I’m learning so much with the Donbass war! And I want to share with my readers three of the most groundbreaking pieces of knowledge I’m acquiring thanks to the Western approach to that conflict.
The first one is connected with kitchen appliances. Quite recently, we’ve read in some news outlets that, according to Ukrainian sources, Russians are using electronic chips from dishwashers and refrigerators for their military equipment. Allegedly, due to the economic sanctions imposed on their country by the collective West, they’re running short of semiconductors and other electronic parts, thus needing to resort to any and every such component they can get hold of, including domestic appliances, in order to build or repair their weaponry.
I knew Russians had a name for low-cost making things out of scrap, but assembling arms with household junk is definitely quite a feat. I can envision their military searching civilians’ homes, tearing washing machines open, grabbing the chips and shipping them over to the missile factories so their army can hit the Ukrainians. This is amazing. I no longer wonder how the USSR, despite its meagre means, was able to lead the space race for some time.
The second one involves economics. Actually, the most revolutionary economic theory of all times, by the hand of Ursula von der Leyen. It goes more or less like this: In order to save Europe from Putin, we must continue to purchase Russian oil, or else Putin will sell it elsewhere and profit more from higher prices; so we better buy Russian oil and not let him profit. Simply brilliant. Who would have guessed that this woman was such a genius? The founder of the European school of Vonderleyen-omics. I admit that I could’ve never imagined, in ten lifetimes, that the best way to ruin the shop owner on the corner, whom I hate so much, was to purchase all of his stuff to prevent him from selling it to someone else at a higher price. Hats off to Mrs. Ursula.
The third one is a masterpiece of ingenuity and guile on the part of another German, Olaf Scholz, who recently announced that his government will help get Soviet-era tanks (from Greece) to Ukraine (by sending Athens modern German vehicles as a replacement). The goal is to allow Western countries to maintain a certain level of deniability because those Soviet-era tanks are identical to the ones Ukraine uses, meaning it’s harder for Russia to argue that NATO is getting involved in the war by sending its top gear to Kyiv.
Pay close attention, reader, because this is so cunning and artful on the part of the German chancellor that you may miss the trick: we, Europeans, say openly -therefore the news will reach Moscow too- that we’re going to send Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine in order to fool Putin into believing that we’re not helping Ukraine. Got it? It’s like telling your neighbour that you’re stealing his car but replacing it with a hardboard replica so that he doesn’t notice the swap. Simply mindblowing, top notch artifice. Ulysses himself wouldn’t have been capable of such level of craftness…
Definitely, I encourage the reader to follow the Donbass-Ukraine (aka USA-Russia) conflict as closely as possible, because we’re witnessing the most fantastic -and outlandish- manoeuvres humankind has ever been able to conceive.