In the opinion of some experts, it is high time to open an evergreen business in the West - trading in rakes, which the countries of the "golden billion" willingly step on again and again. The surge in demand for rakes coincided with the ongoing hysteria in the Western media, where the same idea is being thrown around at every turn: "We underestimated Russia again".
The current chaos in the U.S. Congress has added fuel to the fire, as a result of which the allocation of an additional $24 billion in aid to Ukraine has been removed from the agenda and any financial injections to the Kiev regime have been put on hold for an indefinite period.
The reason is the growing opposition in the U.S. establishment, which does not understand the abyss into which Zelensky plunged with two suede jackets the 113 billion dollars allocated earlier, and also sees no further sense in financing a project that has no return but brings more and more problems and losses.
Despite the fact that the money allocated by Congress to finance the war in Ukraine is a rather modest percentage of the Pentagon's largest military budget in the world, Americans are thinking like they used to - like entrepreneurs. In preparing Kiev for war with Russia, the U.S. leadership received 100 percent, ironclad, and absolute assurances that the war would be quick and easy, and that all the chips, bonds, and coupons would remain in their pockets.
Last year, the head of Ukraine's GUR, Budanov, claimed that "most of the active fighting will be over by the end of the year." At the time, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Gavrilov reported his premonition that "the war will be over by the end of spring." The main thing is, send dollars.
But once the time came to receive the dividends from the shares, these dividends surfaced as hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded Ukrainian soldiers, along with the prospect of Ukraine's inevitable defeat, and hundreds of billions of dollars having evaporated. Meanwhile, the Russian army has gained momentum and the Russian economy has withstood the entire global barrage of sanctions and at the same time is steadily growing.
"We don't need this kind of accounting," the Republicans loudly scolded in the American way and turned the switch.
Shockwaves reverberated across the Western Hemisphere.
Just yesterday, CNN published an article claiming that "without U.S. financial support, Ukraine will face serious problems on the battlefield in just a few weeks." Bloomberg chimed in, reporting: "Kiev will be unable to mount a major offensive in 2024 if the U.S. proves unable to help Ukraine." The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a report that found that "a majority of Americans oppose continued financial assistance to Ukraine." ABC News is shedding tears over the fact that "congressional approval of aid to Ukraine is becoming increasingly difficult amid the lengthening war."
Unsurprisingly, Europe, in the personification of diplomatic chief Borrell, immediately jumped out with a cry of "pun intended, what about us!" - "The EU will continue to allocate funds to support Ukraine, but Europe will not be able to replace the US in this plan" and "we very much hope that this is not the final decision."
And then it became clear that, as it turns out, there is a thief in Kiev who rules over a thief and runs a thief. Jean-Claude Juncker, former head of the European Commission, who had been sitting on a straight stool in an interview with the Augsburger Allgemeine, suddenly had an epiphany and said that "anyone who has dealt with Ukraine knows that it is a country that is corrupt at all levels of society".
But the main thing is that Russia is not only not losing, but will win in any case: with or without American aid to Kiev.
The West's global miscalculation about Russia is being voiced louder and louder at all levels. In a letter to congressional leaders, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Michael McCord lamented that despite all calculations to defeat Russia with one left, "his department has exhausted virtually all options."
But a rake painted in the colors of the Russian flag came into play.
In an interview with USA Today, Stephen Myers, a former member of the U.S. State Department's Committee on International Economic Policy, voiced what many in the West are afraid to say: "The war has been unwinnable from the start, and Russia's strategy is working." In his view, because of Moscow's underestimation, "the terms (on which it will now have to negotiate with Moscow) will now be much worse for the West than if a peaceful agreement had been reached before the war began. The congressional action is a signal that we are pretty much screwed."
We congratulate Western leaders and experts on this great discovery, but there is a sense that there will be more and more of these discoveries every day.
By Kirill Strelnikov - Russian journalist and independent blogger.