Everyone is waiting for the plan of Comrade Xi:
My (too optimistic) thoughts about what he would have to offer.

1. The West to refuse any claim to change power in Russia and to judge the so-called culprits for the war.
2. An international fund is established with the participation of Russia to eliminate the consequences of the war and to restore Ukraine.
3. Termination by the end of 2023 of all sanctions imposed on Russia.
4. Unconditional respect for the territorial integrity of all countries.
5. The foreign policy orientation of Ukraine by principle: Ukraine in NATO, but NATO not in Ukraine.
6. Up to 10 weeks - return to the boundaries of Ukraine to December 2022.
Up to 10 months - return to the boundaries of Ukraine as of February 2022.
Up to 10 years - return to the boundaries of Ukraine as of February 2014.
7. After 10 years - Ukraine within the borders until December 1991, but with joint management of Crimea by Ukraine and Russia – a condominium (i.e. a territory with established sovereign authority over it by both countries), similar to the joint management of Andorra by France and Spain.

02/22/2023

Ukrainian commentator:
We are at war with an archaic, primitive state. Rachists have only one advantage: that there are too many of them. They are grasshopper eagles, locusts. In these swarms of pests, the life of a grasshopper does not matter. They only know how to devastate. They have no feelings, no reason.

02/22/2023

The answer probably lies in the following:
Russian elites (already or long ago) do not believe what Putin says. They have no illusion that it is true. But they have a frantic fear of him. They can lose everything. Or fall from a very high floor.
The broad masses, however, believe what Putin tells them.
That is why the leading Russian propagandists use such primitive and elementary language.
The leading Russian propagandists are speaking directly to the masses, who must be systematically brainwashed into believing what Putin says. This is the drug for the masses that keeps them submissive and voiceless in the fictional reality that Putin lives in.

02/22/2023

A country with a ravaged army, a stagnant economy, rampant corruption and a deep countryside living in the Middle Ages...

A country that can't beat Ukraine with 3.5 times smaller population...

A country that awards multi-star generals with top military honors for a 40-yard village captured after two months of fighting...
A country from which the most talented artists, the best computer specialists, the most capable architects and the greatest scientists flee...

The late Samuel Huntington argued that there would be a clash of civilizations.
Huntington is right and wrong.

He is right because there really is a clash of civilizations.

He is wrong, because he saw this clash in Space, with the foci of conflict being along the dividing lines - for example, between Western and Islamic civilizations.

The clash of civilizations, however, is not in Space, but in Time.

Today, with the speeches of their leaders, two civilizations clashed. These two civilizations are separated by Time.

One, the Eurasian-Rashist, is in the Old Stone Age.
The other, the European-Atlantic, is in the Postmodern Age.

02/21/2023