Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Monday, September 14, 2026 14:35
VIEWED: 566143
PAGE 26 of 111
Quote:Yep, sockpuppets pretending to be real.
Originally posted by SOCKPUPPET:
They're having a conversation with themselves.
We can do that too.
HIlarious!
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russians hunt down and murder influential Ukrainians to neutralize resistance
'We will find you:' Russians hunt down Ukrainians on lists
By ERIKA KINETZ https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-3ae1bccfb0ef34dbe363f
7c289ce7934
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Three days after the first Russian bombs struck Ukraine, Andrii Kuprash, the head of a village north of Kyiv, walked into a forest near his home and began to dig. He didn’t stop until he had carved out a shallow pit, big enough for a man like him. It was his just-in-case, a place to lie low if he needed.
He covered it with branches and went back home.
A week later, Kuprash got a call around 8 a.m. from an unknown number. A man speaking Russian asked if he was the village head. Something was amiss.
“No, you’ve got the wrong number,” Kuprash lied. “We will find you anyway,” the man responded. “It’s better to cooperate with us.’” Kuprash grabbed some camping kit and his warmest coat and headed for his hole in the woods.
Kuprash — and others The Associated Press spoke with — had been quietly warned that they were targets for advancing Russian forces. Word went round in circles of influential Ukrainians: Don’t sleep in your own home. Get rid of your phone. Get out of Ukraine.
The hunt was on.
In a deliberate, widespread campaign, Russian forces systematically targeted influential Ukrainians, nationally and locally, to neutralize resistance through detention, torture and executions, an Associated Press investigation has found. The strategy appears to violate the laws of war and could help build a case for genocide.
Russian troops hunted Ukrainians by name, using lists prepared with the help of their intelligence services. In the crosshairs were government officials, journalists, activists, veterans, religious leaders and lawyers.
The AP documented a sample of 61 cases across Ukraine, drawing on Russian lists of names obtained by Ukrainian authorities, photographic evidence of abuse, Russian media accounts and interviews with dozens of victims, family and friends, and Ukrainian officials and activists.
Sorry but this is as far as I got into the article b4 givng up.
A few points:
The list was obtained from Ukrainian authorities? Knowing how often Ukrainian authorities have lied about ... well, everything (I could rattle off a dozen lies, starting with the number of Russian casualtiesand the ghost of Kiev all the way down to the "goat" of Kiev) is there any reason to believe that this "list" is genuine?
And why lead off with what, on the face of it, seems to be the LEAST credible example? Why would "Russia" bother with the head of an insignificant village N of Kiev?
Why wait ntil 9 months goes by before even repoting it? Did Kiev need 9 months to gestate this story?
Yanno, I could understand security sweeps if this was in a newly annexed oblast. I could understand if this was an important security or political person in Kiev, which Russia had apparently tried to bluff into negotiating. I could even understand if this was strategic area in front of a Russian offensive. But none of that applies! And, 61 random people across all of Ukraine? If they're as unimportant as the "head" of some podunk village in Ukraine, it hardly sounds efficient.
Something has been left out of the story, or something has been added to the story, but as written, so far, it doesn't make sense.
My guess, if this even happened at all, is that Russia-speaking Ukrainians are exacting retribution against those they believe are extremist (i.e. neo-Nazi) elements in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Kiev DOES have an online kill list of PROMINENT people including prominent Russians, prominent leaders in Donetsk and
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
And now, for the UN report...
I have no expectation of objectivity from the UN, its affiliates, or western-sponsored NGOs (including HRW, the Hague, OPCW, Medicins sans Fronteires etc)
The Hague held Milosevic in jail until he died of a treatable heart condition, before finding him innocent.
No "human rights court" has even taken the USA to task for targeting and killing millions of civilians in any of its "wars of choice" which, BTW, were never authorized by the UN.
USA and UK legal systems hounded important whistleblowers like Assange and Snowden on bogus charges.
OSCE was so one-sided about not reporting Kiev's shelling of civilians along the line of contact in Donetsk that Russian-speakers actually put up signs "OSCE GO HOME".
OPCW higher-up rewrote a Syrian chemical weapons report to say exactly opposite of what the field investigators found. The field investigators said the event was staged, the report was rewritten to say it was real. It was only after important whistleblowers came forward that the truth was known.
So, with that checkered history in mind, here are the relevant parts of the report, with comment:
Quote:They will, of course, ignore the constant shelling of civilians in Donetsk City, which has so far resulted in appx 10,000 civilian dead (and counting) over 14 years.
Last time the Commissioners were present at the Human Rights Council was in May this year. The Council then requested the Commission, in resolution S-34/1, to address events that took place in late February and March 2022 in the areas of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy, and to brief the Council on the progress of that inquiry as part of its oral update in September. Consequently, we have so far mainly focused on events in those four regions.
Quote:There is a USA-educated Chilean reorting from Kharkiv, he said not.
In Kharkiv city, explosive weapons devastated entire areas of the city.
Quote:This means using warheads armed with "flechettes" (small, sharp blades dispersed at high velocity which cuts any person in the vicinity, sometimes to ribbons) and "petal" mines ... small mines that look like leaves, not generaly powerful enough to kill, just strong enough to blow off a foot or a lower leg.
A number of the attacks we investigated had been carried out without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. This included some attacks with cluster munitions
Yanno, if they had any excuse at all to blame Russia, they would in a heartbeat. But since they know, and everyone knows, that Kiev used these weapons they report it as "bubblegum got all over the dog" without pointing out who, exactly put the bubblegum there.
Quote:Ignoring the fact that Kiev uses human shields. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/02/ukrainian-children-used-
or multi-launch rocket systems and airstrikes in populated areas.
as-human-shields-near-kyiv-say-witness-reports
Quote:
As for violations against personal integrity, we were struck by the large number of executions in the areas that we visited. The Commission is currently investigating such deaths in 16 towns and settlements. We have received credible allegations regarding many more cases of executions, which we are documenting further.
Common elements of such crimes include the prior detention of the victims as well as visible signs of executions on bodies, such as hands tied behind backs, gunshot wounds to the head, and slit throats.
Yep, bubblegum got all over the dog.
Quote:Out of how many?
Some of the victims reported that after initial detention by Russian forces in Ukraine, they were transferred to the Russian Federation and held for weeks in prisons.
Quote:So we won't re-examine anyone for injuries or re-investigate any reports or look for corrob
It [We] seeks to coordinate its efforts with the many entities carrying out investigations in order to avoid duplication and re-traumatization of victims.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I just couldn't let this propaganda stand. Fuckit.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
They will, of course, ignore the constant shelling of civilians in Donetsk City, which has so far resulted in appx 10,000 civilian dead (and counting) over 14 years.
Complete, made-up bullshit. Cite?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Hello GSTRING/KRAPO/CAPON!
Originally posted by K2PO:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
They will, of course, ignore the constant shelling of civilians in Donetsk City, which has so far resulted in appx 10,000 civilian dead (and counting) over 14 years.
Complete, made-up bullshit. Cite?
Look it up yourself, dimwit.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Can't provide a cite for your made-up claim? What a surprise.
If anyone's interested in facts and not Siggy's propaganda, a link to the UN report on deaths in the Donbas since 2014 is below. 3404 civilians confirmed dead between 2014-21 including those killed by Russia. 2084 of the civilian killings happened in 2014. Just 25 in 2021.
Let me repeat, most of the civilian deaths happened in 2014, and if anyone remembers the original Russia Invades Ukraine thread it documented how the worst shelling incidents were perpetrated by Russia (not to mention the 298 civilians killed by Russia on MH17- these are included in the UN's figure).
https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-related%20
civilian%20casualties
%20as%20of%2031%20December%202021%20%28rev%2027%20January
%202022%29%20corr%20EN_0.pdf
(had to chop the link up as it was distorting the post)
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Giving up is why Russia's GDP per individual is tiny compared to EU countries.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Sorry but this is as far as I got into the article b4 givng up.
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by K2PO:
Can't provide a cite for your made-up claim? What a surprise.
If anyone's interested in facts and not Siggy's propaganda, a link to the UN report on deaths in the Donbas since 2014 is below. 3404 civilians confirmed dead between 2014-21 including those killed by Russia. 2084 of the civilian killings happened in 2014. Just 25 in 2021.
Let me repeat, most of the civilian deaths happened in 2014, and if anyone remembers the original Russia Invades Ukraine thread it documented how the worst shelling incidents were perpetrated by Russia (not to mention the 298 civilians killed by Russia on MH17- these are included in the UN's figure).
https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-related%20
civilian%20casualties
%20as%20of%2031%20December%202021%20%28rev%2027%20January
%202022%29%20corr%20EN_0.pdf
(had to chop the link up as it was distorting the post)
Just since February 24-
Quote:
IN the Donetsk People’s Republic, 4,400 civilians, including 132 children, have been killed since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated back in February, according to reports from the DPR on Monday, December 26....
...During the aforementioned period, the ministry recorded 13,927 shells, of which 13,596 were fired with heavy weapons and more than 91,000 shells of various calibres were fired, including 32 missiles from Tochka-U missile launcher, 149 rockets from HIMARS, 255 rockets from BM-27 “Uragan” and 12,281 rockets from BM-21 “Grad” and 16,444 shells of 155 mm calibre.
The number of civilians killed in Russian-backed DPR has dramatically increased since the end of October.
On October 31, close to 500 people had been killed in Donetsk People’s Republic since February, when the war began in Ukraine.
“In 256 days of escalation, 492 civilians have been killed, including 23 children. Full details of civilians killed in the liberated territory during the SSO (special military operation) are being established,” the ministry said at the time.
It was stated that 3,677 civilians, including 232 children, were injured during this period.
While more than 8,000 residential buildings and 1,868 civilian infrastructure facilities were also damaged.
https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/12/26/four-thousand-civilians-killed-d
onetsk-peoples-republic/
Fuck you, sock puppet.
----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Giving up is why Russia's GDP per individual is tiny compared to EU countries.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Sorry but this is as far as I got into the article b4 givng up.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Not surprisingly, you're trying to change focus since your bullshit articles were exposed as the crap that they are.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Since I have more important things to do than dispute trolls, just assume that everything that SECOND, and CAPN (and it various sock puppets) post is 100% disinfo.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Just since February 24-Quote:
IN the Donetsk People’s Republic, 4,400 civilians, including 132 children, have been killed since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated back in February, according to reports from the DPR on Monday, December 26....
Lol, Sig, you haven't changed a bit. All of your "facts" come from spokespeople sponsored by Moscow.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by K2PO:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Just since February 24-Quote:
IN the Donetsk People’s Republic, 4,400 civilians, including 132 children, have been killed since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated back in February, according to reports from the DPR on Monday, December 26....
Lol, Sig, you haven't changed a bit. All of your "facts" come from spokespeople sponsored by Moscow.
And all of yours come from proven liars.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Sudden Russian Death Syndrome
It’s not a great time to be an oligarch who’s unenthusiastic about Putin’s war in Ukraine.
By Elaine Godfrey
Here is a list of people you should not currently want to be: a Russian sausage tycoon, a Russian gas-industry executive, the editor in chief of a Russian tabloid, a Russian shipyard director, the head of a Russian ski resort, a Russian aviation official, or a Russian rail magnate. Anyone answering to such a description probably ought not stand near open windows, in almost any country, on almost every continent.
The meat millionaire and his also-deceased friend are the most recent additions to a macabre list of people who have succumbed to Sudden Russian Death Syndrome, a phenomenon that has claimed the lives of a flabbergastingly large number of businessmen, bureaucrats, oligarchs, and journalists. The catalog of these deaths—which includes alleged defenestrations, suspected poisonings, suspicious heart attacks, and supposed suicides—is remarkable for the variety of unnatural deaths contained within as well as its Russian-novel length.
(Here’s a list of Putin critics who've ended up dead
https://www.businessinsider.com/list-of-people-putin-is-suspected-of-a
ssassinating-2016-3 )
Some two dozen notable Russians have died in 2022 in mysterious ways, some gruesomely. The bodies of the gas-industry leaders Leonid Shulman and Alexander Tyulakov were found with suicide notes at the beginning of the year. Then, in the span of one month, three more Russian executives—Vasily Melnikov, Vladislav Avayev, and Sergey Protosenya—were found dead, in apparent murder-suicides, with their wives and children. In May, Russian authorities found the body of the Sochi resort owner Andrei Krukovsky at the bottom of a cliff; a week later, Aleksandr Subbotin, a manager of a Russian gas company, died in a home belonging to a Moscow shaman, after he was allegedly poisoned with toad venom.
The list goes on. In July, the energy executive Yuri Voronov was found floating in his suburban St. Petersburg swimming pool with a bullet wound in his head. Think Gatsby by the Neva. In August, the Latvia-born Putin critic Dan Rapoport apparently fell from the window of his Washington, D.C., apartment, a mile from the White House—right before Ravil Maganov, the chairman of a Russian oil company, fell six stories from a window in Moscow. Earlier this month, the IT-company director Grigory Kochenov toppled off a balcony. Ten days ago, in the French Riviera, a Russian real-estate tycoon took a fatal tumble down a flight of stairs.
To reiterate: All of these deaths occurred this year.
One could argue that, given Russia’s exceptionally low life expectancy and unchecked rate of alcoholism, at least some of these fatalities were natural or accidental. Just because you’re Russian doesn’t mean you can’t accidentally fall out of an upper-story window. Sometimes, people kill themselves—and the suicide rate among Russian men is one of the highest recorded in the world. For Edward Luttwak, a historian and military-strategy expert, that’s at least part of what’s happening: an outbreak of mass despair among Russia’s connected and privileged elite. “Imagine what happens to a globalized country when sanctions kick in,” he told me. “Some of them will commit suicide.” But the sheer proliferation of these untimely deaths warrants a closer look.
After all, this is what the Kremlin does. There is precedent for this phenomenon. In 2020, Russian agents poisoned—but failed to kill—the Putin critic Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent; a decade earlier, they succeeded in a similar attempt on the Russian-security-services defector Alexander Litvinenko. In 2004, when Viktor Yushchenko ran against a Kremlin-backed opponent for Ukraine’s presidency, he was poisoned with dioxin and left disfigured. Thirty years earlier, the Bulgarian secret service, reportedly with the help of the Soviet KGB, killed the dissident Georgi Markov by stabbing him on the Waterloo Bridge in London with a ricin-laced umbrella tip. Russian age
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
SHOTS FIRED
Conflict Between Putin’s Top War Allies Explodes in ‘Motherfucker!’ Fight
Yevgeny Prigozhin is backing up his mercenaries who were caught on tape calling the chief of the Russian Army a “motherf*cker.”
by Allison Quinn, Updated Dec. 27, 2022
Vladimir Putin’s most deranged hail mary in his war against Ukraine seems to have now officially blown up in his face, as the leader of the private army he’s used to send thousands of inmates into the battlefield is now openly threatening leaders of the official Russian military.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin offered a scathing response Tuesday to a video that surfaced days earlier in which Wagner mercenaries are seen cursing out Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
“To the Chief of the General Staff: you are a fucking motherfucker. We have nothing to fight with, we have no rounds. The guys are dying for us there, and we’re fucking sitting here, not helping. We need rounds, we want to fuck everyone up. We are fighting against the entire Ukrainian army near Bakhmut. Where are you? It’s about time you help us. There’s nothing else to fucking call you except motherfucker!” one of the fighters said in the video.
While Russian media had suggested the men in the video might have actually been “Ukrainian nationalists” dressed up as Wagner fighters in a bid to undermine the war, Prigozhin quickly shot down that conspiracy theory.
“There are no Ukrainian nationalists in that notorious video,” Prigozhin said in an audio message shared on the official Telegram channel of his Concord Management’s press service.
He went on to confirm the men were fighters under his command—and backed up their message.
“The guys asked me to pass along, that when you’re sitting in a warm office, it’s hard to hear the problems on the frontline, but when you’re dragging the dead bodies of your friends every day, and seeing them for the last time, then supplies are very much needed. And you want everyone to stir and at least in some way to think about how it is for those on the frontline,” Prigozhin said.
“As for the problems that are unfortunately surfacing at every step… we will solve them, and force them to be solved,” he said.
Prigozhin’s comments are just his latest shots fired at top Russian defense officials over their handling of the war—and perhaps the starkest sign yet that the Kremlin has more to fear from infighting than it would ever have done from Ukraine if Putin had not launched his invasion.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/conflict-between-putins-top-war-allies-e
xplodes-in-motherfucker-fight
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the US last week to shore up support for Ukraine.
• Zelenskyy called McConnell one day before the visit, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
• Zelenskyy urged McConnell to support a measure that ultimately passed Congress, the outlet reported.
Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's historic visit to the US last week, Congress passed a provision to give Ukraine the assets that were seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
A Post-Gazette investigation in May, bolstered by hundreds of secret U.S. Treasury records, revealed that at least eight Russian oligarchs and their companies had moved billions of dollars into U.S. banks, even after the institutions found that many of the transfers showed the hallmarks of money laundering.
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2022/12/29/zelenskyy
-mitch-mcconnell-ukraine-putin-oligarchs/stories/202212280090
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Fuck Zelensky. How dare he step on our shores.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the US last week to shore up support for Ukraine.
• Zelenskyy called McConnell one day before the visit, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
• Zelenskyy urged McConnell to support a measure that ultimately passed Congress, the outlet reported.
Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's historic visit to the US last week, Congress passed a provision to give Ukraine the assets that were seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
A Post-Gazette investigation in May, bolstered by hundreds of secret U.S. Treasury records, revealed that at least eight Russian oligarchs and their companies had moved billions of dollars into U.S. banks, even after the institutions found that many of the transfers showed the hallmarks of money laundering.
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2022/12/29/zelenskyy
-mitch-mcconnell-ukraine-putin-oligarchs/stories/202212280090
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
I'm guessing they thought the money was safer here than where Putin could get his hands on it.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
SHOTS FIRED
Conflict Between Putin’s Top War Allies Explodes in ‘Motherfucker!’ Fight
Yevgeny Prigozhin is backing up his mercenaries who were caught on tape calling the chief of the Russian Army a “motherf*cker.”
by Allison Quinn, Updated Dec. 27, 2022
Vladimir Putin’s most deranged hail mary in his war against Ukraine seems to have now officially blown up in his face, as the leader of the private army he’s used to send thousands of inmates into the battlefield is now openly threatening leaders of the official Russian military.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin offered a scathing response Tuesday to a video that surfaced days earlier in which Wagner mercenaries are seen cursing out Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.
“To the Chief of the General Staff: you are a fucking motherfucker. We have nothing to fight with, we have no rounds. The guys are dying for us there, and we’re fucking sitting here, not helping. We need rounds, we want to fuck everyone up. We are fighting against the entire Ukrainian army near Bakhmut. Where are you? It’s about time you help us. There’s nothing else to fucking call you except motherfucker!” one of the fighters said in the video.
While Russian media had suggested the men in the video might have actually been “Ukrainian nationalists” dressed up as Wagner fighters in a bid to undermine the war, Prigozhin quickly shot down that conspiracy theory.
“There are no Ukrainian nationalists in that notorious video,” Prigozhin said in an audio message shared on the official Telegram channel of his Concord Management’s press service.
He went on to confirm the men were fighters under his command—and backed up their message.
“The guys asked me to pass along, that when you’re sitting in a warm office, it’s hard to hear the problems on the frontline, but when you’re dragging the dead bodies of your friends every day, and seeing them for the last time, then supplies are very much needed. And you want everyone to stir and at least in some way to think about how it is for those on the frontline,” Prigozhin said.
“As for the problems that are unfortunately surfacing at every step… we will solve them, and force them to be solved,” he said.
Prigozhin’s comments are just his latest shots fired at top Russian defense officials over their handling of the war—and perhaps the starkest sign yet that the Kremlin has more to fear from infighting than it would ever have done from Ukraine if Putin had not launched his invasion.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/conflict-between-putins-top-war-allies-e
xplodes-in-motherfucker-fight
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Yes yes yes, can_you_see_me_laughing comrade signym? Can_you? Is the sound of I told you so ringing in your ears?
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Fuck Zelensky. How dare he step on our shores.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
If the goal is to destroy Russian power and strengthen Western democracy, Zelensky is proving great value for money.
Hero.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:OMFG. You really believe that funding oligarchs and EU/MIC apparatchiks is "strengthening democracy"?
Originally posted by K2PO:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Fuck Zelensky. How dare he step on our shores.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
If the goal is to destroy Russian power and strengthen Western democracy, Zelensky is proving great value for money.
Hero.
And by saying that this has been about destroying Russia all along, you're just confirming what Putin has been saying.
Oy!
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Oligarchs have only one loyalty: their money. You might want to remember that when thinking about our own oligarchs.
Originally posted by SECOND::
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the US last week to shore up support for Ukraine.
• Zelenskyy called McConnell one day before the visit, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
• Zelenskyy urged McConnell to support a measure that ultimately passed Congress, the outlet reported.
Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's historic visit to the US last week, Congress passed a provision to give Ukraine the assets that were seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
A Post-Gazette investigation in May, bolstered by hundreds of secret U.S. Treasury records, revealed that at least eight Russian oligarchs and their companies had moved billions of dollars into U.S. banks, even after the institutions found that many of the transfers showed the hallmarks of money laundering.
https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2022/12/29/zelenskyy
-mitch-mcconnell-ukraine-putin-oligarchs/stories/202212280090
THUGR: I'm guessing they thought the money was safer here than where Putin could get his hands on it.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Signym is putting all rich people into the same box. She is also trying to suggest that Americans and Europeans, aren't better off than the Russians because both have oligarchs. You surely are a simpleton comrade. One huge difference is the rule of law. Russia has none.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Again, OMFG
Originally posted by THG:
Signym is putting all rich people into the same box. She is also trying to suggest that Americans and Europeans, aren't better off than the Russians because both have oligarchs. You surely are a simpleton comrade. One huge difference is the rule of law. Russia has none.
T
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Apparently Russia sent a huge barrage of missiles (yanno, the ones they're running out of) into Ukraine again, knocking out most of the power to most of Ukraine.
Ukraine has resurrected a couple of steam locomotives from museums in order to keep supplies moving.
But in addition to targeting the electrical system, Russia also struck air defense systems.
In general I'd say that targeting air defenses is in preparation for a bombing offensive, which is a preparation for a ground offensive. But where, and how big depends on where the air defenses were attacked.
Now, apparently the trenches in Bakhmut, and elsewhere, are heavily fortified and resistant to artillery fire. (Apparently built to Soviet specs to resist, however much possible, nuclear explosions). Gravity bombs (the Russian version of "bunker busters") do exist but need to be dropped by heavy bombers. So if the air defenses were targeted near heavy line of contact fortifications that would probably mean a limited offensive.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMFG. You really believe that funding oligarchs and EU/MIC apparatchiks is "strengthening democracy"?
Always LOL at pro-Russians criticising Ukraine for being an oligarchy. Just LOL - you get why that's hilarious, don't you?
Understand Sig, Zelensky doesn't have to be a saint to be a hero. Ukraine doesn't have to be a perfect democracy to be a nation of heroes. It just has to be on the right side, resisting a imperialist invader that is much worse in every respect. Oligarchy. Corruption. Authoritarianism. Propaganda. Invading other countries. War crimes.
Take another look at the country you're supporting.
Quote:
And by saying that this has been about destroying Russia all along,
I've said for years that Russia is a malign actor that is bad for global peace and freedom. Now Western society has come around to agreeing with me. Part of the reason why - Ukraine's heroic defence. Not just defence, but pushing Russia back and reclaiming their land and exposing Russia's war crimes, like in Bucha, to the world.
So yes, Ukraine has heroically defied Russia since 2014, exposed Putin to the world for what he is, cut the Russian army down to size, strengthened NATO and bought time for the West to re-arm while Russia's army is mired in Ukraine.
We owe Ukraine much more than the relatively small amount of money and weapons we've given them.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
This dumb brainfucked cunt just called Zelensky a hero.
You're a fucking Bushite loser.
Hope you got your Covid boosters.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Nope.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMFG. You really believe that funding oligarchs and EU/MIC apparatchiks is "strengthening democracy"?
K2PO: Always LOL at pro-Russians criticising Ukraine for being an oligarchy. Just LOL - you get why that's hilarious, don't you?
Quote:Whatever.
K2PO: Understand Sig, Zelensky doesn't have to be a saint to be a hero. Ukraine doesn't have to be a perfect democracy to be a nation of heroes. It just has to be on the right side,
Quote:The United States?
K2PO: resisting a imperialist invader that is much worse in every respect. Oligarchy. Corruption. Authoritarianism. Propaganda. Invading other countries. War crimes.
Take another look at the country you're supporting.
Quote:Seriously?
SIGNY: And by saying that this has been about destroying Russia all along,
K2PO: I've said for years that Russia is a malign actor that is bad for global peace and freedom.
That, again, is about as far as I could get into your programmed blather.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO. That applies to nations and institutions too.
Not what you SAY you are, not what you CLAIM your morals ("values") are, or what you want to believe your goals are, but WHAT YOU DO.
If you start wars and kill millions, destroying nations and living standards, you are not a "force for peace", you're an oppressive, aggressive war monger. There's no "R2P" about it. If you censor discussion, or spy on your people, or bring false charges against some, you're not a democracy, you're authoritarian. There's no "diversity" about it.
If we REALLY wanted to "promote democracy" we wouldn't have funded terrorists in the ME and Central Asia. We wouldn't have destroyed so many DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED governments around the world, including Ukraine's. I suspect that Ukrainians would prefer not to be fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. We manipulated them thru their oligarchs and quislings, just as we provoked Russia into responding. Are these the actions of a peace and democracy-loving nation? Examine our record.
I'm not supporting Russia btw.
I think they've made many smart moves... trying to remove their oligarchs' fingers from the reins of power, making themselves financially and economically independent as possible. Investing in agriculture. Forming strategic partnerships abroad, and not throwing their partners under the bus or breaking contracts or treaties or agreements whenever it suits them. Protecting their borders.
Moves which we would do well to emulate.
I'm wouldn't recommend we do everything they do, but we need to be more realistic about what our interests and actions are, and not blinded with our own "do-gooder" rationalizations.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I suspect that Ukrainians would prefer not to be fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
And there it is...
Dipshit, Dumbfuck and Dildo, along with the other brainwashed fucking sheep in the US and abroad don't have a single personal dog in this race. It ain't them that's dying. It ain't their kids that are dying.
But they're happy to "Praise the Heroes" by putting a Ukranian flag on their Twitter Bio, or drive around with an "America supports Ukraine" bumper sticker while cheerleading the Ukrainian's as every single last one of them march onward to their deaths... just so they can feel safe from big bad Putin, "supported" by NATO, and funded by money that our corrupt NeoCon/NeoLib war machine politicians print out of thin air.
Meanwhile, they're jacking off all over each other while calling CRIMINAL ILLEGAL INVADERS by the thousands crossing our borders everyday "refugees", while none of the ACTUAL FUCKING REFUGEES in Ukraine are being invited here, because they are the ones who are destined to DIE to protect their fragile little world.
The fucking gall, referring to Zelensky as a hero. Anybody who utters those words doesn't even deserve to share oxygen with the rest of us.
Get fucked. Every last single one of you brainwashed pussy cowards.
You're too stupid to exist.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
K2PO isn't stupid, SIX. He's not blinded by hate like SECOND or brainwashed like THUGR.
It's so easy to manipulate people into doing things that aren't in their best interests, isn't it?
Think back to Maidan 2014, when a trade agreement was presented as a "civilizational choice". What Ukrainians thought they were getting, was a chance at the good life: strolling down the boulevards and drinking lattes at nice coffee shops. Who DOESN'T want that kind of life?
But that was never K2PO's or neocons' intentions. They were planning on weaponizing Ukraine against Russia from the beginning. BEFORE the beginning. That's what K2PO implied, anyway. And look at the EU now: NOBODY is strolling anywhere or drinking lattes. They're all wrapped up in the cold and dark, facing energy shortages and recessions and other wartime miseries.
How did it come to this?
Masterful manipulation of the public.
Nefarious goals wrapped in platitudes.
Stampeding people thru panic
Conditioning, basically.
In reality, what Ukrainians needed to do was get the corrupt out of office bc they were sucking Ukraine's economic lifeblood. Not an easy task, when the corrupted run everything. But that's what they needed to do. And if the EU really wanted to "save the planet" they should have switched to nat gas while they worked out an alternate energy policy. Now, they're burning coal (!) bc they've cut off their own access to cleaner energy.
There's no magic to fixing what ails a nation, just hard work and persistent effort and keeping your eye on the ball of your real interests.
That's why I've so often asked: WHAT ARE AMERICA'S INTERESTS? Until we've hashed out the fundamentals, we'll be derailed time and time again by mirages and disinfo. It's hugely long conversation that will take at least a couple of decades to work through. But that's what democracy is all about, innit? So far, though, all I hear is *crickets*.
EDITED TO ADD: I've always tried to take a realistic view of us. If I see danger, I voice my concerns. My POV may be different than many, but I've ALWAYS been about America's -our- interests, as best I see them. Finding out what those are means close questioning and sharp insight. It's beyond the scope of any individual. I was really hoping to get into deep discussions about what people think and feel,and why, hoping to understand their POV. I was hoping that others would delve into my ideas and question - not my motives (which are genuinely patriotic) or my nationality (American, I assure you) but my assumptions, my logic, even my facts. Having people pare away at my own thoughts makes me a better thinker
But it seems few people want to pursue that.
Off my soaobox now, I've got real-world stuff to doand real-world responsibilities.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Signym, what you are trying to do will only work when the people are in the same room. Here is a long article where important people have just such a heart-to-heart talk with a journalist:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
EDITED TO ADD: I've always tried to take a realistic view of us. If I see danger, I voice my concerns. My POV may be different than many, but I've ALWAYS been about America's -our- interests, as best I see them. Finding out what those are means close questioning and sharp insight. It's beyond the scope of any individual. I was really hoping to get into deep discussions about what people think and feel,and why, hoping to understand their POV. I was hoping that others would delve into my ideas and question - not my motives (which are genuinely patriotic) or my nationality (American, I assure you) but my assumptions, my logic, even my facts. Having people pare away at my own thoughts makes me a better thinker
But it seems few people want to pursue that.
Off my soap box now, I've got real-world stuff to doand real-world responsibilities.
The price of weapons assistance: Ukraine pays in blood to convince Western allies
Ukraine has been at war for almost ten months, but several large European states have been dragging their feet over aid. Is Ukraine not Europe? Or is Europe itself no longer Europe? Eesti Ekspress interviewed dozens of diplomats, high-level officials, and anonymous sources in Kyiv, Berlin, Warsaw, and Tallinn to find answers.
„No other country has undergone two revolutions for European values in the last few decades and is currently at war in their name,“ says Ihor Zhovka, Zelensky’s chief foreign advisor.
No other country holds greater conviction in European values when describing and defending them. Nevertheless, many European countries’ reactions to their cries for help at the beginning of the war were „ambiguous“, says Zhovka. Why? He chooses his words carefully.
„They lack the courage to make brave decisions.“
I’m sitting underground with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba. We’ve settled in amidst the green pipes and empty metal shelves of a basement-level boiler room, as drones are once again flying overhead. I ask whether Bohdan, Viktoria, and their unborn child would still be alive if Germany, France, and other countries had supplied air defense systems earlier.
„Certainly,“ Kuleba answers without a beat. „We’ve been asking for them since day one of the war.“
Why weren’t they delivered?
„I suppose they hoped the situation would change and there’d be no need to provide anything,“ Kuleba sighs. „Sure, it cost us the blood of our people, but I guess that’s the way humankind works.“
That being said, things have improved over the last few months.
„I can’t speak for everybody, but the dynamics are much better than before,“ says Zhovka. Germans sources confirm: Westerners were getting bored when nothing „exciting“ happened on the front in summer, but the Harkiv counterattack changed all that, luckily. Which is nice, of course. Still, it means Europe didn’t start helping Ukraine simply because it is a part of Europe – a region that was once the stronghold of humanism and solidarity. Europe had to be convinced. With blood.
Kuleba doesn’t overdramatize. He remains calm and thinks there’s nothing surprising about allies being unwilling to supply weapons to a side that was possibly facing imminent defeat.
Borscht is similarly one of the reasons why Europe delayed military aid for so long: generally, apart from the soup, next to nothing was known about Ukrainians. And, in fact, most believed the Ukrainian national dish was actually Russian, just like Ukraine itself.
„If anyone had said on February 24th that Ukraine could win this war, they’d have been a genius,“ says Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of Ukraine’s largest English-language outlet The Kyiv Independent. „Or at least a great statesman.“
„Lots of Western journalists visit nowadays,“ Rudenko tells me at another one of Kyiv’s amazin
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
‘The only resource Russia has is men, and they are not afraid to waste them’
Boris Dralyuk, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books, interviewed by Klaus Stimeder:
Q: Mr. Dralyuk, we are going into the tenth month of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine. What is your take on the situation?
I am no military strategist, but my sense is that the Russian Army’s chances of defeating the Ukrainian Army on the battlefield are nil. Thanks to its allies, the Ukrainian Army is better trained, more experienced, and far better supplied. Also, we must remember that the war, in which many Ukrainians but relatively few Russian nationals have fought, has been going on since 2014. The Russian Army – like everything in Russia – has been allowed to rot due to the corruption that pervades every Russian institution. Much of the money assigned to defense has lined the pockets of Putin’s cronies, and of those cronies’ cronies, and so on. The only resource Russia has is men, and they are not afraid to waste them.
So Ukrainians are now mowing down, at great expense and great psychological cost, untrained Russians, including, in the case of Wagner PMC, prisoners. These prisoners are essentially slaves of the Putin regime. What motivation do these Russian men have to fight? The promise of a reduced sentence? Fear of execution with a sledgehammer? Maybe a washing machine? While Ukrainians are defending their homeland, their children, their future. Ukrainian men and women are also dying on the front lines, but the number of Russians killed is staggering. All this is very much in the Russian tradition. There is nothing cheaper in Russia than human life. So what is the Russian Army doing instead of fighting with a modicum of honor and intelligence? Attacking civilians. Also a failing strategy. And also very much in the Russian tradition.
Q: You were born and raised in Soviet Ukraine but emigrated with your parents to the US in the early 1990s. What does the perception of the war in the US look like to you?
I am happy to say that I see near-universal support for Ukraine among the US populace. I have witnessed it in California, Florida, and Oklahoma. There are Ukrainian colors everywhere. There are, of course, isolationist voices on the right and the left and useful idiots with big platforms, but I do not see them having much influence on the state’s policies or on the minds of average Americans. Nothing is entirely black and white, but this is as close as we have come to a clear-cut case of good vs. evil.
Q: A considerable part of your body of work is translating the works of Russian authors, and non-Russian writers who write, or at least used to write, in Russian. According to the latest surveys, an ever-increasing number of Ukrainians are now rejecting the Russian language. Even in places such as your native city Odesa, where Russian has been the lingua franca for centuries, this change has become palpable in everyday life. What do you think about that?
I think it is inevitable. It is the price that the Russian language and Russian high culture must pay for the violence done by the Russian state and the Russian people. Russian high culture is not uniformly and unambiguously in defense of imperialism. Still, it has long served to cloak the extreme violence and inhumanity that characterizes Russian society and Russia's actions around the world. The true Russian tradition, say far too many well-intentioned people like Pope Francis, is that of Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Tchaikovsky. They then turn a blind eye to the violence perpetrated by successive Russian and Soviet tyrants, the mentality of the vast majority of Russian people, and the atrocious conditions of life in the country. Or they may admit that it is precisely due to the great suffering of the Russian people – and those around them – that we have Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Tchaikovsky. To a significant extent, that is true.
Representatives of Russian high culture responded in myriad ways to that suffering. Many of them, like Pushkin and To
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
‘The only resource Russia has is men, and they are not afraid to waste them’
The exact same could be said of Ukraine, yanno... if we weren't spending hundreds of billions giving them weapons as they march to their deaths.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Russia starved 4 million Ukrainians to death and will do it again in the 21st Century if Russia wins. That is why Ukrainians are fighting Russians. There is nothing more than that driving this war.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
‘The only resource Russia has is men, and they are not afraid to waste them’
The exact same could be said of Ukraine, yanno... if we weren't spending hundreds of billions giving them weapons as they march to their deaths.
Read about the genocide of Ukrainians at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Just in case you think Ukrainians are the only people Russians kill over political differences, Russia killed 62 million Soviet citizens during the 20th century. There is a nice little book that breaks the killing down year by year. For some reason the Russians always find a new excuse to kill their political adversaries:
R.J. Rummel, Lethal Politics - Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 (Published 1990) I am pretty sure you won't read the book, although it is free. Here are the chapters:
Chapters
1 61,911,000 Victims: Utopianism Empowered, 1917-1987 page 1
2 3,284,000 Victims: The Civil War Period, 1917-1922 page 33
3 2,200,000 Victims: The NEP Period 1923-1928 page 61
4 11,440,000 Victims: The Collectivization Period, 1929-1935 page 81
5 4,345,000 Victims: The Great Terror Period 1936-1938 page 109
6 5,104,000 Victims: Pre-World War II Period 1939-June 1941 page 127
7 13,053,000 Victims: World War II Period, June 1941-1945 page 151
8 15,613,000 Victims: Postwar and Stalin’s Twilight Period, 1945-1953 page 191
9 6,872,000 Victims: Post-Stalin Period, 1954-1987 page 217
While there are estimates of the number of people killed by Soviet authorities during particular episodes or campaigns, until now, no one has tried to calculate the complete human toll of Soviet genocides and mass murders since the revolution of 1917. Here, R. J. Rummel lists and analyzes hundreds of published estimates, presenting them in the historical context in which they occurred. His shocking conclusion is that conservatively calculated, 61,911,000 people were systematically killed by the Communist regime from 1917 to 1987.
Buy the book at https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder/dp/15600
08873/
Or download all R.J. Rummel books for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.page/search.php?req=R.J.+Rummel
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Russia starved 4 million Ukrainians to death and will do it again in the 21st Century if Russia wins. That is why Ukrainians are fighting Russians. There is nothing more than that driving this war.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
‘The only resource Russia has is men, and they are not afraid to waste them’
The exact same could be said of Ukraine, yanno... if we weren't spending hundreds of billions giving them weapons as they march to their deaths.
Liar.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You and the Russians have a denial problem. Whatever happens, you and they deny it happened. But the Ukrainians don't have a problem remembering what happened. Ukrainians are hammering history into Russian heads and this history lesson hurts. You and the Russians are such recalcitrant pupils that the hammering must go on and on until you either change or die.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Liar.
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
In a rare admission, Russia on Monday said 63 servicemen were killed when a temporary deployment point was struck in Makiivka in a part of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Moscow separatists since 2014.
Ukraine has taken responsibility for the strike and says the toll is much higher.
Russian military correspondents, who have gained influence in recent months, said hundreds could have been killed and accused Russia's top commanders of not learning from past mistakes.
There have also been reports that the servicemen were quartered next to a munitions depot that exploded in the strike and that some had been able to use their Russian mobile phones -- giving away their location to Ukrainian forces.
"What conclusions will be drawn? Who will be punished?" Mikhail Matveyev, a member of the Russian parliament representing Samara, wrote on social media.
The Telegram account Rybar, which has around a million followers, said it was "criminally naive" for the army to store ammunition next to sleeping quarters.
Putin has yet to react to the Makiivka strike, which comes during a holiday season before Orthodox Christmas which many Russians spend with their families.
Call for revenge
At the gathering in Samara, Kolotovkina, the wife of a general, said she had asked her husband to "avenge" the victims.
"We will crush the enemy together. We are left with no choice," she told mourners.
More at https://www.rfi.fr/en/international-news/20230103-grief-and-anger-in-r
ussia-over-soldiers-killed-by-ukraine-strike
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm not supporting Russia btw.
You owe me a new iPhone, Boris! Great way to close out 2022!
btw, after almost a year the first post in this thread... prescient...
"What an evil selfish prick Putin is. Does anyone but him benefit from this? And now? After 2 years of covid crap? Kill thousands and crash the world economy so he can redraw a MAP?!?? What fcking dinosaur. I look forward to watching this blow up in his face."
I impress myself sometimes.
Each day that passes Putin shows how to bungle and completely fck up a "special operation." And - Bonus - each day he makes Russia look even worse. It will go down as the biggest disaster/screwup ever. What a human turd.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by K2PO:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMFG. You really believe that funding oligarchs and EU/MIC apparatchiks is "strengthening democracy"?
Always LOL at pro-Russians criticising Ukraine for being an oligarchy. Just LOL - you get why that's hilarious, don't you?
Understand Sig, Zelensky doesn't have to be a saint to be a hero. Ukraine doesn't have to be a perfect democracy to be a nation of heroes. It just has to be on the right side, resisting a imperialist invader that is much worse in every respect. Oligarchy. Corruption. Authoritarianism. Propaganda. Invading other countries. War crimes.
Take another look at the country you're supporting.Quote:
And by saying that this has been about destroying Russia all along,
I've said for years that Russia is a malign actor that is bad for global peace and freedom. Now Western society has come around to agreeing with me. Part of the reason why - Ukraine's heroic defence. Not just defence, but pushing Russia back and reclaiming their land and exposing Russia's war crimes, like in Bucha, to the world.
So yes, Ukraine has heroically defied Russia since 2014, exposed Putin to the world for what he is, cut the Russian army down to size, strengthened NATO and bought time for the West to re-arm while Russia's army is mired in Ukraine.
We owe Ukraine much more than the relatively small amount of money and weapons we've given them.
Man! My sock puppet is cleaning house. Go, go, go!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You and the Russians have a denial problem. Whatever happens, you and they deny it happened. But the Ukrainians don't have a problem remembering what happened. Ukrainians are hammering history into Russian heads and this history lesson hurts. You and the Russians are such recalcitrant pupils that the hammering must go on and on until you either change or die.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Liar.
You first, Mudblood.
The problem for you now is that there's nothing you can ever do to change what ails you.
Don't do anything strenuous, for oh... I dunno... The rest of your short life.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Man! My sock puppet is cleaning house. Go, go, go!
Nah.
Glad that you figured out how to transfer your old account to your new smartphone though.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I
Zelensky Expands Crackdown On Ukrainian Media
President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a new bill into law which strengthens government control over public access to news in Ukraine. Zelensky has already nationalized the country’s media under martial law powers invoked after Russia’s invasion last year, stoking criticism from press freedom groups.
Signed on December 29, the law expands the Ukrainian broadcast regulator’s powers over news agencies ”dramatically,” now including both print and online sources, according to the Kyiv Independent. The measure requires publications to obtain licenses to operate, and any media org without the proper paperwork can be shut down, the outlet reported, adding that the body handing out the permits will be under Zelensky’s control.
MORE AT
https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/zelensky-expands-crack-down-on-n
ews-media-in-ukraine/
I sometimes listen to Gonzalo Lira, an American -educated Chilean who vlogs from Karkhov. He hosts what he calls "roundtables" and while he isn't that interesting, his guests are quite often knowledgeable. And as a host, he keeps the conversation flowing, it never bogs down. I wonder how this will affect him.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Defending against Russian drones is expensive, but Ukraine sees the cost as worth it
They are lumbering and noisy and relatively easy to shoot from the sky. Over the New Year’s weekend, the Ukrainian military said it downed every single one of the 80-odd exploding drones that Russia sent the country’s way.
“Such results have never been achieved before,” a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman said on Tuesday.
But beneath that result lies a question: How long can Ukraine sustain its effort when many of its defensive measures cost far more than the drones do?
The Shahed-136 drones used by Russia and supplied by Iran are relatively cheap, while the array of weapons used to shoot them out of the sky are much more expensive, according to experts.
Artem Starosiek, the head of Molfar, a Ukrainian consultancy that supports the country’s war effort, estimated that it costs up to seven times more to use a missile to shoot down a drone than it does to launch one. The Iranian drones can cost as little as $20,000 to produce, while the cost of firing one of the surface-to-air missiles used by Ukraine can range from $140,000 for a Soviet-era S-300 to $500,000 for a U.S.-made NASAM, or National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System.
That is an imbalance that could over time favor Russia, costing Ukraine and its allies dearly, some analysts say.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a recent overnight speech that Russia is betting on the “exhaustion of our people, our air defense, our energy sector.”
Molfar said it estimated that, since September, Russia had fired around 600 drones at Ukraine. The campaign, which gathered pace just as Moscow sustained a series of battlefield losses, has caused rolling blackouts and outages just as the country’s harsh winter has started to bite, compounding the misery caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Both sides have used drones not just for reconnaissance and attacks since Russia’s invasion began in February, the first time that they have been widely deployed in a European war.
Military authorities in Kyiv have said little about the details of their air defenses in line with the operational secrecy that has shrouded much of their war planning, or about the cost, making analysis difficult.
Ukraine’s forces have used antiaircraft guns and small-arms fire to down some drones, but increasingly, as the Russians have taken to launching assaults at night, Kyiv has also relied heavily on missiles fired from warplanes and the ground. Officials said that Ukraine has employed surface-to-air missiles known as NASAMs multiple times over the weekend to counter drones.
Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military at the CNA research institute, said that Ukrainians are using “a zoo of different air defense systems” to combat the threat, including Soviet-era and NATO missile systems, each with its own cost profile.
Some of Ukraine’s antiaircraft guns, like the Gepard 2 radar-directed mobile gun system, are inexpensive in comparison with other Soviet-era and European defense systems being deployed. And some of the American-made interceptor missiles are relatively expensive.
Even so, Mr. Starosiek said, the expense of downing the drones with missiles needed to be seen in context. It costs far less to shoot down a drone than to repair a damaged or destroyed power station, he noted. And then there is the human factor.
“People are still alive,” he said.
In a report issued on Nov. 7, Molfar said that 82 percent of the drones were being shot down, but that figure has since increased.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/01/03/world/russia-ukraine-news#defe
nding-against-russian-drones-is-expensive-but-ukraine-sees-the-cost-as-worth-it
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Top Putin Propagandist Urges Russians to Embrace Death: ‘We’ll Go to Heaven’
Vladimir Solovyov’s bizarre tirade comes amid fears of a new military call-up.
Kremlin mouthpiece Vladimir Solovyov is urging Russians to welcome death.
“Life is highly overrated,” the propagandist said in his program on state-run TV on Monday. “Why be afraid of what is inevitable? Moreover, we’ll go to heaven. Death is the end of one earthly path and the beginning of another.”
He went on to question why people would let their fear of death “influence their decisions.”
“It’s only worth living for something you can die for, that’s the way it should be,” Solovyov told viewers from his warm TV studio.
Nearly a year into the war, the Kremlin seems hell-bent on keeping it going at all costs—even if that means hundreds of thousands more will have to be summoned to face likely death on the battlefield in Ukraine.
An obscure group calling itself the “Soldiers’ Widows” seemed to appear out of nowhere this week to call on the Russian president to do just that.
In an open letter published on Telegram on Monday, the mysterious group urged Vladimir Putin to declare a general mobilization and block all military-age men from leaving the country.
“Now is not the time to get cold feet,” the group wrote, urging Putin to be more like Josef Stalin, who “didn’t think about any ratings or dissatisfaction of dissidents” in his quest for “victory.” (See the Quote Investigator for more about sending people to their deaths: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/ )
Video at https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-putin-propagandist-vladimir-solovyov
-urges-russians-to-embrace-death
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Nobody believes that shit.
Get fucked, Daily Beast.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:There is a video and translation to English:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody believes that shit.
Get fucked, Daily Beast.
Quote:https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1609912011948785666
“Life is highly overrated. Why be afraid of what is inevitable? Moreover, we will go to heaven!” — Solovyov. On the air of Russian television, the presenter said that Russians do not need to be afraid of death, because it is part of life.
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russia Has a New Plane Problem
Russia's reported transfer of its strategic bombers thousands of miles away to the Far East after its airfields were attacked could pose problems for Moscow's aging air fleet fighting in Ukraine, British defense officials have said.
Although Kyiv did not directly claim responsibility, it welcomed and was blamed for drone attacks on the Dyagilevo and Engels air bases on December 5. The attacks reportedly killed three Russian soldiers and damaged at least one Tupolev Tu-22M3 bomber and possibly a Tupolev Tu-95MS.
The strikes were notable for how far inside Russian territory they reached. Engels air base in the Saratov region is 450 miles from Ukraine, and the Dyagilevo base in Ryazan, around 400 miles from the border.
On December 27, a day after Engels was struck again, Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov said that Moscow had moved its Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3 bombers to Primorsky Krai, over 3,700 miles away from the border with Ukraine. An estimated six Tu-95 aircraft have been moved out of Engels, according to open-source intelligence company Janes.
The British Ministry of Defense said on Thursday that Russia had "highly likely" responded by placing its LRA (long-range aviation) aircraft farther away from Ukraine.
While the aircraft can still fire air-launched cruise missiles into Ukraine because the weapons have a 3,100-mile range, in addition to the bombers' flight range, the U.K. Defense Ministry said that "operating from dispersal locations will add additional maintenance stress."
Their far-flung locations will also "further deplete the limited flying hours available on these aging aircraft," the daily assessment which emphasizes Russian losses and Ukrainian gains said. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.
It comes as Ukraine warned of further strikes deep into Russian territory and amid questions over how Russia has used its air force during the invasion. Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's chief military intelligence official, told ABC News that Vladimir Putin should brace for more attacks "deeper and deeper" inside Russia.
"Russia clearly has an issue with its air force as it hasn't used what would be a small percentage of its on-paper capability to support the Ukrainian war," Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence officer told Newsweek.
"They should have gained air superiority at the beginning of their attack into Ukraine and maintained it," he said. "The fact they didn't points to an air force with the same planning and logistic issues as their ground forces" which have been "affected by corrupt supply chains and extremely poor reliability."
"This is probably true not just for tactical platforms but strategic platforms," he added, "Russia is likely running out of serviceable kit."
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-plane-tupolev-ministry-defense
-1771447
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:There is a video and translation to English:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody believes that shit.
Get fucked, Daily Beast.Quote:https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1609912011948785666
“Life is highly overrated. Why be afraid of what is inevitable? Moreover, we will go to heaven!” — Solovyov. On the air of Russian television, the presenter said that Russians do not need to be afraid of death, because it is part of life.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ukrainian citizen uprising is the war Russia didn’t see coming
BY TOM MOCKAITIS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 01/05/23 12:30 PM ET
As Ukrainian forces advanced to liberate Kherson, resistance fighters carried out attacks and provided reconnaissance for the liberators. One group posted photos of Russian soldiers on its Telegram channel with the tagline “we’re watching you.” The group also hung a banner that boldly declared, “If the HIMARS [U.S. rockets] can’t reach you, a partisan will.”
Effective though it may be, partisan warfare comes with significant risks. Unable to come to grips with elusive guerrillas, the Russian military will take its frustration out on the local population accused (rightly or wrongly) of aiding the insurgents. Atrocities in Bucha, Mariupol and elsewhere may have been a deliberate strategy to cow civilians into submission.
The Russians are also conducting a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in occupied areas. At least 900,000 Ukrainians have been forcibly relocated, including 200,000 children.
(Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian genocide is proceeding in plain view
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/vladimir-putins-ukr
ainian-genocide-is-proceeding-in-plain-view/ )
The Russian military has a well-deserved reputation for brutality. Putin crushed the Chechen insurgency using extreme violence that included torture and murdering civilians. A United Nations report found that Russians bombed civilians during the Syrian civil war.
Russia has adopted the same tactic in Ukraine. With the frontlines frozen, it has been targeting civilian infrastructure, especially the electrical grid. By denying them heat, electricity and water, Putin hopes to break the will of the Ukrainian people and compel them to sue for peace.
The tactic is not working. Ukrainian morale is high and will remain so if the West continues to supply the country with weapons. Popular resistance to occupation will continue.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3800333-ukrainian-citizen-up
rising-is-the-war-russia-didnt-see-coming/
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:There is a video and translation to English:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody believes that shit.
Get fucked, Daily Beast.Quote:https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1609912011948785666
“Life is highly overrated. Why be afraid of what is inevitable? Moreover, we will go to heaven!” — Solovyov. On the air of Russian television, the presenter said that Russians do not need to be afraid of death, because it is part of life.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
Moving on. Looks like you conceded that argument too.
Anything else stupid you want to say today that I can demolish? My afternoon is free.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ukraine Reveals End Date for War With Russia
By Jon Jackson On 1/5/23 at 1:59 PM EST
In a recent interview, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence hinted at a possible end date for his country's war with Russia.
Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, told ABC News in an interview shared by the outlet on Wednesday that he expects the "hottest" fighting between Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces to occur in March.
Budanov added that he expects Ukraine's military to make a large push against the invading Russians in the spring. According to him, those efforts could lead to what Ukraine feels would be an end to the war.
"This is [when we will see more] liberation of territories and dealing the final defeats to the Russian Federation," Budanov said. "This will happen throughout Ukraine, from Crimea to the Donbas."
ABC News' Britt Clennett asked Budanov about attacks on Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Putin in 2014.
"Crimea is Ukrainian territory, we can use any weapon on our territory," he answered.
Budanov added, "Our goal, and we will achieve it, is returning to the borders of 1991, like Ukraine is recognized by all subjects of international law."
Michael Kimmage, a history professor at the Catholic University of America, told Newsweek recently that Zelensky—emboldened by Putin's recent battlefield losses—could very well try to regain control of Crimea.
However, Kimmage's own speculative timeline for the war's end doesn't align with Budanov's. "I think that the safest bet is to say that it will go on until one side is sort of forced out of the conflict in one way or another," Kimmage said. "We need to think in terms of years, not months."
Budanov's prediction could also be altered by a possible major military offensive from Russia that multiple Ukrainian officials have warned could occur in the coming weeks.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told The Guardian in December that thousands of soldiers who were part of Russia's mobilization drive in October should be sufficiently trained to take part in war efforts by February. Other top officials told The Economist last month that a Russian offensive could come as soon as January.
On Tuesday, Zelensky also spoke in an address of an upcoming aggressive effort from Russia's military, though he did not provide a timeline.
Budanov extended a message to U.S. citizens as well, saying they would see the positive effects that American support for Ukraine has had.
"I promise it will not take too long now, and every taxpayer in the U.S. will be able to see where every cent went," he said. "We will change this world together."
Budanov extended a message to U.S. citizens as well, saying they would see the positive effects that American support for Ukraine has had.
"I promise it will not take too long now, and every taxpayer in the U.S. will be able to see where every cent went," he said. "We will change this world together."
More at https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-reveals-end-date-war-russia-1771612
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russia’s capitulation as its saving grace
How should the war end?
To make sure that the war is followed by peace rather than a simple ceasefire, the final peace treaty should be signed by Ukraine, Russia, and NATO — Putin keeps saying that Russia is at war with NATO — and for once he's speaking the truth.
The treaty should not only establish Ukraine’s territorial integrity and provide security guarantees but should also make sure that Russian troops withdraw from occupied territories in Georgia and Moldova as well as from Belarus. It should stipulate Russia's obligation to pay reparations and to hand over all suspected war criminals.
The most important step will be ensuring Russia's demilitarization and the relinquishing of its nuclear arsenal, without which Putin would never have started this war. At the very least, international control over Russia’s nuclear weapons must be established. If this is followed by a 21st-century Marshall Plan to rebuild the country's economy and political institutions, then the process will ultimately be met with public support.
Defeat in war can be beneficial for any nation: Russia's defeat in the Crimean War back in the mid-19th century was soon followed by the abolition of serfdom. Today, the capitulation of the regime is in the interests of Russia and its people, as the state isn’t just destroying Ukraine, it’s causing huge damage to Russia too.
If the current regime survives, Russians may never be able to extricate themselves from the horrific present they find themselves in and Russia will be doomed to poverty as an erstwhile culture that one day simply disappeared forever.
Capitulation followed by methodically dismantling the regime could give Russians a chance — a very small chance, they must accept — but nevertheless, one that they should take.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/01/04/once-unthinkable-capitulatio
n-could-still-be-russias-saving-grace-a79873 and a different version at
https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/12/14/russias-capitulation-as-it
s-saving-grace-en It is worthwhile reading both versions.
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin keeps saying that Russia is at war with NATO — and for once he's speaking the truth.
NATO is at war with Russia and the US by proxy.
That's what I've said all along.
Fuck NATO. NATO needs to stand the fuck down. NATO needs to be dissolved.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russia’s capitulation as its saving grace
How should the war end?
To make sure that the war is followed by peace rather than a simple ceasefire, the final peace treaty should be signed by Ukraine, Russia, and NATO — Putin keeps saying that Russia is at war with NATO — and for once he's speaking the truth.
OMG SECOND accidentally posts the truth.
Save this one for posterity!
Oh BTW, you DO know the rumor that Zelenskiy is a giant coke head? And what you're hearing is the nose-candy talking?
He's got a reason for being delusional. What's yours?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
What The Ukraine War Teaches Us About Military Power and Economics
National power in the modern world has far more to do with economic strength than it does with military might. When it comes to military prowess, modern wars don’t involve much hand-to-hand combat among guys with bulging muscles. What they involve, mainly, are strategic duels using long-range weapons, aided by a lot of technology. And winning such duels surely depends in part on having leadership that is smart and well informed.
I’m not saying that modern war is like a video game. If you need evidence both of that and of the importance of a smart, dedicated military, I’d recommend a recent depiction by Illia Ponomarenko of The Kyiv Independent of the brutal, terrifying fighting currently underway for Bakhmut. Courage and stamina are as important as they ever were. But bicep-flexing and bombast, not so much. https://kyivindependent.com/national/as-battle-of-bakhmut-nears-culmin
ation-ukraines-artillery-gasps-for-more-ammo
What does determine military power? Contemporary wars are, to a large extent, about arithmetic.
Military historian Phillips O’Brien’s 2015 book about World War II, “How the War Was Won,” has a memorable opening: “There were no decisive battles in World War II. This might seem a strange thing to say as the war is usually viewed through the prism of its famous engagements.” The conflict was mainly a war of attrition, in which no single battle did much to shift the balance of power, especially given the rate at which all the main players were producing new weapons until late in the game.
O’Brien was, as it happens, one of the few commentators to reject the idea that Russia could overrun Ukraine in a few days. He predicted, instead, that Russia-Ukraine would turn into a war of attrition — and that Ukraine stood a good chance of winning such a war. (Why giving in to Russia is a bigger mistake than Munich https://thecritic.co.uk/the-new-appeasement/ )
Once Ukraine had beaten off the initial attack and the invasion became a war of attrition, it also ceased to be a simple war between Russia and Ukraine. It’s true that on the Ukrainian side, Ukrainians are doing all the fighting and dying. But they haven’t had to rely on their own military-industrial base.
Thanks to a form of soft power — Ukraine’s ability to portray itself as the defender of democracy against a brutal tyrant — the country has been getting lots of weapons from the West. And when you take a wider view of these military resources, the picture of Russian dominance vanishes.
One thing I learned from O’Brien is that modern wars burn through military equipment at an incredible pace. Russia began this war with a huge number of tanks and an immense amount of artillery. But many of the tanks were destroyed in the disastrous early attempt to seize Kyiv, and the Institute for the Study of War now believes that the Russians are “depleting their stocks of artillery ammunition” to the point where they “will struggle to continue their current pace of operations.” https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-a
ssessment-december-31
What this means is that productive capacity — ultimately, economic power — tends to be decisive in a war of attrition. And Russia is just hugely outclassed by that measure.
All that said, this is, thankfully, not an overt war between Russia and the liberal-democratic West, in which the full force of these G.D.P. and military disparities would be in play. So it’s hard to see exactly how the conflict between Russia and Ukraine ends.
During World War II, Nazi military power didn’t really collapse until 1944, when Allied planes achieved air dominance over Germany and were able to destroy much of the country’s war-fighting capacity. Ukraine won’t be able to do that to Russia, nor can Russia do that to NATO, whose members will presumably continue to send supplies to Ukraine. So the brutal slogging match may continue for a very long time.
But this is, as I said, largely about math. And the arithmetic, in
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Historical Perspectives on Russia’s War in Ukraine
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG SECOND accidentally posts the truth.
Save this one for posterity!
In 1939, after invading Poland, the Soviet Union took prisoner more than 20,000 Polish soldiers, border guards and policemen. For reasons that remain unclear (the act brought little real benefit to Josef Stalin) these men and one woman, a lone pilot, were shot by the NKVD at various sites throughout the Soviet Union. The most infamous location was the Katyn Forest, near the city of Smolensk in western Russia, though others were murdered near the Russian city of Tver and near Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, as well as in prisons throughout Belarus.
The murders at Katyn and elsewhere were carried out under conditions of strictest secrecy. Not long afterward, the Soviets killed most of the executioners themselves; after all, perpetrators are witnesses of a sort. The bodies were hidden in forests and, in some cases, the killers tried to dissolve the corpses with chemicals. Relatives and Polish officials were lied to by the Soviets. When Stalin was asked about the prisoners’ whereabouts by General Wladyslaw Anders, who was gathering a Polish army in Soviet-controlled territories to fight the Nazis, the dictator played dumb. Perhaps they had all escaped to Manchuria, he suggested. The painter and writer Józef Czapski, who had spent time in prison camps with the missing men but had been released before the massacres, was tasked by Anders with finding his comrades. He was led on a wild goose chase that took him across the length and breadth of the Soviet Union, an experience he recounted in a memoir with the telling title “On Inhuman Land.”
Today, in Ukraine, we are seeing historical parallels with the events of WWII, including the elaborate deflection of blame.
More at https://newlinesmag.com/essays/historical-perspectives-on-russias-war-
crimes-in-ukraine/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Sad.
The only thing you've got left to talk about is Russia.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday backpedaled on his previous support of Vladimir Putin, saying he was “surprised” the Russian president would invade Ukraine and continue to narrow freedom within his own country. “I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,” Trump the Washington Examiner. “I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.” Claiming that he had previously had success trading with Putin, Trump bemoaned the actions of his former ally: “I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.” During his presidency, Trump had an unlikely alliance with and affinity for the Russian leader, incurring disapproval from both sides of the political aisle in the U.S.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Sad.
The only thing you've got left to talk about is Russia.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-says-hes-surprised-putin-invaded-u
kraine-says-former-ally-has-changed
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Oh, don't worry SIX, SECOND will start hyperventilating about Trump again. It's better than posting about the USA's REAL ISSUES.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Modern Democrats are incapable even of thinking about USA's real issues because they're never presented any of them in the media that they digest.
"How would you know that?", one might ask.
Because I read news from both sides.
And aside from some way out of right field crap out there, the Leftoid Media is 10 times as guilty of doing what they tell their readership the few unsilenced voices from the right are guilty of.
Did you know that almost nobody even knows there is a significance to the date of January 6th, for instance? Most people don't pay attention to politics. Most people don't watch CNN or FOX or MSNBC. Most people don't watch local news. Most people don't go on Twitter. Most people on Twitter are there for non-political topics.
Most people don't even know what January 6th is.
It's funny watching videos of people going around large cities and asking them that question, and nobody can tell them what either side has said about the date because they aren't even aware it has any significance at all.
There is hope.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Before the Civil War, the vast majority of Americans who were living in the free states did NOT see slavery as an issue worth going to war over. That majority wanted help with their piddling little local problems rather than Abe Lincoln worrying about some alleged misconduct by slave owners and the misery of slaves living weeks in travel time away from the majority. Slave state Texas was farther away from California or Indiana, measured in travel time by horse, than Ukraine is, measured in travel time, but by jet. And yet Lincoln gave most of his attention to the problem of slavery rather than, as Signym says "the USA's REAL ISSUES" which Signym and 6ix constantly hint aren't being handled to 6ix and Signym's satisfaction. Nobody who knows Signym and 6ix cares what happens to those two, so why should Washington, DC? Whatever your "REAL ISSUES" are, nobody wants to know, let alone do anything about your "ISSUES".
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, don't worry SIX, SECOND will start hyperventilating about Trump again. It's better than posting about the USA's REAL ISSUES.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Wagner’s Desensitized Prison Fighters Keep Staggering Into Bakhmut Like This Is a Zombie Apocalypse
HORROR SHOW - Ukrainians hunkered down in Bakhmut are watching drone footage in horror as Wagner’s band of murderers and prison rapists keep on marching into battle for the besieged city.
By Guillaume Ptak, Updated Jan. 08, 2023 2:33AM ET
Bakhmut would constitute a personal prize for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the infamous Wagner paramilitary group, whose mercenaries make up most of the Russian forces in the area. The U.S. believes Prigozhin has a financial motive: Wagner has often seized lucrative gold and diamond mines in areas where it operates in Africa, and Prigozhin may have set his sights on the salt and gypsum mines around Bakhmut.
According to Rem, a former car dealer from Dnipro now correcting artillery fire with the help of his drone, most of the soldiers sent in suicidal assaults on Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut are “zeks,” or convicts, recruited by Wagner to bolster the number of Russian forces in Ukraine. “Mobiks [conscripts] are usually scared, and they scatter when they get shelled. Those guys are not scared,” he said.
Of the Wagnerites, Rem says that they’re a much more effective fighting force than they’re usually given credit for: “They’re making progress, after all.” Desensitized to violence and with nothing left to lose, the prisoners—many of whom are violent criminals including murderers and rapists—are considered by Ukrainian soldiers a tougher enemy than the average army conscript.
The Russian tactic of sending prison recruits to attack Ukrainian positions—allowing them to identify defenses for the artillery to pummel afterwards—has proven effective, though slow and deadly. While no major breakthrough has occurred, they have been slowly eroding Ukrainian defenses, and creeping ever closer to the eastern outskirts of the city.
This assessment was echoed in late December by Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former national security adviser for Ukraine currently working on military planning, who said of the prison conscripts: “They are—I cannot say fearless—but they have nothing to lose pretty much. So, they are attacking constantly and they’ve been killed in big quantities as well.”
Yet those incremental gains on the eastern approach to the city have come at a cost for Russian forces, as evidenced during Prigozhin’s well-publicized visit to the frontline over the New Year. In a series of videos released by Russian news agency RIA Novosti, the Wagner boss first visits a basement filled with the bodies of his fighters, many of them convicts, killed during the battle for Bakhmut, before complaining that “every house [in Bakhmut] has become a fortress”—and that it sometimes takes a week of fighting to take a single house.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the city in late December underscored the symbolic value of “fortress Bakhmut”—and the sacrifices made to defend it. A Ukrainian officer serving in the East, who asked to remain anonymous, ventured an estimate of a dozen casualties a day.
More at https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagners-desensitized-prison-fighters-kee
p-staggering-into-bakhmut-like-this-is-a-zombie-apocalypse
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Yesterday, Putin and members of the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated Christmas.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/01/07/vladimir-putin-attends-orthodox-ch
ristmas-mass-alone-as-ceasefire-request-fails-to-hold
Wasn't Christmas on December 25th? No, because Putin uses Julius Caesar's calendar, a different one than the rest of the world uses:
Introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, the Gregorian calendar is the world’s most widely used civil calendar and the one that western Christians -- including Catholics and Protestants -- use to celebrate Christmas on 25 December.
The calendar was initially proposed to make sure that Easter, the Church's most important festival, always fell around the spring equinox in response to a gradual time drift that was occurring under the previously-used Julian calendar.
But Orthodox Christians — excluding the Greek Orthodox Church, which adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1923, and parts of the Ukrainian faithful — still use the Julian calendar today.
It is a solar calendar that was implemented in 46 BC by Julius Caesar and is a whole 13 days later than its Gregorian counterpart.
The almost two-week gap was caused by a slight miscalculation when the Julian calendar was first devised, leading to it falling more and more out of sync with the solar year as the centuries passed. As a result, Orthodox Christmas will eventually fall on 8 January by the year 2100. ( Julius Caesar's year was exactly 365 days and 6 hours long while a real year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. The difference every year tends to build up over the centuries.)
https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/01/06/why-do-some-orthodox-chris
tians-celebrate-christmas-in-january
Russia will continue to fall more out of sync with the rest of the world until Russians change their ways.
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Before the Civil War, the vast majority of Americans who were living in the free states did NOT see slavery as an issue worth going to war over. That majority wanted help with their piddling little local problems rather than Abe Lincoln worrying about some alleged misconduct by slave owners and the misery of slaves living weeks in travel time away from the majority. Slave state Texas was farther away from California or Indiana, measured in travel time by horse, than Ukraine is, measured in travel time, but by jet. And yet Lincoln gave most of his attention to the problem of slavery rather than, as Signym says "the USA's REAL ISSUES" which Signym and 6ix constantly hint aren't being handled to 6ix and Signym's satisfaction. Nobody who knows Signym and 6ix cares what happens to those two, so why should Washington, DC? Whatever your "REAL ISSUES" are, nobody wants to know, let alone do anything about your "ISSUES".
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, don't worry SIX, SECOND will start hyperventilating about Trump again. It's better than posting about the USA's REAL ISSUES.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Not Sigs' and My issues. EVERYONE'S FUCKING ISSUES, YOU IDIOT.
If you haven't noticed, the economy is in shambles, crime is on the rise and starting to spill out from Democrat ran shitholes into the suburbs, and the aggregate of polls show that not even 30% of the voters think that we're on the right track.
Nobody gives one flying fuck about Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Meanwhile, in REALITY...
We the People are going to start being the Police, since Democrats made it impossible for the police to do their jobs ever since summer of 2020.
Was this justified? ABSOLUTELY.
This shit happens seemingly EVERY FUCKING DAY now in this country, and it's the fault of DEMOCRATS and DEMOCRAT POLICY.
FUCK THIS DEAD DUDE. FUCK DEMOCRATS.
AND FUCK UKRAINE.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Apparently SECOND DOESN'T RECOGNIZE THAT THE USA AND UKRAINE ARE TWO SEPARATE NATIONS, WHOSE CITIZENS' INTERESTS ARE BOUNDED BY THEIR RESPECTIVE NATIONAL BORDERS.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Before the Civil War, the vast majority of Americans who were living in the free states did NOT see slavery as an issue worth going to war over. That majority wanted help with their piddling little local problems rather than Abe Lincoln worrying about some alleged misconduct by slave owners and the misery of slaves living weeks in travel time away from the majority. Slave state Texas was farther away from California or Indiana, measured in travel time by horse, than Ukraine is, measured in travel time, but by jet. And yet Lincoln gave most of his attention to the problem of slavery rather than, as Signym says "the USA's REAL ISSUES" which Signym and 6ix constantly hint aren't being handled to 6ix and Signym's satisfaction. Nobody who knows Signym and 6ix cares what happens to those two, so why should Washington, DC? Whatever your "REAL ISSUES" are, nobody wants to know, let alone do anything about your "ISSUES".
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, don't worry SIX, SECOND will start hyperventilating about Trump again. It's better than posting about the USA's REAL ISSUES.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Not Sigs' and My issues. EVERYONE'S FUCKING ISSUES, YOU IDIOT.
If you haven't noticed, the economy is in shambles, crime is on the rise and starting to spill out from Democrat ran shitholes into the suburbs, and the aggregate of polls show that not even 30% of the voters think that we're on the right track.
Nobody gives one flying fuck about Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
I could be generous and explain away SECOND's constant trolling bc of confusion about/conflation of nationalities. But the reality is that SECOND wants to pit Americans against each other so he can continue his pillage. He not only hates Americans, he doesn't want us Americans to recognize our common interests. If we did, we might turn our attention towards ... him. So he doesn't care WTF he lies about and who he libels, as long as we're fighting amongst ourselves. Blaming ourselves and/or blaming each other. If we're doing that, we're not turning our attention towards.... him and people like him.
Unlike us, he recognizes his interests.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I actually did a little time thinking about Ukraine, as opposed to collecting a pastiche if facts.
A few things occurred to me.
One of them is that, if it's true that Russian reservists won't be fully trained until March (speculation is that Russia isn't just beefing up current forces, it's creating whole new divisions, which means training up whole new command, logistics and specialist structures along with it) then ANY "big arrow" offensive on Russia's part would be premature. So Russia would actually be very happy just to sit back and let Kiev troops and weapons come to them
AFA Ukraine's transportation infrastructure... If Russia is waging a war of attrition, then it has no interest in disrupting Ukrainian logistics near the front line. After all, how can Kiev keep pouring reinforcements into the various "meat grinders" that Russia set up if transportation near the front line is bollixed? So Russia won't totally close off cauldrons, or bomb railways and bridges on their side of the Dneiper bc 1) that facilitates Kiev throwing more forces into the fray and 2) eventually, Russia may want to use those structures themselves (especially since they have diesel locomotives of the correct gage).
AFA weapons coming in from the west: Russia probably has the means to interdict the flow of weapons, especially if they're coming thru the Polish-Ukraine border. There are a few critical tunnels and rail lines that could be destroyed.
But far as I know, these are still intact. As long as they remain intact,then Russia's current plan is probably to attrit western militaries as well. But they want to slow down the flow to a rate that they can destroy.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
My reasoning is this:
Lavrov said something about critical tunnels and bridges. The tunnels are most likely railway tunnels in western Ukraine, which is mountainous, and are necessary for bringing weapons in from Poland. Now, if Russia knows where these tunnels are, why haven't they destroyed them with a few well-placed missiles? It's possible that Russia is allowing western weapons in bc they want to de-fang NATO as well as Ukraine.
But then, if they want western weapons filtering into Ukraine, why is Russia bollixing up Ukrainian (electric) railways by destroying the electrical grid?
Again, my guess is that they want weapons coming in, but only at a rate that they can destroy. Martyanov, an expat Soviet naval officer, keeps stressing that warfare is highly mathematical. How many shells do you need to fire to hit a target with 90pct probability? How much ammunition are you using per day? How much can you transport? How fast can you make it? How fast can the enemy make and transport weapons to the front, and how fast can you destroy it? What is the rate-limiting step?
I can imagine, among other things, a giant differential equation that takes a lot of this into account.
SECOND, as an engineer, might understand what I'm posting about.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Signym, for what it is worth, the U.S.A. should have let Germany destroy Russia. Instead, the U.S.A. sent weapons to Russia. That was NOT in the best interests of the U.S.A. The Manhattan Project would have ended Germany if Hitler got too rambunctious for rich American Capitalists to tolerate. Hitler would have gladly solved the problem that Communism represented to those Capitalists, then the atom bomb wipes out the fascists and the U.S.A. forever dominates the world.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Apparently SECOND DOESN'T RECOGNIZE THAT THE USA AND UKRAINE ARE TWO SEPARATE NATIONS, WHOSE CITIZENS' INTERESTS ARE BOUNDED BY THEIR RESPECTIVE NATIONAL BORDERS.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/us-soviet
If you are correct that national interests are bounded by borders then the U.S.A. should have stayed out of WWII. Tough luck, Churchill! After WWII, there should not have been a Marshall Plan (1948).
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/marshall-plan
Almost forgot the Japanese who would have starved without the US feeding them. The U.S.A. set up a competitor for world trade. Should have let them all die.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconstruction
Then there is Korea. The U.S.A. set up another competitor for world trade. Should have let them all die.
https://www.kdevelopedia.org/Development-Overview/official-aid/broad-o
verview-us-aid-korea--201412120000421.do
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You're probably right.
Originally posted by second:Quote:Signym, for what it is worth, the U.S.A. should have let Germany destroy Russia. Instead, the U.S.A. sent weapons to Russia. That was NOT in the best interests of the U.S.A. The Manhattan Project would have ended Germany if Hitler got too rambunctious for rich American Capitalists to tolerate. Hitler would have gladly solved the problem that Communism represented to those Capitalists, then the atom bomb wipes out the fascists and the U.S.A. forever dominates the world.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Apparently SECOND DOESN'T RECOGNIZE THAT THE USA AND UKRAINE ARE TWO SEPARATE NATIONS, WHOSE CITIZENS' INTERESTS ARE BOUNDED BY THEIR RESPECTIVE NATIONAL BORDERS.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/us-soviet
If you are correct that national interests are bounded by borders then the U.S.A. should have stayed out of WWII. Tough luck, Churchill! After WWII, there should not have been a Marshall Plan (1948).
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/marshall-plan
Almost forgot the Japanese who would have starved without the US feeding them. The U.S.A. set up a competitor for world trade. Should have let them all die.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconstruction
Then there is Korea. The U.S.A. set up another competitor for world trade. Should have let them all die.
https://www.kdevelopedia.org/Development-Overview/official-aid/broad-o
verview-us-aid-korea--201412120000421.do
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Whoops! That backfired.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:War has an aftermath. I noticed that most people can't think usefully that far ahead, which leaves them confused about international war's purpose. I expect they can't think on an international level because most people can't think on a local level since they don't have a clear purpose, a meaningful life, a direction. For them life is just one thing after another and then they die. Religion gives them hope that maybe god knows because most people measurably don't know. For "religion", substitute "Trump" or the "Motherland" or "family traditions" if you are that kind, but you still don't know. Too bad for you.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You're probably right.
It’s Easy to Write a Memoir About War — but Hard to Write an Anti-War Memoir
by Peter Maass, January 8 2023, 6:00 a.m.
War is hell, we hear that all the time. If the cliché is true, another one is too: Depictions of war’s brutality can entice people to seek it out.
The 9/11 wars have yielded a bumper crop of books and films about U.S. soldiers that often have the effect of glorifying combat. Some of these works are blunt odes to violence and chauvinism, such as “American Sniper,” the memoir by Navy SEAL Chris Kyle that was turned into a blockbuster film by Clint Eastwood. While many memoirs and movies are more honest and complex, there’s a dilemma that even the best war literature has a hard time avoiding. No matter how much a writer might emphasize the dehumanization of boot camp or the dreadfulness of killing, there’s usually enough of a heroic glint in their tales to make young Americans want to get some of the action themselves.
Lyle Jeremy Rubin deals with this conundrum in his thoughtful new memoir, published by Bold Type Books, about being a Marine in the time of the forever wars. “If there is one thing most agree on, it is that to die at war as an American is to be a hero,” he writes. “To almost die at war as an American is to be a hero. To go to war at all as an American is to be a hero. … American war is American heroism.” Anyone who might wish to write an anti-war book about soldiers in combat winds up staring into the smoking barrel of the quandary Rubin faces: How can he leave no pathway for readers to emerge from his book with a desire to get their own taste of that heroism?
Rubin chose as his title a Marine motto that would seem to promise his readers nothing but dumb machismo: “Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body.” But the subtitle – “A Marine’s Unbecoming” – gets at the real business he undertakes, which is to subvert the traditional thrall and scope of war memoirs.
The book opens with a requisite combat scene from Afghanistan, though it’s just a few pages long. The reader must then leaf through nearly 200 pages before Rubin’s narrative settles back into Afghanistan. He charts how his slow epiphany began during a pre-deployment stint at the National Security Agency — the electronic spy agency where he saw how America could “eradicate anyone holding an earmarked SIM card” and used that power with insufficient restraint. He realizes that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not innocent mistakes by a well-meaning superpower that happened to overreach. “Now I was prepared to accept the obvious – that U.S. militarism counted as a principal part of this problem,” he writes.
His book includes lengthy passages on how American militarism oppresses not just foreigners, but Americans too, and how he morphed from an eager college Republican before joining the military to a supporter of Occupy Wall Street after his service. It is, in many ways, a bildungsroman of the 9/11 generation, about his Jewish upbringing, his early political and sexual experiences, his initiation into a military culture that breaks down and reconstructs identity, and his unsuccessful efforts to remain connected
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Have you seen what our southern border looks like? Joe Biden* didn't. DHS kicked them all the hell out of wherever Biden* was going to be walking before he got there.
Nobody gives a shit about Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I live in Texas and I don't give a shit about the border with Mexico. The people who care are the same as fearful Chihuahuas barking at every noise because they are neurotic.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Have you seen what our southern border looks like? . . .
Nobody gives a shit about Ukraine.
You know who else stupidly barks like Chihuahuas? Russians. The Kremlin's false claim that its forces killed 600 Ukrainian troops in a retaliation strike is generating new discontent among Russian military bloggers. The bloggers noted that the Russian ministry frequently presents fraudulent claims and fabrications. A Finnish reporter visited the site of the so-called "retaliatory" strike on Sunday and said it hit an empty school. The school’s deputy director also rejected Moscow’s claims, telling Associated Press reporters at the site that "nobody saw a single spot of blood anywhere. ... It’s just people cleaning up.”
The Russians are barking at the moon crazy and howling mad.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/01/09/ukraine-russia-wa
r-live-updates/11017113002/
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ukraine sees ‘year of victory,’ but the decisive defeat of Russia won’t be easy
With upgraded weaponry on the way, Western resolve holding firm, and the Ukrainian army continuing to outmaneuver and outwit Russia’s flailing military, Ukraine’s promised “year of victory” is off to a good start.
If 2023 continues as it began, there is a good chance Ukraine will be able to fulfill President Volodymyr Zelensky’s New Year’s pledge to retake all of Ukraine by the end of the year — or at least enough territory to definitively end Russia’s threat, Western officials and analysts say.
But while Zelensky was rallying Ukrainians to expect victory this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin used his New Year’s speeches to prepare Russians for a drawn-out fight. Russian troops are digging into fortified defensive positions reinforced by at least 100,000 newly mobilized soldiers, and though it seems unlikely that Russia can seize more territory anytime soon, it will also be tougher for Ukraine to make advances in 2023 than it was last year, despite momentum from recent victories, military experts say.
If Kyiv cannot achieve significant breakthroughs against this entrenched, growing Russian force, there is a risk that the war will become a protracted conflict favoring Putin, said Elizabeth Shackelford of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. A $45 billion aid package approved by Congress will tide Ukraine over for the year, she said, but with U.S. presidential elections in 2024, the longer-term outlook is harder to predict.
“2023 is really the year,” Shackelford said. “If it doesn’t wrap in 2023, Putin will have a very big upper hand. As it is, Zelensky still has a shot because he still has very strong support.”
“After that,” she added, “all bets are off.”
Putin cannot cede to Ukraine the four eastern provinces he has declared part of Russia. He must retain control of positions in eastern and southern Ukraine that provide future jumping-off points for renewed offensives to take the rest of Ukraine. Eight years separated Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its invasion nearly a year ago. Count on Putin to be patient to achieve his destiny.
Any cease-fire would leave Russian forces in a strong position to resume their invasion whenever they are ready. The only way to avoid such a scenario is for the United States and its allies to urgently provide Ukraine with a dramatic increase in military supplies and capability — sufficient to enable Ukraine to push out Russian forces in the east and south.
Because there are serious logistical challenges associated with sending American Abrams heavy tanks, Germany and other allies should fill this need. NATO members also should provide the Ukrainians with longer-range missiles, advanced drones, significant ammunition stocks (including artillery shells), more reconnaissance and surveillance capability, and other equipment. These capabilities are needed in weeks, not months.
https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2023/01/08/ukraine-sees-year-of-victo
ry-but-decisive-defeat-of-russia-wont-be-easy/
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I live in Texas
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Have you seen what our southern border looks like? . . .
Nobody gives a shit about Ukraine.
Here's the part you left out...
Quote:
Joe Biden* didn't. DHS kicked them all the hell out of wherever Biden* was going to be walking before he got there.
Classic Democrat.
It's exactly what Gavin Newsom did in Los Angeles with the homeless population right before the Super Bowl. There wasn't a single homeless person or tent within 2 miles of SoFi Stadium and LAX on game day.
You should see what it looks like now.
Democrats are cancer.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Moscow has cast the conflict as a fight between Russia and hostile Western nations.
"The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv - this is a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and above all the United States and Britain," Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said on Tuesday.
"The Westerners' plans are to continue to pull Russia apart, and eventually just erase it from the political map of the world," Patrushev, one of Putin's closest allies, told the Argumenti i Fakti newspaper in an interview.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said fighting in Bahkmut and Soledar was "the most intense on the entire frontline".
"So many remain on the battlefield ... either dead or wounded," he said on YouTube. "They attack our positions in waves, but (their) wounded as a rule die where they lie, either from exposure as it is very cold or from blood loss."
Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for Ukraine's eastern forces, told Ukrainian television Russian forces were deploying their best Wagner fighters at Soledar, which had been struck 86 times by artillery over the past 24 hours.
He said Russia was using World War One-style tactics, throwing large numbers of men into battle and absorbing heavy losses.
"This is basically not a 21st-century war," he said.
More at https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-fights-russian-assault-salt-mini
ng-town-along-eastern-front-2023-01-09/
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I win again, huh?
Imagine that.
--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
"Ukraine's Year of Victory"?
I don't know what SECOND gets out of posting other people's delusions. Does he think we're going to be delusional with him?
Hey, SECOND, did you know you sound like Hitler in his bunker, or Baghdad Bob?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I live in Texas and I don't give a shit about the border with Mexico. The people who care are the same as fearful Chihuahuas barking at every noise because they are neurotic.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Have you seen what our southern border looks like? . . .
Nobody gives a shit about Ukraine.
You know who else stupidly barks like Chihuahuas? Russians. The Kremlin's false claim that its forces killed 600 Ukrainian troops in a retaliation strike is generating new discontent among Russian military bloggers. The bloggers noted that the Russian ministry frequently presents fraudulent claims and fabrications. A Finnish reporter visited the site of the so-called "retaliatory" strike on Sunday and said it hit an empty school. The school’s deputy director also rejected Moscow’s claims, telling Associated Press reporters at the site that "nobody saw a single spot of blood anywhere. ... It’s just people cleaning up.”
The Russians are barking at the moon crazy and howling mad.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/01/09/ukraine-russia-wa
r-live-updates/11017113002/
One of the things the Biden administration is trying to do SECOND, is to get the migrants to file for asylum in the other countries they pass through before getting here.
The thinking is, once they've left the country they are fleeing from, the country they claim they came from because they were in danger, they can no longer claim they need asylum. That is because they could have filed for asylum in the other countries they've passed through and chose not to.
In order to claim asylum here, they will have to show they were turned down by the other countries.
Brilliant, go Joe.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
"Ukraine's Year of Victory"?
I don't know what SECOND gets out of posting other people's delusions. Does he think we're going to be delusional with him?
Hey, SECOND, did you know you sound like Hitler in his bunker, or Baghdad Bob?
It is lost on no one Polish Russian Collaborator Signym, that your claims here match the Kremlins' talking points and they always have. Meaning, ever since you've been here.
It is also lost on no one, that you falsely claim others are being deceitful in all the different ways you are comrade. It's how all fascists around the globe function. And it is all documented here. Available to anyone who stumbles across your posts.
These same posts comrade, reveal you to be the worst and slimmest kind of creep.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
THUGR, I tell the truth as I see it. I credit you with the same. I think you're wrong, but sincere.
In fact nearly everyone who posts, or used to post here is sincere. I don't think everyone is a liar,just a few people.
Like SECOND. SECOND is an inveterate liar. He lies, he knows he lies, and he does it on purpose. K2PO/ G/ CAPN is also a liar. But instead of telling big, convoluted and contradictory lies like SECOND, he "spins" things, like the professional that he is.
It's too bad that this site has been reduced to so few, and such a high proportion of liars. It used to be a place of high diversity. People of many nationalities and points of view, from dyed in the wool commies to liberals to libertarians and free-marketeers; pro military patriots to antiwar activists, southern rebels to urban centralists to Limbaugh dittoheads. I can't imagine any other site that attracted such a scattering of points of view. Most sites are pretty siloed now.
It's a shame that it couldn't keep going. It seems most people can't stand disagreement. They take it personally instead of leaving it in the realm of discussion.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
BTW, since western establishment media refuses to carry much bad news from Ukraine, you won't see much about Soledar or Bakhmut or Avdiivka.
What I expect you WILL see, if those defenses collapse, is a lot of general rah-rah-ism from Kiev, focus on all of the "help" the west is providing, Russian "war crimes", calls for humanitarian cease-fire, resistance in Lviv, offensives towards Ugladar (or elsewhere, which won't amount to much), the new army that Kiev is standing up ... ANYTHING BUT front line news.
But, we'll see!
Edited to add: I find some names interesting. Ugladar means "gift if coal" (coal mines) and Soledar means "gift of salt" (big salt mines).
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR, I tell the truth as I see it. I credit you with the same. I think you're wrong, but sincere.
In fact nearly everyone who posts, or used to post here is sincere. I don't think everyone is a liar,just a few people.
Like SECOND. SECOND is an inveterate liar. He lies, he knows he lies, and he does it on purpose. K2PO/ G/ CAPN is also a liar. But instead of telling big, convoluted and contradictory lies like SECOND, he "spins" things, like the professional that he is.
Understand comrade, that I would never, ever, equate your posting of known lies as being the same as someone posting honestly, be they right or wrong.
TWOs' posts don't offend me as an American like yours do.
This is simple. You shill for Putin and Russia and you always have. You are now, a trashy troll, and always have been.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR, I tell the truth as I see it. I credit you with the same. I think you're wrong, but sincere.
In fact nearly everyone who posts, or used to post here is sincere. I don't think everyone is a liar,just a few people.
Like SECOND. SECOND is an inveterate liar. He lies, he knows he lies, and he does it on purpose. K2PO/ G/ CAPN is also a liar. But instead of telling big, convoluted and contradictory lies like SECOND, he "spins" things, like the professional that he is.
Understand comrade, that I would never, ever, equate your posting of known lies as being the same as someone posting honestly, be they right or wrong.
TWOs' posts don't offend me as an American like yours do.
This is simple. You shill for Putin and Russia and you always have. You are now, a trashy troll, and always have been.
T
Just bc I disagree with you doesn't mean I'm lying. Just bc someone agrees with you doesn't mean they're telling the truth. I think you're vastly mistaken, but honest.
To me, "honesty" or "sincerity" are the opposite of "lie". "Truth" (to me) means coming as close to reality as I can. It may be unpleasant or unwelcome but then, reality often is.
I think we- the USA - are heading towards disaster, and the policies you support aren't making things better.
If I were simply endlessly criticizal, it could seem like I'm trying to tear us down. But I'm not. I suggested lots of improvements, for everything from balance of trade to banking to environmental remediation to energy savings to healthcare.
To me, being "strong" doesn't mean beating up every nation on the globe. It means being able to defend our borders, withstand adversity and make independent sovereign decisions.
Are you AGAINST those goals??
There aren't many nations that can do that, but bc of our size and resources, we can. We shouldn't squander our labor and resources on issues that don't affect our prosperity or independence.
So, what are we fighting Russia "for"?
What are YOU "for"? (please don't say "America" bc that's copout.)
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Just bc I disagree with you doesn't mean I'm lying.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR, I tell the truth as I see it. I credit you with the same. I think you're wrong, but sincere.
In fact nearly everyone who posts, or used to post here is sincere. I don't think everyone is a liar,just a few people.
Like SECOND. SECOND is an inveterate liar. He lies, he knows he lies, and he does it on purpose. K2PO/ G/ CAPN is also a liar. But instead of telling big, convoluted and contradictory lies like SECOND, he "spins" things, like the professional that he is.
Understand comrade, that I would never, ever, equate your posting of known lies as being the same as someone posting honestly, be they right or wrong.
TWOs' posts don't offend me as an American like yours do.
This is simple. You shill for Putin and Russia and you always have. You are now, a trashy troll, and always have been.
T
This latest post of yours shows your stupidity. Telling a lie is telling a lie. It's that's simple.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Just bc I disagree with you doesn't mean I'm lying.
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR, I tell the truth as I see it. I credit you with the same. I think you're wrong, but sincere.
In fact nearly everyone who posts, or used to post here is sincere. I don't think everyone is a liar,just a few people.
Like SECOND. SECOND is an inveterate liar. He lies, he knows he lies, and he does it on purpose. K2PO/ G/ CAPN is also a liar. But instead of telling big, convoluted and contradictory lies like SECOND, he "spins" things, like the professional that he is.
Understand comrade, that I would never, ever, equate your posting of known lies as being the same as someone posting honestly, be they right or wrong.
TWOs' posts don't offend me as an American like yours do.
This is simple. You shill for Putin and Russia and you always have. You are now, a trashy troll, and always have been.
T
This latest post of yours shows your stupidity. Telling a lie is telling a lie. It's that's simple.
T
And your response tells me you're trolling. Trolling is trolling.
I was crediting with you being sincere.
Not any more, troll.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Putin's war against Ukraine will ruin Russia
Putin's legacy will be an impoverished third world Russia
By Robert Wilkie
In Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, a young St. Petersburg student, Rodion Raskolnikov embarks on a murder spree to validate his pride. His motivation is simple — he seeks to be exceptional in the same way that Napoleon was exceptional. But, after confessing to his crimes and being dispatched to Siberia, Rodion experiences a spiritual metamorphosis and repents for his sins.
Somewhere in the bowels of the Kremlin, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, KGB killer and former Mayor of Dostoyevsky’s own St. Petersburg, is pondering the impacts of his 300-day special military operation. But there is no chance for a Rodion-like redemption here.
Putin believes he is the reincarnation of Russia’s Imperial and Soviet past. There is no crime, no matter how horrible, that warrants reflection much less redemption when that crime is committed for the advancement of the Russian state. Rodion saw himself as Bonaparte; Putin believes he is the reincarnation of Peter the Great, Alexander I, and Stalin. Peter the Great built cities and opened his country to European thought and mores. Tsar Alexander marched into Paris after vanquishing Napoleon. Stalin subjugated Eastern Europe and terrorized the planet. Putin’s ethno-messianism however may be putting Russia on the road to oblivion.
Review the bidding. Putin has blown up apartment buildings in Moscow, shot down planes, waged numerous wars on his neighbors, engineered the assassinations of rivals across the globe including dozens of oligarchs last year who kept falling out of hotel and hospital windows. Like Stalin he has turned the Russian Orthodox leadership into flacks for the state so much so that Pope Francis admonished the Patriarch of Moscow for being Putin’s "altar boy." The Russian economy is wrecked and unlikely to recover for decades.
He has waged a war of human extermination on Ukraine and in so doing lost twice as many troops in a year than did America in a decade in Vietnam. Six million refugees have flooded the borders of Eastern Europe and perhaps three million Ukrainians — primarily women and children — have been dispatched to Russia for reeducation. The Ukrainian War has left behind trails of crimes not seen on this scale in Europe since 1945.
Putin has been outfought and outgeneraled by a smaller nation led by a man whose profession was once the comic stage. Moscow’s depots of tanks and artillery are gone, and Putin’s planes dare not fly over Ukraine’s battlefields. His penal colonies have been emptied and the "freed" criminals told to charge into battle or be shot by the security services. Putin has let loose two mercenary armies — the Wagner Group and Chechen killers — who operate free from the orders of the Russian General Staff and international Geneva norms. His regular soldiers are deserting. They have no winter gear. The Russian people know this, and Putin’s "Holy Russia" propaganda is no longer believed. One visual that captures this is Russians seeking to leave Russia during the mobilization
The Russian high command is exposed as gangsters, racketeers, and yes-men. This is a cabal that with each defeat resembles more and more the cast of psychopaths and dead-enders who stuck it out with Adolf Hitler in the Berlin Bunker. Like Hitler, Putin now seeks refuge with the world’s pariahs — in this case Iran and North Korea. Shockingly for him, China has not come to his rescue, and he has received the back of the hand from the leaders of India and Turkey.
Once dismissing Europe as a spent force, Putin’s brutality has rearranged the continent’s map. Russia’s northern forces are now staring directly across at the modern and highly capable armies of Finland and Sweden, whose countries have emerged from a neutral slumber to challenge their ancient enemies. He will have a hard time defending decisions to Russian posterity that led to the revitalization of NATO with Poland now assumin
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Just bc I disagree with you doesn't mean I'm lying.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR, I tell the truth as I see it. I credit you with the same. I think you're wrong, but sincere.
In fact nearly everyone who posts, or used to post here is sincere. I don't think everyone is a liar,just a few people.
Like SECOND. SECOND is an inveterate liar. He lies, he knows he lies, and he does it on purpose. K2PO/ G/ CAPN is also a liar. But instead of telling big, convoluted and contradictory lies like SECOND, he "spins" things, like the professional that he is.
Understand comrade, that I would never, ever, equate your posting of known lies as being the same as someone posting honestly, be they right or wrong.
TWOs' posts don't offend me as an American like yours do.
This is simple. You shill for Putin and Russia and you always have. You are now, a trashy troll, and always have been.
T
This latest post of yours shows your stupidity. Telling a lie is telling a lie. It's that's simple.
T
And your response tells me you're trolling. Trolling is trolling.
I was crediting with you being sincere.
Not any more, troll.
No, what you were doing is what you always do troll. You post in a way to try and get a dialog going. The problem is, is that you are a troll. It would be stupid to post a back and forth with you other than to call you on that. Having a sincere dialog with a troll is too funny to contemplate. Having a sincere dialog with someone who knowingly posts lies and propaganda, is again, too funny to contemplate comrade.
What you'll probably do is cut and paste my second sentence into a future post, taking it entirely out of context. Or add it to your signature like any good troll would do. You're a sad piece of work.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
You're troll, trolling.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Soledar captured by Russia.
Expect more of the same soon.
PS: Neener neener neener. THUGR is a weener.
I'm right and you're wrong
Nyah nyah nyah.
Well, that's bc I post reality, but you embrace lies.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You "jumped the gun", Signym. Maybe you should wait until it actually happens rather than prematurely declaring victory?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Soledar captured by Russia.
Expect more of the same soon.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/jump--the--gun
Why is Russia so keen to capture the town of Soledar?
By Rob Picheta, Tim Lister and Olga Voitovych, CNN
Updated 11:11 AM EST, Wed January 11, 2023
Fighting is still raging in Soledar, a salt mine town in eastern Ukraine, despite Russian claims that it has gained control of the region.
Should Russian troops indeed capture the town, it would mark Moscow’s first gain in the Donbas for months – potentially offering President Vladimir Putin some welcome news after a string of defeats on the battlefield since last summer.
The significance of Soledar in military terms is minimal. However, its capture would allow Russian forces, and especially the Wagner mercenary group, to turn their focus on nearby Bakhmut, which has been a target since the summer.
Taking Soledar would also represent a symbolic PR win for the man who runs Wagner – oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has frequently criticized the Russian Defense Ministry’s management of the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/11/europe/soledar-ukraine-russia-explainer
-intl/index.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Eventually M$M will bow to reality. They'll change their tune in two or three days, or memory hole this altogether.
Why is Kiev fighting so hard for Bakhmut? On the one hand they keep saying it's of no strategic significance. OTOH they keep sending in reinforcements, defending every millimeter.
I think there are a few reasons:
Having to retreat from Bakhmut would be terrible optics, and "Z" hates bad optics
Bakhmut is a road and rail hub for Kiev's defense line
It has eight years of dug-in defenses, and it's Kiev's best defense line. Kiev may not Have an equivalent fallback position, so if they're routed from Bakhmut it might be all the way to the Dnieper.
---------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Did he expect a promotion after Mission Accomplished in Ukraine? Not gonna happen. Instead, President Vladimir Putin demoted Russia's top commander in Ukraine, three months after he was installed. Gen Surovikin, dubbed "General Armageddon" for his brutal tactics in previous wars, is demoted to be the deputy of Gen Gerasimov. Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has been appointed to lead what Russia calls its "special military operation" against its neighbour.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64235713
Surovikin being demoted to deputy is better for him than mysteriously dying in an "accident" because "General Armageddon" wasn't getting the results -- a quick victory -- he was expected to deliver.
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Putin fires another general
The Russian army in Ukraine is changing command again. They are now on their third leader:
• February 2022: Army General Aleksandr Dvornikov, the "Butcher of Syria," leads the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• October 2022: General of the Army Sergey Surovikin, aka "General Armageddon," replaces Dvornikov.
• January 2023: General of the Army Valery Gerasimov, also Chief of the General Staff and Hero of the Russian Federation, replaces Surovkin.
Dvornikov lasted eight months but Surovikin lasted only three. Why?
“They have taken someone who is competent and replaced him with someone who is incompetent, but who has been there a long time and who has shown that he is loyal,” said Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation in Washington. “Whatever is happening in Moscow, it is out of touch with what is happening on the ground in Ukraine.”
Putin keeps going up the chain of command for new generals. But I don't think there are too many more to go before he's leading the army himself.
https://jabberwocking.com/putin-fires-another-general/
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Soledar captured by Russia.
Expect more of the same soon.
PS: Neener neener neener. THUGR is a weener.
I'm right and you're wrong
Nyah nyah nyah.
Well, that's bc I post reality, but you embrace lies.
Holy shit, can anyone say 6 years old. Sorry sig, I didn't know you were 6 or I'd of been kinder. Wow, too funny.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Since Poland is mobilizing 200,000 troops on its eastern border (i.e. with Ukraine) supposedly equipped with all-western weaponry, Russia is probably preparing for an escalation beyond Ukraine's border.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:That is last year's news, Signym. Have you got anything more recent?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Since Poland is mobilizing 200,000 troops on its eastern border (i.e. with Ukraine) supposedly equipped with all-western weaponry, Russia is probably preparing for an escalation beyond Ukraine's border.
Up to 200,000 Poles to be called up for military training next year
Dec 9, 2022
Under the Homeland Defence Act, in force since April 2022, each year the government issues a decree which provides the number of persons who may be called up for active military service or military exercises. The defence ministry published the guidelines for next year in a draft resolution earlier this month.
Until 2009, Poland had compulsory military service for men, but that was scrapped in favour of a fully professional army. However, in recent years the growing threat of Russia has pushed the government to seek to increase the size and strength of the armed forces.
In 2017, a new Territorial Defence Force was established. This year’s Homeland Defence Act foresees a doubling in the size of the armed forces, from the current 143,500 troops (111,500 professional and 32,000 territorials) to 300,000 (250,000 professional and 50,000 territorials).
https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/12/09/up-to-200000-poles-to-be-called
-up-for-military-training-next-year/
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
CNN, in a shocker, reported on the unfolding disaster today in Soledar and Bahkmut:
A Ukrainian soldier fighting in the eastern town of Soledar told CNN that the situation is “critical” and the death toll is now so high that “no one counts the dead”.
The soldier is from the 46th air mobile brigade, which is leading Ukraine’s fight to hold onto Soledar in the face of a massive assault from Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries. . . .
He described a dynamic battlefield where buildings change hands daily and units can’t keep track of the escalating death toll. “No one will tell you how many dead and wounded there are. Because no one knows for sure. Not a single person,” he said. “Not at the headquarters. Not anywhere. Positions are being taken and re-taken constantly. What was our house today, becomes Wagner’s the next day.”. . .
The soldier said that he believed Ukraine’s military leaders would eventually abandon the fight for Soledar and questioned why they hadn’t done this yet. “Everyone understands that the city will be abandoned. Everyone understands this,” he said. “I just want to understand what the point [in fighting house to house] is. Why die, if we are going to leave it anyway today or tomorrow?”
https://sonar21.com/endgame-for-ukraine-in-bahkmut/
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces are "far from" capturing the embattled city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine despite recent reported advances in the nearby salt-mining town of Soledar, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). https://www.understandingwar.org/
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Why die, if we are going to leave it anyway today or tomorrow?”
https://sonar21.com/endgame-for-ukraine-in-bahkmut/
Some Russian sources have begun discussing "an implausible collapse of the current Ukrainian frontline and a Ukrainian retreat" as far back as the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, the think tank observed.
The ISW said current Russian discussion about the "imminent capture of Bakhmut" and the "collapse of Ukrainian defensive lines" are "divorced from the current operational reality in the Bakhmut area, where Russian forces remain far from severing Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) needed to encircle Bakhmut."
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-forces-bakhmut-soledar-ukraine-isw-17
73192
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 | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME