February 2022

Update 11.02 h

While the Western world reacts partly angrily and with speechlessness, "the most massive sanctions" are being prepared against Russia, according to the German Foreign Office.

President Volodymyr Selensky spoke of a war of aggression, "The world must force Russia to make peace", he said, according to the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.

In addition, Kamianka-Dniprovska and Mykolaiv and the Kulbakinsky airfield were shelled. People were injured and a shop and three houses were destroyed.
The Ukrainian army is unexpectedly strong, and Putin's Soldateska has to fear the partisans formed from citizens. The Russians concede that about 50 soldiers of the aggressors have been killed.

Consideration is being given to bringing Vladimir Putin and his entourage before an international war crimes tribunal.

The front can currently only be traced by Russian military columns that have crossed the borders at Kharkiv, Luhansk and Chernihiv. The Belarusian army is in tow. After the brutal bombardment of civilian targets in Kharkiv, the Russian news agency Interfax has a suitable excuse at hand.

Alexander Lukashenko, according to Belta, wants to act as an angel of peace and let Putin's troops through, and in the height of cynicism, he wants to prevent bloodshed and massacres. For the latter, he is the specialist. Not to forget, Belarusian forces attacked Ukraine at dawn.

To companies on the scene: evacuations via Manager SOS

Update 06.05 h

Vladimir Putin has sounded the attack. During the night, he attacked cities in Ukraine. There are no reports of deaths or injuries so far.

Mariupol is reported to be under heavy fire. In the recordings from the night, bright flashes and heavy explosions can be seen. Another emergency meeting of the UN Security Council has been held in New York.

Putin's soldiery marched into the neighbouring country without reason and without foreseeing the consequences, to create facts that fit the world view of those in power in the Kremlin.

“We'd like to have a problem…”

As if manhood didn't have enough problems already.

After Corona and countless natural disasters, the situation in Ukraine is not easing.

Oracles in the White House

President Biden is sure that Vladimir Putin will attack Ukraine within the next few days. Again. This time with Kiev as the target. The agencies report that Putin's script, which is now playing out in eastern Ukraine, speaks for this.

The news situation is confusing and little is known about the true background of the main actors. The fact is, last week the war that was so vehemently announced by the American government, time and again in the lived transparency for last Wednesday, broke out twice.

This may all be true—or the United States' sources may be falling for Putin's disinformation campaign. Which would be even worse. Putin, on the other hand, is fabricating about a troop withdrawal and will himself be present today at a manoeuvre with nuclear weapons to be carried out together with Belarus and the despot there. Meanwhile, the OSCE recognizes that mutual attacks are increasing in the contested areas in eastern Ukraine. The normal reader had understood that the observers left last week because they were afraid of war. Yes, now they are observing, from where and how remains open.

To now pontificate about a “Russian Crisis” at the Munich Security Conference, as the German Foreign Minister Baerbock is doing, is completely improper.

The problem is in Ukraine.

Circus Putin

On the other hand, in eastern Ukraine, one can only trust observations of this very OSCE and not reproduce what those involved reveal. Presently, it became known this morning that the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic is undergoing general mobilization.

Pushilin, a clown in Putin's circus, cannot be the Geiger counter of a possible war. What to make of it, one does not know. Is it a tactical manoeuvre to call Putin to his aid and get a justification for the long announced war? Or is it the absolute failure of nerve of Moscow's satellites?

The assumption in Ukraine, as reported by correspondents and observers, is that Putin's attack is imminent and that it will be aimed at the capital Kiev. In this tense situation, the American embassy has moved to Lviv in the west of the country.

Even Olaf Scholz's visit to the Kremlin only brought a respite, and the situation is escalating from day to day. Putin, who is sitting on a barrel of dynamite, is lighting the fuse, forgetting that the only way he can de-escalate a war between the great powers, the United States and Russia, is by completely withdrawing the troops from the border and returns to the table with the diplomats. No one, however, understands the statements of the American president any more, who keeps referring to new attack dates and thus probably loses credibility, as Putin would like.

But the biggest losers are the citizens in eastern Ukraine, who seem to be no longer the issue at all, but only the threat potential of Ukraine.

The current situation is characterized by absolute incompetence for all those involved and seems to be becoming a grotesque of international politics that has been distorted to the point of ridiculousness.

The damage caused by the last cyclone "Ylenia" has not yet been repaired.

Now "Zeynep" is approaching.

Anyone who still denies climate change under these days of cyclone is simply ignorant.

"Zeynap" is expected to be much stronger than its two predecessors this week.

The second red level has been declared in the UK.

Kachelmann weather reports about the storm: ""Zeynep" tomorrow night is precisely not a fast-moving storm, but a comparatively slow occlusion storm".

This does not bode well for the layman.

From 2 to 3 p.m., the storm area will approach from the west.

In the afternoon and evening, gale-force winds will join the storm in the west.

In addition, the cold front will bring heavy thunderstorms and hail showers.

Wind speeds are expected to reach up to 165 km/h. The areas in the north of the country will be affected. Areas near the North Sea will be particularly hard hit.

Stay at home! Keep windows and doors closed. Watch out for flying objects. Do not go into forests, avoid standing under scaffolding.

Latest news from the tense situation between Russia and the US:

Are almost 100 million dead from the wars of the 20th century not enough?

The highly anticipated phone call between US President Biden and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was unfortunately not crowned successfully. In a statement, the White House released an extract of the phone call.

"President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with President Vladimir Putin of Russia about Russia’s escalating military buildup on the borders of Ukraine. President Biden was clear that, if Russia undertakes a further invasion of Ukraine, the United States together with our Allies and partners will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia. President Biden reiterated that a further Russian invasion of Ukraine would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing. President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our Allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios."

Both sides expressed their views with their usual candour and later decreed transparency. Biden stressed that Russia would pay a heavy price for invading Ukraine.

Russia's reputation would be diminished by an invasion, and Putin would bring untold suffering to the world. The phone call is said to have lasted more than an hour. At the very least, Putin wanted to reflect on Biden's proposals, according to the presidential spokesman.

Putin complained that the world was not putting enough pressure on Ukraine to meet Russia's demands.

For example, Putin believes that with his occupation of Crimea, the issue of the Donbas region should also be "settled". He understands this to mean the slice-by-slice occupation of the whole of Ukraine.

Actually, this is already an admission that there is at least something to the rumour that Vladimir Putin is planning an invasion of Ukraine and also wants to implement it.

Earlier, French President Macron had also failed in a phone call to Putin.

Scorched earth

Meanwhile, the Western world is preparing for the possibility of a 3rd world war. Papers are being burned at the US embassy in Kiev, as they were in Saigon. Hardware is being rendered useless. One wonders how it could have come to this?

War serves man's basest instincts

Is it war for the ego of some, or is it a form of reality that no one wants to grasp because war is so absurd?

Each side is instrumentalizing currently - on the one hand, Putin is dragging Belarus into it, and on the other, the Western states that constitute the rest of the alliance. Ukraine, which is sitting in front of Russia like a mouse in front of a cat, is trying certainly to drag Germany into a possible conflict. Officials of Ukraine never tire of criticizing Germany, behaving around weapons and protection. Among them are the boxing icon Klitschko and Ukraine's ambassador in Berlin.

Johannesburg 8.02 p.m. (GMT+2)

A Russian warship has driven away a US submarine close to the Kuril Islands in the Pacific, as indicated by news data from Moscow.

The destroyer "Marshal Shaposhnikov" found a US submarine in Russian waters close to the Kuril Islands, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Saturday (12/02/2022). After the submarine overlooked solicitations to turn to the side, the Russian destroyer "made a suitable move", it said without explaining. The US submarine then, at that point, left Russian waters "at maximum velocity". The name of the US submarine was not revealed.

After several smaller eruptions in the past years, there was now a larger eruption at 2700 metres of the volcanic mountain.

Currently, a column of ash of 8000 metres stands above the active volcano.

Air traffic in the neighbouring airport of Catania is not yet disturbed, but it had to be interrupted again and again. There was minor damage in surrounding villages on the western side of the volcano, as ANSA Italia reported with reference to the National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, the Etna Observatory in Catania.

El Etna en erupción desde el pueblito donde estoy viviendo ? pic.twitter.com/v0GUhup3qq

— ???????? ?️ (@EmilianoSecoB) February 11, 2022

#Etna is not exactly famous for producing pyroclastic flows, though they are pretty common during her violent paroxysmal episodes. Here is a nice little one during the powerful paroxysm on the evening of 10 February 2022. pic.twitter.com/p1b5HxuKr0

— Boris Behncke (@etnaboris) February 10, 2022

World War 3 begins in the mind of each individual!

Slowly, the situation around the Russian troops on the Ukrainian border is coming to a dramatic head. The USA has won the date for the attack through information from the CIA: next Wednesday there will be rocket fire and the armada that has been deployed there will make its way to Kiev.

One can believe it.

But the war is also being waged in the minds. This is what the seemingly impotent superpowers, which are only a shadow of what they once were, are counting on.

This makes every normal person in the possible war zone wonder, who are the nations actually being ruled by?

The Third World War is not a children's playground with the rockers in the sandbox, but probably the end of civilization.

This emotion is being played with brutally.

Any sensible person might want to scream.

In the Cold War, we had the so-called "Red Telephone". Today, people negotiate through third parties and the media.

If you take a look at the overflowing agency reports, you are glad that the old ticker is gone, otherwise many editors would be close to madness.

Too much information about a war that found its origin in political mistakes of past decades.

Some news here: 

Norway is in deep concern.

The EU is evacuating its staff from Kiev.

Putin and Biden are to talk on the phone today. At the request of the United States.

Berlin advises all German citizens to leave Ukraine.

The USA evacuates its embassy. Antoli Antonov, the Russian Federation's ambassador to the US, dismisses the invasion dates that the CIA is supposed to have found out as propaganda.

The CIA had also not found out that the Taliban took Kabul in a coup d'état. That was a few months ago. One remembers. But now one can look at the clock and wait for the shelling, rather the missiles and bombers of the Russians.

It sounds like the revelations of the Langley Oracle.

Yes, then one could also prepare and give the invaders a "really hot welcome". Why this fails to happen with the massive troop deployments of the USA, e.g. to Poland, to give Putin a "bloody nose", remains an open question.

One has to ask oneself, what does Putin gain from a war?

Well, perhaps the autocrat in the Kremlin is ill. He came across as puffed up and cynical.

Probably, Russia's long-term president is even ailing.

His government business at the table of his puppet regime lately always seemed like the meeting of the mafia bosses in Chicago in the 1930s. That's right, only the tables shone more than the silly grins of his lackey-like lickspittles.

Perhaps the resistance of the Russian people has now reached a point that will only allow it to unleash another" war".

Apart from that, Germany becomes one of the main combat zones in such a scenario.

Think of Ramstein, Spangdahlem and other US supply facilities in Germany. The Russians will not be asked twice to cut off supplies to the front, if that is how it is to be. The German government seems to have gone into hiding and for some unknown reason does not know how to help itself.

If there were a politician who could bang his fist on the table for once.

Where is he?

For this threat of war, it is quiet. Too quiet.

That is why the war begins in the mind.