REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Saturday, November 23, 2024 10:01
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 153128
PAGE 140 of 150

Wednesday, August 7, 2024 5:37 AM

SECOND

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


Pro-Ukrainian Russian Troops In U.S.-Made Stryker Vehicles Just Launched A Pointless Invasion Of Russia. Meanwhile, Ukrainian Defenses Crumble For A Want Of Manpower.

Who authorized the Liberty of Russia Legion’s wasteful cross-border attack?

By David Axe | Aug 6, 2024, 05:11pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/08/06/pro-ukrainian-russian
-troops-in-us-made-stryker-vehicles-just-launched-a-pointless-invasion-of-russia-meanwhile-ukrainian-defenses-crumble-for-a-want-of-manpower/

Five months after launching a short-lived raid across Ukraine’s northern border with Russia into the Russian border town of Tetkino, the Liberty of Russia Legion—Russians who fight for Ukraine—is at it again.

On Tuesday, legionnaires in American-made Stryker armored vehicles raced across the border into the town of Sudzha, 35 miles east of Tetkino. The pro-Ukrainian Russians swiftly knocked out a couple of T-62 tanks, took a few prisoners and shot down a Russian air force Kamov Ka-52 attack helicopter, reportedly killing its crew.

It’s all very dramatic—and also a shameful waste of precious military resources. At the same time as the Liberty of Russia Legion was mucking around in Sudzha, a town with practically no military value, over-stretched Ukrainian brigades were retreating from Niu-York, a former Ukrainian stronghold just west of Horlivka in eastern Ukraine.

In Niu-York, “the enemy is applying pressure with a large infantry force, backed by aviation and artillery fire,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported. “The dense urban environment, where enemy infantry are hiding, is an advantage the enemy is exploiting.”

Yes, the terrain is favorable to the Russian attackers. Still, the defenders of Niu-York—led by the Ukrainian army’s 41st and 53rd Mechanized Brigades—surely would benefit from hundreds of reinforcements from, say, the same Liberty of Russia Legion that’s currently wasting its troops and ammunition collecting a few Russian prisoners in a border town no one expects Ukrainian forces to hold over the long term.

The Russian air force is already bombarding the Liberty of Russia Legion with Sukhoi Su-25 attack jets. Russian artillery destroyed a pair of Ukrainian Buk air-defense vehicles apparently supporting the cross-border action. Russian reserves are reportedly mobilizing.

It’s a familiar pattern. Pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters have launched many border raids throughout Russia’s 29-month wider war on Ukraine. None of these raids have resulted in Ukraine holding any new ground.

The Liberty of Russia Legion is almost certain to withdraw from Sudzha within days if not hours. Its cross-border raid will quickly become a tiny footnote in the much bigger story of the Russia-Ukraine war. Now imagine if the legion had helped the 41st and 53rd Mechanized Brigades hold Niu-York, instead.

It’s unclear who authorized the Sudzha raid and what their goals were. The Liberty of Russia Legion answers to the Ukrainian intelligence directorate in Kyiv but may have a lot of leeway to plan its own operations. It’s possible the legionnaires’ aims are mostly political rather than practical. That is, they’re trying to score propaganda points by “invading” Russia.

But it’s clear whoever green-lit the raid failed to appreciate Ukraine’s most urgent problem: a shortage of well-trained infantry—the unavoidable consequence of Ukraine’s failure to pass a mobilization law at the same time Russia undertook its own massive mobilization, last year.

Ukrainian lawmakers dithered for months, finally passing the mobilization law in April. “The enactment of Ukraine's mobilization law was significantly delayed, and the mobilization of men has been insufficient,” wrote Joni Askola, a Finnish analyst.

“Ukraine could have strengthened its position on the front lines earlier, reducing territorial losses by mobilizing more troops, an undeniable reality,” Askola added. “Additionally, there are infantry shortages in many units, and Ukraine lacks units at the front and in reserve.”

In that context, it’s unforgivable for any Ukrainian or pro-Ukrainian commander to waste lives on a raid that, at best, has only fleeting propaganda value. Those hundreds of legionnaires should be defending in the east instead of adventuring in the north.

Sources:

1. Center for Defense Strategies: https://cdsdailybrief.substack.com/p/russias-war-on-ukraine-060824

2. War Vehicle Tracker: https://x.com/WarVehicle/status/1820826286614331464

3. Joni Askola: https://x.com/joni_askola/status/1819298751573643624

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 6:34 AM

SECOND

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


Head of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), Danielle Bell, stated that Russia has tortured 95 percent of Ukrainian prisoners-of-war (POWs) in Russian detention. Bell stated in an interview with Dutch TV channel NOS that Russian authorities torture Ukrainian POWs starting at their first interrogations and characterized the Russian practice of torturing Ukrainian POWs as "widespread and systematic."[32] Bell emphasized that the torture of Ukrainian POWs constitutes a war crime. The torture of a POW is a violation of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.[33] The deputy commander of a Ukrainian brigade reported on August 7 that Russian authorities tortured and "brutally" killed a Ukrainian POW who served in his brigade in a pre-trial detention center in Rostov Oblast.[34] Bell's statements and previous HRMMU reports on Russian violations of Ukrainian POWs' rights are consistent with ISW's longstanding assessments about Russia's systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in occupied Ukraine and toward Ukrainian POWs.[35]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-august-7-2024

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 6:41 AM

SECOND

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


Putin’s Extreme Demands for Ceasefire Talks with Ukraine



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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 10:35 AM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

PS: Ukraine is running out of manpower, and the west is running out of munitions. Yiu can throw all the money you want at this, but even NATO troops without munitions are useless. Given that manpower and munitions are lacking, morale suffers and "mandate" is meaningless. NATO is unwilling to get into a direct war with Russia bc the militaries recognize a losing situation, so ...



First, Europe will not allow Putin to get what he wants because it means disaster for them.

Second, you recently posted about Russia advancing, yet nothing about Ukrainian Russians flooding into Russia.

Care to elaborate on that?

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 12:32 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Europe already let the Muslims invade with open arms.

There is nothing even potentially scary about Russia compared to what they've already done to themselves.


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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 1:34 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
First, Europe will not allow Putin to get what he wants because it means disaster for them.
Huh?
Putin wants a secure, non NATO border and no unfriendly nuclear- capable missiles within a short flight time stationed near Russia. Given that nuclear-capable missiles close to Russia's border are a invitation for an accidental barrage of nuclear missiles launched at Europe, I would think that Europe would want the same thing.
I don't know what you, and "they" are smoking ... probably extreme propaganda ... but you should stop.

The EU, BTW, has created its own disaster. Not only by encouraging a flood of immigrants and going full degenerate [woke], but also allowing Nordstream to be blown up, sanctioning Russian oil, and pursuing an extreme net zero (carbon) policy.

They are destroying their own industry and agriculture.

Good luck with that!

Quote:
Second, you recently posted about Russia advancing, yet nothing about Ukrainian Russians flooding into Russia.
Why should I post about that? A couple milllion Ukrainians have fled into Russia. More have fled into Europe. About 800,000 men are hiding in Ukraine from Kiev "recruiters" bc they don't want to be kidnapped and sent to the front.

*****

You heard it here first second:

Ukrainian troops have invaded Russia from Sumy and taken a half-dozen villages or so. I don't know the purpose of this invasion; some say they're aiming at one of Russia's nuclear power plants. Others say it's a pinning operation to keep Russia troops occupied for a Ukrainian offensive elsewhere. Others say its for sheer narrative purposes.

Whatever the goal, it is (was?) a classical combined- arms operation, starting with drones, spec ops leading the way, followed by armored vehicles (Strykers, tanks, engineering equipment) and infantry. Quite successful so far.

I thought that in the days of universal ISR concentrating that number of forces for a surprise attack was "impossible". There is a forest on the Ukrainian side of the border, perhaps that is where forces were concentrated.

But still. SOMEBODY was asleep at the switch on the Russian side. I imagine that somebody's head will be handed to them on a platter.

-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 3:57 PM

SECOND

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


Putin's 'War of Choice' in Ukraine Could Mean Russia's 'Outright Ruin'

By Ilan Berman | August 6, 2024

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/putins-war-choice-ukraine-could
-mean-russias-outright-ruin-212208

Since the start of its war on Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has experienced a massive population exodus. Ideological objectors, political opponents, and those simply seeking to avoid conscription have sought the shelter of other nations. Accurate data about this cohort, however, is in short supply, complicated both by Kremlin propaganda and by the fact that some of these exiles have since made their way back to Russia.

A new study by The Bell, a leading Russian opposition news outlet, suggests the ranks of those who fled Russia and still remain abroad is significantly larger than commonly understood.

“The wave of people leaving Russia since February 2022 is the most significant exodus from the country in three decades,” the study notes. That’s something of an understatement. According to recent estimates, more than 800,000 left Russia since the start of the war, marking the largest out-migration since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. And while a small percentage has since returned to Russia, the overwhelming majority remain abroad. “At least 650,000 people who left Russia after it invaded Ukraine are still abroad,” according to The Bell.

In absolute terms, that figure represents less than 1% of Russia’s total population of over 146 million. But its impact is outsized on a number of levels.

One is economic. Specifically, the study notes, “those who left Russia can be characterized as highly politicized, well-educated and in a better financial situation than the average Russian. They are typically young (aged 20-40) and 80% have university-level education.” Because of this comparatively high level of achievement, “[t]hey are more likely to run their own businesses or work in white-collar roles such as IT, data analysis, sciences or the creative sector.”

Their departure has exacerbated an already serious problem. Even before Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, political scientists were warning that the deepening authoritarianism of President Vladimir Putin’s government was driving out the country’s creative class. Indeed, in the years preceding Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine, Russia was seeing an average annual outflow of roughly 100,000 people. Since the start of the current war, the situation has become much, much worse.

That’s because “the hundreds of thousands of those who left are among Russia’s most active and enterprising,” The Bell study notes. As such, their departure “will make it harder for innovation to trickle through the economy and for productivity to increase, potentially hampering Russia’s economic potential for years to come.” The results will be measured in Russia’s declining global competitiveness and economic vibrancy.

Another reason the current exodus is so damaging has to do with demographics. For more than half a century, Russia has been locked in a cycle of deepening population decline, with death and emigration significantly outpacing live births. The situation became a full-blown crisis in the decade after the collapse of the USSR, before rebounding modestly to match European levels of fertility (roughly 1.5 live births per woman). This situation still prevails today.

Even that figure remains well below the fertility rate of 2.1 children per family required for a sustainable replenishment of the Russian population. It has also proven to be stubborn, staying largely static despite numerous Kremlin initiatives designed to boost birth rates. Now, Russia’s war on Ukraine – and the open-ended nature of that conflict – has spurred even steeper decline, as potential conscripts and other objectors eye the national exits.

All of which this augurs potentially momentous changes for the nature of the Russian state. Earlier this year, ROSSTAT, Russia’s official statistics agency, estimated that in a worst case scenario, the national population could drop to 130 million people by the middle of the century. Such a decline would fundamentally upend Russia’s ability to control its vast national territory, which spans eleven time zones. It would be hard to defend territory from the predations of China, with whom Moscow supposedly now boasts a “no limits partnership.”

This brings us back to the true costs of the Ukraine war. Russian officials have made clear that they see the subjugation of their country’s western neighbor as an overriding strategic priority, as well as a prerequisite for renewed national greatness. But, in practical terms, Putin’s war of choice has sped up internal processes that could lead to Russia’s profound decline – or even its outright ruin.

Ilan Berman is Senior Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 3:57 PM

SECOND

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


Russia Has Already Lost in Ukraine

By Ilan Berman | Aug 07, 2024

Ilan Berman is senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-has-already-lost-ukraine-opinion-19355
32

Listen to Russian officials these days, and you're liable to hear a decidedly triumphant tone. Two-and-a-half years into the Kremlin's war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine, its officials seem more and more convinced that their country's eventual victory is inevitable. That could be because last year's long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive ended up largely fizzling, failing to evict Russia from the parts of eastern Ukraine it had managed to seize. Or maybe it's because America's upcoming election, and the political momentum of Republican candidate Donald Trump, could prompt a seismic shift in U.S. support for Ukraine's struggle.

Whatever the cause, this sense of momentum has led the Kremlin to rebuff recent Ukrainian peace overtures, and to stake out a maximalist position as a prerequisite for any negotiations with Kyiv. But Moscow's triumphalism masks a more sobering reality—by almost every empirical measure, Russia's war of choice has proven ruinous for the Kremlin.

Most immediately, there are Moscow's own battlefield breakthroughs—or lack thereof. Contrary to official rhetoric, Russia's military isn't advancing in Ukraine in any meaningful way. Since the start of this year, Ukrainian officials confirmed, Russia's redoubled military efforts have netted it less than 1 percent of additional Ukrainian territory, and in total it still controls less than 18 percent of the country.

Even that negligible gain, though, has come at an exceedingly high cost. Between January and April of this year alone, the Ukraine war has claimed nearly 83,000 Russian casualties—and by the end of the year, it is estimated that Moscow might lose a quarter-million more. If it does, it will bring total losses suffered by Russia since February 2022 to a staggering 690,000 souls. By way of comparison, that grisly total is nearly 50 times the number of Soviet troops killed during the USSR's disastrous decade-long occupation of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989.

The implications can't be overstated. Based on just the casualties Russia has suffered to date, British military officials estimated that "it will take Putin five years to reconstitute the Russian army to where it was in February 2022." And if 2024 is as costly for Russia as some are predicting, it might take considerably longer. Put another way, Russia's president has wagered his country's prospects of military greatness, and for renewed great power status, almost entirely on his conquest of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia's war has made its overall strategic position significantly worse. Kremlin officials have claimed their war on Ukraine to be a natural consequence of years of NATO encroachment into Russia's periphery. But Moscow's aggression hasn't deterred the Alliance. Far from it. Just a few years ago, confidence in the bloc was at a decidedly low ebb, and even on the continent on which it was founded NATO was seen by many as increasingly obsolete.

Not so now. The war in Ukraine has breathed new life into the bloc's mission and activities. Since the conflict's start, NATO has ramped up its operational tempo, improved Alliance interoperability, and expanded its area of military operations. It has also welcomed two new members into the fold, as Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding neutrality for the protection of collective defense. This has brought the Alliance substantially closer to Russia's borders in physical terms—precisely the opposite of the outcome supposedly sought by Putin in launching the war in the first place.

Other changes are also afoot. In the post-Cold War era, it has become fashionable to think of Europe as a "post-military" power—a bloc that had lost both the capability and the will to defend itself, relying instead on diplomacy and economic engagement to remain relevant. Over the past two-and-a-half years, however, this trend has seen a significant reversal, as the imperative of defending Ukraine has jump-started European conversations about ramped up defense production and the need for a real defense-industrial base.

Russian officials and sympathizers may be taking solace in the possibility that a new Republican administration in Washington might soon make life more difficult for Kyiv—and conquest easier for the Kremlin. This could happen, although a second Trump term shouldn't necessarily be seen as a death knell for America's support for Ukraine, provided Kyiv recalibrates its message and manages to convince the new administration that it is capable of a decisive near-term battlefield victory.

Whatever the political outcome in Washington, though, the reality for Russia will remain the same. Putin's military misadventure has cost the country dearly, both strategically and in human terms. Officials in Moscow will paint this outcome in more rosy fashion. But for the Russians themselves, the Ukraine conflict shouldn't be counted as a victory, no matter how hard Kremlin propagandists attempt to spin it.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 4:03 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

First, Europe will not allow Putin to get what he wants because it means disaster for them.
Huh?

Putin wants a secure, non NATO border and no unfriendly nuclear- capable missiles within a short flight time stationed near Russia.



'Major Provocation!' Vladimir Putin Lashes Out As Ukrainian Forces Enter Russia

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/major-provocation-vladimir-putin-
lashes-out-as-ukrainian-forces-enter-russia/ar-AA1orLrt?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=3f878a73810c45faabbcd1610ca8d5dd&ei=25


Yeah, no to what Putin wants. Yeah, yes, you will have NATO breathing down your neck. Get used to it.

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 4:18 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

First, Europe will not allow Putin to get what he wants because it means disaster for them.
Huh?

Putin wants a secure, non NATO border and no unfriendly nuclear- capable missiles within a short flight time stationed near Russia.

THUGR:
'Major Provocation!' Vladimir Putin Lashes Out As Ukrainian Forces Enter Russia

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/major-provocation-vladimir-putin-
lashes-out-as-ukrainian-forces-enter-russia/ar-AA1orLrt?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=3f878a73810c45faabbcd1610ca8d5dd&ei=25

Yeah, no to what Putin wants.
"no" to a neutral border and peaceful coexistance?

Quote:
THUGR Yeah, yes, you will have NATO breathing down your neck. Get used to it.
NATO has been breathing donw Russia's neck for decades. If NATO insists on continuing its plans to destroy Russia (no, NATO is NOT a defensive organization) then Russia will do everything it can to destroy NATO. Get used to it. And weep.

-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 6:00 PM

SECOND

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


'Defeating Russia Is The Best Thing We Could Do For Russia': Historian Timothy Snyder On The Ukraine War

By Sashko Shevchenko | August 07, 2024 08:01 GMT

https://www.rferl.org/a/timothy-snyder-russia-ukraine-war-victory/3306
7942.html

Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University and the author of books including Bloodlands and The Road To Unfreedom, spoke to Sashko Shevchenko of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service about possible scenarios for ending Russia's war against Ukraine, what the collapse of Russia as an empire could look like, the current mobilization efforts in Ukraine, and other matters related to the war.

RFE/RL: For Ukrainians, what’s stake in this war is the question of preserving the Ukrainian state. Is there a real chance that Ukrainians could lose their statehood? Could the West allow this to happen? Taking into account how history works, is this a real possibility?

Snyder: Anything is possible. From a historical point of view, the side with a larger economy usually wins. Ukraine should be the side because it should be backed by the United States, Canada, most European countries, [and] to some extent South Korea, Japan. If those countries mobilize their economies just a little bit, Ukraine will eventually win the war. That's one historical generality.

Another is that wars are fought in territory and not in people's minds. The Russians have been quite good at getting inside the minds of people in the West and distracting us from basic territorial realities. Ukraine can win if Ukraine controls the north coast to the Black Sea. Ukraine can win if it is able to make it too costly for Russia to continue the war.

I believe those things are possible, but no historian and no political scientist can tell you what's going to happen. It's possible for Ukraine to win this war if it has the support of its allies, if we focus on controlling the correct territories, and we understand that war is essentially political, not psychological. It's not about our feelings; it's about how long [Russian President Vladimir] Putin politically can keep doing what he's doing.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 8:31 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

First, Europe will not allow Putin to get what he wants because it means disaster for them.
Huh?

Putin wants a secure, non NATO border and no unfriendly nuclear- capable missiles within a short flight time stationed near Russia.



'Major Provocation!' Vladimir Putin Lashes Out As Ukrainian Forces Enter Russia

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/major-provocation-vladimir-putin-
lashes-out-as-ukrainian-forces-enter-russia/ar-AA1orLrt?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=3f878a73810c45faabbcd1610ca8d5dd&ei=25


Yeah, no to what Putin wants. Yeah, yes, you will have NATO breathing down your neck. Get used to it.

T



Laughing here comrade.

T

Kursk incursion causes 'doubts' in Kremlin as Putin faces invasion 'crisis'



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 9:54 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


So, "no" to nuclear weapons control, and " no" to mutual security?

I always knew you were stupid. Hope you like the consequences!


-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Thursday, August 8, 2024 10:57 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:
So, "no" to nuclear weapons control, and " no" to mutual security?

I always knew you were stupid. Hope you like the consequences!
North Korea, Russia's creation, has no agreements for nuclear weapons control and no agreements with South Korea for mutual security but there have not been any consequences other than North Korea becoming poorer and poorer because of its obstinate disagreeableness. If Russia decides to be another North Korea, it will make itself poorer and poorer.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 1:34 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, "no" to nuclear weapons control, and " no" to mutual security?

I always knew you were stupid. Hope you like the consequences!
North Korea, Russia's creation, has no agreements for nuclear weapons control and no agreements with South Korea for mutual security but there have not been any consequences other than North Korea becoming poorer and poorer because of its obstinate disagreeableness. If Russia decides to be another North Korea, it will make itself poorer and poorer.

N Korea is poor bc they're a small, relatively resource- poor nation that's been sanctioned by (at one point) the rest of the globe. Like Cuba.

They're too small to be economically independent, and too small to arm themselves. Now that the sanctions have been broken, N Korea will become less poor. I'm not sure of their internal policies or what kinds of agreements they may have with Russia and China. Their intial policy, a couple of regimes ago, was complete self reliance. But, like I said, they're too small and too resource poor to be completely self reliant and still commit to full military development including nuclear weapons. That must suck up a lot of resources. Whether N Korea takes full advantage of expanded trade depends on how stubborn Kim Jong Un is.

Russia can't go the way of N Korea. It's way too resource rich and too connected to non western nations.

-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 2:04 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Ukraine's invasion into Russian Kursk was better- planned than usual. I think it was Budanov's brainchild, but seems to have a lot of foreign help. Fingers point to Britain's MI6.

According to Simplicius, the invasion actually began with a massive EW and DDOS attack. The EW covered Ukraine's drone attack on Russian drones and cameras, removing Russias eyes and ears. The DDOS disrupted Russian- to Russian communication,

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,
fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff7e1297b-4498-4945-bd8f-7332358e3354_1280x707.jpeg

which allowed Ukraine to inject their own deepfake messages from "the governor" on what to do and where to go, clogging the roads with civilians and delaying Russian reinforcements. (I've seen one of those deepfake videos, they're real)

That was followed by a well- executed combined arms incursion.

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-8824-day-three-of-kursk-att
ack

Apparently the goal is to generate some sort of leverage for Ukraine for upcoming negotiations (altho Zelensky vigorously claims negotiations are impossible). It seems the USA deepstate was willing to disavow any responsibility, characterizing the invasion as a foolish waste of men and resources. Unless it was deemed successful, in which case they're behind it all the way, and ready to break their own red line (again) by tacitly allowing USA weapons (including ATACMS) to strike deep into Russia including Moscow.

I believe, but could be wrong, that this increased pressure from Ukraine and USA neocons, which is part bluff and part real, is being ramped up by neocons who see themselves being ejected from the WH in November no matter who is elected. Defeat and surrender is unthinkable. This is either a Hail Mary towards victory (highly unlikely! ) or towards negotiation on a more equal footing (also unlikely).

I think Russia's answer will be to continue destroying the Ukrainian military, and any western personnel in Ukraine as soon as they find them.

-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 2:06 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:

N Korea is poor bc they're a small, relatively resource- poor nation that's been sanctioned by (at one point) the rest of the globe. Like Cuba.

They're too small to be economically independent, and too small to arm themselves. Now that the sanctions have been broken, N Korea will become less poor. I'm not sure of their internal policies or what kinds of agreements they may have with Russia and China. Their intial policy, a couple of regimes ago, was complete self reliance. But, like I said, they're too small and too resource poor to be completely self reliant and still commit to full military development including nuclear weapons. That must suck up a lot of resources. Whether N Korea takes full advantage of expanded trade depends on how stubborn Kim Jong Un is.

Russia can't go the way of N Korea. It's way too resource rich and too connected to non western nations.
For one example, Singapore is a tiny, resource-poor country that got rich. Its secret is that its government is not run by belligerent and obnoxious nincompoops, unlike Cuba, North Korea, and especially Russia.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 2:42 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Singapore's secret is that it is financially connected to the rest of the world and a major global banking center. Cut Singapore off from the rest of the world, and it would collapse in a matter of weeks, if not days. It would be far worse off than N Korea


Dood, you have major delusions.


So, how about getting back to the topic at hand, instead of giving us a kaleidescopic view of your delusions, and how they fracture the view of everything you look at?


-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 4:30 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


140 pages of bullshit not worth reading is what this thread is.



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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 4:49 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:
Singapore's secret is that it is financially connected to the rest of the world and a major global banking center. Cut Singapore off from the rest of the world, and it would collapse in a matter of weeks, if not days. It would be far worse off than N Korea


Dood, you have major delusions.


So, how about getting back to the topic at hand, instead of giving us a kaleidescopic view of your delusions, and how they fracture the view of everything you look at?
Signym, you not right in the head. Texas, for example, would collapse in weeks if cut off from the world beyond the Texas border. So would smaller states collapse. To say that Singapore is weak because it is connected to the world is saying that you are stupid, Signym.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 4:50 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 6ixStringJack:
140 pages of bullshit not worth reading is what this thread is.



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

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
6ix, you are a fucking ignoramus, but then so are all Trumptards. I wonder if that is why Trumptards have difficult lives?

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 4:50 PM

SECOND

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


Ukraine's Invasion of Russia Could Bring a Quicker End to the War

By Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. August 9, 2024

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/08/09/kursk-russia-ukraine-offensive-in
vasion-war-negotiations/

In the space of four days, the Russia-Ukraine war has dramatically shifted. The incursion of Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk region has quickly turned into the largest territorial gain by either side since the successful Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson in the fall of 2022. As of this writing, it is still unclear whether thinned-out and poorly prepared Russian forces have been able to halt the Ukrainian advance, with reports of burning columns of Russian reinforcements reminiscent of the early days of the war.

The operation demonstrates Ukraine’s ability to achieve surprise and exploit sudden breakthroughs, something at which Russia has consistently failed since the start of its invasion. It is also the first time Russia has been invaded by foreign troops since World War II, showing Russians in no uncertain terms that the bloody war they unleashed against their neighbor has come home. Ukraine’s Western supporters seem to be on board, with the White House and European Union headquarters issuing statements that it was up to Ukraine to decide on the operation.

Previously, there had been much debate in Washington, Berlin, and among a wildly speculating media about the Kremlin’s supposed red lines that would set off World War III and nuclear Armageddon, with one of the lines being taking the war to Russia with Western weapons. The latter has now occurred. The belief in uncontrolled escalation led the Biden administration and some of its partners to severely restrict both the types of weapons delivered to Ukraine and their permitted range; Ukraine has not been allowed to use Western missiles to hit military installations on the Russian side of the border, for example. Part of the effect and purpose of the Kursk operation could be to demonstrate, once again, the fallacy of the red-line argument.

As the offensive unfolds and Kyiv stays mostly mum on events, it’s still too early to say what strategic goals Ukraine is hoping to achieve. One speculation that has gained a lot of traction is that it could lead to a quicker end to the war. The operation makes it clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine retains significant potential to inflict pain on Russia. And if Ukrainian forces can hold on and maintain control of Russian territory—for which they appear to be digging in as they bring in more equipment and build new defensive lines—it could strengthen Ukraine’s leverage in any potential negotiations to end the war. Already, Ukraine’s lightning foray into Russia undermines the widespread idea that Putin holds all the cards to dictate the terms of a cease-fire.

Kyiv seems to be signaling that leverage in negotiations is one of the goals of the offensive. An unnamed advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Washington Post: “This will give them the leverage they need for negotiations with Russia—this is what it’s all about.” This dovetails with recent hints by Zelensky that Kyiv was ready to negotiate. In an interview with BBC News in July, he said, “We don’t have to recapture all the territories” by military means. “I think that can also be achieved with the help of diplomacy.” Occupied Russia could be traded for occupied Ukraine: As former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt suggested on X, “Would an idea be for both states to retreat to within their respective recognized border?”

If Kyiv seems to be preparing the ground for potential negotiations—by seeking to strengthen its hand and publicly declaring its willingness—it is also a response to several factors.

One is growing war weariness among the Ukrainian population. Although the majority of Ukrainians favor fighting on until all the territories Russia has occupied since 2014 are liberated, the number saying that Ukraine could trade some of that territory for peace has been rising.

Second, there has been growing criticism, particularly in Western Europe and the global south, of the way Ukraine has repeatedly ruled out talks with Moscow. Major substantive issues aside, with the Kremlin apparently back-channeling openness to talks, Kyiv risked being seen as intransigent in preventing an early end to the war.

Finally, Ukraine’s strategic position is risky, even if it holds back Russia and maintains the flow of Western weapons. A victory by Donald Trump in the November U.S. presidential election and a sudden stop of U.S. aid cannot be ruled out, and even a Harris administration may have trouble cobbling together future support packages if the Republicans keep their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Zelensky may have decided to gamble to change and accelerate the dynamics of the war, including greater leverage if negotiations end up taking place sooner than anticipated.

Without much leverage, Kyiv has had to appeal to moral, normative, and legal arguments when communicating with its foreign partners about any peace short of full liberation. In the past, this has led to highly skewed negotiations. In the talks that produced the Minsk I and II accords in 2014 and 2015, Ukraine had such a weak hand that it had to agree to impossible terms: It could only get the Russian-controlled Donbas back if it allowed Moscow’s proxies to become part of the Ukrainian polity through local elections manipulated by the Kremlin, which would have given Moscow a permanent veto over Kyiv’s politics. Previously occupied and annexed Crimea was not even included in the discussion.

In March 2022, direct talks between Ukraine and Russia on the Belarusian border were not a negotiation but Russia’s delivery of surrender terms to Ukraine. In April 2022, negotiations brokered by Turkey in Istanbul also went nowhere: Russia’s price for ending its invasion was a considerable limitation of Ukrainian sovereignty and ability to defend itself. Since then, Russia’s proposal has been for Ukraine to permanently cede, in addition to Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts—including substantial parts that Russia has never occupied.

Not only has Ukraine lacked negotiation leverage, but Russia has also been successful in promoting, to audiences around the world, its land-for-peace approach to ending this round of the war. As Ukrainian counteroffensives after 2022 largely failed and the Russian war machine slowly but steadily took more territory in Ukraine’s east, another Minsk-type deal limiting Ukrainian territorial integrity and political sovereignty seemed to loom on the horizon.

Kyiv has not only changed the military narrative on the ground but may also be trying to change the narrative on negotiations—from a “land for peace” deal to a “land for land” deal. This puts Putin in a bind: Loss of control over parts of Russia proper is an enormous embarrassment for the Kremlin. But since their illegal annexation by Russia, the Ukrainian territories Putin seeks to keep are also part of the state territory he is obliged to defend. That said, in terms of Russian elite and popular perception, the restoration of Russia’s legitimate state territory will take precedence over continued occupation of recently conquered domains—especially if a land swap opens an avenue to the end of Western sanctions.

In a way, the new Ukrainian strategy may provide an opening for doves in the Russian leadership—assuming they exist and have any influence over Putin—to argue that the annexations should be reversed in order to restore Russia’s territorial integrity. As long as Ukraine can hold on to its captured territories in Russia, there will a strong pressure on Putin to return them under Moscow’s control.

None of this, however, changes the most fundamental problem with a negotiated outcome: the fact that Russia has ignored just about every agreement it has signed with Ukraine. But for Ukrainians and their Western supporters hoping for an end to the war, some intriguing possibilities may soon be on the table.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 5:42 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Kiev, like the USA, speaks with forked tongue.

Having read both Simplicius and Moon of Alabama carefully, I've ruled out the idea this is a negotiating ploy. It is an attempt to destabilize the Russian government by sowing distrust and anger in the Russian population. Along those lines, to get the USA, either under Trump or Harris, to continue funding Ukraine.

-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 5:44 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
140 pages of bullshit not worth reading is what this thread is.



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

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
6ix, you are a fucking ignoramus, but then so are all Trumptards. I wonder if that is why Trumptards have difficult lives?

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


My life is infinitely easier than yours will ever be, son.



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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 6:15 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

So, "no" to nuclear weapons control, and " no" to mutual security?

I always knew you were stupid. Hope you like the consequences!




T

Kursk incursion: How significant is Ukraine's advance into Russian territory?


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 8:26 PM

SECOND

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


A Russian man was ordered held without bail Friday on charges that he conspired to smuggle U.S. microelectronics to military manufacturers in Russia to aid its war in Ukraine.

Arthur Petrov, 33, made a brief appearance in Manhattan federal court, where he agreed to remain detained. He was arrested last August in Cyprus at the request of the United States and was extradited on Thursday.

Attorney Michael Arthus, Petrov's court-appointed lawyer, declined to comment on numerous charges brought against his client, including multiple conspiracy counts and smuggling goods crimes. The charges collectively carry a potential penalty of over 150 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a release that Petrov concealed where he was sending the electronics because he knew that shipping them violated U.S. export controls relating to Russia.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the extradition reflected the Justice Department's determination to cut Russia off from the western technologies that fuel the Russian military.

Christie M. Curtis, head of New York's FBI office, said Petrov was part of a network that secretly supplied Russia's military industrial complex with “critical U.S. technology, including the same types of microelectronics recovered from Russian weapons on Ukrainian battlefields.”

A criminal complaint filed in court said Russia's weapons systems, including rockets, drones, ballistic missiles, radios and electronic warfare devices, rely heavily on components and microelectronics manufactured in the West, particularly in the United States.

Petrov, a citizen of Russia and Germany who lived in Russia and Cyprus, worked for LLC Electrocom VPK, a Russia-based supplier of electronic components for makers of Russian military weapons and other equipment, authorities said.

According to a release, Petrov and two coconspirators fraudulently procured large quantities of microelectronics from U.S. distributors, using shell companies to hide that the materials were destined for Russia.

Authorities said Petrov falsely claimed that he was purchasing the items for fire security systems and other commercial uses for companies in Cyprus and countries other than Russia.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/russian-man-held-bail-charges-proc
ured-us-electronics-112726184

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 9:30 PM

SECOND

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


More Ukrainian Brigades Roll Into Russia’s Kursk Oblast As Ukrainian Artillery Blocks Russian Reinforcements

After four days, five Ukrainian brigades control 400 square miles of Russia.

While it’s still possible the brigades don’t intend to stay in Russia, there are currently no signs of them slowing their attacks.

“We can only hope that Ukraine has a well-prepared plan and that this operation translates into more than just a significant PR victory with positive political implications,” mused Artur Rehi, an Estonian soldier and analyst.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/08/09/more-ukrainian-brigad
es-roll-into-russias-kursk-oblast-as-ukrainian-artillery-blocks-russian-reinforcements/

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Friday, August 9, 2024 10:23 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Sure they do.

500,000 Ukrainian men dead and counting just so you can cheer the war machine on some more.

Good job. I'm sure the people of Ukraine are grateful for your ceaseless grandstanding which costs you nothing on a long dead Web 1.0 forum for a TV show that 250 in the world still care about in 2024.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 10, 2024 10:07 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sure they do.

500,000 Ukrainian men dead and counting just so you can cheer the war machine on some more.

Good job. I'm sure the people of Ukraine are grateful for your ceaseless grandstanding which costs you nothing on a long dead Web 1.0 forum for a TV show that 250 in the world still care about in 2024.

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

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
The previous time Russia invaded Ukraine, the Russians killed 4 million Ukrainians slowly and painfully after, not during, the invasion. The Ukrainians fight now because they know Russians will slowly murder them by the millions if this invasion succeeds. 6ixStringJack, is that too hard for you to understand?
https://www.google.com/search?q=Holodomor

After WWII was over, the Russians killed millions of people who had surrendered. Is that too hard for you to understand why NATO exists, 6ixStringJack?

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 10, 2024 11:21 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sure they do.

500,000 Ukrainian men dead and counting just so you can cheer the war machine on some more.

Good job. I'm sure the people of Ukraine are grateful for your ceaseless grandstanding which costs you nothing on a long dead Web 1.0 forum for a TV show that 250 in the world still care about in 2024.

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

Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
The previous time Russia invaded Ukraine, the Russians killed 4 million Ukrainians slowly and painfully after, not during, the invasion. The Ukrainians fight now because they know Russians will slowly murder them by the millions if this invasion succeeds. 6ixStringJack, is that too hard for you to understand?
https://www.google.com/search?q=Holodomor

After WWII was over, the Russians killed millions of people who had surrendered. Is that too hard for you to understand why NATO exists, 6ixStringJack?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
If that's the case, then Ukrainians are dying for nothing.

Russia is not the USSR. Putin is not Stalin. He's not seeking to Sovietize Ukraine. If Ukraine had agreed to not being a NATO country, not be a (western directed) military threat to Russia, not persecute its Russian speaking citizens, and not claim Crimea (where 90% voted to leave), all would have been well.

Instead, Kiev chose to insist on NATO membership, persecute and ethnically cleanse its Russian speaking citizens, cut Crimea's water and electricity, and arm up chock full of western weapons.

Now Ukraine is paying the price for being our proxy, and Ukrainians are being forced to fight to the last man.

You're sick, SECOND. Sick and delusional with hate.
Why do you hate so much?

-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 10, 2024 1:01 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:

If that's the case, then Ukrainians are dying for nothing.

Russia is not the USSR. Putin is not Stalin. He's not seeking to Sovietize Ukraine. If Ukraine had agreed to not being a NATO country, not be a (western directed) military threat to Russia, not persecute its Russian speaking citizens, and not claim Crimea (where 90% voted to leave), all would have been well.

Instead, Kiev chose to insist on NATO membership, persecute and ethnically cleanse its Russian speaking citizens, cut Crimea's water and electricity, and arm up chock full of western weapons.

Now Ukraine is paying the price for being our proxy, and Ukrainians are being forced to fight to the last man.

You're sick, SECOND. Sick and delusional with hate.
Why do you hate so much?

-----------
"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.
Signym, check it out. Putin threatens to nuke the West:
https://www.google.com/search?q=putin+threatens+to+nuke+the+west

I wonder why the smarter Russians leave Russia? Could it be the history of Russia? All those tens of millions of murders by Russians? The murderers didn't go poof, vanishing into smoke. They lived on and on and killed more and more, even threatening hundreds of times so far this year to nuke the West.

By the way, Signym, Russia's national karma doesn't change just because it changed its name from The Soviet Union to The Russian Federation.
Constitution of the Russian Federation
http://archive.government.ru/eng/gov/base/54.html

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 10, 2024 1:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Signym, check it out. Putin threatens to nuke the West:
https://www.google.com/search?q=putin+threatens+to+nuke+the+west


Maybe when Google is split up and is forced to compete with other search engines it will stop terrifying little boys like Wetware into loyal mouth pieces for the war machine with its lies about Putin dropping a nuke on his head.

Quote:
I wonder why the smarter Russians leave Russia?


I wonder why the smarter Americans leave California and Pittsburgh.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/08/08/harris-wal
z-progressive-policies-minnesota-welfare-tax-hike/74702898007/

https://archive.ph/sRPJV

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 10, 2024 7:26 PM

SECOND

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


What Is Ukraine Doing in Russia? | August 10, 2024

By Phillips Payson O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is the author of How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/08/ukraine-russ
ia-kursk-invasion/679420/

Ukraine Was Biding Its Time

While outside analysts downplayed their chances, the Ukrainians were quietly planning an offensive across the Russian border.

Earlier this week, reports began filtering in that Ukrainian forces had entered Russia’s Kursk province, in what many analysts assumed was a small cross-border raid—of a sort that Ukraine has attempted a few times since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. But as the hours and days ticked by and Ukrainian forces moved deeper and deeper into Russian territory, the seriousness of the military operation became obvious. The Ukrainians spread out as they went along, and had soon seized more ground from Russia in a few days than Russia has taken during an offensive in the Kharkiv region that began in the spring. As part of the new incursion, Ukraine has been deploying advanced armored vehicles, including German-supplied Marder infantry fighting vehicles—a striking development, given the unease among Kyiv’s allies about being seen as escalating hostilities between the West and Russia.

The initial success of what’s looking more and more like a full offensive shows what the Ukrainians can achieve if they have both the tools and the latitude to fight Russia. Ukraine’s most generous benefactors, especially the United States and Germany, have previously expressed their strong opposition to the use of their arms on Russian soil. In May, the U.S. made an exception, allowing Ukraine to use American equipment to hit back on Russian-based targets involved in the attack on Kharkiv. Still, the broader prohibition limited Kyiv’s military options.

Now Washington and Berlin may be softening their positions more than they’re explicitly saying. A Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday that U.S. officials still “don’t support long-range attacks into Russia” but also that the Kursk incursion is “consistent with our policy.” Perhaps President Joe Biden, freed of electoral considerations, can focus more on how best to help the Ukrainians now—and limit the damage that Donald Trump could do to their cause if he wins in November. The White House’s notably bland statement on the Ukrainian offensive on Wednesday was hardly the sign of an administration in panic.

Clearly, Kyiv has been biding its time. Its planning for the current offensive took place quietly—and amid many pessimistic assessments of its military prospects by outside analysts and claims that it should save its forces for combat in the Donbas. The weakness of Russian defense is in some sense shocking—but was also completely predictable because of the way Ukraine has been asked to fight. Its allies’ apprehension about taking the war to Russian territory has provided Vladimir Putin with a major asymmetrical advantage. The Russians have been able to send almost all of their troops into Ukraine itself, safe in the knowledge that Ukraine’s own partners were securing Russian territory from attack.

Moscow simply took the U.S. and Germany too much at their word. Russian forces seem to have kept only substandard troops at the border, and the fortifications in the Kursk area have so far presented few problems for the Ukrainians. The lack of Russian internal defenses first became obvious last summer, when the former Putin confidant Yevgeny Prigozhin mutinied and directed an armed force to march toward Moscow, and apparently only small improvements have been made since. “Between countries at war, there is no border, there is only the front,” the Ukrainian analyst Mykola Bielieskov told me. “The Russians have forgotten that—the Ukrainians did not.”

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister who now leads the Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukraine-based think tank, described five potential motivations for the new offensive: diverting Russian forces from other fronts, particularly near Kharkiv; discouraging further Russian cross-border attacks into Ukraine by showing that Russia’s own borders are unprotected; showing the rest of the world that, despite its size, the Russian army is weaker than it appears; testing out new military tactics; and taking the initiative away from the Russian side. The larger question is how far the Ukrainians want to expand their current offensive.

Throughout this war, widespread electronic surveillance by both sides has frequently tipped each off about the other’s plans. But in recent weeks, Kyiv built up the necessary forces so stealthily that the Russians had no idea what was going to hit them. The Ukrainians apparently carefully arranged for drones and computer hackers to suppress Russian resistance once their soldiers crossed the border. In three days, they came close to seizing the Russian city of Sudzha, through which runs a key rail line close to the Ukrainian border.

Notably, the U.S. and German governments have not publicly opposed any of this. Perhaps the two allies are no longer as nervous about cross-border operations as they were. Maybe the U.S. has finally come to understand that if Ukraine really is going to have a chance to win, it must be allowed to fight the war properly.

The real answer, of course, is that no one outside the Ukrainian government really knows what is happening—and, so far, Kyiv has been extremely tight-lipped on this operation. Having kept it quiet before it started, the last thing the Ukrainians want to do is let Russia know their intention. Whatever happens, the Kursk offensive has been a well-executed operation to this point. It’s their plan. Let them see to it.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Saturday, August 10, 2024 10:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
It’s their plan. Let them see to it.


As long as we're not paying for it. Knock yourselves out.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, August 11, 2024 6:27 AM

SECOND

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


The Kremlin likely decided to declare a counterterrorism operation — as opposed to a state of war or martial law — to downplay the scale of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast and prevent domestic panic or backlash — demonstrating the Kremlin's reluctance to take more drastic measures to respond to the situation.

Russian opposition outlet Verstka reported on August 8 that a source close to the Russian Federation Council's defense committee stated that the Russian Presidential Administration recommended that Russian deputies and senators not comment on the events in Kursk Oblast "until further notice" or discuss it as briefly as possible and refer only to official statements.[4] Russian milbloggers have been suggesting that the Kremlin formally declare war against Ukraine and criticized the Kremlin for failing to declare martial law instead of the counterterrorism operation.[5] The declaration of martial law notably would have allowed Russian authorities to take more drastic measures, such as prohibiting rallies and demonstrations, enacting curfews, and organizing the production of defense articles for the military.[6] Russian President Vladimir Putin has refrained from officially declaring a state of war, has repeatedly demonstrated his unwillingness to transfer Russian society fully to a war-time footing, and has forgone declaring general mobilization as part of wider efforts to prevent domestic discontent that could threaten the stability of Putin's regime.[7]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-august-10-2024

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, August 11, 2024 7:45 AM

SECOND

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


Russians in despair as Ukrainian drones dominate the battlefield
Russian soldiers often panic at the sight of a drone controlled by a Ukrainian operator.

By Slawomir Zagórski | 6:42 PM EDT, August 10, 2024

"The Russians cover themselves with the decomposing bodies of their comrades to escape from our drones," says Lt. Anastasia Blyshchyk. The fear of drones is enormous. They dominate the front so absolutely that sometimes, the mere sight of them drives Russians to commit suicide.

Several such incidents have been recorded. One of the most well-known occurred in May 2023, when, near Bakhmut, a soldier injured by a drone blew himself up with a grenade at the sight of another approaching drone. Another soldier shot himself.

The Ukrainians extensively use FPV (First-Person View) drones due to their low production costs, ease of operation, and relatively long loiter time. This allows them to fly over a chosen area for several hours and wait for a suitable target. They are particularly effective, especially when compared to the cost of a single artillery shell. Eliminating enemy personnel using drones is much cheaper and simpler.

https://essanews.com/russians-in-despair-as-ukrainian-drones-dominate-
the-battlefield,7058665880528513a

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, August 11, 2024 12:30 PM

SECOND

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


Putin Ally Vows to Bring Russian Tanks to NATO Country's Capital

Published Aug 11, 2024 at 11:02 AM EDT

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a stark warning, vowing to send Russian tanks to Germany's capital in response to a "revanchist" article published by a German newspaper.

Bild, a German tabloid newspaper with over 2 million followers on the social media platform, "published a revanchist article where it proudly announces German tanks' comeback to the Russian land. In response, we're going to do everything to bring the newest Russian tanks to Platz d. Republik," Medvedev vowed. Platz der Republik is a landmark public square in Berlin where the German parliament, the Reichstag, is located.

This is better Russian behavior than the usual threat to nuke Berlin.

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-ally-dmitry-medvedev-vows-bring-russian
-tanks-nato-ally-germany-1937543

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, August 11, 2024 12:35 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK




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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, August 11, 2024 5:16 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Having failed to come within artillery distance of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), Kiev turns its attention to the Russian- held Zaparozhiy NPP, starting a fire with a drone attack.

I think this is what Zelensky means by "leverage for negotiations" - threatening Russian NPPs, Putin assasination, and other terrorist acts.


Will the collective west get behind that approach?

Possibly yes. After all, they support Israeli genocide in Gaza and terrorist attacks on its neighbors (Syria, Lebanon, Iran). They may scold and wag their finger, they keep supplying Israel with weapons and money. Same with Ukraine. They'll feign shock, but the weapons (whatever we can spare) will keep flowing. But what about those ATACMS?

-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, August 11, 2024 8:26 PM

SECOND

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


Ukrainian Troops Are Digging Trenches In Russia’s Kursk Oblast. It’s A Sign They Plan To Stay.

Every day the Russians don’t counterattack is a day the Ukrainians dig in deeper.

By David Axe | Aug 11, 2024, 04:22pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/08/11/ukrainian-troops-are-
digging-trenches-in-russias-kursk-oblast-its-a-sign-they-plan-to-stay/

On the sixth day of Ukraine’s advance into Kursk Oblast in southern Russia, there’s growing evidence the Ukrainian invasion corps—some or all of up to five 2,000-person brigades plus at least one 400-person independent battalion—plans to stay.

The Ukrainians are digging trenches. Anticipating static warfare along or near the existing front line, the Russians are digging in, too.

That both sides are fortifying their positions doesn’t mean the Ukrainians are done advancing. Nor does it mean the Russians can’t counterattack—and push the Ukrainians back to the border, 10 miles away.

But it does mean that stabilization of the front line—and a long-term Ukrainian occupation of part of Kursk—is on the table.

Russian military correspondent Aleksandr Kharchenko observed Ukrainian forces digging trenches in Kursk on Sunday. He described it as “the worst thing that can happen,” according to a translation of his missive by Estonian analyst War Translated.

Ukrainian sources have spotted industrial excavators at work on both sides of the front line.

“Once the enemy picks up shovels, in two days it will be just as difficult to take the forest stands as it was near Avdiivka” in eastern Ukraine, Kharchenko added. It took the Russian military six months to roll back Ukrainian defenses in Avdiivka—and cost it tens of thousands of casualties.

Arguably, the Russians won the battle for Avdiivka in mid-February only because the Ukrainians ran out of ammunition following months of delays in U.S. aid to Ukraine orchestrated by Russia-friendly lawmakers in the U.S. Congress.

Now that U.S. aid is flowing again, Russian forces around the Kursk salient can’t count on the Ukrainian invasion corps running out of ammo. To push potentially thousands of Ukrainian troops out of Kursk, they’ll have to capture one trench at a time.

Unless, of course, the Kremlin can organize a powerful counterattack before the Ukrainian trenches are complete. But “the window of opportunity is rapidly closing,” Kharchenko warned—and Ukrainian attacks are blocking Russian reinforcements trying to reach the Kursk front line.

Russian columns “are met by Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups, drones and artillery,” wrote Artur Rehi, an Estonian soldier and analyst.

If and when it stabilizes, the Kursk salient could become another major front in Russia’s 29-month wider war on Ukraine.

The Ukrainians have already positioned potentially more than 10,000 troops in Kursk and the adjacent Ukrainian oblast, Sumy. And according to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies, Russia’s Northern Grouping of Forces is trying to move 10 to 11 battalions to the front line—perhaps 4,000 troops in all.

Those 10 or so Russian battalions are just the initial echelon, however. On paper, the Northern Grouping of Forces oversees 48,000 troops. Many of them are bogged down in Vovchansk, the locus of Russia’s own attack across the Russia-Ukraine border that kicked off in May.

But if it gives up trying to advance in Vovchansk and other front-line towns and cities, the Russian military could shift significant forces to Kursk. Indeed, compelling the Russians to deplete their forces along other fronts may have been the Ukrainian invasion corps’ main objective.

Kyiv is probably trying to “divert some of the Russian attention and Russian troops stationed in the eastern parts of Ukraine,” France 24’s Emmanuelle Chaze noted, citing Ukrainian sources.

Once the trenches are complete, that diversion could become long-term—if not permanent.

Sources:

1. War Translated: https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1822709611192815734

2. Artur Rehi: https://x.com/ArturRehi/status/1822723385979470067

3. Center for Defense Strategies: https://cdsdailybrief.substack.com/p/russias-war-on-ukraine-110824

4. France 24: https://www.france24.com/en/video/20240808-ukrainian-troops-cross-into
-russia-s-kursk-region

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, August 11, 2024 8:42 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK




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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 5:53 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


February 2022, Russia launches a full scale invasion and invaded Ukraine in what it called a '2 week special operation' it is now August 2024 and Ukraine is counter attacking and invading and taking parts of Russia, pulling down Russian flags and putting up Ukraine flags in territory within the Russian Federation.


Australia
Putin undermined as Ukrainian forces gain ground in incursion into Russia | ABC News



Fox



CNN
Russia orders more evacuations as Ukraine’s incursion into its territory enters its seventh day
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/12/europe/russia-ukraine-incursion-bel
gorod-intl/index.html

German tanks and USA tanks controlled by Ukraine soldiers pushing into Russia

Ukrainian forces again crossed into Russia, what now?



Canada
Ukraine troops inside Russia after surprise military incursion


NOTIFY: N   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 6:09 AM

SECOND

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


The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast and further possible Ukrainian cross-border incursions force a decision point on the Kremlin and the Russian military command about whether to view the thousand-kilometer-long international border with northeastern Ukraine as a legitimate frontline that Russia must defend instead of a dormant area of the theater as they have treated it since Fall 2022. Moscow’s response may require the Russian military command to consider the manpower and materiel requirements for defending the international border as part of its theater-wide campaign design and can therefore impose long-term operational planning constraints that Russia previously did not face.

The Russian military command has essentially treated the international border with northeastern Ukraine as the dormant front of the theater following the Russian withdrawal from Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy oblasts in Spring 2022 and the Ukrainian liberation of significant territory in Kharkiv Oblast in Fall 2022. Russian and Ukrainian forces have conducted routine sabotage and reconnaissance activities, indirect fire, and cross-border strikes along the border since Fall 2022, but none of this routine activity has appeared to generate wider Russian operational concerns for defending Russian territory in the area. Russia has sought to use the threat of cross-border incursions to draw and fix Ukrainian forces along the border by concentrating rear elements in the border zone, but Ukrainian concentrations in the area do not appear to have generated such responses among Russian forces.[3] The Russian military activated part of this "dormant frontline" when it launched the offensive operation into northern Kharkiv Oblast in early May 2024 — a Russian effort to extend the frontline further into northeastern Ukraine to draw and fix Ukrainian forces along the border in hopes of weakening the overall Ukrainian frontline in aggregate.[4]

Previous notable incursions into Russia did not change the Kremlin's perception of the international border area, but the Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast will force the Kremlin to make a decision.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-august-11-2024

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 6:42 AM

SECOND

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


Vladimir Putin spends big—and sends Russia’s economy soaring
How long can the party last?

Aug 11th 2024

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/08/11/vladimir-pu
tin-spends-big-and-sends-russias-economy-soaring

Across the world worries are mounting about the economy. In America and Canada unemployment is rising, while consumer sentiment remains depressed. Europe continues to flirt with recession. Don’t even mention China. Yet there is one place where the mood is quite different. Despite fierce sanctions and pariah status, Russia’s economy is growing strongly. It turns out that bacchanalian spending, at a time of war, really juices an economy.

This year Russian GDP is expected to rise by over 3% in real terms, faster than 95% of rich countries. In May and June economic activity “significantly increased”, according to the central bank. Other “real time” measures of activity, including one published by Goldman Sachs, a bank, suggest the economy is accelerating (see chart 1). Unemployment is close to an all-time low; the rouble is doing fine. True, inflation is too high—in June prices rose by 8.6% year on year, well above the central bank’s target of 4%—but with cash incomes growing by 14% year on year, the purchasing power of Russians is rising fast. In contrast with almost everyone else, Russians are feeling good about the economy.

Consumer confidence, as measured by Russia’s statistical agency, is well above its average since Vladimir Putin assumed power in 2000. You might expect Mr Putin to be goosing the numbers. But the Levada Centre, an independent pollster, finds equally startling trends (see chart 2). Only once in the past three decades has sentiment been higher. Russians’ confidence in their own financial situation, according to official data, recently jumped to an all-time high. They are more inclined to make big purchases, such as a car or a sofa, and restaurants are full. Last year Russians imported 18% more cognac than they did in 2019, according to our estimate, while spending 80% more on imports of sparkling wine. Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution, notes that in June overall consumer spending rose by 20% year on year in nominal terms.

The latest data are in sharp contrast to the 2010s. Back then, output and incomes grew slowly or not at all. By 2018 real wages were no higher than in 2012. People were fed up. A round of sanctions, which the West launched in 2014 following Mr Putin’s annexation of Crimea, contributed to the malaise. So did an unusually austere fiscal policy, involving increases in taxation and cuts to spending. The covid-19 pandemic and another barrage of Western sanctions, imposed in 2022 in response to Mr Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, compounded Russians’ financial woes.

What explains the turnaround? It is tempting to credit Russian exports. Mr Putin has been able to divert hydrocarbons once destined for Europe to other parts of the world. Russian oligarchs, and the companies they run, are doing better than had been feared at the start of the war. In reality, however, Russia’s recent export performance is nothing to write home about. Oil prices are lower than a couple of years ago. In the first quarter of 2024 the total value of Russia’s physical exports was 4% lower in dollar terms than the same period of 2023—and a third lower than in 2022.

To understand the accelerating economy, look to two aspects of macroeconomic policy. The first is fiscal policy. Mr Putin has abandoned austerity. This year Russia will run a budget deficit of 2% of GDP—hefty by its standards—which it is funding in large part by drawing on its enormous financial reserves, accumulated during the 2010s. In effect, Russia saved yesterday in order to party today. Total government outlays rose by an average of 15% in both 2022 and 2023, and a slightly smaller rise is budgeted this year. Ministers are devoting much of this extra spending to the war in Ukraine. Data published by the Bank of Finland suggest that military spending will rise by about 60% this year, boosting production of weapons and ammunition, and also putting money in people’s pockets.

In July Mr Putin doubled the federal bonus for those signing up to fight from 195,000 roubles ($2,200) to 400,000 roubles, which regional authorities are supposed to top up. The government is committing vast sums on compensation to the families of those killed in action. And Russia’s splurge goes beyond war-related spending. Mr Putin is lavishing money on welfare payments: in June he raised pensions for some recipients by close to 10%. The government is also spending big on infrastructure, including a highway from Kazan to Yekaterinburg, two cities 450 miles (729km) apart. Indeed, it is spending on pretty much whatever takes its fancy. Mikhail Mishustin, the prime minister, recently boasted about a government scheme to pay for children to holiday in Crimea.

The second reason for Russia’s party economy relates to its unusual monetary policy. To deal with high inflation the central bank has raised interest rates from 7.5% to 18%. More increases may be on their way. This has the effect of strengthening the rouble by attracting foreign investment from “friendly” countries such as China and India, which in turn cuts the price of imports and thus inflation. It also encourages people to save, trimming consumer spending. In a normal economy higher rates would also hurt indebted households and companies, as their cost of repaying debt rose. Yet the government has almost entirely shielded the real economy from tighter monetary policy.

There is a bewildering array of schemes. Earlier this year the government made it much easier for consumers to suspend repayments on loans, so long as they could prove that their income had fallen or they were “affected by an emergency”. Banks have offered loan holidays to soldiers in Ukraine. A mortgage scheme, recently closed, kept lending rates fixed at 8%, less than half the current policy rate. An “industrial mortgage” programme has channelled lending to businesses at rates as little as 3% a year. There is also arm-twisting of banks to get them not to raise rates too far. When the financial sector loses income as a consequence, the state often makes up the difference.

This meddling has clear effects. According to official data, in the first quarter of 2024 households spent 11% of their disposable income servicing debt—about the same as in 2021, when the policy rate was much lower. In the past year the interest rate facing households and firms has risen, but by only about half as much as the policy rate (see chart 3). New borrowing is healthy. Lending to companies is growing at more than 20% a year. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, unsecured consumer lending has grown about as fast as nominal wages, which is to say very fast indeed.

How long can the party last? Mr Putin’s attempts to blunt interest-rate rises will lead inflation to rise higher, and last longer, than it would have otherwise. At some point, people may get angry about the rising cost of living. He also cannot run budget deficits for ever. At current rates, Russia’s financial reserves will be exhausted in five years or so; meanwhile, the government faces high borrowing costs. But for now, Mr Putin has a war to win. And so the party goes on.

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 7:54 AM

SECOND

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


Millions of displaced Ukrainians hope to go home as the war rages

By Lily Hyde | August 12, 2024 4:02 am CET

https://www.politico.eu/article/war-in-ukraine-ukrainian-refugees-russ
ia/

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused the biggest forced movement of people in Europe since World War II — 9 million fled abroad or to safer places inside the country.

That’s putting the Kyiv government in a bind when it comes to the 3.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs). The government’s State Policy Strategy on Internal Displacement Until 2025 says integrating those people in their new communities away from the war zone is a strategic goal, but it also calls for supporting “persons who intend to return to their former place of residence.”

The needs are huge. The cash-strapped country is allocating just over half of its budget for defense.

Optimism about going home is high but fading. A February U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) report shows 72 percent of Ukrainian IDPs plan or hope to return home, down from 84 percent the previous year (there is a similar fall to 65 percent from 77 percent among the nearly 6.5 million refugees outside the country).

6.5 million refugees outside the country plus 3.7 million internally displaced people equals 10.2 million. 38 million is the population of Ukraine.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ukraine-population/

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 3:54 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Desperate for Escalation, Zelensky Bombs Zaporozhye Nuke Plant in Frustration
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-81124-desperate-for-escalat
ion

-----------
"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.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 5:21 PM

THG


For years and years comrades signym and kiki boasted about the prowess of Russian army in these threads.

Fighting Ukraine, they've lost half their navy to a country that has no navy. And, after years they can't move more than an inch at a time in Ukraine. Nor stop the Ukrainians from marching through Russia.

Except for the loss of innocent lives, this is funny to the utmost degree.

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 5:55 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Is the above another endless Tick Tock prediction out of our resident Mycoplasma?

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

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 9:37 PM

SECOND

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


Ukrainian forces have captured around 1,000 square kilometers of Russian land in a week. That is almost as much territory as Russia has seized in Ukraine this year.

By Jake Epstein | Aug 12, 2024, 2:25 PM CDT

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-captured-hundreds-square-miles
-russian-territory-general-2024-8

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

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, August 12, 2024 10:16 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by second:

Ukrainian forces have captured around 1,000 square kilometers of Russian land in a week. That is almost as much territory as Russia has seized in Ukraine this year.

By Jake Epstein | Aug 12, 2024, 2:25 PM CDT

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-captured-hundreds-square-miles
-russian-territory-general-2024-8




I know, it's too funny.

T

Putin Is Afraid Of Ukrainian Troops Advancing! The Chief Of General Staff is Replaced With KGB Boss



NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
MAGA movement
Sun, November 24, 2024 01:26 - 13 posts
Where is the 25th ammendment when you need it?
Sun, November 24, 2024 01:01 - 18 posts
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Sat, November 23, 2024 23:46 - 4761 posts
Australia - unbelievable...
Sat, November 23, 2024 19:59 - 22 posts
Elections; 2024
Sat, November 23, 2024 19:33 - 4796 posts
More Cope: David Brooks and PBS are delusional...
Sat, November 23, 2024 16:32 - 1 posts
List of States/Governments/Politicians Moving to Ban Vaccine Passports
Sat, November 23, 2024 16:27 - 168 posts
Once again... a request for legitimate concerns...
Sat, November 23, 2024 16:22 - 17 posts
What's wrong with conspiracy theories
Sat, November 23, 2024 15:07 - 19 posts
human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
Sat, November 23, 2024 14:38 - 945 posts
Convicted kosher billionaire makes pedophile Roman Polanski blush
Sat, November 23, 2024 13:46 - 34 posts
The worst Judges, Merchants of Law, Rogue Prosecutors, Bad Cops, Criminal Supporting Lawyers, Corrupted District Attorney in USA? and other Banana republic
Sat, November 23, 2024 13:39 - 50 posts
 VIEW MORE TOPICS 

FFF.NET SOCIAL