Exactly. If you ever trusted Trump and Mush, you have borscht for brains.

Europe is led by very smart people who have better proof of Trump's devotion to Russia than us internet muggles. They have plans within plans. Part of what I'm trying to say is that TrumPutin and Mush are just so transparent and, frankly, bad at this. It's cluminess and desperation highlights how stupid they are. They have very little leverage over Ukraine anymore because they already pissed it all away in ham-fisted extortion attempts before.

Russia is pleading with Trump and Mush to get them something worthwhile out of this stupid invasion because:

a) they know what they've done is a desperately failing project b) they can't get a better outcome on the battlefield by themselves. c) Trump is going to have his legislative balls cut off in a couple of weeks. Everything he wants to do will be harder going forward

Trump may well just flip the table in America and cause a violent crisis by interfering with the election and refusing to honor any defeat, but that too will end up making him both distracted and weaker. He will spend all his remaining days figuring out how to avoid being thrown into prison or liquidated. Point being - he won't be very useful to Russia to try and strong arm Ukraine into a bad peace. If there is any justice in this universe, the remaining months of his truly vile lifetime will be spent in rage and impotent paranoia.

All that to say - what Ukraine probably should do is endure for a while longer - their enemies are in very VERY precarious situations. Even Mush could find his outlook very different with Trump dead and Putin more focused on quelling coup plotting at home.

Besides - nobody expects this malignant form of Russia to honor any peace. The best strategy for Ukraine might be to keep bleeding the Russian army until they REALLY learn their lesson and are incapable of doing this again in the future. Russia ONLY understands pain, after all. Let them squeal for a peace they don't deserve.

This is really important as Russia has to convert its refineries back to winter diesel. That happens every year, so the diesel does not become a solid below -5C. For that the refineries have to be shut down for a bit. So Russia has not done it to avoid shortages. Obviously it also takes time to transport the diesel to the petrol stations. Winter is coming.

At the same time hitting data centres seems like a good idea to cause a bank run.

Body

Good thing they're selling some of that diesel to the U.S. too. I agree with you on this and a dozen other fronts - Russia has completely fucked itself and things haven't even started to get close to as bad as they're going to.

The mask is completely off, and it was barely on anyways.

Exactly. My whole thesis is that their flailing extortion is a pretty impotent display and admission that they can't stop Ukraine in any conventional way. Russia's critical economic infrastructure is completely indefensible and as long as Ukraine can make and deploy drones, not only is Russia fucked in terms of it's goal of conquering and occupying Ukrainian land - Russia can't protect it's own.

The sheer size of Russia's territory has always been both a strength and a weakness. And while they love to thump their chests about how big and therefore invincible russia is, the reality is that their population and industry is heavily tilted towards and algeria-sized piece of land in the far west of the country, which is permanently within firing range of increasingly powerful Ukrainan weapons.

There are SO many pieces of their economy and demography that Russia has completely mortgaged that can likely never be restored. Oil wells that can't be restarted. Refineries that can't be easily repaired. Transport infrastructure and pipelines that they lack the tools and expertise to fully repair. A soviet legacy inheritance than can never be replaced. Data centers that are 5x more expensive to repair than they were to build. Human labour that has been pissed away in Ukraine instead of adding value to the economy. And for what? So that an overpromoted gangster doesn't have to admit his stupid vanity revenge project was a bad idea.

Wait for him to be within their boarders first.

This is something I've never understood from Mush's perspective. Trump will die (likely) first, then Putin, and the friendly spaces of the world may become a very short list indeed. It really makes you wonder what was worth committing himself so fully to such a late-stage, dead end asset like Donald Trump. Trump is a dying old fool whose lifetime of idiocy propels him to try and clean up his legacy's mess with the 'Greatest Deal in History', selling the world to Putin just to avoid bankruptcy and personal embarassment. His complete and total corruption project at least makes sense, because he's not a real business man.

But Musk is a much, much younger and much, much wealthier man with REAL businesses propelling his wealth. Why exactly did he hitch his horse to an octogenarian asshole with the vitals of a diabetic house cat? Even if you said something like "he keeps him out of prison". Yeah....okay. For now and from what crimes? Surely someone in his circle must have said that committing so completely to a morbidly obese rageaholic like Trump would in the long run just put a bigger target on your back for whatever happens after he dies. He might well have to actually flee to Mars to avoid future prosecution once his crimes are forced into the light post-Trump. Having the most money isn't much use when you can only hide in countries without extradition treaties and can't travel to 80% of the world. A fugitive life is no fun.

Who will protect him after his pet politicians are dead, and what does he need to be protected from? Nobody goes to prison for business crimes - has to be much more than that. This is the great question - why did the richest man in the world make himself into a prop for such late-life, low-talent populist pigs? We'll find out sooner or later, one guesses.

There's too much of it. You don't need to destroy Russia - they will do that themselves.

You need to make it impossible for them to stay in Ukraine. There's nothing Trump or Elongated Muskrat can do to stop that.

you are correct. Fixed.

Yes, and if there aren't, they will soon be. In a way, the Trumpian abandonment of Europe might end up having the unintended conqsequence of being a massive stimulus prompt for Europe. Defense spending there is already undergoing a complete renaissance and their political system has learned, harshly, that you cannot assume safety under the American security umbrella.