Andrei Raevsky, also known as The Saker, recently announced that he’s shutting down his blog by the end of February. It is very unlikely that the cause is related to his health, since he didn’t want to transfer it to anyone else, and he also made sure nothing really points to him personally. Since he previously said that he’ll close the blog if the international situation deteriorates to the point of a hot war between United States and Russia, my guess is that the real reason is to be sought in this direction. He probably has reasons to believe that shit is about to hit the fan, and since he lives in America he doesn’t want to be an obvious target for American repression. Considering how he didn’t give that much thought to what will happen to the blog archive, one can conclude that he thinks we’ll probably have more pressing issues in this timeframe, such as, for instance, a nuclear war.

Speaking of which, I have no recommendations regarding ways to prepare at this point. If I were to articulate my position logically, I would say it’s too late in the game for any radical changes of strategy, and, personally, I feel I’m leaving this world soon, and not preparing to live on canned beans in some bunker.

But, just in case, let’s go through the basics.

UK, America, Russia and China are the prime targets for massive nuclear attacks. Anything within those countries is a possible target, especially if it’s close to a command center, a military base, installation or a factory. American military bases in Europe used for coordinating and staging attacks in Ukraine are even more dangerous, as they are the prime targets in the first wave of expected strikes. Anyone who lives in this “red zone” should either leave or start cramming for the entrance exam for heaven.

The “orange zone” is everything that is likely to be covered by immediate nuclear fallout, or be cut off from sources of food, electricity, heating, water and other utilities. This means large urban centers in Europe, America, Russia and China, that don’t even have to be directly hit in order to become death traps. Also, agricultural areas that are likely to be covered in radioactive fallout (and depend on modern agricultural measures) are not going to be usable for growing food any time soon, so they are for all intents and purposes not going to be inhabitable. People in the red zone are running out of time and need to prepare for leaving the world. People in the orange zone will have more time, but not so much that I would recommend wasting precious time. Bring your affairs in order quickly and prepare to leave this world, because that’s where this is going. Regardless, everybody should perform their duties to their families and other people throughout this entire mess. Pray, focus on God, and help each other throughout this.

The “yellow zone” is anywhere in the world that is not directly hit by nuclear weapons or significant fallout, and will keep having basic services available throughout and after the nuclear exchange. It means the ability to generate electricity, have sustainable sources of drinkable water, and are already capable of growing food without access to artificial fertilizers, pesticides and other modern agricultural devices. The yellow zone will be safe until people from the orange zone start migrating away from the zone of death and into places where there is food. At this point, they will overrun everyone in the yellow zone.

The “green zone” are the places that have guaranteed survival in the long-term. I don’t know if there is such a thing; probably people who still hunt with spears and traps somewhere in the deep wilderness, and live in ways that don’t make them a target from the orange-zone predators. If you’re in the green zone, you probably don’t know what Internet is.

Have in mind the erratic nature of war, and the fact that Gonzalo Lira basically saw that the West is going to hell and preventively escaped into Kharkov, Ukraine, in order to avoid the shit storm. He ended up under siege in a war zone, so that didn’t work out all that well, despite a very solid prediction of the problem. I’m saying that we don’t know what’s going to be hit in which order, and so trying to run away from trouble can actually land you in deeper trouble. The recommendation is to wait until you see the direction the tree is falling before you start running. The exceptions are certain places such as the UK, which have enormous targets on them, and are profoundly unsurvivable in the context of a nuclear war (and are barely survivable even now).

The standard preparations mean that you expect things to be whacked way out of normal, and you need battery lamps with lots of spare batteries, some sort of a radio to learn what’s going on when Internet goes out (you probably have it in your car), non-perishable food for the minimum of two weeks and several months if possible with some rationing, bottled water, bleach or other water purification substance, gas tank in the car constantly over 75% full, all your savings in form of gold and silver coins and bars, and enough local currency for immediate low-volume purchases (it’s likely to be worthless anyway in the long-term). Have a get-home backpack in the car in case you get stranded away from home and plan for the worst-case distance; you need to have water, food, clothes, swiss army knife, lighter, flashlight, smartphone and those stupid cloth masks that don’t do shit against covid, but which do work for basic air filtration in case of fallout. Have it in a dedicated backpack and put it in your car or with you whenever you’re going far enough from home that you would be have a long hike back.  Always have a sufficient amount of cash in your wallet; sufficient means enough to get you home, and to buy supplies along the way if possible; a hundred euros in 10/20 euro bills should do it. If you’re in red or orange zones, this means you. Such a precaution is useful even in peacetime, for instance having enough cash to have your car towed if it breaks down or you had an accident, and enough for taxi to get you home, and to buy food and a bottle of water along the way, if you’re a long way off. If a family member is separated from the family unit (in a nearby town or something), it is recommended that they have some gold and cash with them, because they might find themselves in a scenario where they have to bribe their way out. Don’t go overboard; a few small gold coins would probably suffice, no need to carry something that would make that person a target because they would act suspiciously. If you are on a vacation, consider what you would need to get yourself home in a scenario where you are stranded on some island, where the ferry is no longer working, and the roads are no longer passable. Also, consider a scenario where you would have to stay stranded for a long time – months, years, or the rest of your life. Don’t travel anywhere when there’s imminent danger of nuclear war or in its aftermath, because you need to expect all the long-distance traffic to be grounded. Never travel or be outdoors when there’s radioactive dust in the air. Never taste “black rain”, and wash it off you as soon as possible, and throw away all the clothes you were wearing. The “duck and cover” exercises are not stupid; the Americans in the 1950s knew their stuff, because if you’re in the fireball radius of a nuclear explosion, you’re dead and nothing can help you, but if you’re in the shockwave radius, which is immensely larger, the greatest danger you are facing comes from the broken glass that will form projectiles. The shockwave from the Chelyabinsk meteor explosion injured thousands of people, and it was way up there; that’s the most likely danger. Stay away from the windows, or other flimsy structures that might collapse on you, or form projectiles that will hurt you. Hiding under a desk or in a corner of a room, and covering your head with a piece of cloth, kneeling or sitting on the floor so you can’t fall or be thrown onto something hard and sharp, is a good idea. 99% of people in a nuclear blast zone are more likely to be injured by flying debris, or injured by infrared radiation if they are out in the open, than they are to be killed by radiation or immediately vaporized by the fireball. Don’t count on intentionally exposing yourself to the blast in order to put yourself out of your misery; chances are, you aren’t that lucky and you’ll just cause what you’re trying to prevent. Have in mind that there aren’t that many nukes in the post-START world, and each will be precious and aimed at the important strategic targets. If cities are to be targetted, it will be because they contain essential command/control or other military assets. You need to be exceedingly unlucky to even see a nuclear blast up close in a nuclear war, if you’re not in the heart of the red zone. The greatest danger will be the lack of electricity, lack of drinking water, lack of food refrigeration in big distribution centres which will cause collapse of the food supply, and poor sanitation and disease, combined with the collapse of health care and inability to find medications for chronic diseases and antibiotics to treat injuries. Radiation is dangerous, but it’s a secondary concern, unless you can actually see the “ashes” in the air and black rain. A hundred other things are more likely to kill you, but expect that the masses won’t know that and will panic, and this will be much more dangerous than fallout. If you’re in the fallout zone, hunker down in as deep concrete as possible for at least two weeks; then you can gradually extend exposure.

I don’t know how useful this will be, and I do hope that God has a less shitty way out for us than this, but it is what it is, and I’m telling you what I know.

I read some comment stating that invasion of another country could never be justified (in the context of Russia and Ukraine), and decided to write down a non-exhaustive list of several scenarios that come to my mind, that follow the Augustinian principle of justified war.

1. State A is committing genocide against nationals of state B within its borders. State B wants to protect its expatriate nationals by invading state A, stopping genocide and changing the regime of the state A into some non-genocidal option.

2. State A has complete control of a vital resource (i.e. water) which it refuses to share with state B (for instance by diverting a river flow) with the understanding that the state B will be weakened and easy to conquer later, or perish on its own and be removed as competition. State B attacks state A and forces it to share the vital resource.

3. State A attacked state B with the goal of conquest and genocide, but the tide of war turned and the state B now invades state A and takes it under control in order to remove the threat. (Example: German invasion of the Soviet Union in WW2 and Soviet eventual invasion of Germany)

4. State A is a persistent threat and implacable foe to state B, performing constant hostile actions that kill its citizens, damage its infrastructure, degrade its economy and remove the feeling of safety. Having exhausted diplomatic options to resolve the situation, state B invades state A and regime-changes it.

5. State A (bordering state B) serves as a proxy for state C, who is a strategic enemy of state B, and allows dangerous weapons of mass destruction to be placed on its territory, increasing the vulnerability of state B to a strategic threat. State B threatens invasion of state A and immediate strategic retaliation against state B unless the threat is removed. If threat doesn’t work, it follows up on it. (Example: Cuban missile crisis)

6. State A is blocking trade routes over sea, land or air, or in other ways inhibiting trade, performing acts of piracy and so on, consistently harming the interests of state B and demonstrating implacable hostility. State B invades state A, changes its regime and removes the obstacle to free international trade.

Basically, all of the above examples imply self-defence, or defence of one’s own vital interests, and imply using only the minimum of force necessary to accomplish goals.

Russian invasion of Ukraine is justifiable according to principles in examples 1 and 5, and possibly 4; Ukraine was performing genocide against its Russian population, and served as a proxy for the strategic enemy who was using it as a platform for several attack vectors. The conditional classification under example 4 is justifiable by the fact that its government is an insanely criminal Nazi regime that is based on hatred against Russian people and state and is put into power and financed by Russia’s strategic enemies who are developing biological weapons there, targetting Russians, and performing international pressure against Russian attempts to diversify ways of exporting gas that wouldn’t include Ukraine, basically subverting Russian economy by direct hostile actions. They also openly stated the desire to acquire nuclear weapons. The combination of local ill-will and cooperation with strategic enemy creates a very serious threat level, but the concrete and persistent genocidal actions against the Russian population of Ukraine push the thing very strongly into the area that makes military intervention justifiable, especially since a peaceful solution was tried (the Minsk accords) and it turned out to be only a ruse with the purpose of buying time in order to create a more powerful military that could defeat Russia. It would be hard to imagine a clearer case of justifiable military intervention.