OF THE
TIMES



It's not who the President is, it's who controlling the wallet of the President." "Who's that?" she asks. "The Hedge Funds, BlackRock, the banks. These guys run the world.BlackRock don't want people to notice them:
..you take a big f- ton of money and then you can start to buy people. Obviously we have this system in place. First, there's the senators. These guys are f***ing cheap. You got ten grand? You can buy a senator.
"BlackRock don't want to be in the news. They don't want people to talk about them. They don't want to be anywhere on the radar.""Why not?" she asks.
I don't know ... I suspect because it's easier to do things when people aren't thinking about it.What kind of things are easier to do in the dark? Things other people won't like.
"Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It's not," he told the BBC on Wednesday ... "Whatever some might want, including attempts to pressure us, with all due respect, we will advance on the battlefield the way we deem best," he added.Ukraine's deputy defense minister also made excuses (and vague promises):
Writing on Telegram, Anna Malyar acknowledged that "it is quite difficult" for Ukrainian troops to advance, because Moscow is fully committed to stopping Kiev's long-anticipated campaign. Ukraine's troops "must prepare for the fact that it will be a tough duel," she warned.NATO's Stoltenberg also commented on Russia's "well-prepared" defense:
The official went on to argue that "it is not necessary to measure the result of the work of the defense forces only by settlements [captured] and kilometers traveled." Malyar insisted that aside from territorial gains, there are many other metrics to assess the effectiveness of a military operation, but declined to give any examples.
She claimed that Ukraine's ongoing military push is pursuing several goals, and vowed that "biggest blow is yet to come."
"We know that Ukrainians face a difficult terrain, they face dug-in Russian resistance," Stoltenberg said during a joint media engagement with Germany's defense minister Boris Pistorius in the city of Flensburg.The head of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, claims that Western intel agencies are worried that the counteroffensive could have unintended consequences:
Russian troops had been able to "establish static, well-prepared defense lines with minefields, with Dragon's teeth, with tank trenches," the NATO chief admitted. He also said that the military bloc would send additional demining equipment, including "heavy-armored demining" vehicles, to help its troops breach these extensive defenses. He did not name either the number or the exact type of hardware, which is supposedly to be delivered by Germany, the US and other NATO members.a
The Russian spy chief claimed that "authoritative members of the US and European intelligence services and military departments don't rule out that the counteroffensive could lead to directly opposite results" of those expected by Ukraine.
Despite supporting the counteroffensive in their public statements, "behind the scenes, many Western military analysts express serious doubts about the success of the Ukrainian adventure," Naryshkin said during an interview with the outlet.
"Without going into details, I'll say that the tasks announced by the Kiev regime are assessed as unachievable" by foreign experts, he added.
...
The concern in Washington and Brussels is that the "death of a significant number of NATO-trained military personnel and destruction of equipment will undermine the combat capability of the Ukrainian army. This, in turn, will negatively affect the stability of the Zelensky regime," Naryshkin explained. He added that according to a number of Western assessments, Ukrainian statehood itself may be under threat because of the counteroffensive.
The head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, Aleksey Danilov, claimed during a television appearance on Monday that the counteroffensive has been progressing in line with Kiev's schedule.
"Everything is going according to a plan, which had been approved and developed. There are no deviations from it," Danilov said, adding that only "a limited circle of people know" what this plan actually is.

Comment: Though we have no doubt that Blinken's visit to China, ostensibly to make overtures towards some form of detente was insincere - imagine what his reaction to Biden's stupid comments are at this time! Can this administration be any more ridiculous? Stay tuned!