The alarm goes off. Sammie's already awake. Kim got up quietly and left an hour earlier. He'll get his coffee on the way to work.
All good mornings start with coffee.
Sammie has a busy but exciting (and potentially profitable) day ahead of her. She checks her new iPhone. Yes, it's Someone Else's Day. It used to be called Columbus Day, but Columbus, as it turns out, was a mediocre “mafioso” that consorted with ladies of the night and somehow swindled a clueless Spaniard into financing an oceanic expedition where he went off to Martha's Vineyard and ended up hurting a lot of indigenous and influential people. And he wasn't even the first one on the island. A lot of cultural appropriation was involved.
Downstairs in her immaculate kitchen, Sammie starts, as always, with a bit of fruit and then a cup of piping hot coffee.
All good mornings start with coffee.
The hairdresser's at ten at the mall. Then it's a meeting with an old friend at noon for a quick cuppa and a good chat. Then it's looking for an appropriate frock for tonight's dinner with Kim's new boss. Finally it's picking up the kids of course. Busy busy.
Sammie's hairdresser wonders what Sammie thinks about the latest "Ye" scandal. Ye, formerly known as Kanye, was in Paris recently together with that smart mouth Candace. And they were wearing "WHITE LIVES MATTER" shirts, Ye’s in black, hers in white.
I don't like to get involved in politics, Sammie tells the hairdresser.
"The barrage of dozens of cruise missiles fired from air, land, and sea was the most widespread wave of air strikes to hit away from the front line, at least since the initial volleys on the war's first day", writes Reuters.
Dozens? Actually closer to one hundred, Reuters.
Bernhard has an extensive summary of western MSM coverage.
Russia, Having 'Run Out Of Missiles', Launches Barrage On Ukraine
The first part is what Bernhard calls "propaganda blubber". It's the nonsense published by the MSM in the West. (It's a long list.)
The next part is what he calls the "warning". It quotes a piece in Haaretz from 7 July this year.
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had barely got started in Ukraine and dared the West to try to defeat it on the battlefield, while insisting that Moscow was still open to the idea of peace talks.
"Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can you say, let them try", he said.
"We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is heading towards this."
"Everyone should know that, by and large, we haven't started anything yet in earnest", he added. "At the same time, we don't reject peace talks. But those who reject them should know that the further it goes, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us."
Yes, FP magazine just revealed that Ukraine and Russia had worked out a peace deal already back in April - or were about to. Erdoğan was doing it. Then word got around to, presumably, a former US Senator from New York, and she talked to her old friend from Delaware and he got an uncombed Eton graduate on the horn. (Special relationship stuff.)
"You get down to Keev lickety-split and you tell that unshaven monkey butt there'll be no peace deal, not if he wants our support!"
The Senator wants to destroy Russia, piece it up like them other guys in the history books and stuff. Operation Unthinkable and all that. Who could keep track? And damn what the media says, she knows it's true, she knew it that night at the Javits Center. Russia stole her election. Now it's time for revenge. Payback time, Mister Putin! It's time for justice to prevail!
Shoigu moved his forces in at 0600 hours on 24 February. Those forces started taking out crucial military infrastructure. Ukraine’s air force was demolished in a matter of hours if not minutes. And so forth. Shoigu's boys grouped around Kiev. For show only. What would the Ukrainians do?
Negotiate for peace of course. But the US wouldn't have any of that. So Shoigu regrouped and headed to the Donbass. If they want a war, who is Shoigu to deny them?
Sammie wasn't worried too much about Ukraine. It came in as a blip on her radar now and then. Sammie's hairdresser thought even less about Ukraine. If at all.
Bernhard continues with a section called "Total Disregard". Articles from the NY Times, ABC News, The Telegraph...
His final section is called "Consequences". Again it consists of grabs from the MSM in the West - their shock and denial and richly spiked rhetoric. The Wall Street Journal, CBS News...
Pepe Escobar at The Cradle: Terror on Crimea Bridge forces Russia to unleash Shock’n Awe
https://thecradle.co/Article/Columns/16704
"Shock’n Awe"? Actually the apostrophe is used as a replacement for one character, Pepe. Not two. For example, "doesn't" is actually "does not" but pronounced faster. “Shock and Awe" would contract to "Shock 'n' Awe", much like "rock 'n' roll". Pepe might be following the example of Guns N' Roses?
But Pepe of course is an international reporter second to none. If you want to know what's going on in Ukraine - Sammie doesn't - then Pepe's your guy.
The terror attack on Krymskiy Most - the Crimea Bridge - was the proverbial straw that broke the Eurasian camel's back.
Clever choice of words. Крымский Мост is of course the name of the bridge that connects Crimea to the mainland. The "Eurasian" bit is also significant, as the pendulum swung back again and Eurasia, not North America, is again the focus of world commerce and culture.
Russian President Vladimir Putin neatly summarised it: “This is a terrorist attack aimed at destroying the critical civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation”.
Well yes. It's a spiteful preteen brat trying to defy its parents. Just lashing out. The poor brat never learned how to grow up. Never took judo.
The damage to the bridge was fixed in 14 (fourteen) hours. Things are running again.
The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, confirmed face-to-face with Putin that Terror on the Bridge was carried out by the SBU - Ukrainian special services.
Yes, that meeting was filmed. Amazing how fast they worked. Amazing too how much planning and work went into the brat attack.
"We have already established the route of the truck, where the explosion took place. Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, Krasnodar... The carriers have been identified."
The payload was packed in 22 pallets, in rolls of film under plastic wrap. It was all shipped from Bulgaria to Georgia to Armenia, then back into Georgia, then into Russia. It was meant to be delivered on Putin's birthday 7 October. It didn’t make it on time.
There were two drivers involved. It's likely the second driver didn't even know he was on a suicide mission.
Two Conclusions
"At this stage, two conclusions are paramount", Pepe writes.
First: This was not a standard ISIS-style truck suicide bombing - the preferred interpretation in the aftermath of the terror attack.
Second: The packaging most certainly took place in Bulgaria. That, as Russian intel has cryptically implied, indicates the involvement of "foreign special services".
The Other Story
Pepe has other sources.
At least 450 kg of explosives were employed in the blast. Not on the truck, but mounted inside the Crimea Bridge span itself. The white truck was just a decoy by the terrorists "to create a mirage of cause and effect". When the truck reached the point on the bridge where the explosives were mounted, the explosion took place.
According to the source, railroad employees told investigators that there was a form of electronic hijacking; the terror operators took control of the railway so the train carrying fuel received a command to stop because of a false signal that the road ahead was busy.
But the best laid plans...
In the end, the quite sophisticated plan could not follow the necessarily rigid timing. There was no alignment by the millimeter between the mounted explosive charges, the passing truck, and the fuel train stopped in its tracks. Damage was limited and easily contained. The charges/truck combo exploded on the outer right lane of the road. Damage was only on two sections of the outer lane, and not much on the railway bridge.
So...
In the end, Terror on the Bridge yielded a short, Pyrrhic PR victory – duly celebrated across the collective West – with negligible practical success: transfer of Russian military cargo by railway resumed in roughly 14 hours.
Whodunnit?
It was a plan by the British MI6, says Pepe’s source, without the source offering further details. Which, the source elaborates, Russian intel, for a number of reasons, is shadow-playing as “foreign special services”.
So James Bond.
Pepe again.
It's quite telling that the Americans rushed to establish plausible deniability. The proverbial “Ukrainian government official” told CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post that the SBU did it. That was a straight confirmation of an Ukrainska Pravda report based on an “unidentified law enforcement official”.
Crossing the Red Line
Already, over the weekend, it was clear the ultimate red line had been crossed. Russian public opinion and media were furious.
Yes indeed, Russians were furious. Putin's popularity dropped from a stable 82% to a jaw-dropping 77%. The Duran's Alex and Alexander were concerned. Andrei Martyanov wasn't saying a thing. Andrei Saker was busy trying to save his Florida home. But Pepe puts it all in perspective.
So we had, in sequence, Ukrainian terrorists blowing up Darya Dugina’s car in a Moscow suburb (they admitted it); US/UK special forces (partially) blowing Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 (they admitted and then retracted); and the terror attack on Krymsky Most (once again: admitted then retracted).
Not to mention the shelling of Russian villages in Belgorod, NATO supplying long-range weapons to Kiev, and the routine execution of Russian soldiers.
Darya Dugina, Nord Streams and Crimea Bridge make it an Act of War trifecta. So this time the response was inevitable – not even waiting for the first meeting since February of the Russian Security Council scheduled for the afternoon of 10 October.
Shock'n Awe
There should still be a debate on whether Russia really took the gloves off now. They didn't carpet-bomb the country like the US would do, civilians be damned. But they picked out as many as one hundred targets to take out.
And the change of status – now this is a real war on terror – means that terminating all strands of terrorism, physical, cultural, ideological, are the absolute priority, and not the safety of Ukrainian civilians. During the SMO, safety of civilians was paramount. Even the UN has been forced to admit that in over seven months of SMO the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine has been relatively low.
But the foolish Ukrainians, like the proverbial spoiled brat, continue to push it. So there's only one possible response. Something that wasn't possible before. Something that's a direct responsibility today.
Commander Armageddon
Whether Shoigu's being replaced remains to be seen. But General Sergey Surovikin is now in charge - at least for this part of it.
Kiev is now learning they messed with the wrong guy. Surovikin is widely respected – and feared: his nickname is “General Armageddon”. Others call him “Cannibal”. Legendary Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov – also a colonel general in the Russian military – lavishly praises Surovikin as “a real general and warrior, an experienced, strong-willed and far-sighted commander”.
Surovikin has been commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces since 2017; was awarded the title of Hero of Russia for his no-nonsense leadership of the military operation in Syria; and had on the ground experience in Chechnya in the 1990s.
Surovikin is Dr Shock'n Awe with full carte blanche.
Moscow Moles
MI6 does have some well-placed moles in Moscow, writes Pepe. The Brits had warned of a "warning strike" on Monday. No one paid attention.
What happened was no “warning strike”, but a massive offensive of over 100 cruise missiles launched “from the air, sea and land”, as Putin noted, against Ukrainian “energy, military command and communications facilities”.
Dark Winter
MI6 also noted “the next step” will be the complete destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. That’s not a “next step”: it’s already happening.
Elon's Gone
Over 60 percent of Ukrainian power grids are already knocked out. Over 75 percent of Internet traffic is gone. Elon Musk's Starlink netcentric warfare has been "disconnected".
Progression
Shock'n Awe will likely progress in three stages, says Pepe.
First: Overload of the Ukrainian air defense system (already on).
Second: Plunging Ukraine into the Dark Ages (already in progress).
Third: Destruction of all major military installations (the next wave).
Ukraine is about to embrace nearly total darkness in the next few days. Politically, that opens a completely new ball game.
How a humiliated western Empire can possibly raise the stakes now, short of going nuclear, remains a key question. Moscow has shown admirable restraint for too long. No one should ever forget that in the real Great Game – how to coordinate the emergence of the multipolar world – Ukraine is just a mere sideshow. But now the sideshow runners better run for cover, because General Armageddon is on the loose.
Sammie's friend arrives for their coffee date. It's always nice to catch up with old friends.
Sammie's friend tells her she hears people mutter silly things about "Empire of Lies" and "end of unipolar (sic)" and she personally thinks it's all rubbish.
"Oh definitely", Sammie tells her. "We're the greatest country in the history of the universe, we’re indispensable, and goddammit we're not going anywhere!"