By The Saker - October 18, 2022

Intro: Setting The Current Context

Before we take a look at some of the most interesting recent developments, I think that it is important to clearly state something which needs to be repeated almost constantly: what we are witnessing today is not a war between Russia and the Ukraine, but between Russia and the united, consolidated, West. In practical terms this means that Russia is at war with the United States and NATO, the latter being no more than a docile, if ineffective, instrument for the latter. Furthermore, since some NATO countries are now playing a crucial role in the war against Russia (UK, Sweden, Poland and the Ukraine, the latter being a de facto NATO member), I submit that the best and simplest way to describe this was is to say that it is a NATO Crusade against Russia.

As for Banderastan [aka Ukraine . . . SC], it is already a full NATO member state with about the same rights as all the other NATO members states besides the US: none. Right now, the so-called “Ukrainian forces” are already composed of anywhere between 40% to 80% composed of foreign fighters (depending on the importance of the location) and include plenty of actual NATO personnel. By the way, most of the ex-Soviet kit held by former WTO members has been destroyed by Russia, which poses a very thorny problem to NATO: they cannot ship more Soviet kit to Banderastan, and if they ship their own, they will not only lose it forever but the general public (or, at least, those who need to know) will know that western weapons systems are anything but a Wunderwaffe: some is very good, some okay, most of it is useless against a modern adversary. Remember the “awesome” Bayraktars? Where are they now? The same goes for all the other Wunderwaffen of course…

Why a Crusade? Many reasons, ranging from the fact that western imperialism was born with the original Crusades to the fact that, as always, the West is hating and trying to destroy Russia with a truly religious fervor, albeit a clearly satanic one (all western Crusades were satanic in inspiration, but that is a topic for another time).

By the way, understanding this has major force planning implications for Russia. First, the SMO in the Ukraine is only one special case in a much wider war which, in reality, already involves most of our planet (at least in economic and political terms). Second, while Russia has to conduct her SMO, she also has to prepare for a overt, full-scale, war with the West, possibly a nuclear one. Simply put: Russia has to keep the vast majority of her resources and capabilities ready for much larger conflict than the one we are currently witnessing. Put differently, Russia does not want to commit the same mistake as the one made by NATO when it flooded the Ukraine with so much weapon systems that it now lacks them for its own use. With this in mind, I suggest that we look at a few interesting developments:

One: Is Russia Using Iranian Drones Or Not And, If Yes, Why?

First, let’s state the obvious: both Russia and Iran have denied that Iran had exported drones to Russia. Next, let’s state something equally obvious: while this might be true, most observers don’t seem to believe that Tehran and Moscow are being truthful here.

One major problem is that most observers make very questionable assumptions including the following. If Russia is indeed using Iranian drones, it is because . . .

[SNIP]