Dr. Kazmir is a 21st century version of what the head of the NKVD (1930s KGB) called western "useful idiots". This is not a description of his personal intellectual capacity, but a specific historical term that describes the witting and unwitting agents of the Soviets, and now the neo-Stalinist Putin mafia kleptocracy.
The sanctions are working. Read the Russian central bank's report about how grim Russia's economic situation is. It jives with the Yale report on the collapse of Russia's economy over time and how it will worsen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IPzww2IHzM
From the Australian economist Perun's video on how Russia is on the short end of the economics of war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce5TR-qWCk4&t=1187s
That the Russian govt has ceased publishing essential economic stats tells you the sanctions are working.
250k highly educated IT workers have left Russia since 24/2.
20% of high net worth Russians have left.
This major hemorrhage human and financial capital flight similar to 1917-21.
Disassembled Russian missiles reveal how they're using COTS (commercial off the shelf chips from the 1990s and 2000s, along with washing machine and refrigerator chips in tanks and IFVs.
Here's a transcript from the Time Radio interview with British Major General Chip Chapman, which shows the military impact of sanctions, now being felt in the 50 km Ukrainians advance east of Kharkhiv (1000 sq. km. of territory retaken):
"Russia's problems getting hold of vital equipment for its its military equipment. I'm thinking in particular of microchips, which apparently is becoming a big problem for Russia. Well I think that's true. If you analyze the Russian economy at the moment of course the energy sector still looks fairly healthy, but the industrial sector looks absolutely awful and the number of closures of plants which could have an impact on cities which are sustained just by one industry so the high-tech stuff which is not getting to russia by the sanctions is a real concern for them and that is changing the the way that they will be able to fight the war, precision guided munitions uh all need all that sort of high-tech wizardry within them we know that they fired over something like 3500 probably more than that now precision guided munitions they're probably running low on that if you're running low on that sort of stuff it means you have to fight back to a kind of analog war rather than a digital war and as the Ukrainians get better with the equipment given to them given to them and the surveillance and electronic warfare and the other gizmos from the west the ability of the ukrainians to fight smarter is what really comes to the fore and that's what we're seeing in the way they're doing business at the moment particularly in terms of recently for example not just the HIMARS for taking out the logistic bases and things like that of the Russians, but also forcing the air defense of the Russians back so that they're they're not brought to bear which allows the smaller drones of the ukrainians to help in the targeting in the close battle in really three close battles at the moment the first one we're seeing in Kherson and the second one with this sort of limited counter offensive which seems to be going on at the moment around Kharkhiv."
The war costs Russia about $75bn/month and Russia had access to only about $360bn of its $640bn in foreign reserves after the US, the EU and other central banks holding Russian deposits froze them.
500000 Russian employees of the 1200+ departed western multinationals will stop receiving their salaries this month.
At $85/barrel oil sold at a $30 discount to India and China, Russia makes exactly $1/barrel over its production cost. Only 10% of Russia's natural gas pipeline capacity links to China, while India is already running out of oil storage capacity and reducing purchases of heavily discounted Russian oil. No pipeline links Russia to India.
EU countries have chartered 20 FSRUs to deliver LNG to the Netherlands and Germany this winter and Germany hit its 80% storage target two months early. If you don't know what an FSRU is, you have no business analyzing the energy business.
Restarted nuclear power (32 in France alone) and coal plants and decoupling natural gas from electricity prices will do the rest.
Once Putin shuts Nordstream, he's shot his load and is out of coercive options and Russia's loss of market share in Europe will become permanent.
"I'm not sure we can....without paying a very heavy price."--The Ukrainians are ready to pay the heaviest price because they understand it's a war of independence and survival vs the genocidal erasure political ventriloquist Putin has promised through his Ria Novosti and Duma puppets. For Ukraine surrender is as viable an option as for Israel in 1948 and 1967 and Finland in 1939-40.
So Dr. Kazmir really knows more about Ukraine's military prospects than my veteran friends who live in or have lived in Kyiv and are professional military historians, one of whom taught at West Point and another who worked for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense from 2014. (https://www.facebook.com/SamuelPNCook, https://www.facebook.com/glen.grant.908)
I've published several transcripts of their Borderlands podcasts from April and May that are expert and professional vivisections of Ukraine's military prospects. How are they wrong? Dr. Kazmir is publishing evidence-free opinion on military matters he knows nothing about while attempting no refutation of hard evidence presented by professionals who forecasted in April and May what is happening in Kherson now. How is he right and they wrong?
The Germans are ready to wear sweaters indoors to support Ukraine. The Baltics crowd fund drones and we don't hear a peep of complaint about the cost of supporting Ukraine. Poland has spent 1% of its GDP helping Ukrainian refugees and solidarity is absolutely solid. So from the safety of the US, he's telling the citizens of all these countries that the price is too high? I don't see the logic. Please explain it to me.
Like all fascists, Putin expected to break the unity of what he saw as a weak, divided and decadent democratic world (the EU, the US, Australia, NZ, Japan, Canada). In other words, based on Trump's 2016 election, January 6, tiki-torched Tucker's audience stats, Orban's recent victory and LePen getting 42% in France and Salvini's Kremlin t-shirt stunt, he forecast finding many more useful idiots than were actually there.
Instead he got Finland and Sweden into NATO, big increases in support for the EU in member state populations. Dr. Kazmir's views are swimming against a we must hang together to support Ukraine tsunami, like what happened in a divided US after Pearl Harbor. Have a good swim backwards against the tide.
