Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 16, 2026 19:42
VIEWED: 569454
PAGE 33 of 111

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

He cuts and pastes all of his info from Google. He's too stupid and/or inept to even push back at you on that one even though he could have. If he was 70 years old in 2023 AND got the maximum benefits AND waited until he was 70 to retire, it would be $4555. He's not and he doesn't and he didn't, but notice how he went back to ignoring us when he thought he was made an ass of again.



This is all moot for 2 reasons anyhow...

1. We've already debunked Second's Social Security fantasy a few months back and either he's forgotten that happened or he thinks we did.

2. I'll be just fine with my $816 per month social security the second I'm old enough to take it and I'm just as impressed with any rich people getting $4555 per month in retirement as I am anybody making 6 or 7 figures at their jobs right now. Which is to say not at all.

---

6ix proved he has only gotten to be a bigger asshole as he gets older.

6ix commented, twice, on following, nine years apart:

This Kinda Puts A Kink Into Obama's Muslim Outreach Initiative For NASA http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57563

1) Wednesday, February 26, 2014 8:16 PM 6IXSTRINGJACK

The Germans are so jealous of Mars. Pretty much everyone in the world is jealous of Mars.

The only reason that Muslims aren't allowed on Mars is because America hasn't conquered it and set up an Embassy.

True.

2) Friday, March 3, 2023 7:34 PM 6IXSTRINGJACK

Could we put them all on a rocket and send it to the sun?

Ew... The sun would smell like curry. You can't ever get that smell out.

The best example of 6ix being an asshole, and using the fewest words, is when he writes "Fuck Ukraine." The worst example is 6ix stealing from his dead grandmother. He is smart enough not to admit in writing to screwing his relatives, but he is doing it. Now I expect him to be all upset about that accusation, just like Russians are about accusations of stealing in Ukraine, but 6ix and Russians can’t prove they are honest. When circumstances allow them to be crooks, Russians and 6ix take advantage because of their poverty.

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65350&mid=11702
57#1170257

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

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I'm not upset about your accusation because it's entirely false.

My old man wanted nothing at all from the house or the garage. Ditto on my Uncle and his family, except for my cousin who still needs to go through all the paintings that were hung up in the house before they go to goodwill. My uncle already cleared out anything he wanted from the garage last year except for a white cabinet that was stuffed to the gills. I've laid that all out on the workbench for him to sift through before it goes out, and with a cursory look the other day he said it was all junk. My aunt just went through the two dinette cabinets today and got the fine china and real silverware she wanted and has the rest out on the floor to pack up for goodwill. She just got 7 totes of things she wanted over to her apartment tonight. All she really cared about was the Christmas stuff, an antique music box, some cool stained glass pieces and the family photos.

Aside from a lot of wood that I took for my workshop, all I've got is a solid wood bookcase from back in the days when they didn't use pressed shit, a bench vice and an antique drill press. All of which I asked my uncle if he wanted first.

There's nothing but junk in that house. I started clearing it out with my deceased uncle when I was 11 years old and we're finally finishing the job this month.


My family is grateful to me for doing all of this work over the last year so they don't have to worry about any of it before they put it on the market.

I'm a fuckin' hero right now.




And get my grandma's name out of your fucking mouth, worm.

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

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

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P.S. Your SS story is still a lie.

And you know it.




P.P.S. Fuck Ukraine.

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

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
He cuts and pastes all of his info from Google. He's too stupid and/or inept to even push back at you on that one even though he could have. If he was 70 years old in 2023 AND got the maximum benefits AND waited until he was 70 to retire, it would be $4555. He's not and he doesn't and he didn't, but notice how he went back to ignoring us when he thought he was made an ass of again.



This is all moot for 2 reasons anyhow...

1. We've already debunked Second's Social Security fantasy a few months back and either he's forgotten that happened or he thinks we did.

2. I'll be just fine with my $816 per month social security the second I'm old enough to take it and I'm just as impressed with any rich people getting $4555 per month in retirement as I am anybody making 6 or 7 figures at their jobs right now. Which is to say not at all.



SECOND: 6ix proved he has only gotten to be a bigger asshole as he gets older.
...The worst example is 6ix stealing from his dead grandmother.

---

It's amazing how off the mark SECOND can be, innit? I'm surprised he manages to put his shoes on n the AM. Or maybe they don't allow shoes in the psych ward.


Meanwhile ... Bakhmut will be taken by Russia soon. Tens of thousans of Ukie soldiers ahve been killed there. Kiev forces are under pressure across the whole northern front and there is fighting near Ugledar. Rumor is that Russia is preparing an offensive from Zaparhozye, which is (some say) the location that Ukraine was going to attack in their long-discussed "spring offensive". And the Russian conscripts haven't even been fielded. Yet.


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

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Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin by Andrew S. Weiss

When I was thirteen years old, Ronald Reagan became president. All his tough talk about the Soviet Union being the Evil Empire sounded like dangerous fearmongering. And to a rebellious teenager eager to escape Southern California, it was hard to think of anything more exotic than the U.S.S.R. So on my first day of college in 1986, I threw myself into studying Russian language and literature as well as a now-extinct academic discipline known as Sovietology.

The U.S.S.R.’s final leader, a fatally flawed man named Mikhail Gorbachev, had become an international darling for trying to reform the Communist system. What he didn’t appreciate was that brutality, dysfunction, and lies were actually the glue that kept the country together. By the time I arrived at Vladimir Putin’s alma mater in Leningrad as an exchange student in 1989, the mighty U.S.S.R. was starting to fall apart.

I started working at the Pentagon in summer 1991, on the eve of a failed coup by Soviet hard-liners. Just months later, the Soviet Union disappeared, and America’s relationship with Russia was transformed. The Pentagon was hungry for expertise on the twelve brand-new countries that had replaced the U.S.S.R., and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. At one point, the U.S. secretary of defense made a spur-of-the-moment decision to call his Russian counterpart, just to say hello, using a new secure telephone line. No one had made proper preparations, so I was hustled into his office at the last minute to be the translator. By the time I was thirty. I was going in and out of the Oval Office helping the president and his top advisers deal with their Russian counterparts.

Overconfident American officials kept saying the same thing to our new Russian friends: We were going to be partners, not adversaries. Yet Russia’s leaders quickly found that it had been a lot more fun being America’s enemy than our friend. With their country flat on its back, they resented being told to follow our lead. When the Russians did try to push back, they quickly realized how unequal our two countries’ partnership actually was and that they were antagonizing the very people in the West who were paying billions of dollars to keep Russia from collapsing.

The West’s hopes for Russia to make a successful transition to democracy and free markets turned out to be very unrealistic. Still, if you’d told me back then that a former mid-level KGB officer named Vladimir Putin, then forty-six years old, would be plucked from the back rooms of the Kremlin to run the country, I'd have told you to get your head examined. Yet there I was with President Bill Clinton on the August morning in 1999 when the Russians secretly informed him that Putin was going to be the country’s next president. Even then, no one on Clinton’s team could have imagined that Putin would eventually dominate Russia like a modern-day czar, let alone become one of the world’s most feared leaders.

Western experts like me would make plenty more mistakes in the decades that followed.

Even today, it’s not always easy to understand what drives Putin. A lot of what we think we know about him is the product of pop psychology and misreadings of Russia’s thousand-year-long history. Peeling all of that back is made harder by Putin's toughguy theatrics (prancing around bare-chested on horseback, acting like a villain from a James Bond movie, etc.), which have helped him seem more clever—and capable—than he actually is. As the political scientist Thomas Rid once wisely observed, “The Kremlin’s rulers are particularly adept at gaming elements of this new age, or at the very least are good at getting everyone to talk about how good they are, which could be the most important trick of all.” Putin’s resentment and grievances toward the West have never been far from the surface. Time and again, he’s acted like a post-Soviet version of Oscar the Grouch, lecturing U.S. presidents and accusing them of hypocrisy, do

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EU woos outside countries for joint ammo-buying scheme

Yet even if the EU can source €1 billion to help buy new howitzer rounds for Ukraine, it will still be far behind Estonia’s estimate that €4 billion is needed.

By Jacopo Barigazzi

The EU is seeking countries outside the bloc to join its efforts to collectively provide ammunition, with at least Norway already expressing interest, according to one EU official and two diplomats.

The push is part of an EU plan to help provide larger quantities of lower-cost ammunition for Ukraine, while also boosting Europe’s capacity to produce and resupply its own dwindling stocks. Canada could also be included in the scheme, added a second EU official, who, like the other officials and diplomats, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The first step, as POLITICO first reported this week, is to dedicate at least €1 billion specifically to buy 155mm artillery shells — a much-needed munition in Ukraine’s fight against Russia. In theory, the more participating countries that take part, whether they’re in or out of the EU, the easier it will be to find the money and negotiate bigger contracts.

“It makes a lot of sense,” said Kusti Salm, the permanent secretary for Estonia’s Defense Ministry. “We see that these nations are very eager to support Ukraine and join all these types of initiatives.”

Estonia was key in initiating the joint-procurement plan in recent weeks and has been advocating for it since. “Russia shoots more howitzer rounds per day than Europe as a whole can manufacture in a month,” Salm stressed.

The proposal on the table would have countries place their contributions into a collective fund, known as the European Peace Facility. The EU would then negotiate a joint ammunition contract.

The debate about whether to keep the ammo money within EU borders is an issue with “very polarizing views in Brussels,” said Salm, the Estonian official.

It is “a 100 percent legitimate argument that Europe needs to sustain its own manufacturing,” he added, but “we also need to make sure that there is an element that makes European industry to feel that, if they are incapable of doing this, then the money might go elsewhere.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-outside-country-ammunition-howitzer
-artillery-buy-plan-ukraine-war-norway-canada/

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
blah, blah, blah goes 6ix for hundreds of words.

I'm a fuckin' hero right now.




And get my grandma's name out of your fucking mouth, worm.

---

Your long denial is typical for all Trumptard I know. You guys have got diarrhea of the mouth as does Trump.

6ix, you went through granny's house looking for cash or valuables hidden in the furniture. If you were a basically honest person you wouldn't have even bothered replying to my accusation, let alone making up a long justification that turns you into the hero, not the looter. Russians do the same thing: create fables where they are heroes liberating oppressed people, not invaders looting Ukraine and destroying what they can't steal because buildings are too heavy to transport back to Russia.

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

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lol...

There wasn't any cash. Where do you think I got my money skills from?

My grandma mended socks that had holes in them, because that's what her mother did when she was growing up during the Great Depression, and until she got too sick to do it she clipped coupons from the paper and she and my aunt would go to three different stores to buy groceries. She knew where every penny was.

She took back every one of her kids at one point or another in her life, and I lived there for 5 years myself. If there were any money to steal in the house it would have been stolen by the collective 70 years her kids and I lived in the house as adults.

No. Her money is in the paid for house, the bank account and the insurance policy.

There ain't much between the 3, but her surviving kids are going to get a nice present out of it. Not bad for a lady who didn't work until her mid 40's and retired before 60.

We're a family who can thrive off of almost nothing, and we laugh at any of you making 6 figures and whining that you can't pay for your heat now.






Meanwhile, this is a thread about Russia. Why do you always post about me?

Sorry Second, but no... I will not make out with you.



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

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

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Andrew Weiss, "Demystifying Vladimir Putin"

Andrew S. Weiss is the James Family Chair and vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, where he oversees research on Russia and Eurasia.
https://carnegieendowment.org/experts/824

Andrew S. Weiss on twitter
https://twitter.com/andrewsweiss

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

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Why don't we talk about your President* and his party and how they're driving Americans off a cliff?

This is rhetorical, of course. You talk about Russia all day long now because there is nothing good to say about the Democratic Party in 2023.

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

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

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I keep hearing we need to learn more about what drives Putin. It's corruption and greed. It isn’t to create and then protect a prosperous and free Russia. It is to rule and steal whatever he can. What is the biggest threat to that? Free and prosperous nations surrounding his poor and backwoods Russia.

That and the problem of more. People like Putin and his corrupt mafia want more. The only way to get it is to take it from others.

T

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin by Andrew S. Weiss

When I was thirteen years old, Ronald Reagan became president. All his tough talk about the Soviet Union being the Evil Empire sounded like dangerous fearmongering. And to a rebellious teenager eager to escape Southern California, it was hard to think of anything more exotic than the U.S.S.R. So on my first day of college in 1986, I threw myself into studying Russian language and literature as well as a now-extinct academic discipline known as Sovietology.

The U.S.S.R.’s final leader, a fatally flawed man named Mikhail Gorbachev, had become an international darling for trying to reform the Communist system. What he didn’t appreciate was that brutality, dysfunction, and lies were actually the glue that kept the country together. By the time I arrived at Vladimir Putin’s alma mater in Leningrad as an exchange student in 1989, the mighty U.S.S.R. was starting to fall apart.

I started working at the Pentagon in summer 1991, on the eve of a failed coup by Soviet hard-liners. Just months later, the Soviet Union disappeared, and America’s relationship with Russia was transformed. The Pentagon was hungry for expertise on the twelve brand-new countries that had replaced the U.S.S.R., and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. At one point, the U.S. secretary of defense made a spur-of-the-moment decision to call his Russian counterpart, just to say hello, using a new secure telephone line. No one had made proper preparations, so I was hustled into his office at the last minute to be the translator. By the time I was thirty. I was going in and out of the Oval Office helping the president and his top advisers deal with their Russian counterparts.

Overconfident American officials kept saying the same thing to our new Russian friends: We were going to be partners, not adversaries. Yet Russia’s leaders quickly found that it had been a lot more fun being America’s enemy than our friend. With their country flat on its back, they resented being told to follow our lead. When the Russians did try to push back, they quickly realized how unequal our two countries’ partnership actually was and that they were antagonizing the very people in the West who were paying billions of dollars to keep Russia from collapsing.

The West’s hopes for Russia to make a successful transition to democracy and free markets turned out to be very unrealistic. Still, if you’d told me back then that a former mid-level KGB officer named Vladimir Putin, then forty-six years old, would be plucked from the back rooms of the Kremlin to run the country, I'd have told you to get your head examined. Yet there I was with President Bill Clinton on the August morning in 1999 when the Russians secretly informed him that Putin was going to be the country’s next president. Even then, no one on Clinton’s team could have imagined that Putin would eventually dominate Russia like a modern-day czar, let alone become one of the world’s most feared leaders.

Western experts like me would make plenty more mistakes in the decades that followed.

Even today, it’s not always easy to understand what drives Putin. A lot of what we think we know about him is the product of pop psychology and misreadings of Russia’s thousand-year-long history. Peeling all of that back is made harder by Putin's toughguy theatric

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THG

Monday, March 6, 2023 10:30 PM (P)

Nihilism, it's your word SECOND and it accurately describes an aspect of comrade Signym and Jacks attitudes, beliefs. Well done...

T

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by THG:

Nihilism, it's your word SECOND and it accurately describes an aspect of comrade Signym and Jacks attitudes, beliefs. Well done...

T

---

I'm not a nihilist. I have a life, and I've filled it with purpose. Not just bettering myself and my situation, but being there for friends and family who need a leg up and finally figuring out how wonderful a feeling it is to be needed and appreciated, and how easily and willing those people are to reciprocate the assistance.


Your Party sucks and is destroying society. You'd better make your own personal, meaningful connections because if things keep going the way they're going you're going to need them sooner than later.

Especially with your learning disability, lower than average IQ and utter lack of critical thinking skills.

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

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

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Quote:

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nihilism
ni'?-liz??m, ne'-
noun

*The doctrine that nothing actually exists or that existence or values are meaningless.

*Relentless negativity or cynicism suggesting an absence of values or beliefs.

*Political belief or action that advocates or commits violence or terrorism without discernible constructive goals.

---

I think the word you're looking for, THUGR, is nationalism. I see myself as a realist, focused on AMERICA'S long term national interests. I don't see us needing to be "global cop" or "global hegemon" or "bringing freedom to the globe" or global anything. Let's just be a nation among nations and make America the best it can be, and then we can be a positive example for others to aspire to.
Instead of overthrowing or invading nations willy-nilly and supporting corrupt regimes everywhere.

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

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ZH Geopolitical Week Ahead: Bracing For Bakhmut Loss, Pentagon Declares City 'Not Important'

---

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zh-geopolitical-week-ahead.

One way out of Bakhmut
https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1632699567530561537/mediaView
er

It's easy to forget what the numbers mean until you see vehicles blown to bits and know there were people in them. The only way for Ukraine's soldiers in Bakhmut to leave is either in a body bag, or by individually "evaporating" on foot thru the woods. I hope they choose survival.

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

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Speaking on the Russia-1 state television channel, commentator Sergey Mikheyev — described as a political scientist — suggested the Ukraine war could outlast the lifespan of many, including the Kremlin's top figures.

"If we keep proceeding in this manner and at this speed, you and I won't live long enough to see any successes," he told guests, including anchor Vladimir Solovyov, in a clip translated and posted by journalist Julia Davis.

"Let's be honest with ourselves," Mikheyev added. "Our leadership won't live long enough for that either."

"If we move at this speed, this will last for decades," he continued.

https://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-wont-live-see-ukraine-war-vict
ory-russia-state-tv-1785695

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

---

nihilism
ni'?-liz??m, ne'-
noun

*The doctrine that nothing actually exists or that existence or values are meaningless.

*Relentless negativity or cynicism suggesting an absence of values or beliefs.

*Political belief or action that advocates or commits violence or terrorism without discernible constructive goals.

---

I think the word you're looking for, THUGR, is nationalism. I see myself as a realist, focused on AMERICA'S long term national interests. I don't see us needing to be "global cop" or "global hegemon" or "bringing freedom to the globe" or global anything. Let's just be a nation among nations and make America the best it can be, and then we can be a positive example for others to aspire to.
Instead of overthrowing or invading nations willy-nilly and supporting corrupt regimes everywhere.

---

---

All the older members who've left, Jack loves taking credit for that by the way, all referred to you as being a Russia Troll. Therefore, your posts are received as if you are. You don't have to admit it.

T

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Russians have damaged Ukraine before this war:

What HBO’s “Chernobyl” Got Right, and What It Got Terribly Wrong

Quote:

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Summary executions, or even delayed executions on orders of a single apparatchik, were not a feature of Soviet life after the nineteen-thirties. By and large, Soviet people did what they were told without being threatened with guns or any punishment.

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Quote:

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The Soviet system of propaganda and censorship existed not so much for the purpose of spreading a particular message as for the purpose of making learning impossible, replacing facts with mush, and handing the faceless state a monopoly on defining an ever-shifting reality.

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Quote:

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The Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy’s 2018 book on Chernobyl reconstructs the sequence of events and assigns blame. In effect, Plokhy argues, it was the Soviet system that created Chernobyl and made the explosion inevitable. Glimmers of this understanding appear in the HBO series, too. In the final episode, Legasov, testifying as a witness, tells a Soviet court that the disaster happened because the tips of the control rods were made of graphite, which sped up the reaction, when the control rod was supposed to slow it down. When asked, by the prosecutor, why the reactor was designed this way, Legasov cites the same reason that other safety precautions are ignored and other corners are cut: “It’s cheaper.” He seems to be damning the whole system.

More often, however, we are given to believe that the three men who were put on trial—and especially one of them, a particularly unattractive villain by the name of Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter)—are to blame. We see him strong-arming younger, better men into actions that will ultimately lead to catastrophe. All because, it seems, he wants a promotion. In fact, it wasn’t the carrot of a single promotion, or even several promotions, and it wasn’t one nasty and abusive boss. It was the system, made up primarily of pliant men and women, that cut its own corners, ignored its own precautions, and ultimately blew up its own nuclear reactor for no good reason except that this was how things were done. The viewer is invited to fantasize that, if not for Dyatlov, the better men would have done the right thing and the fatal flaw in the reactor, and the system itself, might have remained latent. This is a lie.

It would be harder to show a system digging its own grave instead of an ambitious, evil man causing the disaster. In the same way, it’s harder to see dozens of scientists looking for clues when you can just create a single fantasy character who will have all the good disaster-fighting traits. This is the great-men (and one woman) narrative of history, where it’s a few steps, a few decisions, made by a few men that matter, rather than the mess that humans make and from which they suffer.

---

https://web.archive.org/web/20230228050136/https://www.newyorker.com/n
ews/our-columnists/what-hbos-chernobyl-got-right-and-what-it-got-terribly-wrong

Serhii Plokhy’s 2018 book on Chernobyl can be downloaded for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.bio/search.php?req=Serhii+Plokhy+Chernobyl

From the preface of Chernobyl: There are numerous marks of the long-gone communist past on the streets of the city. Communist-era slogans are still there, and inside the abandoned movie theater, a portrait of a communist leader. Vita, our guide, says that no one can now tell who is depicted there, but I recognize a familiar face from my days as a young university professor in Ukraine at the time of the catastrophe—the painting is of Viktor Chebrikov, the head of the KGB from 1982 to 1988. It has miraculously survived the past thirty years, undamaged except for a tiny hole near Chebrikov’s nose. Otherwise, the image is perfectly fine. We move on.

It is strange, I think to myself, that Vita, an excellent tour guide, cannot identify Chebrikov. She also seems at a loss to explain the signs saying “meat,” “milk,” and “cheese” hanging from what was once the ceiling of an abandoned So

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Zelensky pledges to ‘find the murderers’ of Ukrainian soldier executed in grisly video

“Today, a video has emerged of the occupiers brutally killing a warrior who bravely said to their faces: ‘Glory to Ukraine!'” Zelensky said in his address. “I want us all to respond to his words together, in unity: ‘Glory to the Hero! Glory to the Heroes! Glory to Ukraine!’ And we will find the murderers.”

“Ukraine will not forget the feat of each and everyone whose lives gave freedom to Ukraine forever,” he added.

“Eternal memory and honor to all those who gave lives for freedom for our people!” he said. “Eternal memory and honor to all Ukrainian heroes of different times who dreamed and fought for freedom for Ukraine! Ukraine will emerge victorious!”

More at https://thehill.com/policy/international/3887113-zelensky-pledges-to-f
ind-the-murderers-of-ukrainian-soldier-executed-in-grisly-video/

In other news, the response from Trumptards and Putin was "Fake News. Haven't you seen a Hollywood movie? That soldier is still alive."

Trump makes implausible claim that he'd end Ukraine war in a day

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by THG:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

---

nihilism
ni'?-liz??m, ne'-
noun

*The doctrine that nothing actually exists or that existence or values are meaningless.

*Relentless negativity or cynicism suggesting an absence of values or beliefs.

*Political belief or action that advocates or commits violence or terrorism without discernible constructive goals.

---

I think the word you're looking for, THUGR, is nationalism. I see myself as a realist, focused on AMERICA'S long term national interests. I don't see us needing to be "global cop" or "global hegemon" or "bringing freedom to the globe" or global anything. Let's just be a nation among nations and make America the best it can be, and then we can be a positive example for others to aspire to.
Instead of overthrowing or invading nations willy-nilly and supporting corrupt regimes everywhere.

---

---

All the older members who've left, Jack loves taking credit for that by the way, all referred to you as being a Russia Troll. Therefore, your posts are received as if you are. You don't have to admit it.

T

---

LOL... Wishy and Cap'n Crunch are even worse sources than your news sources, dipshit.



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

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:
Zelensky pledges to ‘find the murderers’ of Ukrainian soldier executed in grisly video

“Today, a video has emerged of the occupiers brutally killing a warrior who bravely said to their faces: ‘Glory to Ukraine!'” Zelensky said in his address. “I want us all to respond to his words together, in unity: ‘Glory to the Hero! Glory to the Heroes! Glory to Ukraine!’ And we will find the murderers.”

“Ukraine will not forget the feat of each and everyone whose lives gave freedom to Ukraine forever,” he added.

“Eternal memory and honor to all those who gave lives for freedom for our people!” he said. “Eternal memory and honor to all Ukrainian heroes of different times who dreamed and fought for freedom for Ukraine! Ukraine will emerge victorious!”

---

Fake news. Fake soldier.

Also, 5 minute hate.

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

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Fake news. Fake soldier.

Also, 5 minute hate.

---

6ix, your verbal nonsense would work with other Trumptards, but people who aren't failures like you would fire you or kick you out of their lives. In that way, they reinforce the judgment that you are a failure. Obviously, 6ix is not comprehending what is a failure. Similarly, Trump insists he will end the Russia/Ukraine War in one day. He promised the same with the war between North Korea and South Korea. Trump was lying then. Trump is lying now. Trump is a bigger failure than his Trumptards:

Trump makes the implausible claim that he'd end the Ukraine war in a day

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Fake news. Fake soldier.

Also, 5 minute hate.

---

6ix, your verbal nonsense would work with other Trumptards, but people who aren't failures like you would fire you or kick you out of their lives. In that way, they reinforce the judgment that you are a failure.

---

Quote:

---

Obviously, 6ix is not comprehending what is a failure. Similarly, Trump insists he will end the Russia/Ukraine War in one day. He promised the same with the war between North Korea and South Korea. Trump was lying then. Trump is lying now. Trump is a bigger failure than his Trumptards:

Trump makes the implausible claim that he'd end the Ukraine war in a day

---

Trump would end the war in a single day. In fact, it never would have even begun if he were in office now.

Nobody can take your opinion of what is and is not a failure seriously because your "leader" and his party have been failing the American people for over 2 years now and you fail to recognize it.

Have fun with your miserable, unproductive and insignificant life the next few days. I have shit to do and people to help, so you'll have to find a way to manage without me destroying you.

I know you'll be right here when I get back, because you are predictable, pathetic and without any purpose in life.

Toodles, waste of carbon.



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

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Trump would end the war in a single day. In fact, it never would have even begun if he were in office now.

Nobody can take your opinion of what is and is not a failure seriously because your "leader" and his party have been failing the American people for over 2 years now and you fail to recognize it.

---

6ix, you spent a decade as a falling-down-drunk. It took you that long to realize alcohol was your problem. Your understanding of what was wrong with your life arrived very slowly and erratically. Russians are falling-down-dead in Ukraine because Russians haven't realized that their problem is Putin, not Ukraine. The smartest Russians left Russia soon after Putin took over. The less smart ones have stayed until recently, then they fled to avoid Putin's War. That leaves the dumbest Russians, slow learners such as 6ix, to take about a decade (the same length of time as it took 6ix to figure out that alcohol was his problem) before they will understand Putin is the problem, not Ukraine.

Once a Russian dies in Ukraine, his problems are over, but the smarter Russians back home can achieve enlightenment that Putin is the problem as more and more Russians die in Ukraine. On the other hand, the dumber Russians will never reach any form of enlightenment, not even a glimmer. Only ignominious death will end their problems. The same is true of America's dumbest - the Trumptards.

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

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Robust Ukrainian and Russian air defenses have rendered both sides’ aircraft, particularly those used for close air support missions, largely “worthless” in the war between the two countries, according to a top American Air Force general.

About 60 Ukrainian aircraft and 70 Russian aircraft have been downed in the year since Russia launched its invasion, according to commander of US Air Forces in Europe and Africa Gen. James Hecker, a feat accomplished by the two countries’ highly capable air defense systems that have left much of the battlefield airspace off limits.

“Both of their integrated air and missile defense, especially when you’re talking about going against aircraft, have been very effective,” Hecker said during a roundtable at the Air and Space Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium. “And that’s why they’re not flying” in many areas, he added.

The US and other NATO countries have for months kicked around the idea of sending multi-role F-16 Fighting Falcons to Ukraine. So far, the US has been reluctant to take that step with F-16s. Hecker said the F-16 efficacy, especially in close air support roles, could be in doubt due to current Russian air defenses.

More at https://breakingdefense.com/2023/03/in-ukraine-fight-integrated-air-de
fense-has-made-many-aircraft-worthless-us-air-force-general/

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

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Russia and Ukraine's deadliest battle is starting to look like Stalingrad 'without the importance,' expert says

Michael Peck Mar 7, 2023, 5:09 PM

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-and-ukraine-bakhmut-battle-look
s-like-stalingrad-expert-says-2023-3

1) Russia and Ukraine both say Bakhmut, a city in Ukraine, is the site of their deadliest fighting.

2) The cost in lives on both sides appears disproportionate to the city's actual strategic value.

3) An expert on Russia's military likened it to Stalingrad, but without the same level of significance.

What if Stalingrad hadn't been named after Josef Stalin?

If that city hadn't been identified with Adolf Hitler's arch-nemesis, then perhaps the fuhrer wouldn't have been quite as obsessed with capturing it — or at least not so obsessed as to lose 300,000 soldiers and any chance Nazi Germany had of winning World War II.

But at least Stalingrad was an industrial city, a major inland port on the Volga River that was a vital transportation artery for Soviet war production and home to a half-million people. Thus capturing or holding Stalingrad had some strategic value.

What exactly is the value of the city of Bakhmut?

It is one of many cities in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Before Russia's invasion last year it had a population of just 71,000. It has a nice winery, and a couple of highways pass through it.

But is Bakhmut an objective worth 30,000 Russian casualties and thousands of Ukrainian casualties whom Kyiv can ill afford to lose?

Western experts are struggling to understand why both sides are pouring enormous resources — and prestige — into the Battle of Bakhmut.

"Both sides have really been going at it there," Dara Massicot, an expert on Russia's military at the Rand Corporation think tank, said during a recent symposium.

"They've taken a lot of casualties. They've expended a lot of ammunition," Massicot added. "It's becoming like a Stalingrad except for without the importance of Stalingrad."

Capturing Bakhmut would "give the Russians a launch point from which to drive northwest along the E40 highway to Slovyansk, or north to the town of Siversk," according to The Washington Post.

But to what end? "Russian forces have tried and failed to take these cities in the past," The Post said. Ukraine has already dug trench lines behind Bakhmut, so any Russian attempt to exploit the capture of Bakhmut would be hindered or blocked by fresh Ukrainian defenses.

Hitler may have been fixated on capturing the city named after Stalin. The Kremlin may be fixating on Bakhmut because of internal rivalries.

Instead of the regular Russian soldiers whose performance in Ukraine has been disappointing, the siege of Bakhmut has been waged largely by the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organization with deep ties to the Putin government.

Much like the Red Army's penal battalions in World War II, Wagner is using convicts as cannon fodder to wear down the Ukrainian defenders with haphazard attacks — launched with the threat of execution for those who retreat or surrender — and then sending in better-trained contract soldiers to finish the job.

For his part, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to hold Bakhmut, warning that capturing it would give Russian forces an "open road" to other Ukrainian cities.

But why that city in particular? Ukraine would not lose the war if Bakhmut falls, as it is likely to now that Russia has captured most of the city and has almost cut the Ukrainian defenders' supply lines. In fact, there are indications that Ukrainian forces may already be withdrawing.

"If the Ukrainians decide to reposition in some of the terrain that's west of Bakhmut, I would not view that as an operational or a strategic setback," Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters Monday. "I think it's more of a symbolic value than it is a s

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NATO intelligence meanwhile estimates that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russian forces have lost at least five, a military official with the alliance told CNN on Monday. The official cautioned the 5-to-1 ratio was an informed estimate based on intelligence.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/europe/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-cnn-i
nterview-bakhmut-intl/index.html

Zelenskyy’s national security chief Oleksiy Danilov on Friday said the casualties had been “one to seven in our favour”.
https://www.ft.com/content/439aa6b0-2f3c-4eca-b81f-b7e9c8eb286f

Is it 7-to-1 ratio?
5-to-1?
1-to-1?

That ratio controls who eventually wins. What is the real ratio?

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

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Russians Claim Control Over Bakhmut's East

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russians-claim-control-over-bak
hmuts-east

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:
NATO intelligence meanwhile estimates that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russian forces have lost at least five, a military official with the alliance told CNN on Monday. The official cautioned the 5-to-1 ratio was an informed estimate based on intelligence.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/europe/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-cnn-i
nterview-bakhmut-intl/index.html

Zelenskyy’s national security chief Oleksiy Danilov on Friday said the casualties had been “one to seven in our favour”.
https://www.ft.com/content/439aa6b0-2f3c-4eca-b81f-b7e9c8eb286f

Is it 7-to-1 ratio?
5-to-1?
1-to-1?

That ratio controls who eventually wins. What is the real ratio?

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

---

More like 5:1 (or higher) Russia's favor.

The "Russian human wave" narrative is part of the "Russia is running out of weapons/ammunition" narrative, which western sources have been claiming since ... well, early 2022. But so far no slackening of the number of missiles, drones, mortars and shells used in this war. According to some Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Bakhmut, it is UKRAINE that's throwing poorly-trained humans in the Bakhmut "meat grinder".

As former CIA officer Larry Johnson said, CIA (and by extension NATO, western) intelligence no longer recruits spies and no longer has on the ground human intelligence. They rely on their "affiliates" ... For example, in the case of Iraq, CIA took info from MI6 and one unreliable expat codenamed "Curveball". In this case, western intelligence relies on whatever Kiev tells them. There is little independent investigation.

When there is one, things look a lot different. The BBC, along with an anti-Putin website called Meduza, has done a running estimate of Russian dead by looking at funeral notices, burials, death benefits etc. across Russia. They recently updated their estimate from 14,000 to 16,000. The figure they might have missed some, so they say IIRC add 30%. That's about 21,000.
Compare that to what Kiev is claiming.
Kiev lies constantly. I can't think of a single instance where they're actually told the truth.


“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”- Philip K. Dick


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

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Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu reiterated boilerplate rhetoric seeking to deter further Western military aid to Ukraine during a conference call on March 7.[7] Shoigu reiterated senior Russian officials’ tired claims that Western states aim to destroy Russia by providing arms to Ukraine and have begun an information war targeting Russia. Shoigu invoked the commonly referenced historical memory of World War II to justify the war in Ukraine, calling on Russians to prevent lessons learned from defeating Nazism “to be distorted and forgotten.” Shoigu claimed that Russian forces killed over 11,000 Ukrainian military personnel in February 2023, which he claimed was a 40 percent increase from Ukrainian casualties in January. Shoigu’s speech did not craft any new rhetorical arguments that could shape the Russian information space and garner more domestic support for the war effort, continuing to rely on standard tropes in the absence of any Russian successes.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-march-7-2023

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

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Because, of course, the west ISN'T trying to regime-change or destroy Russia with comprehensive financial and economic sanctions, terror attacks in German gas supplies, and a NATO- supported proxy war in Ukraine

/snicker

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Because, of course, the west ISN'T trying to regime-change or destroy Russia with comprehensive financial and economic sanctions, terror attacks in German gas supplies, and a NATO- supported proxy war in Ukraine

/snicker

---

Russia is like Hugh Everett III. Everett was a genius, but he smoked, drank, and ate until he died at 51. The Russian Federation (created Dec 25, 1991) might not live to be 51 if it continues behaving as it has, but that won't be a surprise, except to Russians, when it comes to an early end. Everett's son said about his father:

Quote:

---

I think about how angry I was that my dad didn't take better care of himself. How he never went to a doctor, let himself become grossly overweight, smoked three packs a day, drank like a fish and never exercised. But then I think about how his colleague mentioned that, days before dying, my dad had said he lived a good life and that he was satisfied. I realize that there is a certain value in my father's way of life. He ate, smoked and drank as he pleased, and one day he just suddenly and quickly died. Given some of the other choices I'd witnessed, it turns out that enjoying yourself and then dying quickly is not such a hard way to go.

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Everett_III#Death_and_legacy

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

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Well, if Russia is doomed to fail, why has the west been working so hard to kill it? If it's marching toward a cliff, why not just let it go its merry way?

Maybe bc western elites quietly sense that Russia ISN'T going to implode? That it might offer better deals, a better civilizational model, and options to other nations, making it impossible for the west continuing as (attempted) global hegemon?

Just asking, isall.

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, if Russia is doomed to fail, why has the west been working so hard to kill it? If it's marching toward a cliff, why not just let it go its merry way?

Maybe bc western elites quietly sense that Russia ISN'T going to implode? That it might offer better deals, a better civilizational model, and options to other nations, making it impossible for the west continuing as (attempted) global hegemon?

Just asking, isall.

---

Do you recall that North Korea has been threatening to nuke the World? Where did Kim learn that anti-social behavior from? Oh-Oh! Signym, I guess you forgot that Russia has also been threatening to nuke the World. There is the Answer To Your Question, Signym.

As a side note on who has a better civilization model: don't forget that North Korea is an impoverished economy compared to South Korea. Where did North Korea learn to be inadequate? From Russia, which has an impoverished economy compared to the EU.

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, if Russia is doomed to fail, why has the west been working so hard to kill it? If it's marching toward a cliff, why not just let it go its merry way?

Maybe bc western elites quietly sense that Russia ISN'T going to implode? That it might offer better deals, a better civilizational model, and options to other nations, making it impossible for the west continuing as (attempted) global hegemon?

Just asking, isall.

---

Do you recall that North Korea has been threatening to nuke the World? Where did Kim learn that anti-social behavior from?

---

N Korea learned that behavior from us.

Qaddafi abandoned his nuclear weapons program, and where did it get him? Bayonetted up the ass by American-sponsored jihadists. Saddam got rid if HIS chemical weapons, and where did that get HIM? Invaded by American forces. Iran negotiated away their nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions. Sanctions were never lifted and the USA backed out of the deal. So where did it get THEM?

Russia negotiated a number of nuclear treaties with us, and we backed out of almost every nuclear treaty. Where did that get THEM? And we still maintain a picture of "first strike".

We do whatever the hell we feel we can get away with, and we make it suicidal for any other nation to limit their WMD capability.

So, aside from being the ONLY nation ever to use nuclear weapons in war, it's not like we have a great ongoing record.

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

N Korea learned that behavior from us.

---

No, Signym. North Korea learned that from its parent, Russia. Who taught the North Koreans about political prison fatalities? Russians taught them how to run prisons:

6,872,000 Victims: Post-Stalin Period, 1954-1987

With Stalin’s death, the terror was gradually alleviated, though not really ended until the 1980s under Gorbachev. Beria, Stalin’s chief enforcer and head of the KGB, was executed; many other lesser lights were purged.

The “crimes” of the Stalin years, particularly the Great Terror (in which top party members were executed) were secretly revealed by Khrushchev. The camp population was gradually reduced and the camp regime improved in the post-Stalin 1950s. However, the death camps at Kolyma still continued into the early 1960s, when they were also subject to reform, and perhaps largely closed by the middle 1960s.

15,613,000 Victims: Postwar and Stalin’s Twilight Period, 1945-1953

In Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe and Asia, the end of World War II may have been noted by booming cannons and celebrating soldiers, but little else. Terror, executions, and the deadly deportations continued unabated. Among those the Soviets deported to Siberia or other inhospitable regions from the Soviet-occupied countries of Europe were 50,000 East Germans, 120,000 Hungarians, 500,000 to 600,000 Balts (from 1945 to 1952), 107,000 German-Rumanians, 400,000 Japanese from Sakhalin, over 850,000 Rumanian-Bessarabians and North Bukovians (from 1944 to 1949), over 1,000,000 Rumanians from Moldavia (from 1950 to 1952), over 150,000 Bulgarian peasant families, almost 2,000,000 Czechs and Slovaks, and 4,500,000 Poles in 1945 and after. As before and during the war, “enemies of the people” were swept from the conquered territories into the Soviet labor camps to replace the millions who had died.

From the book Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 by R. J. Rummel
Download the free book from https://libgen.unblockit.boo/search.php?req=R.+J.+Rummel

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

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US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated on March 8 that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely recognizes the Russian military’s current limited capability to sustain a short-term offensive and may pursue a protracted war.[8] Haines stated on March 8 that Putin is likely only temporarily focused on pursuing short-term military objectives in Ukraine and may believe that prolonging the war will increase the likelihood of achieving his strategic goals. ISW has previously assessed that Putin maintains maximalist war goals in Ukraine despite Russian forces’ currently limited capabilities to achieve these goals.[9] Haines stated that Russia will increasingly struggle to maintain its current tempo of operations in Ukraine without conducting full mobilization and securing adequate ammunition to mitigate Russia’s current shortage. Haines noted that Russian forces are suffering high losses to take Bakhmut, which Haines characterized as “not particularly strategic,” supporting ISW’s prior assessments that a Pyrrhic tactical victory in Bakhmut would not further Russia’s operational or strategic battlefield aims.[10] ISW previously assessed on January 15 that the Kremlin was preparing for a strategically decisive effort in 2023 while simultaneously preparing for a protracted war.[11]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-march-8-2023

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

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Who knows if the Ukrainians are as competent as they claim? But we will soon find out:

A high-ranking Ukrainian military official on Thursday dismissed warnings from NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg that the hotly contested city of Bakhmut could soon fall to the Russians. Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for Ukraine's Eastern Group of Forces, said NATO does not fully understand that Ukrainians have developed "much greater stability and power of tactical solutions" as the war has dragged on, he said.

"They approach this purely pragmatically with dry calculations," Cherevaty said. "I think that NATO is studying this and they need to study it all further. I think that such statements should be treated with respect, but with the understanding that they do not fully understand the whole situation."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/03/09/ukraine-russia-wa
r-live-updates/11433880002/

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

N Korea learned that behavior from us.

---

No, Signym. North Korea learned that from its parent, Russia. Who taught the North Koreans about political prison fatalities? Russians taught them how to run prisons:

---

Your point was about Russian nuclear weapons. You changed the topic to N Korea and got your ass handed to you and changed the topic. Again. If you can't find one excuse to hate, you'll latch onto another. Your roulette wheel of excuses to hate just keeps going round and round. Anything to keep that hate going, huh?

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:
US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated on March 8 that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely recognizes the Russian military’s current limited capability to sustain a short-term offensive and may pursue a protracted war.

---

OMFG. Thank you Captain Obvious!
Maybe someone finally listened to the Russian MoD? Bc that's what they've been saying for at least three months!

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

N Korea learned that behavior from us.

---

No, Signym. North Korea learned that from its parent, Russia. Who taught the North Koreans about political prison fatalities? Russians taught them how to run prisons:

---

Your point was about Russian nuclear weapons. You changed the topic to N Korea and got your ass handed to you and changed topics. Again. If you can't find one excuse to hate, you'll latch onto another. Your roulette wheel of excuses to hate just keeps going round and round. Anything to keep that hate going, huh?

---

Signym, I was hoping you'd understood that Russia has been impoverished and in trouble for many decades because it has repeatedly threatened to nuke the world. But you don't seem to understand that.

Signym, you don't seem to understand that North Korea has repeatedly threatened to nuke the world and it, too, is an impoverished and troubled land because of the exact same behavior as Russia constantly engages in.

By the way, North Korea says it is not North Korea threatening to nuke the world, but rather the US. If you knew anything about North Korea or Russia, you'd know that both of them blame their bad behavior on the US.

Signym, the funny thing is that Canada, right next door to the supposed cause of all Russia's and North Korea's problems, has a bigger economy than Russia. At the same time, Canada doesn't feel a need to threaten to nuke the US or anybody.

I wonder how Canada has prospered so easily while Russia and North Korea struggle and bluster and threaten their neighboring countries. It must be some huge and inexplicable mystery that Signym will never understand. Certainly, Russia and North Korea don't understand how to get along peacefully with their neighbors. It might have something to do with the millions and millions of political prisoners that both Russia and North Korea have killed to bring "peace".

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

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The War in Ukraine Is Just Getting Started

In the Iran-Iraq war, both sides refused to back down despite a long, bloody stalemate. The same thing could happen to Russia and Ukraine.

By Murtaza Hussain

March 9 2023, 9:36 a.m.

For nearly a decade in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the newly founded Islamic Republic of Iran waged a merciless war against each other. The fighting saw the return of World War I-style human-wave offensives, trench warfare, and chemical weapons attacks.

Though it dragged on for years, the Iran-Iraq war benefited neither side. In the end, the conflict claimed the lives of over a million people, since, despite the carnage and wishes of ordinary people on both sides to end it, no diplomatic solution proved possible over eight years of fighting.

There is good reason to worry that this ugly history is repeating itself today in Eastern Europe.

Like the Iran-Iraq war, the war in Ukraine was triggered by an expansionist dictator hoping to make quick work of a neighbor whom he had wrongly predicted would prove incapable of defending itself. Now, over a year into the fighting, the conflict, which has already claimed hundreds of thousands of casualties by some estimates, has ground to a bloody stalemate that has transformed once-anonymous Ukrainian towns like Bakhmut and Marinka into killing fields.

A peace treaty that puts a stop to this chaos is attractive for many obvious reasons, and foreign powers like China and India have recently indicated that they would like to encourage one. Yet observers say that all signs point to the war dragging on for years to come, with both sides — like Iranians and Iraqis in the past — committed to the belief that victory is within their grasp and that pressing the war forward is worthwhile.

“I don’t see any prospect of diplomacy. What both sides would accept as an equitable settlement to the war is very far apart,” said Rajan Menon, the author of “Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order” and a research fellow at Columbia University. Menon pointed to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that the four Russian-controlled Ukrainian provinces had already been annexed — a position he is extremely unlikely to back away from.

“I don’t see any prospect of diplomacy. What both sides would accept as an equitable settlement to the war is very far apart.”

“On the Ukrainian side,” Menon said, “because their country has been invaded and has witnessed immense destruction and atrocities, there is a coming together of Ukrainian sentiment to fight against Russia. They have no illusions about a quick victory and have already priced in that they will have to endure this for a long time.”

Menon argues that the war is thus likely to continue for many years to come, a prediction that is echoed by many other observers. Some have argued that the conflict will become a permanent part of the international system, only concluding if either Ukraine or Russia collapses, or both cease to exist as states. Even if a negotiated settlement emerges sometime in the future, the amount of destruction that will have likely taken place by that time will be staggering.

The war has already taken a devastating toll on the Ukrainian population, which has suffered civilian massacres and systematic destruction of infrastructure. Yet it has also proved damaging to Russia. In addition to suffering Western sanctions, which are likely to escalate in the years to come, huge numbers of young Russian men have been killed, wounded, or simply fled the country to escape military enlistment. According to The Economist, this exodus and killing off of young Russians means that there are now 10 million more Russian women than men in the country — a situation that portends a demographic nightmare for an already rapidly aging population.

In a sense, the U.S. has played a role in prolonging the conflict by heavily arming the Ukrainians to resist Russia’s aggression. The position has drawn scrutiny from some sectors of the U.S. political establishm

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Quote:

---

SIGNYM:
N Korea learned that behavior from us.

SECIND: No, Signym. North Korea learned that from its parent, Russia. Who taught the North Koreans about political prison fatalities? Russians taught them how to run prisons: blah blah blah...

SIGNY: Your point was about Russian nuclear weapons. You changed the topic to N Korea and got your ass handed to you and changed topics. Again. If you can't find one excuse to hate, you'll latch onto another. Your roulette wheel of excuses to hate just keeps going round and round. Anything to keep that hate going, huh?

SECOND: Signym, I was hoping you'd understood that Russia has been impoverished and in trouble for many decades because it has repeatedly threatened to nuke the world. But you don't seem to understand that.

---

I don't understand that because

1) YOU'RE WRONG, and

2) you keep shifting your "point"... WHATEVER IT IS... From nukes to Trump to prisons to "Trumptards" to imperialism to inability to fight wars to whatever the fuck pops up on the media that moment. Your posts are a Rorschach splatter of shit. And when you get your ass handed to you on one point, you just shift focus to a different blob of shit.

So, let's go back to your point about WHO threatens the world with nukes, and whether that has any bearing on a nation's wealth. And this time, try to stick to a point.

And please, no dodges to Trump, "Trumptards", Putin, N Korea, genocide, or whatever the fuck pops into your brain, m'kay?


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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I don't understand that because

1) YOU'RE WRONG, and

2) you keep shifting your "point"... WHATEVER IT IS... From nukes to Trump to prisons to "Trumptards" to imperialism to inability to fight wars to whatever the fuck pops up on the media that moment. Your posts are a Rorschach splatter of shit. And when you get your ass handed to you on one point, you just shift focus to a different blob of shit.

So, let's go back to your point about WHO threatens the world with nukes, and whether that has any bearing on a nation's wealth. And this time, try to stick to a point.

And please, no dodges to Trump, "Trumptards", Putin, N Korea, genocide, or whatever the fuck pops into your brain, m'kay?

---

You do NOT live in the United States, Signym, if you think Russia is superior to the US. Russia is a mud puddle of a country. It murdered tens of millions of its citizens for political reasons. It has a dinky economy. Its European neighbors hate it. And that is after a thousand years of history, plenty of time for Russia to become a beacon of enlightenment, freedom and humanity. But that didn't happen.

Signym, if you and Russians think the Russian economy isn't impoverished by a multi-year War in Ukraine and by pouring money into making Russia into an even bigger nuclear threat than it was last year, you and the Russians are headed for poverty.

Freedom in the World 2023
Russia Score & Status: 16/100 & Not Free

Political Rights 5/40
Civil Liberties 11/60

Last Year's Score & Status: 19/100 & Not Free
https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-world/2023

Signym, you could compare that to the United States if you want to know what a better-run country looks like. It would also explain the things about the United States that Russia seriously lacks.
https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-states/freedom-world/2023

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I don't understand that because

1) YOU'RE WRONG, and

2) you keep shifting your "point"... WHATEVER IT IS... From nukes to Trump to prisons to "Trumptards" to imperialism to inability to fight wars to whatever the fuck pops up on the media that moment. Your posts are a Rorschach splatter of shit. And when you get your ass handed to you on one point, you just shift focus to a different blob of shit.

So, let's go back to your point about WHO threatens the world with nukes, and whether that has any bearing on a nation's wealth. And this time, try to stick to a point.

And please, no dodges to Trump, "Trumptards", Putin, N Korea, genocide, or whatever the fuck pops into your brain, m'kay?

---

You do NOT live in the United States, Signym, if you think Russia is superior to the US.

---

DID I POST THIS?
NO, I DID NOT.

WAS THIS THE POINT OF DISCUSSION?
NO, IT WAS NOT.

You're just a shit-splattering troll.
Thank you for proving my point.


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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated on March 8 that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely recognizes the Russian military’s current limited capability to sustain a short-term offensive and may pursue a protracted war.

---

OMFG. Thank you Captain Obvious!
Maybe someone finally listened to the Russian MoD? Bc that's what they've been saying for at least three months!

---

Russia’s biggest bank suffers 78% collapse in profit as sanctions bite

Russia’s dominant lender Sberbank reported a nearly 80% plunge in 2022 net profit Thursday as sweeping Western sanctions rattled Russia’s financial sector in what the bank’s CEO called “the most difficult year.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-s-biggest-bank-suffers-78-
collapse-in-profit-as-sanctions-bite/ar-AA18p9dI?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=574b8737c1ec49a98ed6ae09246b8034&ei=84

---

T

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Tell it to Lehman Bros.





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

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

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Russia's Sberbank expects strong profit rebound after sanctions-hit 2022

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russias-sberbank-posts-357-bln-
net-profit-2022-2023-03-09/

Yanno THUGR, when Russia comes out a winner from the sanctions war by the west, and a winner in the proxy war in Ukraine- as I fully expect it will- I'll be so glad to stuff it up your and SECOND's ass sideways.

Not because I'm such a Russophile but because you've been such pricks, and stupid ones to boot.

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

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How many Russians have been killed in Ukraine?

The death toll probably exceeds all Soviet and Russian wars since 1945 combined

NEARLY 1,200 Russian soldiers were recently killed in a single day around Bakhmut, according to Mark Milley, America’s top general, in an interview with Politico, a news website. “That’s Iwo Jima,” he reflected, referring to a brutal 36-day Pacific battle during the second world war. “That’s Shiloh”—a battle in the American civil war. A recently published paper offers a new assessment of the extraordinary losses Russia is facing in Ukraine.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank in Washington, says that Russia is likely to have suffered 60,000 to 70,000 combat fatalities in the first year of its invasion, citing American and other Western officials, as well as public reports. Our chart depicts the central estimate in that range. Including those killed, wounded and missing, total casualty numbers swell to 200,000 to 250,000. Calculating such things is a highly uncertain business. But the CSIS tally is only a little higher than Western government estimates that draw on intelligence.

Stratospheric Russian casualties are unsurprising. Russia’s initial blitzkrieg in February 2022 failed, and the conflict has since turned into a war of attrition: huge volumes of shellfire continue to pound forces on each side. In its quest to capture the eastern city of Bakhmut, which is teetering, Russia sent waves of conscripts and prisoners to fight. They have been mown down in large numbers. For two weeks in late January and early February, as Russia intensified its attacks across eastern Ukraine, its casualties probably reached over 800 per day, killed and wounded, according to British defence intelligence.

This level of carnage far exceeds what Russia has faced in any of its modern conflicts. It lost 95 to 185 soldiers per month in Chechnya between 1999 and 2009 and 130 to 145 soldiers per month in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. In Ukraine it has seen 5,000 to 5,800 military deaths (including mercenaries) per month. The number of Russian soldiers killed in the past year probably exceeds the death toll in every other Russian and Soviet conflict since 1945, combined. Its casualties are dwarfed only by the second world war, in which the Soviet Union lost more than 8m men.

Russia’s severe losses forced it to conduct a mobilisation drive in September but it has largely frittered away those forces. It could launch another wave of mobilisation, though that would come with political risks. Already, two-thirds of Russians know someone who has been mobilised or is fighting in the war. Moreover, the troops killed in 2022 were many of Russia’s best young officers and most experienced soldiers. The men who replace them will have less training, discipline and skill. Nor will they have the same quality of equipment.

When American intelligence officials briefed Congress on Russian preparations for war last year, they suggested that 25,000 to 50,000 Ukrainian civilians might die. The true total has been considerably smaller: at least 8,000 confirmed civilian deaths, according to the UN. The officials also estimated that Russia would lose 3,000 to 10,000 military personnel—a range that reflected expectations of a relatively short conventional war. They could not have imagined that Russia would immolate an entire army in the space of a year.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230309093157/https://www.economist.com/g
raphic-detail/2023/03/08/how-many-russians-have-been-killed-in-ukraine

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yanno THUGR, when Russia comes out a winner from the sanctions war by the west, and a winner in the proxy war in Ukraine- as I fully expect it will- I'll be so glad to stuff it up your and SECOND's ass sideways.

Not because I'm such a Russophile but because you've been such pricks, and stupid ones to boot.

---

Signym, you are howling-at-the-moon mad. Here is a sample of Signym foaming at the mouth:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Given that their plans look blatantly ineffective to anyone who gives them a moment's thought, who do TPTB think they're fooling? Certainly not Chinese and Russian officials who realize that they're in power only bc they raised the standard of living in their countries, and not the many people of the globe who aspire to a better life and are willing to work for it, in an even partially honest system.

No, they're meant to fool guilty westerners who've been edged or inveigled into being "consumers". People who don't know how they earn their place in the world. Permanent students. Advanced degrees in useless fields working in McJobs. People living on government dole or in mom's basement. Bc while they aspired to be "consumers", in a consumer society, they didn't realize that "consumer" is just another word for "useless eater".

TPTB foresaw a future where they'll no longer be able to freely plunder an entire world, and the only way for them to maintain THEIR extravagant standard of living is to plunder their home economies and people. And the only way to do THAT is to get people to acquiesce to being plundered by sacrificing themselves to a Great Cause.

---

There is more Signym ranting and raging at
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=64016&mid=11706
31#1170631

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:
There is more Signym ranting and raging at

---

There is more of Second ranting and raging at
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65116

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

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:
There is more Signym ranting and raging at

---

There is more of Second ranting and raging at
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65116

---

6ix, that whole thread is you ranting and raging against me: "I'm (6ixStringJack) asking Haken now to finally remove Second from these boards. Ever since his other handle Reaverfan was banned from Fireflyfans.net, his Second handle has devolved into little more than a violence fantasy factory."

6ix, whoever was Reaverfan was not me, alias "second". And 6ix, did you notice that Haken didn't do what you wanted? I can't be certain, but I don't think Haken will do what you want. I theorize that the reason is Haken thinks you are crazy. But it could be that Haken wants you to use this website for therapy. Haken is here to help you recover from your traumatic life, 6ix. Maybe Haken is your psychiatrist, your Sigmund Freud. Or Signym is your Signym Freud. Maybe the war against Ukraine is all about you, 6ix and Signym, not about Ukrainians fighting Russians who intend to murder them and erase the word Ukraine from the maps of the world.

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

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Jen Psaki on Trump praising Putin’s moves into Ukraine:
“Well, as a matter of policy, we try not to take advice from anyone who praises President Putin.” That is a quote from White House Hits Back at Donald Trump for Praising Putin's 'Genius' on Ukraine
https://www.newsweek.com/white-house-hits-back-donald-trump-praise-vla
dimir-putin-genius-ukraine-russia-1681635

Donald Trump is a narcissistic grifter and a sociopath. How anyone trusts him is mind-boggling.

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:
There is more Signym ranting and raging at

---

There is more of Second ranting and raging at
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65116

---

6ix, that whole thread is you ranting and raging against me

---

No it's not. Click on the links. It's a nice collection of the words of a sociopath.

Quote:

---

6ix, whoever was Reaverfan was not me, alias "second".

---

Yes. It was you. I have receipts.

Quote:

---

And 6ix, did you notice that Haken didn't do what you wanted?

---

Not yet. But you haven't crossed the line and told individuals here to kill themselves and how to do it in gory detail with your appropriately name second handle. That's what ultimately got your Reaverfan handle banned. Apparently Haken believes that death threats to public figures falls under free speech. As a free speech advocate myself, I'll admit... maybe he's right. Putting it in writing on an old website where a simple Google search could find them and any non-member is free to come in and read all of them in their entirety is still a really fucking dumb thing to do though.

But that's okay. I've got your death threats all on record and backed up at several archive sites in case one of the people you have threatened end up having an accident.

I know it wasn't you who did it if that happens because you're nothing but a loudmouthed pussy, but I'd be happy to contribute to your miserable life by adding legal pressures on you because of the dumb shit you've said online that you can't erase.



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

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by second:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yanno THUGR, when Russia comes out a winner from the sanctions war by the west, and a winner in the proxy war in Ukraine- as I fully expect it will- I'll be so glad to stuff it up your and SECOND's ass sideways.

Not because I'm such a Russophile but because you've been such pricks, and stupid ones to boot.

---

Signym, you are howling-at-the-moon mad. Here is a sample of Signym foaming at the mouth:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Given that their plans look blatantly ineffective to anyone who gives them a moment's thought, who do TPTB think they're fooling? Certainly not Chinese and Russian officials who realize that they're in power only bc they raised the standard of living in their countries, and not the many people of the globe who aspire to a better life and are willing to work for it, in an even partially honest system.

No, they're meant to fool guilty westerners who've been edged or inveigled into being "consumers". People who don't know how they earn their place in the world. Permanent students. Advanced degrees in useless fields working in McJobs. People living on government dole or in mom's basement. Bc while they aspired to be "consumers", in a consumer society, they didn't realize that "consumer" is just another word for "useless eater".

TPTB foresaw a future where they'll no longer be able to freely plunder an entire world, and the only way for them to maintain THEIR extravagant standard of living is to plunder their home economies and people. And the only way to do THAT is to get people to acquiesce to being plundered by sacrificing themselves to a Great Cause.

---

There is more Signym ranting and raging at
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=64016&mid=11706
31#1170631

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

---

You think that's ranting and raging? Read any threats?
I wasn't angry at all! I was thinking out loud, just connecting facts together using logic.

I think the guilty (that's you) flees when nobody is pursuing.

But thanks for linking the thread!

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Russia's Sberbank expects strong profit rebound after sanctions-hit 2022

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russias-sberbank-posts-357-bln-
net-profit-2022-2023-03-09/

Yanno THUGR, when Russia comes out a winner from the sanctions war by the west, and a winner in the proxy war in Ukraine- as I fully expect it will- I'll be so glad to stuff it up your and SECOND's ass sideways.

Not because I'm such a Russophile but because you've been such pricks, and stupid ones to boot.

---

---

Don't think so comrade. The Russia economy is doomed for decades at this point. And of course the bank says it is going to do better next quarter. They say whatever Putin tells them to say.

T

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T

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If any economy is doomed, THUGR, it is the EU's, followed by the USA's.

You think Sberbank is big news? They're talking about a reduction in profits. But that means they're still profitable.

How about the failure of the 17th largest bank in the USA- Silicon Valley Bank?

Game Over: FDIC Shutters Silicon Valley Bank, Appoints Receiver
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/silicon-valley-bank-crashes-65-halte
d-pending-news

Or Credit Suisses's continuing problems?
https://www.thestreet.com/investing/embattled-credit-suisse-loses-a-to
p-shareholder

Seriously, dood, you need to expand your sources of information and get past that wall of propaganda.


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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

If any economy is doomed, THUGR, it is the EU's, followed by the USA's.

You think Sberbank is big news? They're talking about a reduction in profits. But that means they're still profitable.

How about the failure of the 17th largest bank in the USA- Silicon Valley Bank?

Game Over: FDIC Shutters Silicon Valley Bank, Appoints Receiver
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/silicon-valley-bank-crashes-65-halte
d-pending-news

Or Credit Suisses's continuing problems?
https://www.thestreet.com/investing/embattled-credit-suisse-loses-a-to
p-shareholder

Seriously, dood, you need to expand your sources of information and get past that wall of propaganda.


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

---

---

Funny, let me remind you. Russia’s biggest bank suffers 78% collapse in profit as sanctions bite. Russia's biggest bank comrade. There's more but I won't waste my time with that now.

T

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And the USA's 17th largest bank just failed. Utterly. Insolvent. Broke. Kaput.

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) would love to be in Sberbank's shoes right now, but they're broke.

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

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Yeah. I read about SVB this morning. Couldn't remember which thread it would have been relevant to since Second and Ted mucked it all up with their dumb shit like they always do.

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

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And the USA's 17th largest bank just failed. Utterly. Insolvent. Broke. Kaput.

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) would love to be in Sberbank's shoes right now, but they're broke.

---

‘Nervous’ Putin Faces Mutiny: Doomed Troops Refuse To Be ‘Sent To Slaughter’ — As Battle For Power Splits Russian Forces

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nervous-putin-faces-mutiny-doomed
-troops-refuse-to-be-sent-to-slaughter-as-battle-for-power-splits-russian-forces/ar-AA18t9aS?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=b5d46860f6644309b86cf9214bebc145&ei=21

---

T

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Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private Russian army Wagner Group, says he and his fighters have been pleading for more ammunition, but they have been "cut off" by Putin

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/head-of-private-russian-army-says
-he-s-been-cut-off-by-putin/vi-AA18qWfk?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=b5d46860f6644309b86cf9214bebc145&ei=29

---

T

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I'm sure these stories are true.



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

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

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Putin Opposition Calls Ukraine War a 'Dead End,' Urges Peace

By Isabel van Brugen , 3/10/23 at 10:05 AM EST

Grigory Yavlinsky, a Russian opposition politician and founder of Moscow's last liberal party, is calling for a ceasefire in Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, describing it as a "dead end."

"I want a ceasefire to happen before thousands and thousands of people are killed," Yavlinsky told Newsweek in a phone interview from Moscow. On Tuesday, Ukraine reported that over 1,000 Russians had been killed the day prior, bringing Moscow's total losses since the start of the invasion to 154,830.

Yavlinsky, 70, the founder of the Yabloko party, has vocalized his opposition to Putin's decision to invade Ukraine since the conflict began last February. He has described the war, for his nation, as "akin to a self-imposed nuclear strike."

The official, who has twice run against Putin in presidential elections, said that regardless of so-called "gains and victories," the war would end with "a heap of corpses" and nobody would ever forgive either Putin or Russia. He has also described the conflict as a "crime against humanity" that would represent a "massive leap forward towards Russia's liquidation as a state in the 21st century."

On the eve of the anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Yabloko held a concert marathon under the slogan "Say Yes to the Peace!" during which 45 videos were shown where Yabloko members nationwide detailed their struggles throughout the year of war.

Yavlinsky gave an opening speech, saying that "today, Russia is being adjusted to Vladimir Putin's reality."

His opposition to the war has come at a cost, however. There have been numerous attempts by those who support the conflict to liquidate Yabloko, a social-liberal party that has deputies in four regional parliaments: Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Pskov region and Karelia.

State-run news agency RIA Novosti reported on March 7 that a member of Russia's State Duma, Nikolai Novichkov, sent an appeal to the country's Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuichenko with a proposal to consider the possibility of filing a lawsuit in court to liquidate the party "due to possible signs of extremist activities."

"It first happened in April, last year, and then it happens all the time. It's very difficult even to calculate how many times," Yavlinsky told Newsweek. "There are a lot of people...who are just supporting the current regime...and attacking the people who are not supporting the war, like Yabloko—organized political structures, which are against the war. They are trying to destroy this structure, they don't want this structure to exist."

Although the Yabloko party currently has "no political dialogue" with the Kremlin, Yavlinsky is persisting with his efforts to call for a ceasefire in the conflict, which passed the one-year mark on February 24.

"It's necessary to do it as soon as possible," said Yavlinsky. "I think that nobody's winning. This is a dead end, okay? This is a dead end, nobody can win in that kind of situation."

"That's why I'm saying that a ceasefire is necessary. And it's necessary to stop killing people. Because there are no positive developments. There is no positive future."

Yavlinsky described the year since the war began as "the most difficult and painful year" in his life. When asked whether he has concerns about speaking publicly against Putin, the politician said he tries not to think about it, "otherwise, it would be not possible to work."

"I was an opponent of Putin in presidential elections twice, and there were millions of people which were voting for me. So it's my obligation to say the truth and to say what I think, especially in that dangerous situation," he said. "What will be the consequences? We

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Why the West fears victory in Ukraine

by Stephen Blank, Opinion Contributor - 03/10/23 11:30 AM ET

Despite Ukraine’s heroic valor, the West is in serious danger of losing the war and, with it, the ensuing peace. The West risks losing for three specific but intertwined reasons: lack of a strategy, fear of victory and an unwillingness to campaign publicly for Ukraine’s victory.

Russia’s criminal aggression against Ukraine and military failures offers the West a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape European and international security. Therefore, it is increasingly urgent to take advantage of this opportunity.

Yet neither in Washington nor in any European capital west of Warsaw do we hear anyone advocating victory; the decisive defeat of Russia; full restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity; and Ukraine’s subsequent full integration into NATO and the European Union.

Public support for supporting Ukraine notwithstanding, leaders are privately increasingly skeptical that Ukraine can or apparently should win. Despite fulsome pledges of tanks, all we see is a trickle of them. The United States’s Abrams tanks will not even be available until 2024.

Meanwhile the long-range artillery and aircraft Ukraine needs to win is withheld due to specious arguments about the training time needed, that other weapons are better suited for the task or – the real, but unspoken motive – fear of provoking Russia.

Thus, the West’s protracted public dithering inhibited Kyiv from capitalizing on its 2022 offensive and allowed Russia time to mobilize new forces, build stronger defenses and even launch its own offensive.

Nevertheless, the recent anniversary of the war triggered an undeserved outburst of self-congratulation since timely provision of armaments may well have helped Ukraine inflict a decisive defeat upon Russia. Indeed, Kyiv might have to surrender Bakhmut and delay its spring offensive because the West cannot get its act together even after 13 months and send weapons it has already pledged.

Despite Putin’s oft-repeated intransigeance regarding negotiations and territorial conquests, this Western equivocation reflects an increasingly groundless fear of victory, which entails a genuine and long-lasting security and economic commitment to Ukraine and to holding Russia accountable.

Although Western governments are increasingly discounting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats, they remain unwilling to give Ukraine the military and economic support it needs. For example, Kyiv has received only 31 of the 64 billion pledged to it, and the sorry story of tank support is well known. Moreover, many experts still advocate negotiations yet have no idea how they could advance Ukraine’s security.

This fear of victory justifies Putin’s determination and belief that he can win by outlasting what he perceives as a decadent, effete adversary. Second it inhibits the formulation and prosecution of a resolute Western strategy. Third, it provides new opportunities for the claque of experts arguing, even in the mouth of Putin’s cannons, for negotiations.

This advocacy disregards Putin’s refusal to negotiate, reveals a basic failure to grasp that Russian policy emerges from an entirely different cognitive milieu than does Western thinking, clutches at misconceived analogies to other wars and without saying so, manifests disdain if not contempt for Ukraine’s interests. Apart from assuming that a grinding war of attrition is the only possible outcome here (and advocating measures to ensure it stays that way), one of these experts contends that Ukraine faces either annihilation or continued Russian occupation of its territories.

Other experts contend that Ukraine, not Russia, must be coerced to negotiate. And lying behind all of this argumentation is the misconceived notion that Russia cannot or should not be defeated, an utterly unfounded argument, but one that reflects an inexplicable but pervasive underlying fear of a Ukrainian victory.

Lastly, the failu

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Fuck Ukraine.

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

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

And the USA's 17th largest bank just failed. Utterly. Insolvent. Broke. Kaput.

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) would love to be in Sberbank's shoes right now, but they're broke.

---

---

Yes, as you say, the 17th largest bank comrade not the biggest as is the case with Russia's largest bank. The American bank catered to startups and didn't diversify. Not smart.

Meanwhile,

Outskirts of Bakhmut littered with corpses of Russians, and collaborators are fleeing to Russia – Ukrainian official

Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC), has said that the outskirts of Bakhmut are littered with corpses of Russian invaders, and no one takes them away.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/outskirts-of-bakhmut-littered-wit
h-corpses-of-russians-and-collaborators-are-fleeing-to-russia-ukrainian-official/ar-AA18vy5T?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=9605bdd61a2c4c0abec275770545fd22&ei=35

T

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Fuck Ukraine.

---

A top Russian official has said that her government is deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. The Telegram post by Russia's commissioner on children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, confirms reports since the start of Moscow's invasion that Ukrainian children have been sent to Russia.

In reporting Lvova-Belova's comments, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said that the forced deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children is an apparent violation of the Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. The ISW added that the move is part "of a wider ethnic-cleaning campaign."

Lvova-Belova's post on Friday tried to disprove Western accusations that deporting children was illegal. She said that "fear and panic" was being "artificially" created by the West and that the real picture of events had been distorted.

Lvova-Belova wrote that parents in the oblasts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv had "voluntarily" sent their children to "sanatoriums" and health camps in occupied Crimea and the Russian region of Krasnodar for "rest" and protection from hostilities.

Lvova-Belova justified a delay in the return of children by saying that the situation on the front line was often not safe for parents to get them back.

"Despite all the difficulties, most of the children, fortunately, have already returned to their families," Lvova-Belova said. She added that 89 children remain in southern Russia. Her post added an email address for parents to use "for help in finding your child."

"Lvova-Belova's claim that a certain number of Ukrainian children are being returned to their families does not negate the reality that the vast majority of abducted children do not return to Ukraine," the ISW said on Friday.

Russia has insisted such camps are part of a humanitarian project for abandoned, war-traumatized orphans. But Ukrainian officials have said that Moscow has evacuated thousands of children without parental consent.

A report released in February by Yale University said there is a network of at least 43 child custody centers right across Russia, including two camps in Siberia and one in the Far East. The Yale team said at least 6,000 Ukrainian children, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, had been detained, although it believes there are thousands more.

Some are adopted, while other cases involve children going to summer-camp programs from which they do not return. The primary purpose of at least a third of the camps appears to be "political re-education," the report said.

The sophistication of the operation pointed to the program being controlled from the top of the Russian government, concluded the report, undertaken in collaboration with the U.S. State Department, which Newsweek has contacted for comment.

"It is a massive logistical undertaking that does not happen by accident," Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab, told NPR.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-putin-lvova-belova-deporting-1
787084

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

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Fuck Ukraine.

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

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

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Russian State Media Urges This Could 'Solve Any Issue' on Frontlines

A Russian TV analyst recently said that enlisting 70 million Russians as volunteers to fight in Ukraine would "solve any issue" their country is facing in the ongoing war, adding that the "entire country should be together."

"If, like in the WW2, every man (not burdened with managerial functions) realizes that it's his war, too, we will move mountains. No one will be scary enough to us. It's important not to be among those who sit this one out thinking 'oh they'll manage without me.'"

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-media-urges-this-could-solve-an
y-issue-frontlines-1787123

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

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“The administration doesn’t have a clear policy objective and a clear goal. Is it to drag this thing out, which is precisely what Vladimir Putin wants?” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Is it to just give them enough to survive and not to win? I don’t see a policy for victory right now, and if we don’t have that, then what are we doing?”

“I do think the administration is split, the National Security Council split” on what weapons to send to Ukraine, said McCaul, who’s in constant touch with senior Biden officials. “I talk to a lot of top military brass and they are, in large part, supportive of giving them the ATACMS.”

The administration hasn’t provided those long-range missiles. There’s fear that Ukraine might strike faraway Russian targets, potentially escalating the war. (The US must be sensitive to Putin's personal preferences. Otherwise, Putin might threaten to nuke the US. Whoopsy daisy! Too late! Putin already made that threat a hundred times. Perhaps it is time for Biden to tell Putin to shove his nukes because Biden is sending every ATACMS to Ukraine and building more.)

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/12/biden-united-states-ukraine-r
elationship-cracks-00086654

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

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Fuck Ukraine.

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

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

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SECOND and THGR reliably get things bass akwards. I've never seen such deliberate stupdity in my life.

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

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Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND and THGR reliably get things bass akwards. I've never seen such deliberate stupdity in my life.

---

You very succinctly told the world what you are:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Putin's legacy for the world will be amazing

Many nations will finally be able to crawl out from under the USA's fat behind.

---

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65026&mid=11701
92#1170192

And 6ixStringJack cannot stop telling the world what he is, but he is not amazing:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Fuck Ukraine.

---

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

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‘Navalny,’ film about dissident fighting Kremlin, wins Academy Award

Navalny has for many years been a headache for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He’s released numerous reports about corruption in Russia and the Putin administration and become a popular and rallying figure among like-minded Russians.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/12/navalny-documentary-academy-a
ward-00086728


Navalny 2022
METASCORE 82
Universal acclaim based on 22 Critic Reviews
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/navalny

The Russian opposition leader, currently the guest of a Putin penal colony, is a charming, natural performer, something that’s helped make him an international online sensation and prominent thorn in the side of the charisma-free Russian president, who dismisses his opponent as insignificant by refusing, with considerable effort, to utter the name Navalny in public — the results being quite the reverse of the intention. This is an example of what Mr. Navalny shorthands as “moscow4”: According to the now-45-year-old anticorruption activist, when a high-ranking intelligence officer under Mr. Putin was hacked—his password was moscow1—he changed it to moscow2. When that was hacked, he changed it to moscow3. It’s a story that doesn’t need the punchline. But it illustrates Mr. Navalny’s position that the brutality of the Kremlin is a byproduct of basic incompetence and stupidity, something its current conduct in Ukraine seems to be confirming.

Navalny 2022 [RUSSIAN]
Action / Biography / Documentary

Available in:
720p.WEB | 1080p.WEB
WEB: same quality as BluRay

Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 99% - Critics
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 90% - Audience

https://yts.bz/movies/navalny-2022

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

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Battle front news missing from M$M lately. Things must be going "so well" for Kiev!

/snark

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

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