While I hope that Russia can't merely use chips from toys etc. to rig together ad hoc systems that can keep some of its armements in production, I continue to be deeply ashamed that NATO's spineless strategy (if such a term can even be employed without blushing) is merely to degrade Russian capability by means of permitting Ukrainians to be slaughtered. NATO - or at least the USA, as European contributions to NATO are a bad joke - could crush Putin's rabble-in-uniform within days and if the USA made it clear that any escalation would result in the immediate total destruction of Russia by means of thermonuclear weapons, tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives would be saved. No Russian officer, no matter how delusional they may be (and few are) would obey an order to use nuclear weapons if the certainty was that Russia would be destroyed. As it is, we cynically watch Ukrainians being killed so our journalists can write sensationalist stories that generate revenues, and we sit on the sidelines. Our claims that "we're behind Ukraine" are at least true: we're a long, long way behind, sheltering in our passivity so our citizens can continue to gawp at mindless entertainments and cram ever-more slop down their throats. This sends the clearest possible message to China's Xi that his forthcoming invasion of Taiwan will be met with... utterly pointless sanctions, for a few weeks. And then we'll keep on chowing down on McSlop, as usual.