600 new sanctions against Russia. Take that, you Slavic thugs!

 Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its third year. Ukraine’s counteroffensive, launched last spring, was a failure, and Russian troops are gaining ground in the Donbas region.  What to do?

Here’s an idea. Let’s slap new sanctions on the Russians—that’ll teach those Slavic thugs not to mess with Ukraine. But if these sanctions are such a good idea, why weren’t they implemented in 2022, right after Russia invaded Ukraine? Why wait two years? 

Are any American and Nato sanctions working? The Obama administration and other NATO countries implemented sanctions against Russia in 2014, right after Russia annexed Crimea. A year later, NATO claimed the sanctions were effective. NATO was wrong, however, because eight years after swallowing Crimea, Russia invaded Ukraine.

As John Paul Jones once said, “I have not yet begun to fight.” Now, President Biden is letting the world know he’s friggin' serious. Maybe his 600 new sanctions will get Russia to back off and get the hell out of Ukraine.

Or maybe not. The Guardian reported recently that the Russian economy grew by 3 percent last year despite the grinding war with Ukraine. On the other hand, Germany, one of Ukraine’s most important allies, saw its economy shrink over the same period.

We’ll see how things work out. If Russia and Ukraine are fighting a year from now, maybe the United States can find even more sanctions to impose on those pesky Slavic invaders. Of course, what Ukraine really needs right now is ammunition, not sanctions.  And if the war drags on, Ukraine will probably need more ammunition next year than it needs now.

The U.S is bumbling toward a serious confrontation with Russia over Ukraine

 2024 dawns with America embroiled in a war in Eastern Europe. The United States is fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and the Russians are winning.

The United States bears a large share of responsibility for this catastrophe. Our government destabilized Ukraine in 2014 when it goaded the Ukrainians into overthrowing a popularly elected pro-Russian president. Within weeks, Russia responded by annexing Crimea. Six years later, Russia invaded Ukraine and now occupies the largely Russian-speaking Donbas region in the eastern region of that wretched country.

The Ukraine war has been a humanitarian disaster. At least a half million people have been killed or maimed in Ukraine, and the country's population has been cut in half as refugees flee to other European countries to escape the fighting. 

Without question, Ukraine is losing its war with Russia. Ukraine's vaunted spring counteroffensive achieved almost nothing. The Ukrainians will never oust Russia from Crimea or the Donbas, and everyone knows it.

Anyone who thinks Russia will tire of the war and simply give up doesn't know Russian history. Hitler besieged Leningrad during World War II for 900 days and never captured the city, even though one million Russians starved to death before the Russians broke the siege.

Americans are mistaken if they think the Ukraine misadventure will not affect them. Our politicians crow that the Ukraine war is a windfall for the United States because the Ukrainians are killing Russians with American weapons while the United States sits safely on the sidelines.  The Ukraine war will weaken Russia, the pundits say, but they are wrong.

Russia's army is larger today than it was before the Ukraine war began, and it is the United States, not Russia, that is tiring of the war. Congress is balking at the prospect of limitless funding for the Ukraine project, and our European allies are beginning to wish they had never followed our cognitively challenged President into the briar patch that is Ukraine.

Americans will pay a price for for our feckless and arrogant foreign policy. President Putin will have his revenge against us. He is tirelessly working toward the day when the US dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency. We can expect some act of retribution on a scale that will shock us.

There will be a reckoning for our government's behavior, likely before the November 2024 election.

A Half Million Ukrainian War Casualties and 6 Million Refugees: What’s the Point?

 During the First World War, it was said that the British military maintained three sets of casualty lists. One version was kept to hoodwink the public. A second set was maintained to dupe the British War Office. And the third set was kept to deceive itself.

According to the New York Times, nearly half a million troops have been killed or wounded over the last 18 months of Ukraine's war with Russia. The Times calculates that 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and another 180,000 wounded. Russian military casualties are even higher: 120,000 deaths and 180,000 injured.

Of course, these numbers are only estimates. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have revealed their casualty lists. These tallies don't include civilian casualties, which must be severe given the routine bombing of Ukrainian towns and villages by the Russians.

As the Times put it, the toll of dead and wounded is “staggering.” To put it in perspective, about 58,000 American soldiers died during the Vietnam War, a conflict that stretched over ten years. Ukraine, a country with a much smaller population, lost 70,000 soldiers in only 18 months.

Then there are the refugees. Around 8 million Ukrainians have fled the country, and another 5 million have been displaced but still live in Ukraine.

Most Americans feel no moral responsibility for this catastrophe, even though American weapons and money have significantly contributed to the carnage. College students, by the millions, protested the war in Vietnam, but today's young students have more refined moral sensibilities. They can be whipped into a frenzy if a conservative judge gives a speech on a college campus. They don't give a shit about the Ukrainians.

And consider this. The New York Times may have miscalculated the death toll from the Ukrainian war. Douglas Macgregor. a retired U.S. Army officer, believes 400,000 Ukrainians have been killed during the war—more than five times the number reported by the Times.

America's legacy media report that Ukraine is winning this war, but that's untrue. Ukraine will never recover Crimea or the Donbas, no matter how many Ukrainians are killed or maimed in this senseless war with Russia. And make no mistake. The Russians will find a way to make America pay for provoking this pointless conflict.

Are we having fun yet? The Ukraine war intensifies, and Americans are enthralled by Barbie

Ukraine’s war with Russia has dragged on for 18 months and shows no signs of ending. It's like The Walking Dead series; it ran on and on long after its audience became bored. General Milley warned Americans that the war would be a long one; perhaps the only honest thing he's said about it.

The mainstream media casts this war as a barbaric act of Russian aggression. However, pro-war columnists neglect to mention that the United States provoked this war when it helped overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected pro-Russian president in 2014. American meddling alarmed the Russians, and they quickly seized Crimea, where a substantial Russian naval base is located.

Pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists, aided by the Russian government, have been fighting the Ukrainian army in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine since 2014--resulting in a stalemate. Then in February 2021, President Vladimir Putin decided he's had enough and ordered the Russian army to invade Ukraine. 

So far, the Ukrainians have held their own, aided mightily by high-tech weapons and money donated by the NATO countries and the United States. The US alone has invested $100 billion in the Ukrainian Project.

Ukraine launched its highly publicized counteroffensive against the Russians in the late spring of this year. It is now August, and it is clear that the Ukrainian counterattack has failed.

Now Ukraine seeks to heat up this war against Russia by other means. Earlier this year, the Ukrainians launched missile attacks against the city of Moscow. They also attacked the Kerch Bridge, a critical land link between Crimea and the Russian motherland.

Russia retaliated by canceling the grain agreement that allowed Ukrainian wheat to be exported by sea. Russia also began bombing Odessa and other important grain ports on the Danube River.

Now the war has spread to the Black Sea. Ukrainians have attacked at least three Russian military vessels and one civilian ship. Russia promised to retaliate and began intensifying its aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Perhaps Americans should be grateful that the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed. Some military analysts believe a successful counterattack might provoke the Russians to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Biden apparently believes attacks on Russian shipping, the Russian heartland, and the city of Moscow will force the Russians to abandon the war. If so, he is delusional. The Russians will never surrender Crimea or the Donbas.

American foreign policy is directed by nincompoops. Our NATO allies are beginning to realize they were snookered when they agreed to back Biden’s foolish war in Ukraine.

No one can predict the event that would prompt the Russians to use tactical nuclear weapons, but we may soon find out. President Biden seems determined to drive Russia to the breaking point.

The United States is courting mortal danger by meddling in Eastern European geopolitics, and the mainstream media is complicit in this insane behavior. Meanwhile, Americans are mesmerized by the new Barbie movie, a fantasy flick for people living in Fantasy Land.

Psst: Have you seen the new Barbie movie?