Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Monday, September 14, 2026 22:30
VIEWED: 567275
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SECOND

Sunday, January 22, 2023 8:36 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares.

Today is Unification Day:

The Ukrainian Day of Unity is a state holiday celebrated annually on January 22 since 1999, marking the day when the Ukrainian People’s Republic and the West Ukrainian People’s Republic signed the Unification Act in 1919, effectively merging both republics into a single country.

At the start of Moscow’s war, Ukrainian unity was revived.

“Every region is protecting each other. All of us no longer have strange cities, villages, or streets. Every city is a native city. Every village is a native village. Every street is a native street. Even if we have never been there in our life,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/1/22/ukraine-russia-live-
news-advance-towns-zaporizhia-region

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, January 22, 2023 9:42 PM (P)

Fuck Ukraine.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Sunday, January 22, 2023 10:17 PM (P)

Even if Ukraine chases every last Russian soldier from its land, Russia’s aggression will not end. Russia will continue to make claims to Ukraine’s territory, and will back them up with threats, intermittent missile launches and border skirmishes. There is no such thing as a decisive victory for the defender. A decisive victory implies the destruction of the attacker, lest it come back after a brief reprieve. Destroying Russia’s will or long-term capacity to take its land is something that, for Ukraine, is not an option. With an aggressor impervious to international or domestic pressure, tenuous peace, backed by a state-of-the-art anti-missile defence system and a world-class military on standby, may just be the best outcome Ukraine can hope to achieve.

More at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/22/vladimir-putin-u
kraine-west-russia-president

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

THG

Sunday, January 22, 2023 10:24 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
Plush, it's bullshit.

Russia took Soledar, is flanking Bakhmut and advancing towards Zaparozhia. I don't know why you trust liars, THUGR.

Because I know the entire story comrade. Like the fact that the Russians are doing kamikaze runs that they cannot sustain. To gain a few feet of land they lose thousands of troops. Like I've said. They cannot keep it up and more and more supplies are entering Ukraine as I type.

tick tock

T

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 22, 2023 11:07 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
Plush, it's bullshit.

Russia took Soledar, is flanking Bakhmut and advancing towards Zaparozhia. I don't know why you trust liars, THUGR.

Because I know the entire story comrade. Like the fact that the Russians are doing kamikaze runs that they cannot sustain. To gain a few feet of land they lose thousands of troops. Like I've said. They cannot keep it up and more and more supplies are entering Ukraine as I type.

tick tock

T

No, they'r not.

Your "whole story" is completely made up.

Russia pounds Ukie defenses with artillery. For months,if necessary. They cut supply lines with missiles and artillery. They don't go in until Ukie positions have been decimated. Even then, they go in cautiously.

They play to their strength, which is industrial war production, to save their infantry.

Everybody knows that.
Why do you believe liars?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Sunday, January 22, 2023 11:30 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

They play to their strength, which is industrial war production, to save their infantry.

Everybody knows that.
Why do you believe liars?

Even before the United States entered World War II in December 1941, America sent arms and equipment to the Soviet Union to help it defeat the Nazi invasion. Totaling $11.3 billion, or $180 billion in today’s currency, the Lend-Lease Act of the United States supplied needed goods to the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 in support of what Stalin described to Roosevelt as the “enormous and difficult fight against the common enemy — bloodthirsty Hitlerism.”

More at https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-sov
iet-union-1941-1945/

Besides the United States being the real "industrial war production" machine for Russia during WWII, the US was directly attacking Germany's "industrial war production" machine that was 500 miles beyond the reach of Russia's artillery and bombers. Almost everything the US destroyed would have gone to Germany's Eastern Front, Signym. Did Stalin ever thank Roosevelt for saving his mustache from being shaved off by the Krauts?

The US doing for Russia what Russia couldn't do:
• 400,000 jeeps & trucks
• 14,000 airplanes
• 8,000 tractors
• 13,000 tanks
• 1.5 million blankets
• 15 million pairs of army boots
• 107,000 tons of cotton
• 2.7 million tons of petrol products
• 4.5 million tons of food

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 22, 2023 11:33 PM (P)

SECOND, why do you think you're dealing with 1940s Russia? You're 80 years behind the times.
Get your head out of your ass and take a peek at reality.

Quote:
The Return of Industrial Warfare
Alex Vershinin

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/retu
rn-industrial-warfare/

Before you get your knickers in a twist about the source "rusi", that is the. ROYAL (i.e. British) United Services Institute.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Sunday, January 22, 2023 11:49 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, why do you think you're dealing with 1940s Russia? You're 80 years behind the times.
Get your head out of your ass and take a peek at reality.

Quote:
The Return of Industrial Warfare
Alex Vershinin

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/retu
rn-industrial-warfare/

Before you get your knickers in a twist about the source "rusi", that is the. ROYAL (i.e. British) United Services Institute.

You haven't kept up with the times, Signym. Russia has a smaller economy today than Canada does and Canada is unafraid of the US invading because the Canadians don't keep threatening to nuke the world, unlike Russia, which has been making that same threat almost daily since it built its first nuke.

Country comparison Russia vs Canada
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/russia/canada

United States $19,485,394,000,000
China $12,237,700,479,375
lapan $4,872,415,104,315
Germany $3,693,204,332,230
India $2,650,725,335,364
United Kingdom $2,637,866,340,434
France $2,582,501,307,216
Brazil $2,053,594,877,013
Italy $1,943,835,376,342
Canada $1,647,120,175,449
Russia $1,578,417,211,937 <***** Take a look, Signym.

https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Monday, January 23, 2023 12:12 AM (P)

Apparently you have not bothered to even glance at Vershinin's sober military -economic analysis before you decided to splatter the board with more propaganda.

There have been many discussions about GDP, SECOND. Does Canada, or Italy, or Belgium have space programs? Do they feed a population of 150 million AND be a major food and commodity exporter? Do they field a million- man army? Have they developed and deployed cutting edge weaponry against which other nations are defenseless? Do they have full employment? Do they have trade and budgetary surpluses? Do they have a stable consumer base?

The reality, SECOND, is that GDP to as measured by the west is a myth. It includes, among other things, the money that homeowners WOULD HAVE BEEN PAID if they had rented out their homes, cappuccino shops, the price of gasoline, and fees charged for "financial services". In other words, it's bogus. If you look at ACTUAL PRODUCTION Russia is far ahead.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SIGNYM

Monday, January 23, 2023 12:18 AM (P)

Quote:
Why Are Western Establishment and pundits Losing Their Minds Over Ukraine?

21 January 2023 by Larry Johnson 133 Comments

The disconnect from reality that is being published and broadcast in the West is staggering. I suppose I should not be surprised that people who embrace transgenderism as normal and declare that men can be pregnant will eagerly embrace nonsense about Ukraine winning the war as reality. I want to draw your attention to two articles — Russia faces ‘incredible poverty’, warns ex-IMF chief (The Telegraph) and What 2023 will bring for the war in Ukraine (The Spectator).

Thank God that the “ex-IMF chief” is no longer in charge of the IMF. I am not sure if the man is really this stupid or a shill who will say anything to support the failing Western meme about Russia.

Russia’s people face “incredible poverty” following Western sanctions in response to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, according to the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff said the country is headed towards being a new Cuba, Venezuela or “a giant Iran”.

Equating Russia’s economy with those of Cuba, Venezuela and Iran exposes Rogoff as an incompetent economist (Parents, don’t send you kids to Harvard). Let me present some facts:

Cuba GDP — 107.35 billion

Venezuela GDP — 482.36 billion

Iran GDP — 359.71 billion

Russia GDP — 1.78 trillion

If you have trouble with math let me help you out. Russia’s GDP is greater than Cuba, Venezuela and Iran combined (949.42 billion).

But GDP says nothing about the underlying strength of any economy. Iran and Venezuela share something in common with Russia — all three are major oil producers, but Russia surpasses them. In 2022, Russia’s oil output increased by 2% despite onerous international sanctions. That is because Russia is not dependent on selling oil to the United States and Europe. Countries outside the Western sphere of influence — China and India in particular — have stepped up their purchases of Russian oil.

But Russia has something that none of the other three pariah states possess — vast natural resources beyond oil that makes it a self-sufficient country. Russia is the richest country in the world in terms of natural resources:

The nation is a leading producer of coal, diamonds, aluminum, asbestos, gemstones, diamonds, lime, lead, gypsum, iron ore, bauxite, gallium, boron, mica, natural gas, potash, platinum, oil, rare earth metals, pig iron, peat, nitrogen, cadmium, arsenic, magnesium, molybdenum, phosphate, sulfur, titanium sponge, silicon, uranium, tellurium, vanadium, tungsten, cobalt, graphite, silver, vermiculite, selenium, rhenium, copper, and gold.

SECOND has endlessly bemoaned that it's not "fair" that Russia is so resource-rich.
Also, unlike China and Iran, they have ample supplies of water.

Quote:
These resources guarantee that Russia will not suffer the fate of Cuba, Venezuela or Iran. Russia is not dependent on trading with the United States and Europe. In fact, it appears that the United States and Europe need what Russia produces in order to keep their economies chugging along.

We ( the USA) COULD be nearly resource-independent if we put our minds to it. But TPTB decided they wanted to make more $$$ playing with the U$D.

Quote:
Here some video evidence that Russia today is light years away from the old Soviet Union:

What the failed economist Rogoff fails to grasp is that the decision of the West to try to sanction and destroy Russia is precipitating the collapse of the post-World War II financial era dominated by the United States. One indicator of that is Saudi Arabia’s decision to entertain accepting payments in other currencies:

Saudi Arabia opens to settling trade in other currencies than the US dollar Saudi Arabia is open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the US dollar, according to the kingdom’s finance minister Mohammed Al-

SECOND

Monday, January 23, 2023 12:31 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, there have been many discussions about that, SECOND. Does Canada, or Italy, or Belgium have space programs? Do they feed a population of 150 million AND be a major food and commodity exporter? Do they field a million- man army? Have they developed and deployed cutting edge weaponry against which other nations are defenseless? Do they have full employment? Do they have trade and budgetary surpluses? Do they have a stable consumer base?

The reality, SECOND, is that GDP to as measured by the west is a myth. It includes, among other things, the money that homeowners WOULD HAVE BEEN OAUD if they had rented out their homes, cappuccino shops, the price of gasoline, and fees charged for "financial services". In other words, it's bogus. If you look at ACTUAL ORIDUCTION Russia is far ahead.

You are describing NORTH Korea, Russia's protege. According to North Korea, it could whip South Korea and all its allies. It's the NORTH Korean nukes that give the Kim family over-confidence enough to believe they will continue to rule over NORTH Korea, but not enough confidence to actually invade South Korea.

Some of that North Korean over-confidence has rubbed off on Putin, who isn't as smart as any of the Kims. That is why Putin is in trouble in Ukraine, Russia's equivalent to S. Korea. Russia is a country full of dummies getting beaten up by a smaller and almost as stupid country as Russia. The Ukrainians are good at dying but not so good at hitting targets. The Ukrainians must fire off around $1,000,000 in ammo for every Russian they kill. That is poor marksmanship by Ukrainians. If they don't get far better at targeting, Ukraine will lose.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

THG

Monday, January 23, 2023 12:56 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
Plush, it's bullshit.

Russia took Soledar, is flanking Bakhmut and advancing towards Zaparozhia. I don't know why you trust liars, THUGR.

Because I know the entire story comrade. Like the fact that the Russians are doing kamikaze runs that they cannot sustain. To gain a few feet of land they lose thousands of troops. Like I've said. They cannot keep it up and more and more supplies are entering Ukraine as I type.

tick tock

T

No, they'r not.

Your "whole story" is completely made up.

Russia pounds Ukie defenses with artillery. For months,if necessary. They cut supply lines with missiles and artillery. They don't go in until Ukie positions have been decimated. Even then, they go in cautiously.

They play to their strength, which is industrial war production, to save their infantry.

Everybody knows that.
Why do you believe liars?

I posted this before comrade. It shows some of what lies ahead for Russia. Watch it this time. It ain't good.

T

SIGNYM

Monday, January 23, 2023 1:32 AM (P)

SECOND- Russia is like N Korea???
Phfwaaaaah!
You owe me a new phone!

THUGR: I smell a lot of "if" coming off that video.
1) America for the most part doesn't give a shit about Ukraine, and
2) Even if TPTB "support Ukraine" for whatever purpose (profit, money laundering, ideology, hegemony) with their whole heart and soul (assuming they have either) they won't be successful. Unless they go nuclear. And then, nobody wins

Sorry dood. That's reality.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

THG

Monday, January 23, 2023 4:14 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND- Russia is like N Korea???
Phfwaaaaah!
You owe me a new phone!

THUGR: I smell a lot of "if" coming off that video.
1) America for the most part doesn't give a shit about Ukraine, and
2) Even if TPTB "support Ukraine" for whatever purpose (profit, money laundering, ideology, hegemony) with their whole heart and soul (assuming they have either) they won't be successful. Unless they go nuclear. And then, nobody wins

Sorry dood. That's reality.

Shit, I just posted this in another thread and then I see this. No choice but to post it hear comrade.

T

SIGNYM

Monday, January 23, 2023 5:32 AM (P)

Do you really give a fuck about how history is being rewritten?

And what does this have to do with the war in Ukraine and the number of weapons and soldiers each side can field?

I'm trying very hard to understand what options our neocons have in mind. They're trying to stand up a third Ukie army with a hodgepodge of western weapons. Which, AFAIK will be sitting ducks bc

a) they need to be part of a COMBINED arms operation (yanno, including planes, helicopters, artillery, air defenses, tanks... the whole schmeer) in order to be successful

b) the variety of training, maintenance and repair creates impossible logistics. I've heard these weapons described as "single use"... once they break down or are damaged they'll be left on the field.

Stories and videos of men being dragooned off the streets of Lviv. Anticipating Polish soldiers fighting in Ukie uniforms.

Supposedly our military is telling Z to give up on Bakhmut. Fighting trench warfare against the other side that can successfully attrit your side is suicide. Maybe our military is telling Z to become more maneuverable.

BUT THEN WHAT?

Build up your army, preserves your forces by giving up ground, train up for a few months and then...? Attack Crimea? Strike Moscow? Provoke Russians into striking NATO territory to create a pretext for using tactical nukes? I just can't create a winning scenario. Maybe I lack imagination.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

THG

Monday, January 23, 2023 5:53 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Do you really give a fuck about how history is being rewritten?

And what does this have to do with the war in Ukraine and the number of weapons and soldiers each side can field?

I'm trying very hard to understand what options our neocons have in mind. They're trying to stand up a third Ukie army with a hodgepodge of western weapons. Which, AFAIK will be sitting ducks bc

a) they need to be part of a COMBINED arms operation (yanno, including planes, helicopters, artillery, air defenses, tanks... the whole schmeer) in order to be successful

b) the variety of training, maintenance and repair creates impossible logistics. I've heard these weapons described as "single use"... once they break down or are damaged they'll be left on the field.

Stories and videos of men being dragooned off the streets of Lviv. Anticipating Polish soldiers fighting in Ukie uniforms.

Supposedly our military is telling Z to give up on Bakhmut. Fighting trench warfare against the other side that can successfully attrit your side is suicide. Maybe our military is telling Z to become more maneuverable.

BUT THEN WHAT?

Build up your army, preserves your forces by giving up ground, train up for a few months and then...? Attack Crimea? Strike Moscow? Provoke Russians into striking NATO territory to create a pretext for using tactical nukes? I just can't create a winning scenario. Maybe I lack imagination.

T

SECOND

Monday, January 23, 2023 9:10 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND- Russia is like N Korea???
Phfwaaaaah!
You owe me a new phone!

Does the world need North Korea? No.
Does the world need Russia?
The World Economy No Longer Needs Russia.
That is how Russia and North Korea are very alike.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=64887&mid=1
168341#1168341 or
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/19/russia-ukraine-economy-europe-ene
rgy/

Quote:
With alternative sources in place, Putin’s attempt at blackmailing Europe on energy has failed. . . .
Even Putin’s other commodities cards are all used up. His gambit to weaponize food abjectly collapsed when even his nominal allies turned on him. And in certain metals markets where Russia historically dominated, such as nickel, palladium, and titanium, blackmail-fearing buyers combined with higher prices have expedited reshoring and reinvigorated dormant public and private investment in critical mineral supply chain and mining projects. These are mostly in North and South America and Africa, home to many undertapped mineral reserves. In fact, in several crucial metals markets, such as cobalt and nickel, the combined output of new mines to be opened in the next two years adds up to more than enough supply to replace Russian metals within global supply chains permanently.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 12:14 AM (P)

Russia Could Collapse Into 'New States' After Ukrainian Victory

A Ukrainian victory could lead to the fall of the Russia Federation as we know it, according to one European economist.

Timothy Ash, an associate fellow at the international affairs think tank Chatham House, believes it's inevitable that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his army will be defeated by Ukraine. As the war head into its eleventh month, Ash said the real issue looming over Moscow's invasion is what will happen to Putin's Russia, and whether history will repeat itself.

In an op-ed published by the Kyiv Post on Saturday, Ash, who has advised various governments on Ukraine-Russia policy, said that he believes Russia will break off into new states — resulting in the exact opposite of what Putin had hoped to achieve when he launched the invasion into Ukraine almost a year ago.

"I see a decent chance that we see the end of Putin and, while not my base case, I think it's possible we see a collapse of the Federation into many new states — as with the USSR in 1991," Ash wrote.

Given that Russia is currently divided into a total of 89 regions — including 21 republics, 6 federal territories, 2 federal cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg), 49 regions, 1 autonomous region and 10 autonomous areas — Ash predicts that there could be the creation of 20 new states if the Russia Federation collapses.

"Putin started this war to create a Greater Russia, but the likely net effect will be a Lesser Russia," Ash said.

In 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union (USSR) resulted in the end of the country's existence as a sovereign state and brought an end to President Mikhail Gorbachev's time as the USSR's de facto leader. It was the 1991 collapse that gave Ukraine its independence, and from which the fraught relations between Russia and Ukraine have unfolded.

Ash is not the only expert who has opined that the war in Ukraine may end in the collapse of Russia.

In a January 7 op-ed for Foreign Policy, Alexander Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark and a specialist on Ukraine and Russia, said that if Putin were to leave office, it is likely that a "vicious power struggle" would follow, and in turn, "a disintegration of centralized control and breakup of the federation."

"We don't know who will win, but we can confidently predict that the power struggle will weaken the regime and distract Russia from what remains of its war effort," Motyl wrote. "If Russia survives this turmoil, it's likely to become a weak client state of China. If it does not, the map of Eurasia could look very different."

Bruno Tertrais, a geopolitical adviser at the French think tank Institut Montaigne, also said a second collapse of the Soviet Union is likely to come from the war in Ukraine.

"Not only has [Putin] failed to unify the Russian world (russki mir), but his closest neighbors, thanks to the war, now seem to want to emancipate themselves," Tertrais wrote in December.

Janusz Bugajski, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, has warned that Western policymakers are gravely unprepared for an "impending" collapse of Russia.

"Instead of planning contingencies for external spillovers and capitalizing on Russia's de-imperialization, however, Western officials appear to be stuck in a bygone era, believing they can return to the post-Cold War status quo," he wrote in a January 12 op-ed for Politico.

He said in order for the West to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, it must not presume that "the current empire is permanent."

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-could-collapse-new-states-ukrainian-vi
ctory-1775841

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 2:20 AM (P)

Quote:
America’s Insularity Is A Threat To Its Survival

22 January 2023 by Larry Johnson

I believe that a country’s history shapes how its citizens view themselves and view the world outside their borders. If you accept that as true I believe you can understand why the United States acts as it does in the world. The United States, until now, has faced one existential threat — the Civil War. I count it as existential because the union of the states was at risk and a victory by the Confederacy would have created a very different America.

The creation of the United States by defeating the British imperial power was followed by taking control, at times with force, of the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Oh yeah, we defeated Mexico in 1848 and claimed Mexico’s former lands as our own. My point is that at no time since the Civil War has America had to fend off a foreign military invasion. Protected by the oceans and weak neighbors to the south and north (i.e., Mexico and Canada), Americans never had the experience of foreign invaders wreaking havoc. Well, there was Pancho Villa, but he only launched some insignificant border raids and the United States declined to invade Mexico in retaliation.

With no enemies capable of invading America, we developed a sort of Messianic Complex. We went to Europe towards the end of the First World War to “save Europe.” That was followed by saving Europe from the Nazis (at least that’s the narrative taught in elementary and secondary schools). We never saw ourselves as imperial invaders. We simply were going “over there” to provide freedom. At least that is what we told ourselves. While many of the people of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and the Balkans would beg to differ, the American mindset in the aftermath of World War II is that our use of military force in foreign theaters had a noble purpose.

The American overseas military missionary adventures always required a villain. In Vietnam it was International Communism. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria it was international terrorism, with Iran regularly mentioned as the uber villain that needed to be stopped. Now we have a new, reconstituted villain — the Russians.

Russia, unlike the United States, has a long and bloody history of fending off invaders. That fact has conditioned the Russian people to be pretty prickly when they are confronted with a foreign threat. They dealt with Napoleon, the stumbled when attacked by the Ottoman Empire, the Brits and the French in the Crimea War, and defeated the Nazis. More recently, Russia beat back Islamic insurgents in Chechnya. This history makes Russia deadly serious when it believes it is threatened by foreign invaders.

Which brings me to the current war in Ukraine. The Western meme, fully embraced by the American public, is that Russia is a rapacious imperial power intent on destroying the freedom of the Ukrainian people. Russia, for its part, believes the West is intent on destroying the Russian Federation. Hell, it is not a belief, Western nations have spoken openly of eliminating Putin and breaking Russia into five separate countries.

Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine showed the world that a resurgent Russia means, of necessity, an imperialist Russia. And it revived discussions about whether Russia needs to be “decolonized,” or perhaps “defederalized,” to bury its imperialist ambitions and subdue its military threat. A breakup of today’s Russia, similar to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, is seen as a possible, for some even the most desirable, outcome of a failed Ukraine invasion. Regrets are voiced that the US didn’t make it a goal in the 1990s, when post-Soviet Russia lay in ruins and struggled to hold onto one, tiny secessionist region: Chechnya.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/is-breaking-up-russia-t
he-only-way-to-end-its-imperialism/2022/06/01/e1962c3e-e170-11ec-ae64-6b23e5155b62_story.html

Yep. We got to end that “Russian Imperialism.” This coming from the United States and Europe who actually have

THG

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 2:57 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

America’s Insularity Is A Threat To Its Survival

A “global tragedy” could be in store for humanity if the West keeps supplying weapons to Ukraine, Russia’s most senior lawmaker has warned. Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, also suggested that Moscow could retaliate with more powerful arms, should its territory be threatened. . . .

On Sunday, Volodin took to Telegram to point out that should the weapons provided by the US and fellow NATO member states be used to “strike civilian cities and to attempt to seize our territories, as they threaten [to do],” Moscow would respond with “more powerful weapons.”

The Russian lawmaker went on to argue that Western officials should be aware of their responsibility to avert such a scenario.

“Taking into consideration the technological superiority of Russian weapons, foreign politicians making such decisions need to understand: this could end up being a global tragedy that would destroy their countries,” Volodin warned.
https://www.rt.com/news/570282-russian-parliament-chair-warns-west/

The stubborn refusal of the political and media class in the United States to even acknowledge the possibility that Russia has legitimate security concerns has set the table for a devastating escalation in the war between Russia and the West. Volodin’s warning should not be ignored. But it is falling on deaf ears in Washington. The failure of the Biden Administration and his political cheerleaders to comprehend that Russia is not going to behave as an abused spouse. The days of pummeling, or trying to pummel, anyone who will not submit to our demands is over. We are likely to witness some event or series of events in the coming weeks and months when America’s imperial impotence will be exposed and Russia will be standing defiant and intact. That is likely to inflict a psychological break in the American belief that we are invincible and protected. Americans will forced to come to grips with a new reality — we are no longer an insular, protected nation.

T

SECOND

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 6:36 PM (P)

US and Western officials are urging Ukraine to shift its focus from the brutal, months-long fight in the eastern city of Bakhmut and prioritize instead a potential offensive in the south, using a different style of fighting that takes advantage of the billions of dollars in new military hardware recently committed by Western allies, US and Ukrainian officials tell CNN.

For nearly six months, Ukrainian forces have been going toe-to-toe with the Russians over roughly 36 miles of territory in Bakhmut, which lies between the separatist-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. Heavy shelling has left the city almost completely destroyed.

“It is a brutal and grinding fight,” a senior Western intelligence official said last week, with each side exchanging anywhere from 100-400 meters of land per day and exchanging several thousands of artillery rounds almost daily. “[Bakhmut] is less attractive militarily, in terms of any sort of infrastructure, than it might have been if it had not been this destroyed.”

Now, ahead of what is widely expected to be a brutal spring of fighting, there is a tactical opening, US and Western officials say. In recent weeks they have begun suggesting that Ukrainian forces cut their losses in Bakhmut, which they argue has little strategic significance for Ukraine, and focus instead on planning an offensive in the south.

That was part of a message delivered by three top Biden officials who traveled to Kyiv last week.

In a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, said the US wants to help Ukraine shift away from the sort of pitched battle of attrition playing out in Bakhmut and focus instead on a style of mechanized maneuver warfare that uses rapid, unanticipated movements against Russia, sources familiar with their discussion said.

More at https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/politics/ukraine-shift-tactics-bakhmut/
index.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 7:09 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I disagree. The USA has lost multiple wars abroad and not come to a sense of vulnerability. The only thing that will shock Americans out of their stupor is another 911 moment. But seeing that TPTB simply used that terror attack to promote another whole series of nation-destruction across the globe, Russia will probably try to avoid a galvanizing event on USA soil. More likely, they will play a war of attrition with the USA dollar (and what pathetic excuse we have for an economy,) instead. A long, slow grind.

To Defend Civilization, Defeat Russia

by Tom Nichols

Ukraine needs any weapon its troops can learn to use, including tanks, to hold the line on the international order and the world’s safety.

January 23, 2023, 6:02 PM ET

Some NATO nations are wavering about sending tanks and other advanced weapons to Ukraine. I understand fears of escalation, but if Russia wins in Ukraine, the world will lose.

No Other Choice

I don’t often find myself agreeing with Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina conservative who long ago rebranded himself as Donald Trump’s faithful valet and No. 1 fan. Last week, however, Graham lashed out in frustration at the dithering in Europe and America over sending more weapons to Ukraine. “I am tired of the shit show surrounding who is going to send tanks and when they’re gonna send them,” he said during a press conference in Kyiv, flanked by Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. “World order is at stake. [Vladimir] Putin is trying to rewrite the map of Europe by force of arms.”

Graham is right. Germany, for example, has been reluctant to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine; the Germans, for their part, would likely prefer to see the United States send American tanks first. But everyone in the West should be sending anything the Ukrainians can learn to use, because a lot more than mere order is at stake, and order, by itself, is not enough. As Rousseau wrote, “Tranquility is found also in dungeons,” but that does not make dungeons desirable places to live. Global civilization itself is on the line: the world built after the defeat of the Axis, in which, for all of our faults as nations and peoples, we strive to live in peace and cooperation—and, at the least, to not butcher one another. If Russia’s campaign of terror and other likely war crimes erases Ukraine, it will be a defeat of the first order for every institution of international life, be it the United Nations or the international postal union.

I suspect that many people in Europe and the United States are having a hard time getting their arms around the magnitude of this threat. We are all afflicted by normalcy bias, our inherent resistance to accept that large changes can upend our lives. I struggled with this in the early stages of the war; I thought Ukraine would probably lose quickly, and then when the Russians were repulsed by the heroic Ukrainian defenses, I hoped (in vain) that the fighting would fizzle out, that Putin would try to conserve what was left of his shattered military, and that the world’s institutions, damaged by yet another act of Russian barbarism, would somehow continue to limp along.

We’re long past such possibilities. Putin has made clear that he will soak the ground of East-Central Europe with blood—both of Ukrainians and of his own hapless mobiks, the recently mobilized draftees he’s sending into the military meat grinder—if that’s what it takes to subjugate Kyiv and end the Kremlin’s unexpected and ongoing humiliation. At this point, the fight in Ukraine is not about borders or flags but about what kind of world we’ve built over the past century, and whether that world can sustain itself in the face of limitless brutality. As the Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said in Davos last week: “We don’t know when the war ends, but Ukraine has to win. I don’t see another choice.”

Neither do I, and it’s past time to send Ukraine even more and better weapons. (Or, as my colleague David Fru

THG

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 7:57 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:

US and Western officials are urging Ukraine to shift its focus from the brutal, months-long fight in the eastern city of Bakhmut and prioritize instead a potential offensive in the south, using a different style of fighting that takes advantage of the billions of dollars in new military hardware recently committed by Western allies, US and Ukrainian officials tell CNN.

For nearly six months, Ukrainian forces have been going toe-to-toe with the Russians over roughly 36 miles of territory in Bakhmut, which lies between the separatist-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. Heavy shelling has left the city almost completely destroyed.

“It is a brutal and grinding fight,” a senior Western intelligence official said last week, with each side exchanging anywhere from 100-400 meters of land per day and exchanging several thousands of artillery rounds almost daily. “[Bakhmut] is less attractive militarily, in terms of any sort of infrastructure, than it might have been if it had not been this destroyed.”

Now, ahead of what is widely expected to be a brutal spring of fighting, there is a tactical opening, US and Western officials say. In recent weeks they have begun suggesting that Ukrainian forces cut their losses in Bakhmut, which they argue has little strategic significance for Ukraine, and focus instead on planning an offensive in the south.

That was part of a message delivered by three top Biden officials who traveled to Kyiv last week.

In a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, said the US wants to help Ukraine shift away from the sort of pitched battle of attrition playing out in Bakhmut and focus instead on a style of mechanized maneuver warfare that uses rapid, unanticipated movements against Russia, sources familiar with their discussion said.

More at https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/politics/ukraine-shift-tactics-bakhmut/
index.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly]

Yes, this article is dead on. Russia can’t possibly defend across the entire front, so logic dictates it’s time to open it up. The supplies and weapons are pouring in in preparation for this.

tick tock

T

THG

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 8:09 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:

If Russia finally captures Ukraine by mass murder, torture, and nuclear threats, then everything the world has gained since the defeat of the Axis in 1945 and the end of the Cold War in 1991 will be in mortal peril. Putin will prove to himself and to every dictator on the planet that nothing has changed since Hitler, that lawless nations can achieve their aims by using force at will, by killing and raping innocent people and then literally grinding their ashes into the dirt. This is no longer about Russia’s neo-imperial dreams or Ukraine’s borders: This is a fight for the future of the international system and the safety of us all.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230123232111/https://www.theatlantic.com
/newsletters/archive/2023/01/ukraine-russia-weapons-nato-germany/672817/

Correct...

T

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 11:28 PM (P)

Quote:
Ukraine Rocked By Corruption Scandal, Wave Of Top Officials Resign: Sports Cars, Mansions & Luxury Vacations As People Suffered

Tuesday, Jan 24, 2023 - 08:50 AM

The Ukrainian government on Tuesday confirmed the resignation of multiple high ranking officials amid large-scale corruption allegations, in what's being called the biggest mass resignation and graft scandal since the Russian invasion began.

Some dozen officials have quit their posts after a huge political shake-up over allegations and probes into cases ranging from bribery, to mismanagement of aid funds for purchasing food, to embezzlement, to driving expensive cars while common people suffer under wartime conditions.

A top presidential adviser and four deputy ministers - among these two defense officials, along with five regional governors were forced out of their posts.

By who???

Quote:
And among the regional governors to step down included officials overseeing regions which have seen intense fighting, including the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, where Russian forces have lately reported gains.

Zelensky to Congress in Dec. visit: aid to Ukraine is an investment in democracy and "not charity". Via Reuters

In reference to the announcement by a senior government official, Oleg Nemchinov, international reports detail the following list:

Deputy Prosecutor General Oleskiy Symonenko

Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Ivan Lukeryu

Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Vyacheslav Negoda

Deputy Minister for Social Policy Vitaliy Muzychenk

And the regional governors of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson

And separately, "the defense ministry had earlier announced the resignation of deputy minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who was in charge of the army's logistical support, on the heels of accusations it was signing food contracts at inflated prices."

In this case regarding the food contracts, Shapovalov is accused of signing a deal with an unknown, shady firm. In his role as deputy defense minister, his is the most notable and visible resignation. Crucially he would have had no small part in overseeing the billions of dollars flowing from the pockets of US and European taxpayers as authorized defense aid.

He purchased military rations at inflated prices in what appears a scheme to line the pockets of contractors, and potentially involving kickbacks to himself.

MORE,WITH PICTURES AND LINKS,AT
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-rocked-corruption-scand
al-wave-top-official-resignations-sports-cars-mansions

In addition, the Interior Minister and his top aide were killed in a helicopter crash, and Zelensky's former spin doctor and buddy Aristovich - fired one short week ago- is blabbing his head off that Ukraine isn't going to win.

Meanwhile the head of one of Z's security services, Budanov, claims that his agents were sent to negotiate with Russia in March merely to buy time for further military prep.

This goes along with Poroshenko's, Holland's and Merkel's admissions that the Minsk agreements were meant only to buy time for Ukraine's military buildup. Nobody had any intention of fulfilling the agreements, even as they pressed Russia +not a signatory) to enforce the peace

In other words, Ukraine and the collective west are not only "not agreement capable", they're not even negation capable.

Why should Russia negotiate?

It seems to me that thete is a huge internal conflict going on in Kiev. While CIA and State Dept neocons promoted Ukraine as a perfect tool to destabilize Russia, many (most?) Ukie officials saw the huge flow of weapons, supplies, and money as the perfect oppty to do what they've always done: grift.
Making Kiev an ineffective tool (just like Biden* is an effective tool).

SECOND

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 12:27 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yanno, I'm sure many people in Ukraine understand the corrupt nature of their government and give it little political support.

According to a 2021 report by Transparency International, Ukraine is the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia. Globally, it ranked 122nd of 180 countries.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter on Tuesday that the changes within the government showed Zelensky was committed to fighting corruption.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/europe/ukraine-anti-corruption-zelensky
-intl/index.html

Ukraine is ranked 122 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/ukr
Russia is ranked 136 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/rus
A lower number is better.
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 2:24 AM (P)

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

Yanno, I'm sure many people in Ukraine understand the corrupt nature of their government and give it little political support.
According to a 2021 report by Transparency International, Ukraine is the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia. Globally, it ranked 122nd of 180 countries.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter on Tuesday that the changes within the government showed Zelensky was committed to fighting corruption.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/europe/ukraine-anti-corruption-zelensky
-intl/index.html

Ukraine is ranked 122 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/ukr
Russia is ranked 136 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/rus
A lower number is better.
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Seems a little late, doesn't it? Especially since Z is corrupt as well.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

THG

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 3:01 AM (P)

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

Yanno, I'm sure many people in Ukraine understand the corrupt nature of their government and give it little political support.
According to a 2021 report by Transparency International, Ukraine is the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia. Globally, it ranked 122nd of 180 countries.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter on Tuesday that the changes within the government showed Zelensky was committed to fighting corruption.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/europe/ukraine-anti-corruption-zelensky
-intl/index.html

Ukraine is ranked 122 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/ukr
Russia is ranked 136 https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/rus
A lower number is better.
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly] Seems a little late, doesn't it? Especially since Z is corrupt as well.

Comrade signym quotes zerohedge and expects us to believe what they say. Too funny...

T

SECOND

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 3:29 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Seems a little late, doesn't it? Especially since Z is corrupt as well.

To me this is a battle between a dumb and corrupt country (Ukraine) and a dumber and even more corrupt country (Russia). Ukraine is trying hard to be a better country while Russia is not so much trying. Then there is the thing about Russia threatening to nuke the world, nearly every day since it first built an Atom Bomb and Russia solving political differences by murdering tens of millions of its citizens: Lethal Politics by R. J. Rummel
https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder/dp/15600
08873/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 2:24 PM (P)

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

Seems a little late, doesn't it? Especially since Z is corrupt as well.
To me this is a battle between a dumb and corrupt country (Ukraine) and a dumber and even more corrupt country (Russia).

Nah....

You've come up with abut three DOZEN "reasons" to "support Ukraine", and each one of them is as meaningless (to you) as the next. Just like you've come with the same kinds of rationalizations for hating Trump/Republicans/half of America/Americans in general.

You just need an outlet for your psychopathy isall.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 6:55 PM (P)

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

Seems a little late, doesn't it? Especially since Z is corrupt as well.
To me this is a battle between a dumb and corrupt country (Ukraine) and a dumber and even more corrupt country (Russia).
Nah....

You've come up with abut three DOZEN "reasons" to "support Ukraine", and each one of them is as meaningless (to you) as the next. Just like you've come with the same kinds of rationalizations for hating Trump/Republicans/half of America/Americans in general.

You just need an outlet for your psychopathy is all.

You are not a serious person, Signym. Boiling down what is wrong with Trump to one thing: he doesn't pay his taxes. I have heard a thousand explanations for why this is not a problem ranging from he did pay but it is nobody's business to he is using the tax code as it was intended to he is innocent until proven guilty. It is still the one thing wrong: Trump didn't pay.

What is wrong with Russia is a little more complicated than what is wrong with Trump, but not much. It is all those people that died in Russian political disputes. Those dead bodies from mass starvation due to grotesque incompetence inside Russia. Those dead bodies from the ultra-stupid way Russia fights wars and the aftermath. The Russians protect their reputation in the same way Trump protects his: by continuously lying rather than, in the case of Trump, paying his taxes. The Russians only have to stop killing people and justifying the killing by telling elaborately false stories. But I have my doubts that either Russians or Trump can stop lying or behave better. Bad behavior is a long-standing habit for them. Hard to break habits.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 7:04 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
You are not a serious person, Signym. Boiling down what is wrong with Trump to one thing: he doesn't pay his taxes. I have heard a thousand explanations for why this is not a problem ranging from he did pay but it is nobody's business to he is using the tax code as it was intended to he is innocent until proven guilty. It is still the one thing wrong: Trump didn't pay.

No dude. You're wrong. Some years he paid, some years he didn't. But the second the Media got their hands on them they realized that he did it all within the the bullshit IRS law.

Just like every other Millionaire and Billionaire in the country does.

And he got the Media to talk about THAT for about 3 days before they stopped talking about it.

If there's any criminals here, it's the Media. They should be talking about that 24/7 until those laws get changed.

But they won't.

So Trump and all of the other Millionaires and Billionaires will get away with paying almost nothing, and the IRS is going to be knocking down doors of people that don't pay their Social Security and Medicare portions of their $600+ 1099-K forms for ebay transactions when they had to sell me the shit they didn't need to pay for gas instead.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 7:16 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No dude. You're wrong. Some years he paid, some years he didn't. But the second the Media got their hands on them they realized that he did it all within the the bullshit IRS law.

Just like every other Millionaire and Billionaire in the country does.

And he got the Media to talk about THAT for about 3 days before they stopped talking about it.

If there's any criminals here, it's the Media. They should be talking about that 24/7 until those laws get changed.

But they won't.

So Trump and all of the other Millionaires and Billionaires will get away with paying almost nothing, and the IRS is going to be knocking down doors of people that don't pay their Social Security and Medicare portions of their $600+ 1099-K forms for ebay transactions when they had to sell me the shit they didn't need to pay for gas instead.

Go away, 6ix. You don't pay taxes, either, and justify it by lying about yourself and what you did. You fit perfectly into the paradigm of bad behavior/justify bad behavior with lies. It is very Russian of you.

There is another parallel between Russians and 6ix or typical Trumptards. The Russians are far poorer than citizens of the EU. Russians explain it by blaming the EU. 6ix is as poor as a Russian and explains it by blaming Democrats.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 8:01 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No dude. You're wrong. Some years he paid, some years he didn't. But the second the Media got their hands on them they realized that he did it all within the the bullshit IRS law.

Just like every other Millionaire and Billionaire in the country does.

And he got the Media to talk about THAT for about 3 days before they stopped talking about it.

If there's any criminals here, it's the Media. They should be talking about that 24/7 until those laws get changed.

But they won't.

So Trump and all of the other Millionaires and Billionaires will get away with paying almost nothing, and the IRS is going to be knocking down doors of people that don't pay their Social Security and Medicare portions of their $600+ 1099-K forms for ebay transactions when they had to sell me the shit they didn't need to pay for gas instead.
Go away, 6ix. You don't pay taxes, either, and justify it by lying about yourself and what you did.

I do pay taxes. I pay sales taxes. I pay property taxes.

What did I do? Tell me. I hope you have Libel insurance.

Quote:
You fit perfectly into the paradigm of bad behavior/justify bad behavior with lies.

Did you report to the IRS all of the comic books, movies, TV shows and books that you illegally downloaded in 2022 so you can pay taxes on them, rich guy?

I've got all of those links archived too. I could forward those on to the IRS myself if you forgot, buddy.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 8:29 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I do pay taxes. I pay sales taxes. I pay property taxes.

What did I do? Tell me. I hope you have Libel insurance.

Did you report to the IRS all of the comic books, movies, TV shows and books that you illegally downloaded in 2022 so you can pay taxes on them, rich guy?

I've got all of those links archived too. I could forward those on to the IRS myself if you forgot, buddy.

6ix, you are a prickly little character with a giant ego. Did you learn to be that way from Trump or from Erdogan?

If Erdogan blocks Sweden and Finland, will NATO boot Turkey?

By James Stavridis

We have reached one of the most important moments in the seven-decade history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Sweden and Finland are set to join the alliance, just as the Russian war on Ukraine reaches its first anniversary.

Yet Turkey — alone of all the members — is slowing this vital chance to bring Stockholm and Helsinki on board. It is time to stop this exercise in unilateral obstruction and simply say “yes.” Turkish reticence, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a gift to a heinous war criminal, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In 2009, when I became supreme allied commander of NATO, the first capital I visited was . . . Ankara, Turkey. . . . And I met with Erdogan, who was then prime minister, several times. He struck me as a very hard-nosed individual, determined to pursue whatever course of action that he felt was the right one for his nation.

Turkey is taking this counterproductive stance over what it sees as the Nordic nations’ support for terrorist groups among Turkey’s Kurdish minority, in particular their refusal to extradite dozens of Kurds wanted by the government. I can understand that. The governments of all three nations should be in close consultation to make sure that nothing any alliance member does is disruptive to the internal security of another member. But Sweden in particular has already given many, many concessions to Turkey during the expansion process.

The great challenge to the alliance isn’t terrorism: It is the unconscionable invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Putin continues to shadowbox at NATO-member Estonia, which has a significant ethnic-Russian population. He repeatedly talks about his “nuclear options,” seeking to frighten Europe in general and NATO in particular.

At some point soon, some NATO members are going to begin asking, “If it is a choice between Sweden/Finland and Turkey, maybe we should look at our options.” That would be a mistake. Turkey boasts the second-largest army in NATO, has important facilities including Incirlik Air Base and hosts NATO’s overall land-warfare command in Izmir.

NATO needs Turkey to continue being an active and positive member. It also needs to add Finland and Sweden. No one wants to have to choose between them. It’s up to Erdogan to ensure that doesn’t have to happen.

More at https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2023/01/24/commentary/world-comme
ntary/turkey-nato-memebership/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 8:56 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No dude. You're wrong. Some years he paid, some years he didn't. But the second the Media got their hands on them they realized that he did it all within the the bullshit IRS law.

Just like every other Millionaire and Billionaire in the country does.

And he got the Media to talk about THAT for about 3 days before they stopped talking about it.

If there's any criminals here, it's the Media. They should be talking about that 24/7 until those laws get changed.

But they won't.

So Trump and all of the other Millionaires and Billionaires will get away with paying almost nothing, and the IRS is going to be knocking down doors of people that don't pay their Social Security and Medicare portions of their $600+ 1099-K forms for ebay transactions when they had to sell me the shit they didn't need to pay for gas instead.
Go away, 6ix. You don't pay taxes, either, and justify it by lying about yourself and what you did.

I do pay taxes. I pay sales taxes. I pay property taxes.

What did I do? Tell me. I hope you have Libel insurance.

Quote:
You fit perfectly into the paradigm of bad behavior/justify bad behavior with lies.

Did you report to the IRS all of the comic books, movies, TV shows and books that you illegally downloaded in 2022 so you can pay taxes on them, rich guy?

I've got all of those links archived too. I could forward those on to the IRS myself if you forgot, buddy.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
6ix, you are a prickly little character with a giant ego.

You have chosen wisely.

As for the ego, it's not bragging if it's true.

I just fixed my car yesterday for pennies on the dollar and learned some new skills while I was at it. What did you do yesterday besides obsess over Trump and jerk off to Nuclear Fear Porn, weasel?

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 26, 2023 1:05 AM (P)

So, SECOND, are you giving up on the accusations that Trump is a megalomaniacal racist and rapist, who colluded* with Russia to weaken America, and who fomented an insurrection* on Jan6. He's no longer a Constitution destroyer who's very existence threatens the liberty of the United States? He didn't offer a "quid pro quo" to Ukraine? Given up on all your other accusations?

It's all about TAXES?

Dood, every wealthy person that I can name doesn't pay taxes. Buffet, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Brandon, Musk, Carlos "Slim", the Clintons... Every very wealthy person around the world doesn't pay taxes.

Now, can we get back to the topic?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 26, 2023 1:21 AM (P)

Burns' secret visit to Kiev. (And BoJo's)
Aristovich sacked.
The entire Interior Ministry dead in a helicopter crash.
The Purge across Ukraine.
Abrams and Leopard tanks to Ukraine*.
Patriot missiles to Poland.
Poland standing up a 300,000-500,000 man army.

Some opinion that The Purge was designed to isolate Zelenskiy, giving the USA direct control of Ukraine.
The promised weapons will be too late to be used on the eastern front.
I suspect they'll get "stuck" in Poland. Given that Poland and Ukraine signed an agreement giving Poles the legal right to hold office in Ukraine, does that mean Poland will invade/defend western Ukraine on the legal, non-NATO pretext that they're part of the Ukraine army?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:04 AM (P)

Quote:
German Foreign Minister Just Said The Quiet Part Out Loud On Ukraine

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock bluntly stated in fresh remarks that Western allies are fighting a war against Russia. The remarks came during a debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday amid discussions over sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

While Baerbock's words were largely ignored in mainstream media, a number of pundits on social media noted with alarm that the German foreign minister just essentially declared war on Russia.

German foreign minister declares war on Russia pic.twitter.com/C4cAqnZXhD
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 25, 2023

Ironically other German officials have long sought to emphasize their country is not a party to the conflict, fearing uncontrollable escalation.

Contradicting this official stance, Baerbock said the quiet part out loud, and introduced the comments with: "And therefore I’ve said already in the last days – yes, we have to do more to defend Ukraine. Yes, we have to do more also on tanks."

And that's when she asserted: "But the most important and the crucial part is that we do it together and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/german-foreign-minister-just-sa
id-quiet-part-out-loud-ukraine
MORE AT

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:18 AM (P)

Russia needs to be humiliated in Ukraine
Anders Aslund, Opinion Contributor

Listening to various discussions here in Washington, D.C., (mostly off the record) I am amazed how many people fear a Ukrainian victory over Russia. None of the arguments I hear make sense. The West needs to give as many arms as it can to Ukraine to help it defeat Russia.

One argument I often hear is that the war cannot be allowed to spread. That’s right, but the war will spread unless Russia loses. If he can do so militarily, Russian President Vladimir Putin will march on to Moldova and then proceed from there, so the only way to contain his war is to support Ukraine fully.

Some have uttered versions of the phrase, “All wars end with negotiations. We must maintain relations with Putin.” That’s simply not true. Many wars end with capitulation (World War II, the war in Iraq), ceasefire (Korean war, Japan’s war with the USSR) or revolution (Russia in World War I). Putin should be treated, like Hitler or Saddam Hussein, as the international war criminal he is. Few called for negotiations with them.

Many treat the line of contact of Feb. 23, 2022, as a legitimate border, but it was not. Russia had maintained a low-intensity war since 2014, and it brought no peace. Putin maintained it as a starting point for his new war of aggression in 2022. All of Ukraine’s territories must be returned. We must not accept the gains from a war of conquest.

Many have accepted the Russian argument that Crimea is intrinsically Russian, but it is not. It was conquered by Catherine II in 1783, and the USSR passed it on to Ukraine in 1954. The Russian population in Crimea is a result of Soviet and Russian ethnic cleansing that must not be condoned. The Crimean Tartars and the Ottoman Empire have much longer claims to Crimea.

For 20 years starting in 1997, Russia leased the naval base in Sevastopol from Ukraine. At the time, 1997 stood out as the peak of friendship between Russia and Ukraine, but it turned out to be a serious mistake for Ukraine’s security. Russia’s lease facilitated Russia’s occupation of Crimea in February and March 2014. Legally, Sevastopol has all along been Ukrainian territory. In December 1991, the populations in Sevastopol and Crimea voted freely to belong to Ukraine.

Some suggest that Ukraine should give up some territory to Russia to calm Putin, but Putin wants the whole of Ukraine, so any concession to Putin would just lead to a new Russian assault on Ukraine. Russia must be defeated.

Absurdly, some even propose that Crimea or Donbas could become a “frozen conflict” to satisfy Putin, as if “frozen conflicts,” such as Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, were desirable. The best outcome of this war is that all Russia’s “frozen conflicts” are resolved by Russian troops withdrawing.

The ultimate argument seems to involve the question: “What will Putin do?” The people who pose this question clearly don’t understand that the whole of Russia’s military force is engaged in Ukraine, and that it is being beaten. A defeated Putin cannot do much. The danger comes from Putin not being defeated. Putin is very unlikely to use nukes, because that would mean both he and his generals will die. Remember that Hitler never used his many chemical arms, because he could not see how they could help him. Instead, he committed suicide.

Some are afraid of Russia’s destabilization and want to keep Putin in power as a source of stability. But Putin has proven to be a source of international instability and kleptocratic despotism in Russia. Such a regime must not be supported. How can anybody favor Putin’s frightful suppression of the Russians? Putin belongs in prison.

Finally, many fear the dissolution of Russia, just as President George H.W. Bush feared the dissolution of the USSR and even went to Ukraine to agitate against Ukrainian nationalism in his 1991 “chicken Kiev” speech. We must not repeat his mistake. Let those nations that desire to leave Russia do so.

As the exiled Russian opposition politician Leonid Gozman argues, t

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:26 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, SECOND, are you giving up on the accusations that Trump is a megalomaniacal racist and rapist, who colluded* with Russia to weaken America, and who fomented an insurrection* on Jan6. He's no longer a Constitution destroyer who's very existence threatens the liberty of the United States? He didn't offer a "quid pro quo" to Ukraine? Given up on all your other accusations?

It's all about TAXES?

Dood, every wealthy person that I can name doesn't pay taxes. Buffet, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Brandon, Musk, Carlos "Slim", the Clintons... Every very wealthy person around the world doesn't pay taxes.

Now, can we get back to the topic?

Trump said he had not colluded with Russia. So did the Mueller Report, which said, instead, that Russia had interfered with the 2016 election. Mueller also said that Trump had obstructed justice but Mueller can't say the words "Trump obstructed" because, you know, there was a DOJ memo that says Mueller can't make that accusation about the President, but Trump did obstruct.

Mueller finds no collusion with Russia, leaves obstruction question open
https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/03/mue
ller-concludes-investigation/

Quote:
The special counsel found that Russia did interfere with the election, but “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple efforts from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.”

As far as obstruction, the Mueller report laid out facts on both sides but did not reach a conclusion. Barr’s letter said that “the Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’”

It is very simple, Signym, but you don't understand. I have NEVER known any Trumptard able to understand what is wrong with what Trump did. (Or understand why things go wrong in a Trumptard's life. Trumptards are oblivious to all the flashing red warning signs in life telling them to stop, turn around, go back. ) From that, the Trumptards conclude nothing is wrong, but what a lawyer would conclude is that Trumptards don't know the difference between right and wrong, no more than Putin knows he has done wrong.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, January 26, 2023 5:09 AM (P)

Awwww... Don't want to keep up our conversation anymore?

Looks like I win again. Just like I always do.

You're lucky Sigs bailed you out.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 6:33 PM (P)

Putin Is Stuck With a Ukrainian War That Is Bleeding His Country

By Matt Kelly, mkelly@virginia.edu

January 25, 2023

Q. Can Ukraine maintain Western support?

A. The theory among the Ukrainians, along with ardent supporters in the U.S., is that the technological advantages of Western-supplied military will be enough to break the Russian army.

There are many in the U.S. who aren’t sure about that proposition, but they’re willing to keep supplying because it’s a very effective way to bleed down the Russian army and take care of one of our greatest strategic threats in the world. As long as Ukraine believes that it can drive the Russians back, and as long as the U.S. and Western allies are willing to supply them, we may see continued attrition on the Russian side.

Russia’s technology has proved far more inferior to what the West expected at the beginning. Russia has resupplied with help from North Korea and Iran, but we’ve seen the limits of those weapons to make a difference on the battlefield. And those weapon systems are largely aimed at Ukraine’s civilian population, as opposed to Ukraine’s Western-supplied forces. Russia is not driving back Ukraine anywhere Ukraine is choosing to fight hard. The U.S. is continuing to arm Ukraine because it believes Ukraine has the ability to drive the Russians back.

Q. What does this mean for Putin inside the Kremlin?

A. No one knows for sure. In Russia, the four most important cabinet agencies are, in order, the secret police, the militaries, the extra-political mercenary military forces that operate with the approval of the Russian government, and the oil industry. As long as Putin controls the secret police, he will be fine. But once they feel they are losing control of the situation, things could get bad for Putin.

The military is internally divided. Most military commanders, all the way to the top, did not know they were going to invade Ukraine the day before the invasion. The secret police knew. The secret police have special forces that conduct semi-military operations, such as trying to overthrow the Ukrainian government. They didn’t have adequate support and planning from the Russian military and failed.

The Russian military lacks discipline, technology, strategy and the real trust of the Russian leadership. The military is internally divided over tactics, if not strategy. And it lives in fear of both the secret police and Putin. But it doesn’t have the operational capabilities to win the war. The only thing it can do is throw more bodies at the problem. Then add the militia groups that operate independently and are trying to prove their worth to Putin and the secret police as a way of elevating their status in the Russian system.

If the Russian army collapses on the ground, then the secret police have to figure out how to defend the Russian border. The U.S. will restrain Ukraine from crossing the Russian border. But can the Russian secret police and what’s left of the Russian army hold Crimea? Crimea is a massive territory and heavily fortified, but Ukraine continues to claim that it wants to retake the territory. That’s what I’m looking for. I personally don’t see Putin falling before the fall of Crimea, but if for some reason Crimea were to fall, I think that could be very destabilizing. It would prove not only that the Russian army wasn’t up to the task, but also that the Russian secret police weren’t up to the task of keeping Crimea.

https://news.virginia.edu/content/putin-stuck-ukrainian-war-bleeding-h
is-country

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 7:25 PM (P)

Putin Is Losing the War in Ukraine, But Winning the Battle at Home
by Michael Wasiura

When Vladimir Putin ordered his armies into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it was not to preempt Kyiv's then-distant prospects of NATO accession, nor, primarily, to take his place in history alongside Peter the Great.

It was to avoid the fate of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Both Putin and Lukashenko came to power after winning one more-or-less free-and-fair election, then both immediately set to work making sure that no one else could do the same. Despite Putin's nuclear arsenal, his Siberian gas, his veto in the U.N. Security Council, his capacity to project air power as far afield as Syria, and his cult-figure status among fringe members of the international right and left alike, the methods that the Russian and Belarusian presidents-for-life rely on for maintaining power at home are nearly identical.

In August 2020, after 26 years of dictatorial rule, Belarusians finally turned against their corrupt, Soviet-nostalgic, aging autocrat. Putin, who was appointed acting president of the Russian Federation on New Year's Eve, 1999, was desperate to prevent the Russian people from souring on their own autocrat in a similar way.

Plummeting Popularity Brings Desperation for 'Big Win'

In 2012, when Putin returned to the Kremlin's top spot following a four-year stint as Prime Minister to placeholder commander-in-chief Dmitry Medvedev, the man in control of the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal had a problem. Although he had claimed an official 64.35% of that year's vote against a handpicked field of symbolic opposition candidates, most of his constituents were already preparing for life in a Russia without Putin.

In October of that year, seven months after Putin's third election victory, the independent polling agency Levada Center began asking Russians if they would like to see their increasingly eternal head of state stay on as president past 2024, when his second pair of consecutive terms in office would come to an end.

Although his personal approval rating stood at 67%, only 34% of those surveyed hoped to see Putin ultimately serve a fifth term in the Kremlin. When the "2024" question was posed again in October 2013, the "yes" figure had slipped further, down to 33%.

Then Crimea changed everything.

In late February 2014, following the popular revolution which saw Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich flee Kyiv for refuge in Russia, Russian special forces soldiers dressed in uniforms devoid of insignia began showing up on the streets of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. After a hastily organized referendum which was seen as free, fair, and legitimate by precisely zero OECD member states, a March 18 Kremlin signing ceremony triumphantly welcomed the "Crimean Republic" as an official member of the Russian Federation.

When Levada posed the "2024" question again that November, 58% of Russians suddenly said they wanted to see Putin remain in office past the end of his fourth overall term.

More at https://www.newsweek.com/putin-losing-war-ukraine-winning-battle-home-
1776408

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 7:29 PM (P)

Delayed Tank Delivery to Ukraine Misses Window of Russian Vulnerability

By Michael Wasiura in Odesa, Ukraine

The tanks are on their way to Kyiv. The U.K. has pledged to supply Ukraine with 14 of its Challenger 2 main battle tanks. Reporting suggests that the U.S. will provide around 31 Abrams M1 models. And, perhaps most significantly, on Wednesday the German government announced that it will approve third-country requests to re-export German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, with Berlin contributing 14 from its own arsenal.

The long-awaited German decision was celebrated in Kyiv. But while the new weapons system will eventually make a notable impact on the battlefield, Western hesitancy to approve the transfer means that the tanks will not be on the ground in time for Ukraine to use them at a moment when Russian forces are still exceptionally vulnerable.

"The Ukrainians were signaling an intention to conduct offensive operations over the winter, but the lack of Western security assistance has degraded their ability to do that," George Barros of the Institute For the Study of War told Newsweek.

This is not the first time that much-needed Western military assistance has arrived in Ukraine too late to be of maximum use.

"The successful Ukrainian counter offensives around Kharkiv in September and Kherson in November also shouldn't have started as late as they did," Barros explained. "In the case of Kherson, the Ukrainians only received the HIMARS systems in late June, and so they couldn't really begin the necessary shaping operations to degrade the bridges across the Dnipro River until July."

"An earlier provision of all the necessary military aid could have led to an earlier liberation of Kherson, but Western policy debates led to us giving Ukraine too little, and giving it too late," he added. "It's the hesitancy in some Western capitals to provide the necessary systems immediately, not the provision of the weapons themselves, which is acting to prolong this war."

It is a pattern that dates all the way back to Russia's poorly disguised "covert" invasion of the Ukrainian Donbas region in 2014. Rather than responding with lethal military aid then, Western governments were hesitant to risk provoking a Russian "escalation." The pattern has repeated itself with increased frequency since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

"The Russians always threaten unrealistic escalation, because that's part of how their information warfare works," Barros said. "It's designed to affect how we make our decisions, and, despite repeated experience, it still has an effect on us."

"Every time we talk about providing something new, Russia claims that this is their 'red line,'" he explained. "Then, after we eventually send Ukraine what they've been asking for, we realize that we should have sent them the aid months ago."

The drama over Germany's decision to grant third countries such as Poland permission to re-export German-made Leopard tanks is just one more episode in a story arc that has moved from Javelin anti-tank systems to HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to tanks, and which will now all but inevitably shift to ATACAMs long-range missiles and fixed-wing aircraft.

Still, even if the provision of Leopard 2 tanks would have had a greater battlefield effect if it had been announced months ago, this week's welcome news in Kyiv still falls into the category of "better late than never." As Russia reorients its domestic economy towards military production and continues to mobilize fresh manpower, Ukraine's optimal window for liberating still-occupied territory may be closing, but it has not yet closed.

"The Russians are setting conditions domestically to prepare for a long war," Barros said, "and so the sooner that Ukraine can expel Russian forces while those Russian forces are still relat

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, January 26, 2023 7:43 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin Is Stuck With a Ukrainian War That Is Bleeding His Country

And Americans are stuck with Democrats who are bleeding their country.

Quote:
Q. Can Ukraine maintain Western support?

No. Fuck Ukraine.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 8:11 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin Is Stuck With a Ukrainian War That Is Bleeding His Country

And Americans are stuck with Democrats who are bleeding their country.

Quote:
Q. Can Ukraine maintain Western support?

No. Fuck Ukraine.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

Absolutely unsurprising when Trumptards act the way they do, 6ix. America is stuck with stingy Republicans who can't be trusted to pay FICA taxes, but the farsighted Democrats made it the law that those taxes would be automatically withheld from their paychecks. That makes it difficult for Republicans to cheat on it, unless their employer pays wages in cash, but they sure do whine about FICA, nevertheless. And Republicans don't pay child support unless their wages are garnished. Republicans whine about that, too. Republicans are cheapskates. And it takes the threat of being kicked out of their own house by Sheriffs to make Republicans pay their real estate taxes.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, January 26, 2023 8:26 PM (P)

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH...

More hypocritical drivel from Second that will just argue with his opposite arguments in another thread today, because he wrestles around with ideas in his head that are all mutually exclusive from each other and based purely in hypocrisy.

You're too fucking stupid to have a conversation with, bro.

Why don't you say something else really dumb to me today so I can shut your stupid ass down like I did yesterday and like I always ultimately end up doing?

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 9:42 PM (P)

Why did Russia fire an anti-ship missile at a Ukraine apartment block?

Russia blew up an apartment complex in central Ukraine last weekend, killing 40 people and injuring 80 more.

The strike was notable for its brutality, but also for the choice of weapon: an old, Soviet-style missile designed not to demolish buildings but to sink aircraft carriers.

Yuriy Ihnat, a Ukrainian military spokesman, told local media that the strike used a Kh-22 anti-ship missile. The supersonic munitions have a 2,000-pound warhead, and are designed to destroy aircraft-carrier groups at sea, Ihnat said.

Russia denied responsibility for the attack, repeating its assertion that it only strikes military targets — despite months of evidence to the contrary.

The strike is a sign that Russia is resorting to a "kitchen-sink approach," said Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a call with Insider.

"We're seeing everything at the moment, we're just seeing a blend, we're seeing newer missiles, older missiles ... they really just want to hit something," Williams said.

He said the Kh-22 missiles are "basically being used as terror weapons," totally removed from their actual military purpose.

The Russians are using all kinds of projectiles to "flood the Ukrainian air space with a lot of crap, kind of confusing the air defenses a little bit, and overwhelming them," Williams said.

Ukraine's air defense, bolstered by Western equipment, has so far been notably successful in blunting Russia's attacks, other experts previously told Insider. But it can't stop everything.

The attack in Dnipro was not the first time Russia used a Kh-22 in a civilian attack, and will most likely be the last, Williams said.

Short-term thinking

Williams said using an anti-ship missile like this betrayed a "short-term approach" by Russia, which is degrading its ability to fend off other threats.

He said the Kh-22 missile is among "some of best things [the Russians] have to fend off the US Navy or a NATO naval force, yet they're using them up hitting apartments and warehouses."

"It's very short-term thinking. It's almost like: 'Throw whatever we can at them right now in whatever mode you want, and we'll deal with it later,'" he said.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-did-russia-fire-anti-ship-missile-
ukrainian-apartment-complex-2023-1

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 9:56 PM (P)

Putin Is Going To Flip: Will Ukraine Launch An Attack On Moscow?

Ukraine Suggests Attacks Could Hit Moscow, St. Petersburg – Following Russia’s full embrace of the bombardment of civilian and energy infrastructure by missile and drone attacks, one Ukrainian presidential adviser said this week that similar attacks on Russian cities could occur in the future.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy, said last week that the escalation of the war into Russian territory was bound to happen now.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/01/putin-is-going-to-flip-will-ukrain
e-launch-an-attack-on-moscow/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 26, 2023 10:39 PM (P)

If it was Russia alone facing the collective west, that might be a problem. But it isn't. It's Russia, China, India, and Saudi Arabia.

As it is, the collective west is being demilitarized and deindustrialzed. The west thinks it's going to bleed Russia, even as we're hemorrhaging money and weapons. This is a global war of attrition.

AFA striking Moscow. You think Russia wouldn't retaliate? How about seeing Kiev, or Warsaw, ot Brussels or London disappear? The west is traget-rich and defense-poor. It wouldn't take nuclear weapons, but a few well-placed hypersonic missiles would make mincemeat out of decision-makers

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 26, 2023 10:41 PM (P)

Quote:
Ukraine Pivots To F-16 Fighter Jets Hours After Securing Tanks

The Ukrainian side is of course fully aware that its strategy to keep pressing the West for bigger and more advanced weapons at all costs is working. The aforementioned defense ministry adviser explained to Reuters further:

"They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us HIMARS systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks," Sak said.

"If we get them, the advantages on the battlefield will be just immense," he added. "It’s not just F-16s: fourth generation aircraft, this is what we want."

And then this amazing, brazen admission: "Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get," Sak added.

What is the limiting principle at this point? Because all we ever hear is the robotic mantra, "whatever Ukraine needs." Next week they may claim to "need" a nuclear warhead...?
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 26, 2023

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-presses-hard-f-16-fight
er-jets-immediately-after-securing-tanks

Oh Jeez. More wasted taxpayer dollars. At what point is Z going to ask for NATO soldiers so we can waste American lives too?
This is playing out like Vietnam

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 11:04 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ukraine Pivots To F-16 Fighter Jets Hours After Securing Tanks

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-presses-hard-f-16-fight
er-jets-immediately-after-securing-tanks

Oh Jeez. More taxpayer dollars. At what point is Z going to ask for NATO soldiers?
This is playing out like Vietnam

If this was Vietnam, the first thing JFK would have done is okay the "removal" of the Ukrainian President. JFK was shocked, shocked I tell you! when "removal" actually meant the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_assassination_of_Ngo_Dinh_Die
m

By the way, Signym, Ukraine asked for those F-16s a year ago. But unlike the South Vietnamese, the Ukrainians will use these machines as intended because, unlike the South Vietnamese, losing this war means the Ukrainians either die horribly or have to leave Ukraine. The South Vietnamese died by the millions, but they never acted like losing a war was the end of their country. The South Vietnamese figured that the North Vietnamese would show mercy. The Ukrainians know for a hard fact that Russia will show no mercy to Ukrainians. The Holodomor is remembered by Ukrainians even if Russians pretend to have never heard the word.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/16/f-16s-patriots-ukraine-negoti
ations-00057262

April 29, 2022: Ukraine Wants F-16s, But USAF Officials Say That’s ‘Not A Recipe for Success’
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/ukraine-wants-f-16s-but-usaf-officia
ls-say-thats-not-a-recipe-for-success/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Thursday, January 26, 2023 11:26 PM (P)

You forget, SECOND,a Ukrainian President was already removed. That's what started this whole thing.

Z's corrupt buddies have already died, been fired, or quit. And there's no need to remove him, since he's doing exactly what the neocons want: fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Thursday, January 26, 2023 11:37 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You forget, SECOND,a Ukrainian President was already removed. That's what started this whole thing.

Z's corrupt buddies have already died, been fired, or quit. And there's no need to remove him, since he's doing exactly what the neocons want: fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.

Where is Viktor Yanukovych living, today? Russia. Of all the places he could be, he picks Russia. Back in Jan 2019, he was guilty of treason. It is not farfetched that a President would commit treason. There was this thing about Nixon committing treason, too. Did Nixon serve out his 4-year term or was he forced from office early? Nixon's V.P., Spiro Agnew, was forced from office for cheating on his taxes.

Ukraine's ex-president Viktor Yanukovych found guilty of treason
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/ukraine-ex-president-vik
tor-yanukovych-found-guilty-of-treason

Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal.
https://www.google.com/search?q=nixon+guilty+of+treason

The fall of Spiro Agnew
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1973/10/13/The-fall-of-Spiro-Agnew/594813
0122572/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Friday, January 27, 2023 12:26 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You forget, SECOND,a Ukrainian President was already removed. That's what started this whole thing.

Z's corrupt buddies have already died, been fired, or quit. And there's no need to remove him, since he's doing exactly what the neocons want: fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Where is Viktor Yanukovych living, today? Russia. Of all the places he could be, he picks Russia. Back in Jan 2019, he was guilty of treason. It is not farfetched that a President would commit treason. There was this thing about Nixon committing treason, too. Did Nixon serve out his 4-year term or was he forced from office early? Nixon's V.P., Spiro Agnew, was forced from office for cheating on his taxes.

Ukraine's ex-president Viktor Yanukovych found guilty of treason
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/ukraine-ex-president-vik
tor-yanukovych-found-guilty-of-treason

Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal.
https://www.google.com/search?q=nixon+guilty+of+treason

The fall of Spiro Agnew
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1973/10/13/The-fall-of-Spiro-Agnew/594813
0122572/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Yanukovich was never guilty of treason, you lying sack of shit. But nice try rewriting history.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Friday, January 27, 2023 12:56 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yanukovich was never guilty of treason, you lying sack of shit. But nice try rewriting history.

Let me check your accuracy, Signym:

Beginning in May 2017, Yanukovych was tried in absentia for high treason and abetting Russian aggression against Ukraine. The trial included testimony from several senior Ukrainian officials, including Pres. Petro Poroshenko, and Yanukovych’s lawyers attempted to characterize the prosecution as a politically motivated stunt by Poroshenko’s administration. Poroshenko, in turn, painted Yanukovych as an instigator of “Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine.” In January 2019 Yanukovych was found guilty of high treason and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Yanukovych’s attorneys appealed the decision, although Yanukovych’s continued exile in Russia meant that it was extremely unlikely that Ukrainian authorities would have the opportunity to carry out the sentence.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Viktor-Yanukovych

Signym, you have made an error!

For future context: Viktor Yanukovych is the former Ukrainian president Putin reportedly wants to put back in power.

Putin has long described Yanukovych, 72, as Ukraine’s only legitimate president, and his false claim that the former president’s exit from power was the result of a Western-backed coup is central to the Kremlin narratives and efforts to justify the February invasion.

As Russian troops accumulated in the tens of thousands along Ukraine’s borders in December 2021, Moscow-friendly former leader Viktor Yanukovych was preparing for an offensive of his own – a bid to overturn, in court, the Ukrainian legislature’s decision that stripped him of his title and status as president in 2014.

Two months later, the Russian forces poured across the frontier, many of them pushing southward toward Kyiv in what was widely seen as an attempt to topple President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government and secure the installation of a Moscow-friendly leader.

Media reports and other evidence suggest the Kremlin may have considered Yanukovych a candidate for that role. A journalistic probe by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, uncovered details about a pair of court cases that could have lent the fugitive ex-president’s appointment an air of legitimacy – on paper, at least, if not in the minds of millions of Ukrainians.

And while the Russian military’s march toward Kyiv failed spectacularly, the timing of the lawsuits and the judicial response to Yanukovych’s push for reinstatement raise persistent questions about the vulnerabilities of Ukraine’s court system to influence from abroad.

The court that ruled on both of Yanukovych’s suits, the Kyiv District Administrative Court (OASK), which handles suits against Ukrainian public institutions, has strong ties to the former president, who appointed its key judges during his 2010-14 term.

The judge who ruled on the first case, Ihor Kachura, served as a deputy minister of industrial policy during Yanukovych’s stint as prime minister in 2006-07; the judge who decided on his second case, OASK Deputy Chairman Yevhen Ablov, is a Yanukovych appointee.

Both Kachura and Ablov are among those accused in an indictment alleging “the creation of a criminal organization and abuse of power" that has been brought before an anti-corruption court by prosecutors. Four other OASK judges, including the chief, are also accused.

At no time did these factors prompt any public move to consider whether the fact that these judges were trying Yanukovych’s cases represented a conflict of interest.

More at https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-yanukovych-courts-investigation-invasi
on-president-schemes/32155704.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Friday, January 27, 2023 2:06 AM (P)

Yeah, tried in absentia by a politicized court. Bullshit. Just like "Trump colluded with Russia" and I'm a Russian troll.

You pass manure as prodigiously as a cow.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Friday, January 27, 2023 2:38 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah, tried in absentia by a politicized court. Bullshit. Just like "Trump colluded with Russia" and I'm a Russian troll.

You pass manure as reliably as a cow.

Signym, if the treason trial was not held in Ukraine, I am curious about where this trial should have been held? Any opinions about that, Signym?

Yanukovych treason trial kicks off in Kyiv by Dmytro Hubenko

May 4, 2017

Ukrainian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych's trial has opened in a district court in Kyiv. But how did the former head of state come to face treason charges? DW summarizes the key facts.

https://www.dw.com/en/treason-trial-against-yanukovych-begins-in-ukrai
ne/a-38682124

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Friday, January 27, 2023 2:42 AM (P)

It should not have been held at all, liar.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Friday, January 27, 2023 3:04 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It should not have been held at all, liar.

Ukrainian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych is not the only ex-President charged with treason. Petro Poroshenko has been charged, but he showed up for the legal proceedings, unlike Putin's choice for President. Poroshenko is even allowed to come and go from Ukraine.

Apparently, Poroshenko trusts the Ukrainian legal system to give him a fair trial. I wonder why Yanukovych didn't trust the system? Could it be because 100 witnesses testified under oath that Yanukovych was working for Putin? Yanukovych was bribed by Putin, same as, for an American example, Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who was fined $10,000 for not paying his income taxes on bribes he received. Agnew resigned as part of the leniency deal he got.

Ukraine’s Ex-president Poroshenko Leaves Country for Political Meeting by Lulu Saghie
June 25, 2022
https://theowp.org/ukraines-ex-president-poroshenko-leaves-country-for
-political-meeting/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Friday, January 27, 2023 6:31 PM (P)

After two decades of reforming its armed forces, Russia expected a lightning victory in Ukraine, but the ill-starred invasion has revealed their deficiencies.

Book Reviewed: Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine by Mark Galeotti

The most stunning geopolitical surprise of the past year is how poorly the Russian military has been fighting in Ukraine. When Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion in February 2022, everyone—including the US intelligence analysts who had predicted it—assumed that Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv would fall within a few weeks or even days and be replaced by a Moscow-bred puppet regime. Some anticipated that a long insurgency war might then follow, but no one was impetuous enough to guess that nearly a year later the Ukrainians would be not only fighting the Russians to a standstill but pushing them back on nearly every front.

Has the Ukrainian army turned out to be much better than imagined, or has the Russian army turned out to be a lot worse, or both? In Putin’s Wars, Mark Galeotti, a British scholar and journalist highly regarded by experts on Russian military matters, attributes the unexpected battlefield outcome to Russian weaknesses as well as Ukrainian strengths (greatly abetted by NATO weapons and American intelligence resources), but he lays out a persuasive, detailed case that Russia’s deficiencies are more severe and more deeply rooted than many Western officials and pundits had detected.

Galeotti notes that Moscow overloads its army with weapons but allots too little money and attention to the mundane stuff of logistics—spare parts, food, water, and the trucks to transport them—thus leaving supply lines vulnerable and making offensive operations unsustainable. Junior officers receive rote training, so they’re unprepared to take the initiative—a deliberate policy to keep them from rebelling against senior officers, though as a consequence, campaigns can plunge into chaos if they don’t go as planned. Combine all this with widespread hazing of enlisted men, ramshackle barracks, poor nutrition, and low pay, and it should have been foreseeable that while today’s Russian soldiers might be roused to defend the motherland, they’re lackluster at invading other countries.

Up to a week before the invasion, I was predicting that for all these reasons Putin would not go through with it. I thought he might send in troops to occupy Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, a slice of which Russian Special Operations Forces and Moscow-backed separatist militias already controlled, but trying to conquer all of Ukraine—next to Russia itself, the largest country in the former Soviet Union, with a population of 40 million people—seemed a losing proposition. My military analysis, it turned out, was spot-on; I went wrong in overestimating Putin’s rationality.

Galeotti dissects the many ways that Putin miscalculated his military’s strength. When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, so did its armed forces, as a result of which the new Russian state “initially had no army as such.” By the time Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin in 2000, the military—still suffering from post–cold war torpor, like the country as a whole—was “scarcely functional.” Over the next decade and a half, through an enormous infusion of money (facilitated by higher oil prices) and spurts of creative reorganization, commanders (most of them recruited or promoted from outside the normal chain of succession) transformed it into a fighting force “capable of waging and winning a whole range of conflicts”—an impressive feat. But the range of wars that the Russian military waged and won was narrow. None of them involved the tactical complexities or fierce resistance that it met in Ukraine; and, even so, its victories were harder to pull off than they should have been.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/09/putins-wars-from-chechnya-
to-ukraine-galeotti/

Download this and all Mark Galeotti’s books for free from https://libgen.unblockit.ink/search.php?&req=Mark+Galeotti

Putin’s Wars Chapters
1 Int

SECOND

Saturday, January 28, 2023 12:06 AM (P)

Russia’s Funeral Industry Booms Amid Heavy War Losses

“The boom began during the pandemic when demand for cremation increased,” said Dmitry Yevsikov, a mortician and crematorium equipment specialist in annexed Crimea. “In addition, land in cemeteries is physically running out,” Yevslikov told The Insider.

Yakushin identified the southern city of Rostov-on-Don near the Ukrainian border as a transshipment hub for bodies returning from Russia’s “special military operation.” He said the city is so overwhelmed that it is building a new crematorium, which he predicted would be kept busy for the next two to three years.

“Crematoriums are growing exponentially in Russia,” Yevsikov told The Insider, which estimates that the 33 crematoriums currently operating in Russia are unable to meet surging demand.

One final destination for the dead soldiers was identified as the village of Bakinskaya located 250 kilometers south of Rostov-on-Don. The New York Times reported this week that the Bakinskaya cemetery — used by the Wagner mercenary group, whose fighters are taking part in the invasion of Ukraine — has expanded sevenfold in the past two months.

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed last month that fighters were buried in Bakinskaya after space ran out at another Wagner cemetery and chapel 18 kilometers west.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/01/27/russias-funeral-industry-boo
ms-amid-heavy-war-losses-a80062

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 28, 2023 12:13 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It should not have been held at all, liar.

Ukrainian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych is not the only ex-President charged with treason. Petro Poroshenko has been charged, but he showed up for the legal proceedings, unlike Putin's choice for President. Poroshenko is even allowed to come and go from Ukraine.

Apparently, Poroshenko trusts the Ukrainian legal system to give him a fair trial. I wonder why Yanukovych didn't trust the system? Could it be because 100 witnesses testified under oath that Yanukovych was working for Putin? Yanukovych was bribed by Putin, same as, for an American example, Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who was fined $10,000 for not paying his income taxes on bribes he received. Agnew resigned as part of the leniency deal he got.

Ukraine’s Ex-president Poroshenko Leaves Country for Political Meeting by Lulu Saghie
June 25, 2022
https://theowp.org/ukraines-ex-president-poroshenko-leaves-country-for
-political-meeting/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

You think aftr being VIOLENLY OVERTHROWN and running for his life, Yanukovich should trust Ukraine's "justice system"? You're confabulating, SECOND. That's what nutty people do, and people with Alzheimer's. Might want to get a checkup from the neckup.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Saturday, January 28, 2023 12:17 AM (P)

Russian president Vladimir Putin is pardoning convicts to allow them to fight in Ukraine as members of the Wagner paramilitary group, the Kremlin has admitted.

Russia also dismissed the US Treasury’s move to label Yevgeny Prigozhin’s group, which is playing an increasingly prominent role on the front lines as Putin’s full-scale invasion enters its 12th month, as a “transnational criminal organisation”.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday said prisoners were being pardoned “in strict adherence with Russian law” and praised one convicted armed robber recruited by Wagner for “heroism” on the battlefield after the president gave him a medal.

After nearly a decade of shrouding the mercenary operation’s activities in secrecy, with its founder Prigozhin even claiming it did not exist, the Kremlin has embraced Wagner as a key element of its faltering efforts to defeat Ukraine and rally support for the war among an anxious population.

Though Russia initially denied the group was fighting in Ukraine, the poor performance of Russia’s regular army and widespread discontent about the campaign among Russia’s elite have allowed the former caterer, nicknamed “Putin’s chef” and himself a former convict, to establish a role as the leader of a hardline pro-war faction, and won Wagner praise on state television for its recent battlefield exploits.

Russian’s constitution gives Putin sole authority to pardon prisoners, though Peskov said “there are open decrees and there are decrees marked classified”, declining to comment further.

On New Year’s eve Putin gave Aik Gasparyan, who was serving a seven-year sentence for an armed robbery committed in 2019, a medal for “courage.” Peskov said Gasparyan “is participating in the special military operation, and he demonstrated heroism, which was rewarded with a state honour”.

Peskov shrugged off Washington’s recent move to limit Wagner’s international reach in response to extensively documented reports of alleged atrocities committed by the group in countries such as the Central African Republic, Libya and Syria, where it has taken part in covert mercenary deployments.

Peskov claimed the US had been “demonising” Wagner for “many years” and said the accusations were “unfounded”.

As part of the designation, the US issued new sanctions on Thursday against Wagner, in addition to 15 other Russian entities, eight individuals and four aircraft, in an attempt to target Russia’s battlefield resources in Ukraine.

Prigozhin has been under US sanctions since 2017 over his alleged role running an infamous troll farm in St Petersburg whose employees attempted to influence the 2016 US election by posing as Americans on social media.

In a statement published by Concord, his catering company, on Friday, Prigozhin said: “We have held an internal investigation into Wagner’s crimes, but have not found anything damaging. If anyone has any information about Wagner’s crimes, please send it to our press service or publish it in the media. So we can help our American colleagues form their position.”

UK intelligence estimates Prigozhin, a longtime Putin confidant, has recruited at least 50,000 prisoners to fight for Wagner in Ukraine.

Prigozhin has explained the recruitment drive as a necessary measure to reduce public opposition to the war stemming from Moscow’s over-reliance on the highly unpopular draft launched by Putin last September. The mobilisation prompted hundreds of thousands of men to flee the country.

He admitted to running the shadowy group later that month.

Prigozhin was pictured with alleged Wagner fighters in a salt mine in the captured town of Soledar in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region earlier this month. The Kremlin acknowledged the group’s role in capturing Soledar, a rare success following a series of humiliating retreats from territory such as the southern city of Kherson that Putin had attempted to annex for Russia.

However, Wagner’s forces have made little concrete progress and sustained high casualties in Donbas, according to western and Ukrainian

SECOND

Saturday, January 28, 2023 12:32 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It should not have been held at all, liar.

Ukrainian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych is not the only ex-President charged with treason. Petro Poroshenko has been charged, but he showed up for the legal proceedings, unlike Putin's choice for President. Poroshenko is even allowed to come and go from Ukraine.

Apparently, Poroshenko trusts the Ukrainian legal system to give him a fair trial. I wonder why Yanukovych didn't trust the system? Could it be because 100 witnesses testified under oath that Yanukovych was working for Putin? Yanukovych was bribed by Putin, same as, for an American example, Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who was fined $10,000 for not paying his income taxes on bribes he received. Agnew resigned as part of the leniency deal he got.

Ukraine’s Ex-president Poroshenko Leaves Country for Political Meeting by Lulu Saghie
June 25, 2022
https://theowp.org/ukraines-ex-president-poroshenko-leaves-country-for
-political-meeting/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
You think aftr being VIOLENLY OVERTHROWN and running for his life, Yanukovich should trust Ukraine's "justice system"? You're confabulating, SECOND. That's what nutty people do, and people with Alzheimer's. Might want to get a checkup from the neckup.

Investigators Say Yanukovych Gave 'Criminal Order' To Kill Protesters, which is why Yanukovych had to flee Ukraine and never return for his treason trial.

Quote:
Ukrainian security officials say the killings of protesters in Kyiv in February occurred "under the direct leadership" of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, and accused Russian security services of involvement in the repression.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told a news conference in Kyiv on April 3 that Yanukovych "issued the criminal order...to open fire against protesters on February 18-20."

More than 100 people were killed during the protests which started in November, most of them between February 18 and February 20. Many of those who died appeared to have been killed by snipers.

Yanukovych fled the day after the worst of the killings by sniper fire on February 20 and was later ousted by parliament.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that "huge amounts of evidence" contradicted the statement by Ukrainian authorities that snipers loyal to Yanukovych opened fire on Kyiv protesters.

Lavrov told reporters that "the truth about snipers has to be established in a transparent way."

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-yanukovych-behind-protest-deaths/25320
039.html

The investigation that Russia demanded was done. In 2018, the policemen working directly for Yanukovych who killed protestors were on trial for murder. Since Yanukovych left for Russia, he did not show up for the trial.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/magazine/ukraine-protest-video.html

How did the trial end? It has not ended, yet. It is very complicated because some of the defendants were in a prisoner exchange and others fled to Russia before the trial began and still others were improperly released by a judge who then fled to Russia. It is a huge mess. https://www.google.com/search?q=ukrainian+court+rules+on+Maidan+murder
s

Here is a sample of how absurdly lawyers have handled the situation:

Imagine a European capital city where dozens of unarmed protesters are shot down in broad daylight. Now imagine that six years later, those responsible for the slaughter have still not been brought to justice. Inconceivable? Incredibly, this is precisely the situation in today’s Ukraine, where scores of protesters participating in the country’s Revolution of Dignity were killed in the vicinity of Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan) in late February 2014.

Ukrainian President V

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, January 28, 2023 12:38 AM (P)

Fuck Ukraine.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 28, 2023 3:41 AM (P)

Yeah, and Milosevic was accused of genocide. He died in prison but, hey! He was (eventually) found innocent!

You should know all about bogus accusations, SECOND. You make them all the time!

Oh, and ... Fuck Ukraine.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SECOND

Saturday, January 28, 2023 4:36 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah, and Milosevic was accused of genocide. He died in prison but, hey! He was (eventually) found innocent!

You should know all about bogus accusations, SECOND. You make them all the time!

Miloševic was found dead in his cell on 11 March 2006, but he was NOT found innocent. That after 295 witnesses, about 5,000 exhibits, and 466 hearing days. In 2021, two Milosevic aides were convicted of war crimes. The men entered court custody in 2003 and were acquitted in an initial trial in 2013. But appeals judges ordered a retrial in 2015. The product of a trial is words, not justice. Lawyers do love to talk but do hate to make irrevocable decisions. Unlike slow lawyers, I am unafraid when my quick decisions are cast in concrete and steel.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Milosevic+guilty

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, January 28, 2023 4:43 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah, and Milosevic was accused of genocide. He died in prison but, hey! He was (eventually) found innocent!

You should know all about bogus accusations, SECOND. You make them all the time!

Oh, and ... Fuck Ukraine.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

Hehe.

Rawdawged... And without buying dinner first.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Saturday, January 28, 2023 5:50 AM (P)

With the deplorable support of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, the president has elevated what he insists on calling his “limited military offensive” into an existential struggle between a spiritually ordained Great Russia and a corrupt and debauched West.

But Russians are aware that Ukraine was not widely perceived as an enemy, much less a mortal enemy, until Mr. Putin seized Crimea and stirred up a secessionist conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Until then, Russians and Ukrainians traveled freely across their long border, and many of them had family, acquaintances or friends on the other side.

And after all the poverty, repression and isolation under Soviet rule, Russians need to remember that until Mr. Putin began trying to change Ukraine’s borders by force in 2014, they were finally enjoying what those in other industrialized countries had long considered normal — the opportunity to earn decent salaries, buy consumer goods and enjoy vastly expanded freedoms to travel abroad and speak their mind.

The West they visited was not the caricature of depravity presented by Mr. Putin or Patriarch Kirill. And their Russia was hardly a pure and spiritual model, with the alcoholism, corruption, drug abuse, homophobia and other sins so familiar to all Russians.

In the end, the question is whether any of Mr. Putin’s lectures on history really provide a justification for the death and destruction he has ordained. Russians know the horrors of all-out war; they must know that nothing Mr. Putin has concocted remotely validates the leveling of towns and cities, the murder, rape and pillaging, or the deliberate strikes against power and water supplies across Ukraine. Like the last great European war, this one is mostly one man’s madness.

If Ukraine was not an enemy before, Mr. Putin has ensured it is one now. Battling an invader is among the most potent methods of forging a national identity, and for Ukraine, Russia as its enemy and the West as its future have become indelible elements. And if the West was indeed divided and indecisive on how to deal with Russia or Ukraine before, Moscow’s invasion has unified the United States and much of Europe in relegating Russia to a threat and an outcast and raising a heroic Ukraine to a friend and ally.

Claiming to champion Russian greatness, Mr. Putin has turned Russia into a pariah state in many parts of the world. He claims Russia has everything it needs to withstand the cost of the war and sanctions. But according to a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank, Russia faces decades of economic stagnation and regression even if the war ends soon. ( https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88664 ) Industrial production, even military, is likely to continue falling because of its reliance on high-tech goods from the West that it can no longer get. Many Western companies have left, trade with the West has dwindled, and financing the war is draining the budget. Numerous foreign airlines have ceased service to Russia. Add to that the millions of Russia’s best and brightest who have fled, and the future is bleak.

The true scope of Russia’s casualties is also being kept from its people. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Moscow’s casualties were “well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded.” About 300,000 men have been pressed into cannon-fodder duty in the army and many more may follow.

It is possible that Mr. Putin might eventually seek a negotiated settlement, though that becomes ever more remote as the Ukrainians suffer ever greater destruction and loss, and as their determination not to cede an inch of their country deepens. For now, Mr. Putin seems to still believe he can bring Ukraine to its knees and dictate its fate, cost be damned.

In his public appearances, Mr. Putin still cultivates the image of a self-confident strongman. Where there are failures, it is the fault of underlings who do not obey his will. He played out that scene on Jan. 11, i

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 28, 2023 7:52 AM (P)

Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, January 28, 2023 9:19 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?

Certainly not anything that the professional liars at NYT have to say about, well... anything.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Saturday, January 28, 2023 4:42 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?

A military coup in Russia is likely as President Vladimir Putin is starting to look like a "second-rate dictator," his former aide said on Thursday.

In an opinion column for the Russian media outlet Mozhem Obyasnit, Abbas Gallyamov wrote that Russian military generals are growing increasingly frustrated as their troops continue to suffer defeats on the Ukrainian front.

Gallyamov is a political consultant and ex-speechwriter to Putin. He has been living in exile in Israel since 2018. Gallyamov first worked in Putin's speech-writing team from 2000 to 2001, and then from 2008 to 2010.

"It must be understood that the vast majority of commanders in the army of an authoritarian nation are not staunch supporters of the authorities, but run-of-the-mill opportunists," Gallyamov wrote in the column, according to a translation from The Daily Beast.

"As problems pile up in the country and the army, that the authorities are unable to solve, Putin is more steadily transforming in people's eyes from a great strategist to an ordinary, second-rate dictator," he said.

Commanders will fight on the side of whoever seems most likely to win, he predicted.

Gallyamov also argued problems on the battlefield are creating rifts among Russia's military leadership, specifically with Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose troops fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine.

"Prigozhin has completely discredited the regime in the eyes of service members with his rhetoric, and anger at the authorities for allowing a criminal to walk all over them is growing stronger," Gallyamov said.

"The longer the war drags on, the clearer its pointlessness becomes," he added.

Since the start of Putin's invasion last year, Gallyamov has regularly commented on the state of the war and Russian politics in general.

Last month, the former speechwriter said that Putin likely already has an escape plan in the event he loses the war in Ukraine, citing unnamed sources.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-military-chiefs-are-losin
g-patience-with-putin-and-could-soon-turn-on-him-in-a-coup-former-aide-predicts/ar-AA16OxpJ

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Saturday, January 28, 2023 4:44 PM (P)

Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán said former U.S. President Donald Trump is the only person who can end the war in Ukraine.

Speaking at a panel event in Berlin, Orbán proposed that the U.S. should conduct peace talks with Russia and that Trump should lead the negotiations on the American side.

“Now what I'm saying is going to sound brutal. But hope for peace is called Donald Trump,” he said.

https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/10/29230548/putins-key-ally-says-dona
ld-trump-is-the-one-to-end-war-in-ukraine-this-is-going-to-sound-brutal-but

Trump agrees with Viktor Orbán that Trump is the greatest:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
IF I WERE PRESIDENT, THE RUSSIA/UKRAINE WAR WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED, BUT EVEN NOW, IF PRESIDENT, I WOULD BE ABLE TO NEGOTIATE AN END TO THIS HORRIBLE AND RAPIDLY ESCALATING WAR WITHIN 24 HOURS. SUCH A TRAGIC WASTE OF HUMAN LIFE!!!
Jan 26, 2023, 6:06 PM

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109758248712795394

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 29, 2023 1:47 AM (P)

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 29, 2023 1:59 AM (P)

Quote:

Rickards: Has World War III Begun?
Friday, Jan 27, 2023 - 06:45 PM
via DailyReckoning.com,

Has World War III already begun?

That’s a serious question and deserves serious consideration by investors. A wave of analysts and commentators have warned that the war in Ukraine could spin out of control and escalate into World War III.

One variation on that theme is that the war could escalate into a nuclear war with tactical nuclear weapons deployed. Most point a finger at Russia as the party that will launch a nuclear strike out of desperation at a failing campaign in Ukraine.

Actually, the opposite is true.

The Russian campaign is not failing (it has been on hold for several months awaiting the right conditions to launch a winter offensive). You just don’t hear about it in the mainstream media, which is essentially a propaganda outlet for Ukraine.

And the party most likely to use nuclear weapons first is the U.S. in order to save face and destabilize Russia once Ukraine is on the brink of collapse.

Reality Check

Many people have a hard time believing that. They’ve been told that Putin is the devil incarnate and would probably like to destroy the world. We like to think that in modern times we’re sophisticated and above falling prey to propaganda. Unfortunately, it isn’t true.

The fact is the U.S. did wage the only nuclear war in history from Aug. 6–9, 1945 and had a successful outcome. I’m not getting into the morality of it here, one way or the other. I’m just being objective.

Either way, another nuclear war could not be contained and it would be tantamount to World War III. It amounts to the same thing.

But my point is different. It’s not that we may be headed to World War III; it’s that we’re already there. The issue of when wars in general and world wars in particular begin and end is not as clear cut as many believe. There are many examples.
When Does a War Officially Begin? It’s Complicated

When did World War I begin? There were many precursors including the Agadir Crisis in Morocco (1911), the Italian-Turkish War (1911–12) and the Balkan Wars (1912–1913).

Clearly, the First World War was in a countdown phase as early as 1911.

More specifically, did World War I begin with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914? The Austria-Hungary declaration of war on Serbia on July 28, 1914? Germany’s declaration of war on Russia on Aug. 1, 1914?

The fact is the beginning of World War I (then called the Great War) was a series of blunders. There were many other mistakes in addition to those just mentioned. Of course, the U.S. did not enter World War I until April 6, 1917.

The end of World War I was also a muddle. Most students recite Nov. 11, 1918, as the day the war ended. That’s not quite right. That is the day an armistice was signed and the shooting stopped. But an armistice is a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. The actual Versailles Treaty that ended the war was signed on June 28, 1919.

There’s nothing new about blurry lines on when wars begin and end. The Korean War stopped with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953, but it’s still technically not over; there has never been a peace treaty.

The most interesting case (and the one most pertinent to the war in Ukraine) is the beginning of World War II.
When Did World War II Really Begin?

Most Americans reflexively date this from Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. That’s the right date for U.S. entry, but of course, the war began on Sept. 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The U.K. and France declared war on Germany on Sept. 3.

Yet did World War II actually begin much earlier?

Japan invaded Manchuria on Sept. 18, 1931. They established a puppet regime there called Manchukuo led by Emperor Puyi (the infamous “Last Emperor” of China, and a descendant of the Qing Dynasty). This was followed by a full-scale invasion of China by Japan in 1937 and the h

SECOND

Sunday, January 29, 2023 4:49 AM (P)

Russian Host Explodes

"World War Three is already underway," he said in the clip, tweeted by journalist and founder of the Russian Media Monitor, Julia Davis. "And the West has returned to its Nazi roots."

He said that he had previously warned that Adolf Hitler would be "rehabilitated" as he referred to the widely dismissed "denazification" justification for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, adding "this is where everything is heading."

Solovyov blamed Russia for allowing this to happen and questioned why Moscow had not conducted strikes against New York or Washington, D.C.

He said this should have been the least response to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines last September, which Moscow and the West have blamed each other for.

"They blew up our pipelines...they're delivering heavy tanks," he said. "Stop talking about red lines—it's a totally empty phrase."

"Berlin, Paris, Madrid, London, Washington should be on fire," he said and asked, "Why wasn't Kyiv wiped off the face of the earth" after the "Nazi nation" of Ukraine was blamed for strikes on Russian territory, such as in Belgorod.

"Why do Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk [Dnipro] still exist?" Solovyov questioned, also condemning "the silence" from Moscow about the impending delivery of Western weapons to Kyiv.

"Did we destroy a single base on NATO territory? No. Did we conduct strikes against the vile Polish dogs? We didn't do a damn thing," he said.

Solovyov, who has regularly said on his evening television show that Moscow should use its nuclear capabilities against the countries that back Ukraine, said: "How are we planning to respond?"

"By howling that avoiding nuclear war is the most important thing? Then why the heck do we have a stockpile of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons? To be afraid to use it?"

"We have strategic nuclear weapons, why aren't they put on high alert?"

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-host-explodes-over-us-help-ukraine-vl
adimir-solovyov-1777264

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Sunday, January 29, 2023 5:02 PM (P)

The realistic scenarios of Russian collapse we should be prepared for

By Hryhoriy Riy
https://english.nv.ua/opinion/the-realistic-scenarios-of-russian-colla
pse-we-should-be-prepared-for-50300393.html

General Ben Hodges said that the world must be ready for the collapse of the Russian Federation, comparing its potential collapse with the disintegration of the USSR, for which the West was not ready. At the beginning of January 2023, several leading publications at once (Politico, Foreign Policy, The New York Sun, The Sunday Guardian) devoted articles and comments to the issue of Russian disintegration.

A recent survey of 167 experts by the Atlantic Council showed 40% of respondents expected Russia’s collapse within the next decade due to revolution, civil war, political disintegration, or other reasons.

Let's consider Russia's potential disintegration from a historical perspective.

The key issue, in my opinion, in the process of the collapse of the Russian Federation is the strength and influence of national movements (that is, those forces that seek to gain independence for their ethnic groups or autonomous entities) within modern Russia. In addition, there is the influence of legal, economic, and security factors, in particular the support of Western democracies for the disintegration aspirations of the peoples of Russia.

From the point of view of the policy of imperial Moscow, all levers have been used to suppress such movements in the past few decades, as, in principle, has been done for centuries before. Despite the fact that Tatarstan, Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Karelia, Yakutia (Sakha), Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, like some other subjects of the federation, are republics and have their own constitutions with the established right to national self-determination, this is not evidence of these national communities’ free democratic development. Rather the opposite.

We know from the history of Ukraine that in June 1917 the Ukrainian Central Rada (UCR) proclaimed its First Universal Declaration, and on November Third, about the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). The situation was similar in other regions of the former empire. In December 1917, the Republic of Tatarstan was proclaimed. From this period originates the formation of the Turkic state of Idel-Ural, which spanned the lands of the modern Chuvash Republic, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and a number of nearby regions of Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, and Samara Oblasts. In February 1918, the Kuban People's Republic was created, and in June, the Siberian Republic.

All these entities eventually ceased to exist under the pressure of the Red Army. The nations that managed to proclaim and maintain their independence were those that had strong national movements, a relatively recent tradition of having their own state, as well as support among officials from the United States, Great Britain, and France – the countries that won the First World War and created a new world order. Thus, independence was successfully proclaimed by the Poles, Finns, Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians.

During this period, the Russian Empire experienced a half-collapse, but over time it was restored by the Bolsheviks. In their new empire, the Bolsheviks could not ignore national feelings, and therefore, with the policy of so-called “indigenization," they tried to have these conquered peoples “become their own,” temporarily giving the population of these territories certain features of real national entities, as paraphernalia. Thus, the Russian Empire was transformed from a monarchical state into a federation of socialist republics - the USSR. However, imperialism did not go away, and the "independence" of the national republics was conditional.

An attempt at another restructuring of the "old" Russian empire in the mid-1980s in the midst of military failures in Afghanistan and the democratization of public life failed and led to another half-collapse. First, the Central European countries broke aw

SECOND

Sunday, January 29, 2023 5:25 PM (P)

To Fix Its Problems in Ukraine, Russia Turns to the Architect of the War
by Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt

President Vladimir V. Putin is on his third overall commander in Ukraine. But his military’s fundamental issues have not been addressed, Western officials say.

WASHINGTON — Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the architect of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, took over the day-to-day running of Russia’s war effort this month by convincing his boss that his predecessor was too passive, American and European officials say.

But General Gerasimov’s turbocharged strategy is what led to Russia’s problems to begin with, and Moscow still does not have the troops, ammunition or equipment that military officials say it needs to mass the big offensive promised by the country’s senior military leader.

Since General Gerasimov replaced Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was in the job for only three months, Russia’s military leadership has focused on tactical issues like whether troops should travel in civilian vehicles and the dangers of their cellphone use, Western officials say. But while those matters have certainly bedeviled service members, there is no evidence that the Russian military has begun to address its fundamental problems, like shortages of ammunition and well-trained troops, despite the musical chairs of generals, according to these officials.

In Washington, where military and defense officials walk the halls of the Pentagon with lists of the steadily growing number of Russian generals who have been fired or demoted during 11 months of war (nine so far), the latest installment of who’s in charge is viewed as part of a drama with an ever-evolving cast of characters who have not gotten the job done.

“It’s kind of like a reality TV show,” Colin H. Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters last week. “And I think it’s more indicative that the Russians have still not figured it out about how they intend to command the fight, and I think the dysfunction among Russian commanders is pretty profound.”

Now on his third overall war commander, Mr. Putin has accomplished few of his goals. Russian troops have failed to seize Kyiv, the capital; President Volodymyr Zelensky is still in power; Ukraine has closer ties to the West than ever; and despite signs of some cracks, NATO remains united. Even Russia’s more limited goal of taking over the entire eastern region of Donbas remains elusive.

To fix this mess, Mr. Putin has turned to none other than General Gerasimov.

For 10 years, General Gerasimov was believed to be working to modernize the Russian armed forces as the chief of general staff for the military — the equivalent of the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had studied American misadventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the former Yugoslavia and Libya, and aimed to incorporate those insights into the plans.

But evidence of that effort has yet to emerge on the Ukrainian battlefield.

General Gerasimov, 67, comes complete with contradictions that characterize senior Russian leaders: His counterparts in the West say he has personal integrity, but that he pushes the lies of his government. He told Western officials early last year that Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine; weeks later, Russian troops had crossed the border. He has also remained close to Mr. Putin, who appointed him head of his military more than a decade ago.

In rare public comments, mimicking Mr. Putin’s propaganda, General Gerasimov portrayed Russia as a victim of Western aggression, without explaining his strategy to neutralize the perceived threat.

“Our country and its armed forces today are opposing practically the entire collective West,” he said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Arguments and Facts published on Jan. 24, adding that NATO is “using Ukraine for a hybrid war against our nation.”

As he sought to overhaul the Russian military, General Gerasimov elevated the irregular warfare tactics that he falsely believed that Americans were conductin

6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, January 29, 2023 7:52 PM (P)

Fuck Ukraine. Let it fall into rubble.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Sunday, January 29, 2023 9:30 PM (P)

Ukraine is pushing the U.S. to start training its fighter pilots on the F-16s now, before President Joe Biden approves supplying the jets, according to the Ukrainian official and one of the people familiar. But there is no appetite in the Pentagon for this proposal, U.S. officials said. One alternative under discussion at lower levels is to start training Ukrainian pilots on introductory fighter tactics in trainer jets.

Ukraine has also considered contracting with private companies in the U.S. to begin training pilots, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Ukraine has identified a list of up to 50 pilots who are ready now to start training on the F-16, according to a DoD official and a Ukrainian official, as well as three other people familiar with the discussions. These seasoned pilots speak English and have thousands of combat missions under their belts, and could be trained in as little as three months, the people said.

It’s likely U.S. military training would not start without a presidential decision to supply American fighters. One concern for the Biden administration all along is that sending advanced weapons could be seen by Russia as an escalation, prompting Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons.

But officials point out that the F-16 was first built in the 1980s, and the Air Force is already retiring parts of the fleet. While sending Ukraine the stealthy American F-22s or F-35s would be considered escalatory, sending F-16s would not, they said.

“Let’s face it, a nuclear war isn’t going to happen over F-16s,” the DoD official said.

One European official agreed, saying F-16s “cannot be considered escalatory.”

“It’s simply part of the toolkit of having conventional weapons,” the person said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/28/pentagon-send-f-16s-ukraine-0
0080045

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Monday, January 30, 2023 7:15 PM (P)

Kremlin says Boris Johnson's claim about Putin missile strike threat "is a lie" (It's not. Putin's mouth was faster than his brain when he said what he should never say out loud. Per usual, Russians handle such situations by denying it happened.)

From CNN's Anna Chernova

The Kremlin said Monday former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s claim about Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening him with a missile in a phone call ahead of Russia's invasion of Ukraine “is a lie.”

“What Mr. Johnson said is not true. More precisely, it is a lie,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a regular conference call.

Peskov said he's aware of what was discussed during that conversation, but stressed “there were no missile threats.”

According to Peskov, “Speaking about the security challenges for the Russian Federation, Putin noted that in the event of Ukraine joining NATO, the potential deployment of NATO or American missiles near our borders would mean that any missile would reach Moscow in a matter of minutes.”

“If this passage was understood in this way, it is a very awkward situation,” he added.

Johnson told the BBC earlier Monday that Putin threatened him with a missile that “would only take a minute.” The exchange was released as a preview to the documentary "Putin vs the West," scheduled to release later Monday, which examines Putin's interactions with world leaders.

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-1-30-23/h
_cc75481fca09439aa6a84d524d34b2ef

BBC Documentary "Putin vs the West" at
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0dlz7gc/putin-vs-the-west

or download "Putin vs the West" from https://comment.rlsbb.ru/putin-vs-the-west-s01-1080p-ip-web-dl-h264-rn
g/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

THG

Monday, January 30, 2023 8:06 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

RUSSIA REPLACES WAGNER UNIT! Current Ukraine War Footage And News With The Enforcer (Day 341)

Fundraiser
Quote:

T

SIGNYM

Monday, January 30, 2023 8:40 PM (P)

Now you're attributing a post to me that I never made?

Or, more likely, you've got your formatting screwed up - again. Please learn formatting, THUGR. It's really simple.

Also, it's over 2h30min. SOMEWHERE in there, buried in 2h30min of crap, is the crap that you titled. If you want anyone to listen to that particular piece of crap, post a timestamp, willya?

Jeez.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

SIGNYM

Monday, January 30, 2023 8:46 PM (P)

Brian Berletic, of the New Atlas, with Donbass Devushka . Donbass Devushka explains the Russian Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) - why it was created, how it is formed, its relationship to its brigade, how it operates, its command structure etc

Unlike some of THUGR's videos, this is probably informative.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

THG

Monday, January 30, 2023 9:29 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Brian Berletic, of the New Atlas, with Donbass Devushka . Donbass Devushka explains the Russian Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) - why it was created, how it is formed, its relationship to its brigade, how it operates, its command structure etc

Unlike some of THUGR's videos, this is probably informative.

I cut the video because they screw up the page when they are reposted. Besides, it's about the concepts behind a Russian Tank Brigade. Not how they are functioning in Ukraine in actuality. They are being destroyed quicker than they can send them.

Loser comrade signym. The Russian army consists of nothing but losers. And boy oh boy I told you so.

T

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FnPB0OxXoAEq-9H?format=jpg&name=large

SECOND

Tuesday, January 31, 2023 7:17 AM (P)

Kremlin 'Didn't Take It Far Enough' in WWII, Russian Lawmaker Says

"We will win, 100 percent," said Andrey Gurulyov, a Russian parliament member and former military commander. "Where? Everywhere! Everywhere!"

Gurulyov began by saying that Russia must make plans "beyond the horizon" so that "we know what happens in one year, three years, five years and 10 years and harshly move towards it in this paradigm."

"We will win, 100 percent," he asserted. "Where? Everywhere! Everywhere!"

"And this is by far not about Ukraine. Everywhere! Russia was, is, and will be a great nation, capable of bringing peace. Peace is the key word! We bring peace and calm!" Gurulyov continued.

"But we have to draw the conclusion that we didn't take it far enough in 1945. Today, we have to keep pushing to make sure there is no danger and trouble for our country ever again," the politician added.

He said on state television earlier this month that if Russia had wanted to kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, it would have already done so.

"If a nail had to be hammered into Zelensky's coffin, it would have been done a long time ago, I assure you," he said on Russia-1. "No such goal or objective was set. That is why Zelensky is alive at this stage."

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-state-tv-wwii-andrey-gurulyov-1777402

Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews tweeted "Meanwhile on Russian TV: State Duma member Andrey Gurulyov, former deputy commander of Russia's southern military district, argues that striking America with nuclear weapons is the only way forward, because Russia brings peace and calm everywhere it goes."
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1619844026638938113

"Russia brings peace and calm everywhere it goes." For 875 years MOSCOW has brought war to everyone in the neighborhood and now wants to export Russia's Wars to the rest of the WORLD. It was the Allies, not Russia, who didn't go far enough. They should have destroyed the USSR and should have handed over Stalin and his KGB buddies to the Hague Court... The world would be a much better place now. It's not too late... PUTIN should face the Hague courts.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Tuesday, January 31, 2023 3:01 PM (P)

Putin vs the West review: World leaders seem rightly shamefaced about how they got taken for a ride by the Russian president

The Independent US by Sean O'Grady January 30, 2023, 4:00 PM

Putin vs the West is the latest series from the legendary Norma Percy, and the three-parter contains everything you’d expect from the veteran documentarian – the right blend of revelation, anecdote, history, drama, forensic analysis and storytelling. It’s Putin, the Ukraine war and how the West fouled up, all made comprehensible. It’s brilliant, and you have to watch it to understand how we got to where we are now.

It is in fact so brilliant that you find yourself in the unexpected position of being almost on the edge of your seat listening to the testimony from the half-forgotten dullards – such as former French president Francois Hollande; ex President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso; Cathy Ashton, once a sort of surrogate EU foreign minister; and various other former apparatchiks, advisors, politicians and ambassadors – who have had the usually bruising experience of dealing first hand with Vladimir Putin over the years.

In the hands of the programme makers, stock archive footage of ministerial comings and goings at EU summits and conferences in Brussels and Minsk take on the quality of a tense thriller, as they are interspersed by revelations about what was going on behind the scenes. Episode one deals with the events that led up to the first Russian invasion of 2014, when they took Crimea and the eastern Donbas region, with minimal Western resistance and punishment, and maximum Western disunity and disarray. The Russians bluffed and fibbed their way to victory. When Putin turns up at a big conference and the Ukrainians confront him with hard evidence that they’ve captured scores of Russian soldiers on their territory, such as ID tags and official orders, Putin comes up with a series of Pythonesque excuses: the Ukrainians are making it up; the Russians were “on holiday”; or they “lost their way” along the border.

On another occasion, when Putin denies unmarked Russian forces have infiltrated and occupied eastern Ukraine, Merkel tells him not to be so silly, according to a witness. However, she still won’t push the Russians too far, for fear of escalation and loss of gas supplies. The EU was utterly divided, as was NATO. Elsewhere, Barack Obama seemingly deliberately calls Russia a “regional power”, something that was particularly offensive to Putin – and hardened his attitudes. Obama talked tough on sanctions, but, like Germany, the Americans then were simply not going to send military assistance and risk a war. This is something we learn from Obama’s close advisers at the time. Merkel and Obama didn’t give an interview for the series, which is understandable because they come out of it quite badly.

They got bamboozled by Putin. “Deny and lie” was and is the standard Russian approach, and the only Western leader who seems able to cope with it is Boris Johnson. Funny, that. To his credit, he took no notice of Putin’s jolly threat to target him with a cruise missile.

Cameron, Hollande, Barroso and the rest of the gullible talking heads are mostly filmed in front of impressively full bookcases or inside what look like ornately furnished palaces. Juxtaposed with bombed-out Ukrainian schools or tanks rolling down Crimean roads, this makes them look rather detached from the bloody reality they allowed to happen.

They at least seem rightly shamefaced about how they got taken for a ride. Somehow, they apparently only believed what was politically convenient, and never took Putin at his word when he went off on one about how he wanted to take back control of Ukraine. Barroso, for example, tells how he listened, open-mouthed, as Putin told him that Ukraine was a creation of the CIA and the European Commission. He acknowledges that European divisions encouraged Putin to push and push.

Hollande almost, but not quite, comes to an apology: “Europe is still facing this threat of its unity.

SECOND

Tuesday, January 31, 2023 3:48 PM (P)

How to Get a Breakthrough in Ukraine
The Case Against Incrementalism

By Michael McFaul January 30, 2023

Nearly a year after he invaded Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has failed to achieve any of his major objectives. He has not unified the alleged single Slavic nation, he has not “denazified” or “demilitarized” Ukraine, and he has not stopped NATO expansion. Instead, the Ukrainian military kept Russian troops out of Kyiv, defended Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and launched successful counteroffensives in the fall so that by the end of 2022, it had liberated over 50 percent of the territory previously captured by Russian soldiers that year. In January, Putin removed the general in charge of the war in Ukraine, Sergei Surovikin, whom he had appointed just a few months earlier. Wartime leaders change their top generals only when they know they are losing.

Ukraine is doing so well in part thanks to the unified Western response. Unlike reactions to Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2014, the Western pushback against Putin’s latest war has been strong along multiple fronts. NATO enhanced its eastern defenses and invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. Europe has provided shelter to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. Led by the Biden administration, the West has provided massive amounts of military and economic support at amazing speed, levied punishing sanctions, and begun a difficult shift away from Russian energy. Even Chinese leader Xi Jinping has offered Putin only faint rhetorical support for his war. He has not provided Russia with weapons and has cautiously avoided violating the global sanctions regime.

These are the reasons for optimism. The bad news, however, is that the war continues, and Putin has shown no signs of wanting to end it. Instead, he is planning a major counteroffensive this year. “The Russians are preparing some 200,000 fresh troops,” General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, warned in December. “I have no doubt they will have another go at Kyiv.” Even though Putin must understand by now that Ukrainians are willing to fight for as long as it takes to liberate their country, he still believes that time is on his side. That is because Putin expects Western governments and societies to lose their will and interest to keep helping Ukraine. If Putin or his aides watch the television personality Tucker Carlson on Fox News or saw the protests last fall in Prague, their hunch about waning Western support would be confirmed.

If Russia starts winning on the battlefield, or even fights to a stalemate, few will remember U.S. President Joe Biden’s remarkable leadership in galvanizing the world to assist Ukraine in 2022. This is why Western leaders need to shift how they approach the conflict. At this stage, incrementally expanding military and economic assistance is likely to only prolong the war indefinitely. Instead, in 2023, the United States, NATO, and the democratic world more broadly should aim to support a breakthrough. This means more advanced weapons, more sanctions against Russia, and more economic aid to Ukraine. None of this should be doled out incrementally. It needs to be provided swiftly, so that Ukraine can win decisively on the battlefield this year. Without greater and immediate support, the war will settle into a stalemate, which is only to Putin’s advantage. In the end, the West will be judged by what happened during the last year of the war, not by what happened in the first.

. . .

As long as Russian soldiers occupy their country, Ukrainians will fight. They will fight with or without new advanced weapons, with or without harsher sanctions, with or without money to help them run their country. Understanding this key insight about the Ukrainian mentality today leads to an obvious policy recommendation for the West: help Ukraine win as fast as possible.

The best way to commemorate February 24, the anniversary of Putin’s invasion, is to make clear that this is the West’

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, January 31, 2023 6:06 PM (P)

Fuck Ukraine. May it fall into rubble and be a concrete barrier between Russia and NATO.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 12:01 AM (P)

“A better future for Ukraine and Europe is possible,” writes the historian Timothy Garton Ash. “It’s worth emphasizing the scale of this historic opportunity. Anchoring Ukraine … firmly in the geopolitical West would mean the effective end of the Russian empire. As a result, for the first time in European history, we would have a fully postimperial Europe.”

Ash writes: Tetiana, a young activist I met in Lviv last December, works part-time as a tattooist. People often ask for tattoos of the Ukrainian flag or the country’s trident symbol, she told me, but one of the most popular since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago is the word volya, which means both “will,” as in willpower, and “freedom.” It captures the essence of what I saw in Ukraine—and of what Ukraine is reminding the world.

“The secret of happiness is liberty,” Thucydides has Pericles say in a funeral oration in ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy, “and the secret of liberty is courage.” The courage to live and die for freedom is most obviously apparent in the men and women of the Ukrainian armed forces.

More at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/23/ukraine-in-our-future-timo
thy-garton-ash/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

THG

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 1:02 AM (P)

T

SIGNYM

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 1:27 AM (P)

The end stage of McFaul's twitch is giving nukes to Ukraine. McFaul doesn't understand that none of our conventional weapons are superior in number or capability to Russia's. As Obama pointed out, Russia has "escalatory dominance". That leaves only one option.

And neocons are rabid enuf to go there.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 1:49 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The end stage of McFaul's twitch is giving nukes to Ukraine. McFaul doesn't understand that none of our conventional weapons are superior in number or capability to Russia's. As Obama pointed out, Russia has "escalatory dominance". That leaves only one option.

And neocons are rabid enuf to go there.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

No. There's that option, and there's another option.

The US and NATO countries can just keep giving weapons and tanks and our tax dollars to Ukraine until every last Ukrainian dies for NATO's proxy war while idiots like Ted wave digital Ukrainian flags online and cheerlead their deaths.

Either Russia wins, or we all lose.

Because the 3rd option, which is minding our own fucking business and disbanding NATO isn't an option at all. At least not with the cunts we've got running the show right now.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 2:33 AM (P)

Silent Gestures RUSSIA

Muscovites recently have been laying wreaths of flowers, stuffed animals, photographs and other mementos at the feet of a statue dedicated to the early 20th century Ukrainian writer, Lesya Ukrainka. The makeshift memorial, appearing after a Russian missile hit a residential building in Dnipro in Ukraine just over a week ago, killing 46 people and injuring 80 others, is a subtle sign of discontent over Russia’s bloody, humiliating standstill war in Ukraine, the New York Times wrote.

“In contemporary Russia, under these conditions, it is a battle – a silent battle,” a Russian chemist who contributed to the memorial told the newspaper, alluding to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal crackdown on free expression and dissent over the military’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.

With the help of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leaders have prospered personally under Putin’s watch, as the Australian Broadcasting Company reported, Putin still maintains a solid grip on the media and other institutions that claim to reflect public sentiment and civil society.

Prominent opposition activist Aleksei Navalny has been imprisoned for the past two years, Amnesty International wrote. Russian authorities routinely shut down organizations that promote anti-war sentiments or refuse to bow to government censors, Human Rights Watch said. Putin has especially cracked down on other spaces of resistance to his conservative vision for Russian society, like the LGBTQ community, added the BBC.

Still, the Russian army’s failures in Ukraine have clearly undermined Putin’s power, Military.com countered. The Kremlin’s current regime is creaking under the stress, it said. Army generals are at odds with the Wagner Group, the Russian military contracting force that has fielded some of the toughest fighters against the Ukrainian army, for example, indicating that members of Putin’s team are pointing fingers at each other.

The increasingly outlandish statements of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are another sign of the chaos in Putin’s camp. At his recent annual press conference, Lavrov, who has served in his position at the pinnacle of the Russian political elite since 2004, said the US and Europe were pursuing a “final solution” to the “Russian question,” comparing Russia’s current diplomatic and economic isolation to the Holocaust.

“Just as Napoleon mobilized practically all of Europe against the Russian Empire, just as Hitler mobilized and captured … the majority of European countries and sent them against the Soviet Union, now the United States has organized a coalition,” Lavrov said, according to the Times of Israel.

And while Putin still seemingly has the loyalty of the elite and voters, cracks have appeared. Polls showed his popularity dipping, especially after imposing a partial draft last year. Meanwhile, he appeared to take swipes at elites who are less than supportive of the war effort, Newsweek reported.

One source close to businessmen from Putin’s “inner circle” told Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet that operates from the Baltics that, “It’s started to dawn on people: We’ve lost the real war.”

More notably, supporters are openly speaking about how the “special operation” has achieved little, noted Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, in an opinion piece for the Washington Post.

Unfortunately, countries become more, not less, unpredictable and dangerous as they near their breaking point.

https://www.dailychatter.com/2023/01/31/silent-gestures/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SECOND

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 2:48 AM (P)

Are we seeing the beginning of the end of Putinism?

by Michael McFaul

Wartime leaders change generals when they’re losing, not winning. On Jan. 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, was to replace Sergei Surovikin, who was appointed just a few months earlier in October, as his new overall commander of Russian military forces in Ukraine. The only reasonable conclusion: Putin understands that Russia is losing in Ukraine.

This shake-up at the top of the military is not the only sign of Putin’s recognition of failure. He canceled his annual end-of-year news conference, evidently reluctant to take questions even from a mostly loyal and controlled press corps. His solitary and subdued appearance at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Kremlin on Orthodox Christmas communicated little confidence.

His propagandists sound depressed. Strikingly, one of them, Sergei Markov, summed up the previous year by stating bluntly, “The USA was the main winner of 2022. Especially Biden.” Newspaper reporter Maksim Yusin recently said on a talk show that Russia’s “special military operation” had achieved none of its original goals. Former Putin adviser Sergei Glazyev lamented in public that Russia does not have a clear end objective, a sound ideology or the resources to win the war against the collective West.

Putin plans to reverse 2022’s Russian losses by launching a spring offensive after drafting several hundred thousand more soldiers. But even with incremental successes, he will never be able to restore the reputation he once enjoyed among his subjects as an all-powerful and all-knowing leader. Putin will not recover from his disastrous war in Ukraine.

First, major Russian victories on the battlefield are unlikely. Russia’s armed forces have neither the capabilities nor the will to capture all four Ukrainian regions that Putin annexed on paper last fall. Successful Ukrainian counteroffensives are more likely, especially if President Volodymyr Zelensky receives the offensive weapons — tanks, longer range missiles and jet fighters — he requested from the United States and NATO. Putin is very unlikely to resurrect his reputation by achieving military glory. Oligarchs in Moscow, communist leaders in Beijing and Russian nationalist bloggers on Telegram all seem to understand this.

Second, Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine triggered the most comprehensive sanctions we’ve seen imposed against a single country, ending two decades of Russian integration into the global economy. This isolation will continue for as long as Putin is in power. Sanctions are sticky. They will begin to unwind only when new leaders who are less aggressive and autocratic come to power. In the meantime, Russians will face economic malaise and stagnation, a fact the economic elite already understands and laments. Tens of thousands of Russia’s best and brightest have left; thousands more are trying to do so. Putin won’t regain respect from Russia’s private business sector.

Third, Putin’s societal support is soft and declining. Public opinion polls show he still enjoys popular support. But these polls in Russia have high refusal rates, which should not be surprising in a country where you can go to jail for 15 years for “public dissemination of deliberate false information about the use of Russian Armed Forces.” The minority responding to these polls supports the regime, but the majority who choose not to respond likely do not. And even these highly flawed polls show little enthusiasm and declining support for the war, and a solid majority ready to support Putin if he ends the invasion. Anxiety about the conflict is growing. And the demographics of his support are clear: The older, more rural, less educated and poorer support Putin in greater numbers than the younger, more urban, more educated, wealthier Russians. Putin is losing the future.

Other indicators look equally grim for Putin. Organic mass movements in support of Russian imperialism have not emerged over the past year, but a

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 3:25 AM (P)

lol

I can't wait until the Leftists are purged from the mainstream.

We're getting there.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

SECOND

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 3:43 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol

I can't wait until the Leftists are purged from the mainstream.

We're getting there.

You are channeling Russia's favorite propagandist and politician: Tucker Carlson and Trump. I would have compared you with Rush Limbaugh, but he is dead because he denied smoking causes cancer. But don't give up smoking, 6ix! Tucker Carlson says tobacco smoke is “the most American of all pleasures … the smell of freedom”.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-gives-indoor-smok
ing-his-heartfelt-endorsement

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, February 1, 2023 4:02 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol

I can't wait until the Leftists are purged from the mainstream.

We're getting there.
You are channeling...

I'm doing no such thing.

I'm absolutely sick and tired of the Leftist Propaganda churned out 24/7 from the Leftist ran media machine.

Just like everybody else in the fucking country is.

We're done with you idiots. Everything you touch turns to shit.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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