Dear Readers:
Continuing my review of this story by reporter Nikita Demyanov. We saw that the Latvian government, no doubt under orders from NATO, is planning to turn the Eastern regions of their small country into a defensive perimeter against an expected Russian/Belorussian invasion. Complete with trenches, tunnels, minefields, Dragon’s Teeth, etc. In other words, a sort of Latvian version of the Surovikin Line. I have to say though, it’s not really a form of madness to prepare like this, if an actual invasion were afoot. Although, even then, it might be more productive to try diplomacy instead and just negotiate with the “aggressor”, but that is obviously not the NATO way.
Where we left off: We have met the Mayor of Daugavpils, a very nice man named Andrejs Elksniņš who is beloved by his predominantly Russian-speaking constituents. In 2022 this Mayor tried his hardest to preserve the monuments to Soviet soldiers; he lost the battle, of course, and the monuments were removed by the Latvian government; but the people appreciated that he at least tried. It goes without saying that Elksniņš is not liked by the central government, which is run by NATO-loving Latvian nationalists. Last year they concocted fake corruption charges against him and tried to remove him, but he somehow survived this sally.
Just a few days ago, March 6, Elksniņš infuriated the government once again, by posting his expose about governmental plans to dig up the roads and flood the whole region. He called this the “anti-mobility” plan which will hurt, most of all, ordinary citizens of this region. By depriving them of roads and turning the whole area into a giant minefield. In the past, as we noted, residents have already been deprived of the opportunity to cross the border into Belorussia for a day of shopping, as they were wont to do.
Here is some irony: Just the day before this plan was disclosed, the Latvian army had sent a letter to all the media, requesting that they not spread “panicky rumors” about an imminent war. In the letter they boasted that there was nothing to worry about, since “Russia is weak, has expended all of its resources in Ukraine, and Moscow has no military force left that could execute a conventional attack against our country, which is a member of NATO.” They reassured the public that “Latvia’s security is just as stable as any other NATO nation such as Spain, France, or or Italy.” Which is clearly a bald-faced lie, since the Russian army is just on the other side of that tree!
And then one day later – BAM! Elksniņš spills the beans about that whole digging up the region and sowing dragons teeth thing. He mocked the army for their reassurances: “If there is no threat, then why is the government planning to mine the entire border region?”
Continuing his rant: “Living in a madhouse like this, what is a Mayor supposed to do? There will be no war, but of course you should dig trenches and don’t you dare wander into the forest for mushroom picking, because there are mines!”
Continuing his rant: “We Mayors are responsible for our cities. How are we supposed to attract businessmen and investors to a city where all the roads have been dug up for the sake of an anti-mobility campaign? Not one investor in a sober state of mind is going to come to a region where a minefield has been laid just a couple dozen kilometers from his inventory. And any reasonable person, once he realizes there will be no jobs and that war might start tomorrow, will simply take off and leave.”
“Do Not Betray Our Latgalia!”
In the next section, Elksniņš provides his own vision for the future development of the Latgalia region. Parodoxically, he believes that the central government are virtually handing this region over to Russia, by forcing the residents to flee. He has a plan to keep the region and the people within Latvia. But this requires respect for diversity, something that is alien to the narrow nationalistic elites who rule the country in the name of EU/NATO.
[to be continued]
Awful Avalanche 
Latvia, eh? I had a 2nd engineer from Latvia on one of the ships I worked on back in the 70’s. Pretty sure he was a Nazi. Lots of them hiding in Canada back then. Had a German friend whose dad was definitely one. Even had records of Hitler’s speeches.
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Still lots of Naughties living in Canada, from what I hear. They pass it on, from generation to generation.
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Not in my friend’s case fortunately, but what concerns me is that we’re going to get a whole new raft of them once Ukraine folds.
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”Even had records of Hitler’s speeches.”
My most recent Xwife had records of Hitler’s speeches too. Two of em, on vinyl, lurid red/black/white colour scheme on the album covers. Not because she was a Nazi. Rather, she was so ANTI-Nazi that she had a fascination with the swastikroud. She also had Shirer’s “Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich” and similar tomes on the bookshelf. X bought the recs when she lived in New York City in the early 1970s, long before I met her, and kept them as a novelty. Audible evidence of evil. I don’t speak German (neither did she) but I put one on the turntable once. All I got out of the minute or two when it was spinning (took it off before long because Hitler was not worth whatever micro-wear it would put on my stylus) was the angry tone. Jeez did that bastard rant!
It made me wonder what it says about the German national character, that they would be enthralled by so much vocal fury. I’ve always had a low-level prejudice against Germany because I grew up in an American military family and read heaps of “Sgt. Rock” comic books as a kid. The Sarge and his crew were always battling nefarious Nazis. I felt about Germans the way that much of the world today feels about Russians. I don’t HATE them as individuals (I reserve my disgust for Amerikans when I overhear their accent in public here) but I view their culture with a degree of distaste.
One of the reasons why the X was morbidly depressed was because she spent too long staring into the Abyss of Nazism and sociopathy. The Abyss stared back, as it does, and swallowed part of her soul. Toward the latter part of our relationship (together for 13 years, legally married for 10 of ‘em) she tripped across a book titled “Political Ponerology.” That’s a neologism based on the Greek word for power, “poner.” With his comparative linguistic background, Yalensis would know that. It was written in the late 1940s by a Polish psychologist as a study of how evil intersected human nature’s “will to power” as Nietzsche would put it. The KGB suppressed it, according to the book’s foreword, because it could be interpreted as being critical of the Stalinist regime. “Ponerology” made it into print after the fall of the USSR.
X bought a bunch of paperback copies from the one bookstore in Vancouver that carried it and would sometimes pass them out to politically minded friends. I tried several times to read it — still have a copy on my bookshelf to this day — but the prose is turgid. Just like Nietzsche! We were a “heavy” couple in terms of what we liked to talk about — Peak Oil, atrocities Amerkkkka has committed around the world, the looming collapse of civilisation… We would also talk about food and wine and music and foreign travel, so we weren’t non-stop Doom. However, we must have seemed like Dreary Downers to our social circle.
The problem was, my X spent too much time dwelling on Big Bad Things. Not just the danger of Nazis and sociopaths, but environmental destruction, paedophile priests (she was raised as a Catholic), how 9/11 was an inside job and suchlike. It made her extra sad, to the point of “agitated depression.” I won’t rag on her here, because she was a caring person. Too caring! Eventually, she cracked under the self-imposed strain of too much abyssitude. She took the Hitler records with her when she bailed out back to San Francisco. I was not sad to see them go. But why did she take my two-LP “Hot Rocks” collection of the Rolling Stones greatest hits?!?
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This is a good example of how a person can dwell too much on human evil. There is too much material out there. In America, there are entire TV channels devoted to serial killers and true-crime stories about spouses offing each other, and that sort of thing. I can understand the fascination with Nazis, but as time goes on, there are more recent examples, like the genocide in Gaza and so on.
My personal position is that I will speak out against the genocide and make my position clear (while everybody else around me is pretending it isn’t happening, “keep on walking by, nothing to see here!”, but other than that, there is nothing I can do to stop it, so I am not going to obsess. Better to focus on nice things, like music and art.
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@Yalensis:“My personal position is that I will speak out against the genocide and make my position clear”
That’s why I talk about topical events too — the grassroots factor. I am but a blade of grass. I will not be able to change the world by myself. Which is a GOOD thing, because if it was possible for one person to do that — even an enlightened being such as me! /s/ — then one OTHER person could change it in another direction. However, if I bear witness, and that prompts other people to do the same, and it ripples out from all of them, something might happen. Grassroots organising.
And if nothing happens, then that means the rest of the world doesn’t give a rosy rat’s arse if there’s a genocide going on. So there will be more of them. And they will eventually sweep up many amongst the uncaring. Who will deserve it, because they tolerated it. Paging Pastor Niemoller!
That, in my opinion, is what’s going on with Covid. People are still dying from it, more are getting permanently effed-up from the long-term aftereffects, but most folks want to be like the
SIMIAN TRIGGER WARNING!
three monkeys in the “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” image. Ah well, I tried. But I’m not going to bat people over the head about it. Along those lines, shutting up now…
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I too focus on nice music, in fact that’s what my substack is all about. Shameless promotion in 3, 2 1…. https://ebear.substack.com/
I also contribute to this charity which sends much needed aid to Gaza and other distressed populations in the Middle East and elsewhere.
https://www.islamicreliefcanada.org/
I’ve investigated this organization which has branches in the UK and USA. Their overhead is very low and the money goes where it’s most needed. I actually calculate my Zakat, which is the amount based on personal income that a Muslim is expected to give annually to charity, charity being one of the five pillars of Islam.
I’m not a Muslim, but I follow this practice as it provides a baseline to determine a reasonable amount of charitable giving, while knowing it isn’t all spent on administration and fancy dinners for elite ‘philanthropists.’ These people are serious faith-driven workers whose charity extends beyond the Muslim world to wherever there’s a need, for example in their work with Canadian native communities. They’re also very good at using sister organizations to get around sanctions, such as in Syria, where aid is typically denied by mainstream agencies.
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Thanks for sharing that useful information.
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It is beyond my logical comprehension, this Latvia situation. One supposes Lithuania and Estonia are just as crazy in their own way. And NATO is having some big exercise above Norway’s north. But Macron is still on about French troops on the ground in Ukraine, and of course, so are the Poles, who actually have a bit of an army, unlike Macron. Then one reads the latest Simplicius, and more mind confusion follows, at least for me.
A couple of months ago, the US pro-Russia pundits were all agreed — Ukraine had lost the SMO, but it would take a while for them to realize it, so the fight would still be on for a while, despite ammunition shortages.
In the Eastern Med, Turkey and Egypt concluded an agreement whereby Turkey bought some Egyptian land — that is apparently to establish a military base to deter the Israelis and Americans from exploiting the oil and gas fields off Gaza.
Etcetera, etcetera. There’s more things going on than one can pull together rationally. So I guess anyone can speculate on just about anything, and still not really be right or wrong, due to everyone running around in circles within circles. The only constant is utter confusion. Except the Pakestinians in Gaza are dying by their thousands. And more and more drone warfare is happening. I dunno, is Ukraine actually close to collapse? Or not. Or what?
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Is Ukraine close to collapse? I know better now than to make predictions, I’ve learned my lesson!
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I too.
After watching the “big-arrow” moves in the beginning of the SMO, I thought the present day Russian was not the Soviet Army of old but…
Still, I’d like to think that somewhere in the Russian High Command there is a man with a plan to bring this human tragedy to an abrupt and peaceful end.
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I think the Russians just didn’t count on NATO being so bull-headed. It’s like one of those kung fu movies, where the bad guys keep hurling themselves, in batches, at the hero. Who has to keep fighting them off, one at a time!
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The Baltic pipsqyeaks have exported half their populations to act as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Europistanis and North Amerikastanis. In a couple of decades more they’ll only exist abroad anyway.
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Yes, ultranationalism is a form of self-deconstruction. Ukraine and the Baltics all prove it — as does the US, though the process there will take longer.
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As Y says, preparing a defense line isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Russia is a very young democracy and who knows what comes after Putin. Their centuries old pre-Putin history isn’t exactly flawless.
However, these defenses are of course not to protect against Russian aggression. In August last year the airfield in Pskov was attacked by a dozen drones. Allegedly, six transport planes were destroyed or damaged. Russia downplayed it by calling it a Ukrainian attack. Yeah right. Pskov is 40 km/60 km from Estonia/Latvia and 700 km away from Ukraine. It was nothing but an act of war by NATO. Under other circumstances this could have received a retaliation with subsequent escalations.
The Ukraine conflict has shown that NATO is a paper tiger when it comes to real war. And the Houthis has shown that US/UK naval dominance has come to an end. Also, as Simplicius recently explained, the British/Ukrainian success with drones in the Black Sea is extremely important. NATO’s old junks may puff along the Baltic Sea coast and claim it’s an inland NATO lake. But count on Russia to soon have enough naval drones to take them out at will.
So NATO cannot engage in conventional warfare neither on land nor on sea. They don’t have resources, manufacturing skills or manpower. The only power they can project is through drones, bio-weapons and nukes, as well as terror operations in general. Consequently, everything has to be built around this. And hateful small-minded people near the border to Russia are a perfect tool in their hands.
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You and Yalensis make some good points, but, finally, I find it hard to agree completely. First, Russia will never invade Latvia unless Latvia attacks Kaliningrad or puts Nato nuclear weapons near its border with Russia, and in that case a classical minefield would be no help at all. And second, how helpful was the Maginot Line? The French put a lot of work into making it, but the Blitzkrieg simply outflanked it. Likewise, the Russians could easily make an end run around the mine fields or even invade by air or by sea, via Kaliningrad. Being good at negotiation is the only thing that will protect Latvia against Russia — though who will protect them from the US? And as for Nato protecting Latvia, it ain’t going to happen. Only skilled negotiators will make a difference. And anyway, how many more years will Nato even be in existence? For Scott Ritter’s estimate, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk8K27WHRew Ritter’s remarks about Nuland’s unceremonious exit from the State Dept. are also interesting. On the other hand, the real reasons for building the useless minefield are 1) to scare the **** out of the Latvian people and make them afraid and irrational, 2) to stimulate the Latvian construction industry, 3) to show contempt for and hassle Russian-speakers, and 4) to divide Russian-speaking Latvians from their Russian neighbors and thereby hurt their morale, pride, sense of ethnic identity, and economic viability. It is thus a form of attempted ethnic cleansing.
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You both make good points. I believe that the overall NATO plan is to invade Russia by land, and to take back, at a minimum, Crimea and Kaliningrad. The second target is where Latvia comes into play, although I don’t have enough military acumen to figure out why building a defensive line in Latgalia would assist the overall NATO offensive (?) Unless they just need some line to fall back to (?)
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Yes, Nato certainly hopes to block Russia’s access to both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, but I don’t think they’ll be able to do it. They’ll also fail to block Russia’s access to the north Pacific, even though they’re trying to force Japan to join Nato. Japan is a famous Atlantic powerhouse, you know. It turns out Nato’s patron god is Sisyphus. I agree that Latvia’s big mine field might hinder Nato’s Manifest Destiny to invade Russia or Belarus. Perhaps the Latvians are just being selfish and putting their own desires ahead of those of anyone else, just like the Banderites. Maybe that’s the weak point of all ultranationalists.
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Regardless NATO’s desire to “take back” Crimea and Kaliningrad, they don’t have the men, material, logistics, smarts, will, or ability to pull that off. Clown World is accelerating it’s not-so-slow suicidal swirl down the DEI, Globohomo, competency crisis, debt financed, drain. Not to put too fine a point on it. Noam sayn?
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I get it, but we can’t just assume they will depart with style and grace!
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“In August last year the airfield in Pskov was attacked by a dozen drones. Allegedly, six transport planes were destroyed or damaged…Pskov is 40 km/60 km from Estonia/Latvia and 700 km away from Ukraine.”
I read a story that said as much and wrote about here…I think the 3LAs of London and DC, having proven themselves to be “treaty-incapable” see state sponsored terrorism as a legitimate extension of policy/politics under the “all for me, none for thee” rubric.
That said; I think the neocolonicon plan is to focus on the Middle/Far East [for a while] as a distraction and tie down the Russ by using the Nordic/Baltic & the Galicians rump-Ukrainia as terrorist outposts. Leaving Russia no choice but to secure the ethnic/cultural Russ areas and a secure buffer zone. And then give the Nordic/Baltic/Galicians what they say they want “Maginot Line” but, on their territory, with it’s fortification facing them.
Historical note, the Maginot Line didn’t fail, it was not finished and it’s flanks not defended, I don’t want to go into quisling politics of it but, history has shown that Russians know how to build/employ defensive lines.
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It’s funny you say that. Earlier today I was looking at the Ukraine map and thought that if Poland is to get a part of Ukraine there would have to be a 50-100 km east-west DMZ south of Belarus, about the latitude of Lutsk – Rivne – Zhytomyr.
Hopefully Russia has learnt that they cannot just push the border westwards. Whatever land they take they will eventually have to defend against people even further west. So they need demilitarized zones in foreign states.
Although such solutions look impossible today, I’m pretty sure that Europe is on the verge of a depression worse than ever. And then anything will be possible. It can be the war economy and war bonds the EU is salivating to get or it can be the acceptance of Russian troops on EU territory.
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Funny you mention war bonds, I was just reading somewhere that EU bureaucrats might decide to issue war bonds, although I can’t even imagine how that could work for them.
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It’s not the war bonds per se that the EU wants. To let the EU sell bonds is the same as letting them take up a loan/mortgage. And to take up a loan you need a security. The EU administration in Brussels doesn’t have any such securities itself. And for now they (i.e. the European Central Bank, ECB) are not allowed to use the individual states’ budgets/properties as security. But imagine that you were allowed to take up a loan while using Scandinavians’ pension funds and German taxpayers’ future taxes as security. That’s quite a few trillions you could spend on yourself.
During the Covid scam the ECB was allowed to sell bonds. These bonds have now fallen to 60% of their initial value. So those who lent the EU money have lost about 40%. Nobody wants to buy such bonds again. But by issuing war bonds the ECB can use various means of coercion to force banks and others to buy the bonds (i.e. lend Brussels money).
But this is just the beginning. If the EU sells bonds they have to pay a fixed interest to the buyers. What happens when the EU can’t pay the interest? They will simply say that the only way to avoid the collapse of the entire Europe is that every EU citizen pays a little extra tax that goes to Brussels. Voila! The unelected European Politburo (a.k.a the EU Commission) and the unelected EU bureaucrats have now introduced taxation without representation. The camel’s nose is in the tent.
Couple this with the new EU army that’s being planned. To protect against Putin of course! Well, no. It cannot be used against any real outside force. But it can be used to suppress internal opposition like civilians with wrong ideas or even against non-conforming states like Hungary.
I expect the future Europe to be a dystopian society very much like Orwell’s 1984. Russia and China will serve as the two imaginary enemies (Orwell’s Eurasia and Eastasia respectively). And the coming economic downturn will be used to fast-track process.
On the bright side I don’t think Russia has much to fear from Europe if the US eventually cuts most of the military ties. Europeans are way to diverse, divided and work shy to fight anyone but themselves.
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Thanks for explaining that, Duke. That is a fiendish scheme indeed. I almost tip my hat to such criminal minds who can not only think up such clever scams, but actually get away with them!
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Good comment !
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I completely agree with you. The defenses have no real military purpose. They’re built for almost purely internal reasons. The biggest threat for NATO and the EU is that the frontier states become friendly with Russia. Hungary and Slovakia have already fallen to the dark side. So they have to keep the hate going by conjuring up wild fantasies about Vlad the Terrible. It’s the thousand year old doctrine of focusing on an eternal enemy when your own state is crumbling. As Lindsey Graham might say: using the poor Baltic States to harass Russia is good value for the money.
Actually, I don’t think the Baltic States are that important now that Ukraine is about to fall. There seems to be little enthusiasm for putting NATO troops on the ground anywhere. And since there are no resources in the Baltics I would think the Arctic will be much more important in the future.
However, if NATO plans to continue with harassing Russia by sending drones and other small-scale terror attacks Russia will eventually have to do something. And they will always have to use considerable military resources for defending Kaliningrad. Don’t underestimate the UK and the US. Together they have hundreds of years of competence in keeping people far away hostile to each other.
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This was to cc. (And it was “external” enemy even though the West sees Russia as their “eternal” enemy as well.)
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