Patrick Armstrong’s September 2021 sitrep reads differently now than it did then. Written months before the tanks rolled, it captures a Russia that the Western media refuses to see—a country that is not decaying, not isolated, not on the verge of collapse, but quietly building, training, and preparing while the West obsesses over narratives.
The exercises first. Zapad 2021, the annual strategic drill working its way around Russia’s compass points. Two hundred thousand troops, by the Russian count, though alarmists like Anne Applebaum inflated the numbers as they always do. The highlights were genuine military achievements: a night drop of a parachute battalion with armored vehicles, combat robots appearing in the field. This is not a military resting on Soviet-era laurels. This is a force that has learned from its wars, modernized its equipment, and trained for the conflicts it actually faces.
Then and now. Armstrong points to Google Street View comparisons of Russian cities between 2010 and 2020. Perm, Sochi, Arkhangelsk, Petrozavodsk. Not China’s breakneck growth, but real improvement. New construction, better infrastructure, visible progress. The Western media’s narrative of a decaying Russia, a gas station disguised as a country, is rubbish. Anyone with eyes can see it. Anyone who looks at the actual evidence knows it.
History. Putin unveils a monument to Alexander Nevsky, the prince who defended Russia from Western invaders. In the Defense Ministry’s meeting room, three bas-reliefs adorn the walls: 1941-45, 1812, and Nevsky. The existential threat to Russia has always come from the West. This is not paranoia. This is history. And the people running Russia have not forgotten it.
Nord Stream is finished. The last pipe welded on September 6. Kiev fulminates. Washington threatens. Meanwhile, European gas prices hit record highs. The cognitive dissonance is staggering: the same countries demanding Russia supply energy are also demanding it not build pipelines to supply energy. The Russians watch and learn.
Inflation at a five-year high, 6.7 percent. Food especially. But that’s worldwide. Russia is not immune to global economic forces, but neither is it uniquely vulnerable.
Navalny. John Helmer has documented how the poisoning story was constructed. Still waiting for the Western outlets that insisted Putin wanted him dead to explain why he isn’t.
Disease. Russia is building a network of labs and testing facilities, a “sanitary shield” they call it. Further evidence that Moscow takes the threat of biowarfare seriously. After COVID, who can blame them?
Election interference. The US ambassador challenged to produce evidence of Russian meddling. A video purporting to show observers coached to claim fraud. The pattern is familiar: accuse, condemn, use the accusation to block any improvement in relations. The object, as Korybko argues, is to prevent any modest suggestion of better ties with a country that has a close relationship with China, the capability to obliterate the United States, and the ability to destroy NATO’s military.
Just nukes and oil. A Russian-Chinese jetliner project underway. Another medium-sized tanker launched. The old cliché that Russia is nothing but a gas station with nuclear weapons becomes harder to sustain with each new industrial achievement.
The emptiness of former flaps. CNN in 2020: “Authorities in Belarus have announced the arrest of 33 Russian mercenaries.” CNN in 2021: “Ukraine spies tried to ensnare alleged Russian war criminals with a fake website.” The first story was part of a color revolution attempt against Lukashenko. The second suggests Ukraine may be getting Afghanized, its intelligence services running stings that look increasingly desperate.
Learning. General Hyten, speaking at Brookings, describes a recent US exercise as a miserable failure. He says the goal is to never go to war with China and Russia. He says the US military is moving too slowly, not getting its money’s worth. This is the neocon citadel of Brookings, and a four-star general is telling them the uncomfortable truth. But he’s retiring soon. He’ll be replaced by a rah-rah type who tells them what they want to hear.
Ukraine. Zelensky complains that Washington is still vague on NATO. He warns of war with Russia. He has no time to think about Putin but wants a meeting. He calls his army one of the most powerful. Edward Lucas gushes about Ukraine’s success as a challenge to Putin. The delusion is stunning. Ukraine remains the second-poorest country in Europe.
Afghanistan. Armstrong is amused by Western statements that the Taliban must do this or that. No. The United States and NATO were defeated. Defeated powers do not dictate terms. The Taliban doesn’t care what they have to say and isn’t frightened by their threats.
Reading this now, knowing what came six months later, the clarity is remarkable. Armstrong saw Russia preparing, modernizing, thinking strategically about its threats. He saw Ukraine’s delusions and the West’s refusal to learn. He saw the dynamics that would lead to war.
The question is whether anyone in Washington was paying attention. The evidence suggests they were not.
