Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
If all they were fighting was Ukraine, that would have been over in three days tops.

Poor little Russia hasn't won after years of fighting the wealthy and enormous country called Ukraine because hordes of Nazis are fighting alongside the Ukrainians. That is the standard Russian excuse for why Russia has not won, yet.

Russian revisionism ahead of 9 May: ‘Modern Europe is reincarnated Nazism’
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/russian-revisionism-ahead-of-9-may-modern-europ
e-is-reincarnated-nazism/

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

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Saturday, May 10, 2025 12:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
If all they were fighting was Ukraine, that would have been over in three days tops.
Poor little Russia hasn't won after years of fighting the wealthy and enormous country called Ukraine because hordes of Nazis are fighting alongside the Ukrainians. That is the standard Russian excuse for why Russia has not won, yet.

Russian revisionism ahead of 9 May: ‘Modern Europe is reincarnated Nazism’
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/russian-revisionism-ahead-of-9-may-modern-europ
e-is-reincarnated-nazism/

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

It would look as though I had already preemptively replied to your juvenile response...

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Oh...

Wait a minute....

All this time. You thought and you still think this is a one-vs-one conflict?

Oh. You poor thing.

Nah. We just sent millions of men to their death for some rich people in the US and other countries and sat back threw a few cargo ships worth of fiat currency at the problem.

No problem at all for us. Barely an inconvenience. We're already making those money printers go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR practically 24/7 already.

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Saturday, May 10, 2025 3:34 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
I reject your premise that we need bullies and corrupt bad guys to deal with their bullies and corrupt bad guys. I further reject your premise that Russia China and Iran can take over half the world unless they currently hold that much territory. Their expansionism will be checked. Especially now since they are seeing the consequences Russia is and are going to suffer.

tick tock

Another one of THGR'S ridiculous predictions.

And that's bc THGR'S sources are tainted.

And G chimes right in..

Quote:

Truth! NATO looks more important than ever. On the one hand I wish they would go in and fight with Ukraine as if they were in NATO. On the other, more coldly practical hand, it might be easier and a hell of a lot less deadly to hope for a swift capture of Ukraine so A) fighting would stop, and B) sanctions and the corner that Putin has put himself into will just get darker and darker until some able bodied Russian puts a slug in his head.

More tainted sources.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Saturday, May 10, 2025 5:43 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

An isolated Putin, all alone. Nobody came to his party.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Saturday, May 10, 2025 8:02 AM

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

Ukraine prevented Russian forces from seizing any of their self-identified objectives in Ukraine over the past year, depriving Russian President Vladimir Putin of significant battlefield successes to celebrate on Victory Day.

Putin did not discuss the battlefield situation in Ukraine during Russia’s Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on May 8 and 9, but claimed that all of Russia supports Russian servicemembers fighting in Ukraine.[6]

Russian forces have not seized any significant towns in Ukraine since the seizure of Avdiivka in February 2024, and the only mid-sized settlement that Russian forces have seized in Ukraine since December 2024 is Velyka Novosilka (pre-war population of 5,000).[7]

Ukrainian sources previously reported that Russian forces were trying to seize Pokrovsk, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and the remaining area of Luhansk Oblast and advance into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast by Victory Day on May 9.[8] Russian forces did not accomplish any of those objectives, and have in fact been trying to seize Pokrovsk, Chasiv Yar, and Toretsk for roughly a year.[9]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-9-2025

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

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Saturday, May 10, 2025 8:06 AM

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

Ukrainian Drones Patrol A 16-Mile Kill Zone.

‘If You Simply Drive On Any Roads, You Risk Your Life,’ One Russian Blogger Warned. However, Russian jamming could blunt the Ukrainian drone edge.

By David Axe | May 09, 2025, 04:22pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/05/09/ukrainian-drones-patr
ol-a-16-mile-kill-zone-if-you-simply-drive-on-any-roads-you-risk-your-life-one-russian-blogger-warned/

Deploying millions of small explosive drones every month, Ukrainian forces have created a kill zone extending 16 miles behind the front line of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.

Relentlessly striking troop formations, artillery, air-defense vehicles and—perhaps most importantly, supply lines—the drones have made life along the front line a nightmare for Russian troops.

“If you simply drive on any roads, you risk your life,” one Russian blogger wrote. “In principle, this has been the case for a year, since the spring of 2024, but now the frequency of attacks is much higher for the enemy.”

Ukrainian forces turned to small drones during the worst months of the prolonged ammunition shortage in early 2024. Now, a network of workshops all over Ukraine churns out more than 2 million small first-person-view drones—each weighing a few pounds and clutching a small warhead—every month.

The developers are constantly improving the drones with better warheads and jam-resistant controls, among other innovations.

In the 39th month of Russia’s wider war, the unmanned aerial vehicles now form a complex and constantly evolving system—one that has managed to stay ahead of Russian efforts to defeat it with armor, nets, shotguns and radio jammers.

“They fly in flocks,” the blogger explained, “with preliminary reconnaissance from aircraft-type UAVs.” Bomber drones lobbing small explosives back up the single-use explosive FPVs. And repeater drones, which capture and relay radio signals, extend the range of the smallest drones from just a few miles to 10 or more.

The Russians deploy millions of drones every month, too, but Ukrainian jamming is generally superior—and can ground many radio-controlled drones. Fiber-optic drones, controlled via signals traveling along miles-long fibers, are more difficult to defeat.

But fiber-optic drones are expensive, costing thousands of dollars apiece, compared to just hundreds of dollars for a wireless drone. And Ukraine’s long-range strike drones have been bombarding Russia’s fiber-optics factories in order to suppress production of these unjammable drones.

A new and more powerful Russian jammer called Black Eyes could shift the aerial balance of power over the front line. Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a leading Ukrainian drone expert, called Black Eyes “dangerous.”

But the Ukrainians appreciate the risk—and have been hunting down the Black Eyes using specially-equipped FPV drones that communicate on non-standard frequencies that the Black Eyes can’t reliably block.

The result, for now, is that Ukraine has a drone advantage. That helps explain why, in recent months, Russian advances in eastern Ukraine have slowed to a crawl—and Russian casualties have increased.

The next step for Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, the independent military service overseeing the country’s millions of drones, may be to further extend the depth of the robotic kill zone.

The goal, according to analyst Andrew Perpetua, should be to add “layers of drone superiority” extending as far as 60 miles from the front line. Four times the current depth.

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

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Saturday, May 10, 2025 9:52 AM

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

Defence Intelligence
UPDATE ON UKRAINE
09 May 2024

• In April 2025, Russian territorial gains in Ukraine continued at a significantly decreased rate relative to late 2024.

• Russian Ground Forces (RGF) highly likely seized approximately 200 sq km of Ukrainian territory in April 2025, an average of approximately 6 sq km per day. This is only a slight increase on the approximately 150 sq km Russian forces seized in March 2025, which was the lowest total observed since June 2024.

• Throughout April, RGF made tactical gains around Pokrovsk - the key Ukrainian logistics hub which supports operations in the Donbas. Pokrovsk has likely remained the priority axis for Russia in its campaign but it has been unable to make any notable advances around the city since late 2024.

• While Russia conducts its Victory Day commemorations on 09 May 2025 for its role in what Russia calls the 'Great Patriotic War', Ukrainian forces highly likely continue to conduct limited kinetic operations in Russia's Kursk border region. Ukraine's incursion into Kursk, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is the first time since the Second World War that foreign troops have conducted operations in Russian territory.

https://x.com/DefenceHQ/status/1920832638874431502

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

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Saturday, May 10, 2025 3:10 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:

Ukrainian sources previously reported that Russian forces were trying to seize Pokrovsk, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and the remaining area of Luhansk Oblast and advance into Dnipropetrovsk Oblast by Victory Day on May 9.

First, about your sources. Understanding War is published by the ISW. The ISW is a Kagan-Nuland (husband- wife) think tank. And we all know that "fuck the EU" Nuland was a prime promoter of the Maidan coup and that both are arch neocons.
Right?

Second, they managed two lies in one sentence. That's quite an achievement!

"Ukrainian sources" have no more of an idea than you about Russia's tactical plans.

And Toretsk is +100% controlled by Russia, Chasov Yar 95%,0and Russian troops have already entered Dnipropetrovsk oblast.

Sigh.

Correcting even just a few of your lies is tedious.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Saturday, May 10, 2025 4:39 PM

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

Putin destroyed Russia's future

Putin and his entire nation have become hostages to a profoundly miscalculated war

By Owen Matthews | May 10, 2025 2:00 pm

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/putin-destroyed-russias-future-his-own-
legacy-3685904

. . . Modern Russians, like their grandparents, must watch what they say and face imprisonment for disagreeing with the Party line — for instance, by calling the Ukraine invasion a war instead of a “special military operation.”

Television is once again pure propaganda, and thousands of Russian dissidents try to rebuild their lives in exile in the West.

Do ordinary Russians truly believe the Kremlin’s messaging that Kyiv is run by liberal Fascists and that Putin is saving them from a hostile takeover by the West?

“The Russian people have always been spectators of their country’s politics,” observes the poet and critic Dmitry Bykov — in exile in the US since being labelled a “foreign agent” by the Russian state in 2022.

“It’s like a theatre … today’s Russian does what is expected of him. Sometimes he applauds, sometimes he wolf-whistles. But he is not required to actually believe.

“Everyone knows that the man on the stage is not Prince Hamlet but Laurence Olivier. Nobody believes that what is happening on the stage is actually true. But [after the Ukraine invasion], the theatre is coming more like a circus. The people are not stupid. They watch and laugh nervously and see how low the actors will go.”

Putin himself believes that he is the saviour of his country. Asked recently by the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg whether he had looked after Russia as Yeltsin had once exhorted him, Putin’s reply was defiant. “I have not only looked after Russia but rather we have pulled back from the brink of an abyss,” said Putin at his annual press conference last December. “We were heading to a total loss of sovereignty, and without sovereignty, Russia cannot exist as an independent state.”

Putin did not explain who he believed was threatening Russia, how, or why. For most of his quarter-century in power Western countries have been all too happy to make money in partnership with Russia, either by selling its people goods and services or, in the case of Germany, building an entire economic model based on reliable supplies of cheap Russian natural gas.

Until, of course, Putin crashed those economic ties when he decided to try to effect regime change in Kyiv. And for the whole period of Putin’s ascendancy everything about Russia — from Putin’s rising great power fantasies to the famous stability of his regime — has been underpinned by high world oil prices, an economic factor that had nothing to do with the Kremlin and was entirely outside its control.

Yeltsin headed a Russian state that was bankrupt as long as oil was trading at just $12 (£9) a barrel. Under Putin, the price rose past $100 (£75) – and both his own billionaire cronies and ordinary Russians reaped the benefits of that long cycle of prosperity.

Now, though, oil prices are falling back towards 1990s levels, and Russia’s war and sanctions-strained economy is starting to creak at the seams.

Both Putin and his entire nation have become hostages to a profoundly miscalculated war that the Kremlin believed would be over in three days but has now cost close to a million Russian casualties. Putin has exploited a deep vein of Russian nationalism that existed before he came to power.

But there is no such thing as Putinism — only a chimerical mixture of religious ethno-nationalism, a paranoiac, millenarian fear of foreign interference, and kleptocracy. Not only will Putin leave no lasting ideological legacy, but any legacy of prosperity and stability that he may have created has been destroyed by his own decision to wage war on Ukraine.

He has gained a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, at a terrible cost, and increased the size of Russia by half a per cent. The price of his illusions was not only thousands of lost lives, but also a lost future for Russia.

Owen Matthews is Russia correspondent at the ‘Spectator’ magazine, former Moscow bureau chief at ‘Newsweek‘ and the author of ‘Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine‘ Download the book for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Owen+Matthews

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

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Sunday, May 11, 2025 8:22 AM

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

From 2019

Putin Welcomes Stalin Back to the Pantheon: A New Russian Patriotism Embraces the Soviet Past

By Andrei Kolesnikov | October 1, 2019
Senior Fellow and Chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2019-10-01/
putin-welcomes-stalin-back-pantheon

On November 10, 1982, the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died. The editors of Pravda, the country’s main newspaper, confronted something of a dilemma. A black frame would surround the front page to indicate mourning. But how thick should it be—the same size as for mere mortals, or special in some way? Eventually, someone thought to look in the newspaper’s archives to see what size had been used when Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin died, in 1953. The paper used precisely the same frame to announce Brezhnev’s death.

This thick black quadrangle continues to hold Russian and Soviet history captive, bounding current understanding with myths about the past. The country’s politicians are obsessed by Soviet glories. They have declared themselves heirs to all the victories of their socialist predecessors—whether on the battlefield, in space, or in feats of engineering. This history is really that of the state and its war machine, rather than that of the nation.

For many ordinary Russians, national pride remains fixed within this Soviet matrix. Among historical achievements, some of the most popular are the territorial acquisitions of the imperial and Soviet eras—not to mention the post-Soviet annexation of Crimea. This latter addition boosted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings: many saw it as a restoration of long-lost Soviet military glory.

Putin in his speeches frequently compares his achievements to the victories and acquisitions of the Soviet past. The message is clear: whether Soviet or not, the country is in the same position as it once was.

THE POLITICS OF THE PAST

Russian officialdom has lately developed an enormous appetite—bordering on patriotic hysteria—for historical politics. The interest is partly linked to the 80th anniversary of 1939, the year World War II broke out in Europe. Among the crucial events of that year for the Soviet Union was the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, in which Stalin and the German Führer Adolf Hitler concocted secret plans to divide the European mainland between themselves. The two dictators split up Poland, an act that, in the long run, drove the United Kingdom and France to enter the conflict. Less than a month after the start of hostilities, Stalin and Hitler signed yet another accord: the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, which delineated spheres of influence between the two powers and gave Stalin the military flexibility along his western frontier to start the Winter War with Finland.

Soviet leaders took 50 years to admit to the existence of the secret protocols. When they did so, they also admitted that they were a mistake: in a 1989, the era of President Mikhail Gorbachev, the Congress of People’s Deputies denounced the actions of their predecessors—among them, the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979 and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

Russian officialdom has lately developed an enormous appetite for historical politics.

So it may come as some surprise that in recent months, articles have appeared in Russia reclaiming the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as a feat of Soviet diplomacy. Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s minister of culture, and Sergei Naryshkin, the head of foreign intelligence—as well as steward of the Russian Historical Society—have both made statements to this effect. Medinsky practically denounced the 1989 conference as a terrible misstep. What is more, deputies of the current Russian parliament have spoken out to justify the Soviet Union’s Afghan adventure.

Because of the historic tension between Russia and Poland, reignited by statements like the ones above, Polish authorities did not invite Putin to Warsaw for ceremonies commemorating the start of World War II. Russian political figures, like the Speaker of the Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin and former Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, responded by attacking Polish leaders and labeling Poland a “satellite” of the United States.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is perhaps the most florid, but not the only, contentious piece of Soviet history that Russian authorities have looked to rehabilitate. The country’s Military Historical Society—under Medinsky’s de facto control—has begun excavation work in the Sandarmokh forest in Karelis, near the Finnish border, where Stalin’s secret police shot and buried Soviet political opponents en masse. The aim of the excavations? To show that in fact the victims were not dissenters but Red Army prisoners of war—executed not by the Soviets but by the Finns.

STALINIZING HISTORY

In Russia, World War II is known as the Great Patriotic War, and the Soviet victory is the glue of the nation. No one can doubt the feats of the Red Army or the enormous sacrifice of the Soviet people. But mythologizing that victory has come to entail glorifying Stalin. In recent years, TV propagandists have represented World War II not only as a war with Nazi Germany but as a battle against the West. Russians remember the role of the Allies less and less. Meanwhile, the ritual celebration of Victory Day on May 9 grows in pomp and ceremony with every passing year. Putin has used the fête to strengthen his authority. He has essentially privatized the victory and become its living symbol, although he was born seven years after the war ended.

Russia is neither practically nor formally the legal successor of the Soviet Union. It is a new state formed on democratic principles. But under Putin, the Russian Federation appears to be the direct heir to the Soviet Union. When senior officials say “we,” they mean the Soviet Union, too. Even the bloody repressions of the Stalin era no longer seem so dreadful to ordinary Russians. In sociological polls, respondents increasingly say that these actions were “politically justified.”

The reason for declaring the Russian Federation a successor to this mythical Soviet Union is simple: the Putin regime—which has now ruled the country for 20 years—has no history or achievements of its own, other than turning a democratic state into an authoritarian one and burning through colossal reserves of petrodollars.

Russia did enjoy an economic upsurge in the early 2000s, but not because of Putin. Rather, oil prices were high, and Russia had made a successful transition to a market economy, thanks to a process that the reformer Yegor Gaidar had set into motion in the early 1990s. Full credit, however, must go to Putin for the current economic downturn, which is a consequence of Russia’s self-imposed isolation under his leadership, as well as his increasing the state’s role in the economic system. And so the current regime is forced to make do with the achievements of the bygone Soviet era, which are largely fictitious, thanks to the use of official statistics to warp reality.

Russia is neither practically nor formally the legal successor of the Soviet Union.

Official history is being Sovietized—or rather, Stalinized. The Stalin regime’s achievements have become a source of pride. And all of a sudden, officials rush to defend the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the Winter War, when, in fact, these were utterly catastrophic decisions that sent many to their graves.

Whoever controls the historical narrative controls the nation. What is more, the leaders of nations tend to look to the past for an image of the future. In Russia’s case, the image they see is that of a harshly authoritarian state, both militarized and ideologized, controlling the economy, politics, and even people’s souls. The Russian elite can justly be described as the grandchildren of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

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

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Sunday, May 11, 2025 8:17 PM

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

Kremlin officials have recently intensified their engagement with Western media in an effort to message directly to the Trump administration and American public and portray Russia's terms for Ukraine's surrender as reasonable.[10]

Putin's May 11 press conference and Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov's recent interviews with Western media are part of an attempt to inject Kremlin narratives into the Western information space aimed at convincing the West that Russia is able to conquer all of Ukraine militarily and scaring Ukraine and the West into conceding to Russia's demands.[11]

Putin's rhetorical posturing is an attempt to conceal limitations in the Russian military's capabilities and distract from Russia's failure to make any significant progress on the battlefield over the last two years. Putin and other Kremlin officials firmly maintain their war aims that amount to Ukraine's full capitulation and have thus far refused to consider any peace deal that does not concede to all of Russia's demands.[12]

The Kremlin is falsely portraying itself as willing to engage in good-faith negotiations with Ukraine while continuing to attack frontline Ukrainian positions and setting conditions for further military aggression against Ukraine and NATO in the coming years.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-11-2025

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

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Sunday, May 11, 2025 9:30 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

More bullshit from arch neocons Kagan and Nuland, SECOND?

For the first time ever, Putin used the term "war" to describe events in Ukraine. It was mentioned that even if Putin only upgrades the SMO to an anti-terror operation, that would free the Russian army to do things they haven't done before, like go after political leaders.

There are two armies of professional soldiers in Russian reserve, fully trained, equipped and ready to go. Each 125,000 men. The airspace above the Oreshnik missile launch point is clear of civilian aircraft.

Do the neocon hawk-'tards know this?

What Putin counterproposed to the EU's ultimatum was direct negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul starting Thursday. Russia is sending its negotiating team there and will be waiting for a corresponding delegation from Kiev.

*****

The one thing Putin made a point of doing was excluding Trump from the list of potential enemies. Putin thanked all of the "global south" nations that tried to help negotiate a peace treaty, and added Trump to that list.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Sunday, May 11, 2025 9:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
French Media Rushes To Quash Claims Macron, Merz & Starmer Caught Hiding Cocaine On Kiev-Bound Train
Sunday, May 11, 2025 - 09:00 AM

French media are on the defensive after journalists unexpectedly entered a train carriage carrying French President Emmanuel Macron, along with the German and British Prime Ministers, en route to Kyiv on Friday, which sparked a firestorm on social media with allegations of cocaine use by the top leaders.

"They [social media users] cite videos that allegedly show Emmanuel Macron discreetly hiding a strange white bag on the table," the French daily newspaper Libération said, adding, "And according to these accounts, Friedrich Merz even had a straw to use to take drugs. These conspiracy accusations fit with the narrative that Western elites are depraved and approach war unconsciously."

When reporters entered the room, Macron was meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on a train ride from Poland to Ukraine.

IMHO, after seeing the video, I can't think of any other possible explanation. How else to explain the items and furtive actions?

https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1921568553553240099

Persistent allegations that Z is a coke-head, too. If so, sounds like Hitler high on amphetamines.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Sunday, May 11, 2025 11:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
French Media Rushes To Quash Claims Macron, Merz & Starmer Caught Hiding Cocaine On Kiev-Bound Train
Sunday, May 11, 2025 - 09:00 AM

French media are on the defensive after journalists unexpectedly entered a train carriage carrying French President Emmanuel Macron, along with the German and British Prime Ministers, en route to Kyiv on Friday, which sparked a firestorm on social media with allegations of cocaine use by the top leaders.

"They [social media users] cite videos that allegedly show Emmanuel Macron discreetly hiding a strange white bag on the table," the French daily newspaper Libération said, adding, "And according to these accounts, Friedrich Merz even had a straw to use to take drugs. These conspiracy accusations fit with the narrative that Western elites are depraved and approach war unconsciously."

When reporters entered the room, Macron was meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on a train ride from Poland to Ukraine.

IMHO, after seeing the video, I can't think of any other possible explanation. How else to explain the items and furtive actions?

https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1921568553553240099

Persistent allegations that Z is a coke-head, too. If so, sounds like Hitler high on amphetamines.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

Holy shit.

That awkward silence too. I love that nobody tried to fill it and just let them keep going.

All handsy with themselves the whole time like their seats are on fire. So weird.

You see Macron try a little slight of hand right at the end there? That never fooled any cops when my idiot buddies tried hiding their weed after getting caught, and it ain't fooling anybody watching that on repeat in HD today.

David Blane they are not.

Is anybody reporting on this? First I've heard about it.

Trump should have a lot of fun with this one tomorrow.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Monday, May 12, 2025 12:47 AM

I'm watching it again now...

He SNATCHED that motherfucker. Not right away... but boy... when he went for it, there was not any subtlety to the motion until after he had it in his hand and right at the edge of the table, was there? And the deadly silence falls over the room more or less for the next 5 seconds after that...

Actual question because I really don't know... do any of these three guys behave like this usually? Any nervous ticks and what not? Because I bet if you had a camera under that table you'd see at least 3 legs bouncing about 200 times per minute right now too.

If that was a napkin, the only way he behaved like that putting it away was because it had some poor schumck's blackmail ejaculate on it. Maybe it belonged to the guy on the left that walked in late. He seemed like he was just as nervous as the other two despite the fact he just got there. Maybe instead of a coke straw the other guy on the right had the pair of tweezers he used to pull it out of whatever he was hiding it in. Don't know where the bag or bottle is in that event, but these guys look so fucking nervous it was probably sitting in one of their pockets and poor macron had to soil himself on the spot.

In that case, I do hope anybody who shook Macron's hand happened to wash their hands before they rubbed their eyes or they might be waking up tomorrow with a nasty case of pink eye.

I'm telling you what... if you hear anybody close to Macron getting pink eye in the next few days, I"m going to start referring to myself as Mohammad.
--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Monday, May 12, 2025 4:42 AM

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

From 2020:

A Coercive History Lesson From Vladimir Putin: Triumphalism Replaces Reckoning as Russia Remembers the Soviet Past

By Andrei Kolesnikov | October 29, 2020
Senior Fellow and Chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/2020-10-29/coercive-his
tory-lesson-vladimir-putin

To mark the first day back at school on September 1, Russian schoolchildren received an online lesson from none other than President Vladimir Putin. He chose the subject of history, which has in recent years become close to his heart. His specific focus was a topic he has been talking about obsessively for almost a year now: the rewriting of Russian history, in particular that of World War II.

Putin is primarily concerned with two issues. One is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, which Western historians have long believed “paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War.” Putin holds that Stalin had no choice but to sign the pact with Germany. The other is the decisive role that the Soviet Union played in defeating the Nazis, which Putin believes other nations fail adequately to recognize.

If these were the views of a private individual, others could simply agree or disagree with them. But when a head of state presses them repeatedly, they become national ideological dogma. So far as the security services of an authoritarian state are concerned, they are nothing short of a call for action.

“People who cooperate with the enemy during a war are called and have always and everywhere been called collaborationists. Those who agree with the rewriters of history can easily be called the collaborationists of today,” Putin said during the public lesson on September 1. And sure enough, Russia’s Investigative Committee, a federal body with far-reaching powers, took no time at all in establishing a new department to investigate crimes related to the rehabilitation of Nazism and the falsification of history. The hunt for historical “collaborationists” is on.

History’s Avengers

Under Russian law, the rehabilitation of Nazism is a crime. But what criteria investigative bodies will use to assess the “rewriting of history,” and how they will punish those found guilty of it, remains unclear. Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee and a friend of Putin’s from his St. Petersburg days, has defined such infractions as “attempts to put equal responsibility for the outbreak of war on Nazi criminals and on the Allied countries,” such as the Soviet Union.

By criminalizing certain interpretations of history, Putin is taking aim less at the West than at domestic figures, who, faced with the threat of prosecution, will hesitate to digress from the official narrative of the pre–World War II Soviet Union, for example. Similarly, when the committee opens criminal investigations into events abroad—as it did in the Czech Republic in April, when municipal authorities in Prague removed the city’s monument to the Soviet war hero Marshal Ivan Konev—the message to ordinary Russians is the real object. Look how little they like us in the West: they defile the memory of our victory and our heroes.

The atmosphere in today’s Russia encourages the vindication of Stalinism and its atrocities.

By creating a new department to avenge history in this manner, the Kremlin risks criminalizing the work of professional historians. There were already incidents shading in that direction: in 2018, the Ministry of Justice classified as extremist an article by the historian Kirill Alexandrov about the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, despite the fact that the article made no attempt to justify Bandera’s actions during World War II. Alexandrov was to receive a doctoral degree in 2017, but the Ministry of Education and Science withheld it on political grounds: he had written his dissertation about soldiers who joined a collaborationist unit during World War II.

Anything and everything to do with the Great Patriotic War, as Russians refer to World War II, is extremely sensitive for the Russian leadership. The memory of victory in that war is one of the few remaining bonds to hold the Russian nation together and legitimize the Putin regime as the heir to great triumphant ancestors. Putin has gone so far as to enshrine his fight against the falsification of history in the constitution by passing amendments to that effect this summer (alongside his better-known move to reset the clock on presidential terms, allowing himself to stay in power beyond 2024).

Stalin’s Revival

The trouble with this new official historical discourse is that it implicitly vindicates Stalin and Stalinism. To criticize Putin’s version of history is to criticize the sacred memory of the war, and to criticize Stalin is to detract from public appreciation of Russia’s victory in that war. This paradigm is precisely the one on which the Soviet regime under Leonid Brezhnev built its official propaganda. Stirring up unpleasantness around repression under Stalin was the dirty business of dissidents: Stalin was above all to be remembered as the leader who won the war.

The revival of this narrative has already begun to expunge important chapters of Russian history from public discussion. Scholars, writers, and the public no longer explore the Winter War that Stalin unleashed against Finland in 1939. They don’t consider Stalin’s shameless cooperation with Hitler, which included holding joint parades and handing over German antifascists to the Nazis. They can’t talk about details of the occupation of the Baltic states or the invasion of Poland in accordance with the secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and under the pretext of liberating Ukrainian and Belarusian “brothers” there.

There will likely be little further scholarship on the Soviet secret police’s shooting of more than 20,000 Polish officers in Katyn in 1940. Earlier propaganda had suggested that it was the Germans who executed the Poles in Katyn. Putin himself once debunked that notion. But now the idea has resurfaced in an article that the official state agency, RIA Novosti, published in March. Moreover, this spring, the prosecutor’s office in Tver ordered the removal of memorial plaques from a building in whose basement Stalin’s death squads had executed more than 6,000 Poles.

Russia needs to restore, rather than erase, the memory of the millions of victims of totalitarianism.

The atmosphere in today’s Russia encourages the vindication of Stalinism and its atrocities. By simplifying and mythologizing history, the Russian president is encouraging the deterioration of public knowledge of historical events. Historical discourse that was once marginal is becoming mainstream, with the state’s endorsement. Those who commemorate the victims of repression face official persecution. The historian Yury Dmitriev, for example, discovered a mass grave of victims of political repression in Karelia, in northern Russia. This summer he was sentenced to three and a half years’ imprisonment for pedophilia—a charge widely believed to be a vengeful fabrication. The prosecutor’s office appealed the sentence as too lenient, and the Karelian Supreme Court added another nine and a half years. The Ministry of Justice has labeled Memorial, a nongovernmental organization that for several decades has heroically and painstakingly pieced together Stalin-era crimes, as a “foreign agent,” and one court after another has ravaged it with fines. Such is the context in which the Investigative Committee intends to punish people for “knowingly spreading false information about the deeds of the U.S.S.R.”

While Russia’s Investigative Committee was thinking up new ways to combat historical dissidence, parliamentarians in Spain began debate over a new draft law on “democratic memory.” The Spanish law, which has come under fierce criticism, includes “a plan to recover the remains of victims of the civil war and setting up a special prosecutor to investigate human-rights abuses from 1936 to 1978.”

If and when Russia transitions from Putin’s authoritarianism to democracy, it should look to Spain’s example. Russia needs to restore, rather than erase, the memory of the millions of victims of totalitarianism and cease putting it in competition with the memory of those who fell in battle in World War II. Promoting that false opposition is a deliberate tactic to deepen the national divide.

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

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Monday, May 12, 2025 2:54 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Putin is primarily concerned with two ~~issues~~ FACTS. One is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, which Western historians have long believed “paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War.” Putin holds that Stalin had no choice but to sign the pact with Germany. The other is the decisive role that the Soviet Union played in defeating the Nazis, which Putin believes other nations fail adequately to recognize.

.

Since both of these are true facts, what's the problem?

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, May 12, 2025 4:38 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Putin is primarily concerned with two ~~issues~~ FACTS. One is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, which Western historians have long believed “paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War.” Putin holds that Stalin had no choice but to sign the pact with Germany. The other is the decisive role that the Soviet Union played in defeating the Nazis, which Putin believes other nations fail adequately to recognize.
.

Since both of these are true facts, what's the problem?

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

If Ukrainians surrendered to Putin, no Ukrainians would have died, not even the top-most Nazis who would flee to the EU. That's story Putin tells about his little Russians of Ukraine. In a similar situation, Russians died by the tens of millions because they, foolishly, did not surrender to Hitler. With the Atom bomb, the USA could have beat Hitler without any help from any Russians. All those Russians deaths were pointless. Russia should have immediately surrendered, or Russians should have fled eastward into the safety of Siberia, but that is not the story Putin wants to tell.

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

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Monday, May 12, 2025 5:54 PM

Second's delusions are so much more interesting than Teds are, Sigs.

You can tell that at one point Second was probably highly intelligent before the brain trauma, so it's kind of fascinating watching how his broken brain functions over the span of a decade.

Ted is just the same 65 IQ dumb shit Ted always was. Look at him go with those political cartoons again today after I ripped him 8 new assholes last night.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Monday, May 12, 2025 6:55 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Putin is primarily concerned with two ~~issues~~ FACTS. One is the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, which Western historians have long believed “paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War.” Putin holds that Stalin had no choice but to sign the pact with Germany. The other is the decisive role that the Soviet Union played in defeating the Nazis, which Putin believes other nations fail adequately to recognize.
.

Since both of these are true facts, what's the problem?

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

If Ukrainians surrendered to Putin, no Ukrainians would have died, not even the top-most Nazis who would flee to the EU. That's story Putin tells about his little Russians of Ukraine.

If Ukraine has just implemented the Minsk Agreement, Donetsk and Luhansk would still be in Ukraine, Russian speaking people (the majority) there would have had their rights protected (instead of being shelled by Nazis), they would have been able to elect their own governors, everyone would have been happy and millions of Ukrainians would still be in Ukraine instead of displaced or dead

Quote:
In a similar situation..

Similar to what? Ukrainians, like the Nazis before them, negotiating in bad faith?

I have no idea what you're tryingto say.

You probably don't either.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, May 12, 2025 6:56 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Second's delusions are so much more interesting than Teds are, Sigs.

You can tell that at one point Second was probably highly intelligent before the brain trauma, so it's kind of fascinating watching how his broken brain functions over the span of a decade.

Ted is just the same 65 IQ dumb shit Ted always was. Look at him go with those political cartoons again today after I ripped him 8 new assholes last night.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

Sad, innit?

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Tuesday, May 13, 2025 6:42 AM

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

Signym, why don't you explain that this story is completely in error because the MH17 crash was not Russia's responsibility? Russia says MH17 crashed because Ukraine shot it down, and that will forever be Putin's only explanation for what happened.

MH17 air disaster: Russia found responsible for downing plane

https://www.dw.com/en/un-body-finds-russia-responsible-for-downed-mh17
-flight/a-72523668

Eight years after the incident, a Dutch court convicted two Russian men and a Ukrainian man, in absentia, of murder for their role in the attack. Moscow has refused to extradite its citizens, calling the ruling "scandalous."

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

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Wednesday, May 14, 2025 6:59 AM

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

THE STRATEGISTS
Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler – How War Made Them and How They Made War [2024]

By Phillips Payson O’Brien

Free download from
https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Phillips+Payson
https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Phillips+Payson

Chapter 12. Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi–Soviet Pact

‘I have them! I have them!’ Adolf Hitler blurted, probably slapping his thigh.1 Sitting amongst his favourite acolytes in his kitsch Bavarian mountain retreat, he had just received the news he had been waiting for all summer.2 For weeks he had gently courted Joseph Stalin, hoping to arrange a strategic pact between National Socialist Germany and the Bolshevik Soviet Union. Now, in late August 1939, Stalin had agreed to talk. Hitler could see all the pieces of his grand strategy falling into place.

Almost 1,500 miles to the east, Stalin was just as excited. Once he had been convinced that Hitler really wanted to make a deal, he had greedily taken control of the negotiations. In response to a personal request from Hitler, he invited the Nazi foreign secretary, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to come to Moscow. In only a few hours, the two men hammered out one of the most cynical pacts in history. Stalin agreed to transform the USSR from, outwardly, the world’s greatest opponent of Nazism into by far its most important supporter – and in return received more than half of Poland and the Baltic states as booty.3

Unlike the teetotal Hitler, Stalin decided to celebrate his triumph with strong drink. When the negotiations concluded, he had bottles of the best Russian champagne wheeled in and the Bolsheviks and Nazis had a party. After a few rounds of toasts, the Soviet dictator, with that glint in his eye that could either mean mirth or death, told one Nazi functionary, ‘Let’s drink to the new anti-Cominternist – Stalin!’4 Stalin also raised a toast to Hitler himself, saying, ‘I know how much the German people loves its Führer; I want therefore to drink to his health.’5

Hitler and Stalin were so pleased with themselves because they were each convinced that they had pulled off a strategic coup, one that came directly from their early experiences of war. Hitler believed he had prevented the one thing he had most feared, the factor that had led to Germany’s defeat in World War I: a two-front war for Germany. With the Soviets no longer a threat, he could point his military forces westward, consolidating his firepower on the British menace he anticipated. The threat would be too great for London, forcing them to accept his attack on Poland. Stalin, meanwhile, believed he had achieved what Lenin had in 1918: turned the capitalist powers against each other. Now Germany would come to blows with Britain and France, and the two capitalist forces would exhaust themselves in a bloody war. His Soviet Union would stand aside, husbanding its strength, ready to take advantage of the resulting carnage.

The signing of the Nazi–Soviet Pact started World War II in Europe, and determined much of its course. It did not bring about the war or the world that either Hitler or Stalin thought he was creating. Both had stumbled badly. Stalin almost paid with his life in 1941, and Hitler definitely did in 1945.

*******

The practical Stalin, who had come to understand the importance of modern equipment and logistics, had started building up a relatively impressive land force. By the mid-1930s the Red Army had made significant advances in the production of its military equipment, with a growing number of modern tanks and some decent modern aircraft designs.20 While it was a force that could not fulfil the doctrinal expectations of Marshal Tukhachevsky’s deep battle concept, it was still a force to be reckoned with, and there was the prospect of even more impressive development in the coming years.

But then, Stalin, wanting to destroy any possible centre that could oppose his power, chopped off the head of his armed forces. Judging that the more senior the officer, the more dangerous he was, Stalin killed well over half of the Soviet Union’s most senior commanders and a frightening number of its middle ranks. Though a few officers of talent were left, such as Georgii Zhukov, who would go on to distinguish himself as one of the finest commanders in the war, the depth of talent in the Red Army had been devastated. Both in its strengths and weaknesses, it was now clearly ‘Stalin’s army’.21

In Stalin’s mind, the strengths of the Red Army after his purges put him in exactly the situation he wished to be: able to bargain between the Germans and the British/French. Not only did he believe that all capitalist powers were his enemy; he was convinced that they were each other’s enemies as well. He saw the late 1930s, long before the German invasion of Poland, as a period of globalized, interconnected capitalist war between two different camps. In March 1939, in one of his more detailed expositions, he outlined this vision to the Communist Party’s Central Committee. ‘A new imperialist war is already in its second year, a war waged over a huge territory stretching from Shanghai to Gibraltar,’ he wrote. Furthermore, Stalin believed the economically stronger but politically weaker, previously dominant powers of the UK, France and the US were being challenged by the ‘aggressive’ Germany, Japan and Italy.22 The aggressive powers had triumphed so far in the Spanish Civil War, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Japanese invasion of China, and the German expansion into Austria and Czechoslovakia.23

However, now this crisis was reaching a delicate stage. Stalin understood that Germany was the most important in Europe of the aggressive powers, and argued that, as Nazi rearmament was so far along, the Germans would have to continue with their aggression or soon head down a relative ‘downward path’. The question was therefore whether the UK, France and the US would toughen up and fight back more assertively. So far, Stalin reasoned, because of domestic politics as much as anything else, the group had adopted a policy of ‘non-intervention’ which had played into Germany and Japan’s hands in particular. That policy had been a mistake. ‘Far be it for me’, he stated, ‘to moralize on the policy of non-intervention, to talk of treason, treachery and so on. It would be naive to preach morals to people who recognize no human morality. Politics is politics, as the old, case-hardened bourgeois diplomats say.’24

Stalin was determined to make sure that he triumphed in the great political game by playing the two sides against each other. He had been dropping hints about his willingness to make a deal with Hitler for years. He had always believed an arrangement with the Nazis was possible – and in some ways preferable. The Germans and Soviets had built up a strong relationship in the 1920s, with the former allowed to illegally train a military force on Soviet territory to escape the prying eyes of the Versailles Treaty, and in exchange the latter receiving some high-quality military equipment which helped along Soviet technological development. Stalin also saw advantages in working with Hitler in that it would definitely preclude a British–German grouping against him, and as a fellow dictator he seemed to believe he could speak more directly with Hitler than with democratic politicians.

Outwardly, however, it was the British and French with whom he did the most talking. One of the reasons for his obvious frustration with the non-interventionists was that he would have been willing to take part in a more forceful reaction on their part. He certainly had made it known to Chamberlain in 1938 that he would have been willing to join forces to keep the Germans out of Czechoslovakia, though working with Stalin was so distasteful to Chamberlain that the Briton preferred cutting a deal with Hitler in this case. In 1939, however, the British and French now seemed to understand that they needed to reach out to Stalin in some way, to at least make it look like they were interested in setting up an anti-Hitler coalition. The problem was that they did so in the most incompetent way possible.

The story of the British–French negotiations with Stalin in the spring and summer of 1939 is painful. Stalin continued to express a willingness to join an anti-German coalition, and proposed terms regularly to the western Allies.25 His minimum price was Britain and France supporting the absorption of the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) into the Soviet Union.26 To the practical Stalin, western reluctance to sign away these small, weak states was astounding.27

Poland was also a real problem. The Polish government, whom the British and French were trying to protect, did not want Soviet troops on their soil and would have seen the abandonment of the Baltics as a sell-out of the highest order. Still, the talks trundled on, and in early August, as the Polish crisis was worsening, the British and French sent a delegation to Moscow. It made things worse. Instead of sending their envoys by plane, the British showed their lack of urgency by using a slow steamer instead. When the British team eventually arrived in Moscow, the Soviets found that they were not even empowered to make a deal.28

Stalin had had enough. With the British and French unwilling to offer any realistic concessions in his mind, he decided to play the German card – which is exactly what Hitler had been hoping. The Germans had been quietly approaching the Soviets since May. As the Polish crisis ratcheted up and German troops took up positions to invade, Hitler retreated to the Obersalzberg in Bavaria to indulge his passion for bourgeois living and monologues. At his isolated retreat he would sleep late, eat cake, go for walks in the countryside, watch trashy films, and endlessly harangue his chosen companions with his crackpot historical ideas. As the time for action started getting closer, and his overtures to the British in particular kept getting knocked back, the tension built (which usually led to the monologues getting even more obsessive). Hitler told Ribbentrop, with whom he was in regular contact, to start pressing the Soviets to talk. Ribbentrop sent a letter to Molotov making it clear that a far-reaching deal could be reached, as the ‘capitalist democracies’ were as much the enemy of National Socialist Germany as they were of the Communist USSR.29

When Stalin reciprocated, letting Hitler know he was willing to talk, the results were swift. On 21 August, Hitler asked Stalin to invite Ribbentrop to Moscow, saying that a protocol between the two countries dividing up Poland and the Baltics could be ‘settled substantially in the shortest possible time’. Stalin wrote back almost immediately, and Ribbentrop was on a plane heading east a few hours later. There the deal was struck with extraordinary speed.

**********

Hitler, however, could not wait for Mussolini to change his mind. Having agreed the Nazi–Soviet Pact, his massive ego and his diplomatic manoeuvrings had painted him into a corner from which he could not escape. For weeks – actually years – before the invasion, he had been boasting to his generals about his personal genius and foresight.36 He kept telling them that he would know the best time to strike, and that his personal intervention would make sure that all worked out. Having thus prepared them for the invasion, and told them that the Nazi–Soviet Pact was the final piece of the puzzle, backing out now would undermine his claim to strategic genius.

Furthermore, if he didn’t attack Poland, his deal with Stalin would be unfulfilled. Plus, he reasoned, the British might not join the war against him. Admitting that the British were definitely going to fight him would be to admit that he had been wrong all along – something Hitler would never do. So, after hesitating for a day, Hitler once again authorized an attack against Poland, to start on 1 September. He was willing to risk war with Britain, even if he still did not want it. Hitler met with the visiting Swedish emissary (and good friend of Göring’s) Birger Dahlerus. As Hitler was about to launch the German Army against Poland he lamented, ‘Herr Dahlerus, you know England so well, can you give me any reason for my perpetual failure to come to an agreement with her?’37

Hitler’s strategic failure here was one of the reasons he lost World War II. He had seen Britain the way he wanted that country to be, not the way it was. It was a tendency he would show time and time again. He had created a system around himself that reinforced his ego, and he found it impossible to reckon with being wrong. But he was wrong, and soon Germany would find itself launched into a war in possession of a brilliant land army but a seriously deficient air-sea force, which would fail spectacularly a year later when it was asked to fight an enemy Hitler had assumed and hoped he would not have to fight.

If Hitler had a crisis just a few days after the pact, in Moscow the mood remained upbeat for longer. Mikhail Smirtiukov, a junior officer in the Sovnarkom (the Soviet council of ministers), had not taken part in the talks but had seen Molotov walking through the Kremlin. He later recalled the excitement the pact had created. Once the deal was signed, the Soviet leadership was gripped by ‘euphoria’, feeling that ‘they had grabbed God by the beard’. They had ‘grabbed a piece of Poland’ and ‘got the Baltic states’, and had hardly had to lift a finger.38

Stalin shared in this euphoria. He certainly accepted that Hitler might attack the Soviet Union at some point, but he believed he had turned Hitler away for now – and in a way that could be devastating for the Germans. According to Nikita Khrushchev, one of Stalin’s new men who had risen up completely due to his patronage and was now on the cusp of real power in Stalin’s court, the Soviet dictator exclaimed: ‘Well, who will deceive whom? We will deceive Hitler!’39

It was a comforting thought, but deceptively so. Stalin hadn’t deceived Hitler; he had strengthened him by relieving him of the worry that the USSR might join a two-front war. Some have defended Stalin’s choice, arguing that he had to opt for a pact with the Nazis, as the British and French never offered a concrete deal.40 That is true – but Stalin did not have to make a deal with either side, particularly the one that openly coveted Soviet lands. By viewing all capitalist powers as enemies, he had failed to understand that one – Hitler’s Germany – wanted to wipe him off the face of the earth, while others, such as Britain and France, had no such ambitions. He had, wittingly, made it more likely that Hitler would be able to do that.

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

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Thursday, May 15, 2025 7:55 AM

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

The Kremlin is attempting to set up a new production line for hexogen (RDX) explosives in an effort to expand Russia's artillery ammunition and glide bomb stocks. A Reuters special investigation reported on May 8 that studies of documents and satellite imagery indicate that the Russian state defense company Ya. M. Sverdlov Plant is building a new production line at its Biysk Oleum Plant (BOZ) in Siberia, likely to produce RDX.[45] RDX is a component in many artillery shells, mortar rounds, missiles, and glide bombs used by Russia against Ukraine. A source close to the project and at the BOZ factory confirmed to Reuters that an expansion is underway. Documents published in 2023 by an unspecified Russian state procurement agency and later deleted indicate that the new facility is scheduled for completion in 2025 with an expected annual production capacity of 6,000 metric tons of high explosives. Reuters reported that BOZ does not currently produce RDX. Experts consulted by Reuters could not rule out the possibility that the line identified by Reuters could be for the production of HMX, which is another high explosive. Reuters estimated that the plant's output capacity would be enough to fill 1.28 million OF-29 (152 mm) artillery shells. The GUR told Reuters that Russia produced two million 122mm and 152mm artillery rounds in 2024 and imported 2.7 million from North Korea.

The Kremlin may have decided to build a new production line in Biysk to protect Russian explosives production from Ukrainian drone strikes. Reuters reported that the Sverdlov Plant is Russia’s only significant RDX and HMX manufacturer and previously produced these explosives in a factory in Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, which Ukrainian drones struck on October 19, 2024. The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Open-Source Centre (OSC) stated in a joint 2024 report that new production lines will not resolve all bottlenecks in Russia’s munitions supply chain due to wartime shortages and sanctions.[46]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-force-generation
-and-technological-adaptations-update-may-14-2025

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

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Thursday, May 15, 2025 9:06 AM

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

Well, Putin Certainly Believes Trump Is Full Of Sh@t

By Phillips P. Obrien | May 15, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/well-putin-certainly-believes-t
rump

How can we say that? Well because Putin has basically sent a joke delegation to the Istanbul talks, one that can never agree to anything and one that signals his lack of desire to do the one thing that Trump says he wants more than anything—agree to an end to the fighting. And Trump—as always when presented with Putin doing the exact opposite of what Trump says he wants—starts by defending the Russian dictator.

How did we get here? Here is a quick recap.

• After the European leaders debacle on Saturday, during which they threatened Putin with harsh extra sanctions if he did not agree a conditionless ceasefire on Monday (where are those sanctions?), Putin countered with a condition—there could be talks in Istanbul this Thursday (today).

• Trump used the Putin move to put pressure on Zelensky to attend the talks and doubted that the Ukrainians really wanted a deal.

• Zelensky wrongfooted both Putin and Trump by not only agreeing to the Istanbul talks, but saying he would personally go.

• Both Putin and Trump have done everything possible not to go themselves. Putin has ruled it out—Trump has prevaricated.

• Putin has named a low-level delegation for the talks that one former Russian foreign secretary called “embasrassing” said signalled his “contempt” for the Trump Administration.

• Trump, who has been screaming for talks and ceasefires, comes to Putin’s defense—just a few minutes ago, and says Putin should not be expected to go to the talks if he (Trump) won’t be there. The exact sentence was: “I didn’t think it was possible for Putin to go if I’m not there.”

Why Putin is being so dismissive of the talks and Trump’s supposed plan could be for many reasons. He might think with the US changing sides and moving towards him, that the trajectory of the war is heading his way and feels that Ukraine is in a worse place. He clearly believes Europe is borderline-pathetic and will not really take the needed steps to support Ukraine. He might have been buoyed by the strong Chinese show of support during the Victory Day Parade, and believe that China will provide him with enough support to fight for a while longer….

Putin might even, because he’s not the world’s worst negotiator like Trump, want a ceasefire relatively soon but does not want to act like he does as he wants to get the most concessions possible.

Regardless, he has basically thrown Trump’s public facing stance into the garbage. These talks almost certainly will not resort in a ceasefire as Trump says he desperately wants, and they signal that Russia wants to keep fighting.

So Trump, if he has any intention to actually sanction Russia or aid Ukraine, now has the greatest excuse possible. He can say—as the whole world has seen—that Putin is not taking these talks seriously and that therefore (regrettably I’m sure) Trump is going to finally hit the Russian economy with all those energy sanctions he has boasted about.

At the same time sell Ukraine the $50 billion in arms that the Ukrainians desperately need. Hell, Trump just sold Saudi Arabia $142 billion in arms and presented it as a great triumph. For the life of me, I cannot see why he would not sell $50 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine. Can you?

So, unless there is some miraculous breakthrough in Istanbul, and the low-level Russian delegation helps craft an end to the war, Trump has been placed in a position where not only he could, but he should (if all those tweets were honest) move to hit Russia and help Ukraine.

Putin, oddly, doesnt seem worried that this will happen. Perhaps he thinks Trump is on his side, and that Trump’s public statements are full of sh@t. I mean, its not like the first signs are that Trump is already defending him.

Anyway, your guess is as good as mine.

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Friday, May 16, 2025 6:32 AM

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Russian Bike Assaults Tend To Get The Riders Killed—Especially When They Try Jumping

By David Axe | May 15, 2025, 04:33pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/05/15/russian-bike-assaults
-tend-to-get-the-riders-killed-especially-when-they-try-jumping/

As the Russian military loses more armored vehicles in Ukraine than it can immediately replace, and sends more troops into battle on motorcycles, there are tragic consequences for the riders.

Not only are bike troops totally exposed to Ukrainian drones, artillery and mines—they may also be tempted to try feats of motorcycle aerobatics that would be difficult in peacetime, and are nearly impossible on the battlefield.

As a Ukrainian drone observed on or just before Thursday, a Russian bike soldier raced, in broad daylight, across the no-man’s-land somewhere along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 39-month wider war on Ukraine. His luck held, at first. No mines or shells exploded. No first-person-view drones swooped down.

But then he neared the simplest possible defense: a hole in the ground. Specifically, a long anti-tank ditch seemingly around 20 feet across and 20 feet deep. Apparently confident in his bike-handling, the rider accelerated up the loose dirt piled up on the edge of the trench, clearly aiming to jump the trench.

He fell short—and died, or was badly injured, in the resulting crash.

Stunt riders such as the late Evel Knievel routinely jump their motorcycles hundreds of feet. But they usually do so after careful planning—and rarely on loose dirt ramps. In theory, leaping a 20-foot gap from a 45-degree ramp should be straightforward if the bike is traveling 20 miles per hour or so.

But the “ramp” in this case was a haphazardly piled berm meant to impede armored vehicles—not boost a speeding biker. Jumping from sand or loose dirt requires careful handling, as bikes tend to nose up on that kind of surface. Mastering the handling “this takes many years of riding to get nailed,” one biker explained on a popular motorcyclists’ forum.

The Russian bike troopers’ tragic crash made him just another statistic. Most recent Russian bike assaults have ended disastrously for the riders. On April 17, an unprecedented 150 Russian motorcyclists—reinforced by additional troops riding on all-terrain vehicles—attacked positions held by the Ukrainian 14th Chervona Kalyna Brigade around Myrolyubivka, a few miles east of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.

The bike assault ended in disaster for the Russians. The 14th Chervona Kalyna Brigade “delivered a decisive blow against waves of Russian equipment and manpower,” the Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security of Ukraine reported.

“Despite the scale of the assault, Ukrainian troops held their ground and repelled the entire attack with discipline and precision.” The Ukrainian brigade claimed heavy Russian losses, including at least 240 troops killed or wounded and 96 motorcycles knocked out.

But the bike assaults occasionally work—and, to the Kremlin, an occasional success justifies frequent failure. It’s standard practice, as the wider war grinds into its fourth year, for Russian regiments to send under-trained, unprotected troops on “reconnaissance-by-force” missions in the early hours of a planned offensive—often on motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles or even electric scooters.

“These are ordered to advance towards where they assess Ukrainian positions to be, conducting reconnaissance by drawing fire,” Nick Reynolds and Jack Watling explained in a recent study for the Royal United Services Institute in London. https://static.rusi.org/tactical-developments-third-year-russo-ukraini
an-war-february-2205.pdf

“If the group encounters resistance, Russian commanders assess where they believe the best lines of approach are, and in particular, where the boundaries between defensive units lie,” Reynolds and Watling added. “If Ukrainian positions are positively identified, sections are persistently sent forward.”

Last week, the Russian 39th Motor Rifle Brigade found an under-manned weak spot in the Ukrainian trench outside the village of Malynivka, just outside Pokrovsk. Drones knocked out counterattacking Ukrainian armored vehicles, and Russian infantry captured that segment of the trench.

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Friday, May 16, 2025 6:33 AM

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Russia's 'poor weapons handling' likely caused the massive blasts that wiped out much of its 105,000-ton ammo depot: UK MOD

Story by mloh@businessinsider.com (Matthew Loh) | May 15, 2025

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-s-poor-weapons-handling-li
kely-caused-the-massive-blasts-that-wiped-out-much-of-its-105-ton-ammo-depot-uk-mod/ar-AA1ENTFe

• Bad weapons handling and storage likely caused Russia's 51st GRAU arsenal to blow up, the UK MOD said.

• The depot, described as one of Russia's largest, suffered severe damage from huge blasts in April.

• The MOD said on Wednesday that Moscow has a history of "ineptitude" with munition safety.

A combination of poor weapons handling and bad storage practices likely led to the blasts that rocked Russia's 51st GRAU arsenal in late April, the UK Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

In an intelligence update, the ministry estimated that the explosions likely resulted in the Kremlin's largest loss of its own munitions due to its own troops' actions since the full-scale war in Ukraine began.

"It is highly likely that poor weapons handling procedures alongside negligent storage of munitions resulted in this loss," the ministry wrote.

"This is in keeping with a long-standing trend of regularly evidenced Russian ineptitude with regards the safe and proper handling of its own munitions," it added.

The ammunition depot, about 50 miles northeast of Moscow and in the Vladimir region, suffered multiple explosions after it caught fire on April 22.

Though it didn't name the facility, the Kremlin had said on the same day that a fire at a depot in the Vladimir region caused munitions to detonate. The Russian defense ministry's statement blamed the "violation of safety requirements when working with explosive materials."

Satellite images previously obtained by Business Insider last month showed that the Russian arsenal sustained serious damage, with large portions of the facility affected.

The UK defense ministry said satellite images showed that more than one square kilometer of the depot had been damaged by the detonations, which suggested "massive losses at a key strategic depot supplying Russia's war in Ukraine."

Footage circulating on social media of the blast also appeared to show secondary explosions in the civilian areas around the ammo depot, which is one of Russia's largest.

The UK's defense ministry cited Ukrainian figures that said the 51st GRAU depot held about 105,000 tons of munitions, including ballistic, air-launched, and air defense missiles.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Kyiv's Center for Countering Disinformation, said at the time of the blasts that the depot had also stored artillery shells.

The same depot has likely suffered explosive mishaps before. Russian state media reported in June 2022 that four people were killed by the "spontaneous detonation" of a shell while ammo was being loaded and unloaded at a depot in the Vladimir Region.

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Friday, May 16, 2025 7:45 AM

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Russia is targeting Ukrainian hotels to discourage journalists, report says

By Isobel Koshiw, Anastacia Galouchka

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-is-targeting-ukrainian-hot
els-to-discourage-journalists-report-says/ar-AA1ESHo4

KYIV — Russia has struck 25 hotels near Ukraine’s front lines from the beginning of the war in 2022 through March in what appears to be a campaign to discourage journalism in the area, according to a report by the media rights group Reporters Without Borders and a Ukrainian organization, Truth Hounds.

The attacks on hotels were initially sporadic but have escalated over the past year, indicating a “shift from isolated events to a sustained threat” for media personnel working on the front lines, the report states. It found that 24 journalists had been injured and one killed in hotel strikes since the war began.

“These attacks are part of a larger strategy to sow terror and seek to reduce coverage of the war,” said Pauline Maufrais, regional officer for Ukraine at Reporters Without Borders, which goes by its French acronym, RSF. “The targeted buildings are not ‘Ukrainian military bases,’ and the journalists inside are not ‘mercenaries,’ contrary to the disinformation narrative relentlessly pushed by all levels of the Russian state and pro-Kremlin outlets.”

Russia’s use of precision munitions such as ballistic and cruise missiles in the attacks showed that the hotels were targeted and the attacks were “part of a broader strategy aimed at discouraging independent reporting from the front line,” the report said.

Russia has often said hotels are legitimate targets because Ukrainian military guests or foreign mercenaries stay there, but the report found no correlation between the targeted hotels and a military presence. Rather, the investigation found that the common thread in the attacks was that the hotels were known for housing journalists.

Tourism ceased in front-line areas, and staying the night is off limits for most international workers from nongovernmental organizations, leaving journalists the main customers for the remaining hotels.

The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about the report.

A survey by the two organizations found that 64 percent of journalists considered that Russia’s increased strikes on hotels had complicated their ability to work in the war zone.

In some cases, military personnel on leave were staying at the hotels, but only one targeted hotel had hosted members of the armed forces on military business, according to the report.

Violetta Pedorych, a producer for French TV and other Western outlets, survived when the Park Hotel in Kharkiv was hit by two Russian missiles on Jan. 10, 2024, although she sustained injuries.

Pedorych told The Washington Post that she and her team had always stayed at the hotel because they considered it safe. The Park is a small hotel outside the city center, and they had never seen members of the military stay there, she said.

Pedorych said she still travels to front-line areas but now stays in rented apartments instead of hotels.

“Many journalists now avoid hotels near the front, some suspend fieldwork, and most face logistical challenges. This hampers reporting,” Maufrais said.

Poor road quality in the front-line areas and the large distances between battlefield hot spots previously meant journalists tried to stay in the nearest, safest town in the front-line region.

But because there now are few hotels operating, journalists either stay in apartments in front-line towns or make eight-to-10-hour trips from places such as Dnipro, the southern Ukrainian city that lies between the front-line regions of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.

The report found that 13 percent of media organizations had stopped or reduced front-line travel in light of the hotel attacks, deeming it too dangerous and logistically complicated.

Another issue, said Oksana Romaniuk, head of Ukraine’s Institute of Mass Information, a media rights group, is that security decisions are often made by managers abroad whose experience is drawn from conflicts in other regions, such as the Middle East, and who don’t realize the safety problems with hotels in Ukraine.

Romaniuk cited the example of the attack on a team staying in hotel in Kramatorsk in August, which left two members injured and killed their security adviser.

She said that the group had not wanted to stay there because there had been attacks on hotels in the area in the preceding months, but the media outlet’s security protocol insisted the team be housed in a hotel.

“Let field teams make the final decision what is best for them,” Romaniuk said.

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Friday, May 16, 2025 1:11 PM

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Ukraine-Russia talks in Istanbul end, Moscow demands Kyiv withdraw from 4 regions, no ceasefire agreement

by Kateryna Denisova | May 16, 2025 7:29 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-russia-peace-talks-in-istanbul-rep
ortedly-end-after-nearly-an-hour/

Ukrainian and Russian delegations concluded their talks in Istanbul on May 16 after speaking for less than two hours, with no agreement reached on a full, 30-day ceasefire, and Moscow demanding Kyiv withdraw completely from Ukraine's four oblasts that President Vladimir Putin claims to have annexed.

A source in the Ukrainian President's Office briefed on the talks confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that Moscow's delegation insisted that Ukraine retreat from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts, despite Russia not controlling any of them in their entirety.

. . . the source said the Ukrainian delegation's "impression was that (the Russian) delegation simply didn’t have any real authority."

"They now need to return to Moscow, just to figure out what they can even say in response to what they heard here," they added.

According to the source, during the talks, Ukraine offered an immediate ceasefire, an all-for-all prisoner exchange and to hold a face-to-face meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin.

In one positive development, Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement for the exchange of prisoners of war (POWs) on a 1,000-for-1,000 basis, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who was leading Ukraine's delegation, told reporters after the talks on May 16.

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Saturday, May 17, 2025 6:53 AM

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Why this guy? Because he gets RESULTS!

On May 15, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) appointed Colonel General Andrei Mordvichev as Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces to replace Salyukov.[22]

Mordvichev is one of the few Russian commanders to have achieved tactical penetrations of the Ukrainian line in the last two years and one of Russia’s most celebrated commanders at the moment, but these limited tactical penetrations have come at great costs.[27] Russian forces suffered significant personnel and equipment losses in exchange for approximately 60 kilometers of penetration since elements of the Central Military District (CMD) first redeployed to the Avdiivka-Pokrovsk direction in October 2023.[28] Mordvichev’s appointment is likely also an effort to distill lessons learned and tactics from the CMD to the rest of the Russian military, as ISW has previously observed Russian units in the Kupyansk and Velyka Novosilka directions implementing the attritional assaults that the CMD utilized to seize Avdiivka in February 2024.[29]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-16-2025

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Sunday, May 18, 2025 8:32 AM

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Russia launches record 273-drone attack on Ukraine ahead of planned Trump-Putin call

by Tim Zadorozhnyy May 18, 2025 10:24 AM

https://kyivindependent.com/russia-launches-record-273-drone-attack-on
-ukraine-ahead-of-planned-trump-putin-call/

Russia carried out its largest single drone attack since the start of its full-scale invasion, launching 273 drones overnight on May 18, Ukraine's Air Force reported.

The attack comes just two days after Ukraine and Russia held their first direct peace talks since 2022, and one day ahead of a planned call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kyiv Oblast Governor Mykola Kalashnyk reported that the attack killed one person and injured three others. Actual casualties from the attack are still being clarified, he said.

Kyiv Independent journalists in the capital heard multiple explosions throughout the night as air defenses worked.

Ukraine's Air Force said it intercepted 88 drones, while 128 others vanished from radars, likely used as decoys to overwhelm air defenses. The air defense involved the coordinated use of electronic warfare units, mobile fire teams, and anti-aircraft systems.

The previous largest drone attack of the full-scale invasion occurred on Feb. 23, when 267 drones entered Ukrainian airspace, Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said at the time.

Despite increasing international pressure for an unconditional ceasefire, Moscow has intensified its assaults, displaying ongoing resistance and distain to diplomatic efforts.

The Russian delegation at the May 16 peace talks in Istanbul consisted solely of lower-ranking officials, despite the Kremlin proposing the discussions. President Volodymyr Zelensky had called on Putin to attend personally, saying only the Russian leader could authorize a ceasefire.

Russian negotiators reiterated sweeping demands: that Ukraine abandon NATO aspirations, renounce foreign military support, drop reparations claims, and accept Russian control over Crimea and four occupied regions — demands Kyiv has categorically rejected.

Trump has pushed to broker a deal but has yet to impose new sanctions on Moscow despite mounting frustration from U.S. allies over Russia's refusal to halt its attacks.

Ukraine accepted a U.S.-proposed 30-day unconditional truce in March. Russia has ignored the offer and continued targeting Ukrainian cities with missiles, drones, and guided bombs.

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Monday, May 19, 2025 3:56 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Pepe Escobar 'Decodes' The Istanbul Kabuki
Sunday, May 18, 2025 - 08:20 PM

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Did President Putin really change the game by proposing the resumption of negotiations on the proxy war in Ukraine in Istanbul – over three years after the first ones were scotched by NATO?

It’s complicated. And depends on which “game” we’re talking about.

What the Russian move instantly accomplished was to throw into total disarray the European warmongering Three Stooges (Starmer, BlackRock chancellor, Le Petit Roi) Cocaine Express.

Irrelevant Europe was not even at the table in Istanbul – except via extensive previous briefing of the low-rent, shabby-dressed Ukrainian delegation. That was compounded by the noisy barking threat in the sidelines advocating “more sanctions” to “pressure Russia”.

In March 2022 in Istanbul, Kiev could have stopped the war. Every one of us who were in Istanbul at the time could foresee that Kiev would eventually have to be forced to the table all over again.

So in essence we are back to the same negotiation – with the same top Russian negotiator, competent historian Vladimir Medinsky, heading a delegation composed by pros, but with Ukraine now facing over a million dead; deprived of at least four regions – more on the way; what’s left of its mineral wealth de facto controlled by the US; and a horrendous black hole that passes for an “economy”. We are talking about country 404 territory.

During the negotiations on Friday, Medinsky went straight to the point:

“We don’t want war, but we are ready to fight for a year, two, three – as long as it takes. We fought with Sweden for 21 years [the Great Northern War, 1700-1721, as it is known in Russia]. How long are you ready to fight?”

That’s the geopolitical/military state of things for Kiev and their “to the last Ukrainian” warmongering backers: either you capitulate, or we’re going to hurt you even more.

What’s the point of these negotiations?

Turkiye under uber-opportunist Sultan Erdogan in fact hosted a P.R. meeting between Moscow, Kiev and itself – with the Ukrainians unleashing a blitzkrieg of infantile tantrums only designed to influence global public opinion. In sharp contrast, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, did his best to put a positive spin on the proceedings.

Istanbul 2.0, Dmitriev asserted, achieved a large exchange of prisoners (1,000 on each side); ceasefire options to be presented by both sides; and a continuation of dialogue.

That’s not much. Well, at least they discussed in the same language: Russian. Nothing was lost in translation.

A serious case can be made that to propose the resumption of these negotiations, under this format, was meaningless. There’s no evidence in the horizon both parties might touch the fundamental issue anytime soon: the whole geopolitical strategic equation in Eastern Europe, from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea and beyond – leading to an “indivisibility of security” new deal with global repercussions.

We - the collective west- started an existential fight with Russia without ever asking ourselves "What happens if we can't win?" And I mean existential for BOTH sides.

Sure, we thought we were being clever by working thru a proxy, but everyone knows by now that, with our "everything-but" involvement in the war, if Ukraine is defeated it's a defeat for NATO.

Quote:
That implies that whatever track these negotiations may follow further on down the road, they are an objective impossibility. Meanwhile, the proxy war in Ukraine – and the SMO – will go on.

That would also suggest that the Moscow security establishment considers the neo-nazi instrumentalized goons in Kiev at best as a re-enactment of the 6th Army of Paulus, with which you negotiate the end of a battle, but not the end of the war.

Even NATO semi-realists as retired Commodore Steven Jermy have been forced to admit that “Russia is in the driving seat” and clueless Europeans “appear to believe that the losers should dictate the terms of ceasefire or surrender.”

All the barking by the – European – chihuahuas of war cannot disguise the fundamental geopolitical/military fact: a massive NATO humiliation. Trump’s humongous problem is that he has to manage it – and sell it to domestic public opinion and the global public opinion as some sort of “deal” he struck with Putin.

An no amount of lipstick is gonna change that pig of an outcome.

Quote:
It’s enlightening once again to go back to Grandmaster Lavrov, always the uber-realist, back in September 2024: “In April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reached agreement in Istanbul. If that agreement had been observed, Ukraine would have preserved part of Donbass. But every time another agreement, always accepted by Russia, is broken, Ukraine shrinks in size.”

The (Great) Game, revisited

Now back to the (Great) Game. Kiev negotiators eventually admitting Ukrainian capitulation means a NATO capitulation and an Empire of Chaos capitulation. That’s the ultimate anathema for the US ruling classes. Even an ultra-negotiated, carefully managed Ukrainian surrender will be an impossible sell – not to mention Washington under Narcissus Drowned Trump acknowledging a strategic defeat.

Because that will mean the Empire of Chaos losing Eurasia for good: the ultimate Mackinder/Brzezinski nightmare. Coupled with the consequential solidification of the multi-nodal, multipolar world.

The Russia-China stategic partnership is very much aware of every nook and cranny in this larger-than-life process. Beyond the current Turkish kabuki, they clearly understand the Big Eurasia Equation.

Beijing is fully aware NATO’s real goal was always to confront it via Russia. Ukraine was NATO’s pawn to take down Russia then get to China from the West. The goal of the US ruling elites as they configured their thalassocratic empire remains to blockade China from the West by land and sea, using Russia; then use Taiwan as a staging area to blockade China from the East by sea. No wonder control of Taiwan is a Chinese strategic imperative.

Enter Mackinder panic – all over again: the China-Russia strategic partnership can beat NATO hands down – and Russia, by itself, is already doing it. Xi and Putin once again discussed the chessboard in detail, in person, prior to the Victory Day parade last week in Moscow.

The endgame, once again, is clear: the US losing the entire Eurasian land mass. Ukraine, under these immense geopolitical imperatives, is only a sovereign-deprived pawn in the (Great) Game.

As for the tantrum-addicted clown in Kiev, he is merely an actor with no authority whatsoever, negotiations included. He is completely dominated by Ukrainian neo-Nazis who will kill him if and when the war is over. He merely fronts for them and gets paid off. And that’s why – enthusiastically supported by inconsequential London, Paris and Berlin – he’s obsessed to continue a Forever War destroying the very nation he claims to represent

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, May 19, 2025 4:04 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Why Putin is being so dismissive of the talks and Trump’s supposed plan...

Is because Russia is clearly winning the war. Trump has no cards to play, and Zelensky is in dire straits. Neither of them can make Russia do anything.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, May 19, 2025 7:54 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
We - the collective west- started an existential fight with Russia without ever asking ourselves "What happens if we can't win?" And I mean existential for BOTH sides.

Sure, we thought we were being clever by working thru a proxy, but everyone knows by now that, with our "everything-but" involvement in the war, if Ukraine is defeated it's a defeat for NATO.

An no amount of lipstick is gonna change that pig of an outcome.

Denmark is okay with killing Putin's people in Ukraine. That killing of Russians won't stop, ever. Get comfortable with the daily slaughter of Russians who are paid several years' worth of salary to volunteer for an early and well-deserved death:

Denmark announces nearly $600 million in military aid to Ukraine

By Abbey Fenbert | May 18, 2025 10:18 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/denmark-announces-nearly-600-million-in-mi
litary-aid-to-ukraine/

Denmark has prepared its 26th military aid package for Ukraine, worth 4 billion Danish kroner (approximately $598 million).

Copenhagen has provided around $9.8 billion in military aid under its Ukraine Fund.

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Monday, May 19, 2025 8:01 AM

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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Is because Russia is clearly winning the war. Trump has no cards to play, and Zelensky is in dire straits. Neither of them can make Russia do anything.

Putin is killing Russians with his incompetent military strategy. He will send all of them to the slaughterhouse until he is replaced. That is the opposite of "winning the war".

The Kremlin is trying to project a strong, militarily superior Russia to the West and to domestic Russian audiences ahead of Putin’s May 19 phone call with Trump.

Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky recently stated that Russia is prepared to fight for "however long it takes."

Russian Security Council Secretary Dmitry Medvedev made thinly veiled nuclear threats in reference to what Medvedev categorized as "negotiating ultimatums."[9]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-may-18-2025

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Monday, May 19, 2025 8:03 AM

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Ukraine Is Making More Weapons Than Ever

By Isabel Coles • May 18, 2025

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-is-making-more-weapons-th
an-ever-but-still-can-t-fight-russia-alone/ar-AA1EYNNQ

In the first years of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine relied heavily on a host of Western weapons to equip its forces. Now, out of the crucible of war, Kyiv’s own defense industry is producing more arms than ever.

Ukraine had only a single prototype of its domestically produced Bohdana howitzer when Russia invaded. Last year, Kyiv said it produced more artillery guns than all the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries combined. Vitaliy Zagudaiev says his company is producing more than 20 Bohdanas a month.

While Western allies have been slow to increase arms production, the value of weapons Ukraine’s defense industry can make has ballooned from $1 billion in 2022 to $35 billion over three years of war, even as Russia fires missiles at its factories.

With support from the U.S. drying up, Ukraine’s defense industry is increasingly key to the country’s ability to sustain the fight against Russia—or underwrite its sovereignty in the event of a peace deal. The more of its own weapons Ukraine can produce, the less vulnerable it will be to the vagaries of international politics or kinks in cross-border supply chains. The country also sees its defense industry as a postwar revenue stream for its battered economy and a way to further integrate itself into the West by becoming one of its suppliers.

“Ukraine will always need its own strong weapons so that we can have our own strong Ukrainian state,” President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

More than 40% of the weapons used on the front line with Russia are now made in Ukraine, Zelensky said. In some areas, such as drones, unmanned ground systems, and electronic warfare, the figure is close to 100%.

Ukrainian manufacturers are also churning out growing quantities of traditional armaments such as artillery systems, armored vehicles, mines and ammunition of all calibers.

“In Western countries there’s more competition for the best computer science grads or IT people,” said Rob Lee, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a foreign-policy think tank. “In Ukraine, much of the best talent has gone into defense.”

But even the robust transformation of its homegrown arsenal won’t be enough for Ukraine to hold back Moscow’s forces alone.

Ukraine needs the U.S. and other Western allies to square up to Russia’s war machine. It can’t produce anywhere near enough ammunition to keep its guns firing, or any of the air-defense interceptors it needs to shield against Russian missiles.

And while arms production has boomed, Kyiv’s budget is strained. This year, the government will only be able to purchase less than half of what defense manufacturers can produce, said Oleksandr Kamyshin, an adviser to Zelensky and former minister of strategic industries.

“It’s painful when you can’t produce and you’ve got nothing to fight with,” he said. “It’s twice as painful when you can produce, but you can’t fund the procurement.”

To harness the spare capacity, some Western governments are funding weapons purchases from Ukrainian defense companies under the so-called Danish model in which instead of supplying Kyiv with Western weapons, they provide funds to purchase arms from Ukrainian defense manufacturers. “Investing directly in these companies might be the best use of available funds in terms of achieving an impact on the battlefield,” said Lee.

The war has served as a testing ground for a range of weapons that hadn’t previously seen active service, providing NATO countries with valuable lessons on how they perform in battle.

Ukraine inherited a swath of the Soviet defense industry when it gained independence, but those manufacturing capabilities quickly went into decline.

A private company developed the Bohdana in 2016, but received no orders before Russia invaded, said Vitaliy Zagudaiev, director general of the Kramatorsk Heavy Duty Machine Tool Building Plant.

After Russia invaded in 2022, fears that the system would be captured were so great that Zagudaiev received instructions to dismantle the only prototype. Until then, it had only been used as part of an Independence Day parade.

Soon, however, Zagudaiev received instructions to put the gun back together, to use on the front line. Deployed alongside a French-built Caesar self-propelled howitzer, the Bohdana pounded Russian positions on Snake Island in the Black Sea, forcing Moscow to relinquish the rocky outcrop in the first summer of the war.

Orders for the Bohdana began to roll in, but the plant in eastern Ukraine was in Russia’s crosshairs. Under fire, workers began relocating production to new facilities in the west of the country, but not before more than half the equipment was destroyed. Lead times for replacement orders were too long, so the company made its own equipment.

Production was dispersed to minimize the impact of any Russian attack. If a missile successfully struck one facility, the others could still keep producing. Working round the clock, production of the gun soon outstripped the supply of wheeled chassis on which the Bohdana is mounted.

The company is now producing more than 20 Bohdanas a month, said Zagudaiev. Russia can make about 40 artillery guns over the same period, according to a study by the Kiel Institute. The final Bohdana is only assembled at the last moment to minimize the chances of being targeted before reaching the front line.

“One of the lessons of this war is that the demand for quantity is very high,” said Lee. “It’s not just about having exquisite systems—it’s do you have enough to sustain a high-intensity war for a year or more without significantly degrading your military?”

While the Swedish-built Archer or Germany’s Panzer 200 howitzers have more sophisticated electronics, they take longer to produce and are much costlier. The self-propelled Bohdana costs 2.8 million euros apiece, equivalent to $3.1 million, compared with €8.76 million for the Archer, or about €4 million for the Caesar.

And the Bohdana is easier to repair and maintain. “Any part is available within 24 hours,” said Zagudaiev. “We have mobile brigades working on the entire front line.”

About 85% of the Bohdana’s components are now produced domestically, including the barrel, which wears out over time. The company is developing its own chassis to further reduce dependence on imports, Zagudaiev said. Last year, it began producing a towed gun, which is cheaper than the self-propelled version and useful in defense. Feedback from operators on the front line is continually incorporated during design tweaks.

Each of the Bohdana’s electrical or hydraulic systems has a corresponding mechanical system. That makes the gun heavier but means it can keep working in the event of an electrical or hydraulic failure, Zagudaiev said.

The Danish government is funding the purchase 18 Bohdana howitzers for Ukraine’s armed forces.

The Bohdana shows how far Ukraine’s defense industry has come. But efforts to produce NATO-standard 155mm ammunition, central to the war effort, illustrate the obstacles.

Private company Ukrainian Armor set up a facility to produce 155mm ammunition with the license and drawings transferred by the Czechoslovak Group, which is also supplying propellant, fuses and primers that can’t be produced in Ukraine.

The company, which also makes armored vehicles, had planned to produce 100,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition this year and 300,000 next year—a fraction of the three to four million rounds Ukraine is estimated to go through a year.

The project, however, is on hold because the company hasn’t received funds from the government, said chief executive Vladyslav Belbas.

“We should move faster,” he said. “It’s more than just business for us.”

Write to Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com

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

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Monday, May 19, 2025 2:51 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Is because Russia is clearly winning the war. Trump has no cards to play, and Zelensky is in dire straits. Neither of them can make Russia do anything.
Putin is killing Russians with his incompetent military strategy. He will send all of them to the slaughterhouse until he is replaced. That is the opposite of "winning the war".

When Russia wins the war, will you FINALLY stop believing your bullshit sources?

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, May 19, 2025 6:23 PM

THG

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Is because Russia is clearly winning the war. Trump has no cards to play, and Zelensky is in dire straits. Neither of them can make Russia do anything.
Putin is killing Russians with his incompetent military strategy. He will send all of them to the slaughterhouse until he is replaced. That is the opposite of "winning the war".

When Russia wins the war, will you FINALLY stop believing your bullshit sources

Well comrade, I guess you told him. Too funny...

T

Europe Just Gave Ukraine a Huge Boost!

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Monday, May 19, 2025 7:12 PM

Fuck Ukraine.

And Europeans should worry more about all the Muslim sleeper cells that their EU Masters installed in their countries rather than waste their taxpayer dollars funding a losing war effort that's none of their fucking business.

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Tuesday, May 20, 2025 3:56 AM