Guest Post by Larry Johnson
If you’re under 55 years of age you probably never heard of EF Hutton. Hutton, a brokerage, made quite a name for itself with a series of ads that carried the tag-line, “When EF Hutton talks, people listen.” Here is one example:
So pay careful attention to Putin’s warning to the West during his annual “The State of Russia” speech.
Putin noted that while accusing Russia of plans to attack NATO allies in Europe, Western allies were “selecting targets for striking our territory” and “talking about the possibility of sending a NATO contingent to Ukraine.”
“We remember the fate of those who sent their troop contingents to the territory of our country,” the Russian leader said in an apparent allusion to the failed invasions by Napoleon and Hitler. “Now the consequences for the potential invaders will be far more tragic.”
In a two-hour speech before an audience of lawmakers and top officials, Putin cast Western leaders as reckless and irresponsible and declared that the West should keep in mind that “we also have the weapons that can strike targets on their territory, and what they are now suggesting and scaring the world with, all that raises the real threat of a nuclear conflict that will mean the destruction of our civilization.”
Putin’s remarks were not “off-the-cuff.” It was a carefully crafted message directed specifically at Biden and NATO leaders and came in the wake off French President Macron’s incredibly tone-deaf speech earlier in the week:
French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that sending Western troops on the ground in Ukraine is not “ruled out” in the future after the issue was debated at a gathering of European leaders in Paris, as Russia’s full-scale invasion grinds into a third year.
The French leader said that “we will do everything needed so Russia cannot win the war” after the meeting of over 20 European heads of state and government and other Western officials.
“There’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out,” Macron said in a news conference at the Elysee presidential palace.
Macron was not the only European leader with a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease. Olaf Scholz did his share to sow more NATO disunity. While he strongly dismissed Macron’s claim that Europe would deploy troops to Ukraine, he threw the U.K. and France under the bus:
Speaking to journalists in Berlin earlier this week, Scholz justified his continued refusal to send Germany’s Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine by saying it could require German troops in Ukraine to program them.
That would — in Scholz’s view — make Germany an active participant in the conflict.
“This is a very far-reaching weapon,” Scholz said of the Taurus. “And what the British and French are doing in terms of target control and support for target control cannot be done in Germany.”
Besides Putin’s clear warning to the NATO alliance that it is playing with potential nuclear fire, Russia’ s intelligence service leaked a stunning conversation between German military officers who were discussing plans to attack Russia. According to the transcript, a conversation took place on February 19, 2024 among Grafe (department head for operations and exercises at the Air Force Forces Command of the Bundeswehr), Gerhartz (Bundeswehr Air Force Inspector), Fenske and Frohstedte (employees of the Air Operations Command within the Space Operations Center of the Bundeswehr). There was a detailed discussion of using German missiles to attack targets in Russia, such as the Kerch Bridge in Crimea. You can read the full transcript here.
This was not an accidental leak. It was intended to put the West on notice that Russia is fully aware of what NATO officials across the alliance are saying to each other and is aware of plans to attack Russian targets. This leak coupled with Putin’s remarks the previous day is an unmistakable warning to the West that it is approaching a red-line that, if crossed, will require a strong Russian response. Such a response could include destroying NATO bases used to launch attacks on Russia. Putin is not bullshitting. He is serious and the gravity of the matter is underscored by Putin giving the green light to leak intercepted conversations of NATO officers to the media. The West better pay close attention.
Ray McGovern and I discussed this with Judge Napolitano today:
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Waging War without an Army
The UK, France, and Germany are all playing a very dangerous game by seeing how far they can provoke Russia with their direct involvement in NATO’s war on Russia without seeing their own territories targeted by Russian forces.
The entire transcript is here and it is pretty obviously real. As Simplicius notes, it also exposes a lot of information about direct US and UK involvement in combat taking place in Ukraine.
All of this posturing appears to be an attempt to put pressure on Russia to return to the negotiating table, or face what the French are describing as a “strategic dilemma”. But there is no strategic dilemma for Russia, for as Putin, Lavrov, and other Russian leaders have repeatedly made clear, they are at war with NATO and Clown World, not Ukraine, and therefore they are not even remotely concerned about the secret aspect of the war they are observably winning going public.
This is precisely why Russia still has not committed the greater part of its regular army to the Special Military Operation, and why it still does not regard the two-year-conflict as a full-blown war or made any use of its air superiority. It has been prepared, from the very start, to face the full power of NATO and defeat it. Putting a French or US tripwire force in Ukraine is not going to dissuade Russia or even make it think twice about proceeding with its military objectives there; the decision to go to full-scale war with NATO, if necessary, was made two years ago.
The only thing all the posturing and public defiance of Europe’s leaders – who are merely puppets with strings being pulled out of Washington – can possibly accomplish is to get their nations invaded and occupied by the Russians again. Russia has previously taken Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw, and the only thing really preventing them from doing so again is a complete lack of interest in occupying those nations.
So, it would be very highly preferable if the Scholzs and Johnsons and Macrons of the world would stop giving them a good reason to just go ahead and do it.
soon Russia will use nukes 100%. Good on them
Sometimes I wish nukes were not fake and gay.
Though, it would make more sense as a global threat if they were dirty bombs.
So, you are saying Hiroshima and Nagasaki never happened?
No one has nuclear weapons?
And your evidence is?
Said the guy who smokes a pipe and throws away crack. How crazy!
Yeah and those fake gay nuclear power plants that blew up in Chernobyl and Fukushima never made any electricity, never melted down, and never contaminated anything either, all were fake and gay! (sarc)
Maybe not so good for you and yours though.
What?
Indeed. I ain’t clickin’ on THAT giant pos. My pc might explode. Someone needs to work on their border setting skills. Learn to code?
A little Flexbox would help with this.
Give Jim a break pal. He gets a pass in my eyes for setting the border parameters wrong on one video embed out of the thousands he’s posted on TBP. Also it’s fixed, so there’s that.
When Putin talks, all I hear are yidish screeching sounds and kvetching.
When Vlad talks Hillary and all the rest of the morons wet their panties.
They sure do don’t they?
putin may be more talk than walk. today nato entered ukrainian air space from romania with f-16s – 2 as i recall – and f-35 for a little over 30 minutes on a practice raid of crimea. the russians did nothing. the talk from germans about bombing crimea is not idle.
F-35? The flying turkey that the Russians shut down with the S-400 system! A Sukhoi with khinzal can solve the F-16 problem.
My two bobs worth. Be patient. Wait till the 404 turncoats let the Russians know that an F35 or F16 is being piloted by a US mercenary, than electronically jam it down with the high hope of the pilot ejecting and being captured. Captured US pilot gets paraded around Moscow. Scenes reminiscent of Hanoi. What an own goal.