A Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 struck a Russian military train carrying fuel to the front in Ukraine

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMtLTAq [...] name=small

Apple Pay and Google Pay no longer work on Moscow's metro system, leading to long queues as people fumble about for cash
 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMsvNOG [...] name=small

Apple Pay and Google Pay no longer work on Moscow's metro system, leading to long queues as people fumble about for cash
 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMsvNOG [...] name=small

Apple Pay and Google Pay no longer work on Moscow's metro system, leading to long queues as people fumble about for cash

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMsvNOG [...] name=small

A Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 struck a Russian military train carrying fuel to the front in Ukraine

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMtLTAq [...] name=small

A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia's military operation in Ukraine has opened a new era - and in three dimensions at once. And, of course, in the fourth, internal Russian dimension. Here begins a new period both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic system - but it is worth talking about this separately a little later.
Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe of our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at great cost, yes, through the tragic events of the actual civil war, because now the brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other - but there will be no more Ukraine as the anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical wholeness by gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together - in its totality of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we refused to do this, if we allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but we would be damned by our descendants - for allowing the collapse of the Russian land.
 
Vladimir Putin took upon himself - without a bit of exaggeration - a historical responsibility, deciding not to leave the resolution of the Ukrainian question to future generations. After all, the need to resolve it would always remain a major problem for Russia - for two key reasons. And the issue of national security, that is, the creation of Ukraine as an anti-Russia and an outpost for Western pressure on us, is only the second in importance among them.
 
The first would always remain a complex of divided people, a complex of national humiliation - when the Russian house first lost part of its foundation (Kiev), and then was forced to accept the existence of two states no longer one, but two peoples. That is, either to abandon its history, agreeing with the crazy versions that "only Ukraine is the real Russia," or to gnash their teeth helplessly, remembering the times when "we lost Ukraine. Bringing Ukraine back, that is, turning it back to Russia, would be more and more difficult with each passing decade - the recoding, derussification of Russians, and the setting against Russian Little Russians-Ukrainians would gain momentum. And if full geopolitical and military control of the West over Ukraine were consolidated, its return to Russia would become impossible at all - it would have to fight the Atlantic bloc for it.
 
Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be restructured, re-established and returned to its natural state as part of the Russian world. In what borders, in what form will the union with Russia be fixed (through the CSTO and the Eurasian Union or the Union State of Russia and Belarus)? This will be decided after the end of the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia. In any case, the period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end.
And here begins the second dimension of the coming new era - it concerns the relations between Russia and the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, the three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting geopolitically as one whole. These relations have entered a new stage - the West sees Russia's return to its historical borders in Europe. And it loudly resents it, although deep in its heart it must admit that it could not be otherwise.
 
Did anyone in the old European capitals, Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev? That Russians would forever be a divided people? And at the same time that Europe is uniting, when German and French elites are trying to seize control of European integration from the Anglo-Saxons and assemble a united Europe? Forgetting that the unification of Europe was only possible thanks to the unification of Germany, which happened by Russian good (albeit not very clever) will. To take a swing at the Russian land after that is the top of ingratitude, but of geopolitical stupidity. The West as a whole, and even more so Europe separately, did not have the strength to keep in its sphere of influence, let alone to take Ukraine. Not to understand this, one had to be just geopolitical fools.
More precisely, there was only one option: to bet on the further collapse of Russia, that is, the Russian Federation. But the fact that it did not work should have been clear twenty years ago. And fifteen years ago, after Putin's Munich speech, even the deaf could hear - Russia is coming back.
 
Now the West is trying to punish Russia for coming back, for not justifying its plans to profit at its expense, for not letting it expand its Western space to the east. In seeking to punish us, the West thinks that relations with it are of vital importance to us. But that's not true anymore - the world has changed, and not just the Europeans, but the Anglo-Saxons who run the West, understand this very well. No Western pressure on Russia will get us anywhere. Both sides will suffer losses, but Russia is ready for them morally and geopolitically. But for the West itself the rise in the degree of confrontation has enormous costs, and the main ones are not economic at all.
Europe, as part of the West, wanted autonomy - the German project of European integration does not make strategic sense while maintaining Anglo-Saxon ideological, military and geopolitical control over the Old World. And it cannot succeed, because the Anglo-Saxons need a controlled Europe. But Europe also needs autonomy for another reason - in case the United States moves to self-isolation (as a result of growing internal conflicts and contradictions) or concentrates on the Pacific region, where the geopolitical center of gravity is shifting.
 
But the confrontation with Russia, into which the Anglo-Saxons are dragging Europe, deprives Europeans of even a chance for autonomy - not to mention the fact that in the same way they are trying to impose on Europe a break with China. While the Atlanticists are now happy that the "Russian threat" will unite the Western bloc, those in Berlin and Paris cannot but understand that, having lost hope of autonomy, the European project will simply collapse in the medium term. That is why independent-minded Europeans are now completely uninterested in building a new iron curtain on their eastern borders - realizing that it will turn into a corral for Europe. Whose century (or rather half a millennium) of global leadership is in any case over - but various options for its future are still possible.
Because the construction of the new world order - and this is the third dimension of current events - is accelerating, and its contours are becoming clearer through the sprawling blanket of Anglo-Saxon globalization. The multipolar world has finally become a reality - the operation in Ukraine is not capable of rallying anyone but the West against Russia. Because the rest of the world can see and understand perfectly well - this is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia's return of its historical space and its place in the world.
 
China and India, Latin America and Africa, the Islamic world and Southeast Asia - no one believes that the West rules the world order, much less sets the rules of the game. Russia has not just challenged the West - it has shown that the era of Western global dominance can be considered fully and finally over. The new world will be built by all civilizations and centers of power, of course, together with the West (united or not) - but not on its terms and not by its rules.
 
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia's military operation in Ukraine has opened a new era - and in three dimensions at once. And, of course, in the fourth, internal Russian dimension. Here begins a new period both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic system - but it is worth talking about this separately a little later.
Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe of our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at great cost, yes, through the tragic events of the actual civil war, because now the brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other - but there will be no more Ukraine as the anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical wholeness by gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together - in its totality of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we refused to do this, if we allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but we would be damned by our descendants - for allowing the collapse of the Russian land.

Vladimir Putin took upon himself - without a bit of exaggeration - a historical responsibility, deciding not to leave the resolution of the Ukrainian question to future generations. After all, the need to resolve it would always remain a major problem for Russia - for two key reasons. And the issue of national security, that is, the creation of Ukraine as an anti-Russia and an outpost for Western pressure on us, is only the second in importance among them.

The first would always remain a complex of divided people, a complex of national humiliation - when the Russian house first lost part of its foundation (Kiev), and then was forced to accept the existence of two states no longer one, but two peoples. That is, either to abandon its history, agreeing with the crazy versions that "only Ukraine is the real Russia," or to gnash their teeth helplessly, remembering the times when "we lost Ukraine. Bringing Ukraine back, that is, turning it back to Russia, would be more and more difficult with each passing decade - the recoding, derussification of Russians, and the setting against Russian Little Russians-Ukrainians would gain momentum. And if full geopolitical and military control of the West over Ukraine were consolidated, its return to Russia would become impossible at all - it would have to fight the Atlantic bloc for it.

Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be restructured, re-established and returned to its natural state as part of the Russian world. In what borders, in what form will the union with Russia be fixed (through the CSTO and the Eurasian Union or the Union State of Russia and Belarus)? This will be decided after the end of the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia. In any case, the period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end.
And here begins the second dimension of the coming new era - it concerns the relations between Russia and the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, the three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting geopolitically as one whole. These relations have entered a new stage - the West sees Russia's return to its historical borders in Europe. And it loudly resents it, although deep in its heart it must admit that it could not be otherwise.

Did anyone in the old European capitals, Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev? That Russians would forever be a divided people? And at the same time that Europe is uniting, when German and French elites are trying to seize control of European integration from the Anglo-Saxons and assemble a united Europe? Forgetting that the unification of Europe was only possible thanks to the unification of Germany, which happened by Russian good (albeit not very clever) will. To take a swing at the Russian land after that is the top of ingratitude, but of geopolitical stupidity. The West as a whole, and even more so Europe separately, did not have the strength to keep in its sphere of influence, let alone to take Ukraine. Not to understand this, one had to be just geopolitical fools.
More precisely, there was only one option: to bet on the further collapse of Russia, that is, the Russian Federation. But the fact that it did not work should have been clear twenty years ago. And fifteen years ago, after Putin's Munich speech, even the deaf could hear - Russia is coming back.

Now the West is trying to punish Russia for coming back, for not justifying its plans to profit at its expense, for not letting it expand its Western space to the east. In seeking to punish us, the West thinks that relations with it are of vital importance to us. But that's not true anymore - the world has changed, and not just the Europeans, but the Anglo-Saxons who run the West, understand this very well. No Western pressure on Russia will get us anywhere. Both sides will suffer losses, but Russia is ready for them morally and geopolitically. But for the West itself the rise in the degree of confrontation has enormous costs, and the main ones are not economic at all.
Europe, as part of the West, wanted autonomy - the German project of European integration does not make strategic sense while maintaining Anglo-Saxon ideological, military and geopolitical control over the Old World. And it cannot succeed, because the Anglo-Saxons need a controlled Europe. But Europe also needs autonomy for another reason - in case the United States moves to self-isolation (as a result of growing internal conflicts and contradictions) or concentrates on the Pacific region, where the geopolitical center of gravity is shifting.

But the confrontation with Russia, into which the Anglo-Saxons are dragging Europe, deprives Europeans of even a chance for autonomy - not to mention the fact that in the same way they are trying to impose on Europe a break with China. While the Atlanticists are now happy that the "Russian threat" will unite the Western bloc, those in Berlin and Paris cannot but understand that, having lost hope of autonomy, the European project will simply collapse in the medium term. That is why independent-minded Europeans are now completely uninterested in building a new iron curtain on their eastern borders - realizing that it will turn into a corral for Europe. Whose century (or rather half a millennium) of global leadership is in any case over - but various options for its future are still possible.
Because the construction of the new world order - and this is the third dimension of current events - is accelerating, and its contours are becoming clearer through the sprawling blanket of Anglo-Saxon globalization. The multipolar world has finally become a reality - the operation in Ukraine is not capable of rallying anyone but the West against Russia. Because the rest of the world can see and understand perfectly well - this is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia's return of its historical space and its place in the world.

China and India, Latin America and Africa, the Islamic world and Southeast Asia - no one believes that the West rules the world order, much less sets the rules of the game. Russia has not just challenged the West - it has shown that the era of Western global dominance can be considered fully and finally over. The new world will be built by all civilizations and centers of power, of course, together with the West (united or not) - but not on its terms and not by its rules.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)