Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Monday, December 29, 2025 16:20
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 376944
PAGE 194 of 194

Monday, December 29, 2025 7:37 AM

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

Russian forces have advanced at an average rate of 14.4 square kilometers per day in 2025, meaning it would take Russian forces until April 1, 2029 (1,190 days) to seize the rest of the four oblasts should the current tempo persist.

This calculation, however, does not take into account the many obstacles Russian forces would face along the way, such as crossing the Dnipro River, overcoming other water features throughout the oblasts, and seizing the major cities of Zaporizhzhia City (with a pre-war population of about 710,000 people) and Kherson City (with a pre-war population of about 280,000).

Russian advances are not likely to be linear, and it will likely take Russian forces longer than 1,190 days to seize all four oblasts.

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-december-28-2025/

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

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

Monday, December 29, 2025 7:40 AM

SECOND

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

Bundestag members call for supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine

by Iryna Kutielieva | 28 December, 17:36

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/12/28/8013729/

Omid Nouripour, Vice President of Germany's Bundestag, who represents the Greens, has called for the transfer of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine.

Source: German press agency n-tv, as reported by European Pravda

Quote: "It is good that Chancellor Merz is laying claim to a leadership role for Germany. Merz must now stick to what he rightly demanded while in opposition and clear the way for Taurus deliveries."

Details: Nouripour stressed that refusing to supply cruise missiles to Ukraine would cost human lives.

Quote: "It is not enough simply to support the Ukrainian president in phone calls. The EU must increase pressure on Putin. Putin is the only one who can immediately put an end to this horrific war. Without pressure, he will not budge."

Background:

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said in summer that he was taking a cautious approach to an initiative to supply Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles.

For their part, Germany's Greens have urged the government to provide greater support for Ukraine, including by supplying Taurus cruise missiles.

________________

A German Taurus missile costs roughly €1 million to €1.5 million ($1.1 to $1.6 million USD) per unit for existing stock, but new advanced Taurus Neo missiles are priced higher, with recent plans for 600 units costing around €2.1 billion, equating to about €3.5 million ($3.8 million USD) per missile including support, though experts estimate the base missile cost closer to €1.75-€2 million.

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

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

Monday, December 29, 2025 7:56 AM

SECOND

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

Why the Pantomime by Trump? It Has Always Been About Defending Putin
And Perhaps Getting A Nobel Prize

By Phillips P. OBrien | Dec 29, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/why-the-pantomime-its-always-be
en

Let’s start with two recent quotes about Vladimir Putin.

The first was a claim by President Trump yesterday during the press conference he held with President Zelensky after the latest episode of the long-running pantomime negotiations between the USA, Ukraine and Russia.

“Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed…President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding, including supplying energy, electricity and other things at very low prices.”

And then this quote from Trump’s chief of staff and intimate, Suzie Wiles, in her extraordinary Vanity Fair interview. It has the ring of truth

“The experts think that if he (Putin) could get the rest of Donetsk, then he would be happy,” Wiles told me in August. But privately, Trump wasn’t buying it—he didn’t believe Putin wanted peace. “Donald Trump thinks he wants the whole country,” Wiles told me.

Both of these statements cannot be true. Indeed they cancel each other out. There is one that is far more likely to be true (Wiles estimation) and one that was almost certainly a lie (what Trump said yesterday).

The statement by Trump that Putin wants to see Ukraine succeed seems to have been deliberate choice by Donald Trump to deceive. The reason for that lie is to protect Vladimir Putin and mislead the American people (and the world) about Russia’s intentions. It explains why this pantomime is no joke or “nothingburger”. Instead, it has been deadly effective and it serves Russian interests and has protected Russia for almost a year and threatens to do so well into a second year.

Btw, you can watch the whole press conference here. The lie about Putin wanting Ukraine to succeed comes at 20:05.

The fact was that Trump spent most of the press conference yesterday either defending or praising Putin and undermining the Ukrainian position. It is indicative of why he is doing what he is doing and why it has been so effective. This whole pantomime is not a “nothingburger” or anything like that. It is a very effective con that has gone on for almost a year, which has provided protection to Putin/Russia and strung along Europeans and Ukrainians. Moreover, it is a pantomime that Trump will keep going as long as possible.

Lets look at other examples of how Trump defended or praised Putin during the press conference yesterday. Will include the time stamps so you can check

The Praise For Putin.

Trump gushed about the closeness of his relationship with Putin and it came up regularly during the press conference. He boasted about how long the Trump-Putin phone call was before the meeting with Zelensky—”two and a half hours” (17:11).

btw, that really is extraordinary. Before meeting with Zelensky for far less than 2.5 hours, Trump initiated a call with Putin to coordinate plans. And afterwards Trump was slated to call Putin as well for a debrief. He clearly gets nervous about operating without Putin’s advice.

Moreover, Trump a number of times waxed rhapsodical about the closeness of his connection to Putin and in particular how the two bonded about what he calls the Russia “hoax”, but of course which was very real. Here was the first mention (10:27).

“Uh, and I spoke with President Putin. I got along with him very well despite the Russia Russia Russia hoax, which was a total hoax. Used to say, "What is going on over there?" But it was a total hoax as he knew and as I knew.”

Here was the second mention, which shows Trump believes they have bonded (16:03).

“Don’t forget we went through the Russia Russia Russia hoax together. And he'd call me, I'd call him, I'd say, "Can you believe the stuff that they're making up?" And it turned out we were right.”

Finally, Trump feels so close to Putin that he explains the Russian dictator’s opinions and even goes further and agrees with them. Trump did that most openly when he explained why Putin rejected a European class for a ceasefire along the present line while adding that he (Trump) does as well (20:26).

“Q. Did did Russia agree or did Putin agree to a ceasefire to allow a referendum to take (place)?

A. Not a ceasefire and that's one of the points that we're working on right now. No, not a ceasefire. He feels that look, you know, they're fighting and to stop and then to if they have to start again, which is a possibility. He doesn't want to be in that position. I understand that position.”

So, the US president now outlines the Russian position and empathizes with it.

Putting Pressure On Ukraine

A number of times Trump went out of his way to demean Ukraine and diminish its importance to the USA. For instance, Trump repeated his claim that Russia is winning the war, and Ukraine needs to take a deal now or face a worse situation in the future. The latest version of the Ukraine has “no cards” argument. Here was how Trump described the military situation in the Donbas. (Starts 9:37).

“well I think uh the land you're talking about some of that land has been taken some of that land is maybe up for grabs, but it may be taken over the next period of a number of months and you're better off making a deal.”

Maybe most illuminating was this chaotic meditation during which Trump stated the US had no real interest in Ukraine as opposed to European states while boasting about the fact that he had cut off all US aid for Ukraine (17:52).

“We’re protected by a thing called the Atlantic Ocean and lots of other places to be honest and uh they're (European States) not, you know, they're right there, but we're working together with them as we should be. But I'm doing it to save lives. You know, we're not spending any money. Biden gave 350 billion dollars away.”

So in Trump’s presentation Ukraine is going to have to take a bad deal and moreover he is describing his cut off of support for Ukraine (which has hurt the Ukrainian military) as a good thing,

Putting No Pressure On Russia

Btw, what was never said by Trump would be that there would be any sanctions or extra weapons for Ukraine if Russia refused a deal. The word sanction was never even mentioned once. And Trump admitted a number of times that there is a strong likelihood that they will reach no deal. He intimated that if there was no deal, the most likely result would be the US washing its hands of the conflict.

The Purpose Of The Pantomime

So the presentation was as follows:

Putin is a good man, with whom Trump gets along well and is personally close, and Putin wants Ukraine to succeed while being given large slices of Ukraine.

Ukraine is losing, had better cut a deal with Russia now before it has a greater defeat, and it is a great thing that the US is providing no more aid for Ukraine.

Russia will not be sanctioned or Ukraine will not receive more aid if there is no deal.

And we might say that is the purpose of this pantomime. What Trump is doing is exactly what Putin wants. He is protecting the Russians in allowing them to prosecute the war how and where they want (they made two very large attacks on Ukrainian cities in the last few days, killing civilians and cutting power). He is also making it clear that Russia will receive no penalty if it continues to do this.

And the same time he is making the Europeans and Ukrainans go through all these false motions as if the USA was an honest negotiator and the Europeans keep falling for it. British PM Keir Starmer yesterday, for instance, went out of his way to praise Trump for his supposed efforts to secure peace.

This is why Trump needs to say the deliberate untruths, such as the meeting yesterday bringing peace closer when it clearly did not. He needs to act like this process has a purpose in serving European/Ukrainian interests, when its real purpose is to help Putin.

One final point. The meetings did have one other purpose. Even though Trump realizes that there is hardly any chance that this process will result in a peace deal in January, he needs to act like they have a chance as the deadline nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize is 31 January 2026. Trump covets the award, not as much as he covets Putin’s friendship but he definitely wants it.

The great tragedy (once again) is that innocent or not so innocent fools keep falling over and over again for this deception. Yesterday’s talks did not bring us closer to peace, they were not a sign of the US and Ukraine agreeing a common position, and they were not a success. They were just another example of how the US is now helping Russia.

Not admitting the truth of this is a sign that Trump has won.

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

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

Monday, December 29, 2025 8:06 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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

Monday, December 29, 2025 9:05 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

6ix, will you ever know that you, Trump and Putin are evil and all of you earned your misfortunes? Self-awareness only comes in bursts and spurts for you three, but then you force the realization back into the darkest recesses of your minds where it won’t bother you until the next time the evil thoughts escape out of your mouths and fingertips as you type. 6IXSTRINGJACK wrote on Tuesday, December 2, 2025 1:35 PM

Quote:
If I do end up killing myself, I'll make sure to remark in the suicide note to pour over this site, along with the long list of abuse, constant suggestions out of the both of them that I kill myself, death threats and assassination fantasies out of second, and for them to find Second and Ted in real life, and have my family sue all three of you. My disabled brother would at least never have to worry about anything in his life if that's the way this all goes.

I think I'm okay with that outcome.

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=2&tid=67251&p=1

Putin has made the same threat to kill himself (as 6ixStringJoker did, above) and the world if Russia isn’t victorious in Ukraine:

While Vladimir Putin has used various phrases to suggest that Russia's defeat in Ukraine would have global consequences, his most direct quote regarding the necessity of Russia's existence for the world's survival is: "Why do we need a world if there is no Russia in it?".

This statement and similar rhetoric have been reinforced by recent actions and warnings throughout 2024 and 2025:

• Nuclear Doctrine Revision (2024): On November 19, 2024, Putin formally signed a revised nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for the use of atomic weapons. The new policy allows for a nuclear response to conventional attacks that pose a "critical threat" to Russia's sovereignty, as well as joint attacks by non-nuclear states supported by nuclear powers.

• Civilizational Threat Warning (2024): In his 2024 State of the Nation address, Putin warned that Western intervention in Ukraine "threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization".

• Ultimatum for Victory (2025): Throughout 2025, Putin has maintained that the only way to end the war is for Russia to achieve its goals by force if Ukraine and the West do not agree to his terms, which include total control over annexed territories.

• Escalatory Rhetoric: In December 2025, Putin stated that if Europe were to start a war with Russia, it would end so swiftly that there would be "no one left to negotiate with". He has also hinted at the possibility of using nuclear weapons to bring the invasion to its "logical conclusion".

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

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

Monday, December 29, 2025 4:20 PM

SECOND

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

Dr. Strangelove or: How the West taught Putin to stop worrying and love his bombs

By Andrew Chakhoyan | December 29, 2025 9:18 PM
Academic director at the University of Amsterdam

https://kyivindependent.com/dr-strangelove-or-how-the-west-taught-puti
n-to-stop-worrying-and-love-his-bombs/

In Netflix's House of Dynamite, a ballistic missile hurtles toward the United States, the nightmare scenario that keeps defense planners awake at night. Yet the West's Russia policies, over the past decade, have done more to increase the odds of such a catastrophe than prevent it.

Washington's unwitting effort to teach Moscow that nuclear threats work and aggression pays has culminated in a 28-point dictator’s wishlist, bizarrely presented as a "peace plan."

The United States, the world’s most powerful nation, is chasing Kyiv for territorial sacrifices while meekly pleading with the predator state to accept them.

This approach to peacemaking is as helpful as pouring vodka on a raging fire. Expansionist wars end only in one of two ways: the aggressor is defeated, as Hitler reminded us in 1945, or the cost of continuing outweighs the gains, as Russia learned in Afghanistan in 1989. There is no third way.

Zoom out from the 24-hour news cycle and the absurdity slaps you in the face. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. For nearly a decade, Western capitals buried their heads in the sand, offering only halves of half-measures. Moscow predictably read this as a green light to escalate. But after 2022, when Russian tanks rolled over Ukraine’s sovereign border en masse, looking the other way ceased to be a viable option.

In early 2025, the Trump administration recognized that peace negotiations are a two-step process – hostilities must be halted first, and everything else comes after. Within 24 hours of the March Jeddah talks, Ukraine accepted the unconditional ceasefire – demonstrating it wants peace, not war.

And Russia? Before the Americans put a ceasefire on the agenda, it was murdering Ukrainian children in their beds with depraved regularity, and so it continues to this day. Russia commits unimaginable, most heinous war crimes; the world watches.

Rejecting peace at every turn, the aggressor was given the famous "two weeks" deadline, on repeat. But those came and went without serious consequences. Russia effectively spat in the face of American negotiators, and the White House failed to find the resolve and wisdom to respond.

Empty demands, unbacked by pressure, do not deter colonial revanchism. They invite, incentivize, and assure it.

If Ukraine were to offer preemptive concessions, it would derail the very goals Western leaders are pursuing. Only the willfully blind wouldn't see that yielding to a violent aggressor, like Russia, is a straight line to a larger war. To advocate for peace through strength is not warmongering; abandoning it, is.

History has run this macabre experiment — repeatedly. Europe's political class convinced itself in 1938 that handing Hitler the Sudetenland would secure "peace for our time." Instead, it taught the Nazi regime that democracies lacked resolve. The result wasn't stability — it was a continent-wide inferno.

When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, the West pushed Tbilisi into a ceasefire while Moscow consolidated territorial control. The aggressor paid no price. Six years later, Russia returned to this script in Crimea, then Donbas. Every off-ramp became the runway for the Kremlin's escalation.

No Western concession can alter Moscow's trajectory toward Beijing, because that alignment is structural. Russia's extractive economy is export-dependent, and its military-industrial base cannot function without Chinese inputs. Most critically, Russia's imperial ethos requires perpetual confrontation with the West as a way to legitimize despotic rule. That naturally drives Moscow into Beijing's arms.

A Russia kicked out of Ukraine has at least a theoretical chance to rethink its colonizer identity and decouple from China. A Russia rewarded in Ukraine has no such incentive — it will cement a junior-vassal status under Chinese domination, locking in the very geopolitical shift Washington says it fears.

Moscow's nuclear threats follow a pattern: whenever it faces pushback, Russia rattles its doomsday saber. It didn't use weapons of mass destruction when its army collapsed outside Kyiv, nor when Ukraine liberated large swaths of Kharkiv Oblast, nor when Crimea came under attack. More tellingly, Xi Jinping — to whom Putin now effectively reports — has ruled nukes out. This naked blackmail is a performance meant to frighten Western publics, not signal Moscow’s willingness to commit imperial suicide.

By breaking the nuclear taboo, the long-standing norm that responsible states do not threaten first use, the Kremlin bears sole responsibility for eroding the nonproliferation regime. But when the West caves and refuses to accept the basic premise that aggression must be punished, it does not allay nuclear risk.

It makes confrontation or an accident born of brinkmanship more likely, not less.

The West ignores this at its peril: even if America and Europe are not interested in the war, Russia's war is very much interested in them. As Casey Michel, a prominent Russia analyst and head of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, has noted, the long-term security of the United States turns on a simple question: whether an expansionist nuclear power can dismember a non-nuclear neighbor, and what signal Washington sends if it succeeds.

We live in a house of dynamite, that much is true. But the fuse cannot light itself; it is the KGB man who plays with matches, then reaches for the gun, while the rest of the dwellers look on in shock instead of forcing him to stop. That is the deeper lesson the Netflix film left unaddressed.

Systems fail not because they are fragile, but because people with the power and responsibility to stop a malignant actor hesitate until it is too late.

The danger is not that Russia will suddenly do something unthinkable; it is that the unthinkable is routinely tolerated: “of the nearly 53,000 verified civilian casualties from the start of the full-scale invasion, more than 3,000 have been children.” If Moscow walks away with anything resembling victory, this won't stay contained to Ukraine.

For the world that prospered under a hard-won security order, the choice couldn't be clearer: help Ukraine kick the aggressor out and defuse the threat, or keep indulging fantasies of "deal-making" and usher in a bigger war.

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

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

YOUR OPTIONS

SHARE THREAD

NEW POSTS TODAY

USER	POST DATE
SIGNYM	12.29 07:33
second	12.29 07:37
second	12.29 07:40
second	12.29 07:56
6ixStringJack	12.29 08:06
second	12.29 09:05
second	12.29 16:20