His momma in Kursk

For the sake of Cthulhu, how can you believe Russia has infinite resources?

If your mom was Ukraine capital, then yes, maybe? Via Youtube channel of Times of India

Since I started this Substack, I keep repeating basically the same mantra: Russia’s omnipotence is overrated. The recent successful incursion of Ukrainian troops proved once again this point.

In the original draft for this note, I wrote of 200 square kilometers of Russian territory captured. That alone would be a great success, but then the governor of Kursk reported to Putin, that the incursion is 40 km wide and 12 km deep, and the next day it was already over a 1000…

On August 6h, Apti Alaudanov, the miserable excuse for a general largely responsible on Russian failure around Sudzha, advised: “take popcorn” (“Berem popkorn” ) “and watch how Ukrainian troops are being destroyed”. Then he retreated, retreated, retreated and as of writing this, he keeps on retreating. I don’t know how far in the future you are reading this, but something tells me he still failed to destroy anyone (apart from his momma). Via an excellent compilation of Apti Alaudanov daily reports on Telegram channel of Noelreports.

How much and for how long Ukraine will be able to keep at it, that’s another question. But even falling back to the original 200 sq km it would still mean a lot.

I have a feeling that while obviously our hopes for Crimean Summer Beach Party did not come true (and with the recent cholera outbreaks due to poor sanitary conditions I’m not sure if I’m interested anymore), at least there will be a modest New Year celebration in Sudzha. According to the Kyiv timezone.

In the meantime, I keep reading Western and Indian (for some reason, the latter seem even more clueless) media outlets predicting that Putin will now destroy all the Ukrainian units, in fact - he already did, Zelensky went into a trap, he poked the bear, in fact - NATO poked the bear, there will be a harsh response, now it’s gloves off, Russia has finally lost patience, etc. The usual stuff.

And as usual, nothing happened. There was no “harsh response”.

The common source of all these mistakes is the assumption, shared by many Western and Indian analysts, that Russia has infinite resources of manpower, equipment and supplies. So while Ukraine is making a costly mistake of diluting its own limited resources, for Russia it costs nothing.

It’s just as if there was a magic terracotta army with thousands of artifact creatures Putin can summon by tapping some colourless mana, like in fantasy games. For some reason, he still does not use it, but if you cross THE red line (the real one, unlike the previous 2149 “red lines”), he will unleash all his anger on you. But this time for real.

Excerpt from “Growth” by Daniel Susskind

Reading a book on something else, I was stunned to discover that the standard economy textbook on American universities by Samuelson and Nordhaus, predicted the ultimate victory of Soviet economy. The prediction was based on the comparison of the triumphant growth of Soviet GDP and the much slower rate in USA. The predicted curves were overlapping in the future indicating that at some moment Russians will produce more than Americans, thus essentially winning the arms race.

If he unleashed his furry on your momma, she should still be perfectly fine (via Youtube channel of Hindustan Times)

In 1961 the authors predicted this to happen in 1980s. In the subsequent editions of their textbook the dates changed. When the 1980s finally came, it was supposed to be in the early 21 century. Then the prediction was quietly withdrawn from next editions, just before the collapse of Soviet Union.

While not directly related to the war, this factoid illustrates the general inability of Western experts to understand Russia. They don’t speak the language, they don’t know the culture, they never been there - so they just can’t believe the whole country can be based on lies.

Sure, statistics get “dressed up” everywhere, but in Russia they can be made up entirely. For instance, recently I wrote about a city of Tver that disbanded their tram network because decades of neglect damaged it beyond repair. I’m sure if you check the Russian official statistics on total length of the tram lines - the decommissioned network in Tver will still be included. Along with the lines that were never built, but the are planned since 1920s.

Oh yeah, sure. He will launch a biiiig operrrration on your momma in Kursk. That’s confirmed! But is it next week? Next month? Next year? Next century? That’s still classified (the screen is from August 2024). Via Youtube channel of Hindustan Times.

So if you read that some Russian unit has, say, 1000 tanks - first of all assume, that 300 of them never existed in the first place. But they are listed in the registers, because those non-existent tanks still are supplied with petrol and lubricants that can be sold in the black market, so the people higher-up are motivated to inflate their registers.

Of the remaining 700, 300 actually exist, but they cannot be used because of some damage. So they are used only as a reserve of spare parts for the remaining 400. Where maybe a half is in good operational shape, the rest are used as “turtle tanks” or immobile gun post.

Of course when Putin calls his imaginary friends, your momma is in panic - via Youtube channel of Hindustan Times

You should apply this principle to anything you read about Russia. Especially about Russian army.

I do - and that’s why I don’t believe in Russian “red lines”. They can’t risk an all out war with NATO, if it was so easy for Ukrainian units to capture Sudzha, how hard it would be for NATO army to reach Petersburg and Koenigsberg, essentially eliminating the Russian Baltic Fleet?