By Dmitry Orlov and posted with the author’s permission

I guess I’ll have to keep publishing some short notes on the situation in the Ukraine, since it’s all over the news and most of that is fake news. Overnight there was a ridiculous amount of noise about Zaporozhskaya AES, which is the largest nuke plant in Europe.

President Zelensky proclaimed that it is the new Chernobyl and that all of Europe will need to be evacuated. He was obviously drunk at the time.

What actually happened was:

At 11:11 AM Moscow time (about an hour ago) the authorities of Zaporozhye Region announced that Zaporozhskaya AES is under control of the Russian forces.

At 6:20 AM Moscow time the fire at the administrative building at Zaporozhskaya AES was extinguished with no casualties. It was probably set on purpose to create the media picture of “Europe’s largest nuke plant on fire!”

At 5:36 AM Moscow time the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that the fire in the area of Zaporozhskaya AES did not affect any of the main equipment at the plant.

At 4:47 AM Moscow time president Zelensky goes live to announce that the Russians are trying to create a new Chernobyl. A likely story, that.

Between 3:51 AM and 3:59 AM Moscow time fire crews were on site putting out the fire. Apparently, there wasn’t a lot for them to do.

Between 2:00 AM and 3:30 AM Moscow time there was a shootout at the power plant’s administrative building. Somehow it resulted in a fire at the administrative building.

So much for a new Chernobyl.

In other news, this morning the Ukrainian army launched a rocket attack on the headquarters of the Ukrainian Nazi “Azov” battalion. Ten Nazis were killed in the attack. This was punishment for their refusal to follow orders.

In other news from this morning, Russia’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, is tightening up control by shutting down sources of disinformation and enemy propaganda, including:

• Facebook

• Meduza

• BBC

• Deutsche Welle

• Radio Free Europe

Previously, “Echo of Moscow” and “Dozhd” were shut down. What this means is that fighting fake news in Russia is going to get a lot easier. Of course, it doesn’t mean anything for the rest of the world, which will still have to listen to fake news of Europe’s largest nuclear plant being blown up by evil Russians.

Yesterday’s negotiations between the Ukraine (the regime) and Russia resulted in an agreement on humanitarian corridors so that civilians can get out of cities where there is fighting going on. The problem with that is that the remaining Nazi battalions don’t particularly obey orders from the regime and like to use civilians as hostages and human shields.

In all, the Russian demilitariazation campaign is going according to schedule. Ukraine’s nuclear installations are passing under Russian control undamaged. Infrastructure damage is quite limited (unless it is military infrastructure, in which case it gets blown up).

As far as denazification—the other goal of the Russian campaign—people are scratching their heads trying to figure out what that means and how it might happen. On the one hand, the Russians know them by name, face, voice print and perhaps even fingerprints, so it’s just a matter of hunting them down. On the other hand, the high-ranking Ukrainian Nazis and their families are currently fleeing the Ukraine and filtering out to the surrounding countries while simultaneously trying to organize terrorist attacks within Russia (unsuccessfully so far). To add spice, Ramzan Kadyrov, the intrepid Chechen chieftain, promised to track them down and kill them wherever they are. “We are everywhere in the world,” he said.

The rest of the situation is as follows (as far as I can piece it together). Kiev is a complete and utter mess and is likely to remain that way. There are pockets of Nazi resistance in Kharkov, making it slow going. Mariupol is largely under control and may come under complete control sooner now that the Ukrainian troops are firing on their own. Nothing has happened in Odessa yet. These are the major cities; but there are numerous smaller cities and towns that are being cleared of Ukrainian forces every day—too many to mention.

Meanwhile, in the West, it may finally be dawning on some people that the extent of the self-inflicted damage from the anti-Russian hysteria is more than anybody bargained for.

For example, the EU demanded that all Russian leases on Airbus jets—over 500 of them—be cancelled. It also blocked the sale of Airbus parts to Russia and forbade Russian planes from being serviced. It also closed its airspace to Russian planes and Russia closed its airspace to EU planes in response. The EU also blocked the SWIFT payment system. This means the following things:

• The European leasing companies will have to pay Russia huge fines for canceling the leases but can’t because SWIFT isn’t working.

• The European leasing companies have to get their planes out of Russian territory but can’t because their flight crews can’t get into Russia and once they take possession of the planes the planes won’t be allowed to take off (airspace is closed).

• The planes can no longer be serviced according to the maintenance schedule, which means that in a couple of months they won’t be able to fly at all.

• Given that this is a force majeur circumstance, the Russian government can very easily nationalize these planes, including all of the intellectual property and patent rights contained therein, and start making their own parts and providing their own service.

• Given all of the above, the obvious choice for the European leasing companies to declare bankruptcy and cease operations. Company representatives have said as much.

That is just one example; there are many others. What we seem to be observing is a bout of collective insanity in the West that is resulting in a sort of collective economic and political “suicide by Russia.” I’ll do my best to figure out exactly what that means in the coming days.