Russian special military operation in Ukraine #63

The West will not stop escalating until Putin makes them stop...Quit pussyfooting around and take dramatic action I say!

A week ago I'd have said the same thing, and was, but with the Oreshnik strike and the reaction it has caused it's clear that we have them where we want them. Nervous. And uncertain. And the instinct of the hardliners may be to threaten and escalate further, but we still have time for some more demonstrations. Provoke some more debate there. This time maybe 2 strikes at once, and much closer to NATO territory.

From Martianov, new testemonies (unconfirmed)
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/11/more-testimonies.html

We are well aware that the degree of reliability of this information is not absolute, but here is the invoice that is "from there" today: the blow fell on the territory between workshops No. 7 and 8, in the area of turning and blacksmithing industries. All ground-level buildings and structures on this territory have been reduced to rubble, in some places-to small concrete rubble. There are no large craters, there are a dozen holes in the ground with a diameter of about two meters. 

Eyewitnesses describe the scene as creepy, apocalyptic. Security around the perimeter and on the territory withdraws all means of photo and video recording, even pens and notebooks are taken away. People tell us that "officials" who speak English, Polish, and French constantly arrive at the plant's territory in tightly tinted minibuses. 

They say that unknown ammunition hit just those underground production facilities that Vladimir Zelensky boasted about, telling about the imminent appearance of some "formidable missile weapons"in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. From the fragmentary conversations of rescuers, it seems that up to the 4th floor there is a zone of continuous destruction, below which rescuers have not yet been able to descend.

One minute chatting to their mates, the next minute Himmler. Such is life and death.

flamming_python wrote:A week ago I'd have said the same thing, and was, but with the Oreshnik strike and the reaction it has caused it's clear that we have them where we want them. Nervous. And uncertain. And the instinct of the hardliners may be to threaten and escalate further, but we still have time for some more demonstrations. Provoke some more debate there. This time maybe 2 strikes at once, and much closer to NATO territory.

Fair enough. The West will keep provoking and their game is to escalate until Russia does something that will be perceived as excessive by the international community, and that includes the global South. But such measures as Oreshnik force the West to rush back to the drawing board to remake their strategic calculations, give increasingly cold feet to the NATO planers which still have some attachment to reality, slowing the escalation down and making vassal states unruly and, should the escalation reach the point where Russia is actually forced to retaliate against NATO proper, allows to maintain the response conventional, while devastating the interests of their enemies, like by shutting down LNG imports to Europe, expelling US military from Eurasia and so many other options, some of which are so legitimate (helping Syria or Iraq fight US occupation of their territory sounds to me as "humanitarian" as NATO helping 404 against Russia) as the ones claimed by the West. So, Russia wins time for the West to crumble on their own in the first scenario, while it actively contributes to their fall in the second. No matter how this danse macabre develops, you can be sure Russia has the possibilities as thoroughly mapped out as it gets. That is no 100% certainty of a happy ending, but is certainly a far cry from the situation claimed by defeatist amateurs