Rolling Along, Russia Loses Every Battle

[Prague, 1/31/16]

In Philadelphia, there’s a joke, “Why is a South Philly guy like Jesus?”

“They both hang out with the same 12 guys and their mothers think they’re God.”

South Philly was mostly Italian, you see, so the God bit explains his doting mother, with her pasta and “gravy,” South Philly lingo for sauce. As for his narrow social circle, that’s true of not just all Philly guys, but us, too, no matter how many FaceBook “friends” we have.

In fact, most of us have fewer true friends than the South Philly guy who’s been sitting on the same stool at the same bar for half a century, and here, I’m only exaggerating slightly, for my buddy Felix Giordano did spend a few years in San Francisco and on a docked houseboat in Jersey.

Earlier, I’ve mentioned another South Philly guy, M, who married five women of near identical weight and shape, and had to have a Pat’s cheesesteak for dinner each night, when he wasn’t locked up for possessing child pornography, that is.

We know damn well what we want to see and hear. Even with the internet, which is supposed to bring us the entire world, we limit ourselves to a tightly tailored menu of, frankly, just a few items. For politics, a man might frequent half a dozen websites daily, with none contradicting each other or his well-entrenched beliefs and prejudices. Ticsized men and women, we can’t see beyond a foot or two.

Ever since the war started in Ukraine, I’ve been checking in, almost compulsively, on Graham Seibert’s SubStack page. With his Ukrainian wife and three children, Seibert lives in Kiev. Through his thoughts and feelings, I want to get a better sense of what’s happening there, on the ground.

On 2/24, I also emailed Graham, “If it gets a little too crazy up there, perhaps you can take the wife and kids down to Namibia for a vacation! It’s warm here, and perfectly calm.” This advice is applicable to you, too. Come to Namibia to escape the madness in Australia, Canada, the USA or Europe, etc. There are no nuclear war threats or Big Brother’s Covid enforcement here, the supermarkets are well stocked and the people are calm and civil. Two months ago, Seibert tried to send me a Trezor bitcoin wallet, and though it made it to Windhoek, it couldn’t clear customs. I remember this generous act.

Initially resigned to a lightning-fast Russian victory, Seibert immediately switched to an ever-stronger conviction, punctuated by only a few notes of doubts, the Russians were being routed, and Putin’s career was over. Seibert on 2/27/22, “In my view Putin is a dead man walking. He cannot survive this. He must be forced from power, and is unlikely to enjoy a comfortable retirement. If that’s his objective, he had better learn Chinese.”

Since Russians and Chinese do share a love for dumplings, Vladimir won’t feel too displaced. Slumped in some Liuzhou teahouse in 2040, a toothless and tearful Putin can nibble pork dim sum while mumbling, in perfect, accentless Chinese, “I should have… Why didn’t I?”

“Shut up, Vlad!” comes a friendly rib from the next table. “You got your wrinkled ass kicked! You’re lucky they didn’t hang you!”

Let’s hear more from Seibert. From his post on 3/4/22, we have these passages:

Russia, which has now committed 95% of the forces amassed, no longer tries to fight the Ukrainian army and self-defense forces. After losing every confrontation, now the Russians upon encountering Ukrainian forces immediately retreat. 

Russia still has no aerial advantage. According to an article that I read Russia failed to take out Ukraine’s air defense in the first day and doesn’t wish to risk its planes. This is not the case with the ground forces which are being cut into pieces on a daily basis.

One last thought. Zelensky more and more reminds me of Churchill.  A brilliant leader in war a mediocre populist at peace.

In sum, the Russians are “losing every confrontation,” so “immediately retreat” from each encounter with Ukrainian forces. They’re “being cut to pieces on a daily basis.” For being such a “brilliant leader in war,” Zelensky reminds Seibert more and more of Churchill.

Quite a transformation for a man who, on television, danced in high heels and leather with three partners, a la Village People, or mimicked playing the piano with his penis, with his pants around his ankles.

Now, Seibert is an extremely well-read, well-traveled man who, at 79-years-old, has had plenty of life experience. He was in Vietnam for four years during the war. He’s worked in several countries. No South Philly paisano, Seibert has more than 12 friends, for sure. Thrice married, Seibert’s millennial kids had playdates with the Huffingtons.

As you can deduce, it’s clear I find Seibert’s take on the war baffling, to say the least, for how could Russia have lost every confrontation yet captured Kherson (pop. 284,000) after a mere week, with Kiev, Kharkov and Mariupol all besieged? Deftly, it seized the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, not just the largest in Ukraine but Europe.

Following a link by Seibert, I discovered European Pravda, a site run by the Ukrainian government. On 3/3/22, it revealed that Russia had already lost 9,000 troops, 217 tanks, 900 armored fighting vehicles and 30 aircrafts, with this as its source, “General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces on Facebook.”

Another 3/3/22 article quotes Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, as saying Russian “military tourists” must be sent home immediately to escape extermination. How could he say anything else?

A 3/2/22 article reminds us that Russia has a very long history of losing wars, “According to statistics compiled by Vladimir Solovyov, a great Russian historian of the late nineteenth century, Russia lost more than 70% of the 50 wars in the north and west from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century.”

[Leipzig, 10/12/15]

Russia started to expand to its enormous size in the 16th century, so they must have won quite a few wars since then, no? Plus, it’s not how many wars you’ve won, but your current status, and Russia is unequivocally a superpower, along with only China and a rapidly sinking USA, with two consecutive clowns as president.

Spitting out drinks, kicking over coffee tables or violently falling backwards, the entire world heard Biden on 3/1/22, “Putin may circle Kiev with tanks but will never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people.” Sitting behind hazy Joe, Kamala Harris only knitted her brows slightly, while Nany Pelosi maintained an impressively unperturbed, indulgent or perhaps just alcoholic composure. After five shots of Jameson, I usually have the same expression.

Seibert mentioned a Zoom call organized by Tablet, so I went there to find a 3/4/22 article, “Jewish Ukraine Fights Nazi Russia,” which lauds Zelensky’s emergence as “the most valorous, poised, and fearless wartime president of recent Western history.” Jews aren’t shy about praising themselves, but why should they be? Chosen, they’re a breed apart.

Another Seibert source is Ukrainska Pravda. On 3/3/22, it stated that “most members of the Russian elite were taking their relatives and friends out of Moscow to Georgia, Israel, and the UAE.

“Russia’s top political leadership continue to panic, and their distrust of Vladimir Putin is increasing, so they are evacuating families and looking for places to hide in case of escalating war.”

So in or out of battle, Russians are fleeing, while Ukrainians remain valiant and steadfast under the superb guidance of the most “fearless wartime president of recent Western history,” if not a new Churchill. According to Russian sources, however, Zelensky is not even in Kiev, but escaped to Lviv or even Poland.

In any war, both sides must lie, so one should be super leery of any official mouthpiece. Born into a war, I was raised inside its relentlessly upbeat propaganda.

In this paradigm, your side is righteous and invincible, while the enemy is evil, confused, demoralized and suffering terrible losses, battle after battle, until, inexplicably, their tanks roll down your very street as you sob or vomit blood. That is, if you’re still alive to witness such a terrifying defeat.

There’s another American in Ukraine I’ve been following, Coach Red Pill, whose real name is Gonzalo Lira. Born in California to Chilean parents, Lira is a novelist and filmmaker who, like Seibert, is married to a Ukrainian.

Stuck in Kiev as war broke out, Lira made four YouTube videos which quickly gained him an international audience. Insightful and bold, they’re delivered quite fearlessly, if not recklessly, with plenty of humor.

On 2/26/22, Lira said, “I’m not going to be, you know, spending several hundred Euros per night on a nice room, and sleep in the fuckin’ garage, man. No, no! I’m going to get my money’s worth, and if my room gets blown up by a missile, so be it. At least I got my money’s worth, you know, before I became pink mist.”

Of Lira’s second video from Kiev, “What Russia Wants from Its Invasion of Ukraine—and Why Zelensky Is Evil” of 2/27/22, I transcribed 1,880 words, not just because I wanted to make it the backbone of an article, but because I suspected it would be deleted.

Lira, “What really bothers me. And perhaps this isn’t a wise thing for me to say, while I'm still in Ukraine, under the Zelensky regime, what really bothers me is that the Zelensky regime has no trouble causing a humanitarian crisis. In fact, they welcome a humanitarian crisis. They would love to see dead Ukrainians.”

While all of Lira’s YouTube videos are still there, the man hasn’t been heard from in four days. His Instagram account is also dormant.

Though the Zelensky regime can’t be happy with Lira’s contrarian accounts getting heavy play all over, including in Russia, let’s hope it has done no more than warned the man. Perhaps Lira has simply decided he has spoken enough, for now. I’m sure his wife and in-laws have given him an earful.

With assault rifles passed out to even criminals, as Lira pointed out, so many people in Ukraine have already been murdered, away from battle.

[Durham, 2/26/17]