Russia Crimps The Gas Hose While Consolidating Its Grip On Donbas
The press tells us that we had nothing to do with it.
I’ve noticed that news coverage of the war in Ukraine has continued to decrease. So this morning, I checked out the New York Times home page. There used to be a section dedicated to the Ukraine war. It’s gone. Why is it gone? Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism noted the trend on July 18th:
Notice how the amount of Western reporting on Ukraine has fallen off dramatically? That’s because the war is going well for Russia and its allies.
Russia is continuing its steady and systematic grind through Donbass. However, Russia has also picked up the pace of its shelling, has moved some of its best equipment into Ukraine, presumably pre-positioning, and just had the head of its Ministry of Defense, Sergey Shoigu, visit key commanders in Donbass. Not only did Shoigu state that Russia would put an end to the Ukraine shelling of civilian targets in Donetsk, but also “gave the necessary instructions for further buildup of the troops actions in all operational directions.” In concert, Russia has moved its most advanced armor to the front lines en masse (see here at 42:45)
Now before you begin to assume that anyone here is cheerleading for Russia, it’s important to understand that there are two sides to this war. Russia has allies in China, India, and lately, Iran. Two of America’s largest trading partners are now unambiguous allies of Russia. There must be a reason they are siding with Russia while trying to maintain trade relations with America.
They are probably betting that there is so much money riding on their trade with America that they won’t ever see any sanctions against them.
In March of this year, the Saudis sided with Russia on oil production, and boy does that looks brazen. And they don’t look like they’re going to change their minds anytime soon, despite overtures by President Biden. I still roll my eyes over the fist bump.
The Saudis need our protection, don’t they? Maybe not with a $110 billion arms deal with Russia. Russia is one of the world’s largest exporters of oil and it’s helping another one. In return, Saudi Arabia has said it won’t increase production to help lower the…
