Here’s a related article also of interest with some interviews written by someone from the region: https://www.rt.com/news/603374-axis-resistance-prepares-avenge-israel/

This isn’t the Russia of the early 90s. Also worth noting that US itself is far less politically stable than Russia at this point.

I have to strongly disagree. I’m not trying to overstate Russia as being unstable, just perhaps less so than the US given the age and time each has had to peacefully consolidate from a position of strength. One after all suffered a collapse and change of economic systems in the last 35 years which gave lots of openings, upset lots of people, while the other has been stably steeped in a national myth and revisionist reactionary civil religion for 70 years now stably since their emergence as an empire and global top power. Russia can’t just remove all the possible people who might be resentful hold-overs or people who got in deep with the US/CIA in the 90s and still owe them big time. With those who fully bought into the western narrative and myth they shopped around successfully (remember, only the US has this myth they spread and sell globally to great success among liberals, sure Russia is sewing a few minor counter-myths lately about being based and trad but these are only beginning to take root whereas the US mythos runs deep and is a strong, big plant).

The deep state is quite stable. Sure there is some quibbling over exact implementation details but there isn’t really any deviation. Trump says he’s going to be tough on China, he starts a trade war. Biden gets in, doesn’t do anything but double down on it despite not campaigning on it as Trump did. Same thing with border policy. New faces, some people get drone striked who wouldn’t otherwise, others who would be don’t get so, x gets a tariff instead of y. One side applies 70% power, the other only 50%, they’re still headed in the same direction on the same road. A war is started in Ukraine instead of Iran or the SCS. It’s just timing basically, who goes first, if a stage of the plot gets skipped over or not. Make no mistakes they’re all working out of the same playbook. The same career nat-sec ghouls are there, new faces each time whether Victoria Nuland, Blinken, or Pompeo, etc. Slight differences in implementation, public feuding and squabbling (and indeed I think within the realm of what they understand as possible they viciously hate and angrily, passionately disagree with each other’s choices in private as well but it doesn’t change the facts that they serve the same overall master with the same overall types of plans). The best we might get out of someone like Trump is delay on some fronts and facets such as a direct war which he may be wary of getting into, he’ll advance the plot everywhere else and when the US wants that direct war they’ll start it with his replacement or they’ll engineer a situation which so offends the “honor” of the US and Trump’s own tough guy image that he has no choice but to respond with force and gets locked in escalation.

I would also argue that US doesn’t have any actual plan to isolate China.

Don’t they? Sewing chaos and terrorism in the middle east to block belt and road, isolating Russia and cutting it off from Europe to block belt and road routes there. Building an island chain of steel bases around China which can throw up a maritime blockade of China and choke them. Their Ukraine thing I posit is seen by some of them and should be seen by us as a test run for the willingness of Euros to jump when told to jump, to cut off Russia and injure themselves, a test run for when the US instigates over Taiwan and tells Europe to stand up for “democracy” and they do so and slap on sanctions and trade cuts and slit their own wrists but importantly drive themselves away from China and hurt China on command. If they can instigate over Taiwan, get Europe to decouple voluntarily, throw up a maritime net in the seas then they can block trade with Africa and having stopped it with Europe basically isolate China. Their problem of course is Russia, it should have been defeated by now, humiliated, forced to their terms and its neck within a hairsbreadth of their sword for a killing stroke if they help China. That didn’t happen. But even as a bloc China and Russia alone, isolated from the rest of the world would be in trouble.

Further there are signs the US only wants a partial embargo on China, a tech embargo. They want to keep them 10 years behind them technologically at least, make Chinese products inferior or reliant on western tech, to deny them raw materials and the know-how as well as markets in Europe and the US. If you take out the NATO/Eyes/EU+Aus+NZ+Asian vassals (Japan, occupied Korea) and get India on-board (they very much want to be on board this with their made in India plans and would benefit greatly) they basically cut off China and Russia from most of the world’s consumers who have the income and desire to need things like AI, high tech silicone chips, advanced processes, advanced manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, etc. At which point China’s economy starts hurting pretty badly. Yes they might still make precursors to those things and the west will be forced to allow them, but China will be stuck in a trap, if they refuse to sell the west even those then they hurt themselves even worse, they voluntarily slice themselves whereas the easier path which the US calculates they’ll take is to grit and protest but bear it, continue selling, continue innovating at home even though they can’t sell abroad and that’s not a problem for this plan in the near term. Sure in 10-15 years China could prepare to decouple with less pain though still some (US grows a lot of food and has control over South America in enough ways to prevent most of them selling to China if they really want to stop such trade) but the US figures they’ll have figured something out or be in a better place themselves then, that they can decouple faster.

They can turn inward at that point but they’ll be stuck behind a wall of the choose of the US, much like the cold war and the US will move to move as many people and developing countries into this tech blockade as possible while they still have things to threaten them with. China may well endure and advance to peer status with the US or overtaking it but the US would rather build a wall around its kingdom and holdings and make those as great as it can and then sit behind that wall trying to wait out China, to destroy Russia and to destroy China, to foment terrorism, to wait for the worst ravages of Climate Change to hit China in particular to hurt it, to try and corrupt and bribe people, to maneuver, to do all this stuff. And things will not be good in the west in this time at all but that’s one possible, probable plan I see from their statements and actions. Campism basically, a hard curtain between spheres and using force and propaganda to keep themselves king, ruler of their sphere while trying to keep that sphere as big as possible and to make China-Russia sphere as small and miserable as possible.

I’ll just say that I don’t think that Putin rules as an autocrat but there is something to be said about changes in regime and people with it that can let in the NATO rats. It wouldn’t happen immediately but cracks would be opened, that kind of thing.

I won’t be confident or happy or certain until the empire is dead and the second shovelful of dirt has been tossed on its unresponsive face so to speak. Or it’s not over until it’s actually over I guess. De-dollarization seems to be happening but slowly and it could be reversed and even if not it’s a process that will take a decade most likely to really hit home in the US, during which time the US I think still has a lot of power. Admittedly the US could do things that accelerate this further by antagonizing to the extreme certain parties but I’m not confident they’d be that foolish and think they realize to some degree their problem with Ukraine and Russia sanctions and China and Iran, etc.

I’m hopeful but wary. Many things stand in the way of successful multipolarity. The US has erected a labyrinthine fortress to buttress its power, the financial institutions and SWIFT stuff is one key cornerstone but it has others such as a security council seat, a navy that can bully trade of weaker powers, strong integration in the global economy with strength in advanced industries including electronics, chemistry, pharma, etc that they can use to bully others via limiting access to their industry, technologies, and goods with complying with their sanctions. The high-ground in the online space as first mover advantage in most of the world with control of social media, much of the infrastructure, etc. A complex spying infrastructure as Snowden revealed. Decades of experience in destabilizing regions, fomenting extremism, coups, etc. A blackbook full of global military officers who have trained with the US or gone to schools of the americas. They can’t directly take on China in an all out fight and come out winner with only a few scratches but their plan is to isolate China so it’s not about taking on China directly necessarily so much as shutting them off from the rest of the world and at that point you’re talking about targeting weak links.

This must also be done because the West as a whole is on the verge of collapse and has more important problems, such as demography and the destruction of society due to neoliberalism

Something they’ll never change so in other words the west is doomed, their fall is assured. This makes me very happy. Of course I won’t take his word for it, I’m still skeptical, the US is still very, very strong and could pull out a trick card that gets them ahead and on top again for a while or at least averts a total collapse and returns the world to two strong powers in poles gathering others around them (that being the Chinese-led pole with Russia and most of the rest of BRICS and the US led pole with Europe, various vassals in Asia, etc plus of course those trying to straddle both sides but favoring the incumbent in such a strategy such as India).

More than anything I think this guy may not be seeing the whole plan however which IMO is the economic ruin of Europe to drain it to the US, to draw its most valuable people to the US as well as some industry as the US tries to re-assume it’s cold war era position and is willing to destroy all its pawns to draw all of their strength to it for the final economic and military battle against China. And good indoctrinated European liberals will of course happily throw themselves and their economies on the sword for the sake of the US in some imagined sacrifice to save liberal values when it’s just to save US led liberalism and hegemony really.

He talks of the collapse of the US-led world order, if the US cannot control Europe, if it gains independence then the US loses that anyways. So no matter the way things go, for the US, Europe must suffer and Europe must be kept under their control. That’s the real end of the US-led order, not their image taking a beating because of Ukraine and the Palestinian genocide.

How that plan proceeds is still up in the air. If Putin died next week for example there would be a real threat and problem in Russia of someone less strong-willed and more amenable to letting in western corruption that over time would lead up to a color revolution or palace coup type situation which would put Russia in the west’s corner and China in a very bad spot. So things could very much still turn around for the US, they’re not beyond the point of no return by any means for their unchallenged hegemony having a shot at continuing for decades. There are headwinds but they could be turned back. There were after all headwinds in the 1950s and 1960s with successful anti-colonial revolutions as well as communist revolutions or near revolutions in the form of strong movements that were methodically crushed, butchered, couped, and engineered for downfall by the US and NATO and by the 1980s aside from the DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, China, USSR they had basically won and turned back the tides of a force that otherwise looked like it could sweep a much larger part of the globe. They could do so again through use of brute force, dictators, corrupt officials and good old economic pressure and threats against those who don’t require quite that much to bring them mostly in line with the US’s antagonism towards China. India is another real problem. Religious reactionary extremists which some call fascists control India, they don’t have good relations with China and would stab them in the back at the very first chance if it gave them a leg up. Deep class inequality in India, a caste system, and a blooming class of national bourgeoisie who if welcomed into the western bourgeoisie club (even at a smaller seat perhaps) that refused Russia would almost certainly ally more directly against China regardless of Russia’s opinion on the matter and their historical ties.

Never forget this comrades, be hopeful but not arrogant or completely assured of this or that coming to pass in the near or medium term.

I also strongly agree that Germany is completely compromised. France is basically the last major European power that has any chance of bucking the interests of the US and even that I’m not sure how much is an illusion of choice that doesn’t exist due to machinations behind the scenes by the US that my prevent anyone intent on true independence from living out their term for instance. We don’t know how much of Gladio still exists and could be flipped to bring the Europeans to heel. Of course they wouldn’t dare do a military coup in France most likely as the people would actually protest and likely not back down without mass levels of death but behind the scenes killings, removal of key enemies to allow key secret allies to take their place, that’s a game the US plays pretty well.

I see this larger plan coming together. When China agreed to be exploited by the west to get their MOP they didn’t have the plans for MOP, they couldn’t build the machinery or processes if they wanted to. Despite exporting the physical machinery or much of it and the processes the west still has the plans and in fact much of what the west now makes is various parts of the machinery of production which is up the value and even tech chain from the products themselves in many places. So it’s not necessary for them to take all of the MOP or even most of it from China and put it somewhere else physically.

Mark my words, if they try it they aren’t going to wait, nor do they need to, for all supply chains to be replaced. The world won’t end, reign of the bourgeoisie won’t end if suddenly there are supply shortages in the west. We saw it with covid, they just used it as an excuse to fire more people and raise prices and profit margins. And by and large the western proletariat will take it, will believe they’ve lost nothing more than low quality slave labor in losing Chinese goods. They’ll wait patiently to get on a payment plan that equals out to $1500 for a new iPhone over 2 years and blame China for it and foreigners as usual by design. They’ll seek to support an increase in the exploitation of the lowest rungs of society, of the minimum wage and gig workers, of the global south to bolster their own positions economically and happily support in power and action reactionary policies, crackdowns on labor, expansion of imperialist practices and violence (including at home), coups, color revolutions, operation freedomburger 5.0, etc.

The only thing they’re really left waiting on which can’t be gotten around is chips supply which is why they’re trying and failing to set up fabs in the US. But that doesn’t matter, India, occupied Korea, both happy to oblige the US in setting up fabs with horrible working conditions for the US and at the end of the day the US can probably just import a bunch of Indian workers on visas to run its own ill conceived fabs. TSMC is probably slow-walking it but they can’t delay forever and there are competitors like Samsung and other occupied Korean giants to consider.

India’s true success and rising as a capitalist nation under a caste-loving religious extremist ideology is built off, must be built off the back of Chinese decline and isolation and I feel they know this so at the end of the day their fortune is not with BRICS, only if the west completely collapsed and there was no hope of taking China’s manufacturing and getting western investment would it be the case that BRICS would hold more appeal. The pull from the west, serving to undermine China and BRICS as a whole is why India is a poison pill within it. They seek their own power, their own way as they put it in the cold war, but that way is at the expense of others, happily on their backs and corpses, it’s about India for only India unlike China’s philosophy or even some of what Russia does to curry favor with other nations that the USSR historically had good relations with in order to hold onto some power as a rising nation.

They must not be trusted. It is not wise or anything but hopium to claim they’re on the verge of a communist take-over. It’s not going to happen. I’ve heard too many comrades from India talk of the colonized mindset of other Indians, add in a backwards reactionary system like the caste system and their religious reactionary tendencies, add in jealousy towards China a very similar power who did better than them and is like a more successful neighbor they’re bitter towards, add in how good at suppressing communism they west has gotten and I just don’t see India as anything but at best a thorn in the side.

After all they started out humiliated and formerly colonized just like China yet in the cold war they didn’t have a communist revolution despite being really close to the USSR, in the 70 years since they haven’t had one and are no closer to having one, they’re farther I’d say in fact. The Hindu idea of reincarnation and of people being born into a place they deserve based off past lives (excuse me if I am mixing up Buddhism here, I’m not positive) is very reactionary, it like the Protestant work ethic demands hard labor in this life for a shot at a better life next go around or after the death, it says those in lower castes or positions are there for a reason and it is not the place of man to question god(s). Both are very effective inoculations against class consciousness and proletarian power.

The road ahead is a very rocky and hard one, I see many places that could lead to the entire world falling into barbarity and perpetual darkness. I trust Russia much further than India based purely off the benefits each stands to gain from different orders of the world gaining or losing power.

India is a real risk and I wish they were not in BRICS. They are under the sway of religious fundamentalist reactionaries. They have a seething hatred for China both on ideological grounds and because they have a border dispute that they are in the wrong on and will never budge on for that reason and also for reasons of jealousy, China’s socialist governance has delivered transformative results and made them a power while India has lagged behind despite both starting at the near the same position at the end of the colonial era. Their past friendship with Russia is transactional and coasting on old vibes and some present benefits for things like military tech. If anyone is going to plant a knife in the back of BRICS it will be India.

They see themselves as a rival to China and I think at the end of the day see things closer to US terms, yes they understand that the US doesn’t have their interests in mind but they want to undermine China for their own success and because they border them and have aspirations to be a regional power and China’s rise threatens their own sense of power. The US knows this and seeks to use them to check China.

They refuse to use yuan for trade because it empowers China and they can’t brook that. Russia can’t have them use rubles because there is nothing to do with it given their trade imbalance. Rupees are not a solution given that same trade imbalance.

They are compared to even a capitalist power like Russia, unreliable because of these and other reasons. I could see them absolutely being goaded into a war with China by the west.

Unlike Russia and China which have been forced together by the west’s actions and are no longer fair-weather friends, India is still very much in that category and I think it would bite its tongue to not warn Russia of the west approaching it from behind with a knife and gladly plant a knife in China’s back if it thought it could gain some medium-term advantage. They after all stand to benefit most from a hypothetical decoupling from China by the west and a hypothetical re-shoring to India. Given their similar population size it’s not a situation like some smaller country like Vietnam benefiting from a bit of manufacturing being moved while still remaining integrated by necessity with a larger partner like China.

Basically it looks like decoupling is continuing apace.

The US is in a spiral here and I don’t see any way it stops and there’s a feedback effect on China whether they like it or not. This will not help China, it will slow China’s progress somewhat. It will hurt the western proletariat.

Basically the more they do this, the more China has to take actions to secure their own ability to do things by investing in domestic manufacturing. The more they do that, the more the hawks in the US point to it as a threat that China is going to do that to industry x soon as well (despite the fact China only does this in response to these kinds of moves) and uses it to justify more decoupling in yet another industry. China has to keep pace with this and eventually will probably start guessing industries the US is going to do this to next (as you can’t spin things up in a day you have to) which adds further ammo to the deranged borger-imperialists idea that they have to have “clean” (free from China) supply chains.

In practice of course they can’t entirely eliminate China from the supply chains but they know that, it’s just banter from the more ignorant politicians but the point all along is to secure the heights of technology. So sure China can produce precursors to advanced medical drugs and such which are laundered through Vietnam and drive up prices in the west BUT China cannot be allowed to directly export the drugs, to enter into partnerships with US or European companies in any way that gives them and not the west the advantage, they can’t be allowed to get graduates from top university programs in the US and so on.

And they’ve done this with high technology, with AI, with green energy, with social media, and now this.

In other words, doubters be banished, this is full cold war 2.0, the sanctions, the blockade. There will be trade of course, more than between the US and USSR but the US will seek to taper even that and shift resources to India, etc this and next decade. Unfortunately the US likely has enough plundered loot and momentum to see at least some of this plan through and cause horrible problems for the global south and annoyances and growing pains, stunting to China for at least the foreseeable future, into next decade I’d say.

What’s interesting is this is being done at the west’s pace. It is not China calling the shots. The west is being cautious, acting slowly, methodically, prying away one industry at a time rather than passing blanket bans and making it known to increasing amounts of businesses in various sectors that it’s not safe to invest or do business in China because you could be cut off any time by these kinds of things. This is designed to have a chilling effect on anyone involved in anything more advanced than making clothing or McDonalds meals toys there.

China doesn’t want to provoke the west for several reasons. One being I think they want this process to happen as slow as possible so they can take maximum advantage of what trade they have until the last moment. The other being delaying war which they don’t want but the US is dead set on. Sadly by doing this they hand US the power to act freely and without any caution or consideration to Chinese retaliation. There are definitely arguments to be made for China trying to gut-punch the US economy in retaliation for these sanctions. Which yes would spur more and more quickly but would cause a lot of short-term pain and who knows could even get enough bourgeoisie off the side-lines to slow down or stop it though it seems unlikely. If China were to do such a thing, I’d advocate doing it very soon, soon enough that the US economy tanks before the election so Biden loses and Trump may maybe feel a little bit that China helped him which won’t go that far in relations but at least flexes power. Then again it could lead to a war. So many variables. The Chinese route is one of caution, but the US knows this and plans around it.

The author is unhinged lol.

They’ve already violated sovereignty by holding it for more than a few months. Freezing is a nonsense term. It’s stealing but saying I’m not going to put it to use YET and maybe you’ll get it back if you do what I want you to. They’ve already stolen it by virtue of taking it from Russia with no intent of returning it and denying them use of it, they’re just quibbling whether they feel morally okay using it now or later and for what purposes. So IMO I hope they just take it, because they’ve already crossed a line and should suffer for it.

It’s literally an opinion and analysis piece. They’re supposed to be engaged with critically, the community this was posted in was geopolitics for critically engaging with interesting opinions and analysis.

Liberals claim to support freedom of thought and a variety of views but in reality are all too happy to immediately short-circuit and shut down in a frothing rage the moment they see anything Russian. Tell me again though how you are free thinking, tell me again how you are not programmed to do just that by your own domestic media propaganda.

I definitely appreciate this response and these are very interesting thoughts though I think most of them are medium-term problems not necessarily near-term issues and that the US feels its back is against a wall, that it can avoid those issues, must avoid those issues through a decisive defeat of Russia and maybe this is a trap they can’t get out of and I’d like that to be true but I’m skeptical. That is if this thing is still going in 8 years yes I think those pressures would definitely have come to bear as serious problems but I’m not sure how soon they’ll come to bear.

I do agree we are in a new world, but I also think the west has the capacity to keep the Ukrainians in the game for another couple of years if they continue fighting a defensive war (with terror attacks and such) and just dumping bodies into the fray to absorb Russian missiles and bombs. I feel like there are plans within plans in play here, designs on Europe conditioned on not allowing Russia a victory but maybe it’s just bullshit American politicking and Biden doesn’t want an L before the election and after the election if he’s re-elected the US will demand Zelensky wind things down. This is with the obvious caveat that Russia doesn’t pull an offensive, if they do then Ukraine could straight up evaporate, but assuming they don’t want to do that I think the US still has a little time though you’re right likely not another full administration’s length worth.

they can’t keep this going indefinitely. So, the goal is to drag this out to the point where US decides to cut the losses and move on. It seems like we’re likely going to reach that point some time this year.

Historically the US takes a LONG time to learn its lessons and give up and only after a big healthy profit is earned and/or discontent and disenchantment with it at home is high enough. Look how long before they gave up in Vietnam despite not making headway and despite the massive protests against their involvement (something they’ve made sure won’t happen here with propaganda). Or how long they stayed in Afghanistan or how they’re still in Iraq. Or how they’re still in Korea and only sued for peace because they were losing badly and would rather take half a country and play a waiting game than get their asses kicked more badly and ruin their post WW2 image.

So if the Russians are counting on the US to tire and get bored, they could be looking at another 7-10 years easily. And the thing is in all of those other instances their puppet regime crumbled and lost legitimacy some time before they gave up. I still think Zelensky has some years left in him at least. His biggest worry was that former head of the army doing a coup and he got rid of him fine.

Now probably the Ukrainian front lines will crumble much sooner like this year, it certainly seems plausible, but how far is Russia willing to push it? Because the Russians look like they’re waiting for a diplomatic solution, they don’t want fall of Berlin type total war and crushing and occupying the enemy because that’s expensive, very costly in lives and will take a lot longer and lead to other issues like greater resentment among the population. They can’t just settle for their cordone sanitaire and sit behind a river because the US is going to continue to supply the Kiev regime with long-range missiles, to encourage and give intelligence for terrorist attacks on civilians using both long-range weapons and deep penetration strike groups as well as cells even deeper into Russia that infiltrate from elsewhere or are recruited by SBU/CIA. So the violence for Russia won’t stop, the peace won’t come until they either totally route them and take most of the country or they get a signed peace treaty in their terms.

I do think they might see Ukraine as an alternative to the Taiwan issue as a way to encourage Europe to sanction and decouple from China, basically accuse various companies, state banks of helping Russia evade sanctions (the horror) and insist Europe to crush Russia has to join the US in sanctions on those unless they stop doing business with Russia. That creates a win-win situation for the US in their mind as either they drive a wedge between China and Russia OR they drive a wedge between China and Europe.

Because once the war ends their leverage over Europe on it begins to lessen a bit. Anti-war voices, mainly reactionaries who favor rapprochement with Russia appear and stop being suppressed as they are now.

But as Lenin said in some weeks decades happen so we’ll really have to see how the west reacts if Ukraine’s front lines break and Russia takes all the territory it wants for its security.

All this talk worries me. The west is truly run by deranged people drunk on the kool-aid their predecessors crafted.

Questionable I think, not because of their intent but because they’re a vassal occupied by the US.

“I consent”, “I consent” “Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask?”.jpeg

USA: I do NOT consent. Proceeds to instigate a hot war with China over Taiwan by 2028, drags NATO losers like Germany into it, insists they sanction and hard decouple from China just like Russia to stand up for freedom and stuff, Germany like a good dog complies.

West: Loses. US: Makes sure EU keeps sanctions, tells them China will crumble any-day now, quietly steals their market-share just like with Russia

Sadly I see a great likelihood that Russia will have to demonstrate resolve here and use a nuclear weapon. But as mentioned even that may not be enough because to back down after that is to admit and accept defeat and look weak. But rationally Russia cannot submit to blackmail and must call their bluff.

The only way I can see out of this without nuclear weapons flying should the west continue to escalate and not veer off would be a world war in a very improbable scenario where China/DPRK send troops to help defeat NATO in conventional warfare in Ukraine which would of course mean naval battles and probably a hard decoupling from China (but not a total blockade for long) as well as the new Cold War taking definite shape.

Of course there is an off-ramp that allows the west some face. It’s possible Russia will accept an ending many long speculated on which is they keep the east plus a buffer while NATO occupies a rump state in the west so it can call it a draw. The problem arises if Russia isn’t given enough of a buffer to their satisfaction or if NATO doesn’t put a lid on the Nazis firing weapons at civilians and conducting terror attacks across that border. Given the unlikelihood that they’ll put a stop to that and CIA backed assassination attempts by the SBU, I’m not sure even that is reasonable for Russia to accept and in light of that and the need to press on to bitter end to put these terrorists to an end they’d be wise not to allow NATO to cross over.

From the bottom of the article:

This article was first published by Russia in Global Affairs, translated and edited by the RT team

I think it’s an engineered thing by the Biden admin to attempt to put pressure on Republicans to pass the money for the Ukro-nazis that extends far into the next president’s term which they’ve been reluctant to do. Fair chance of succeeding as in a way it’s kind of amusing they’ve held out this long. Biden doesn’t want a public collapse of Ukraine right as things go into election.

Convenient timing to push the House to vote yes to throw money into Ukraine, fake China, and Isn’treal.

Thankfully not. France does and the UK too (though no longer EU obviously). Besides them Russia is the only other European (well sorta) country with nuclear weapons. Though NATO nuclear weapons (American) are stationed on a sharing basis under US/NATO control in several other EU countries they can’t be used except on US authorization.

Not end to end encrypted /=/ not encrypted at all.

End to end encryption = service owner cannot decrypt and read the contents of transmitted data, it’s encrypted on source device, decrypted on end device, encrypted throughout transit with keys/information that the transiting devices and network do not possess.

What we’re talking about here is normal web encryption or client to server (transit) encryption.

Let the equals signs indicate encrypted data transmission and <> indicate the end of such encryption at connection endpoints.

ClientA (sender of message) <==> Snapchat Servers <==> other clientB (recipient of message) (There are two distinction connections here, one from clientA, the other from clientB, they do not directly connect in this example)

The snapchat servers establish the encrypted connections to both end user devices for relaying messages. However the messages are not encrypted when they reach the servers, the servers and snapchat infrastructure and personnel can see the messages and act upon them like any other data.

MITM’ing the connection 2000s style is not necessary. Snapchat and nearly any other large company that doesn’t provide end2end encrypted messaging has both automated systems which scan for keywords and sentiment as well as manual review teams to review flagged content and send tips on it quickly to national and local police. In addition many participate in sharing all data with intelligence agencies in the NATO EYES network of agencies such as NSA and GCHQ who themselves perform scanning and sentiment analysis and such on the content.

As to subverting e2e if you control the code you can just have the applications look for certain flags or indicators on the messages once received/sent (and decrypted as apps must be able to decrypt them themselves) and then open connections (TLS web cert transit encrypted) to the company servers and re-transmit the decrypted data along with associated metadata. There’s also stuff with key management for systems that allow multiple devices for users without manual approval where the company could have something that silently adds a special GCHQ/NSA box as an additional device for every single account and generates keys for it and forwards all messages to it but does not disclose this to the user and in such a way the company could technically be unable to access such data themselves while still providing access to intelligence agencies and call that e2e (and it would be just not what we consider properly implemented e2e).