Tag Archives: Russian Revolution

I heard of the notion, armies have had issues with getting meat for the grinder for as long as I remember. There were the crusades and the lords of the land beckoned with the option of wealth and the avoidance of utter poverty. And that was the feeding frenzy for those grinders. Almost 5 million people were lost over these numerous squabbles. From Accra to Jerusalem, millions were lost and the loss of people in those days implied that the shortage of manpower almost ensured the end of poverty and non-stop hunger. There was the Russian Revolution as well as WW1. By 2016 Russia was down 10 million souls and that was not the end of it all. WW1 took another 10 million souls (approximate losses both sides) and that was almost the end of it. There was of course WW2, there we have around 23 million military deaths and well over 50 million civilian losses. Yes, we have all made a mess of the setting. Yet all that fades to comparison to the Russian setting we see now. First I saw one article (see article three), then the article from the BBC giving us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66304522) ‘Russia expands pool of men eligible for call-up’, which gives us “Russia is raising the maximum age at which men can be conscripted from 27 to 30, making more of them liable to serve in the armed forces”, which was not in line with the first article, as such I looked what I saw earlier, I did not see it, but I got the Express (at https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1794927/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-conscription) giving us ‘Panicked Vladimir Putin rushes through new law allowing Russia to conscript pensioners’ with the added text (the one I saw earlier) “Vladimir Putin has ushered in new legislation which will enable him to conscript men over the age of 60 in an apparent bid to shore up his armed forces 18 months after his invasion of Ukraine.” As such, even the pensioners aren’t safe anymore. How desperate do you need to be to take such precautions? Consider that Russia has a population of well over 134 million, I reckon that 25% is of an eligible nature, which is well over 30 million and they have to resort to pensioners? The math is wrong on a few levels. I showed you all how 4 settings of the Russian Army has failed them (Artillery, Logistics, Supplies and Medic) and now we are given that the army themselves is falling apart. This has got to be the biggest defeat and humiliation of Vladimir Putin. When we look at the history of war (Crusades, Russian Revolution, WW1 and WW2) we never saw a failing of this degree and it is seemingly getting worse. The strongest part of them is a group of mercenaries (the Wagner group) that must feel downright wrong to the Kremlin. A place where they were vying for supremacy with America and they cannot hold up against the 20th strongest army on the planet (aka the Ukrainian army). And that is all whilst the Ukrainian army is depending on other sources for supplies. 

A clambake fest that should have been over in a week and so far the Ukrainians are holding out for well over 510 days and I reckon they aren’t done yet. There will be payback for all the intentional bombing of civilian targets, not sure how, but Russia might face a much tougher setting than the Germans did in the treaty of Versailles. On 28 June 1919 it was said that these reparations was assessed at 132 billion gold marks (then $31.4 billion or £6.6 billion, roughly equivalent to US$442 billion or UK£284 billion in 2023). I reckon that this amount will by higher by 200%-300%, this implies that all the oligarchs need to hide whatever they had, because global organisations will come for them and when they do organisations like the Dutch Heineken company (who apparently are still doing business in Russia) and numerous American and European companies will be a similar state. It will be a mess that will not stop any day soon. Those who were pro-Russian will hide behind miscommunications and they have the option to run for their lives to Russia or become the centre-point of ridicule both them and their children alike. The Dutch have some experience with their NSB people in 1945. I reckon this might be worse. The French had the Vichy France collaborators. Neither ended well, the Dutch collaborator Pieter Menten got off (after 8 months) in 1945, but the setting changed in 1976. He fled to Switzerland but was arrested soon thereafter. He died with dementia, he never escaped his fate. I wonder what will happen to certain Dutch pro-Russian people like Thierry Baudet and Wierd Duk? I have absolutely no idea, but they banked on the wrong player and there will be consequences there too. That is all in addition to the Americans supporting and going soft on pro-Russian players. And in all this the Russian army is now relying on pensioners and setting them up against Ukrainian fighters who are by now all veterans. They pretty much made short work of the Wagner group. As such I do not give the Russian pensioners much of a chance. Meat for the grinders and the Russian grinders are low on meat a setting where 5 out of 5 of the land forces are failing. That has not been the case since before the Crusades. In that meantime defence forces had Sun Tzu (the Art of war) as well as Carl von Clausewitz (On War) these two books had basic information that Russia could have used to avoid the setting that they are in now. The weird part is that Amazon dot com offers both books for a total that is less than $50. So when you look at the list of losses, how stupid was the Russian setting to begin with?

I will let you decide, the middle of the week has begun, the stroll towards the weekend is now in effect.