Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Monday, September 14, 2026 14:25
VIEWED: 566143
PAGE 43 of 111
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Fantasy is Putin's entire oeuvre. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently announced the good news: Ukraine has been demilitarized! Here are his exact words:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You believe in fantasy?
Troll.
“Indeed, Ukraine was heavily militarized at the time of the beginning of the Special Military Operation. And, as Putin said yesterday, one of the tasks was to demilitarize Ukraine. In fact, this task is largely completed. Ukraine is using less and less of its weapons. And more and more it uses the weapons systems that Western countries supply it with.”
Peskov’s is a strikingly bizarre interpretation of demilitarization. True, Ukraine has used up much of the equipment and ammunition that hailed from Soviet days. Equally true, it’s been the recipient of far more effective and modern and NATO-compatible weapons systems from the fifty-plus countries in the Ramstein group.
Just how this amounts to demilitarization, especially at a time when Ukraine has launched what appears to be a successful counteroffensive, is unclear.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putins-big-lie-might-be-a-scheme-
to-exit-the-ukraine-war/ar-AA1cK49k
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Because now it's no longer using it's own weapons and it's using weapons funded by your federal taxes.
This article is an admission that you are now paying for a war that Americans can't afford to be paying for.
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Quote:6ix, there is something seriously wrong with you, but you don't know it. Meanwhile, Ukrainian POWs describe Russian captivity.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Because now it's no longer using it's own weapons and it's using weapons funded by your federal taxes.
This article is an admission that you are now paying for a war that Americans can't afford to be paying for.
“Please let me die”: Freed Ukrainian POW describes first thoughts after Russian capture | 60 Minutes
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You believe in fantasy?
Troll.
T
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Ukrainian POW reveals torment at hands of Russians
Speaking to Sky's Sally Lockwood, one former marine tells of being treated 'like an animal' - stripped, beaten, duct-taped, shocked and humiliated while being held captive.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, there is something seriously wrong with you
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Because now it's no longer using it's own weapons and it's using weapons funded by your federal taxes.
This article is an admission that you are now paying for a war that Americans can't afford to be paying for.
Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment.

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Brutalized Russian Society by Natalia Antonova
During Russia’s wars on Chechnya, videos of beheadings of Russian soldiers shocked and dismayed Russian society. But only for a while. Today, that kind of brutality has become entertainment for mainstream Russian society — as long as Russians are doing it.
In a way, I wish I were shocked by the horrific video that came out last week of a screaming Ukrainian prisoner of war being brutally beheaded by Russian soldiers.
At the same time, how can I be? Russians have done the same in Syria. The brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine is deliberate — and Russian society is caught in a paradoxical spiral of denial and applause for it.
The so-called Chechenization (a term frequently used by Russian dissidents and academics, originally to refer to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy of leaning on local warlords) of Russian society has been a long time coming. I use that term with caution; there’s nothing inherently brutal about Chechen society itself, as horrendous as the wars there were. Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov, propped up by Putin, has inflicted the greatest suffering on his fellow Chechens, whether through day-to-day oppression and corruption or through violent purges.
But the wars in Chechnya, in 1994-96 and 1999-2000, played a key role in brutalizing Russian society. The spread of technology allowed for the filming of war crimes, and, at the same time, the murders of Chechen civilians were routinely downplayed or excused in the Russian press. Violence against Russians was used to justify violence committed by Russians. Ensuing terrorism against civilian targets in Russia deepened the process of brutalization further: The Beslan school siege is one of the most soul-destroying examples.
Both then and now, what ends up in the news about Chechnya is usually the tip of the iceberg, as any seasoned observer will tell you, but even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the violence sown in the North Caucasus found ways of rippling out elsewhere.
After opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was gunned down not far from the Kremlin in 2015, the men convicted of the killing would prove to be connected to Kadyrov, though who hired them remains undisclosed. At the time, the smartest people I knew in Moscow, including academics, law enforcement officers, and businesspeople already scrambling to get out, were muttering that the murder was a sign—the “marginal” politics of Chechnya had been normalized in the heart of the Russian capital. “Things will get worse,” these people said. And so they did get worse.
Recordings of the horrific violence had arguably also been normalized. When director Kantemir Balagov included authentic videos of the torture and murder of Russian soldiers in his 2017 film Closeness, Western critics were naturally upset — while Russians didn’t bat an eye. I was in my last months in Moscow when that film came out, and I remember fainting in the theater — I had been given no warning as to what I was about to see — while the rest of the audience didn’t think it was a big deal.
A society where citizens brutalize one another and are brutalized by their own government is inevitably going to commit even greater acts of violence against anyone it perceives as both evil and weaker — remember that Russians initially didn’t count on Ukrainians to resist and are therefore all the more enraged by how their war is going now.
This leads us back to the brutality of the present day. In the video from Ukraine, which was likely filmed last year, due to the foliage present in the video, the perpetrator wears a balaclava as he is being cheerfully egged on by his friends. That these people know to conceal their faces likely means that they’ve done it before or know friends who have. The comparatively small weapon used suggests the desire to prolong the victim’s torture.
Other footage of beheaded Ukrainian soldiers began circulating around the same time. In occupied Popasna last year, the severed head of a Ukrainian P
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US defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin indicated that it is ready to help Ukraine fly and maintain Lockheed’s F-16 fighter jets if NATO states agree to send them to Ukraine.[10] The Financial Times quoted Lockheed Martin Chief Operating Officer (COO) Frank St. John as stating that Lockheed is prepared to build new F-16s; modify existing airframes; and provide F-16 training, equipment, and systems support if NATO agrees to supply Ukraine with F-16s. US and other Western officials have recently signaled an increased willingness to provide Ukraine with F-16s, as ISW has previously reported.[11]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-19-2023
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:Putin heard about the F-16s and immediately threatened to nuke somebody.
Originally posted by second:
US defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin indicated that it is ready to help Ukraine fly and maintain Lockheed’s F-16 fighter jets if NATO states agree to send them to Ukraine.[10] The Financial Times quoted Lockheed Martin Chief Operating Officer (COO) Frank St. John as stating that Lockheed is prepared to build new F-16s; modify existing airframes; and provide F-16 training, equipment, and systems support if NATO agrees to supply Ukraine with F-16s. US and other Western officials have recently signaled an increased willingness to provide Ukraine with F-16s, as ISW has previously reported.[11]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-19-2023
Putin warns NATO over being drawn into Ukraine war, says Russia has more nuclear weapons
“NATO, of course, is being drawn into the war in Ukraine, what are we talking here,” Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.
“The supplies of heavy military weaponry to Ukraine are ongoing, they are now looking into giving Ukraine the jets.”
The comment appeared to be a reference to the F-16 fighter jets some members of the NATO alliance are making plans to supply Ukraine with.
During his speech to the forum, Putin also suggested Russia’s large number of nuclear weapons would “guarantee” its security – noting that Russia had more such weapons than NATO countries.
“Nuclear weapons are created to guarantee our security in the broader sense and the existence of the Russian state,” Putin said.
“But first of all, there is no need and secondly the very fact of talking about it reduces the possibility of the threshold for using these weapons being reduced.”
“Also, we have more weapons like this than the NATO countries. They know it and they keep driving towards negotiation on reduction.”
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/17/europe/nato-danger-ukraine-war-putin-in
tl-hnk/index.html
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:
US defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin indicated that it is ready to help Ukraine fly and maintain Lockheed’s F-16 fighter jets if NATO states agree to send them to Ukraine.[10] The Financial Times quoted Lockheed Martin Chief Operating Officer (COO) Frank St. John as stating that Lockheed is prepared to build new F-16s; modify existing airframes; and provide F-16 training, equipment, and systems support if NATO agrees to supply Ukraine with F-16s. US and other Western officials have recently signaled an increased willingness to provide Ukraine with F-16s, as ISW has previously reported.[11]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-19-2023
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
And now you're not just blowing neo-cons... You're blowing the US War Machine too.
You guys are too funny.

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Quote:Putin said he'd nuke anybody who gave F-16's to Ukraine. The manufacturer of F-16's will call Putin's bluff . . . if somebody will pay for those F-16's. I'd be impressed if Lockheed Martin gave away free F-16s, but then Lockheed Martin would be charitably losing money and daring Putin to nuke the F-16 factory in Greenville. A small Russian nuke because it is a small American town.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
And now you're not just blowing neo-cons... You're blowing the US War Machine too.
You guys are too funny.
Behold The First F-16 Viper Built In South Carolina
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/behold-the-first-f-16-viper-buil
t-in-south-carolina
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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ISW (Nuland's neocon think -machine) says that there may be a "pause" in Kiev's Great Counteroffensive that isn't. Apparently Ukraine has lost over a thousand men, and hundreds of armored vehicles (including Bradleys and Leopards) and haven't advanced past the gray zone.
Yep, things are going so well for Kiev that the USA think tanks are actually considering EU troops and tactical nukes.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Russia announces "We Have Not Yet Begun To Fight":
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
ISW (Nuland's neocon think -machine) says that there may be a "pause" in Kiev's Great Counteroffensive that isn't. Apparently Ukraine has lost over a thousand men, and hundreds of armored vehicles (including Bradleys and Leopards) and haven't advanced past the gray zone.
Yep, things are going well. Not.
Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said on Tuesday that the potential use of US-supplied Himars and UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Crimea would mark the west’s “full involvement in the conflict and would entail immediate strikes upon decision-making centres in Ukrainian territory”. Those are seen to include the Ukrainian presidential administration and intelligence headquarters.
The Russian ultimatum comes one day after Joe Biden said that the threat of Vladimir Putin authorising a tactical nuclear strike was “real”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/20/russia-threatens-ukraine
-decision-making-centres-kyiv-western-arms-crimea
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:The Swedish Defence Research Agency released a report on Tuesday saying that Russia was planning for a prolonged confrontation with the west and was neither planning to end the war nor seek detente.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yep, things are going well. Not.
The risk of an escalation was also growing, the report said. “As Russia’s ground forces are severely battered, the importance of nuclear weapons increases,” said Maria Engqvist, an analyst for the organisation.
Dmitri Trenin, a prominent Russian foreign policy thinker who has grown more aggressive since the invasion, wrote on Tuesday that Russia should modernise its nuclear doctrine in order to show that the use of nuclear weapons is a “real, and not just theoretical possibility”.
He wrote: “The possibility of using nuclear weapons during the current conflict should not be hidden.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/20/russia-threatens-ukraine
-decision-making-centres-kyiv-western-arms-crimea
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 forces being battered are Ukrainian, not Russian. There are reports that Russians have killed up to 10 Ukrainians for every Russian soldier lost. This is borne out by the many videos of Ukrainian armored vehicles burning. I haven't seen any comparable ones of Russians being killed, and I bet that if Kiev achieved any sort of success there would be videos of it all over the internet. Or the line of contact would have moved, but it hasn't.
More lies and bullshit from SECOND.
Troll.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Signym, things are going so well for Russia that it is considering tactical nukes. As always, you get things exactly backward. It is truly a talent you, and all Russians, have. Poor Russia! Always the innocent victim of Western plots! Russia is never the murdering, lying, torturing, thieving, raping horde that the West knows Russia to be. By the way, after a peace treaty was signed in WWII, Russia killed another 2 million Germans just because Russia could and Germany was helpless. Russians are not very sporting, but they cover up that by lying about what happened.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yep, things are going so well for Kiev that the USA think tanks are actually considering EU troops and tactical nukes.
Ruth Deyermond @ruth_deyermond
The Swedish Defence Research Agency have published an excellent report on 'Russia?s War Against Ukraine and the West: The First Year', for which I was delighted to be one of the reviewers.
10:18 AM · Jun 20, 2023
https://twitter.com/ruth_deyermond/status/1671175640110841857
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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Lies piss me off.
Why would Russia reach for tactical nukes if it has a clear abundance/dominance of conventional weapons? Ukraine has no air force to speak of. Its air defenses are depleted ...witness Russian attack helicopters freely roaming the skies over battlefields, killing Ukie tanks and other vehicles. Missiles, bombs and drones rain down on Ukrainian depots, munitions dumps, and decision centers from east to west. It already lost its first tank and artillery force, it lost its second tranche of donated Soviet era weapons and shells, and now it's using a scraped-together hodgepodge of donated Soviet-era and western weapons. Newly-trained, well equipped Russian troops are holding firm or (in the north) advancing.
Terrorist attacks on Russian civilians and children's camps, blowing up dams, dirty bombs or tactical nukes... these are the acts of a militarily weakened, desperate command.
Russia isn't desperate. It can outlast NATO in Ukraine, playing defense to the west's offense, attriting weapons and men on their heavily fortified lines.
The worst that can happen to Russia is if NATO calls off the offensive, which might require Russia to go on the offensive. Being on the offensive is always a more costly move. If Russia goes on the offensive it might in the north, away from Ukie troop concentrations near Bakhmut and Zaparozhiy. And of course they will continue to destroy concentrations of men, materiel, and strategic bridges/tunnels in far western Ukraine and ports on the Black Sea to interdict NATO weapons.
My guess, anyway.
pro-Ukrainian Military blogger Dima, on the Military Summary Channel for twice-daily updates on the frontlines.
"Russians spring another meat grinder"
You're just a troll SECOND, and the lies you post are legion.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Russia will forever brag about its victory in Ukraine. And why not? Russia cannot stop bragging about the Great Patriotic War, where 27 million Russians died but only 7 million Germans. Russia also bragged about its miraculous economic recovery, but Germany has an economy twice as big as Russia’s. Time proved that Germany was the real winner of WWII, compared to Russia. But what country only had 419,400 deaths and an economy now more than 10 times bigger than Russia’s? The USA.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Russia isn't desperate. It can outlast NATO in Ukraine, playing defense to the west's offense, attriting weapons and men on their heavily fortified lines.
The worst that can happen to Russia is if NATO calls off the offensive, which might require Russia to go on the offensive.
Funny how Japan, conquered by the US, also has an economy many times larger than Russia's. That is because Russians are noteworthily incompetent when running businesses and wars. Funny how West Germany prospered while East Germany, under the Russians, stagnated until the Russians were gone.
The Russians fought incompetently in the past and in the present. Russians have always run their economy incompetently, too. So far, Russia is the winner of the least capable country in the world, judging by the number of deaths of its own citizens during war and after. Russia fights its Great Patriotic War, Part 2, Ukraine style! All victory will go to Russia, in the imagination of Russians, but not in reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/russia/usa
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:More bullshit.
Originally posted by second:Quote:Russia will forever brag about its victory in Ukraine. And why not? Russia cannot stop bragging about the Great Patriotic War, where 27 million Russians died but only 7 million Germans. Russia also bragged about its miraculous economic recovery, but Germany has an economy twice as big as Russia’s. Time proved that Germany was the real winner of WWII, compared to Russia. But what country only had 419,400 deaths and an economy now more than 10 times bigger than Russia’s? The USA.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Russia isn't desperate. It can outlast NATO in Ukraine, playing defense to the west's offense, attriting weapons and men on their heavily fortified lines.
The worst that can happen to Russia is if NATO calls off the offensive, which might require Russia to go on the offensive.
Funny how Japan, conquered by the US, also has an economy many times larger than Russia's. That is because Russians are noteworthily incompetent when running businesses and wars. Funny how West Germany prospered while East Germany, under the Russians, stagnated until the Russians were gone.
The Russians fought incompetently in the past and in the present. Russians have always run their economy incompetently, too. So far, Russia is the winner of the least capable country in the world, judging by the number of deaths of its own citizens during war and after. Russia fights its Great Patriotic War, Part 2, Ukraine style! All victory will go to Russia, in the imagination of Russians, but not in reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/russia/usa
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Troll.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Have you never heard the folk wisdom "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" Russia is not rich. Its enemy, Germany, is rich. How did that happen, Signym? While you are preparing your usual response ("Troll") why did Russia fail to capture Kyiv? The short answer to both questions is "Russians are not smart." Russian State TV keeps repeating that everything is going according to plan. The plans are too simple-minded.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More bullshit.
Troll.
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 Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate
Russia is bracing for a long war.
By Maxim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/13/ukraine-counteroffensive-russia-p
utin-war-negotiation-ceasefire-successor/
JUNE 13, 2023, 1:04 PM
As Ukraine accelerates its counteroffensive across several sections of the front, a rational person might conclude that 2023 must surely be the last year of Russia’s war against its neighbor. Russian military resources are depleted, Moscow’s long and bloody winter offensive in the Donbas has yielded meager results, and Russian society longs for the return of prewar stability. Logic dictates that the Kremlin has no better option than to seize any opportunity to cut short its disastrous war, saving face as far as possible by clinging to the shreds of its territorial gains. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed this line of thinking at a press conference this week, when he said that a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive could have the effect of “causing Putin to finally focus on negotiating an end to the war that he started.”
Such calculations, however, are based on rational cost-benefit analysis and underestimate the extent to which this war is the personal project of one man: Russian President Vladimir Putin. He started it single-handedly, based on his own distorted perceptions and disregarding the opinion of Russian society and ruling elites. He has continued to wage it for more than a year, defying all common sense, and there is no indication that he will ever wish to stop it. Indeed, continuing the war brings him numerous political benefits, while stopping it would offer him little but new risks.
There is no doubt that Russian elites and society largely share Putin’s resentment of the West, disregard for Ukrainian statehood, and belief that Russia is a great power entitled to use military force against other states at will. There is little sympathy for the plight of the Ukrainians among Russians of all social standing, and even less appetite for turning Russia into a democratic and responsible member of the international community. Still, many Russians significantly diverge with Putin on how much they are prepared to sacrifice in the standoff with the West.
With all the caveats about conducting opinion polls in authoritarian states, surveys indicate that steadfast popular support for Putin does not preclude the majority of Russians from perceiving their current situation as extremely stressful and welcoming immediate peace talks with Ukraine — whatever that may mean, as it’s unclear how many Russians would support giving up any of the conquered territories. Private conversations among the Russian elites also reveal major discontent with the mounting costs of the war and no understanding of its purpose. Still, the invasion goes on according to Putin’s wishes, and no one in Russia has the means to override his will.
For Putin, the invasion presents an easy way to implement the goals he had struggled for years to realize in peacetime. This has always been Putin’s trademark style of ruling: He believes that direct attempts to steer the leviathan of the Russian state are futile, and instead prefers to force the system to adapt to crises and faits accomplis he himself created.
With the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has honed this managerial approach to perfection. With one decision, he created enough momentum to send Russia hurtling in the direction of developments he has long wanted to see. Take the reorientation of Russia’s foreign trade to make it less dependent on the West, which Putin has aimed for since 2014. Eight years of devising strategies, elaborating policies, and taking various piecemeal steps all achieved less than one year of all-out war. In 2022, the country’s trade turnover with Europe more than halved, while trade with China grew by more than 40 percent and grew 2.6 times with India.
For years, Russia’s businesses and inept bureaucracy struggled to develop the infrastructure needed for coopera
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Ukraine Could Be Forced to Compromise
With support for the war against Russia waning in the U.S., the counteroffensive may define a new border.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-could-be-forced-to-compromise-408
e67f9?mod=opinion_featst_pos1
Quote:
At the beginning, support for Ukraine in the U.S. was strongly bipartisan. No longer. While Democrats continue to back current levels of assistance, the share of Republicans who believe that we are doing too much has risen steadily, from 9% in March 2022 to 44% today, according to Pew. Recently, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rebuffed a plan backed by both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that would provide supplemental aid for Ukraine outside the normal appropriations process, on which the debt-ceiling agreement imposes caps for defense as well as nondefense spending. Assistance to Kyiv could be cut as soon as the end of September.
Mr. Zelensky must also take into account the possibility that Donald Trump, no friend of Ukraine, will return to the Oval Office after the November 2024 election. Mr. Trump has promised to end the war within 24 hours of taking office. Allowing for hyperbole, there is every reason to believe that he would swiftly reverse current policy, weakening Ukraine’s ability to resist Russian aggression. Unless Mr. Zelensky is prepared to wager the future of his country on the whims of American voters, he should seriously consider locking in the best deal he can get from his allies while support remains strong.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate
Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?
Because they're winning?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate
Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?
Because they're winning?
Poor comrade signym. She blames everyone but the Russians for their sins upon humanity. No comrade, no. Stand next to Russia as you look in the mirror. You will see who is guilty of broken promises and crimes against humanity.
And understand this. For decades to come the crimes of Russia will be tried not only in the courts, but in the court of public opinion.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate
SIGNY Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?
Because they're winning?
THUGR: Poor comrade signym. She blames everyone but the Russians for their sins upon humanity. No comrade, no. Stand next to Russia as you look in the mirror. You will see who is guilty of broken promises and crimes against humanity.
And understand this. For decades to come the crimes of Russia will be tried not only in the courts, but in the court of public opinion.
Poor comrade dupe. Everything you post about Russia applies to us as well. World opinion outside of the collective west is turning sour, you're just ignoring it. You're like the bully in the schoolyard who thinks he's on top of the world ... until he's not.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
THE RUSSIAN WAY OF WAR IN UKRAINE: A MILITARY APPROACH NINE DECADES IN THE MAKING.
It’s fascinating enough to do a full breakdown on because much of the analysis confirms not only many things we’ve been discussing here for months, but also that Russia is adapting, evolving, and arguably revolutionizing modern warfare. And more to the point, it validates the assertions long held by those in the know that Russia’s current—sometimes mystifying—frontline tactics are precisely intentioned choices, rather than the haphazard bricolage of a fouled-up or directionless command.
The article begins with a cautionary note about how Russia’s perceived shortcomings or ‘blunders’—like the Kharkov retreat, etc.—have been over-simplified into a false narrative of a weak or failing armed forces. The author immediately establishes that Russia is actually ‘ahead of [its] time’ in terms of conceptual military strategic advancement.
MORE AT https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dissecting-west-point-think-tanks
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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The Russian State Duma adopted a law in the third reading that increases age limitations for contract servicemen during the period of mobilization, martial law, and wartime.[69] High-ranking officers to colonel generals will serve until the age of 70, and all other contract servicemen will be able to retire at 65 years of age - likely essential to keep many aging Russian General Officers in their positions without needing special exemptions.[70] The Russian Federation Council approved a law that allows individuals who committed crimes of “small or medium gravity” and men of limited fitness for military service to sign military contracts with the Russian MoD.[71]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-21-2023
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:Signym, you don't read much, do you?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate
Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?
Because they're winning?
Objectives such as substituting Western imports with domestic products, having Russians vacation inside the country, and restoring the prestige of the Russian armed forces have been on Putin’s agenda for decades, but in the end, only war proved capable of making Russian bureaucrats, businessmen, and wider society implement them for real.
None of these developments are as straightforward as they may look to Putin — and their costs for Russia are immense. But the key lesson he has drawn from Russian history is that if you want to achieve something worthy in such a vast and disorganized country, the cost will inevitably be high. While the losses will fade with time, the achievements will be remembered by later generations. And even if the costs are high, Putin has not found anything that can rival the war in its destructive efficiency for shaping the history of Russia and the world.
And that is why Putin will never agree to de-escalate.
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:Russia has signed multiple treaties, agreements, and contracts with us (the USA and collective west) and scrupulously kept up their end of every agreement. For example, they kept gas flowing thru Ukraine, paying transit fees even as Ukraine shelled Donbas and refused to pay Russia the $3 billion that they owed.
Originally posted by second:Quote:Signym, you don't read much, do you?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate
Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?
Because they're winning?
Objectives such as substituting Western imports with domestic products, having Russians vacation inside the country, and restoring the prestige of the Russian armed forces have been on Putin’s agenda for decades, but in the end, only war proved capable of making Russian bureaucrats, businessmen, and wider society implement them for real.
None of these developments are as straightforward as they may look to Putin — and their costs for Russia are immense. But the key lesson he has drawn from Russian history is that if you want to achieve something worthy in such a vast and disorganized country, the cost will inevitably be high. While the losses will fade with time, the achievements will be remembered by later generations. And even if the costs are high, Putin has not found anything that can rival the war in its destructive efficiency for shaping the history of Russia and the world.
And that is why Putin will never agree to de-escalate.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
We OTOH have renged on every promise made and every document signed, from nuclear treaties to dicking over long-term gas contracts and loans, from stealing Russia's assets to banning Russian ballet. Russians started talking about Americans not being "agreement capable" years ago, and they just added Europe to the list.
The one lesson they learned from being constantly backstabbed by the west is that the only thing we understand is power, and the only thing that will make us stop behaving like world-class jerks is ignominious defeat.
That's our fault, not theirs.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Signym, do you realize that Russia is poor compared to nations in the EU? Putin explains it by blaming the West. That is not reality. Under Putin, Russia has developed into a fully criminal gang state where the courtiers and leading supporters of the Kremlin leadership have been permitted to plunder the state. This plundering has now continued for more than 20 years. And the state that has been plundered is a petrostate with natural gas and oil revenues with assets on the order of “low trillions” of dollars. Plundering is how Russia became poor. The late author Karen Dawisha, in her book Putin’s Kleptocracy, noted that in Russia, every year, hundreds of billions of dollars are paid to affiliates of the regime in bribery money alone.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Russia has signed multiple treaties, agreements, and contracts with us (the USA and collective west) and scrupulously kept up their end of every agreement. For example, they kept gas flowing thru Ukraine, paying transit fees even as Ukraine shelled Donbas and refused to pay Russia the $3 billion that they owed.
We OTOH have renged on every promise made and every document signed, from nuclear treaties to dicking over long-term gas contracts and loans, from stealing Russia's assets to banning Russian ballet. Russians started talking about Americans not being "agreement capable" years ago, and they just added Europe to the list.
The one lesson they learned from being constantly backstabbed by the west is that the only thing we understand is power, and the only thing that will make us stop behaving like world-class jerks is ignominious defeat.
That's our fault, not theirs.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/21/russian-frozen-assets-ukraine-rec
onstruction/
Download all of Karen Dawisha's books for free from the mirrors at http://libgen.is/search.php?req=Karen+Dawisha
A quote from chapter 7 of Putin's Kleptocracy:
Corruption, Society, and the Economy
Russian society has had years of turbulence that produced decreased birth rates and increased mortality rates, especially among Russia’s men. While Putin’s early years brought greater social stability, this has eroded since the mid-2000s, so that by 2012 the 1.7 births per Russian woman, although slightly higher than previously (thanks to numbers from non-Russian republics like Chechnya, Dagestan, and Tuva), was still 20 percent below replacement level. Birth rates are not that different from European norms, but statistics on mortality rates are striking. The lack of adequate medical care produces five times more deaths from cardiovascular disease among women in Russia than in Europe. More Russian women die annually from domestic violence than the number of soldiers the USSR lost in the entire Afghan war. For Russian men, the situation is even grimmer. Poor workplace and road safety standards, plus high rates of suicide and homicide combine with the negative health effects of high alcohol consumption to make life especially precarious for Russian men. According to the World Health Organization, the life expectancy of a fifteen-year-old male is three years lower in Russia than in Haiti.1 Added to these demographic maladies are the millions of Russians, mainly girls, that have been lost to sex trafficking. Russia’s compliance with international conventions on human trafficking declined for nine straight years, and in 2013 the U.S. State Department finally gave Russia’s compliance the lowest ranking possible, below Rwanda.2
These statistics are directly affected by corruption. When the health budget is raided and stolen, funds dry up for neonatal care, medicines to treat cancer, public health campaigns against HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis, and improved emergency response. Russia committed to building its first eight-bed women’s shelter in St. Petersburg, but by 2013 it still had not opened.3 Despite receiving $1.6 trillion from oil and gas exports from 2000 to 2011, Russia was not able to build a single interstate
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dragging another red herring across your very own argument again, I see.what does poverty have to do with whether or not we (the collective west) can be trusted to keep our promises?
it doesn't.
sod off, troll.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:How can CO2, increasing from 300 parts per million to more than 400 parts per million have such huge Climate effects? One part per million is so tiny that it could not possibly change things. In Russia, corruption and incompetence at the very top have increased by parts per million compared to other countries, but the effect has been disastrous for the economic climate of Russia. The Russian leadership is screaming that it is all a hoax. That things are not bad in Russia, except for what the West did to Russia. Signym, I am not sorry to tell you this but Russia's poverty relative to other countries is not a hoax. The poverty was caused by Russia's corrupt and incompetent leaders, not the West, and conquering Ukraine will not fix what is wrong with Russia.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
dragging another red herring across your very own argument again, I see.what does poverty have to do with whether or not we (the collective west) can be trusted to keep our promises?
it doesn't.
sod off, troll.
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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Russian TV Threatens Destruction of London: 'We Will Bury Them'
Mikhail Delyagin, who is a deputy in the Russian parliament, gave his view on relations between Russia and the West.
"As long as the City of London is not destroyed and exists as one of the financial centers of the world — if only a secondary one...this cadaver-like poison is a danger," he said on June 15. He then added, "we will bury them."
Delyagin also said that "capitalism is ending," suggesting his critique was of London as a financial center.
The rhetoric on Solovyov's show regularly includes boasts of Russia's nuclear capabilities and even describing the West in general and sometimes Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in particular, as "satanic."
This does not necessarily reflect the thinking of the Kremlin, although presenters are regularly given a list of topics and angles on them to discuss, known as "temniki."
Presenters then often interpret these and experiment with different narratives to compete for attention from both the public and the Kremlin.
Last week, Solovyov called for the use of nuclear weapons against NATO countries where equipment and training are helping Ukraine's war effort. He also said that the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in the Ukraine conflict was "inevitable."
https://www.newsweek.com/delyagin-missiles-russia-solovyov-1808119
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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We Will Bury You – Russia's new Sarmat nuclear missiles
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia's new generation of Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads, would soon be deployed for combat duty.
In a speech to new graduates of military academies, Putin stressed the importance of Russia's "triad" of nuclear forces that can be launched from land, sea or air.
"The most important task here is the development of the nuclear triad, which is a key guarantee of Russia's military security and global stability," he said.
"Already about half of the units and formations of the Strategic Missile Forces are equipped with the latest Yars systems, and the troops are being re-equipped with modern missile systems with the Avangard hypersonic warhead."
The first Sarmat launchers will be put on combat duty "in the near future", Putin said.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told the assembled graduates in the Kremlin's St George's Hall, which commemorates the greatest feats in Russian military history, that the "collective West" was waging a "real war" against Russia.
Putin has repeatedly said since the start of the Ukraine conflict that Russia is ready to use all means, including nuclear weapons, to defend its "territorial integrity". Last year he said he was placing territories seized in Ukraine that Russia now claims as its own under Moscow's nuclear umbrella.
As recently as last week, however, Putin said Ukrainian forces had "no chance" in their current counteroffensive, and Russia had no need to resort to nuclear weapons.
The new Sarmat missile is designed to carry out nuclear strikes on targets thousands of missiles away in the United States or Europe. But its deployment has proceeded slower than planned, as Russia had said in April 2022 that it would be in place by autumn of that year.
Dmitry Rogozin, then head of Russia's space agency, said at that time that the missiles would be deployed with a unit in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, about 3,000 km (1,860 miles) east of Moscow.
Rogozin said they would be placed at the same sites and in the same silos as the Soviet-era Voyevoda missiles they are replacing, hailing the new "super-weapon" as an historic event that would guarantee the security of Russia's children and grandchildren for the next 30-40 years.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/putin-says-russias-
new-sarmat-nuclear-missiles-soon-ready-deployment-2023-06-21/
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:And what does his have to do with whether or not the collective west can be trusted to negotiate honestly/
Originally posted by second:Quote:How can CO2, increasing from 300 parts per million to more than 400 parts per million have such huge Climate effects? One part per million is so tiny that it could not possibly change things. In Russia, corruption and incompetence at the very top have increased by parts per million compared to other countries, but the effect has been disastrous for the economic climate of Russia. The Russian leadership is screaming that it is all a hoax. That things are not bad in Russia, except for what the West did to Russia. Signym, I am not sorry to tell you this but Russia's poverty relative to other countries is not a hoax. The poverty was caused by Russia's corrupt and incompetent leaders, not the West, and conquering Ukraine will not fix what is wrong with Russia.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
dragging another red herring across your very own argument again, I see.what does poverty have to do with whether or not we (the collective west) can be trusted to keep our promises?
it doesn't.
sod off, troll.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
it doesn't.
You're a perect example of the weasels on our government, troll.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:The sad and poor Russians who deposited money outside Russia might lose it all despite none of them having any animosity toward Ukraine:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And what does his have to do with whether or not the collective west can be trusted to negotiate honestly/
it doesn't.
You're a perect example of the weasels on our government, troll.
How to Use Russia’s Frozen Assets to Rebuild Ukraine
Conventional institutions won’t be able to handle reparations.
by Azeem Ibrahim, June 21, 2023, 12:02 PM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/21/russian-frozen-assets-ukraine-rec
onstruction/
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought with it atrocities on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II. Critical civilian infrastructure including schools, hospitals, and homes have been intentionally targeted. The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam serves as the most recent reminder of a deliberate, callous, and systematic dismantling of the country.
Ukraine lost 29 percent of its GDP in 2022 — 13 million citizens have been displaced. Reconstruction costs are running over $400 billion — not including those areas to the south and east of the Dnipro occupied by Russia.
In November 2022, the United Nations formally acknowledged that Russia must bear the legal repercussions of its internationally wrongful actions, including making reparations for damages inflicted upon Ukraine and her people. This recognition also underscored the urgency for an international mechanism to facilitate this compensation.
But the stark reality is that an unrepentant Russia is bent on inflicting as much damage on Ukraine as possible and evading its international obligations. While Russia may well lose the war, it is unlikely to lose in the kind of total fashion that made extracting reparations from, for instance, Germany after the world wars possible. Russia has veto power at its disposal to obstruct conventional avenues of securing reparations through some international institutions. Progress on this, however, has been made by scholars at the New Lines Institute. The result is an innovative proposal that makes full use of the latent legal power nation-states hold through their domestic laws to do more than just freeze Russian state assets. Our report shows how these assets can be legally transferred to Ukraine for use in reconstruction efforts.
The Multilateral Asset Transfer proposal builds on past research, including the Multilateral Action Model on Reparations (MAMOR), to shed light on the legal potency of existing national law, empowering countries to go beyond the mere freezing of Russian assets. Our report shows how countries can instead legally take a step further and transfer the roughly $350 billion in Russian assets to Ukrainian escrow accounts in central banks using legal entitlements under the law of countermeasures.
https://newlinesinstitute.org/ukraine/multilateral-action-model-on-rep
arations/
https://newlinesinstitute.org/ukraine/multilateral-framework-for-trans
ferring-state-assets/
A distinctive feature of this model is its ability to legally function without being trapped in international institutions. The model sidesteps Russia’s United Nations Security Council veto power by using only seized and frozen Russian assets, a method already provided for in U.S. law. This innovative approach could accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery and societal rebuilding, eliminating the waiting game usually associated with traditional reparation models.
The Multilateral Asset Transfer proposal’s second great strength lies in its simplicity and adaptability — it can be molded to the legal context of each nation adopting it, enabling a unified yet flexible approach to enforcing accountability. By design, this proposal leads to the creation of a global fund that will serve as a reservoir for these assets, effectively and efficiently making resources available for reconstruction to begin as early as this year.
The result will be a global fund securing the necessary finances for a war-
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Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.
But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!
So unless something incredible happens ... like, the whole neocon/security state/media cabal is somewhow swept from power, or NATO/USA makes real, on-the-ground concessions like removing missile installations and bases from Russia's border... expect Russia to keep fighting until they've reached their objectives satsifactorily.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
KIEV AIMS TO LOWER EXPECTATIONS
Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has been underway for over two weeks, and Kiev has little to show for the loss of life and military equipment expended the in the operations. On Monday, a Ukrainian military official attempted to lower expectations for the counteroffensive. In Washington, members of Congress say future support Kiev depends on regaining territory.
In an interview with the Czech Present Time TV station Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov downplayed how much territory Kiev will retake in the counteroffensive. “The Russians had the opportunity to prepare. There is an incredible density of minefields,” he said. “Our officers, our commanders are maneuvering, look for opportunities, move carefully. I suggest not pushing them, not pushing them, they are doing their job. And they will do it.”
While Reznikov argued Kiev’s attempt to preserve its soldiers’ lives is slowing the operations, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, believes Ukraine will sustain massive losses during the counteroffensive. “This is a very difficult fight. It’s a very violent fight, and it will likely take considerable time and at high cost,” he said.
...
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister, Hanna Maliar, acknowledged there was extensive fighting along the frontlines and Russian forces were on the offensive in some areas. “In the south, battles are currently taking place in the directions where Ukrainian soldiers are advancing, and the enemy is on the defensive,” she posted on Telegram. “At the same time, we have directions where, on the contrary, the enemy is advancing, and we are on the defensive. For example, Kupiansk and Lyman.”
Washington has been helping Kiev plan the counteroffensive since the Winter. The US and other NATO countries pour weapons into Ukraine for the operations. So far, Ukraine has failed to retake territory.
MORE AT https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/kiev-aims-to-lower-expectations-
for-counteroffensive/
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Russian oligarchs are inseparable from Putin. He bribes them with hundreds of billions of US dollars per year. They are his people because of the bribes.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.![]()
But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!
So unless something incredible happens ... like, the whole neocon/security state/media cabal is somewhow swept from power, or NATO/USA makes real, on-the-ground concessions like removing missile installations and bases from Russia's border... expect Russia to keep fighting until they've reached their objectives satsifactorily.
How Putin Conquered Russia's Oligarchy
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/29/1088886554/how-putin-con
quered-russias-oligarchy
The Ukraine war is Putin's hobby in his declining years. He won't admit that he arbitrarily and capriciously decided to go to war much like Stalin did with Finland. The sneaking little weasels running Russia have always given fake reasons for their international wars because the truth makes them look foolish. (Stalin's adventure into Finland convinced Hitler that Russia had a weak army. If Stalin hadn't invaded Finland, Hitler won't have invaded Russia. There would not have been a Great Patriotic War. Stalin was foolish. Putin is foolish, convincing the world Russia has a weak army.)
And Putin can't say the truth about why Russians are poorer than Europeans. He gives fake reasons for the same reason he invades, the true reasons make him look foolish.
Why Russia is poor despite natural resources
https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+russia+poor+despite+natural+res
ources
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 do no decent people defend the Russians? This is why:
Putin Ally Doubles Down on Call to Use Nukes After Strike on Crimean Bridge
By Jon Jackson On 6/22/23 at 2:48 PM EDT
Vladimir Solovyov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a well-known propagandist, addressed reports that Ukrainian missiles damaged a bridge in Crimea by calling on Russia to "batter" Ukraine with tactical nuclear weapons.
Russia's military seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, and strikes on the region have escalated in recent months. On Thursday, Russian officials said Ukraine's forces had blown a hole in the Chonhar bridge, which connects Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson region with Moscow-annexed Crimea.
Ukrainian authorities did not directly claim responsibility for the attack, but Ukrainian military spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk commented on national TV about the goal of disrupting Russia's logistics.
The bridge attack resulted in Solovyov returning to a familiar theme. Throughout the war that Putin began in February 2022, Solovyov has repeatedly called for Russia to use tactical nukes in the war, and on Thursday he said the strike in Crimea is another example of why Russia should use such weapons.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-ally-doubles-down-call-use-nukes-strike
-crimean-bridge-1808502
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:
Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.![]()
But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!
Simple, because Russia said it would not invade Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, so they did. Russia invaded, Liars.
We said if they gave up their nukes and were attacked we would help, which we are. Honest, see comrade, simple.
T
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Quote:When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. When Ukrainian-Russian negotiations on removing these weapons from Ukraine appeared to break down in September 1993, the U.S. government engaged in a trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia. The result was the Trilateral Statement, signed in January 1994, under which Ukraine agreed to transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination. In return, Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain; compensation for the economic value of the highly-enriched uranium in the warheads (which could be blended down and converted into fuel for nuclear reactors); and assistance from the United States in dismantling the missiles, missile silos, bombers and nuclear infrastructure on its territory. Steven Pifer recounts the history of this unique negotiation and describes the key lessons learned.
Originally posted by THG:Quote:Simple, because Russia said it would not invade Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, so they did. Russia invaded, Liars.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.![]()
But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!
We said if they gave up their nukes and were attacked we would help, which we are. Honest, see comrade, simple.
T![]()
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-trilateral-process-the-united-s
tates-ukraine-russia-and-nuclear-weapons/
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:When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. When Ukrainian-Russian negotiations on removing these weapons from Ukraine appeared to break down in September 1993, the U.S. government engaged in a trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia. The result was the Trilateral Statement, signed in January 1994, under which Ukraine agreed to transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination. In return, Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain; compensation for the economic value of the highly-enriched uranium in the warheads (which could be blended down and converted into fuel for nuclear reactors); and assistance from the United States in dismantling the missiles, missile silos, bombers and nuclear infrastructure on its territory. Steven Pifer recounts the history of this unique negotiation and describes the key lessons learned.
Originally posted by second:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:Simple, because Russia said it would not invade Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, so they did. Russia invaded, Liars.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.![]()
But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!
We said if they gave up their nukes and were attacked we would help, which we are. Honest, see comrade, simple.
T![]()
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-trilateral-process-the-united-s
tates-ukraine-russia-and-nuclear-weapons/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Simple, because Russia said it would not invade Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, so they did. Russia invaded, Liars.
We said if they gave up their nukes and were attacked we would help, which we are. Honest, see comrade, simple.
T
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The key line in The Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances is this line, which Russia broke many times every day year after year:
1. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800000280401fbb
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume
-3007-I-52241.pdf
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukrainian intelligence indicates that Russian forces are preparing to conduct a possible sabotage attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). A Russian-created radiological incident at the ZNPP remains unlikely but not impossible. Zelensky stated that the planned attack would release radiation from the ZNPP, and announced that Ukrainian officials will widely share their intelligence on the planned attack with partners and international organizations in the coming days.[22] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Kyrylo Budanov reported on June 20 that Russian forces had mined additional areas at the ZNPP, including the facility’s cooling pond.[23] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated on June 21 that its representatives have not observed any mines at the cooling pond, although it did acknowledge that Russian forces have mined areas in and around the ZNPP.[24] Russian forces would not be able to control the consequences of an intentional radiological incident at the ZNPP, which could impact their forces more than Ukrainian forces across the Kakhovka Reservoir given conditions at the time of the incident. An intentional radiological incident could also leave many areas in occupied southern Ukraine uninhabitable and ungovernable, further degrading Russia’s ability to cement its occupation of southern Ukraine, and the destruction of the power plant would be a drastic act. Russian forces may be signaling that they are preparing to sabotage the ZNPP in order to dissuade Ukrainian forces from conducting counteroffensive operations in the area. The Kremlin has routinely employed threats of nuclear escalation and warned of (largely Russian imposed) threats to the safety of the ZNPP in an attempt to pressure Ukraine to constrain its military actions and prevent further Western security assistance to Ukraine.[25] However, the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam also harmed Russian forces, and possible Russian plans to sabotage the ZNPP cannot be ruled out and should be prepared for by Ukraine and its partners.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-22-2023
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Either this is more Russian diplomatic nonsense, or else the Russians are truthfully claiming that if Ukraine had surrendered immediately, Russia would not have destroyed so much of Ukraine to force a surrender:
Russia Demands U.S. Pay Reparations for Helping Ukraine in War
By Isabel van Brugen On 6/22/23 at 9:02 AM EDT
Moscow's envoy in Washington, D.C. has demanded that the U.S. pays reparations for helping Ukraine in the war.
The Biden administration "is fully responsible for what is happening in Ukraine," Russian ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov told reporters on Wednesday.
According to state-run news agency Tass, Antonov was responding to remarks made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier that day at the Ukraine Recovery Conference, jointly hosted by the United Kingdom and Ukraine in London, that Russia has to bear the cost of Ukraine's reconstruction.
"The Ukrainian conflict is the result of years of deliberate efforts by the United States to create a hotbed of tensions at our borders, to turn Ukraine into 'anti-Russia,'" Antonov said.
"Here they are trying to ignore the truth: by supporting the anti-constitutional coup in Kyiv in 2014, Washington and the Western countries provoked the crisis, which has been going on for nine years," the envoy continued.
"Now the United States is even more active in fomenting confrontation. It pumps the republic with powerful weapons and cuts down any peaceful initiatives in the bud."
"Only, while it is still possible to pay for the houses, destroyed with the help of American weapons, how will then Washington evaluate the lives of innocent people? How is the United States going to settle accounts with the Ukrainians, whom they are driving into reckless frontal assaults in today's so-called counter-offensive?" Antonov said.
The diplomat added: "That's why it is up to the United States to rebuild the country."
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned in December that members of the NATO military alliance providing Ukraine with assistance could be "legitimate military targets."
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-us-antonov-blinken-reparations-ukraine
-war-1808439
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Quote:Why would ANYONE repeat this with a straight face?
Originally posted by second:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukrainian intelligence indicates that Russian forces are preparing to conduct a possible sabotage attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
This makes as much sense as Russia bombing its own pipelines (when it could simply have turned off the taps) or blowing open its own dam (when it could simply open the floodgates) - or shelling its own people at the ZNPP.
If Russia ruins the power plant -which it controls, is in its territory, and supplies electricity to its portion of the former Ukraine - not only will it lose electricity from the Europe's largest npp, it will face a monumental cleanup of the facility itself and the surrounding area.
You'd have to be a psycho like SECOND to believe Zelensky's coke-addled delusions. This is IMO just a preplanted 'explanation' for Ukraine itself creating a nuclear disaster and blaming it on Russia.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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THE THEORY AND ART OF WAFARE
This is extracted from a hugely long article and itself was edited for brevity.
Quote:
But the author [of a USA report] leaves us with one final very important point:
However, current battlefield conditions are adding the related difficulty of achieving the concentration of forces necessary for establishing main efforts during offensive operations. This is reducing large-scale engagements and thereby necessitating a concentration and synchronization of effects, rather than a traditional physical massing of troops. In turn, this places an extra burden on command and control, especially when contested by electronic warfare. Only by disrupting the opponent’s kill chain can larger formations regain the ability to concentrate and engage in maneuver warfare. During the war in Ukraine, superiority in kill-chain effectiveness has become one of the prime objectives for both sides. In this war and any other characterized by the same dynamics, this superiority becomes an essential condition for victory.
It may read as a bit of a word salad for the uninitiated, but allow me to break it down because it converges with a conclusive point I myself made a few reports back about how it’s possible to break the feared modern deadlock.
Firstly, it reiterates the obvious one last time: that achieving the necessary force concentration required to make breakthroughs is nearly impossible because large globs of units are too vulnerable to instant annihilation by unstoppable long range precision systems. Just last week there was ‘rumor’ that a Chechen commander who gave a ‘rousing speech’ to a large collection of his troops ended up being visited by the HIMARs fairy within moments.
The simple fact is, small modern drones are nearly invisible to radars.... The point being that there is simply no way to get around the fact that small drones will be buzzing and watching you at all times no matter how big of a ‘super power’ you are, and any troop concentration you foolishly expose onto the field will be quickly bombed by a competent foe.
But the key is the next sentence, which I’ll paste again:
This is reducing large-scale engagements and thereby necessitating a concentration and synchronization of effects, rather than a traditional physical massing of troops. In turn, this places an extra burden on command and control, especially when contested by electronic warfare.
This is the crux of it all: in order to circumvent this deadlock, the only way is by creating a highly efficient, fluid and well-trained command and control that can very competently coordinate the various units and ‘effects’ (EW, fires, psych/hybrid, etc.) in a potently synchronized fashion so as to enable advancing ground units to make punctures and breakthroughs in the enemy’s lines by way of the other coordinated systems identifying and suppressing key defensive structures, batteries, etc.
In short, it requires a full spectrum combined arms capability where airforce, [includig satellite], divisional artillery, signals/EW troops, and lower command all operate in smooth synchronization to make the advance together. If you’ll recall, this was exactly the chief point I belabored in explaining why the AFU’s first big Leopard/Bradley foray failed in the minefields, and how they weren’t able to synchronize all the required elements in order to suppress Russian defenses (artillery, ATGMs, mine re-layers, etc.), which caused a herky jerky advance that sometimes saw the AFU armor convoys having to “stop and wait” in place for extended periods of time while their forward scouts or drone ISR teams slowly relayed coordinates to fires groups in an attempt to suppress the defenses enough that the armor group can advance without instant destruction.
The problem is Russia still has issues with integration of this sort. It may be better than Ukraine’s, and it’s improving every day, with some sectors and unit pairings / theater commands faring better than others. But there have been cases in the past, particularNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:The article ends with this gem of wistfulness leftover from the good-old Soviet Union days: "When the modernization catches up with that critical saturation point of the necessary high-tech networked systems, it’s clear that Russia will have turned a corner, and we will see a Russian army like no other. The decades of theorizing and doctrine evolution will have converged with the technological progress necessary to successfully implement these doctrines into practice. And at that point, no other army in the world will have both the institutionalized doctrinal grounding and the technology, equipment, and experience to overcome the great enigma of the modern battlefield."
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THE THEORY AND ART OF WAFARE
This is extracted from a hugely long article and itself was edited for brevity.
MORE. LOTS MORE. AT https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dissecting-west-point-think-tanks
Alternatively, a Russian could shoot Putin in the head and the next Russian leader could then declare "Ukrainian Mission Accomplished" and forget these wasteful dreams of a super Army that can't lose.
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Quote:Signym, you know I check your statements. All 6 reactors are shutdown, producing no electricity.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If Russia ruins the power plant -which it controls, is in its territory, and supplies electricity to its portion of the former Ukraine - not only will it lose electricity from the Europe's largest npp, it will face a monumental cleanup of the facility itself and the surrounding area.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-asks-iaea-ensure-zaporizhz
hia-nuclear-plant-security-2023-06-23/
In a final show of contempt for Ukrainians and their property and farmlands, if Russia blows up these reactors because it lost the war, Russia will not clean this up any more than clean up the damage Russia has done elsewhere in Ukraine.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“Please let me die”: Freed Ukrainian POW describes first thoughts after Russian capture | 60 Minutes
Can you link to another site, maybe bitchute, rumble or odysee,
it says Age Restricted on Susan Wojcicki's u tube
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Quote:Go directly to CBS News to see the video and read the dialog. Russians are very "special" people:
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“Please let me die”: Freed Ukrainian POW describes first thoughts after Russian capture | 60 Minutes
Can you link to another site, maybe bitchute, rumble or Odysee,
it says Age Restricted on Susan Wojcicki's u tube
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-pow-russia-60-minutes-transcript-
2023-06-18/
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Russia plan to blow up Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been “drafted and approved”
by Bruno Maçães, 23 June 2023
KYIV – In an interview with the New Statesman today (23 June) in the Rybalsky compound of Ukraine’s military intelligence services in Kyiv, Kyrylo Budanov warned that Russia has finished preparations for an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the south-east of the country.
According to Budanov, who leads the Main Directorate military intelligence organisation, the cooling pond of the plant has been mined by Russian troops. Without cooling, the nuclear reactors could melt in a period of between ten hours and 14 days. He believes Russia would be able to raise the voltage in the power supply lines to the plant, bringing about a nuclear accident at the lower end of that time frame. As Budanov put it during the interview, “Technical means could be used to speed up the catastrophe.”
Ukrainian military intelligence has also been able to establish that Russian troops have moved vehicles charged with explosives to four of the six power units. It is not clear if the International Atomic Energy Agency was granted access to these units during its visit on 15 June.
On 22 June, Volodymyr Zelensky made an alarming public announcement suggesting an attack on Zaporizhzhia could happen at any moment. The intelligence came from Ukraine’s Main Directorate. The prospect of a provoked accident has been raised before but Budanov thinks this time is different. “The situation has never been as severe as now,” he said. Zelensky added that Ukraine’s interior ministry has been tasked with preparing the population with how to respond to a nuclear catastrophe.
I asked Ukraine’s spymaster if the decision to blow up the power plant has been taken. He is confident the plan is fully “drafted and approved”. The only element missing is the order to go ahead. “Then it can happen in a matter of minutes.”
Whether the order will come depends on how Russia sees the potential benefits from a nuclear disaster in southern Ukraine. Budanov told me there are two possibilities. The first would be to blow up the power plant if its forces get ousted from the left bank of the Dnieper river. Russia would then create a zone of destruction and exclusion as a way to prevent Ukraine from advancing. The strategy may also serve as a threat not to attack Russian positions.
The second possibility is that Russia would use a nuclear disaster as a “preventive measure”, in Budanov’s words. The goal in this case would be to stop Ukraine’s offensive before it starts and to freeze the line of contact as it exists. If Russia is convinced that it cannot stop a Ukrainian advance any other way, it would activate what Zelensky in his address called “a terrorist attack with radiation leakage”.
There is frustration in Ukrainian intelligence and government circles that the reaction from the global community to the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on 6 June was so muted, and that it might invite further “scorched Earth tactics”.
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2023/06/russia-plan-
blow-up-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-drafted-approved
Bruno Maçães was the Portuguese Europe minister from 2013-2015 and is the author of “Geopolitics for the End Time: From the Pandemic to the Climate Crisis”.
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Comrade, I told you so. Can_you_see_me_laughing?
T
CIVIL WAR BEGINS IN RUSSIA | Breaking News With The Enforcer
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Prigozhin Charged With 'Inciting Armed Revolt' After Vowing to Stop 'Evil' Military Leadership
By Mack Tubridy, Pyotr Kozlov and Samantha Berkhead
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/06/23/prigozhin-says-moscow-strike
s-kill-huge-number-of-wagner-forces-vows-to-stop-top-brass-a81615
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin was charged with “inciting an armed uprising” and military vehicles were deployed to the streets of Moscow and Rostov-on-Don after he made an extraordinary threat to “stop” Russia’s top military brass.
Prigozhin on Friday accused Russia’s military leadership of ordering strikes on Wagner’s camps and killing a "huge" number of forces.
In a tirade against the Defense Ministry, with whom he has been feuding publicly for months over the handling of the war in Ukraine, Prigozhin, 62, said Wagner's leadership had determined that "the evil that the military leadership of the country brings must be stopped."
Hours later, Russia’s Federal Security Agency (FSB) had filed criminal charges against Prigozhin for "inciting an armed uprising."
The charges are punishable by 12 to 20 years in prison.
"Prigozhin’s statements and actions amount to calls for the start of an armed civil conflict on Russian territory and are a ‘stab in the back’ for Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces," the FSB said in a statement carried by state agencies.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that President Vladimir Putin was aware of the "unfolding situation" around Prigozhin and that "all necessary measures" were being taken.
Shortly after 2:00 a.m. Prigozhin claimed Wagner's forces had "crossed all state borders" and entered the southern Rostov region, where he said Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was located.
"The Defense Ministry units which were sent to block our path stood aside. ... We will destroy everything that gets in our way. We are going onwards and we will go to the end," he said in a new audio message.
High-ranking Russian officials who spoke to The Moscow Times on condition of anonymity warned against drawing premature conclusions as the situation is developing under the “fog of war.”
But a source close to the Kremlin said that Prigozhin's threats of revolt were the result of the competing military power structures that had emerged amid Russia's war on Ukraine.
"The problem is that in the case of Prigozhin, we got a classic example of two armies and many decision-making centers in the system," the source told The Moscow Times.
"The concern that this would cause problems was debated at meetings in the Kremlin and in the government. But the state management system in Russia has a lot of inertia — most in the Kremlin would throw up their hands, shake their heads and say, 'Yes, that's true. But it's not our business. Let others sort it out.’
“Now it's time to sort it out.”
Following widespread speculation that he had de facto announced an armed revolt against Russia’s military, Prigozhin added: “It is not a coup d’etat. It’s a march of justice. Our actions do not impede [regular Russian] soldiers at all.”
The Russian Defense Ministry denied Prigozhin's claims that its forces fired on Wagner encampments, saying they "do not correspond to reality" and calling them a "provocation."
It later claimed that Ukrainian forces, “taking advantage of Prigozhin’s provocation,” had launched offensive operations near the eastern city of Bakhmut.
Law enforcement authorities have stepped up security measures in Moscow, the state-run TASS news agency said around 1:00 a.m. local time.
"All the most important facilities, state authorities and transport infrastructure facilities have been taken under enhanced protection," TASS cited law enforcement agencies as saying.
Video and photos shared on social media on Friday night showed military vehicles on the streets of
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US introduced bipartisan resolution for NATO Article 5.
US senators introduced a bipartisan resolution declaring russia's use of nuclear weapons or destruction of the occupied Zaporizhia Nuclear Powerplant in Ukraine to be an attack on NATO requiring the invocation of NATO Article 5
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/14gnd2v/lindsey_graham_and_s
en_blumenthal_introduced_a/
"Ukrainian military stormed positions near Krasnohorivka in Donetsk region for the first time in the ATO"
According to a number of military sources, the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed to take positions that had been under the control of the "DPR" for 9 years.
https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1672234143659220993?s=19
"No one destroyed 60 Leopards": Wagner Boss Exposes Frontline Reality vs. Kremlin's Fiction
Wagner Boss questions the widely circulated Russian claims of 60 destroyed Leopards and reveals the truth of the advancements made by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
https://www.kyivpost.com/videos/18618
Russia must pay to rebuild Ukraine, says Germany
The US, Britain and the EU have pledged €60 billion to help Ukraine rebuild. But Germany's development minister says it's "obvious" that Moscow should ultimately foot the bill for the destruction caused by the war.
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-russia-must-pay-for-what-they-destroyed-
says-germany/a-66009211?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
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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Yeah.
Bc "Ukraine is in NATO".
And USA can always gin up an attack on ... anywhere... and claim "Russia did it".
/snark
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Russian federal subjects and the Wagner Group continue efforts to conceal the true scale of Russian and Wagner losses in Ukraine. Russian opposition media outlet Verstka reported that authorities of at least 16 Russian federal subjects ceased publishing the obituaries of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, seven federal subjects never published consistent obituaries for war dead, and 19 federal subjects never published obituaries.[63] Bloomberg reported on June 22, citing data from the Bank of Russia, that Wagner Group is paying death gratuities to Wagner personnel’s families in cash, likely in an attempt to conceal the true amount Wagner has paid.[64] Bloomberg noted that Wagner has paid so many death gratuities that the cash turnover in Russia within the past 10 months exceeded pre-war forecasts by 2.2 trillion rubles (roughly $25.9 billion). https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russian-war-economy-awash-bags-04000055
1.html
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-23-2023
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The Wagner Mutiny Foreshadows a Russian Defeat
Leonid Bershidsky | Bloomberg
The mutiny by Wagner PMC, the mercenary army founded by St. Petersburg caterer Yevgeny Prigozhin, hardly comes as a surprise after months of mockery and derision directed at military leaders in Moscow. But in its timing — in the midst of a Ukrainian counteroffensive — this apparent reenactment of Benito Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome could foreshadow Russia’s defeat in its war of choice.
On Friday morning, Prigozhin published a long video on Telegram in which he argued that the Ukraine invasion was launched for little more than Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s vanity and a corrupt oligarchy’s business interests. He claimed the Russian army was retreating and losing 10 times more soldiers than it would have lost under better military leadership. Russian dissidents have been jailed for years for saying less: “Discreditation of the military” carries a maximum 15-year prison term under the Russian criminal code.
A few hours later, Prigozhin accused Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov of ordering a missile strike on Wagner encampments deep behind the Russian lines. Overnight, his troops seized control of military and administrative buildings in the southern Russian city of Rostov. There, Prigozhin met with two top Russian generals and demanded that Shoigu and Gerasimov be handed over to him, threatening otherwise to march on Moscow. “Come and get them,” Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence, countered with a laugh.
So the Wagner column moved on to Voronezh, its trucks mixing with civilian cars on the highway to make an attack from the air difficult. Prigozhin claimed that his force counted 25,000 fighters, though the real number is likely less than 10,000. Wagner was decimated by the 220-day fight for Bakhmut and the departure of almost all surviving convicts Wagner had been allowed to recruit from prison camps. Still, the battle-hardened mercenaries met with no resistance as they moved through the Russian hinterland.
That’s likely to change. Vladimir Putin gave a tough five-minute speech on Saturday morning. Without naming Prigozhin, he accused him of treason and the kind of stab in the back that, he said, “stole” from Russia its well-deserved victory in World War I and led to the Bolshevik revolution and civil war. He said he’d spoken to military commanders overnight and given orders to end the mutiny.
Months of rancor turned into action — if self-destructive — in the wake of Wagner’s winning the towns of Soledar and Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the only successes of the Russian winter offensive in Ukraine. When Wagner pulled back to lick its wounds, Shoigu used the opportunity to demand that all mercenary troops sign contracts with his ministry. Prigozhin refused and was sidelined and Wagner’s supplies cut off by the military. Regular units have been fighting off the Ukrainian counteroffensive without Wagner’s help and have suffered no major defeats so far. Without an active role in the conflict, Prigozhin’s private army was getting expensive to maintain and useless as a moneymaker — its primary function for Prigozhin, who founded it to fight for resource concessions in Africa and the Middle East. Rather than shrink into the shadows, the restaurateur-turned-field commander went all in.
Putin’s authority has been undermined by the shoddy conduct of the Ukraine invasion, but he is no Luigi Facta, the Italian prime minister who was powerless to stop Mussolini from seizing power, nor is he King Victor Emmanuel III, who allowed the fascist leader to take over. Over the last decade, Prigozhin has forged strong ties within the military establishment, but they hardly run deep enough to allow his coup attempt to succeed. Two of his erstwhile military allies, Army General Sergei Surovikin and Alexeyev, have recorded videos condemning the mutiny and calling on Wagner fighters to desist. Security agencies such as the all-powerful FSB have been hostile to Prigozhin, an ex-convict withou
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Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63 tweeted:
Don't wonder what will happen if Russia collapses. It already did! Years ago. It's not a state, it's a mafia front with factions fighting each other for money, resources, and power.
4:50 PM · Jun 23, 2023
https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1672361468602335238
Whatever is happening now, it was already clear Putin wasn't able to control every faction or to keep the infighting quiet or at least non-violent the way he mostly could before.
The pointing fingers among Russian factions will increasingly be on triggers as Ukrainian victories multiply. The towers of lies will collapse and new, smaller ones built. Defeat will be denied, then blamed on rivals, then fake victory declared by the survivors.
Whoever keeps control, Putin or anyone else, will be faced with threats & instability. It is vital for the free world not to offer any lifelines to murderers. We do not expect democracy and liberty to suddenly flourish, but there can be no deals with Russian war criminals.
There will be attempts to use internal conflict as pretext for ceasefires, sanctions relief, and other charades to give Russia time to regroup and reload while occupying Ukrainian territory & continuing the terror. No.
Do not let whatever mafia show that is now out in the open in Russia distract from the goal of Ukrainian victory. It is time to accelerate, not hesitate. If you agree that "let them all lose" in Russia is ideal, the road to that is victory. Glory to Ukraine.
PS Please keep in mind that even more than usual, everything coming out of the Kremlin, and Russian generally, will be lies. It's instinctive and about control. Such people would not admit they were drowning to a lifeguard.
If this is a color revolution in Russia, it’s the color of money. Crooks fighting thugs for turf and resources and the power to hold them. Prigozhin could end up dead or like another Kadyrov, bought off to murder for the regime again. No honor among thieves & killers.
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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Prigozhin’s bid for control is arguably the greatest threat to Moscow’s government since the 1991 coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In August of that year, Communist Party and KGB hard-liners, angered by Gorbachev’s reform efforts, sought to take over the government by sending troops into Moscow. But that coup quickly failed, and the Soviet Union rapidly broke apart, ending the Cold War.
I was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times that summer, and I was sent to Moscow to help cover the coup’s aftermath. For one story, I traveled to a rural area outside the Russian capital to interview troops who had been sent to Moscow by the coup-plotters but had left the city after the takeover failed.
The troops who had so recently threatened to bring down the government were by then picking cabbages because farmworkers had largely disappeared during the crisis. The soldiers were happy to be doing farm work because they were getting paid extra on top of their military salaries, a rare benefit that stemmed from the government’s concerns about an imminent food shortage. The impoverished conditions of those soldiers connects directly to what Prigozhin has been saying about the incompetence and corruption of the Russian government today and its casual waste of soldiers’ lives on the battlefield in Ukraine. A key part of his argument for staging a coup is that the war has been fought to enrich Russian elites.
Russian soldiers “came here as volunteers, and they died to let you lounge in your mahogany offices,” Prigozhin said in a May video directed at Russia’s military leaders. “You are sitting in your expensive clubs, your children are enjoying good living and filming videos on YouTube. Those who don’t give us ammunition will be eaten alive in hell!”
Reporting on the 1991 coup in Moscow was much different; back then, the story was far more accessible to Western reporters. In speaking to the soldiers picking cabbages outside Moscow, as well as their commanders, I quickly learned that they had no idea why they had been sent to the capital. No one had told them they were part of a coup attempt, so when they had arrived in the city, they’d simply parked their tanks and waited for orders. The orders never came, because the coup-plotters lost their nerve.
A big question now is whether Prigozhin will also lose his nerve in the coming days.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230624174116/https://theintercept.com/20
23/06/24/russia-putin-yevgeny-prigozhin-wagner/
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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Darth Putin @DarthPutinKGB
On this day in 1940 USSR occupied Lithuania to prevent them forming “anti-soviet government”. This was followed by “Elections” that were “won” by pro-USSR party who “voted to join USSR”.
Imagine doing that in today’s day and age…
1:16 AM · Jun 15, 2023
https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1669227414168248322
Darth Putin @DarthPutinKGB
On this day 1940 USSR invaded Estonia & Latvia to prevent them "forming an anti-Soviet alliance" in an operation that had absolutely nothing to do with a secret clause in our first treaty with Nazis.
Imagine today invading smaller neighbours for completely made up reasons…
7:36 AM · Jun 16, 2023
https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1669685430936129541
Darth Putin @DarthPutinKGB
“Elections" with the presence of Russian soldiers followed, then a "request" to join the USSR.
Does this sound familiar?
7:36 AM · Jun 16, 2023
https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1669685437453983747
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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And just like that.... it was over.
Some say this is all about Prigozhin - a combination of greed, hubris, ambition, PTSD. Maybe feeling used an abused. They say he developed political ambitions of his own and thought he could take on the Russian MOD.
Some say Prigozhin was bought off or compromised by the west, to launch this distraction at a critical time during Ukraine's offensive, while NATO will be considering more money to Ukraine
Some say this was all a big Russian psyop, that allowed Russia and Belarus to ID treasonous forces and also to move troops north to near Kharkov without anyone noticing in all of the confusion.
NOTE to Kasparov: There are no Ukrainian 'victories
EDITED TO ADD: Whatever is going on behind the scenes it's clear that Prigozhin was, and is, being handled with kid gloves. He's been mouthing off for months, calling out Shoigu and Gerasimov and claiming (falsely it seems) that Russian troops turned and ran, that the MoD wasn't supplying him with enough munitions and weapons, that a Russian military group fired on his troops, and (most recently) that Russian troops struck one of his camps with a missile. All of this should have had him brought up on charges a long time ago. Maybe the Kremlin knew he was falling apart and needed him to finish Bakhmut B4 they cut him loose. Maybe Prigozhin has some sort of deal with, or Kompromat on, Putin. Maybe Shoigu and/ or Gerasimov are as incompetent as claimed.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:It is not over as long as the mutineers are left alive. If Putin is ever to re-establish his authority, he may resort to desperate violence and repression.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And just like that.... it was over.
The meaning of Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny
Vladimir Putin’s inability to prevent it means he failed at his most important task
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/06/25/the-meaning-of-prigozhins
-short-lived-mutiny
IN THE SPRING of 2022, at the moment when it became clear that Russia’s invasion had begun to falter, the generals planning Ukraine’s campaign grasped that their resistance on the battlefield could turn Russian commanders against each other. Infighting and disunity, they calculated, would be a crucial step in bringing home to Russia and its people that the war was unwinnable—and that the country was paying an intolerable price to satisfy the vanity of their president, Vladimir Putin. It was one route to victory.
Little can they have imagined that their wishes would be so spectacularly fulfilled. On the evening of June 23rd Yevgeny Prigozhin mutinied, along with his irregular troops in the Wagner mercenary group. Over the next 24 hours, they captured Rostov-on-Don, Russia’s ninth-largest city, and embarked on a lightning-fast 1,000km charge towards Moscow, before striking a deal and turning around with about 200km to go. Having criticised the botched invasion, Mr Prigozhin was calling for the defence minister and the chief of the general staff to be sacked.
It is still unclear whether either man has gone, or is about to. But Mr Prigozhin, who has apparently gone into exile in Belarus (for the time being, at least), has inflicted severe damage on Mr Putin and his war. Wagner’s troops are supposedly going back to the bases they left on June 23rd. By contrast, Russia and its weakened president find themselves stuck in dangerous new territory. Tactically, the war will be harder to fight. Strategically, it will be harder to win. And Mr Putin’s leadership has been gravely undermined.
In terms of tactics, the Wagner mutiny has divided and distracted the Russian army. In the trenches its men will know that, while they are being ordered to give up their lives for a war that Mr Prigozhin has branded as corrupt, their commanders are squabbling among themselves over power and influence. In the barracks officers will be splitting their attention between the war and their own futures. They know that, if there is a power struggle, they need to end up on the right side.
For Ukraine, by contrast, the mutiny is an opportunity. Its counter-offensive, now three weeks old, has fallen behind schedule. Although most Ukrainian forces still remain in reserve, progress has been hard. There could be no better moment to break through Russian lines. It is surely no accident that the Ukrainians appear to be trying to retake Bakhmut, purchased with the blood of thousands of Wagner troops and which ordinary Russians perceive as their side’s only gain over the past year. If Ukraine wins back the town, it will underline Mr Prigozhin’s message to ordinary Russians that Mr Putin and his generals are failing.
Secondly, the mutiny has undermined Russia’s strategy. Ever since his initial assault failed, Mr Putin’s theory of victory has been that the West would come to believe that backing Ukraine is a waste of money and effort. However, Mr Prigozhin has shown that time may not be on Mr Putin’s side after all.
Russia cannot just keep doing the same thing over and over again. Now that Wagner has shown how thin Russia’s defences are, Mr Putin needs to reinvigorate his command and replenish his troops. And yet, if he embarks on a fresh mobilisation, he risks stirring up popular discontent. When Mr Putin stands in front of a camera and insists that his “special military operation” is proceeding according to plan, he wants to send the message that he will never, ever back down. After Mr Prigozhin’s escapade, he risks coming across as deluded.
That leads to the third and
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Putin is laughing at you right now.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:Why not compare Putin to Trump? 6ix, you should have written: "Putin will be fine."
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Putin is laughing at you right now.
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:
Putin is laughing at you right now.
Why not compare Putin to Trump?
Because I'm not a mindless lemming or an MSNBC anchor.

--------------------------------------------------
Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:
Nuclear Falseflag on Zaporozhye NPP Heats Up + Major Wagner Updates and More
Simplicius The Thinker
Jun 25, 2023
The situation can only be considered urgent as Ukraine has now made their full intentions crystal clear. If before we suspected with high confidence, now it is plain fact. They intend to destroy the ZNPP plant as a last ditch attempt to ‘activate NATO’ by blaming Russia.
A completely coordinated campaign over the last few days has affirmed this. Not only was Budanov’s maiden speech after reappearing from his Kalibrated cranial trepanation centered on Russia’s alleged ‘mining of the ZNPP’ basement, but now several new instances of highly coordinated messaging have been released by Ukraine and its Western controllers.
(I re-post Budanov’s video just to have them all here in one place for easy reference)
https://simplicius76.substack.com/api/v1/video/upload/a3d7ae92-46eb-45
1d-9a4f-16ed2ad583fc/src?override_publication_id=1351274&type=mp4In fact, since that video from days ago, he’s released a new, even more urgently threatening message:
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/25/7408481/
“The 4th and 6th power units of the Zaporozhye NPP were mined by Russia,” – Kyrylo Budanov "The situation has never been as serious as it is now.
The plan of the terrorist attack at the ZNPP has been fully developed and approved. To accelerate the catastrophe, they can use technical means," Budanov stated
Now, Zelensky has made two separate videos where he plainly states that Russia is preparing a massive terrorist attack at the ZNPP plant “just like they did at the Kakhovka dam”. He goes on to sternly warn the world and charge them with the responsibility to act with utmost severity in response to this upcoming Russian attack. He specifically invokes the threat of radiation crossing the borders into other NATO countries for obvious effect.
And a day later, in coordinated fashion, Lindsay Graham threatened Russia with massive NATO retaliation should Russia use any type of “nuclear” aggravation:
He even put forth a new resolution which specifically quotes the ‘destruction of a nuclear facility’ and ‘dispersing radioactive contaminants’ as an attack on NATO itself:
Obviously, this is quite ironic and hypocritical given that it was the U.S. and UK that just announced the supply of radioactive DU ammunition, which does exactly what Graham here describes in spreading radioactive contaminants.
... to begin building the groundswell of the narrative, the Ukrainian health ministry even released these preparatory safety alerts for citizens to stay safe during a nuclear radiation accident:
MORE, WITH LINKS TO ORIGINAL SOURCES, AT https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/nuclear-falseflag-on-zaporozhye-np
p
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Ukrainian officials continue to report that Russia relies on sanctions evasion schemes to acquire foreign components for weapons production. Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) representative Vadym Skibitsky reported on Jun 25 that Russia imports these components under the guise of household goods from countries that have not joined international sanctions regimes against Russia.[59] Skibitsky also reported that Russian officials secure access to critical components by creating temporary shell joint ventures and enterprises that act as one-time conduits for imports before disappearing.[60]
Russian occupation authorities continue to weaponize policy regarding children to consolidate social and administrative control of occupied areas. The Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Ministry of Internal Affairs announced on June 24 that LNR authorities held a ceremony to “award” youth in occupied Krasnodon Russian passports following their 14th birthdays.[62] The Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration reported that occupation authorities in Berdyansk and Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, are forcing schoolchildren to write letters to Russian soldiers.[63] The Ukrainian Resistance Center additionally noted that Russian occupation officials are using summer holidays to escalate measures to deport children from southern and eastern Ukraine to Russia under the guise of “rest and relaxation” measures.[64]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-25-2023
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:You should have stopped reading right there.
Originally posted by second:
Ukrainian officials continue to report
I know I did.
Have you been keeping track AT ALL of "Ukrainian officials'" track record for honesty?
Of course not!
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:You should have stopped reading right there.
Originally posted by second:
Ukrainian officials continue to report
I know I did.
Have you been keeping track AT ALL of "Ukrainian officials'" track record for honesty?
Of course not!
Signym, you are just the dumbest commie I've ever come across, with Jaynestown and Jack fighting it out to be a close second.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukrainian officials continue to report
SECOND: You should have stopped reading right there.
I know I did.
Have you been keeping track AT ALL of "Ukrainian officials'" track record for honesty?
Of course not!
THUGR: Signym, you are just the dumbest commie I've ever come across, with Jaynestown and Jack fighting it out to be a close second.
And you think calling me a "dumb commie" is an adequate response?

You STILL haven't gotten it??? You STILL think that "the news" has anything to do with real events? Dood, IT'S A STORY. Maybe it has 10% truth in it, maybe it's a total lie. The only things politicians and the media and the security state care about are:
Can you be induced to believe it?
Will it have the desired effect?
Hunter Biden laptop is "Russian disinfo": total lie
Jan 6 "insurrection": reporting tortured to the point of unrecognizibility
Trump! Russia! collusion!: Total malicious fabrication spun out for years
Iraq WMD: Total fabrication, constructed over 6 months
Ghost of Kiev: Total fabrication
Seriously, dood, apply the same lack of credulity to our media that you apply to anyone else's, bc it's just as dishonest.
READ EVERYTHING, BELIEVE NOTHING.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Ukrainian commander drops a live grenade into a trench of his own soldiers after they refuse a(nother) suicide attack, kills a platoon
Military Summary Channel
Begins appx 15:20
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Signym, you are just the dumbest commie I've ever come across, with Jaynestown and Jack fighting it out to be a close second.
T![]()
Explain yourself, pedophile.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Ukraine likely to have retaken land occupied by Russia since 2014
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66029380
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:
Ukraine likely to have retaken land occupied by Russia since 2014
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66029380
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Sure they have. Gotta justify all that money laundering in the eyes of idiots like you and Ted.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Russia is contemplating nuking the West because every Russian problem is America's fault, once again reminding the world that Russians are crazy:
The Americans and their allies are actually playing Russian Roulette. True, so far Russia’s reaction to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, drone attacks on a strategic air base in Engels, the incursion of Western-armed saboteurs into the Belgorod region, and many other actions of Ukraine, backed and directed by Washington, has been relatively reserved. As President Putin recently made it clear, there are serious grounds for such reserve. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief said that Russia has the ability to destroy any building in Kiev, but it will not stoop to the methods of terror the enemy uses. However, Putin also said that Russia is considering different options for destroying Western combat aircraft if they are deployed in NATO countries but used in the war in Ukraine.
Until now, the Russian strategy in the Ukraine conflict has allowed the enemy to ramp up the hostilities. The West used this in an attempt to wear Russia out on the battlefield and destabilize it from the inside. Following the same path makes no sense for us. On the contrary, it makes sense to refine and update our nuclear deterrence strategy, taking into account the practical experience gained during the conflict in Ukraine. The current doctrinal provisions were worded not only before the start of the special military operation, but apparently without a clear understanding of what might happen during it.
Apart from purely military considerations, Russia’s foreign strategy also includes foreign-policy, information, and other aspects. We should send our main adversary an unambiguous ? not verbal anymore ? signal that Moscow will not play at giveaway and by the rules set by the opposite side. At the same time, we should build a trust-based dialogue with our strategic partners and neutral states, explaining the motives and goals of our actions. The possibility of using nuclear weapons during the current conflict should not be hushed up. Such a perspective, real not theoretical, should serve as an incentive to curb and stop conflict escalation and ultimately pave the way for a strategic equilibrium in Europe that suits us.
As for possible Russian nuclear strikes on NATO countries, hypothetically speaking, Washington is unlikely to respond to these strikes by attacking Russia for fear of its retaliation against the United States. The absence of such a reaction will dispel the myth built for decades around Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and will lead to the deepest crisis in NATO, perhaps even to its collapse. It cannot be ruled out that the Atlantic elites in NATO and EU countries will panic and will be swept away by national forces, which will realize that the security of their countries does not depend on the non-existent U.S. “nuclear umbrella,” but on building equitable relations with Russia. It may also be quite possible that America will finally leave Russia alone.
https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/ukraine-and-nuclear-weapons/
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 is not a strong nation, a former KGB agent has said during a state television broadcast in the wake of the Wagner mutiny which shook the Kremlin over the weekend.
Andrey Bezrukov, former KGB sleeper agent who is now a Professor at the MGIMO University of International Affairs, says the Prigozhin rebellion demonstrates that Russia is neither a strong nor a normal nation.
"This couldn't happen in a strong nation," Andrey Bezrukov said on the Russia-1 television channel, in a clip posted to Twitter by Julia Davis, who runs the Russian Media Monitor account.
"For 20 years, the President has been working on this," Bezrukov said, in a translation provided by the social media account, adding: "Our goal is to turn this nation into a strong country, a normal country where these things would be impossible."
"We should be building a great country," he continued. "We can't keep evolving in this manner."
Bezrukov was living and working as a sleeper agent under the name Donald Howard Heathfield, until he and his wife, another Russian agent known as Tracey Lee Ann Foley, were arrested by the FBI in the U.S. in 2010. The pair were deported to Russia in a spy swap, and their story inspired the hit television show, The Americans.
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-mutiny-wagner-group-strong-country-ex-
kgb-state-tv-yevgeny-prigozhin-vladimir-putin-1809215
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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Activision @Activision
We would like to formally apologize for using Russia as antagonists in our Call of Duty series. Had we known the truth we would have used a much more competent military, such as Cuba or Laos.
2:25 PM ¦ Feb 28, 2022
https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1500872828945637379
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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Kiev has changed it's "counteroffensive" tactics, which lost them 15 pct of western tanks. Instead of clumsy "combined arms" offensives where they threw a lot of men and weapons against prepared defenses, only to see huge losses, Kiev is now sending small units of light infantry in minor "probing attacks". The front line is still essentially static, fighting in the south remains in the gray zone and hasn't reached Russia's first defense line.
Russian strikes on Ukraine continue.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Apparently there was a strike against a Ukraine -controlled hotel in Kramatorsk which took out a pizza place next door. Some say that many foreign mercs/volunteers/advisors were killed the the strike, as well as some civilians including children in the pizza place next door.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Activision @Activision
We would like to formally apologize for using Russia as antagonists in our Call of Duty series. Had we known the truth we would have used a much more competent military, such as Cuba or Laos.
2:25 PM ¦ Feb 28, 2022
https://twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1500872828945637379
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
At least they weren't using Nazis. That's kind of played out in current year.
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How you do anything is how you do everything.
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Quote:Says the Nazi who doesn't recognize he is a Nazi. Direct your “Heil Hitler!” to Trump, the head Nazi.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
At least they weren't using Nazis. That's kind of played out in current year.
WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - Solid majorities of Americans support providing weaponry to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia and believe that such aid demonstrates to China and other U.S. rivals a will to protect U.S. interests and allies, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey.
The two-day poll that was concluded on Tuesday charted a sharp rise in backing for arming Ukraine, with 65% of the respondents approving of the shipments compared with 46% in a May poll.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats, 56% of Republicans and 57% of independents favor supplying U.S. weapons to Ukraine, according to the latest poll.
The survey was conducted just days after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the private Wagner mercenary company, launched and then called off a mutiny over what he charged was the Russian defense ministry's mishandling of the war in Ukraine.
The findings appeared to provide firmer backing for U.S. President Joe Biden's policy of doing "whatever it takes" to assist Ukraine in recapturing territory that Russia seized in an initial assault in 2014 and its full-scale invasion 16 months ago.
"This definitely reinforces Biden's decision to be all-in on this," said William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine now with the U.S. Institute of Peace.
"The Republican leadership of the House and Senate will also take heart from this," Taylor said. Some right-wing Republican lawmakers have opposed continuing U.S. military support for Ukraine.
The Biden administration has approved 41 weapons packages for Ukraine totaling more than $40 billion since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched what he calls "a special military operation" in February 2022.
The online Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted nationwide, collecting responses from 1,004 adults, including 400 Democrats and 383 Republicans. It had a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points in either direction.
The poll found that 76% of Americans believe that providing aid to Ukraine demonstrates to China and other rivals that the United States has "the will and capability to protect our interests, our allies and ourselves."
In other findings, the survey said large majorities of Americans - 67% and 73% - are more likely to support a candidate in next year's U.S. presidential election who will continue military aid to Ukraine and one who backs the NATO alliance.
https://www.reuters.com/world/most-americans-support-us-arming-ukraine
-reutersipsos-2023-06-28/
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:Says the Nazi who doesn't recognize he is a Nazi. Direct your “Heil Hitler!” to Trump, the head Nazi.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
At least they weren't using Nazis. That's kind of played out in current year.
There's my Reaverfan.

--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
At least they weren't using Nazis. That's kind of played out in current year.
SECOND: Says the Nazi who doesn't recognize he is a Nazi. Direct your “Heil Hitler!” to Trump, the head Nazi.
'While visions of genocide danced in SECOND'S head...'
Says the liar who calls others liars, the Nazi who calls others Nazis, the troll who calls others trolls, the killer who claims others kill, the sociopath who sees evil in everyone else.
'But I pay my taxes!!! and 'I don't overeat!/ are your only claims to being a 'good person'?
Say, did you know Hitler was a vegetarian and was nice to his dog?
Likely he never killed anyone either https://historywench.com/2016/11/17/hitler-kills/ And I'll bet he paid his taxes, too.
He was obviously a better person than you!



Troll
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Second's straight up on tilt now. I've even got him posting baseless personal attacks with increasing frequency in the Cinema board. But not without first quoting part of something I said and responding with something not at all related to what he quoted, as per usual.
I wonder if his imaginary wife left with his imaginary daughters, or maybe one of his imaginary cats died.
--------------------------------------------------
How you do anything is how you do everything.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
At least they weren't using Nazis. That's kind of played out in current year.
SECOND: Says the Nazi who doesn't recognize he is a Nazi. Direct your “Heil Hitler!” to Trump, the head Nazi.
'While visions of genocide danced in SECOND'S head...'
Says the liar who calls others liars, the Nazi who calls others Nazis, the troll who calls others trolls, the killer who claims others kill, the sociopath who sees evil in everyone else.
'But I pay my taxes!!! and 'I don't overeat!/ are your only claims to being a 'good person'?
Say, did you know Hitler was a vegetarian and was nice to his dog?
Likely he never killed anyone either https://historywench.com/2016/11/17/hitler-kills/ And I'll bet he paid his taxes, too.
He was obviously a better person than you!
Troll
Hey TWO, can you believe it? Hitler was good to his dog and likely never killed anyone. What the fuck is wrong with these two. They don't think Hitler killed anyone. He killed millions and in a brutal fashion.
Want a new lamp shade? Here try this its the latest fashion. I call it Jew skin pink. Wow these two are sick.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
At least they weren't using Nazis. That's kind of played out in current year.
SECOND: Says the Nazi who doesn't recognize he is a Nazi. Direct your “Heil Hitler!” to Trump, the head Nazi.
SIGNY: 'While visions of genocide danced in SECOND'S head...'
Says the liar who calls others liars, the Nazi who calls others Nazis, the troll who calls others trolls, the killer who claims others kill, the sociopath who sees evil in everyone else.
'But I pay my taxes!!! and 'I don't overeat!/ are your only claims to being a 'good person'?
Say, did you know Hitler was a vegetarian and was nice to his dog?
Likely he never killed anyone either https://historywench.com/2016/11/17/hitler-kills/ And I'll bet he paid his taxes, too.
He was obviously a better person than you!
Troll
THUGR: Hey TWO, can you believe it? Hitler was good to his dog and likely never killed anyone. What the fuck is wrong with these two. They don't think Hitler killed anyone. He killed millions and in a brutal fashion.
Want a new lamp shade? Here try this its the latest fashion. I call it Jew skin pink. Wow these two are sick.
Sarcasm doesn't register with you?
But, to the point: UNLIKE SECOND, who claims to have shot people in Vietnam from a helicopter, Hitler most likely did not PERSONALLY kill anyone.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:If you had to decide what the stupidest thing Hitler did was, what would you pick? Besides, you know, being a racist fascist? The invasion of the Soviet Union is a good option, as is the subsequent abandonment of Moscow to split his forces against Stalingrad and the oil fields. Taking on Italian failures in North Africa and committing needed resources there is also solid. The use of amphetamines and encouraging its use by his troops? The fascination with wonder weapons (V1, V2, Jet aircraft)?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Say, did you know Hitler was a vegetarian and was nice to his dog?
Likely he never killed anyone either https://historywench.com/2016/11/17/hitler-kills/ And I'll bet he paid his taxes, too.
He was obviously a better person than you!
All solid, defensible choices. But I have an easily overlooked alternative: A failure to properly fund his U-boat fleet, the actual wonder weapon that worked, had a good record, and could have knocked Britain and its empire out of the war. If Hitler had just signed off on a purchase order of U-boats for Admiral Karl Donitz, he might’ve won. These boats inflicted stunning losses with the average U-boat sinking four Allied ships per patrol. In the first months of 1942, sinkings skyrocket and Germany sunk almost 900,000 shipping tons per month, 50% higher than Donitz's plans.
So, what went wrong? Short answer: Not all U-boats returned to port and Hitler didn’t buy replacements for the losses.
More at https://news.yahoo.com/hitlers-greatest-mistake-mightve-u-182805966.ht
ml
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 Has Reached a Dead End
An indifferent response to a warlord’s march on Moscow heralds the dawning realization that Russia has no good way out in Ukraine.
By Greg Yudin
Yevgeny Prigozhin had his reasons for launching a mutiny over the weekend. For all the inconsistencies, Prigozhin’s speech carried an overarching message that was entirely clear: Putin fails to execute his own plans. His system is so inefficient that it cannot win the war it started.
Prigozhin’s statements can seem chaotic, but they are not improvisations. Rather, the mercenary warlord commands a team of spin doctors and speechwriters that has been running political campaigns in Russia for years. His appeals to various discontented constituencies, from military hawks to anti-war pragmatists, are based on a careful analysis of the tendencies and moods in Russian society. And that analysis yields a singular conclusion: More and more Russians feel that the country has reached a dead end.
In Ukraine, no visible path leads to a Russian victory. Putin keeps inventing stories about how Russia will inevitably prevail: First, it was supposed to win easily by removing the government in Kyiv, then by seizing the Donbas, then by destroying Ukraine’s crucial infrastructure, then by freezing Europeans last winter, then by waiting until the West grew tired of supplying Ukraine with weapons. Many in Russia were once willing to believe Putin’s fairy tales, but few can now pretend to believe a good end is in sight. Rather, a defeat is looming, and even though the word is virtually prohibited for public use, it comes up more and more often in private conversations. In his public appearance during the mutiny, Putin finally hinted at the real possibility of a defeat, openly invoking the “dagger in the back” metaphor that was used to fuel resentment in Germany after it lost in World War I.
In Moscow, where I was that Saturday afternoon, the city streets were eerily empty, even though no curfew or evacuation had been declared. On a public bus, I overheard conversations that mentioned the mutiny, but not with strong emotion. Muscovites seemed calm, as if such a thing had long been bound to happen and would be greeted with indifference.
Prigozhin’s aborted march on Moscow made clear that Putin was no longer the arbiter of a conflict among warlords: He was himself part of the conflict, which was why not he but Belarus’s president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, served as its mediator. And although the two forces at odds on Saturday could hardly be classified as supporters versus opponents of the war in Ukraine, the deeper import of their standoff is the unspoken acknowledgment that the invasion, and with it Russia, has reached a dead end. Nobody has a working plan, all responsibility is delegated, and the president keeps doing what is clearly not working, while his power gradually erodes. Russia is reckoning with the fact that it cannot continue like this.
Today this recognition enters Russia through the loathsome figure of Yevgeny Prigozhin. But the Wagner Group leader’s uncanny crusade is probably a sign of things to come. Russia needs a way out of the impasse, and Putin is unlikely to offer one. Even getting rid of Prigozhin will not change this basic fact. His march may be the last call to start the search for a way out.
More at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-has-reached-a-dead-end/ar-
AA1dcupY
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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How to End Russia’s War on Ukraine
Safeguarding Europe’s Future, and the Dangers of a false peace
Chatham House report 27 June 2023
Ukraine’s Western backers debate the likely endgame for the war and its aftermath. The international response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while impressive in many ways, remains inadequate to the task and wobbly.
Many proposals have been put forward for how the conflict could, or should, be brought to a close. Some, though well-intentioned, involve concessions that would effectively appease Russia.. Persistent calls for a ceasefire or ‘negotiated settlement’ to end the fighting without tackling its underlying cause – Russia’s ambition to eliminate Ukraine as we know it – will do no more than reward the aggressor while punishing the victim.
This multi-author report takes nine commonly espoused ideas for quick fixes or objections to bolstering assistance to Ukraine, and weighs them against both current reality and their long-term consequences. The unanimous conclusion of the authors is that the only outcome to the war that can safeguard the future security of Europe is a convincing Ukrainian victory – hence, Western military support to Kyiv should be redoubled before it is too late.
Summary
• It’s now or never for Ukraine. A protracted or frozen conflict benefits Russia
and hurts Ukraine, as does a ceasefire or negotiated settlement on Russia’s terms. If Ukraine is to avoid these outcomes and turn tenacious defence and incremental battlefield gains into outright victory, it needs far more ambitious international military assistance than it has received to date. This report presents the case for an immediate and decisive increase in such support, seeks to dispel overhyped concerns about provoking Russia, and counsels against accommodating Moscow’s demands.
• Ukraine’s need is all the more pressing because the United States - the principal donor of financial and military aid to Kyiv - is entering an election cycle that could soon reduce US foreign policy engagement or ultimately result in a more inward-looking administration in Washington. Increasing the West’s supply of weaponry for Ukraine now would, in addition to helping ongoing military actions against Russian forces, provide a measure of insulation against any future weakening of US solidarity.
• The argument for Western military and diplomatic resolve is reinforced by the impacts of Russian aggression beyond Ukraine itself. Not only is European security under threat, but the viability of the rules-based international order is potentially at stake. With this full-scale invasion, Russia has directly challenged arrangements that have helped to secure peace for over 70 years. The world will be safer with Russia defeated soundly on the battlefield than with an ambiguous outcome that, for instance, institutionalizes Ukrainian territorial losses.
• The search for peace is fraught with pitfalls. Any temporary solution that preserves, or partially preserves, the battlefield status quo will buy time for Russian forces to regroup after recent heavy losses and prepare for the next onslaught, while leaving Ukraine enfeebled and less than fully sovereign. While a diplomatic solution seems attractive to many in the West, and may suspend hostilities for a period, it would merely postpone an essential reckoning with Russia and is pointless without an achievable long-term plan for Ukraine’s security in place.
• Backing a full and unambiguous Ukrainian victory is essential on practical grounds. Although recent increases in Western supplies of munitions and other hardware are welcome, the fundamental solution to many of the problems raised in this report remains: that Ukraine still needs a massive influx of weaponry. Without it, Ukraine will cease to exist as a sovereign state and an emboldened Russia will continue its imperialist campaign of expansionism against neighbours and aggression against perceived adversaries, democratic and otherwise, the world over. In the longer term, backing Ukraine will serv
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The Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, has a range of about 190 miles, enough for Ukrainian forces to strike Russian targets far behind the front lines. President Biden hasn’t signed off on the transfer, in part out of concern among U.S. officials that Ukraine could use it to strike Russian territory and escalate the conflict into a wider war.
Officials said that the matter is pending approval at the highest levels and that the deliberations could continue while the U.S. assesses the situation on the ground in Ukraine. Officials in the U.S. and Europe have seen signs, however, that previously reluctant quarters of the U.S. government, namely the White House, have come to see an urgent need to bolster Ukraine’s fight in the coming weeks.
Amid the domestic turmoil in Russia, where over the weekend the founder of the Wagner mercenary force staged an abortive mutiny, U.S. and European officials indicated that now might be the time to provide the more advanced weaponry.
The U.S. had publicly said that it continues to review its assistance to Ukraine based on battlefield dynamics, but officials privately were saying that ATACMS remained off the table as recently as two months ago.
However, with questions over how Ukraine will fare in its recently launched spring offensive, and momentum building after the recent clash between Russia’s military and mercenary forces, U.S. and European officials said the tone in Washington has shifted.
ATACMS rockets, which are fired from the Himars launcher, would enable Ukrainian forces to hit Russian nodes for logistics, command and control well behind front lines. The precision-guided missiles can hit GPS-located targets identified by intelligence with pinpoint accuracy, impeding Russia’s ability to put its rear-echelon operations out of Ukrainian reach.
The long-distance range of the missiles would likely force Russia to withdraw supplies and command posts to more than 200 miles from the front, making it more difficult to supply battle troops.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-close-to-approving-long-range-atacms-
missiles-to-bolster-ukraines-fight-cc4e389c
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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Russian forces begin to flee Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
Some ZNPP employees have also been instructed to leave the plant by 5 July. Meanwhile, intelligence reports that the Russian occupiers have instructed the personnel who remain at the station to "blame Ukraine in the event of any emergency".
Budanov said he was convinced that the Russians’ plan to blow up the ZNPP had been fully prepared and approved, and the threat had never been as great as it is now.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-forces-begin-to-flee-zapo
rizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-ukrainian-defence-intelligence/ar-AA1df7or
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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For Beijing, last weekend’s mutiny against Vladimir Putin was a cautionary tale.
By Howard W. French
JUNE 30, 2023, 9:54 AM
Throughout most of the ongoing war in Ukraine, a truism has held across most of the American political spectrum, from left to right, about the second-order effects of the conflict’s outcome. A Ukrainian victory would strengthen the position of the United States vis-à-vis China globally, while a Russian victory would achieve the opposite.
It is easy to see how takes like this gain such a strong foothold. Analysts are quick to apply sweeping, abstract constructs to their assessments of major world events. This time, that has meant a supposed worldwide faceoff between authoritarianism and democracy. Beyond such considerations, many have tried to imagine the Ukraine conflict’s effects on Chinese thinking about Taiwan. Here again, it is supposed that a Ukrainian victory against a vastly larger invading adversary would be deflating for China, lowering the risk of any near-term attempt to take control of Taiwan by force. And a Russian victory, which now seems quite unlikely, would produce the opposite effect.
But while we are busy imagining, there is a more interesting puzzle that has so far received surprisingly little attention involving China, Russia, and Ukraine, and that involves the way Beijing views the recent attempt by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to drive his private army all the way from the Russian southwestern borderlands to Moscow, to either overthrow President Vladimir Putin, kidnap his top defense officials, or lodge a dramatic patriotic protest, depending on whose interpretation one takes of last weekend’s shocking news from the country. Here, “puzzle” is the only appropriate word, not because we don’t know what really motivated Prigozhin or who, if any, his co-conspirators within the Putin system may have been, but because high-level Chinese thinking on global events of the first rank are utterly shrouded in a black box.
What is publicly known is that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, made an unusually strong statement of sympathy toward Russia and Putin early last year, when he spoke of their friendship as having “no limits.” China has been at pains since then to say that this does not mean the two countries have entered into an alliance, and Beijing ever since has been caught in a delicate and even costly balancing act, trying to show support for Moscow in various ways, through public statements and high-level diplomatic exchanges. To avoid incurring high costs in its already troubled relationship with Washington, this has required Beijing to avoid the least appearance of providing lethal weapons to Putin’s flagging army. And to avoid serious damage to relations with Europe, China has had to maintain the pose that it is not so much interested in a Russian victory as it is in some sort of scarcely defined just and peaceful outcome. But European countries that feel threatened by Putin’s recklessness and exasperated by the cost of the conflict seem less and less inclined to believe in China’s good offices.
What, though, do the Chinese themselves think of the latest events out of Russia? If Beijing ever placed any stock in the idea that Russia and China were together defending the virtues of authoritarianism against an unending onslaught of what is fancied as Western liberalism and democracy, any such illusions by now must be cold and six feet under. There is no longer any possible way to understand or interpret Putinism that could make China comfortable with a close ideological pairing or even comparison.
Much has been made of China’s growing authoritarianism under Xi, but it is hard to imagine that Xi looks upon the degraded spectacle of Russia with anything less than quiet contempt. Xi has famously required members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to study and derive lessons from the demise of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. His own synoptic assessment of how that erstwhile superpower collapsed is that it lost its nerve, meaning it d
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russian forces begin to flee Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
Some ZNPP employees have also been instructed to leave the plant by 5 July. Meanwhile, intelligence reports that the Russian occupiers have instructed the personnel who remain at the station to "blame Ukraine in the event of any emergency".
Budanov said he was convinced that the Russians’ plan to blow up the ZNPP had been fully prepared and approved, and the threat had never been as great as it is now.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-forces-begin-to-flee-zapo
rizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-ukrainian-defence-intelligence/ar-AA1df7or
Unlike Kiev, which uses civilians as human shields, Russians evacuate areas where they expect to be attacked.
Kherson
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63243313
'18 communities'
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-evacuates-civilians-from-parts-of-
ukraine-ahead-of-kyiv-counteroffensive-282e6421
nine villages in Belgorod, Russia
https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-war-live-russia-calls-054010236.html
for example, small villages and hamlets in the southeast 'gray zone' where kiev had launched its 'counteroffensive', (and lost so many amored vehicles) ...names none of us would recognize... had already been evacuated by russia.
all this means is that russia expects ukraine to attack the znpp, and ukraine hopes to blow up at least part of it and blame russia:
blow up nordstream, blame russia
blow up the khakova dam, blame russia
blow up znpp... blame russia
that's the pattern, innit?
USA, NATO desperate for a 'win' ahead of the NATO summit in vilnius july 12. YOU may be fooled by western propaganda, but the rest of the world isn't.
BTW, shift keys aren't working, and not gonna go back and correct everything using caps lock.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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speaking of biden* desperation
Quote:
Biden administration could soon approve sending controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine
By Natasha Bertrand, CNN
Updated 3:10 AM EDT, Fri June 30, 2023
https://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-war-live-russia-calls-054010236.html
OMFG, seriously? kiev already did this with 'petal' bombs and flechettes ... and blamed russia, of course!
Russia apparently also has cluster munitions in its arsenal but they claim theirs self-defuse in 24 hours instead of lying around unexploded for some civilians to set off, and AFAIK russia hasn't used cluster munitions (so far). they use the much more destructive -but also targeted - thermobaric bomb.
the only reason for biden* to consider using this is bc kiev is getting its ass handed to it, and our collective 'wunder waffe' - javelins, m777, HIMARS, patriot missile defense, leopard tanks, bradleys, etc haven't done much for kiev, and they don't expect fighter jets to do much either.
do you see how we (the collective west) have ramped up our aid to more and more lethal weapons as kiev continues to flounder? THAT is not a sign of 'winning'!
signs of USA/NATO/Kiev desperation would include more attacks on civilian targets, an attack on ZNPP, 'dirty bombs', stinger missiles, and WMD. why don't we go with agent orange and carpet bombing while we're at it?
yep, must be bc we're 'winning'.
/snark
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:There is only one pattern: Russia is poor and belligerent because Russians are stupid and noxious people compared to the EU. This has been the Russian way for centuries, but the Russians take care not to see how their own actions established and maintained the pattern.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
that's the pattern, innit?
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:you're a lying sack of shit, SECOND, and anyone who believes you is too stupid to breathe.
Originally posted by second:Quote:There is only one pattern: Russia is poor and belligerent because Russians are stupid and noxious people compared to the EU. This has been the Russian way for centuries, but the Russians cannot see how their own actions established and maintained the pattern.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
that's the pattern, innit?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
troll
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:The Ukrainians will keep fighting Russians because Russians killed 4 million Ukrainians during Holodomor. Russians deny they did what they did and they probably believe their own lies but Ukrainians don't because they were on the receiving end of the Russian mass murder spree inside Ukraine, one of many mass murder sprees Russians have gone on over the centuries. This war is just the most recent murder spree by Russians.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
you're a lying sack of shit, SECOND, and anyone who believes you is too stupid to breathe.
troll
https://www.google.com/search?q=Holodomor
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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[some] ukrainians will keep fighting bc the USA keeps telling them to. other ukrainians are fighting on the other side.
But when we (or they) have to use WMD and start targeting masses of civilians, it's clear that we (or they) don't have support of 'the people '.
Btw- Zelenskiy cancelled elections for the foreseeable future. Hooray for democracy!
so ... whatever.
troll.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Russians killed 62 million Russians in the last century. That means the Russians are mass murderers. The Ukrainians know all about this, even if you don't, Signym. That is why the Ukrainians fight Russians.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
[some] ukrainians will keep fighting bc the USA keeps telling them to. other ukrainians are fighting on the other side.
But when we (or they) have to use WMD and start targeting masses of civilians, it's clear that we (or they) don't have support of 'the people '.
Btw- Zelenskiy cancelled elections for the foreseeable future. Hooray for democracy!
so ... whatever.
troll.
Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 by R. J. Rummel
Download the free book from http://libgen.is/search.php?req=R.+J.+Rummel
https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder-ebook/dp
/B073RQ94KF/
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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