Wagner and wheat

Even without the new attack on the Crimean bridge (and some Ukrainians claiming it was a Russian false flag), I don't blame Putin for pulling out of the Ukrainian grain export deal. New Western weaponry, above all cluster bombs, are an issue unmentioned by Russia. Also, this spring, exports from a Russian liquid fertilizer pipeline being throttled was another complicating issue. (I'm not sure how or if that ever got resolved.)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he'd speak to Putin. But, that's for his own good first, countries running low on wheat second, and Russia and Ukraine after that.

Update: With the wreckage Russia inflicted on Odessa tonight, USAID can send whoever it wants to Kyiv; no wheat or sunflowers are leaving Odessa, period, if the damage is extensive. Twitter's got good stuff; sadly, even an Al-Jazeera appears to be buying the Ukrainian party line on the results of the attacks, talking about "pro-Kremlin military bloggers" but not "pro-Zelensky military bloggers."

Update: In a brief for him piece, John Helmer says last night's attack was indeed tied to the Crimean bridge attack, calling the later part of Zelensky's PR war by mosquito and pinprick. Ukrainian uniformed military reportedly hates this (note: author goes around the bend a bit at times).

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Meanwhile, in what's surely warmongering by Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, a claim is being pushed that Wagner Group mercenaries now in Belarus will be used to seize the Suwalki Corridor between Poland and Lithuania, to connect Belarus to the post-1991 detached Kaliningrad Oblast. (I forgot to embed a link at the time of writing this, and am not going fishing now.)

First, Putin's not that stupid.

Second, the corridor connects to Belarus, not Russia.

Global media really are that fucking dumb. (It was from UK Metro as posted on MSN.)

But, with a Google, because "Suwalki Corridor" or "Suwalki Gap" are known entities, here's Sky News. That said, teh Google says these claims are nothing new, and that they've largely been spilled by Nat-sec Nutsacks. Basically, it's a modernized Fulda Gap if you will. As for why it become a problem, per the Wiki link at the start of the paragraph, blame Gorbachev.