How can reality assert itself?
On January 12, 2026, the war against Ukraine will reach its 1418 days—that's exactly how long the Great Patriotic War lasted. That war ended. This one shows no sign of an end... Back then, they called it a war, acknowledged its cost, and drove it toward a conclusion. But now it's an endless "process" without deadlines, goals, or accountability.
This is what “Жизнь в России” posted on 01/11 regarding the never-ending special military operation:
Also in the same thread:
“The authorities are afraid to admit the dead end. In 1945, there was a result—the capitulation of the enemy. Today—neither a goal nor a scenario for an end. In 2025, Russia captured less than 1% of Ukraine's territory, losing 418 thousand people in a year and over 1.2 million for the entire war.“
“A protracted war isn’t greatness; it’s a sign of exhaustion and managerial failure. The promised “short operation” became a war of historic proportions, devoid of victory and meaning. The Great Patriotic War was a people’s war, but this one is a war for the preservation of power and the trough for the Kremlin elite.“
All of this sounds familiar, no? What does it remind us of? Oh, I know that. It was a book. A very famous book that has been misused for all intents and purposes, mostly to attack bad communism. Let’s try to find it. People think that this book is about bad “communism.” Unable to understand power politics or brainwashing, people are kept in this ideological kind of thinking where the world is ruled by ideas and “isms.” Some think it’s about a boogeyman called Stalin. But it’s not. It’s about brainwashing, cult psychology, manipulation and Plato’s cage. There are even those poor souls who think Plato was “a communist” which again illustrates the inability of people to think in non ideological terms.
Here, the book is 1984 by George Orwell:
“In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history books were, of course, always colored and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practiced today would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.“
Power can’t control reality but it can control the fantasy world it has created. In the old world, war kept societies in touch with physical reality. This is how reality was established, it is the difference between success and defeat. If you live in a dream world, in the lalaland of social engineers or enemy propaganda, how can you win a war? With fake planes, fake information, fake weapons, a fake army? Imaginary guns?
bang, bang
Look, I'm a woman. Obviously, I understand absolutely nothing about warfare. I have huge problems understanding maps and military ranks as well.
I have a friend who recently demonstratively told me: “I'm tired of arguing with you! You may understand some things in politics, but when it comes to warfare, you have to listen to me. I'm a military man, need I remind you that I'm a colonel and that you're out of your competence here?”
And I, of course, answered: was this "colonel" a major or it is below major? He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but he loves me, he didn't say anything else, just snorted that in order not to offend me he wouldn't talk to me about Putin's special operation anymore. Well, he is a man and a colonel and he is a smart guy but I am a woman so obviously I am right. There is no question about this.
And how do I know that there is something wrong with Putin’s special military operation? Well, one of the reasons is that in my opinion there cannot be both a “special military operation” and an “existential war” with the “satanic West”. Which one is it? The goals of this so-called special military operation were the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, Ukraine should stay out of NATO and be neutral. According to Kremlin propaganda, Ukraine is militarized, nazified and wants to join NATO because the satanic West wants to destroy Russia - hence the “existential war”.
But if you have a limited SMO, like the operation Putin has started, then he clearly doesn't care that Russia's existence is threatened by the satanic West. If this is an "existential war," he won't belittle it and give it a chance to succeed by waging a limited SMO, but will mobilize all resources, the economy and the army, to fight the West.
It all comes down to this. There are roughly two camps in the pro-Russian world. One says that the existential war is real and you can’t win an existential war by fighting a limited SMO. The other camp says that it’s entirely possible because Putin knows what he’s doing, he’s probably a colonel or something, the West is falling apart, the Western trans community obviously can’t win against the Russian army, and Lavrov has so many jokes about the clowns in the West. Russia is so strong according to the mainstream Kremlin propaganda that it doesn’t even need to fight a real war, just SMO. But if the enemy is that weak, they can’t pose an existential threat in the first place. That doesn’t make any sense to me, which is why I’m obviously in the first camp. Putin can’t win the war the way he’s doing it. I know it, he knows it, Pepe Escobar knows it.
In the fluid structure of reality and endless propaganda we need some axioms, something that we know “for sure“. And one of these is: “you can’t win an existential war with a SMO“. How “winning” and “losing“ look like depends on propaganda and goals but what is obvious to me is that Putin has already lost Ukraine. Ukraine is full of CIA agents, NATO, western corporations and it is going to be integrated into the Western power structures.
So why did Putin start the SMO? Is he deliberately trying to lose the war? What is the grand plan behind the 5D plan? Or if Putin does indeed “win,” what does that mean? We have the following options:
It was never “an existential war”.
Putin is lying.
Or as Orwell said:
“The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.“
… ?
A lot of people are asking these questions.