Translation: "In the mind of the president of Ukraine, damaged by psychotropic substances, this is what the map of his country’s bright future will look like,” said former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev (who now heads the national security council). "Western analysts believe it will look like this, actually."

The horrifying racism of the Biden administration is simply shocking. Today — according to CNN, anyway — they offered Russia to swap imprisoned weapons dealer Viktor Bout for imprisoned spy Paul Whelan and basketball star Brittney Griner, jailed on a drug charge.

Which means the most woke and "equity"-obsessed government in US history literally considers the worth of a black woman to be just half a Russian.

This is worse than the slave-owning original racists, who put that value at three-fifths...

On this day in 1914, Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia, triggering what would become World War I.
Vienna thought it would be a short, victorious war — and that Germany's "blank check" ensured that Russia won't interfere. Four years later, the Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman empires would be no more.

And though Russia was mortally wounded and turned into the Soviet Union, another Germanic war of conquest in the east three decades later would end in an even bigger fiasco.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, indeed.

Fragments of HIMARS missiles pulled out of the Yelenovka detention centre after a Ukrainian military strike killed 50+ Ukrainian POW’s mainly from the Azov regiment awaiting trial.

The White House press secretary actually did the "you don't understand, it's totally different" meme (very popular in Russia) today.

Reporter: "What's the difference between Texas busing migrants to DC, and the federal government flying migrants to, say New York, in the middle of the night?"
Karine Jean-Pierre: "It's very different, because we're not using migrants as a political pawn."

It's not what one does, only and ever Who does it to Whom. As I keep telling you.

The Empire-backed Kurti, whose platform is unification of "ethnic Albania," declares his government to be "democratic and progressive, which loves, respects and implements the law and constitutionalism, peace and security, for all citizens without distinction and for our entire common country."

That should really tell you everything you need to know, but just in case, let me translate:
"We are Good and everything we do is Good, and Serbs are Bad and everything they do is Bad, and we have Imperial support to do whatever we want."

"Kosovo" leadership literally visited Washington just five days ago, meeting with Blinken at the State Department. Does anyone seriously thinks that this regime, about as legitimate and self-sufficient as the US-backed Afghan one, can do anything without the Empire's blessing? Of course not.

Now they blame Serbia for undermining their democracy and progress, acting on behalf of the Kremlin, undermining rule of law for no reason... but they're the ones insisting on banning Serb license plates and documents, under an "agreement" from years ago (which they themselves NEVER honored). Typical projection.

Not to mention that Serbia at this point is completely surrounded by NATO countries and eager to safeguard the status quo and its neutrality, while NATO and the GAE are desperate to compel it to recognize "Kosovo," sanction Russia, and bend the knee all the way.

Here's a quick Kosovo primer: Province of Serbia, occupied by NATO in 1999 after the 78-day (illegal, illegitimate) air war. Serbia's sovereignty was guaranteed by UNSCR 1244, which the US and NATO ignored. Ethnic Albanian separatists, to whom NATO handed over power, declared independence in February 2008; it was first recognized by the US-backed puppet government of Afghanistan.

Serbia, Russia, China and about 100 other countries — including five EU members and even Ukraine — do not recognize Kosovo as independent. Even so, the US and EU are trying to pressure Belgrade to do so. The preferred method is "frog-boiling," having the ethnic Albanian government impose "constitutional order" by abolishing Serb documents and institutions, replacing them with "Kosovian" ones.

Most of the occupied province has been ethnically cleansed of Serbs (and other non-Albanians), with several major enclaves remaining around medieval monasteries in the south, and a chunk of territory in the north where the local Serbs basically self-organized in 1999, and have prevented Albanian control ever since. These people set up roadblocks back in 2011-13 and even held a referendum to rejoin Serbia, but the government in Belgrade sold them out.

The most recent attempt by "Kosovo" to impose its documents on the north, in September 2021, led to Serbian military being placed on alert and fears a war might break out. So now, Pristina authorities spiced their move up with accusations that Serbia was staging some kind of attack, on behalf of Russia, hoping the Western public high on Ukropium would buy it.

The latest news is that the US ambassador asked Pristina to back off for a month, and they agreed. This suggests the move may have been their own, and not orchestrated by Washington. Or that they need to buy time to prepare better...

For a backstory of how Albin Kurti came to "power" in Kosovo (and why I put that in quote marks), check out my February 2021 piece for Antiwar.com. It's got scheming ambassadors, back-stabbing terrorists, US and British media, shady elections, and some predictions that aged very well, unfortunately.

Just before Kosovo flared up again, I penned another analysis for Antiwar.com of Bosnia's drama about elections, the controversial Imperial viceroy, and some very selective Who/Whom "morality" that's been keeping the flames of conflict alive for 30 years now. Read if you'd like to understand what's happening there — but also to better understand what might soon happen to the Empire, and by extension, to you.

Al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri has reportedly been killed in a US drone strike. This is according to anonymous officials who are leaking it to every corporate outlet, even though Biden is expected to speak about it at 1930 eastern. Maybe they don't trust him to read the prompter correctly?

Afghan authorities reported an explosion at a house in Kabul on Sunday morning, but said it had been empty and reported no casualties. The last time the US claimed a major drone win in Afghanistan, it turned out they had incinerated 10 innocents, six of them children.

That said, if they really did get Zawahiri — an Egyptian Islamist who had reportedly visited Bosnia at some point during the war there, while AQ was still an ally of the GAE — I will be glad.

Pelosi's jaunt to Taiwan is such an obviously self-serving publicity stunt, I really don't want to feed it any more attention. It was clearly prepared in advance — see the statements and op-eds that were posted immediately after her landing — and coordinated with the US military (I bet that PLA general now regrets believing Milley would give him a warning, heh).

Bottom line is, this is about perception management. It's what the Globalist American Empire runs on. Pelosi's little stunt bolsters the "America stronk" narrative — yesterday's announcement of the Zawahiri drone strike also serves this end — and gets the domestic opposition to clap like trained seals, simping for GAE every time. But the only reason this looks humiliating for China is that Beijing made big threats and failed to follow through. That's not on Nancy, that's on China.

Their move now.

Pelosi's little publicity stunt also revealed a key structural problem with the US Republicans: their innate sense of patriotism has been weaponized against them, much like "niceness."

This isn't just about the establishment GOP cheering on a leading Democrat for humiliating China -- much as she does it to them at home -- because let's face it, the GOPe is fully on board with the Globalist American Empire. Their differences with the Democrats when it comes to foreign policy are mainly a matter of degree. But even some people who claim to be "America First" and willing to fight the political and culture war at home all too quickly jump on the GAE bandwagon and can't help but simp for the establishment.

That's because they have been successfully psy-opped to conflate GAE with America, and support for the Empire with basic patriotism -- even though GAE is directly at odds with the very idea of a constitutional republic they say they champion, and much more in line with "Our Democracy" that has replaced it.

As Sun Tzu helpfully explained many centuries ago, not knowing oneself or the enemy is the recipe for losing -- and lose they do.

@Rybar’s Impeccable Analysis: the Western Tail Wagging Itself.

The so-called “Taiwan Crisis of 2022” is a perfect example of the mechanism by which news stories are shaped and reacted to within the media field. Nancy Pelosi flies to Taiwan, and 300,000 users watch tensely on FlightRadar to see whether China will shoot down her plane. The plane is not shot down, and social networks are flooded with insulting remarks against "the weakling Xi"; the free world rejoices: the US has confirmed its status of global hegemon, the world remains unipolar, everything is OK.

Against this background it is somehow forgotten that Chinese officials have not said anything about planning to shoot down the plane or even preventing it from landing in Taiwan. Why would they do this is also unclear: Pelosi is not the first American official to fly to Taipei, and she is there on a working visit, not to declare Taiwan's independence. Moreover, American officials have reiterated their commitment to a one-China policy. The Chinese promised a "military response"? Well, here it is, with artillery firing, concentration of force, and all the rhetoric appropriate in such cases.

In general, the Western media and bloggers themselves invented the news, promoted it, got scared, and then calmed themselves down. The tail may well have wagged the dog in the situation, but the majority of the Chinese people are on Weibo, not Twitter, not to mention the PRC leadership [that cares not one bit for the Western social media hysteria], and they are relatively little affected by all this pre-war post-modern hysteria. And this is for the best.

Just to note, @Rybar posted this analysis, but it was authored by a channel called Special Lassi, specializing in Asia analysis.

Azerbaijani MoD report checks out

Azerbaijan confirms attacking Armenian troops in Nagorno Karabakh. This is a direct violation of the 2020 armistice, guaranteed not just by Russia, but by Turkey (Azerbaijan's patron, whose drones were used in this strike). Erdogan is due in Sochi to talk with Putin in two days. The timing of this is not a coincidence.

I had some thoughts about AP's dishonest framing of Ukraine as ending “77 years of almost uninterrupted peace” in Europe in order to advance the GAE narrative against Russia. You can read them here.