The picture you see above was taken early yesterday by Russians on the eastern bank of the Kerch Strait, a narrow (but still significant) body of water that separates the Crimean Peninsula from the Russian mainland. It shows the results of an attempt by the Ukrainian SBU to bomb the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to the mainland.

How do we know that it was the Ukrainians who did it? Because, as subscribers to my Telegram channel know quite well, they pretty much straight up admitted it:

Here’s another from the aide to President Crackhead himself, a man named Mikhail Podolyak:

He tried to walk this back shortly after, most likely because his Western masters got really pissed about the fact that the Ukies had let the cat out of the bag and revealed their plot to destroy the bridge – which any thinking man can easily understand could not have been carried out without substantial Western help and planning. But it was far too late – TEH INNARWEBZ remembers (almost) all.

A Whole New Kind of Stupid

I have tried, very hard, for months now, to avoid insulting Ukrainians in general. I know several of them, and as individuals, I like and respect them greatly. But their leaders are utter morons, and their people believe the most outrageous lies without question or murmur of dissent. For this reason, I have recently come to the view that we must add a new definition of stupidity to our lexicon:

1. Ordinary stupid, like the F-35 Turducken Plane;
2. Really really REALLY stupid, like invading Iraq over non-existent weapons of mass destruction;
3. Invading-Russia-in-winter stupid;
4. Full retard;
5. Potato;
6. Ukrainian;

Consider the evidence for a moment, if you will, about the balls-out idiocy of Ukraine and its leadership – and the people who voted for that leadership. The sheer stupidity, greed, and venality of Ukrainian “refugees” living in Europe has outraged even the cucked-out, sackless European peoples, who have been guilt-tripped and browbeaten into accepting just about any form of humiliation, no matter how dreadful. All you have to do is threaten a European with cries of RAAAACISSS!!!!, and he’ll fold like a summer trainee at The GAP.

All of that stupidity – and for what, exactly? For a peninsula that does not want to be part of Ukraine, and NEVER WAS.

A Brief History Lesson

The Kerch Bridge is a work of engineering genius. It is 19 kilometres long, and was built in record time by the Russians to connect the annexed peninsula to the mainland. The Russians did this with the express approval and good wishes of the Crimeans themselves.

It is important to understand what Crimea was, and is.

It was NEVER a part of Ukraine by any official decree or treaty. You can look for such a document all you like – you will search in vain. No such thing exists. Before the Russians took it from the Crimean Khanate of the Tatars under the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, after the 12-year Russo-Turkic War, it was a separate autonomous region of its own, under Muslim rule. Catherine the Great (a German, not an ethnic Russian) took it over from them, and a Scotsman named Rear Admiral Thomas Mackenzie, serving in the Russian Navy, founded the city of Sevastopol’ in 1783.

Since then, up until 1954, the entire Crimean peninsula was explicitly RUSSIAN. It was the home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and one of its most important strategic power centres. It was GIVEN to the Ukrainians, not by a popular vote or any treaty, but by a special ukase of the Soviet Presidium, under Nikolay Kruschyov – himself a Ukrainian by birth – in 1954. Some say this happened after a drinking game within the Presidium, where the men involved were all “measuring”, so to speak, and Kruschyov did this in an attempt to prove his power and authority.

Regardless, Crimea went to the Ukrainian SSR for administrative purposes ONLY, to maintain the powerful Black Sea Fleet’s defences and ports, and to preserve Soviet power in the region. When Ukraine declared independence from the USSR In 1991, Crimea remained under its jurisdiction, but had the status of a special autonomous region, with its own parliament and laws. But this never really sat well with the people, who still considered themselves to be basically Russian. You can find opinion polls dating back to 2013 that show a supermajority of Crimean inhabitants consider themselves to be anything BUT Ukrainian, and the biggest bloc identified themselves as Russians.

After the USSA, under the aegis of Pharisatanist neoclowns like Victoria Nuland, overthrew Ukraine’s legitimately elected and mildly pro-Russian government under Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, and replaced him with a corrupt oligarch beholden to neo-Nazi extremists that hate ethnic Russians and everything Russia stands for, the Crimean parliament pushed through a referendum to ask the people what they wanted. Overwhelmingly, they voted for accession to Russia.

And the Rodina responded.

The Most Polite Occupation in History

The Neo-Tsar ordered Russian troops to annex the Crimean Peninsula, in a transfer of power remarkable for its very peaceful nature. There were no widespread protests or uprisings against the Russians – in fact, they were welcomed as liberators. This is where you get the whole “polite people” meme – Russian troops did not oppress or harass civilians, and did not need to. The people were genuinely delighted to see the Russians there, and you will find endless pictures of Crimeans posing for photographs with fully armed soldiers, who were very happy to oblige.

Western presstitutes and whorenalists, who get their talking points from the Deep State politicians and intel community these days, and have done for years, have routinely argued this was an illegal occupation of sovereign Ukrainian territory. It was absolutely nothing of the sort. The very principle of self-determination that the pious bleeding-heart types of the West love to uphold at gunpoint for everyone else, was applied directly by the people themselves in Crimea. The problem was not what they did – it was whom they chose.

Ask yourself one very simple question:

If the annexation of Crimea was illegal and against the will of the people, why then were there virtually ZERO refugees fleeing from Crimea to Ukraine? Why are there virtually no refugees from Crimea living in the West?

The answer is very simple: the Crimeans wanted to be part of Russia, and overwhelmingly still do. That is because Russia gave them investments in infrastructure, roads, bridges, schools, businesses, and everything else that makes a functional economy.

The Ukrainians, for their part, responded with fits of rage and promptly dammed up the fresh water supply for the entire peninsula – forcing the Russians to ship water to them by ferry and later by train. The Kerch Bridge was instrumental in restoring Crimea’s ability to function as a territory.

That is what the Ukrainians have attempted to destroy – not merely an important link between Russians and their historical homeland, not merely a symbol of architectural and engineering prowess, but a symbol of Russia itself.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate…

Objectively speaking, the Ukrainian attack failed. Their Western handlers FAILED. It is the second such truly conspicuous failure in about as many weeks. The Nord Stream pipelines were supposed to have been destroyed completely by “whoever did it” – we can say with a high degree of certainty that it was the Americans, but we cannot know for sure – but in fact one of the threads of NS2 is undamaged and still capable of sending gas to Europe. Both strings of NS1 and one string of NS2 have been punctured, not destroyed, and can probably be repaired.

This speaks both to the durability of Russian engineering – they really do build things to LAST, which is one of the benefits of having a thousand-year-old civilisation – and the incompetence and lack of coordination of the West’s attempts to destroy a signature achievement of European-Russian joint cooperation.

The Kerch Bridge attack likewise failed. It was almost as if Russia was under attack from guys in rubber masks and glowing suits from old Hannah-Barbera cartoons – except for the fact that people died in these attacks.

It is difficult to avoid seeing Divine Providence in this situation, too.

When Scooby-Doo Villains Attack

The most likely cause of the explosion was a bomb planted on a truck – some speculate, based on the camera footage, that the car that drove up beside the truck when it blew, may have been the vehicle carrying the explosives. Either way, the fact is that the truck was in the right-hand lane. The evidence we’ve seen so far indicates the truck driver was an unwitting accomplice to the sabotage attempt – he simply accepted a job on the internet to pick up and deliver a cargo, not knowing anything about what he was delivering.

The evidence we’ve seen so far indicates the truck driver was an unwitting accomplice to the sabotage attempt – he simply accepted a job on the internet to pick up and deliver a cargo, not knowing anything about what he was delivering.

The Russians, like Americans and most of Europe, drive on the WRONG side of the road. So the right lane is the slow one. Being a relatively law-abiding good citizen – apparently, the man had a petty criminal record, and didn’t want to add to his existing problems with something as silly as a traffic offence – he drove in the correct lane when the bomb blew.

What evidence we have suggests that the bomb was supposed to blow right when the truck reached the most vulnerable point of the bridge – the central arch, where the parallel road and rail links of the bridge can be most easily damaged. If that central arch goes out on either the road or rail bridge, then the whole system becomes unusable.

Compounding the danger was the fact that, on the rail bridge, there was a locomotive carrying fuel to Crimea. If that had detonated… well, the consequences don’t even bear thinking about.

And what actually happened?

The truck blew apart, killing the driver and three people in the car behind him – plus another one or two people, the official death toll stands at 6 now, I believe. This caused at least two sections of the roadway to collapse into the water below – but, critically, there appears to be no damage to the supporting pillars of the bridge.

Moreover, the detonation only caused burning shrapnel to puncture a few of the fuel tanks of the passing train, which created a serious fire – but not an outright explosion.

Finally, the detonation happened away from the main arch of the bridges, so the damage was relatively minor – the insurance estimate ranges from US$3-8M in damages, and Russian engineers have already stated that they can probably have the whole thing fixed in 45-60 days, or 6-8 weeks at the outside.

Road and rail traffic have already been restored, albeit at a slower pace and with substantially heightened security.

Russia got extremely lucky. There is no way to look at this other than as another failed attack on Russian infrastructure by not-particularly-competent agents of death and destruction operating under Western orders.

Assbeat INCOMING

So now comes the important question:

How will Russia respond?

Knowing the Russian people as I do, I can assure you that they are absolutely seething right now. They are baying for blood. This was an attack on a national symbol, and one that they will not tolerate lying down. They want their political leaders to smash every last bit of Ukraine’s infrastructure and return the country to the Stone Age – where, I might add, they richly deserve to be, at this point.

The danger for the Neo-Tsar is not that he will respond with extreme force. It is that he will not respond forcefully ENOUGH.

This has always been Vladimir Putin‘s great weakness. The West stereotypes him as some sort of crazed bloodthirsty megalomaniacal madman, a new Hitler out to conquer all of Europe.

This is utter nonsense.

He is in fact methodical, precise, and an absolute stickler for procedure. Indeed, one can argue, with great justification, that he prevaricates FAR too much, and is too moderate to make the harsh decisions really necessary in times of war and crisis.

His refusal to be rushed and move overly quickly is probably due to his training as a lawyer. His insistence on doing things “by the book” is actually quite infuriating to a lot of Russians – including to members of his inner circle. We must always understand that Putin, virtually ALONE among the Russian political elites at this point, is a moderate. He WANTS communication and rapprochement and dialogue with the West. He welcomes open discussion and engagement with the Western powers, just as he does with the Asiatic and Eurasian ones.

Unlike Western leaders, who are all too easily blinded by ideology, Putin can put his personal feelings about a leader aside and concentrate on the job at hand. That is why he gets along so well with Erdogan of Turkiye, a man who has at times greatly annoyed and frustrated Russian designs in Eurasia, and who has irritated even Putin himself on occasion.

What will he do next? What will the Russian leadership do next?

Will he indeed order the utter destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure? Or will he choose to do nothing?

Conclusion – STOP POKING THE DAMN BEAR!!!

The danger for the Neo-Tsar of inaction is actually very severe.

His popularity in Russia mirrors that of the SMO itself – both rate above 80%, and as high as 90%, depending on which polling data you look at, in the minds of the Russian people. The Russians are ENRAGED at what has happened. They are demanding that heads roll among the General Staff for allowing Russia to be pushed out of Kharkov and northern Kherson regions, and they cannot understand why Russia does not simply smash through everything in its path to wipe all of Banderastan clean of the neo-Nazi filth that has infested it.

If the Neo-Tsar does not respond with force, he will lose credibility and approval at home, and he will lose face abroad. Surely, then, he will order a colossal all-out strike on Ukraine’s infrastructure that will return it to the Stone Age?

Not necessarily. The reality is rather more subtle.

One can credibly accuse the Neo-Tsar of dithering too much with respect to partial mobilisation. It probably should have happened during the summer, so that Ukraine could not mount offensives against Russia in the autumn. But that would have been a purely military issue, when in reality there were legal and political ones to sort out first.

Russia has now incorporated four new territories into itself – Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozh’ye, and Kherson. It now has the tacit backing of its BRICS allies and partners to do whatever it must to safeguard its borders. The Russian people are hopping mad and fully on-board with the SMO – indeed, it is THEY, not the political class, that demands an upgrade of the SMO into a full-blown anti-terrorist operation, or even an all-out war. And now Russia has partially mobilised 300,000 reservists to fill the gaping holes in its manpower capabilities. In addition, tens of thousands of volunteers – as many as 70,000 – have signed on to be contract soldiers for Russia.

This gives Russia a full 370K men to work with – most of them fresh, if not necessarily fit for combat duty – on top of the existing roughly 180K already in Banderastan, if you count up the regular Russian troops, the Lugansk and Donetsk militias, the 3rd Army Corps that they created out of volunteers from the Kherson and Zaporozh’ye regions, the Wagner ORKestra boys, and the various OMON/SOBR units and Chechen bearded hardasses deployed in the region.

You have to subtract off about 50,000 from the original 200,000 men deployed, for the men that Russia lost due to their refusal – entirely understandable – to re-up their contracts after the summer. But in total, the Russians have something on the order of 500,000 men heading to war now.

On top of that, Russia is building up VAST amounts of materiel and ammunition on the borders of Ukraine, in the Belgorod, Kursk, Rostov, and Crimea regions, and in Belarus as well. All of that equipment is moving toward the front lines.

All of this speaks to an inexorable build-up of energy and mass that will roll over Ukraine. The only question is, when?

I don’t know. Nor, I wager, does anyone else outside the Russian General Staff.

What I do know is that the Banderastan War has exposed some severe shortcomings in Russian military command structures and command styles – as war MUST – and the Russians are now busy correcting those flaws. They have seen that Ukraine has rebuilt part of its military to NATO standards – heck, those troops are basically NATO-led at this point, and there are many THOUSANDS of American, British, and Polish mercenaries in Ukrainian ranks right now, massing on the borders of Lugansk and Zaporozh’ye. They are responding accordingly.

The Russian General Staff, political class, people, and commercial sectors are now all fully aligned. They all understand that they are at war with the entire collective West. Dissident voices who live in the West – like mine – are shouted down and ignored by Western elites seemingly bent on economic and military suicide, such is their desperation to defeat Russia. The Russians know and understand that they are not up against a rational enemy – they are up against one that must be defeated decisively and completely.

The only real question is whether the Neo-Tsar has the balls to see this through to the end – to wage a war so terrible and so destructive that it leaves only a ruined and blackened Banderastan in its wake, cleansed by fire of the evil that has infected it, and which devastates the Western world into accepting unconditional surrender on terms that favour Russia.

Up until the attack on the Kerch Bridge, I wasn’t sure that Putin would have the stones to do that. Today, I think he has no choice.

May God help us all.