Is Russia bluffing? Will Europe get gas after the deadline if they don’t pay? My prediction is that Russia isn’t bluffing. They planned this for a long time as a counter-measure. Next comes crude oil, coal, metals, rare earths, minerals, precious stones, noble gases, lumber, fertilizers, food oil, and grain — all may soon be sold in rubles.

The effect of agreeing on the European side is nil. They would simply exchange euros to rubles and pay that way. Very simple. But the effect on the Russian side is huge since it would bolster the ruble in effect reversing most of the sanctions. The effect of refusing on the European side is huge. Energy prices would almost double since 40 percent of their natural gas comes from Russia. The US can only make up about 10 percent of Europe’s gas loss in the short term and with a much more expensive delivery cost.

Meanwhile, the effect of a European refusal is virtually nil in Russia for the long term since the Asian market demand will make up for the loss of sales. In fact, Russia did its first oil sale to India using a rupees to rubles exchange. Saudi Arabia started accepting Chinese yuan for oil, thus undercutting the petro-dollar. The east has already found a way to circumvent western sanctions even while cutting off the west.

This was obviously a long term plan thought out ahead of time in 2021 or maybe even years before these sanctions.

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Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has been called “Russia’s prophet” by many. His book, The Gulag Archipelago, as well as his Harvard Commenceme…

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KIEV, Ukraine (Forerunner) — I have spent about an equal amount of time in both the countries of Russia and Ukraine. This time amounts to several months out of my life. Rather than stay in hotels and eat in restaurants, I spent the majority of my time with my friends and their families in over a dozen cities in each country. I have close friends from both countries who have strong feelings on either side of the current conflict. Since we are constantly barraged with war footage, we are taught to sympathize with our Ukrainian brethren and their heroic president while being conditioned to demonize Russians who support their president. However, the first casualty of war is always truth. How can we forget this so easily? I asked two questions to a friend in Kiev who is well-connected throughout the country due to his business dealings. ~ Jay Rogers

I also highly recommend the above video for a general background in Ukraine’s recent history. It is impossible to correctly understand the current situation without knowing something about Ukraine as a culture and a nation. The video is an excellent and balanced teaching that explains well various factors that led to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine crisis.

The Forerunner:– Most people don’t ever have the experience of living in a city being attacked by the second most powerful army in the world. What are your reflections and observations?

A:– We are okay, so far. There is hell going on near Kiev where the battles are [a few miles to the north and west of the city].

Also the cities of Mariupol and Kharkov are suffering heavily. My colleagues from Kharkov left the city for remote areas. The city is a battle arena at the moment. Mariupol is a half-million population city and the biggest shelter of the Azov Nazi Battalion that holds civilians as hostages.

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You may or may not be aware of Amazon Web Services, which is part of the Jeff Bezos owned conglomerate that seeks to rule the planet. Not only does Amazon have a virtual monopoly through on-line sales, but also makes billions of dollars by providing web services seeking to inform and influence the human race even beyond our planet by also pioneering privately-funded space exploration.

The following information on AWS can be found their Wikipedia article.

AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon providing on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies, and governments.

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Here are a series of questions answered by one of my good friends who lives few miles away from the rumble in Kiev. – Jay Rogers

KIEV, Ukraine (Forerunner) — I’ve been surprised so far to see so many people who agree we are not seeing the whole story from the western media. The solution to the Russia and Ukraine crisis has always been some simple concessions to Russia.

1. Recognize the sovereignty of three breakaway regions (Crimea, Lugansk and Donetsk).
2. Obtain a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO.
3. Agree to the demilitarization of regions surrounding Crimea and Donbass.
4. Make a legal declaration of Ukraine’s neutral status — possibly a constitutional amendment.

These seem to me to be reasonable demands. Former U.S. representative Tulsi Gabbard was criticized for saying that such concessions in 2021 could have avoided this horrific military conflict. Numerous other commentators have agreed that now this ought to be considered a good exit strategy. Instead we given the unending narrative that Putin wants to occupy Ukraine permanently and resurrect the Soviet Union. Yet we are told we cannot interfere with his nefarious plan. We cannot go to war with a nuclear superpower either. Instead, we are to arm Ukrainians for a long drawn out resistance that will kill many thousands on both sides and finally ruin Putin. That is the media narrative, but I believe that scenario to be absurd and cruel.

I asked the following questions of my friend.

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