A bazooka rule, a boss siren - and in heaven a weird humor

If you want to know how Russia's war against Ukraine is going, it's always a good idea to rely on experts, such as Brigadier General a. D. Erich Vad. He was once military advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, when the federal government only needed a new justification every year for reliably missing the two percent target of NATO. Now Vad regularly shines with his expertise on various channels.

General Vad's bazooka rule is that 99 percent of the time, the opposite of what he predicts will happen in the theater of war. If Vad were a howitzer, he would miss the Zugspitze from a distance of 200 meters with this accuracy. On Monday, the general declared that the Ukrainians could not be expected to quickly “march through” to Cherson. If it does, there will be weeks of bitter fighting.

On Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a slightly staged news conference that troops would now be withdrawn to the left bank of the Dnipro River.

Russian General Sergei Surovikin called the retreat a "manoeuvre" and Shoigu spoke of "regrouping". The chief siren of the television Stalin organ RT, Margarita Simonian, even compared the operation to the withdrawal of Russian troops from Moscow in 1812 - which ultimately led to the victory over Napoleon. However, it is still possible that the whole thing will still turn out to be Putin's Waterloo.

Apparently they have a weird sense of humor in heaven, because of all things, at a ceremony on November 9th in Bellevue Palace, the gentleman liked the recall of GDR civil rights activist and Green Party politician Werner Schulz. Unlike General Vad, Schulz was extremely knowledgeable about Russia.

If you want to check that, watch the "Maischberger" episode from February 24, 2015 again. Schulz, together with Arnulf Baring, who has unfortunately also died, dissects Kremlinist Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, who says there that Putin has no intention of destabilizing Ukraine. Now Schulz and Baring are silent. But Erich Vad and Gabriele Kreml-Schmalz, they keep bubbling away.

On Thursday, national coach Hansi Flick announced the squad for the World Cup in Qatar. There were no surprises. Marco Reus misses another tournament injured. We're curious to see how far you can get with a team where the midfield is at the lower world class level, the attackers at the middle Bundesliga level and the defense at the upper regional league level.

National coach Hansi Flick announces his 26-strong squad for the World Cup in Qatar. Especially in the storm, Flick has to reschedule after the failures of Timo Werner and Lukas Nmecha. Watch the full squad introduction here.

Source: WORLD

We regret that Max Kruse was not nominated in view of the injury worries in attack. Although Kruse is suspended at VfL Wolfsburg, he is still in top form: on Wednesday he won 134,000 euros and a glitter bracelet at a poker tournament in the Czech Republic. We hope he doesn't forget the coal in the taxi again.

Hosting a World Championships in Qatar is about as plausible as a camel race in Kitzbühel. When the 2010 World Cup was awarded to Qatar, there was still concern that it might be too hot for football there. The topic is no longer the focus, because it is now almost as hot here as in Qatar. In any case, the chances of being able to sit on the fan mile in cozy temperatures in December are good.

The human rights situation is less good: in a ZDF film by Jochen Breyer that was broadcast on Tuesday, the official Qatari World Cup ambassador, Khalid Salman, described homosexuality as "mental harm". That's really strong khat after the Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani described Western criticism as "arrogant and racist" in the "FAZ" on Monday. Maybe so, but it's still justified.