soldiers
© Carlos Barria/ReutersUkrainian servicemen complain they are ill equipped to fight Russians
There is a constant stream of videos coming out on Telegram of Ukrainian troops complaining that they have no weapons or have inferior weapons and that wages are going unpaid. We talked about the topic of arms deliveries on the blog before.

We were left with a dilemma last time: how do we square this with the information we have about billions of dollars being sent to arm the Ukrainian army? Well, now we have yet more proof that indicates that the money is being stolen and the weapons being resold somewhere else.

We talked about the topic of arms deliveries on the blog before. There is a constant stream of videos coming out on Telegram of Ukrainian troops complaining that they have no weapons or have inferior weapons and that wages are going unpaid. We were left with a dilemma last time: how do we square this with the information we have about billions of dollars being sent to arm the Ukrainian army?

Well, now we have yet more proof that indicates that the money is being stolen and the weapons being resold somewhere else.

This just came out:


Guy in car
© CBS
A screenshot from the preview of the CBS documentary:

Andrew Anglin thinks that the money could be being sent to arm terrorists in Europe. He might be right and I've entertained similar ideas.

The key takeaway here for us though is that the West + Ukraine is too corrupt to fight an honest war against a peer or near-peer opponent. Stealing 70% of a war arsenal paid for by the Western taxpayers is a level of graft that makes winning wars impossible. I wrote an article musing that this war is bleeding the West dry and wondering whether or not the West was getting enough bang for its buck (dead slavs) for the obscene amounts of money they were spending and the damage that they were inflicting on their own countries with the sanctions.
But a lot more money appears to be unaccounted for, or at least, not being put to use for the purpose that it was supposedly allocated for. It would be interesting to see an analysis, any analysis really, of the funds and the weapons to see where they actually ended up. More and more though, it seems that we have an Afghanistan 2.0 on our hands where Western taxpayer money is sent over in crate-loads, but very little of it actually seems to go towards either the war effort or state-construction or anything related to the supposed mission objectives.
I left the questions somewhat in the air then, but I'm going to have to revise that analysis now.

Put simply: the war is indeed bleeding the West dry.

Ukraine was supposed to be a quagmire for Russia, but it appears that it has become a quagmire for the West instead. The West, could, in theory, pull out of the Ukraine, which Russia cannot do, but the political will has to be there for that. The spook agencies are making a lot of money on this, as are their friends in the military industrial complex and the politicians and oligarchs who now have access to the Ukraine weapon slush fund. The media has whipped up a moral panic over Ukraine, making it difficult for the peasants to voice opposition to it, providing cover for the looting operation. Why the Deep State would put down this cash cow when the milk is flowing so abundantly is beyond me. There are no adults who care about balanced budgets and the national interests of Western states anymore. It's all just non-stop looting and graft.

Ukraine, however, does appear to be fading out of the news cycle at the time of this writing. Zelensky's view count is way down, as an example. He released a video a day ago about the Russians trying to cause a Chernobyl by firing at a nuclear plant that has only gathered 8500 Western audience views at the time of this writing:


This all indicates to me that the Western public is losing its enthusiasm and interest in this war and that perhaps the Ukraine psy-op won't be renewed for another season.

So, on the one hand, all the people with their snouts in the trough are stealing billions of dollars of Western tax money. They're also damaging Russia, their Authoritarian mortal enemy. All opposition to this war has effectively become banned. All this seems to indicate that the West will continue its Ukraine operation.

On the other hand, enthusiasm and interest has dwindled to a trickle. I see this reflected in my own articles and other Russia bloggers', as people are no doubt talking about monkeypox and COVID and the midterms and other topics now. Furthermore, the Pelosi stunt in Taiwan put the spotlight on China again.

I don't know what to make of it all, but my gut instinct tells me that the attention of the spook agencies, the politicians and the media will zero in on where there is the most money to be made stealing from the public coffers. Is there money to be made sending money to Taiwan for defense against China and stealing 70% of it with the help of local corrupt officials? Sure.

But, Ukraine is quite unique in its ability to achieve new heights of excellence and innovation in the field of organized graft. The entire spook apparatus, government and military is completely committed to looting as much as possible and the West would be sad to see such a lucrative money-laundering operation go under.

Russia would no doubt liked to have knocked out Ukraine in the early days of the war with its push on Kiev and prepared covert operation, but, despite that failure, the unexpected runner-up prize of bleeding the West dry is starting to look quite good as well.