t, again, there would be no Cuban Missile 2.0.)

Honestly not picking on any one person, I had a bunch of communications telling me that CNN or Newsmax or whoever, said it was a Russian tank that ran over the car in downtown Kiev, as depicted in the famous video I mentioned in my last dispatch, below—and who am I to challenge that?  

This incident took place on Heroes of Dniepr street, which is in north central Kiev, near the river, at least 25 kilometers from anywhere the Russians might have been at the time.  At the time, there had been no announcement from any Ukrainian central military organ, spokesperson, or Twitter/Facebook account as to any Russians in central Kiev.  I read the authorities claimed to have captured the driver later, and that they showed a guy in a Ukrainian army uniform.  (They also shot up an army truck with two other guys in Ukrainian uniforms the same day, I saw the video of the aftermath, obviously the police or whoever are too “jumpy.”)  That was the last anyone heard about it—of course, it’s an embarrassment. 

Also of note, the offending vehicle was a light-armored, tracked vehicle with an anti-aircraft missile launcher pod, a defensive weapon system—not what the Russians need to invade Kiev.  The driver was probably just drunk or on drugs.  

But hey, if you think drunk Russians were barreling through downtown Kiev without the government saying anything about it, OK.  Ukrainian social media came up with the idea that they were Russian undercover dudes on a sabotage mission.  Yeah, in an anti-aircraft missile tank.  OK.  That makes sense.  Next time I go into Kiev undercover, I will drive a missile tank down the street, swerving like a lunatic, driving over people.  As I said, people are crazy. 

It’s silly to watch something on CNN and try to argue with the Dreizin Report.  The Dreizin Report is your gold standard for Ukraine war coverage and everything else.  And like all the other best things in life, it’s free.