Boo-fucking-hoo

Sergey Lavrov said to the press after his talk in the UN assembly that "the West is in fact waging a war against Russia, even though they are using Ukrainian hands and bodies".

Well, boo-fucking-hoo. Guess what? When Russia attacked Ukraine, you started an unprovoked war against a friendly, democratic neighbor who had plans to join the EU and take their rightful place among modern, democratic countries. When you try to grab an entire country which simply isn't yours, staging a massacre on defenseless civilians in the process, we take offense.

This is not an internal fight between Russia and a former Soviet state. Russia never moved on from autboritarian rule, but Ukraine did. You decided to make an attack on democracy, on freedom, on progress and on pretty much everything that we believe in. You made it personal. Now suck it up and stop whining. You started this fight, and now you are crying because you didn't understand that Ukraine had friends who would come to their aid? Well, tough luck, but that was your mistake.

No Reserves

Russia is relocating troops from the still active defense of Bachmut to the front around Zaporzhizhia, where their positions are being pummelled by the Ukrainian counter-offensive. This means that Russia has no reserves to fortify at points of attack and replenish their losses. Every soldier they have in active duty is already deployed along the front in the occupied part of Ukraine.

Along with Putin's recent desperate outreach to North Korea, which tells us he is running out of ammunition and has no friends left who can help him in a meaningful way, we are likely watching the last gasp from Russia in the conflict they started. That last gasp might last for a good while and cost far too many more lives, but we are at least getting closer to the end.

Opposite Day

A silly game for children is "opposite day", when you decide that you should say the opposite of what you mean.

This game is useful practice for interpreting anything that Vladimir Putin says these days. His recent comment on the F-16 deals that are being discussed with Ukraine was that

"Supplying F-16 aircraft to Ukraine will only prolong the conflict. The Ukrainian counter-offensive has not made any progress, and Ukrainian military is taking heavy losses. Once Ukraine's resources are depleted, they will want to start peace negotiations."

Translated to its opposite, it makes more sense and connects with reality:

"Supplying F-16 aircraft to Ukraine will end the conflict sooner. The Ukrainian counter-offensive has made significant progress, and the Russian military is taking heavy losses. Once Russia's resources are depleted, we will want to start peace negotiations."

Putin's statements are no longer in touch with reality. One wonders if he knows that, or if his staff and his own megalomania is shielding him from learning what deep shit he is in right now. The fact that he is meeting with Kim Jong-Un about buying weapons from North Korea, a piss poor country with very little real military strength, tells us that at some level he is aware of his dire situation, with ammunition supplies running out and production not being nearly enough to meet demands in his war of aggression.

If his deal goes through, North Korea's ammunition supplies will soon be depleted as well.

Bottom of the Barrel

From the look of it, Putin is now negotiating arms deals with North Korea. North. Korea. Let that sink in. A small, dirt poor country with a stupid megalomaniac anointed "dictator for life" by his father, mismanaging the country and making his people starve to finance a barely functional missile project and to acquire some very limited nuclear weapons capability at an astronomical cost.

If the mighty Russian army is seeking help from North Korea, they are really desperate. The political backlash will be irreparable, and the amount of actual help North Korea can possibly give is so small that it shouldn't even matter to a country many times larger. It is more clear than ever that Putin has almost nothing left: no weapons, no allies, no way out of the mess he put himself into, and no way back into the good graces of the international community. His reign of terror, greed and corruption may well be on its last legs, and he is not invulnerable. His end could come swiftly.