BATIUSHKA—There is such a thing as retribution. This is what it says directly in the verse, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord’ (Rom. 12: 19) and what lies behind the New Testament, ‘Do as you would be done by’. However, other cultures have other words for retribution, ‘karma’ for example in India. Then there is the proverb, similar in several languages, which in English appears as: ‘Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind’. (See Galatians 6: 7). Then there is another saying which is also pretty universal. The Maltese form says: ‘Don’t spit in the air’ – there is no need to quote the second half – you can imagine the spit falling back onto the spitter.
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LARRY C. JOHNSON—I think the war in Ukraine is entering a new phase. Russia has reinforced troops on the front and supplied them with additional fire power. At some point before the end of the year I anticipate that Russia will launch a massive counter offensive. No matter how tenaciously and bravely the Ukrainian troops fight, they are at a disadvantage. They have limited supplies of artillery shells, reduced armor and no air support. While not impossible, it is unlikely that they will be able to stop a full blown Russian attack across a broad front.
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MIKE WHITNEY—There it is in black and white. The plan to use Ukraine as a staging-ground for conducting a proxy-war on Russia preceded the invasion by at least 7 years. The Obama administration and their neocon allies set a trap for Russia in order to drag them into an Afghanistan-like quagmire that would deplete their resources and kill as many Russian servicemen as possible.
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ERIC ZUESSE—Whereas Russia normally would be spending around $60B per year on its military, America has been spending over $1.2 trillion per year (some of it in non-military federal departments, such as the Treasury Department, so as to hide from the public the roughly $400 billion per year of America’s military spending that ISN’T being paid from the “Defense Department”). So: in a normal year, the U.S. spends about 20 times what Russia spends on its defense.
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In late March, Simple Flying reported Russia’s S7 Airlines was bringing back old IL-96 and IL-86 quad jets aircraft into service. In addition, Yuri Slyusar also said the UAC would be looking to increase production of the long-range IL-96 passenger aircraft and IL-76 transport planes in the near future. Restarting or expediting production of decades-old aircraft may serve the purpose of populating Russia’s commercial aviation fleet. However, it will still drag the country’s aviation sector back by at least a few decades. Modern commercial aircraft made in the West outperform old Russian designs in efficiency, comfort, and every other aspect. It will be interesting to see how Russia copes with the sanctions going forward.
