MacGregor is such an antisemite that he's almost singlehandedly reshaped Israel's armored division strategy after their debacle in the Lebanon war. He's actually a staunch supporter of Israel.
About NATO, observers like MacGregor and others you are not familiar with from within Europe foresee the tensions and diverging agendas having an effect in the near future, with rising economic and social instability. The fact is, leaders like Macron, Sunak, Scholtz et al do not represent their people, there has been a growing Ukraine war fatigue within many key western European nations. The cracks are going to start appearing as the economic situation deteriorate across Europe.
IIRC, Russia has actually had
a budget surplus in 2022. Here's a country with virtually no debt, a budget surplus in times of war, no unemployment,
a booming manufacturing sector. That is the big picture, any country in Europe would KILL for those kinds of economic "troubles"...
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russias-factory-activity-expands-13th-month-running-may-2023-06-01/The Ruble has been fluctuating along with the oil prices, which actually insures that the oil revenues in Rubles do not fluctuate as much, which would result in a balanced budget. By and large, even sources like the WSJ and FT have recognized that the Russian economy has been well run.
Erdogan is doing his thing again, playing both sides, SOP for him. He is not however going to go through with economic sanctions on Russia, Turkey has been one of the main hubs for the Russian trade, and a big destination for Russian tourists and investors.
Russia's demography is actually better than that of most European countries. And of course Ukraine's has completely collapsed, going from a country of 46M in 2010 to little more than a third of that today. At this rate Ukraine is going to end up with less than 10M people, should Russia take over all the russophone regions in the south and east (Kharkov, Odessa, Dnipro etc).
But mainly, this:Quote:
In the real world, this war continues to be a disaster for Putin and Russia. There is no world in which Russia ends the war stronger than it started.
On what planet is Russia losing this war on the battlefield today? I mean I know our sources diverge but this is ridiculous.
This has been the worst month for Ukraine since the early phases of the war.
The counteroffensive has been a complete failure from start to finish, even Zaluzhny (who had a lot of reservations about the tactics used) acknowledged as much. Ukraine has lost over 25,000 soldiers in this offensive, and a good chunk of the material donated by NATO that it has painstakingly hoarded over this year.
Column after column of Bradleys and Leopards have been crushed by the combined Russian air and ground defenses, in a Ka-52s, Lancets, Kornet ATGMs turkey shoot. Things have been so bad that the Brits actually forbade Ukraine from using their Challenger tanks in the offensive (which is a godsend considering they use highly toxic Uranium shells). I guess Milley and co. knew the spiel, that's why they've avoided altogether sending Abramses.
