I’ve said recently while talking to a friend that Vladimir Putin was mad. She disagreed. I held my ground and still do. His actions bear all the necessary prerequisites for a man whose feet may be on the ground but whose head is orbiting some planet in another universe. He’s really out there.

We who knew, said he would attack. We knew he would come in from three compass directions. We knew Belarus was part of the staging territory.

Without a high school diploma, no tactical training or education, I knew that planes, artillery and missiles would mark most of the opening attacks. That was the easy part.

I knew Ukraine would wage war on Russia and that Putin underestimated Zalensky’s and his people’s resolve. Citizens are taking up arms.

Perhaps two days before the attacks began, Putin lied to everyone in Russia, claiming he had no intention of invading Ukraine. Naturally, when he did order hostilities to begin, Russians protested. And, of course, many were arrested. Most will never be heard from again. Whoever it was on Fox News who asked why we weren’t on Russia’s side (Hannity or another loopy bastard, I’m not sure) is a fucked-up asshole. This is why we aren’t on their side. Civilian housing has taken heavy damage and the loss of life is adding up. People are now refugees, whereas a week ago they had ample warning to bug out.

As one ABC reporter put it: a week ago people were on their balconies drinking coffee and using their laptops.

I posted a piece not long ago that was titled “Get Out Now.”

I removed it along with lots of other posts. Nobody was reading. And this past year (when I was still monitoring my stats) I saw some occasional hits from Romania, one or two from Ukraine, and that’s as close as I could get. I don’t know which posts they read. I wish I could have gotten across what was coming. Why would anyone believe that military forces would mass on a border, remain in place for so long, and never attack?

It was so fucking plain to see. And I’m not blowing my own horn here; I knew because I stayed informed. Extraneous details were my deductions based on military capabilities, geography, a bit of history and the guess that Putin could not remain steady. He has proven that.

I also suggested that it wouldn’t stop at Ukraine, that once the country had been reduced enough, it would be a staging ground for further invasion into Poland, Romania, hell, every country his greedy mind decided to conquer. I even said that, if sustained and without NATO actually engaging Russia, Finland wasn’t safe. And, by then, it’s a sure bet that western forces would be engaged, and that means World War Three. It would, sometime after, go nuclear.

But it may not come to that. Because Putin has already threatened nuclear war if the United States throws down.

Right now, be very grateful that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. Trump has called Putin’s irrational attack “genius,” or something along those lines, praising his character too, which made me queasy.

Trump was caught with classified information at Mar-a-Lago, and no way in hell was any of it not shared. He says “Putin saw weakness” in the US, and took advantage of it. He did not admit, however, that he caused a lot of polarized politics, that he had conspired with Zelensky to get dirty shit about Biden, or anything else he did to fuck this country up. Trump is at least a small part of enabling and stroking Putin. We don’t get to know what would be happening now had Trump never become president, and it’s a fool’s endeavor to try and pick apart every single thing he did wrong. Yet, it remains even more foolish to try to get people to see Trump or Putin as the evil, demented sons of bitches they truly are.

This has all the ingredients added by madmen in power and leaders who demanded a neutral or in-the-shadows status. Doesn’t anyone here remember what Hitler did?

I don’t want you to abandon hope and faith, but I do ask that you insist on being properly informed. The news that Russian forces were leaving for home was a strategic falsehood, one just clever enough to fool reporters, because they wanted it to be true.

It never fooled the White House. But who pays attention to warnings when there’s a blast of sunshine the public bends over to take up their arses?

Folks, this is grim stuff. If someone in the Russian government doesn’t stop Putin (doubtful since top officials are said to be terrified of him) then this business will not end well.