REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 25, 2024 08:24
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PAGE 135 of 135

Saturday, June 15, 2024 7:39 AM

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Taiwan is one-upping Ukraine's navy to defeat a Chinese invasion

By Michael Peck | Jun 15, 2024, 4:00 AM CDT

https://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-is-one-upping-ukraines-navy-to-
defeat-a-chinese-invasion-2024-6

Both Taiwan and America are looking to what has become the gold standard in naval drone warfare: Ukraine's campaign in the Black Sea. Vastly outnumbered and outgunned by Russia's navy, and with a long coastline to defend, Ukraine could have been bled white trying to defend against Russian amphibious invasions and coastal bombardment.

Instead, Russia's Black Sea Fleet has retreated from Ukrainian waters. In part this is because of land-based anti-ship missiles such as the Neptune, which sank the cruiser and Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva in 2022. But mostly it's because of robot boats that have relentlessly stalked Russian warships on the sea and even in port. In November 2023, for example, Ukrainian Magura sea drones sank or damaged two Russian landing craft and a missile corvette docked in Crimean ports and shipyards.

(If Ukraine's drone ships were built in America, Biden would forbid Ukraine from using the drones against Russian ships in water beyond 12 nautical miles offshore. Why? Because Biden, the old fool, imagines crossing Putin's Red Lines will mean WW3.

"The territorial sea of Ukraine includes the coastal marine waters having a width of 12 nautical miles measured from the line of minimum low tide both on the mainland and on islands belonging to Ukraine, or from the straight baselines joining the corresponding points."
https://www.un.org/depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/UKR_1991_
Statute.pdf )

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Sunday, June 16, 2024 6:30 AM

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Massacres and Misery — The Policy of Russian Military Savagery

Russian military brutality and misbehavior are not accidental; they are Kremlin-approved, just as in Stalin’s time and beyond.

By Michael C. DiCianna | March 26, 2024

https://cepa.org/article/massacres-and-misery-the-policy-of-russian-mi
litary-savagery/

The West has the luxury of considering Ukraine’s future as an intellectual exercise; after all, there won’t be Russian tanks in Frankfurt or Chicago.

For Ukraine, it’s a very different issue, one that has been clear throughout the 25 months of Russia’s all-out war of aggression. That the war raises not just the prospect of military defeat, but of what follows — a brutality that often degenerates into outright bestiality.

The fall of Adviika in February showed the risks Ukraine faces this year if Western support is delayed even further. As the Russians pushed forward, they were as unapologetic and cruel as before. Reports of Russian soldiers executing wounded Ukrainian prisoners followed the retreat. Telegram channels showed victorious Russians looting the destroyed city for household appliances. Civilians who stayed behind face the terror of Russian occupation.

These are not one-off events. Last year, Tymofiy Shadura, an unarmed soldier of Ukraine’s 30th Mechanized Brigade, was filmed by Russian soldiers saying “Long live Ukraine,” his last words before he was murdered at close range with semi-automatic weapons fire.

The Ukrainian liberation of Bucha in April 2022 exposed the facts of the Russian invasion and occupation. More than 400 Ukrainian civilians were left dead in the streets, many showing signs of summary execution. Torture chambers were found in residential basements. Girls as young as 14 were forced into sexual slavery by Russian occupiers.

Casual consumers of news may consider this an aberration, possibly caused by unit dysfunction, as has happened in other wars — the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for example, or the massacres in some of the 20th-century European wars of colonial retreat.

But this is not the case with Russia. The bloodshed is based on something much more profound — a state-sanctioned policy and even encouragement of brutality. And its roots can be traced back centuries. As the programmers say, it’s a feature, not a bug.

Brutality, destruction, and looting are vital elements of Russian military doctrine. They’ve existed as a pillar of Russian military doctrine for almost two centuries. Policymakers should take note that revanchist powers do not play by Western rules; they disdain not only the taboo against wars of aggression but also the rules by which wars are fought.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a strategic continuation of the Russification efforts begun with the conquest of the Caucasus in the first half of the 19th century. Intentional and casual cruelty by the Russian military has been the spearhead tactic for such campaigns. To see this trend in history is not just a morbid lesson in crimes against humanity, but crucial to understanding what it means to tolerate Russian militarism.

The Russian Empire’s ultimate victory in the 101-year-long Russo-Circassian War resulted in a horrendous extermination effort. As much as 97% of the Circassian population was expelled from their homeland, with more than a million killed by the time it ended in 1864.

In The Circassian Genocide, historian Walter Richmond notes how Imperial army commanders rejected any acceptance of the humanity or sovereignty of their enemies, describing them as stateless “bandits” and “mountaineers.” The vocabulary may have changed, but the modern Russian denial of Ukrainian statehood and sweeping referrals to a “Nazi regime” in Kyiv show the same dismissal of any shared humanity. Download the book for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Circassian+Genocide

Communist revolt and rule did nothing to moderate Russian imperialism. Atrocities committed by both Reds and Whites during the Civil War have been well-recorded, and the Bolshevik genocide of Ukrainians and Kazakhs during the Stalin era is (now finally) globally acknowledged.

The thuggery of the imperial Russian army, now and in the past, has not limited itself to the empire’s wars of conquest and ethnic cleansing.

The tales of the Red Army’s rampage through Germany at the end of World War II are probably the greatest shadow cast across the allied victory over Nazi Germany. Approximately 600,000 German civilians may have been killed by the Red Army in the final months of the war. Far more infamous, and far too often dismissed, are the mass rapes committed by Soviet soldiers. It is harder to declare a conclusive total, but Western estimates range from 200,000 to 2 million women raped during Soviet occupation, including victims as young as eight years old.

The horrendous actions of the Red Army in World War II have long been explained, and in some historiographies justified, as revenge against a state and a people who had visited such horrors on the Soviet population. Putting aside the flawed moral logic of an eye for an eye in sexual violence, this dismissive narrative has long ignored the horrors the Red Army also visited on liberated female victims of concentration camps — including Soviet citizens and Polish women.

With the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in late 1945, a nightmare of the same sort was visited on Japanese civilians, as well as Chinese and Korean women. At best, the Red Army did not care about the monstrous conduct of its troops. At worst, it was using rape as a weapon of terror and a means of rewarding its soldiers.

Western leaders chose to ignore the means by which Putin crushed Chechen separatism between 1999 and 2009. This should have been sufficient for what Putin might do elsewhere.

Consider how the Russian army reduced Grozny to “the most destroyed city on earth.” Consider how he unleashed Ramzan Kadyrov on the Chechen population. Kadyrov, “a psychopath who personally tortures his political prisoners” according to Russia expert Michael Weiss, has had free range over Chechnya for decades. Experts argued at the onset of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Kadyrov’s presence was in itself a threat of excessive brutality to come (his men already had an appalling reputation for their thuggish behavior in the occupied villages of Eastern Ukraine.)

The historical record shows that the Kremlin is happy to pay its brutalized soldiers with the blood and bodies of conquered peoples. What else can be expected when recruits are drawn from a society with such high rates of domestic violence, murder, and spousal rape, and where the government has decriminalized violence against women?

Russian recruitment propaganda, when it’s not playing up some idea of the Russian soldier as a hypermasculine demigod, advertises promises like seaside apartments in Odesa, or “beautiful Ukrainian women.” The implication is clear: you can kill Ukrainians, live in their homes, and keep Ukrainian women as domestic slaves. And Russia makes little secret of its behavior — the brutal interrogation of a suspected Tajik terrorist this month, including severing his ear and forcing him to swallow it — was filmed and then reposted by senior Russian propagandists.

The US and the rest of the Western world bear a great deal of responsibility for tolerating Putin’s evils. American policymakers did little to punish or push back Russian military actions in Georgia, Syria, or Ukraine in 2014. Western hesitation has not just weakened global rules about sovereignty and taboos against rewriting borders by force, it has also undermined the international regimes to punish crimes against humanity.

Michael C. DiCianna is a research assistant with the Yorktown Institute. He has worked as a consultant in the US intelligence community for several years, focusing on military affairs in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 16, 2024 6:42 AM

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EU Commissioner: EU will match Russia's ammunition production in 2025

By Rachel Amran | June 15, 2024 3:12 AM

https://kyivindependent.com/eu-commissioner-eu-will-match-russias-ammu
nition-production-in-2025/

The European Union has accelerated its production of projectiles and will match Russia's production capacity in 2025, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in an interview with French news outlet La Tribune on June 14.

The performance of the European defense industry has been lackluster, as the EU failed on its promise to deliver 1 million artillery shells between March 2023 and 2024. After supplying only about half of the promised rounds, Brussels shifted the deadline to the end of this year.

"By the end of this year, the EU plans to reach the level of 1.7 million projectiles per year, and in 2025 to match the production capacity of Russia, that is, to produce 2.5 million projectiles per year," Breton said.

Reports have suggested that Russia is managing to produce artillery shells at triple the speed of Ukraine’s allies for a quarter of the price.

Earlier this month, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin claimed that his country had increased ammunition production by more than 20 times.

"We accelerated the production of ammunition," Breton said. "In March 2023, we produced 500,000 shells a year in Europe and were already better than the Americans, who produced only 300,000. But since then, we have doubled this capacity."

The EU adopted the first-ever European Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS) in March to support the competitiveness and readiness of the bloc’s defense industry midst growing threats from Russia.

Breton also emphasized that the bloc must continue to increase defense purchases "against the tension in relations with the Russian Federation," as Europe "must continue to rearm in the coming years."

"This need is shared by many EU member states and can benefit our defense industry. But it must be able to deliver weapons to the European army on time."

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Sunday, June 16, 2024 7:11 AM

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Ukrainian First Deputy Defense Minister Lieutenant General Ivan Havrylyuk reported that Western military assistance has begun to arrive in Ukraine, but that Western military assistance will likely not arrive at scale and significantly impact the frontline situation for several more weeks to months.

Havrylyuk told the Associated Press (AP) in an article published on June 15 that Ukrainian forces are still waiting on most of the US military assistance announced in late April 2024 to arrive in Ukraine, but that the limited amount of aid that has arrived is already reducing Ukraine's artillery shortages.[13] Havrylyuk stated that Russian forces' artillery advantage has recently decreased from seven-to-one to five-to-one as a result of US aid arrivals. Havrylyuk expressed hope that Ukraine will be able to better defend its airspace in the future following the arrival of F-16 fighter jets and other Western-provided air defense assets. AP also interviewed several frontline Ukrainian commanders and servicemen who confirmed that Ukrainian forces began receiving limited amounts of Western-provided shells but noted that the shells have not arrived at the scale that Ukrainian forces need to fully defend against Russian attacks. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský announced on June 14 that the first round of ammunition from the Czech artillery initiative has begun to arrive in Ukraine and that the Czech initiative will continue to purchase and supply ammunition for Ukraine throughout 2024.[14] Lipavský noted that five countries have already contributed funds to the initiative and that 15 additional countries have pledged to support the initiative.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-15-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 17, 2024 7:52 AM

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The vast majority of the countries and international organizations that participated in the Ukraine-initiated Global Peace Summit in Switzerland on June 15-16 signed a joint communique on June 16 reaffirming support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.[1]

The communique also reaffirmed support for Ukrainian operation and control over the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to ensure the safety of nuclear energy and installations, "free full, and safe" commercial navigation in the Black Sea to ensure global food security, the exchange of all prisoners of war (POWs), and the return of all "deported and unlawfully displaced Ukrainian children" and other unlawfully detained Ukrainian civilians. Over 80 countries and international organizations signed the communique, although Saudi Arabia, India, South Africa, Armenia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Brazil (which attended the summit as an "observer") were among the countries that did not endorse the communique.[2]

The Ukrainian President's Office emphasized that the purpose of the summit was to facilitate "fair peace ... based on the United Nations (UN) Charter and international law," highlighting Ukraine's effort to garner support from the international community in ending the war on terms that do not violate international law by compromising Ukraine’s territory integrity or sovereignty.[3]

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stated on June 16 at the summit that "Russia should not be at the [negotiating] table now" and that there will only be peace in Ukraine "when Russia agrees to international principles and the UN Charter." ISW continues to assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not interested in good-faith negotiations and only feigns interest in negotiations in specific instances as part of a wider informational effort to seduce the West to preemptively make concessions that would violate Ukraine's sovereignty.[4]

Putin is unlikely to be interested in good faith negotiations for the foreseeable future given that he recently outlined a theory of Russian victory in Ukraine based on the assumption that Russian forces are capable of indefinite creeping advances on the battlefield to outlast Western support for Ukraine.[5]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-16-2024

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Monday, June 17, 2024 8:23 AM

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Trump threatens to cut US aid to Ukraine quickly if reelected

June 16, 2024 1:01 pm CET

https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-ukraine-russia-war-threat
ens-cut-aid-election-2024/

At a campaign rally in Detroit, Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him “the greatest salesman of all time” for Kyiv’s push to secure U.S. support in its effort to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression more than three years after Moscow's all-out invasion.

“He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60 billion. It never ends,” Trump said.

“I will have that settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect,” said Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. election.

NATO countries last week moved forward with a plan for the alliance to take over from the U.S. in coordinating military aid to Ukraine, a shift widely perceived as an effort to "Trump-proof" the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

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Monday, June 17, 2024 9:01 AM

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While Ukraine has 80 countries on its side, Russia has North Korea, which is very like Russia, constantly threatening to nuke the world:

Russia’s Putin to visit North Korea in rare trip as anti-West alignment deepens

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/17/asia/north-korea-russia-putin-visit-int
l-hnk/index.html

Vladimir Putin is set to travel to North Korea for a two-day visit starting Tuesday, the Kremlin said, in the Russian president’s first trip to the country in more than two decades . . .

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Monday, June 17, 2024 9:31 AM

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Russia’s war in Ukraine is flooding the EU with illegal cigarettes

By Mark Temnycky | 06/16/24 8:00 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4721702-russias-war-in-ukrai
ne-is-flooding-the-eu-with-illegal-cigarettes/

Russia’s war in Ukraine has exacerbated crime inside the country. According to the Brookings Institution, it “significantly affected regional illicit economies and criminal networks.” This is not surprising, as all available resources, including those of law enforcement agencies, are directed to war-related activities. When a foreign invader is at the door, suddenly the black market in counterfeit tobacco, often run by Russian-associated organized criminal gangs, becomes a secondary concern.

According to the Tobacco Reporter, illegal cigarettes, which “accounted for [one-fourth] of the Ukrainian tobacco market,” are draining valuable resources needed to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s ongoing invasion. The Ukrainian government has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in tobacco tax revenue amid this criminal industry’s steady growth.

This black-market industry is affecting areas beyond Ukraine. The European Anti-Fraud Office has stated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine expanded tobacco smuggling routes, creating an illicit cigarette problem throughout the European Union. Due to the proliferation of these criminal products, the European Union member states have also lost hundreds of millions of euros in budget revenues.

If Ukraine cannot demonstrate progress in resolving the illicit trade issue as a financial menace, then the malign cynics and critics of Ukraine may be vindicated.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 6:07 AM

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Russia is reportedly experiencing issues with producing artillery shells and select artillery systems. Ukrainian military analyst Petro Chernyk stated on June 17 that Russia likely has about 8,000 to 9,000 artillery barrels stockpiled and is able to produce about 150,000 to 170,000 artillery shells per month.[79] Chernyk stated that Russia, however, suffers from shortages of explosives for these shells, especially nitrocellulose — an intermediary good used in producing gunpowder and explosives.

US officials have recently stated that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is supplying Russia's defense industry with nitrocellulose.[81]

Chernyk stated that Russia is gradually shifting from using self-propelled racked artillery systems to towed systems but that Russia is suffering from unspecified problems with the tractors needed to pull such artillery pieces. Chernyk stated that Russia will be unable to increase its production of newer, higher-quality self-propelled artillery systems, such as the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV and the 2S34 Khosta, as Russia only has five to six machines that can manufacture these systems.

Sky News, citing open-source research from US-based consulting firm Bain & Company, reported on May 26 that Russian defense industrial producers will likely be able to manufacture and refurbish 4.5 million artillery shells in 2024 (375,000 shells per month), suggesting that Russia may be refurbishing more shells than it is producing.[80]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-17-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 6:21 AM

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Russia charges a Ukrainian with 'Terrorism' for downing A-50 Radar Plane
(Previously, Russia claimed the A-50 was not shot down. Then Russia claimed the A-50 crashed due to friendly fire.)

Jun 18, 2024 at 5:47 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-a50-plane-ukraine-investigative-commit
tee-1914060

Russia's investigative committee said on Monday that it had approved a "preventative measure in the form of detention" against Colonel Mykola Dzyaman, a commander in Ukraine's military, in connection with the loss of a Russian aircraft on February 23.

The committee said the aircraft "was not intended for combat operations, had no weapons, and the flight was taking place exclusively in the airspace of the Russian Federation."

Colonel Dzyaman allegedly "gave an illegal order to his subordinate military personnel to destroy it," according to Russian authorities, which said 10 crew members on board had been killed and the aircraft destroyed.

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 8:00 AM

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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
SECOND: Are Putin’s Nuclear Threats Working?


They prefer that Russia should actually nuke us to demonstrate that they're serious?

a) The west CAN'T win. We can't win this conventional war (which BTW WE started) and nobody wins in a nuclear war.

The whole issue for Putin is NATO EXPANSION TO RUSSIA'S BORDERS AND NEAR ABROAD SECURITY.
June 18, 2024 7:30am EDT
A record 23 of NATO's 32 member nations are hitting the Western military alliance’s defense spending target this year. In 2021, only six nations were meeting the goal. That was before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Defense spending across European NATO allies and Canada was up nearly 18% this year alone, the biggest increase in decades. Thanks, Putin! (He responded by threatening to nuke the world.)

https://www.foxnews.com/world/record-number-nato-members-reaching-defe
nse-spending-goal-ukraine-war-persists

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 6:32 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The issue right now isn't $$, it's military production. At the moment, an increase in NATO'S OFFENSE spending is being wasted on paying inflated prices for substandard weapons, and running a lot of $$$ thru the Ukraine washing machine



-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 9:19 PM

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The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The issue right now isn't $$, it's military production. At the moment, an increase in NATO'S OFFENSE spending is being wasted on paying inflated prices for substandard weapons, and running a lot of $$$ thru the Ukraine washing machine

I await Russia's victory before Xmas. You and Putin promised victory would be quick and inevitable, Signym. But I want it now! I eagerly anticipate the Orthodox Christmas parade through Moscow with thousands of Ukrainian Nazis bound in chains being slowly dragged behind tanks, leaving streaks of blood and skin on the pavement. The Russian crowds will howl for the glorious goriest spectacle!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 9:25 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The issue right now isn't $$, it's military production. At the moment, an increase in NATO'S OFFENSE spending is being wasted on paying inflated prices for substandard weapons, and running a lot of $$$ thru the Ukraine washing machine

I await Russia's victory before Xmas. You and Putin promised victory would be quick and inevitable, Signym. But I want it now! I eagerly anticipate the Orthodox Christmas parade through Moscow with thousands of Ukrainian Nazis bound in chains being slowly dragged behind tanks, leaving streaks of blood and skin on the pavement. The Russian crowds will howl for the glorious goriest spectacle!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Nobody ever said it would be quick.
As usual, you lie.


-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 9:25 PM

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The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Interview: Russia's War On Ukraine Could Drag On For Years

By Vazha Tavberidze | June 15, 2024 08:26 GMT

https://www.rferl.org/a/mark-galeotti-russia-war-ukraine-prigozhin/329
89771.html

Russia expert Mark Galeotti is a political analyst, author, and honorary professor at University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES). In an interview with RFE/RL's Georgian Service, Galeotti says that while Russian President Vladimir Putin has put his country on a war footing, Ukraine's Western partners have not done the same. He predicts Russia's war against Ukraine could drag out for a few more years, with neither side strong enough to defeat the other. Fighting will determine, Galeotti predicts, "where the lines get drawn and what is the shape of the Ukraine that emerges."

RFE/RL: I read an article of yours where you try to predict -- thankless as that task might be -- what Russia would look like by 2030. https://inews.co.uk/news/world/russia-in-2030-ai-forever-wars-putin-30
68487 You also speak about Ukraine, you say Ukraine will be de facto divided much like Korea, although it could still at any point explode into violence. Is the conclusion to draw from this that the war now is going on to define the divide lines?

Galeotti: I wish it were not so, but I think that seems to be the likely situation. Also because, let's be honest, neither side has the capacity to sustain this kind of tempo of war indefinitely. We can see a couple more years in which they can maintain this kind of tempo, but after that point, for economic as well as human reasons, you know, inevitably the conflict will not stop, but it'll be more like two punch-drunk boxers in the ring sort of hanging on the ropes and occasionally coming out with a flurry of blows.

In that context, yeah, it's a question of where the lines get drawn and what is the shape of the Ukraine that emerges. Because, again, there's a big difference between a kind of an impoverished and miserable Ukraine that still risks constant attack by Russia or whether it is brought into NATO or the European Union or these sorts of things.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 9:39 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The vast majority of the countries and international organizations that participated in the Ukraine-initiated Global Peace Summit in Switzerland on June 15-16 signed a joint communique on June 16 reaffirming support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.[1]

Of 195 nations, 92 attended. 70 were western countries, meaning only 22 were non-western.

60 were represented by heads of state (but not USA, Turkiye, Brasil, Saudi Arabia, India, or China).
77 actual nations signed the communique, which means 15 did not.

"India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates — which were represented by foreign ministers or lower-level envoys — were among those that did not sign the final document." https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-06-16/80-countries-at-
swiss-summit-agree-ukraines-territorial-integrity-is-key-to-peace

Some international organizations and non- state attendees inflated the signature count.
At some point, I'll find a list of attendees, but it probably includes such "powerhouses" like Vanuatu and Andorra.


-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Tuesday, June 18, 2024 9:56 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Nobody ever said it would be quick.
As usual, you lie.
Signym, you are in poor health. Can you at least live out your last days with dignity? Or will you flail, striking randomly around you, never landing a punch?

Forever wars and facial recognition – what Russia will look like in 2030

By Mark Galeotti | May 26, 2024 (Updated 5:21 pm)

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/russia-in-2030-ai-forever-wars-putin-30
68487

Following another rigged election in March, Vladimir Putin has been inaugurated for another six-year presidential term. Assuming the 71-year-old lasts the distance, just what kind of a Russia might we imagine in 2030?

On the face of its, the regime will be even more personalistic, even tsarist. However, it will not just be him who has aged. As more and more of his cronies and confidants die or retire, he will have to elevate a new generation of ambitious leaders to manage the country for him. In the process, he will probably try and bypass the current herd of big beasts in his system, people who might nurture their own dreams of succeeding him.

There are already some signs of this, with ‘young princelings’ such as Dmitri Patrushev and Boris Kovalchuk – both the 46-year-old sons of close Mr Putin allies – being promoted in the recent reshuffle, along with Alexei Dymin, the 51-year-old former governor of Tula Region and previously been one of Mr Putin’s bodyguards.

This makes political sense: Mr Putin has always kept control of the elite by pitting individuals, institutions and factions against each other, so why not also generations? However, it also risks creating new tensions within the elite, especially as, unless infirmity or illness prevents Mr Putin from standing yet again in 2030, he is unlikely to have identified an heir. Or, at least, a single heir: there may well be a number, officially unacknowledged, yet whom Mr Putin will likewise play off against each other like Shakespeare’s King Lear, inviting his daughters to flatter him with the promise of lands and riches.

Although the Ukraine war could not still be being fought at the same pitch as today, it is equally unlikely that there will become kind of equitable peace. Instead, Ukraine will be de facto divided, much like Korea, although it could still at any point again explode into violence.

Nor, so long as Mr Putin remains in the Kremlin, will there be any return to the pre-invasion status quo with the West. Russia will remain locked in a bad-tempered Cold War 2.0 with us, under sanctions and responding with disinformation, subversion, acrimony and mistrust.

In the process, Russia will have fallen further and further into Beijing’s orbit. This is not likely to manifest itself in anything as crude as demands for the return of territories ceded in the so-called ‘unequal treaties’ of the 19th and early 20th centuries – at least not yet. Instead, near enough every new car, phone or computer will have come from China, and especially the economies of the Russian Far East will depend on Chinese investment. Why fight over something that you are in effect hire-purchasing?

Under the pressure of lasting sanctions, Russia will have been forced increasingly into a twenty-first century remake of the late Soviet Union, with a heavily planned and state-controlled economy bent to the needs of the defense-industrial complex, backed and enforced by an authoritarianism taking full advantage of the latest security technologies. Cameras running facial recognition systems will be on every street corner, station and apartment building entryway, police drones will buzz their way over their cities, and AI will be harnessed to scan emails and phone conversations for subversive language.

With no real ideology to underpin it, though, the regime will have to double down on nationalism, and a continued Orwellian rewriting of history to justify the policies of the present. Movements like the Young Army – which already has 1.5 million 8-18 year-old boys and girls in its ranks – will become all the more important as means of socialising the new generation into Mr Putin’s creed of grievance and glory.

The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church will likewise be pressed into service to bless Mr Putin’s imperialism, kleptocracy and autocracy. With the population already beginning to skew increasingly in favour of its Muslim regions, though, where birth rates are higher, it will be a continuing challenge to rely on the Orthodox Church without alienating them. The Kremlin will nervously watch as Muslims in the army grows from its current 10 percent level.

There will still be an oppressed but surviving civil society despite everything, even lonely opposition voices, from democrats to ultra-nationalists who feel let down by Mr Putin. The real source of potential resistance, though, will come from the struggling economy. Moscow will still likely be a shining modern city, but the provinces will suffer as reserves run out and underspending on infrastructure, investment and services begin to bite. Wildcat strikes are one thing, but the Kremlin’s real fear will be the sudden emergence of a political movement like the Solidarity trade union in Poland from 1989.

Of course, it need not be like this. Mr Putin may die, or be forced by ill-health to retire. He could even – although for now this is the least likely scenario – be ousted. There might be some energetic young hawk in the Kremlin, or maybe even some more moderate technocrat like Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, not a democrat, but at least someone without the same imperialist instincts. Yet, sadly, for now the odds are that, six years on, we will still need to be talking about Mr Putin.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 19, 2024 6:05 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Ukraine is running out of soldiers

By Joshua Keating | Jun 18, 2024, 6:00 AM CDT

https://www.vox.com/world-politics/355547/soldiers-shortage-demographi
cs-population-conscription

Finding troops for the “meat grinder” in Ukraine hasn’t been easy for the Russian government. Russia does conscript soldiers every year, but conscripts generally can’t be deployed outside Russia. In the fall of 2022, the Kremlin declared a “partial mobilization” meant to raise 300,000 troops for the military. But more than twice that number are believed to have fled the country to avoid the draft.

Since then, however, Russia has managed to stabilize its manpower situation. It has done this in part by offering large signing bonuses that exceed average annual salaries in many remote and impoverished regions of Russia, and by granting pardons to prison inmates. (Pardoned prisoners made up the bulk of the fatalities in Bakhmut.) These tactics have largely kept the public backlash to the hundreds of thousands of casualties manageable.

The worries about personnel are far more acute in Ukraine, which has a democratic political system and about 100 million fewer citizens than Russia. The long lines that formed outside recruiting centers immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 are a thing of the past. Today, there are desperate shortages of Ukrainian troops on the front lines.

The average age of these soldiers is over 40 — shockingly old by global standards. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently signed a controversial law to lower the age for draft eligible men from 27 to 25. (The average age of an American GI in Vietnam was 19.) The government has resorted to a number of carrots (giving volunteers the right to choose their own battalions) and sticks (highly unpopular street patrols to find young men avoiding the draft) to replenish the ranks. And like Russia, Ukraine is also now recruiting prison inmates to serve.

Another similarity to Russia: Ukraine was in a state of precipitous population collapse even before the war, thanks to a combination of plummeting birth rates and out-migration. Its population declined from 51.5 million when it became independent in 1991 to just 37 million in 2019. Add to that the more than 6 million people who fled the country after the outbreak of war, those currently in the military, those killed or seriously wounded in the war, and those who’ve turned to black market employment in order to avoid conscription, and it’s no surprise that Ukraine’s civilian economy is facing serious labor shortages.

The war has presented Ukrainian leaders with an agonizing choice that goes even beyond the brutal prospect of sending thousands of young people to their deaths: Fighting for their national survival today might require decimating the nation’s already grim demographic future.

Not so long ago, some theorists were predicting a “geriatric peace”: societies with fewer available soldiers as well as older — therefore, presumably, less aggressive — populations might simply be less likely to start wars.

But the recent actions of Russia — where population decline is only slightly slower than in Ukraine — provide a powerful counterexample to that theory, not to mention the rising tensions and territorial conflicts in fast graying East Asia. The calculations of aggressive leaders like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping might just as easily be explained by what international relations theorists call “power transition theory”: the idea that governments will try to lock in military gains before their power starts to decline.

In other words, looking at decades of population decline to come, China’s Xi might decide that now is the moment to act in Taiwan, while he still has the troops to take it.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 19, 2024 6:08 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The Russian government is charging Ukrainian servicemen and military officials with crimes in absentia as part of its efforts to enforce Russian federal law outside of its jurisdiction and insinuate that Ukraine should not exist as an independent state. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) placed former Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Pyotr Mekhed and former Deputy Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff Viktor Bokiy on Russia's wanted list on June 18 and charged the men with unspecified war crimes in absentia.[17] The Russian Investigative Committee ruled on June 17 to detain a Ukrainian commander in absentia on charges that the commander helped down a Russian A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft in February 2024 — a legitimate act of war and a normal event for two warring states.[18] The Russian MVD previously absurdly placed multiple officials from most NATO member countries on its western flank on Russia’s wanted list for violating various Russian laws while the officials were in their respective countries where Russian law has no jurisdiction.[19] Russian officials similarly temporarily placed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavlyuk, and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on its wanted list for allegedly violating Russian law while those officials were not in Russia.[20] ISW continues to assess that Russia's decision to place Western officials on its wanted list for violating Russian federal laws outside of Russia is part of its effort to violate the sovereignty of NATO member states and justify possible future Russian aggression against NATO.[21] The Kremlin's prosecution of Ukrainian military personnel and political leadership who are engaged in a fully lawful, defensive war against an invasion by a foreign power in a manner akin to domestic terrorists highlights Russia's enduring belief that the Ukrainian state does not and should not exist as a political entity separate from Russia.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-18-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, June 19, 2024 3:17 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

At some point, I'll find a list of attendees, but it probably includes such "powerhouses" like Vanuatu and Andorra.
News flash! North Korea’s Kim declares ‘full support’ for Russian war in Ukraine. Kim said the two countries had a “fiery friendship,” and that the deal was their “strongest ever treaty,” putting the relationship at the level of an alliance. He vowed full support for Russia's war in Ukraine.
https://apnews.com/article/vladimir-putin-kim-jong-un-russia-north-kor
ea-summit-ukraine-a6b8d2c12de7ee2ab6716d4747c9850e

Signym, without a doubt Kim's support for Putin more than cancels the EU support for Putin's multitude of enemies. The future is overwhelmingly favorable for Putin, now that Kim is on his side.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Thursday, June 20, 2024 8:19 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The Russian government is attempting to deflect responsibility for well-documented Russian violations of international law regarding Russia's treatment of Ukrainian children by accusing the Ukrainian Armed Forces and other security structures of committing "crimes" against children. Russian State Duma Deputy Chairperson and former Russian Commissioner on Children's Rights Anna Kuznetsova presented a report developed by the Russian parliamentary investigative commission on “Kyiv’s crimes against children” during the plenary State Duma meeting on June 19, which made unfounded and absurd accusations against the Ukrainian government and military officials of crimes against children in occupied Ukraine.[23] Kuznetsova claimed that the parliamentary investigative commission developed this report in accordance with the Russian Constitution and the UN Security Council resolution of August 25, 1999, but blatantly overlooked the fact that Russia's illegal invasion and occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine violates the UN Charter and that these territories are not subject to the Russian Constitution under international law. The report accused the Ukrainian Armed Forces of wounding and killing children with artillery fire and in mining incidents since 2014 and accused the Ukrainian government of “kidnapping” children from Ukrainian-controlled territories in Donbas between 2014 and 2022 that Russia since illegally annexed in their entirety despite not occupying the entire region.[24] The report misrepresented the Ukrainian government’s evacuations of children from frontline or occupied settlements as the “kidnapping” of “about 65,000 children from the territories of Donbas and Novorossiya” since the beginning of 2022, in a blatant misrepresentation of international law. Ukraine, as the legal sovereign of the Ukrainian territories that Russia illegal occupies, has full rights to move its people away from frontline territories further to safety. Russia, as the occupying power, does not have the right to move a population it occupies away from their homes and into Russia, however. Ukraine's evacuation of its citizens is a legitimate humanitarian endeavor, while Russia's forced removal of Ukrainian citizens to Russia is illegal deportation.[25] The report also accused the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Western "private military companies," and the Ukrainian government of medical experimentation on children in occupied Ukraine, sexual abuse, human trafficking, and “the deliberate creation of a threat to the lives of children” among other unfounded accusations. The report recommended that the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) initiate the process of recognizing the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), and the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) as “terrorist organizations.” [26]

This report is likely part of an ongoing Kremlin effort to deflect domestic and international attention away from Russian violations of international law perpetrated against Ukrainian children, including mass forced deportations from occupied territories to Russia. The Russian State Duma unanimously supported the report on June 19, and Chairperson of the Russian Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko tasked the Russian government with translating this report into different languages and disseminating it across different international organizations and countries — including countries that are unfriendly to Russia.[27] Matviyenko made a revealing remark that Kyiv’s “attempt to accuse Russia of allegedly removing children looks especially cynical,” inadvertently revealing that the purpose of this unsubstantiated and false report is to confuse the international community about Russia’s violations against Ukrainian children and people.[28] The Russian State Duma notably created the Russian parliamentary investigative commission in June 2023 shortly after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kremlin-appointed Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova on March 17, 2023, for illegal deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.[29]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-19-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, June 21, 2024 7:57 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Another day, another threat from Putin to nuke the West:

Putin implicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons if the West enables Ukraine to decisively defeat Russia in order to undermine the international community's cohering strategic vision of support for Ukraine. Putin stated in a press conference on June 20 following his trip to North Korea and Vietnam that Russia is considering making changes to its nuclear doctrine, claiming that Russia is aware that an unnamed “potential adversary” is working on new elements “related to lowering the threshold nuclear weapon use."[5] Putin’s statement was likely partly in response to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s June 17 remarks that NATO members are discussing increased nuclear readiness in the face of growing threats from Russia and China, even though Stoltenberg did not discuss lowering the threshold for nuclear weapon use.[6] The Russian nuclear doctrine calls for Russia to only use nuclear weapons in the event of “exceptional cases” of threats to Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Putin notably defined Russia’s possible strategic defeat in Ukraine as the “end of [Russia’s] statehood” following his mention of lowering thresholds for nuclear weapon usage.[7] Putin added that a defeat on the battlefield would signify the end of the “thousand-year history” of the Russian state and that Russia is better off fighting until the end. Putin’s rhetoric deliberately aims to present Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as an existential war for Russia’s sovereignty, and Putin likely invoked the possibility of lowering the threshold for nuclear weapon use to imply that he reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if his forces are decisively defeated on the frontlines in order to deter Ukraine’s allies from reaching a common strategic objective of decisively defeating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — an outcome which is in the West’s interests.[8]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-20-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Friday, June 21, 2024 10:45 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Russian General Floats Deadline for End of Putin's War: End in 2024

Jun 21, 2024 at 7:46 AM EDT

Top Russian General Apti Alaudinov, commander of Akhmat special forces unit, claims the war with Ukraine will be over by the end of the year.

Alaudinov, who leads the Chechen forces in the conflict, was appointed by Putin in April as deputy head of the Defense Ministry's military-political department.

During a state TV broadcast with Olga Skabeyeva, Alaudinov discussed the current state of military affairs and his projection for the end of the war.

When asked about Russian progress in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, his answer was, "This will be a decisive battle for us, in which we will destroy the remaining forces and means. After that, I believe, as I've already said earlier, we will finish the special military operation this year," the commander said, adding that "we will put an end to it."

He said that "everything is proceeding as it should," and "Ultimately, we will finish all of it with a final decisive battle, which I believe will be victorious for us."

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-general-end-war-ukraine-2025-1915305

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Saturday, June 22, 2024 6:29 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Didn’t Putin already threaten to nuke the West several times this week? He did it again:

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to invoke nuclear threats as part of his ongoing information campaign to discourage further Western support for Ukraine and undermine the international community's efforts to cohere its strategic vision for defeating Russia’s war of conquest against Ukraine. Putin claimed during a speech to graduating Russian officers on June 21 that Russia plans to further develop its nuclear triad as a "guarantee of strategic deterrence" and to maintain the balance of power in the world.[1] Putin noted that Russia is also working to increase its conventional combat capabilities and defense industrial production. Putin claimed during a press conference in Vietnam on June 20 that Russia is considering "lowering the threshold" for nuclear use in Russia's nuclear doctrine and that a possible future strategic defeat of Russian forces on the battlefield in Ukraine would result in the "end of [Russia's] statehood."[2] ISW noted that Putin may have falsely equated a Russian defeat in Ukraine with an existential threat to the Russian state in order to invoke an "exceptional case" in which existing Russian nuclear doctrine would allow for the use of nuclear weapons.[3] Putin's June 21 statement appears to be the continuation of his recent information operation intended to sabotage the West's efforts to develop a common strategic objective of decisively defeating Russia’s invasion as the West’s envisioned end state for the war in Ukraine. ISW continues to assess that the threat of nuclear escalation is a core aspect of Russia's ability to manipulate foreign decision-makers and is highly unlikely to result in actual nuclear escalation due to nuclear and conventional deterrence.[4]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-21-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 23, 2024 8:00 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The Royal United Services Institute points out that: The biggest obstacle to improving the effectiveness of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the lack of a clear and agreed-upon grand strategy for winning the war.

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/how-buil
d-ukraines-military-effectiveness-and-avoid-war-attrition

The Institute for the Study of War points to one specific example of the lack of grand strategy and who is causing the lack:

US policy continues to prohibit Ukrainian forces from striking legitimate military targets in Russian territory in range of Ukrainian HIMARS. Recent reporting from the Associated Press and Washington Post indicates that US policy still prohibits Ukraine from striking Russian military targets that are not actively attacking or preparing to attack Ukraine.[6] Pentagon spokesperson Major Charlie Dietz told the Washington Post in a report published on June 21 that the US allows Ukraine to fire US-provided HIMARS equipped with GMLRS into Russia where Russian forces are attacking into Ukraine and that the rules of engagement for US-provided weapons in Russian territory are “not about geography or a certain radius."[7] US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan similarly stated on June 17 that “this is not about geography... If Russia is attacking or about to attack from its territory into Ukraine, it only makes sense to allow Ukraine to hit back against the forces that are hitting it from across the border.”[8] These statements indicate that the US will only allow Ukrainian forces to strike Russian military targets if Russian targets first demonstrate that they are engaged in active combat operations or preparations for imminent combat operations. US restrictions likely force Ukrainian leadership to carefully determine whether or not a given target meets the aforementioned requirements before authorizing tactical fire missions. US policy still perseveres the majority of Russian sanctuary space by prohibiting Ukrainian forces from launching ATACMS missiles at any military targets in Russia.[9] No major Russian military airbases are in range of GMLRS, but many are within range of ATACMS.

Russian forces are exploiting the sanctuary that US policy still protects to support Russian combat operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast and elsewhere in Ukraine. The Russian Northern Grouping of Forces is leveraging the sanctuary to protect Russian brigade command posts and other assets outside of the range of HIMARS equipped with GLMRS north of Kharkiv Oblast. The Associated Press quoted a Ukrainian artillery commander on June 22 who stated that Ukrainian forces could target Russian brigade command points and the entire Russian Northern Grouping of Forces if the US approved Ukraine's use of ATACMS to strike Russian territory but currently cannot because Russia has deployed such command and control elements in an area 100 to 150 kilometers away from the front line.[10] US policy still prohibits Ukraine from using ATACMS anywhere in Russia.[11]

Russian air defenses will reduce the effectiveness of Ukrainian F-16s if the US does not allow Ukrainian forces to use ATACMS to destroy Russian air defense systems in Russian territory. Ukrainian F-16 pilots will have to operate in a dangerous air space if US policy continues to provide a sanctuary in Russia that protects Russian forces from ATACMS. Russian air defenses will be able to cover up to 48 percent of Ukraine’s air space if Russia deploys S-400 air defense launchers within Russia outside of the range of HIMARS armed with GMLRS rockets. Such Russian air defense deployments would complicate Ukraine's ability to use manned fixed-wing airpower closer to frontline areas or against areas from which Russian aircraft, drone, and missile threats emanate. ISW continues to assess that Ukrainian forces may be able to combine fixed-wing airpower in support of ground operations if the Ukrainian military receives a sufficient number of fighter jets, if Western partners train enough skilled pilots, and if Ukraine succeeds in degrading Russian air defense capabilities.[12]

The partial removal of the sanctuary has already had a net positive effect, underscoring the powerful latent potential a larger policy change could achieve. The Washington Post reported that the Biden Administration’s policy change allowing Ukrainian forces to strike into limited parts of Russia in late May 2024 — despite being quite limited — has allowed Ukraine to strike “areas where [Russian] equipment is concentrated and locations from where missile strikes are launched [against Ukraine].” The Washington Post quoted a commander of a reconnaissance battalion of Ukraine’s 57th Brigade who stated that Russia has not conducted a single S-300 missile strike against Kharkiv (it is unclear whether the speaker meant Kharkiv City or Kharkiv Oblast) since the Biden Administration partially removed the sanctuary in late May 2024.[13] The Associated Press reported on June 22 that Ukrainian forces have struck Russian troops and air defense systems within 20 kilometers inside of Russian territory and quoted a Ukrainian artillery commander who stated that Ukrainian forces used HIMARS to destroy Russian columns along the international border that were awaiting orders to enter Ukraine.[14] Kharkiv City Mayor Ihor Terekhov told the Washington Post that the situation in Kharkiv City “massively changed” after the US partially removed restrictions.[15] The Washington Post report noted that Russian glide bomb strikes against Kharkiv Oblast have not decreased, highlighting the need to allow Ukraine to strike Russian air bases and to augment Ukraine’s air defense capabilities. The West maintains the ability to substantially disrupt Russian operations at scale by allowing Ukraine to use Western-provided weapons to strike Russia’s operational rear and deep rear areas in Russian territory.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-22-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 23, 2024 12:50 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The Royal United Services Institute points out that: The biggest obstacle to improving the effectiveness of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the lack of a clear and agreed-upon grand strategy for winning the war.

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/how-buil
d-ukraines-military-effectiveness-and-avoid-war-attrition

The Institute for the Study of War points to one specific example of the lack of grand strategy and who is causing the lack:

US policy continues to prohibit Ukrainian forces from striking legitimate military targets in Russian territory in range of Ukrainian HIMARS.


Ukraine struck Belgorod using HIMARS already.
Quote:
Ukraine Strikes Russian Air Defense Battery in Likely HIMARS Attack: ISW

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-russia-s300-s400-air-defense-system-h
imars-belgorod-1907782

And look! It's your favorite source! Contradicting itself!

Since the very first para is questionable, everything that follows was deleted.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Sunday, June 23, 2024 1:35 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I dug this thread up to try a summarize, at least for myself, the situation in Ukraine.


Biden Admin Moves Ukraine to Front of Line on Air Defense Missile Deliveries, Delays Deliveries Elsewhere
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2024/06/biden-admin-moves-ukraine-to-
front-of-line-on-air-defense-missile-deliveries-delays-deliveries-elsewhere/



US signals that it has expanded policy to allow Ukraine to counterstrike into Russia
The US appears to have expanded its agreement with Ukraine to strike over the border inside Russian territory wherever Russian forces are engaging in cross-border attacks into Ukraine, not just in the Kharkiv region as was previously determined.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/20/politics/us-policy-ukraine-counterstrik
e-russia/index.html

For later...

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Sunday, June 23, 2024 3:30 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I dug this thread up to try a summarize, at least for myself, the situation in Ukraine.
Russia Accuses the U.S. of Waging "Mental War"

By Henrik Rothen | Jun 23, 2024 12:19 PM CET

https://www.dagens.com/news/russia-accuses-the-u-s-of-waging-mental-wa
r

Patrushev accuses the U.S. of using institutions to wage a "mental war" on Russia.

Nikolai Patrushev, aide to the Russian president and a permanent member of the Security Council, has accused the United States of conducting a "mental war" against Russia through its institutions, research centers, and universities.

Patrushev's accusations were made in an article for "National Defense," where he claimed that American organizations are focused on conducting Russophobic research and falsifying history.

He argued that these institutions glorify individualism to eradicate Russians' sense of societal responsibility, patriotism, duty to their ancestors, and the future of their children.

He accused politically motivated historians worldwide of downplaying the Soviet Union's role in liberating their countries from fascism at Washington's behest.

Patrushev stated that this historical manipulation empowers the "Anglo-Saxons" and replaces traditional values with a consumerist mindset.

He criticized self-proclaimed truth-seekers for portraying heroism as irrational and detrimental to the health and well-being of the "free individual."

Tools of the "Mental War"

According to Patrushev, the "mental war" employs a wide range of tools from the information-propaganda arsenal, whose effectiveness is ensured through techniques of managed information-psychological impact.

He highlighted that Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland are also involved in this campaign, where historical falsification against Russia has become state policy. Western specialists, he claimed, do not need to study facts to fulfill the "anti-Russian order of the U.S. State Department."

In response, Patrushev called for the rapid implementation of patriotic education foundations and principles of spiritual and moral development in the education system, youth, and national policy. He also urged an increase in cultural and educational activities in the historical sphere.

Federal agencies, according to Patrushev, must continue systematic work to enhance Russia's humanitarian presence worldwide, counteract Russophobia, and preserve the memory of Russia's role in world history abroad.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 23, 2024 3:30 PM

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The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I dug this thread up to try a summarize, at least for myself, the situation in Ukraine.
Kiev regime suppresses family ties of Ukrainians, sending them to slaughter

Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev noted that "the long-suffering population of Ukraine is overwhelmingly Russian."

22 Jun, 01:24

https://tass.com/politics/1806799

MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. The population of Ukraine is overwhelmingly Russian, but the Kiev regime, at the behest of the West, is trying to suppress these family ties by sending people to slaughter, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.

He noted that "the long-suffering population of Ukraine is overwhelmingly Russian." "But the puppet Kiev regime, at the behest of its Western masters, is suppressing family ties, forcing people who speak and think in Russian, who were brought up on Russian history and literature, as well as Russian traditions, to go to the slaughter," Patrushev said.

He believes that the neo-Nazi authorities in Kiev "particularly distinguished themselves in perverting history." "The criminal organization Ukrainian Insurgent Army (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia - TASS) is called the ‘anti-fascist resistance movement" in school textbooks, while the Soviet system and German National Socialism are being equated," Patrushev said.

Western ‘horror stories’ about Russia invented to maintain power at any cost

The West invents "horror stories" about Russia to keep certain circles in power at all costs, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev believes.

"By promoting lies about Russia for centuries, European and then American elites cultivated hatred of our fatherland at the subconscious level, as well as genetic rejection of a civilization based on the equality of people, family values, respect for society and country," Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.

He stressed false interpretation of history is already being enshrined in European legislation. "False interpretations and assessments of certain historical events are being enshrined at the political level, including in legal acts," Patrushev noted, citing European Union and Ukrainian documents as examples.

He also noted that the Russian authorities must act proactively, taking into account the historical experience of the country, destroying at the root terrorism and extremism, therefore, the history of the state should not be forgotten.

"Awareness of the causes of the tragedies experienced by our country obliges society, authorities, law enforcement, and security agencies to be proactive. We all need to effectively fight the beginnings of terrorism and extremism in their early stages and fight the instigators of mass unrest," he said.

One has need to remember history to stop extremism and terrorism

The Russian authorities must act proactively, taking into account the historical experience of the country, destroying at the root terrorism and extremism, therefore, the history of the state should not be forgotten, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.

"Awareness of the causes of the tragedies experienced by our country obliges society, authorities, law enforcement, and security agencies to be proactive. We all need to effectively fight the beginnings of terrorism and extremism in their early stages and fight the instigators of mass unrest," he said.

US research centers study mental warfare against Russia

Prominent US research centers, including universities, are studying ways to wage mental warfare against Russia, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.

"Well-known institutes, research centers and universities in the United States are focused on conducting Russophobic research in order to wage a mental war with Russia. By elevating the concept of individualism, they impose approaches that, according to their plan, should eradicate a sense of responsibility to society, love for the Fatherland, duty to the memory of their ancestors and the future of their children in our people," he said.

Patrushev added that "corrupt pro-Western figures" from the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine, where falsification of history has become state policy, are also actively participating in this campaign.

Denazification of Europe is not over, Nazism being used against Russia

The US and the UK are reviving Nazi ideology in Europe under the guise of slogans about "freedom and democracy" in order to turn it against Russia, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.

"At the instigation of the United States and the United Kingdom, Nazism has been revived and is once again being used against our country. The people of Russia are once again liberating the long-suffering people of Ukraine from Western occupation," he said.

Falsified history in European laws aimed to shape people's thinking

A false interpretation of history is already being enshrined in European legislation, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.

"False interpretations and assessments of certain historical events are being enshrined at the political level, including in legal acts," Patrushev noted, citing European Union and Ukrainian documents as examples.

He also noted that the Russian authorities must act proactively, taking into account the historical experience of the country, destroying at the root terrorism and extremism, therefore, the history of the state should not be forgotten.

"Awareness of the causes of the tragedies experienced by our country obliges society, authorities, law enforcement, and security agencies to be proactive. We all need to effectively fight the beginnings of terrorism and extremism in their early stages and fight the instigators of mass unrest," he said.

Responsibility for rehabilitation of Nazism will only increase

Increasing responsibility for calls to rehabilitate and glorify Nazism and its accomplices will continue, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.

"Undoubtedly, the policy of increasing responsibility for calls for the rehabilitation of Nazism, the glorification of Nazi criminals and their accomplices will be continued," he said.

Patrushev noted that the unseemly role of not only those who fought on the side of the Third Reich, but also those who supported it financially, politically, and ideologically, must be made public.

Russian agencies instructed to counteract Russophobia

Russian federal agencies have received direct instructions to continue systematic work to counter Russophobia and combat the cancellation of Russian culture, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.

"Federal agencies have received direct instructions to continue systematic work to increase Russia's humanitarian presence in the world, countering Russophobia and the cancellation of Russian culture, as well as preserving historical truth and the memory of Russia's role in world history abroad," he said.

According to him, the state policy in this area includes the implementation of a series of measures.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Sunday, June 23, 2024 5:47 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Russia says U.S. is responsible for deadly Ukrainian attack on Crimea
Responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on the civilians of Sevastopol is borne above all by Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, and by the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this strike was carried out," the ministry said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-says-us-is-responsible-for
-deadly-ukrainian-attack-on-crimea/ar-BB1oJMOO

Using ATACMS, programmed by USA techs, and armed with cluster warheads.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Sunday, June 23, 2024 6:09 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Illogic openly on display in Russia

By Alexander J. Motyl, opinion contributor - 06/22/24 3:00 PM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4733405-putins-fascism-is-on
-blatant-display-in-russia/

While addressing the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Russian Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko warned that gay and transgender individuals are “easily drawn into extremist activity” and are prone to becoming “carriers of gender extremism and gay nationalism.” Sviridenko didn’t specify just what sort of extremist activity this might be, probably because the charge is so absurd.

The most absurd part is his reference to “gay nationalism.” Nationalism may be interpreted in many ways, but whatever it is, it has something to do with nations. One may speak of Russian nationalism or Greek nationalism, but gay nationalism makes as much sense as blond nationalism or tall nationalism.

But that doesn’t matter, since illogic is the point. In Sviridenko’s parallel universe, everyone he detests must be a nationalist, and that includes gays. That way, they can be conveniently lumped together with Ukrainians, who are “neo-Nazi” nationalists by definition, and both can then be calmly exterminated as dangerous.

Speaking of extermination, consider the inimitable Vladimir Solovyov, a Russian television personality and Putinite Russia’s answer to Germany’s Joseph Goebbels. Here’s one of his recent genocidal pronouncements: “All the Nazi dirt bags must be eradicated. Do you understand why? [Ukraine] must be cleansed! Have you ever tried getting rid of bed bugs?”

Expecting Putin to negotiate with “bed bugs,” as some naive Western analysts still do, is about as realistic as expecting Adolf Hitler to negotiate with Untermenschen.

As students of genocide know, one of the key steps associated with it is the discursive transformation of the target population into subhumans, non-humans, vermin and the like. Jews, Roma and Slavs were Untermenschen in Goebbels’s twisted world; in Solovyov’s, Ukrainians are bed bugs. Consider Solovyov’s ravings in light of Sviridenko’s, and you can’t avoid concluding that gays are no less bed bugs than Ukrainians.

Austria’s former foreign minister, Karin Kneissl of the far-right Freedom Party, decamped to Russia last year. She is so enamored of Putin’s realm that she has said, “I like living in Russia…because there is freedom here. And freedom means living in safety. And in St. Petersburg or Moscow or Khabarovsk it is possible to walk in the park at night…This was possible in Austria 30 years ago. Now it’s impossible.”

Kneissl presumably fears all the violent gays, evil Ukrainians and disgusting bed bugs lurking in such dangerous places as Vienna, a city consistently rated as the most livable in the world. (Lest you think Kneissl is the only Westerner to take on this weird pro-Putin value system, consider that Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs has gone so far as to grace Solovyov’s rabid airwaves.)

In light of Russia having gone off the rails of rationality, it is almost heartening to read that Putin’s great friend and ally, the inimitable Kim Jong Un of North Korea, has launched balloons filled with manure and garbage over South Korea. It’s not clear what Pyongyang hopes to achieve with this symbolic gesture, but it’s surely preferable to missile tests and saber rattling.

Since Putin, Solovyov, Sviridenko and Kneissl are (to put it kindly) full of it, North Korea might want to consider using them in its next balloon stunt.

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 24, 2024 7:04 AM

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The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Recent drone footage showing a Russian soldier executing a wounded fellow service member exemplifies the brutal culture that is pervasive within the Russian Armed Forces.[31] The footage shows one Russian soldier wounded by a first-person view (FPV) drone strike, and the other soldier executing the wounded soldier at point-blank range instead of attempting to check the soldier’s injury, attempting treatment, taking his identification tags, or attempting a casualty evacuation. The attempted or deliberate killing of a fellow soldier is unprofessional, and ISW has observed instances of Russian fragging (the deliberate killing of supervisors) and other anecdotes demonstrative of a callous disregard for the lives of Russia’s own soldiers throughout the war thus far, both within Russia and amongst Russian troops on the battlefield.[32] Fragging is generally indicative of extremely poor discipline among troops, a disconnect between tactical-level commanders and their subordinates, as well as a blatant disregard for human life. A Russian milblogger similarly reported on June 22 that commanders of various Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) units are severely mistreating their wounded subordinates and alleged that the 1st DNR Slavic Brigade (1st DNR Army Corps) is holding its own wounded personnel in prison-like conditions in Donetsk City, instead of providing them with the treatment that they require.[33] Both the fragging incident and the milblogger claims against the DNR command are indicative of a very poor culture within the Russian military, particularly the command's disregard for their subordinates and a generally low level of discipline.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-23-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 24, 2024 7:24 AM

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The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Russian Military Reforms

By Kirill Shamiev | 15 May 2024

https://ecfr.eu/publication/brass-tacks-why-russias-military-fails-to-
reform/

“On a freezing winter dawn, a column of Russian troops moved through what the leadership in Moscow considered to be Russian territory. By midday, commanders were receiving alarming reports. In one town at the border, local fighters had stopped the column and burned and overturned 16 trucks. Later, another convoy was ambushed. Heavy casualties began to appear in the reports of military commanders. Soon, a special military operation that was supposed to be small and aimed at crushing an unfriendly political leadership turned into a long, bloody war with thousands of casualties that would change the Russian nation for years to come.”[1]

This story sounds remarkably familiar. But it is not from an early memoir of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is how Russian general Gennady Troshev described the beginning of the first Chechen war in December 1994.

But past is apparently prologue. In 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine, a country that Russian president Vladimir Putin often implies is part of Russia. The plan was for the Russian military, supported by Russian intelligence agents, to quickly decapitate the government and occupy the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Within hours of crossing the frontier, the first reports of military setbacks and casualties began to roll in. In just a few days, it became clear that the most recent special military operation would in fact be yet another long, bloody war.

Nearly thirty years have passed, and yet the Russian government seems to have repeated the same old mistakes in its most recent war. Prior to the war, many analysts thought that the Russian military had finally reformed itself and put its past failures behind it. Yet, the Russian military significantly underperformed in Ukraine in almost every domain – strategic, operational, and tactical. It failed to achieve its objectives and demonstrated remarkably little progress in planning since the Chechen wars. The extent of its struggles and failures took many analysts, including some Ukrainians, by surprise.

The Russian leadership was no doubt somewhat perplexed as well. In 2000, Putin’s long reign began with military tragedy. Just three months after his taking office as president, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk exploded and sank in the Barents Sea, killing the crew of 118 sailors. The outcry was so massive that Putin himself had to take part in a clearly uncomfortable conversation with the families of the dead sailors. He promised the grieving relatives a smaller, better-equipped, more technologically advanced military. He has since devoted great effort throughout his tenure to improving the Russian military.

The effects of this effort are clear. From the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2021, the Russian defence budget almost tripled, from $22.84 billion to $65.91 billion (in 2020 US dollars). In those 22 years, Russia spent over $1.1 trillion on the military, had three full-term ministers of defence and four chiefs of the general staff who oversaw three military reforms, a short war with Georgia, an intervention in Syria, and several smaller deployments in former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet republics. Yet, when that military was finally tested in a full-scale conflict, almost nothing appeared to have changed.

Both Russian government and external military analysts have struggled to understand this persistent Russian military failure. Arguably, the issue is that analysts have paid too much attention to measurable factors – weapons, technology, doctrine, and training – and have neglected the more intangible factors such as morale, skills and leadership, which defy easy measurement.

This paper seeks to fill that gap.

More at https://ecfr.eu/publication/brass-tacks-why-russias-military-fails-to-
reform/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 24, 2024 9:14 AM

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The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Preface: The Riddle of War

This is an ambitious book. It sets out to find the answers to the most fundamental questions relating to the ‘riddle of war’. Why do people engage in the deadly and destructive activity of fighting? Is it rooted in human nature or is it a late cultural invention? Have people always engaged in fighting or did they start to do so only with the advent of agriculture, the state, and civilization? How were these, and later, major developments in human history affected by war and, in turn, how did they affect war? Under what conditions, if at all, can war be eliminated, and is it declining at present?

These questions are not new and have seemingly resisted conclusive answers to the point that both questions and answers appear almost as clichés. In reality, however, they have very rarely been subjected to rigorous comprehensive investigation and, indeed, have largely been regarded as being too ‘big’ for serious scholarly treatment. With war being connected to everything else and everything else being connected to war, explaining war and tracing its development in relation to human development in general almost amount to a theory and history of everything. As so much is relevant to the subject, one is required to read pretty much ‘everything’ and become sufficiently expert in many fields. These are the prerequisites that it has been necessary to meet to produce this book.

Download the free book from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=War+in+Human+Civilization

War in Human Civilization

Author(s): Azar Gat

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, Year: 2006

ISBN: 9780199262137,0199262136

http://library.lol/main/C12834E9577A7150FD5ED4FF1FF49147

Description:
Overall this was a fascinating book to read. It will take you some time to get through it. As more than one reviewer has pointed out, this is not a small text. Then again, when covering such a large and diverse field as 'war in human civilization' this book seems like just the beginning. The positive aspects of this book are that reading it will give you a good sense of where warfare fits into history. The debate between Hobbes and Rousseau regarding where warfare fits in human history was well developed and the author makes it known where his stance lies. Starting from Neanderthals up to the present day the reader is taken through each time period and war is put into an understandable context with other variables like politics, economics, ideology, nationalism, etc. taking their place as contributing or detracting forces. Seeing how warfare has evolved throughout the ages and how the reasoning behind it has either changed or fluidly adapted to the new environment human beings found themselves in will give readers a new perspective and understanding of how history has been shaped. The one problem I encountered a few times when dealing with a part of history that I try to keep up-to-date on and specialize in, early twentieth-century history, is that when it comes to some of the details the author can be wrong or reductionist at times. You cannot hold it against him as he is not only covering the history of the world, to some extent, within his book but also a variety of subjects outside of history (ethnography, anthropology, etc). That is the main reason why I give this work 4 stars. It is highly commendable to undertake such a diverse topic with multiple scholarly inputs, but you will undoubtedly encounter problems when it comes to details as you can only spend so much time on each subject/fact and, even worse, you have limited time to do the research. Nonetheless, this is an excellent text which I'll come back to time and time again.


War in Human Civilization
Azar Gat
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/war-in-human-civilization-9780
199236633?cc=us&lang=en&;#

Table of Contents

Part 1: Warfare in the First Two Million Years: Environment, Genes, and Culture
1:Introduction: The Human 'State of Nature'
2:Peaceful or War-like: Did Hunter-Gatherers Fight?
3:Why Fighting? The Evolutionary Perspective
4:Motivation: Food and Sex
5:Motivation: the Web of Desire
6:'Primitive Warfare': How Was It Done?
7:Conclusion: Fighting in the Evolutionary State of Nature

Part 2: Agriculture, Civilization, and War
8:Introduction: Evolving Cultural Complexity
9:Tribal Warfare in Agraria and Pastoralia
10:Armed Force in the Emergence of the State
11:The Eurasian Spearhead: East, West, and the Steppe
12:Conclusion: War, the Leviathan, and the Pleasures and Miseries of Civilization

Part 3: Modernity: the Dual Face of Janus
13:Introduction: the Explosion of Wealth and Power
14:Guns and Markets: the New European States and a Global World
15:Unbound and Bound Prometheus: Machine Age War
16:Affluent Liberal Democracies, Ultimate Weapons, and the World
17:Conclusion: Unravelling the Riddle of War

Endnotes
Index

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 24, 2024 9:25 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Nobody cares.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Monday, June 24, 2024 1:16 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Russia says U.S. is responsible for deadly Ukrainian attack on Crimea
Responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on the civilians of Sevastopol is borne above all by Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, and by the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this strike was carried out," the ministry said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-says-us-is-responsible-for
-deadly-ukrainian-attack-on-crimea/ar-BB1oJMOO

Civilians in Crimea killed using ATACMS, programmed by USA techs, and armed with cluster warheads.


To continue the story

Quote:
Civilians killed on Sevastopol beach were ‘occupiers’ – top Zelensky aide
There cannot be any “peaceful life” in Crimea, Mikhail Podoliak has warned

The four Russian civilians killed by a Ukrainian cluster munitions attack on a Crimean beach were “occupiers,” as are the residents of the region at large, and as such their deaths are justifiable, Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide, Mikhail Podoliak, declared on Monday.
...
“There are not and cannot be any ‘beaches’, ‘tourist zones’ and other fictitious signs of ‘peaceful life’ in Crimea,” he wrote. “Crimea is definitely a foreign territory occupied by Russia, where hostilities are taking place, a full-scale war is ongoing.”

“Crimea is also a large military camp and warehouse, with hundreds of direct military targets, which the Russians cynically try to mask and cover with their own civilians,” he continued, adding that these civilians are considered “occupiers” by Kiev.

https://www.rt.com/russia/599887-podoliak-crimea-beach-civilians/

He's going to be hung by his own words, like Netanyahu.

Since this missile was knocked off course and detonated over the wrong area, he should have said "oops".

What I find interesting about this is that Russia is making Big Deal about USA being responsible. That means they're prepared to take on the USA directly.

There is considerable pressure in Moscow, I have heard (The Duran), to start blowing American drones out of the Black Sea sky.


-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Monday, June 24, 2024 6:51 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meanwhile ...

Quote:
Putin Names Two Conditions For Ending The War 'This Very Minute'
Friday, Jun 14, 2024 - 08:55 AM

Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Friday speech addressed the West's efforts to host a major Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland this weekend. Though scores of world leaders will be there, Russia has not been invited, and China [India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and other invited attendees] has [have] snubbed the event citing that it's pointless without Moscow's representation given it is a party to one side of the war.

Putin outlined his "conditions" for peace. He said for the military operation to be halted Ukrainian forces would have to withdraw from the four regions annexed by the Russian Federation. "Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions," Putin said in a televised address.

Russia held referendums in late September 2022 for these war-torn oblasts, and the overwhelming majority of voters were in favor of being absorbed into Russia, which Kiev and the West called a "sham" election.

Putin also stipulated a second main condition for ending the war: Ukraine must reject ambitions to join the NATO alliance.

"As soon as Kyiv says it is ready to do this and begins really withdrawing troops and officially renounces plans to join NATO, we will immediately — literally that very minute — cease-fire and begin talks," Putin said in the talk given to a gathering of diplomats.

Interestingly, Putin showed signs he could be willing to compromise when it comes to territory, which is a bit of the first and hopeful sign that he's serious about finding ways to wind down the war. According to AFP:

The Russian leader said he did not "rule out maintaining Ukrainian sovereignty" over the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions "on the condition that Russia has a strong land link with Crimea."

But despite what appears to be very serious possible overtures, the Zelensky government has long maintained that it will not countenance negotiations or peace settlement until there is a full withdrawal of Russian armed forces from Ukrainian territory as existed pre-February 2022.

The weekend Swiss peace summit is expected to focus on gaining full international backing for Zelensky's 10-point peace formula, however international press has acknowledged this as still "a largely symbolic effort".

The sixth point of Kiev's plan reads as follows: it calls on Russia "To cease the hostilities, Russia must withdraw all its troops and armed formations from the territory of Ukraine, plain and simple. Ukraine’s full control over its state border, recognized internationally, needs to be restored."

Putin also took opportunity Friday to reiterate that Zelensky is 'illegitimate' and is serving as a mere puppet of the West:

For Moscow this of course remains a non-starter, and Putin has frequently emphasize that it will never give up the newly acquired four eastern territories, which have long been Russian-speaking areas, both historically and currently.





OH well...

T



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Monday, June 24, 2024 7:53 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


When I hear nonsense like ..."destroyed 30 refineries" I know he's fullacrap.

Son, have you ever been to a refinery?? I've been to several.

They are HUGE. And built to withstand heat and pressure.

A drone is a fart compared to a refinery.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Monday, June 24, 2024 8:19 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Ukraine war latest: Russia increases use of chemical weapons on battlefield, Kyiv says

June 24, 2024 11:54 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-15/

Ukraine recorded 715 cases of Russian chemical weapons use on the battlefield in May, 271 more than in the previous month, the Ukrainian military's Support Forces said on June 24.

In a post on Facebook, the Support Forces said most cases were of CS gas, also referred to as tear gas and typically used as a crowd-control agent by law enforcement agencies around the world.

Although less lethal than other chemical weapons, it was used extensively in World War I before the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons in war.

The Support Forces said that, from Feb. 15, 2023 to May 24, 2024, a total of 2,698 cases had been recorded which had led to 1,385 incidents of Ukrainian soldiers needing medical attention.

Ukrainian military officials have previously accused Russia of using chloropicrin and other chemical weapons.

Chloropicrin is often used as an herbicide. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), exposure to its vapors can cause severe irritation to the skin, eyes, and, if inhaled, internal organs.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on May 7 that accusations from both Ukraine and Russia that the other has used chemical weapons during the full-scale invasion remain "insufficiently substantiated."

"Both the Russian Federation and Ukraine have accused one another and reported allegations of use of chemical weapons to the organization," the OPCW said in a statement.

"The information provided to the organization so far by both sides, together with the information available to the secretariat, is insufficiently substantiated."

The OPCW said the situation "remains volatile and extremely concerning" and reiterated that it was against international law to use "riot control agents at war on the battlefield."

The organization also noted it had not received official requests to investigate the use of chemical weapons from either Ukraine or Russia.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, June 24, 2024 8:51 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Yeah, our MSM is taking the dodge of saying "according to Kiev" so they can get it in a headline and manage to disavow responsibility for publishing it.


-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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Monday, June 24, 2024 9:03 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah, our MSM is taking the dodge of saying "according to Kiev" so they can get it in a headline and manage to disavow responsibility for publishing it.


-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.



According to our anonymous sources who wish to remain anonymous for anonymity purposes.

Why don't they just go back to making up fake names like they used to. Nobody believes anything that they write anyhow, and being completely incapable of ever getting anybody to go on the record saying anything anymore certainly isn't helping with that.

--------------------------------------------------

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.

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Tuesday, June 25, 2024 7:44 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov stated that a sufficient quantity of US-provided long-range ATACMS missiles could allow Ukrainian forces to strike the Russian-built Kerch Strait Bridge in occupied Crimea and sever an important Russian ground line of communication (GLOC) between occupied Crimea and Russia.[4] Budanov stated that Ukraine could isolate occupied Crimea, which the Russian military uses as a rear staging area, by conducting long-range ATACMS missile strikes against the Kerch Strait Bridge. The Russian military continues to use Crimea's GLOCs to transport military personnel, weapons, materiel, and fuel from Russia to the frontlines in Ukraine and reinforced its air defense umbrella to cover occupied southern Ukraine from Crimea.[5] Ukrainian officials have recently stated that Russian forces have reduced their military logistics transport across the Kerch Strait Bridge, presumably due to efforts to establish logistics lines connecting mainland Russia and occupied Crimea through occupied southern Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts, but the Kerch Strait Bridge likely remains essential to maintaining Russia's occupation of Crimea.[6] Ukrainian long-range strikes against the Kerch Strait Bridge would sever an important GLOC for Russian forces based in occupied Crimea and likely complicate their ability to maintain their occupation of and basing within the peninsula. The destruction of the bridge would force Russian military to rely on the long route along northern coast of the Sea of Azov and exacerbate vulnerabilities for Ukrainian forces to exploit along the Russian main GLOC.

Current US policy regarding Ukraine's use of Western-provided weapons allows Ukraine to strike anywhere within Russian-occupied Ukraine, which presumably includes using long-range ATACMS to strike the portion of the Kerch Strait Bridge within Ukraine's internationally recognized land and maritime borders.[7] ISW assesses that 13 kilometers of the Kerch Strait Bridge — which Russian authorities built without Ukraine's approval following Russia's illegal occupation of the peninsula in 2014 — are within Ukraine's internationally recognized territorial waters. The US policy on the Ukrainian ATACMS use, therefore, technically should allow Ukrainian forces to strike at least a section of the bridge if not the entire bridge. Pentagon Spokesperson Major Charlie Dietz also notably stated on June 24 that “Ukraine makes its own targeting decisions and conducts its own military operations."[8] Then–US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert stated on May 15, 2018, that the US condemns Russia's construction and partial opening of the Kerch Strait Bridge, that the bridge "serves as a reminder of Russia’s ongoing willingness to flout international law," and represents Russia's attempt to "solidify its unlawful seizure and its occupation of Crimea."[9]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-24-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, June 25, 2024 8:24 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


The American historian and expert on Russia has written a definitive study of the flamboyant life and mysterious death of the oligarch, a confidant of Yeltsin and a man to whom Putin was once indebted

Mon 24 Jun 2024 02.00 EDT

In the week before his mysterious death, the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky made plans. He booked a trip to Israel. There, he intended to combine business meetings with a holiday. His 23-year-old girlfriend – one of a string of younger lovers – would join him at the beach resort of Eilat. Berezovsky spoke to friends, met the headteacher of his daughter Arina’s boarding school and enjoyed a meal of veal chops and pasta.

All of which made Berezovsky’s end – on 23 March 2013 at his ex-wife’s mansion outside London – deeply puzzling. His Israeli bodyguard found him mid-afternoon lying dead on the floor of the bathroom. Berezovsky’s cashmere scarf was tied around his neck. Surrey police concluded he hanged himself. After all, the bathroom door was locked from inside. A coroner gave an open verdict. Family members and allies were certain he was murdered.

In her definitive study of Berezovsky’s life and flamboyant times, The Kremlin’s Noose, Amy Knight leans towards the second version of events. His actions in the days leading up to his death, she writes, “do not suggest that he was a man about to take his own life”. The main suspect behind this tantalising possible crime was easy to identify. It was a person Berezovsky had, 14 years earlier, fatefully helped to become Russia’s president: one Vladimir Putin.

By telling the story of Putin and Berezovsky – a sort of modern reincarnation of Stalin and Trotsky – Knight shines a penetrating light on post-communist Russia.

It’s a fascinating insight into 1990s Russia, where personal bonds counted for everything, and not much was written down.

More at https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jun/24/the-kremlins-noo
se-vladimir-putin-bitter-feud-with-oligarch-by-amy-knight-review-vital-primer-on-putins-russia-and-boris-berezovskys-death

Download all Amy Knight’s books on Russia for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?&req=Amy+Knight

Knight – a Soviet and Russian affairs specialist – has written an invaluable primer on Moscow’s transformation from semi-democracy under Yeltsin into today’s “closed fortress”. Berezovsky would not have been surprised by Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Or by Russia’s ongoing struggle with the west.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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