Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Thursday, September 17, 2026 22:11
VIEWED: 571942
PAGE 68 of 112
Taiwan is one-upping Ukraine's navy to defeat a Chinese invasion
By Michael Peck | Jun 15, 2024, 4:00 AM CDT
https://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-is-one-upping-ukraines-navy-to-
defeat-a-chinese-invasion-2024-6
Both Taiwan and America are looking to what has become the gold standard in naval drone warfare: Ukraine's campaign in the Black Sea. Vastly outnumbered and outgunned by Russia's navy, and with a long coastline to defend, Ukraine could have been bled white trying to defend against Russian amphibious invasions and coastal bombardment.
Instead, Russia's Black Sea Fleet has retreated from Ukrainian waters. In part this is because of land-based anti-ship missiles such as the Neptune, which sank the cruiser and Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva in 2022. But mostly it's because of robot boats that have relentlessly stalked Russian warships on the sea and even in port. In November 2023, for example, Ukrainian Magura sea drones sank or damaged two Russian landing craft and a missile corvette docked in Crimean ports and shipyards.
(If Ukraine's drone ships were built in America, Biden would forbid Ukraine from using the drones against Russian ships in water beyond 12 nautical miles offshore. Why? Because Biden, the old fool, imagines crossing Putin's Red Lines will mean WW3.
"The territorial sea of Ukraine includes the coastal marine waters having a width of 12 nautical miles measured from the line of minimum low tide both on the mainland and on islands belonging to Ukraine, or from the straight baselines joining the corresponding points."
https://www.un.org/depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/UKR_1991_
Statute.pdf )
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Massacres and Misery — The Policy of Russian Military Savagery
Russian military brutality and misbehavior are not accidental; they are Kremlin-approved, just as in Stalin’s time and beyond.
By Michael C. DiCianna | March 26, 2024
https://cepa.org/article/massacres-and-misery-the-policy-of-russian-mi
litary-savagery/
The West has the luxury of considering Ukraine’s future as an intellectual exercise; after all, there won’t be Russian tanks in Frankfurt or Chicago.
For Ukraine, it’s a very different issue, one that has been clear throughout the 25 months of Russia’s all-out war of aggression. That the war raises not just the prospect of military defeat, but of what follows — a brutality that often degenerates into outright bestiality.
The fall of Adviika in February showed the risks Ukraine faces this year if Western support is delayed even further. As the Russians pushed forward, they were as unapologetic and cruel as before. Reports of Russian soldiers executing wounded Ukrainian prisoners followed the retreat. Telegram channels showed victorious Russians looting the destroyed city for household appliances. Civilians who stayed behind face the terror of Russian occupation.
These are not one-off events. Last year, Tymofiy Shadura, an unarmed soldier of Ukraine’s 30th Mechanized Brigade, was filmed by Russian soldiers saying “Long live Ukraine,” his last words before he was murdered at close range with semi-automatic weapons fire.
The Ukrainian liberation of Bucha in April 2022 exposed the facts of the Russian invasion and occupation. More than 400 Ukrainian civilians were left dead in the streets, many showing signs of summary execution. Torture chambers were found in residential basements. Girls as young as 14 were forced into sexual slavery by Russian occupiers.
Casual consumers of news may consider this an aberration, possibly caused by unit dysfunction, as has happened in other wars — the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for example, or the massacres in some of the 20th-century European wars of colonial retreat.
But this is not the case with Russia. The bloodshed is based on something much more profound — a state-sanctioned policy and even encouragement of brutality. And its roots can be traced back centuries. As the programmers say, it’s a feature, not a bug.
Brutality, destruction, and looting are vital elements of Russian military doctrine. They’ve existed as a pillar of Russian military doctrine for almost two centuries. Policymakers should take note that revanchist powers do not play by Western rules; they disdain not only the taboo against wars of aggression but also the rules by which wars are fought.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a strategic continuation of the Russification efforts begun with the conquest of the Caucasus in the first half of the 19th century. Intentional and casual cruelty by the Russian military has been the spearhead tactic for such campaigns. To see this trend in history is not just a morbid lesson in crimes against humanity, but crucial to understanding what it means to tolerate Russian militarism.
The Russian Empire’s ultimate victory in the 101-year-long Russo-Circassian War resulted in a horrendous extermination effort. As much as 97% of the Circassian population was expelled from their homeland, with more than a million killed by the time it ended in 1864.
In The Circassian Genocide, historian Walter Richmond notes how Imperial army commanders rejected any acceptance of the humanity or sovereignty of their enemies, describing them as stateless “bandits” and “mountaineers.” The vocabulary may have changed, but the modern Russian denial of Ukrainian statehood and sweeping referrals to a “Nazi regime” in Kyiv show the same dismissal of any shared humanity. Download the book for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Circassian+Genocide
Communist revolt and rule did nothing to moderate Russian imperialism. Atrocities committed by both Reds and Whites during the Civil War have been well-recorded, and the Bolshevik g
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
EU Commissioner: EU will match Russia's ammunition production in 2025
By Rachel Amran | June 15, 2024 3:12 AM
https://kyivindependent.com/eu-commissioner-eu-will-match-russias-ammu
nition-production-in-2025/
The European Union has accelerated its production of projectiles and will match Russia's production capacity in 2025, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in an interview with French news outlet La Tribune on June 14.
The performance of the European defense industry has been lackluster, as the EU failed on its promise to deliver 1 million artillery shells between March 2023 and 2024. After supplying only about half of the promised rounds, Brussels shifted the deadline to the end of this year.
"By the end of this year, the EU plans to reach the level of 1.7 million projectiles per year, and in 2025 to match the production capacity of Russia, that is, to produce 2.5 million projectiles per year," Breton said.
Reports have suggested that Russia is managing to produce artillery shells at triple the speed of Ukraine’s allies for a quarter of the price.
Earlier this month, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin claimed that his country had increased ammunition production by more than 20 times.
"We accelerated the production of ammunition," Breton said. "In March 2023, we produced 500,000 shells a year in Europe and were already better than the Americans, who produced only 300,000. But since then, we have doubled this capacity."
The EU adopted the first-ever European Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS) in March to support the competitiveness and readiness of the bloc’s defense industry midst growing threats from Russia.
Breton also emphasized that the bloc must continue to increase defense purchases "against the tension in relations with the Russian Federation," as Europe "must continue to rearm in the coming years."
"This need is shared by many EU member states and can benefit our defense industry. But it must be able to deliver weapons to the European army on time."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ukrainian First Deputy Defense Minister Lieutenant General Ivan Havrylyuk reported that Western military assistance has begun to arrive in Ukraine, but that Western military assistance will likely not arrive at scale and significantly impact the frontline situation for several more weeks to months.
Havrylyuk told the Associated Press (AP) in an article published on June 15 that Ukrainian forces are still waiting on most of the US military assistance announced in late April 2024 to arrive in Ukraine, but that the limited amount of aid that has arrived is already reducing Ukraine's artillery shortages.[13] Havrylyuk stated that Russian forces' artillery advantage has recently decreased from seven-to-one to five-to-one as a result of US aid arrivals. Havrylyuk expressed hope that Ukraine will be able to better defend its airspace in the future following the arrival of F-16 fighter jets and other Western-provided air defense assets. AP also interviewed several frontline Ukrainian commanders and servicemen who confirmed that Ukrainian forces began receiving limited amounts of Western-provided shells but noted that the shells have not arrived at the scale that Ukrainian forces need to fully defend against Russian attacks. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský announced on June 14 that the first round of ammunition from the Czech artillery initiative has begun to arrive in Ukraine and that the Czech initiative will continue to purchase and supply ammunition for Ukraine throughout 2024.[14] Lipavský noted that five countries have already contributed funds to the initiative and that 15 additional countries have pledged to support the initiative.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-15-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The vast majority of the countries and international organizations that participated in the Ukraine-initiated Global Peace Summit in Switzerland on June 15-16 signed a joint communique on June 16 reaffirming support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.[1]
The communique also reaffirmed support for Ukrainian operation and control over the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to ensure the safety of nuclear energy and installations, "free full, and safe" commercial navigation in the Black Sea to ensure global food security, the exchange of all prisoners of war (POWs), and the return of all "deported and unlawfully displaced Ukrainian children" and other unlawfully detained Ukrainian civilians. Over 80 countries and international organizations signed the communique, although Saudi Arabia, India, South Africa, Armenia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Brazil (which attended the summit as an "observer") were among the countries that did not endorse the communique.[2]
The Ukrainian President's Office emphasized that the purpose of the summit was to facilitate "fair peace ... based on the United Nations (UN) Charter and international law," highlighting Ukraine's effort to garner support from the international community in ending the war on terms that do not violate international law by compromising Ukraine’s territory integrity or sovereignty.[3]
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stated on June 16 at the summit that "Russia should not be at the [negotiating] table now" and that there will only be peace in Ukraine "when Russia agrees to international principles and the UN Charter." ISW continues to assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not interested in good-faith negotiations and only feigns interest in negotiations in specific instances as part of a wider informational effort to seduce the West to preemptively make concessions that would violate Ukraine's sovereignty.[4]
Putin is unlikely to be interested in good faith negotiations for the foreseeable future given that he recently outlined a theory of Russian victory in Ukraine based on the assumption that Russian forces are capable of indefinite creeping advances on the battlefield to outlast Western support for Ukraine.[5]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-16-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Trump threatens to cut US aid to Ukraine quickly if reelected
June 16, 2024 1:01 pm CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-ukraine-russia-war-threat
ens-cut-aid-election-2024/
At a campaign rally in Detroit, Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him “the greatest salesman of all time” for Kyiv’s push to secure U.S. support in its effort to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression more than three years after Moscow's all-out invasion.
“He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60 billion. It never ends,” Trump said.
“I will have that settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect,” said Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. election.
NATO countries last week moved forward with a plan for the alliance to take over from the U.S. in coordinating military aid to Ukraine, a shift widely perceived as an effort to "Trump-proof" the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
While Ukraine has 80 countries on its side, Russia has North Korea, which is very like Russia, constantly threatening to nuke the world:
Russia’s Putin to visit North Korea in rare trip as anti-West alignment deepens
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/17/asia/north-korea-russia-putin-visit-int
l-hnk/index.html
Vladimir Putin is set to travel to North Korea for a two-day visit starting Tuesday, the Kremlin said, in the Russian president’s first trip to the country in more than two decades . . .
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russia’s war in Ukraine is flooding the EU with illegal cigarettes
By Mark Temnycky | 06/16/24 8:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4721702-russias-war-in-ukrai
ne-is-flooding-the-eu-with-illegal-cigarettes/
Russia’s war in Ukraine has exacerbated crime inside the country. According to the Brookings Institution, it “significantly affected regional illicit economies and criminal networks.” This is not surprising, as all available resources, including those of law enforcement agencies, are directed to war-related activities. When a foreign invader is at the door, suddenly the black market in counterfeit tobacco, often run by Russian-associated organized criminal gangs, becomes a secondary concern.
According to the Tobacco Reporter, illegal cigarettes, which “accounted for [one-fourth] of the Ukrainian tobacco market,” are draining valuable resources needed to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s ongoing invasion. The Ukrainian government has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in tobacco tax revenue amid this criminal industry’s steady growth.
This black-market industry is affecting areas beyond Ukraine. The European Anti-Fraud Office has stated that the Russian invasion of Ukraine expanded tobacco smuggling routes, creating an illicit cigarette problem throughout the European Union. Due to the proliferation of these criminal products, the European Union member states have also lost hundreds of millions of euros in budget revenues.
If Ukraine cannot demonstrate progress in resolving the illicit trade issue as a financial menace, then the malign cynics and critics of Ukraine may be vindicated.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russia is reportedly experiencing issues with producing artillery shells and select artillery systems. Ukrainian military analyst Petro Chernyk stated on June 17 that Russia likely has about 8,000 to 9,000 artillery barrels stockpiled and is able to produce about 150,000 to 170,000 artillery shells per month.[79] Chernyk stated that Russia, however, suffers from shortages of explosives for these shells, especially nitrocellulose — an intermediary good used in producing gunpowder and explosives.
US officials have recently stated that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is supplying Russia's defense industry with nitrocellulose.[81]
Chernyk stated that Russia is gradually shifting from using self-propelled racked artillery systems to towed systems but that Russia is suffering from unspecified problems with the tractors needed to pull such artillery pieces. Chernyk stated that Russia will be unable to increase its production of newer, higher-quality self-propelled artillery systems, such as the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV and the 2S34 Khosta, as Russia only has five to six machines that can manufacture these systems.
Sky News, citing open-source research from US-based consulting firm Bain & Company, reported on May 26 that Russian defense industrial producers will likely be able to manufacture and refurbish 4.5 million artillery shells in 2024 (375,000 shells per month), suggesting that Russia may be refurbishing more shells than it is producing.[80]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-17-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russia charges a Ukrainian with 'Terrorism' for downing A-50 Radar Plane
(Previously, Russia claimed the A-50 was not shot down. Then Russia claimed the A-50 crashed due to friendly fire.)
Jun 18, 2024 at 5:47 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-a50-plane-ukraine-investigative-commit
tee-1914060
Russia's investigative committee said on Monday that it had approved a "preventative measure in the form of detention" against Colonel Mykola Dzyaman, a commander in Ukraine's military, in connection with the loss of a Russian aircraft on February 23.
The committee said the aircraft "was not intended for combat operations, had no weapons, and the flight was taking place exclusively in the airspace of the Russian Federation."
Colonel Dzyaman allegedly "gave an illegal order to his subordinate military personnel to destroy it," according to Russian authorities, which said 10 crew members on board had been killed and the aircraft destroyed.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:June 18, 2024 7:30am EDT
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
SECOND: Are Putin’s Nuclear Threats Working?
They prefer that Russia should actually nuke us to demonstrate that they're serious?
a) The west CAN'T win. We can't win this conventional war (which BTW WE started) and nobody wins in a nuclear war.
The whole issue for Putin is NATO EXPANSION TO RUSSIA'S BORDERS AND NEAR ABROAD SECURITY.
A record 23 of NATO's 32 member nations are hitting the Western military alliance’s defense spending target this year. In 2021, only six nations were meeting the goal. That was before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Defense spending across European NATO allies and Canada was up nearly 18% this year alone, the biggest increase in decades. Thanks, Putin! (He responded by threatening to nuke the world.)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/record-number-nato-members-reaching-defe
nse-spending-goal-ukraine-war-persists
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The issue right now isn't $$, it's military production. At the moment, an increase in NATO'S OFFENSE spending is being wasted on paying inflated prices for substandard weapons, and running a lot of $$$ thru the Ukraine washing machine 
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I await Russia's victory before Xmas. You and Putin promised victory would be quick and inevitable, Signym. But I want it now! I eagerly anticipate the Orthodox Christmas parade through Moscow with thousands of Ukrainian Nazis bound in chains being slowly dragged behind tanks, leaving streaks of blood and skin on the pavement. The Russian crowds will howl for the glorious goriest spectacle!
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The issue right now isn't $$, it's military production. At the moment, an increase in NATO'S OFFENSE spending is being wasted on paying inflated prices for substandard weapons, and running a lot of $$$ thru the Ukraine washing machine
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Nobody ever said it would be quick.
Originally posted by second:Quote:I await Russia's victory before Xmas. You and Putin promised victory would be quick and inevitable, Signym. But I want it now! I eagerly anticipate the Orthodox Christmas parade through Moscow with thousands of Ukrainian Nazis bound in chains being slowly dragged behind tanks, leaving streaks of blood and skin on the pavement. The Russian crowds will howl for the glorious goriest spectacle!
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The issue right now isn't $$, it's military production. At the moment, an increase in NATO'S OFFENSE spending is being wasted on paying inflated prices for substandard weapons, and running a lot of $$$ thru the Ukraine washing machine
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
As usual, you lie.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Interview: Russia's War On Ukraine Could Drag On For Years
By Vazha Tavberidze | June 15, 2024 08:26 GMT
https://www.rferl.org/a/mark-galeotti-russia-war-ukraine-prigozhin/329
89771.html
Russia expert Mark Galeotti is a political analyst, author, and honorary professor at University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES). In an interview with RFE/RL's Georgian Service, Galeotti says that while Russian President Vladimir Putin has put his country on a war footing, Ukraine's Western partners have not done the same. He predicts Russia's war against Ukraine could drag out for a few more years, with neither side strong enough to defeat the other. Fighting will determine, Galeotti predicts, "where the lines get drawn and what is the shape of the Ukraine that emerges."
RFE/RL: I read an article of yours where you try to predict -- thankless as that task might be -- what Russia would look like by 2030. https://inews.co.uk/news/world/russia-in-2030-ai-forever-wars-putin-30
68487 You also speak about Ukraine, you say Ukraine will be de facto divided much like Korea, although it could still at any point explode into violence. Is the conclusion to draw from this that the war now is going on to define the divide lines?
Galeotti: I wish it were not so, but I think that seems to be the likely situation. Also because, let's be honest, neither side has the capacity to sustain this kind of tempo of war indefinitely. We can see a couple more years in which they can maintain this kind of tempo, but after that point, for economic as well as human reasons, you know, inevitably the conflict will not stop, but it'll be more like two punch-drunk boxers in the ring sort of hanging on the ropes and occasionally coming out with a flurry of blows.
In that context, yeah, it's a question of where the lines get drawn and what is the shape of the Ukraine that emerges. Because, again, there's a big difference between a kind of an impoverished and miserable Ukraine that still risks constant attack by Russia or whether it is brought into NATO or the European Union or these sorts of things.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The vast majority of the countries and international organizations that participated in the Ukraine-initiated Global Peace Summit in Switzerland on June 15-16 signed a joint communique on June 16 reaffirming support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.[1]
Of 195 nations, 92 attended. 70 were western countries, meaning only 22 were non-western.
60 were represented by heads of state (but not USA, Turkiye, Brasil, Saudi Arabia, India, or China).
77 actual nations signed the communique, which means 15 did not.
"India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates — which were represented by foreign ministers or lower-level envoys — were among those that did not sign the final document." https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-06-16/80-countries-at-
swiss-summit-agree-ukraines-territorial-integrity-is-key-to-peace
Some international organizations and non- state attendees inflated the signature count.
At some point, I'll find a list of attendees, but it probably includes such "powerhouses" like Vanuatu and Andorra.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Signym, you are in poor health. Can you at least live out your last days with dignity? Or will you flail, striking randomly around you, never landing a punch?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Nobody ever said it would be quick.
As usual, you lie.
Forever wars and facial recognition – what Russia will look like in 2030
By Mark Galeotti | May 26, 2024 (Updated 5:21 pm)
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/russia-in-2030-ai-forever-wars-putin-30
68487
Following another rigged election in March, Vladimir Putin has been inaugurated for another six-year presidential term. Assuming the 71-year-old lasts the distance, just what kind of a Russia might we imagine in 2030?
On the face of its, the regime will be even more personalistic, even tsarist. However, it will not just be him who has aged. As more and more of his cronies and confidants die or retire, he will have to elevate a new generation of ambitious leaders to manage the country for him. In the process, he will probably try and bypass the current herd of big beasts in his system, people who might nurture their own dreams of succeeding him.
There are already some signs of this, with ‘young princelings’ such as Dmitri Patrushev and Boris Kovalchuk – both the 46-year-old sons of close Mr Putin allies – being promoted in the recent reshuffle, along with Alexei Dymin, the 51-year-old former governor of Tula Region and previously been one of Mr Putin’s bodyguards.
This makes political sense: Mr Putin has always kept control of the elite by pitting individuals, institutions and factions against each other, so why not also generations? However, it also risks creating new tensions within the elite, especially as, unless infirmity or illness prevents Mr Putin from standing yet again in 2030, he is unlikely to have identified an heir. Or, at least, a single heir: there may well be a number, officially unacknowledged, yet whom Mr Putin will likewise play off against each other like Shakespeare’s King Lear, inviting his daughters to flatter him with the promise of lands and riches.
Although the Ukraine war could not still be being fought at the same pitch as today, it is equally unlikely that there will become kind of equitable peace. Instead, Ukraine will be de facto divided, much like Korea, although it could still at any point again explode into violence.
Nor, so long as Mr Putin remains in the Kremlin, will there be any return to the pre-invasion status quo with the West. Russia will remain locked in a bad-tempered Cold War 2.0 with us, under sanctions and responding with disinformation, subversion, acrimony and mistrust.
In the process, Russia will have fallen further and further into Beijing’s orbit. This is not likely to manifest itself in anything as crude as demands for the return of territories ceded in the so-called ‘unequal treaties’ of the 19th and early 20th centuries – at least not yet. Instead, near enough every new car, phone or computer will have come from China, and especially the economies of the Russian Far East will depend on Chinese investment. Why fight over something that you are in effect hire-purchasing?
Under the pressure of lasting sanctions, Russia will have been forced increasingly into a twenty-first century remake of the late Soviet Union, with a heavily planned and state-controlled economy bent to the needs of the defense-industrial complex, backed and enforced by an authoritarianism taking full advantage of the latest security technologies. Cameras running facial recognition systems will be on every street corner, station and apartment building entryway, police drones will buzz their way over their cities, and AI will be harnessed to scan emails and phone conversations for subversive language.
With no real ideology to underpin it, though, the regime will have to double down on nationalism, and a continued Orwellian rewriting of history to justify the policies of the present. Movements like the Young Army – which already has 1.5 million 8-18 year-old boys and girls in its ranks
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ukraine is running out of soldiers
By Joshua Keating | Jun 18, 2024, 6:00 AM CDT
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/355547/soldiers-shortage-demographi
cs-population-conscription
Finding troops for the “meat grinder” in Ukraine hasn’t been easy for the Russian government. Russia does conscript soldiers every year, but conscripts generally can’t be deployed outside Russia. In the fall of 2022, the Kremlin declared a “partial mobilization” meant to raise 300,000 troops for the military. But more than twice that number are believed to have fled the country to avoid the draft.
Since then, however, Russia has managed to stabilize its manpower situation. It has done this in part by offering large signing bonuses that exceed average annual salaries in many remote and impoverished regions of Russia, and by granting pardons to prison inmates. (Pardoned prisoners made up the bulk of the fatalities in Bakhmut.) These tactics have largely kept the public backlash to the hundreds of thousands of casualties manageable.
The worries about personnel are far more acute in Ukraine, which has a democratic political system and about 100 million fewer citizens than Russia. The long lines that formed outside recruiting centers immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 are a thing of the past. Today, there are desperate shortages of Ukrainian troops on the front lines.
The average age of these soldiers is over 40 — shockingly old by global standards. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently signed a controversial law to lower the age for draft eligible men from 27 to 25. (The average age of an American GI in Vietnam was 19.) The government has resorted to a number of carrots (giving volunteers the right to choose their own battalions) and sticks (highly unpopular street patrols to find young men avoiding the draft) to replenish the ranks. And like Russia, Ukraine is also now recruiting prison inmates to serve.
Another similarity to Russia: Ukraine was in a state of precipitous population collapse even before the war, thanks to a combination of plummeting birth rates and out-migration. Its population declined from 51.5 million when it became independent in 1991 to just 37 million in 2019. Add to that the more than 6 million people who fled the country after the outbreak of war, those currently in the military, those killed or seriously wounded in the war, and those who’ve turned to black market employment in order to avoid conscription, and it’s no surprise that Ukraine’s civilian economy is facing serious labor shortages.
The war has presented Ukrainian leaders with an agonizing choice that goes even beyond the brutal prospect of sending thousands of young people to their deaths: Fighting for their national survival today might require decimating the nation’s already grim demographic future.
Not so long ago, some theorists were predicting a “geriatric peace”: societies with fewer available soldiers as well as older — therefore, presumably, less aggressive — populations might simply be less likely to start wars.
But the recent actions of Russia — where population decline is only slightly slower than in Ukraine — provide a powerful counterexample to that theory, not to mention the rising tensions and territorial conflicts in fast graying East Asia. The calculations of aggressive leaders like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping might just as easily be explained by what international relations theorists call “power transition theory”: the idea that governments will try to lock in military gains before their power starts to decline.
In other words, looking at decades of population decline to come, China’s Xi might decide that now is the moment to act in Taiwan, while he still has the troops to take it.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Russian government is charging Ukrainian servicemen and military officials with crimes in absentia as part of its efforts to enforce Russian federal law outside of its jurisdiction and insinuate that Ukraine should not exist as an independent state. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) placed former Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Pyotr Mekhed and former Deputy Chief of the Ukrainian General Staff Viktor Bokiy on Russia's wanted list on June 18 and charged the men with unspecified war crimes in absentia.[17] The Russian Investigative Committee ruled on June 17 to detain a Ukrainian commander in absentia on charges that the commander helped down a Russian A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft in February 2024 — a legitimate act of war and a normal event for two warring states.[18] The Russian MVD previously absurdly placed multiple officials from most NATO member countries on its western flank on Russia’s wanted list for violating various Russian laws while the officials were in their respective countries where Russian law has no jurisdiction.[19] Russian officials similarly temporarily placed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian Ground Forces Commander Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavlyuk, and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on its wanted list for allegedly violating Russian law while those officials were not in Russia.[20] ISW continues to assess that Russia's decision to place Western officials on its wanted list for violating Russian federal laws outside of Russia is part of its effort to violate the sovereignty of NATO member states and justify possible future Russian aggression against NATO.[21] The Kremlin's prosecution of Ukrainian military personnel and political leadership who are engaged in a fully lawful, defensive war against an invasion by a foreign power in a manner akin to domestic terrorists highlights Russia's enduring belief that the Ukrainian state does not and should not exist as a political entity separate from Russia.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-18-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:News flash! North Korea’s Kim declares ‘full support’ for Russian war in Ukraine. Kim said the two countries had a “fiery friendship,” and that the deal was their “strongest ever treaty,” putting the relationship at the level of an alliance. He vowed full support for Russia's war in Ukraine.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
At some point, I'll find a list of attendees, but it probably includes such "powerhouses" like Vanuatu and Andorra.
https://apnews.com/article/vladimir-putin-kim-jong-un-russia-north-kor
ea-summit-ukraine-a6b8d2c12de7ee2ab6716d4747c9850e
Signym, without a doubt Kim's support for Putin more than cancels the EU support for Putin's multitude of enemies. The future is overwhelmingly favorable for Putin, now that Kim is on his side.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Russian government is attempting to deflect responsibility for well-documented Russian violations of international law regarding Russia's treatment of Ukrainian children by accusing the Ukrainian Armed Forces and other security structures of committing "crimes" against children. Russian State Duma Deputy Chairperson and former Russian Commissioner on Children's Rights Anna Kuznetsova presented a report developed by the Russian parliamentary investigative commission on “Kyiv’s crimes against children” during the plenary State Duma meeting on June 19, which made unfounded and absurd accusations against the Ukrainian government and military officials of crimes against children in occupied Ukraine.[23] Kuznetsova claimed that the parliamentary investigative commission developed this report in accordance with the Russian Constitution and the UN Security Council resolution of August 25, 1999, but blatantly overlooked the fact that Russia's illegal invasion and occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine violates the UN Charter and that these territories are not subject to the Russian Constitution under international law. The report accused the Ukrainian Armed Forces of wounding and killing children with artillery fire and in mining incidents since 2014 and accused the Ukrainian government of “kidnapping” children from Ukrainian-controlled territories in Donbas between 2014 and 2022 that Russia since illegally annexed in their entirety despite not occupying the entire region.[24] The report misrepresented the Ukrainian government’s evacuations of children from frontline or occupied settlements as the “kidnapping” of “about 65,000 children from the territories of Donbas and Novorossiya” since the beginning of 2022, in a blatant misrepresentation of international law. Ukraine, as the legal sovereign of the Ukrainian territories that Russia illegal occupies, has full rights to move its people away from frontline territories further to safety. Russia, as the occupying power, does not have the right to move a population it occupies away from their homes and into Russia, however. Ukraine's evacuation of its citizens is a legitimate humanitarian endeavor, while Russia's forced removal of Ukrainian citizens to Russia is illegal deportation.[25] The report also accused the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Western "private military companies," and the Ukrainian government of medical experimentation on children in occupied Ukraine, sexual abuse, human trafficking, and “the deliberate creation of a threat to the lives of children” among other unfounded accusations. The report recommended that the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) initiate the process of recognizing the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), and the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) as “terrorist organizations.” [26]
This report is likely part of an ongoing Kremlin effort to deflect domestic and international attention away from Russian violations of international law perpetrated against Ukrainian children, including mass forced deportations from occupied territories to Russia. The Russian State Duma unanimously supported the report on June 19, and Chairperson of the Russian Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko tasked the Russian government with translating this report into different languages and disseminating it across different international organizations and countries — including countries that are unfriendly to Russia.[27] Matviyenko made a revealing remark that Kyiv’s “attempt to accuse Russia of allegedly removing children looks especially cynical,” inadvertently revealing that the purpose of this unsubstantiated and false report is to confuse the international community about Russia’s violations against Ukrainian children and people.[28] The Russian State Duma notably created the Russian parliamentary investigative commission in June 2023 shortly after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Russian Presid
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Another day, another threat from Putin to nuke the West:
Putin implicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons if the West enables Ukraine to decisively defeat Russia in order to undermine the international community's cohering strategic vision of support for Ukraine. Putin stated in a press conference on June 20 following his trip to North Korea and Vietnam that Russia is considering making changes to its nuclear doctrine, claiming that Russia is aware that an unnamed “potential adversary” is working on new elements “related to lowering the threshold nuclear weapon use."[5] Putin’s statement was likely partly in response to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s June 17 remarks that NATO members are discussing increased nuclear readiness in the face of growing threats from Russia and China, even though Stoltenberg did not discuss lowering the threshold for nuclear weapon use.[6] The Russian nuclear doctrine calls for Russia to only use nuclear weapons in the event of “exceptional cases” of threats to Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Putin notably defined Russia’s possible strategic defeat in Ukraine as the “end of [Russia’s] statehood” following his mention of lowering thresholds for nuclear weapon usage.[7] Putin added that a defeat on the battlefield would signify the end of the “thousand-year history” of the Russian state and that Russia is better off fighting until the end. Putin’s rhetoric deliberately aims to present Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as an existential war for Russia’s sovereignty, and Putin likely invoked the possibility of lowering the threshold for nuclear weapon use to imply that he reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if his forces are decisively defeated on the frontlines in order to deter Ukraine’s allies from reaching a common strategic objective of decisively defeating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — an outcome which is in the West’s interests.[8]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-20-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russian General Floats Deadline for End of Putin's War: End in 2024
Jun 21, 2024 at 7:46 AM EDT
Top Russian General Apti Alaudinov, commander of Akhmat special forces unit, claims the war with Ukraine will be over by the end of the year.
Alaudinov, who leads the Chechen forces in the conflict, was appointed by Putin in April as deputy head of the Defense Ministry's military-political department.
During a state TV broadcast with Olga Skabeyeva, Alaudinov discussed the current state of military affairs and his projection for the end of the war.
When asked about Russian progress in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, his answer was, "This will be a decisive battle for us, in which we will destroy the remaining forces and means. After that, I believe, as I've already said earlier, we will finish the special military operation this year," the commander said, adding that "we will put an end to it."
He said that "everything is proceeding as it should," and "Ultimately, we will finish all of it with a final decisive battle, which I believe will be victorious for us."
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-general-end-war-ukraine-2025-1915305
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Didn’t Putin already threaten to nuke the West several times this week? He did it again:
Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to invoke nuclear threats as part of his ongoing information campaign to discourage further Western support for Ukraine and undermine the international community's efforts to cohere its strategic vision for defeating Russia’s war of conquest against Ukraine. Putin claimed during a speech to graduating Russian officers on June 21 that Russia plans to further develop its nuclear triad as a "guarantee of strategic deterrence" and to maintain the balance of power in the world.[1] Putin noted that Russia is also working to increase its conventional combat capabilities and defense industrial production. Putin claimed during a press conference in Vietnam on June 20 that Russia is considering "lowering the threshold" for nuclear use in Russia's nuclear doctrine and that a possible future strategic defeat of Russian forces on the battlefield in Ukraine would result in the "end of [Russia's] statehood."[2] ISW noted that Putin may have falsely equated a Russian defeat in Ukraine with an existential threat to the Russian state in order to invoke an "exceptional case" in which existing Russian nuclear doctrine would allow for the use of nuclear weapons.[3] Putin's June 21 statement appears to be the continuation of his recent information operation intended to sabotage the West's efforts to develop a common strategic objective of decisively defeating Russia’s invasion as the West’s envisioned end state for the war in Ukraine. ISW continues to assess that the threat of nuclear escalation is a core aspect of Russia's ability to manipulate foreign decision-makers and is highly unlikely to result in actual nuclear escalation due to nuclear and conventional deterrence.[4]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-21-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Royal United Services Institute points out that: The biggest obstacle to improving the effectiveness of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the lack of a clear and agreed-upon grand strategy for winning the war.
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/how-buil
d-ukraines-military-effectiveness-and-avoid-war-attrition
The Institute for the Study of War points to one specific example of the lack of grand strategy and who is causing the lack:
US policy continues to prohibit Ukrainian forces from striking legitimate military targets in Russian territory in range of Ukrainian HIMARS. Recent reporting from the Associated Press and Washington Post indicates that US policy still prohibits Ukraine from striking Russian military targets that are not actively attacking or preparing to attack Ukraine.[6] Pentagon spokesperson Major Charlie Dietz told the Washington Post in a report published on June 21 that the US allows Ukraine to fire US-provided HIMARS equipped with GMLRS into Russia where Russian forces are attacking into Ukraine and that the rules of engagement for US-provided weapons in Russian territory are “not about geography or a certain radius."[7] US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan similarly stated on June 17 that “this is not about geography... If Russia is attacking or about to attack from its territory into Ukraine, it only makes sense to allow Ukraine to hit back against the forces that are hitting it from across the border.”[8] These statements indicate that the US will only allow Ukrainian forces to strike Russian military targets if Russian targets first demonstrate that they are engaged in active combat operations or preparations for imminent combat operations. US restrictions likely force Ukrainian leadership to carefully determine whether or not a given target meets the aforementioned requirements before authorizing tactical fire missions. US policy still perseveres the majority of Russian sanctuary space by prohibiting Ukrainian forces from launching ATACMS missiles at any military targets in Russia.[9] No major Russian military airbases are in range of GMLRS, but many are within range of ATACMS.
Russian forces are exploiting the sanctuary that US policy still protects to support Russian combat operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast and elsewhere in Ukraine. The Russian Northern Grouping of Forces is leveraging the sanctuary to protect Russian brigade command posts and other assets outside of the range of HIMARS equipped with GLMRS north of Kharkiv Oblast. The Associated Press quoted a Ukrainian artillery commander on June 22 who stated that Ukrainian forces could target Russian brigade command points and the entire Russian Northern Grouping of Forces if the US approved Ukraine's use of ATACMS to strike Russian territory but currently cannot because Russia has deployed such command and control elements in an area 100 to 150 kilometers away from the front line.[10] US policy still prohibits Ukraine from using ATACMS anywhere in Russia.[11]
Russian air defenses will reduce the effectiveness of Ukrainian F-16s if the US does not allow Ukrainian forces to use ATACMS to destroy Russian air defense systems in Russian territory. Ukrainian F-16 pilots will have to operate in a dangerous air space if US policy continues to provide a sanctuary in Russia that protects Russian forces from ATACMS. Russian air defenses will be able to cover up to 48 percent of Ukraine’s air space if Russia deploys S-400 air defense launchers within Russia outside of the range of HIMARS armed with GMLRS rockets. Such Russian air defense deployments would complicate Ukraine's ability to use manned fixed-wing airpower closer to frontline areas or against areas from which Russian aircraft, drone, and missile threats emanate. ISW continues to assess that Ukrainian forces may be able to combine fixed-wing airpower in support of ground operations if the Ukrainian military receives a sufficient number of fighter jets, if Western partners train enough skilled pilots, and if Ukraine succeeds in d
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The Royal United Services Institute points out that: The biggest obstacle to improving the effectiveness of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the lack of a clear and agreed-upon grand strategy for winning the war.
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/how-buil
d-ukraines-military-effectiveness-and-avoid-war-attrition
The Institute for the Study of War points to one specific example of the lack of grand strategy and who is causing the lack:
US policy continues to prohibit Ukrainian forces from striking legitimate military targets in Russian territory in range of Ukrainian HIMARS.
Ukraine struck Belgorod using HIMARS already.
Quote:
Ukraine Strikes Russian Air Defense Battery in Likely HIMARS Attack: ISW
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-russia-s300-s400-air-defense-system-h
imars-belgorod-1907782
And look! It's your favorite source! Contradicting itself!
Since the very first para is questionable, everything that follows was deleted.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I dug this thread up to try a summarize, at least for myself, the situation in Ukraine.
Biden Admin Moves Ukraine to Front of Line on Air Defense Missile Deliveries, Delays Deliveries Elsewhere
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2024/06/biden-admin-moves-ukraine-to-
front-of-line-on-air-defense-missile-deliveries-delays-deliveries-elsewhere/
US signals that it has expanded policy to allow Ukraine to counterstrike into Russia
The US appears to have expanded its agreement with Ukraine to strike over the border inside Russian territory wherever Russian forces are engaging in cross-border attacks into Ukraine, not just in the Kharkiv region as was previously determined.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/20/politics/us-policy-ukraine-counterstrik
e-russia/index.html
For later...
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Russia Accuses the U.S. of Waging "Mental War"
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I dug this thread up to try a summarize, at least for myself, the situation in Ukraine.
By Henrik Rothen | Jun 23, 2024 12:19 PM CET
https://www.dagens.com/news/russia-accuses-the-u-s-of-waging-mental-wa
r
Patrushev accuses the U.S. of using institutions to wage a "mental war" on Russia.
Nikolai Patrushev, aide to the Russian president and a permanent member of the Security Council, has accused the United States of conducting a "mental war" against Russia through its institutions, research centers, and universities.
Patrushev's accusations were made in an article for "National Defense," where he claimed that American organizations are focused on conducting Russophobic research and falsifying history.
He argued that these institutions glorify individualism to eradicate Russians' sense of societal responsibility, patriotism, duty to their ancestors, and the future of their children.
He accused politically motivated historians worldwide of downplaying the Soviet Union's role in liberating their countries from fascism at Washington's behest.
Patrushev stated that this historical manipulation empowers the "Anglo-Saxons" and replaces traditional values with a consumerist mindset.
He criticized self-proclaimed truth-seekers for portraying heroism as irrational and detrimental to the health and well-being of the "free individual."
Tools of the "Mental War"
According to Patrushev, the "mental war" employs a wide range of tools from the information-propaganda arsenal, whose effectiveness is ensured through techniques of managed information-psychological impact.
He highlighted that Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland are also involved in this campaign, where historical falsification against Russia has become state policy. Western specialists, he claimed, do not need to study facts to fulfill the "anti-Russian order of the U.S. State Department."
In response, Patrushev called for the rapid implementation of patriotic education foundations and principles of spiritual and moral development in the education system, youth, and national policy. He also urged an increase in cultural and educational activities in the historical sphere.
Federal agencies, according to Patrushev, must continue systematic work to enhance Russia's humanitarian presence worldwide, counteract Russophobia, and preserve the memory of Russia's role in world history abroad.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Kiev regime suppresses family ties of Ukrainians, sending them to slaughter
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I dug this thread up to try a summarize, at least for myself, the situation in Ukraine.
Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev noted that "the long-suffering population of Ukraine is overwhelmingly Russian."
22 Jun, 01:24
https://tass.com/politics/1806799
MOSCOW, June 22. /TASS/. The population of Ukraine is overwhelmingly Russian, but the Kiev regime, at the behest of the West, is trying to suppress these family ties by sending people to slaughter, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.
He noted that "the long-suffering population of Ukraine is overwhelmingly Russian." "But the puppet Kiev regime, at the behest of its Western masters, is suppressing family ties, forcing people who speak and think in Russian, who were brought up on Russian history and literature, as well as Russian traditions, to go to the slaughter," Patrushev said.
He believes that the neo-Nazi authorities in Kiev "particularly distinguished themselves in perverting history." "The criminal organization Ukrainian Insurgent Army (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia - TASS) is called the ‘anti-fascist resistance movement" in school textbooks, while the Soviet system and German National Socialism are being equated," Patrushev said.
Western ‘horror stories’ about Russia invented to maintain power at any cost
The West invents "horror stories" about Russia to keep certain circles in power at all costs, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev believes.
"By promoting lies about Russia for centuries, European and then American elites cultivated hatred of our fatherland at the subconscious level, as well as genetic rejection of a civilization based on the equality of people, family values, respect for society and country," Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.
He stressed false interpretation of history is already being enshrined in European legislation. "False interpretations and assessments of certain historical events are being enshrined at the political level, including in legal acts," Patrushev noted, citing European Union and Ukrainian documents as examples.
He also noted that the Russian authorities must act proactively, taking into account the historical experience of the country, destroying at the root terrorism and extremism, therefore, the history of the state should not be forgotten.
"Awareness of the causes of the tragedies experienced by our country obliges society, authorities, law enforcement, and security agencies to be proactive. We all need to effectively fight the beginnings of terrorism and extremism in their early stages and fight the instigators of mass unrest," he said.
One has need to remember history to stop extremism and terrorism
The Russian authorities must act proactively, taking into account the historical experience of the country, destroying at the root terrorism and extremism, therefore, the history of the state should not be forgotten, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.
"Awareness of the causes of the tragedies experienced by our country obliges society, authorities, law enforcement, and security agencies to be proactive. We all need to effectively fight the beginnings of terrorism and extremism in their early stages and fight the instigators of mass unrest," he said.
US research centers study mental warfare against Russia
Prominent US research centers, including universities, are studying ways to wage mental warfare against Russia, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an article for the magazine National Defense.
"Well-known institutes, research centers and universities in the United States are focused on conducting Russophobic research in order to w
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Russia says U.S. is responsible for deadly Ukrainian attack on Crimea
Responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on the civilians of Sevastopol is borne above all by Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, and by the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this strike was carried out," the ministry said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-says-us-is-responsible-for
-deadly-ukrainian-attack-on-crimea/ar-BB1oJMOO
Using ATACMS, programmed by USA techs, and armed with cluster warheads.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Illogic openly on display in Russia
By Alexander J. Motyl, opinion contributor - 06/22/24 3:00 PM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4733405-putins-fascism-is-on
-blatant-display-in-russia/
While addressing the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Russian Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko warned that gay and transgender individuals are “easily drawn into extremist activity” and are prone to becoming “carriers of gender extremism and gay nationalism.” Sviridenko didn’t specify just what sort of extremist activity this might be, probably because the charge is so absurd.
The most absurd part is his reference to “gay nationalism.” Nationalism may be interpreted in many ways, but whatever it is, it has something to do with nations. One may speak of Russian nationalism or Greek nationalism, but gay nationalism makes as much sense as blond nationalism or tall nationalism.
But that doesn’t matter, since illogic is the point. In Sviridenko’s parallel universe, everyone he detests must be a nationalist, and that includes gays. That way, they can be conveniently lumped together with Ukrainians, who are “neo-Nazi” nationalists by definition, and both can then be calmly exterminated as dangerous.
Speaking of extermination, consider the inimitable Vladimir Solovyov, a Russian television personality and Putinite Russia’s answer to Germany’s Joseph Goebbels. Here’s one of his recent genocidal pronouncements: “All the Nazi dirt bags must be eradicated. Do you understand why? [Ukraine] must be cleansed! Have you ever tried getting rid of bed bugs?”
Expecting Putin to negotiate with “bed bugs,” as some naive Western analysts still do, is about as realistic as expecting Adolf Hitler to negotiate with Untermenschen.
As students of genocide know, one of the key steps associated with it is the discursive transformation of the target population into subhumans, non-humans, vermin and the like. Jews, Roma and Slavs were Untermenschen in Goebbels’s twisted world; in Solovyov’s, Ukrainians are bed bugs. Consider Solovyov’s ravings in light of Sviridenko’s, and you can’t avoid concluding that gays are no less bed bugs than Ukrainians.
Austria’s former foreign minister, Karin Kneissl of the far-right Freedom Party, decamped to Russia last year. She is so enamored of Putin’s realm that she has said, “I like living in Russia…because there is freedom here. And freedom means living in safety. And in St. Petersburg or Moscow or Khabarovsk it is possible to walk in the park at night…This was possible in Austria 30 years ago. Now it’s impossible.”
Kneissl presumably fears all the violent gays, evil Ukrainians and disgusting bed bugs lurking in such dangerous places as Vienna, a city consistently rated as the most livable in the world. (Lest you think Kneissl is the only Westerner to take on this weird pro-Putin value system, consider that Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs has gone so far as to grace Solovyov’s rabid airwaves.)
In light of Russia having gone off the rails of rationality, it is almost heartening to read that Putin’s great friend and ally, the inimitable Kim Jong Un of North Korea, has launched balloons filled with manure and garbage over South Korea. It’s not clear what Pyongyang hopes to achieve with this symbolic gesture, but it’s surely preferable to missile tests and saber rattling.
Since Putin, Solovyov, Sviridenko and Kneissl are (to put it kindly) full of it, North Korea might want to consider using them in its next balloon stunt.
Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Recent drone footage showing a Russian soldier executing a wounded fellow service member exemplifies the brutal culture that is pervasive within the Russian Armed Forces.[31] The footage shows one Russian soldier wounded by a first-person view (FPV) drone strike, and the other soldier executing the wounded soldier at point-blank range instead of attempting to check the soldier’s injury, attempting treatment, taking his identification tags, or attempting a casualty evacuation. The attempted or deliberate killing of a fellow soldier is unprofessional, and ISW has observed instances of Russian fragging (the deliberate killing of supervisors) and other anecdotes demonstrative of a callous disregard for the lives of Russia’s own soldiers throughout the war thus far, both within Russia and amongst Russian troops on the battlefield.[32] Fragging is generally indicative of extremely poor discipline among troops, a disconnect between tactical-level commanders and their subordinates, as well as a blatant disregard for human life. A Russian milblogger similarly reported on June 22 that commanders of various Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) units are severely mistreating their wounded subordinates and alleged that the 1st DNR Slavic Brigade (1st DNR Army Corps) is holding its own wounded personnel in prison-like conditions in Donetsk City, instead of providing them with the treatment that they require.[33] Both the fragging incident and the milblogger claims against the DNR command are indicative of a very poor culture within the Russian military, particularly the command's disregard for their subordinates and a generally low level of discipline.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-23-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russian Military Reforms
By Kirill Shamiev | 15 May 2024
https://ecfr.eu/publication/brass-tacks-why-russias-military-fails-to-
reform/
“On a freezing winter dawn, a column of Russian troops moved through what the leadership in Moscow considered to be Russian territory. By midday, commanders were receiving alarming reports. In one town at the border, local fighters had stopped the column and burned and overturned 16 trucks. Later, another convoy was ambushed. Heavy casualties began to appear in the reports of military commanders. Soon, a special military operation that was supposed to be small and aimed at crushing an unfriendly political leadership turned into a long, bloody war with thousands of casualties that would change the Russian nation for years to come.”[1]
This story sounds remarkably familiar. But it is not from an early memoir of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is how Russian general Gennady Troshev described the beginning of the first Chechen war in December 1994.
But past is apparently prologue. In 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine, a country that Russian president Vladimir Putin often implies is part of Russia. The plan was for the Russian military, supported by Russian intelligence agents, to quickly decapitate the government and occupy the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. Within hours of crossing the frontier, the first reports of military setbacks and casualties began to roll in. In just a few days, it became clear that the most recent special military operation would in fact be yet another long, bloody war.
Nearly thirty years have passed, and yet the Russian government seems to have repeated the same old mistakes in its most recent war. Prior to the war, many analysts thought that the Russian military had finally reformed itself and put its past failures behind it. Yet, the Russian military significantly underperformed in Ukraine in almost every domain – strategic, operational, and tactical. It failed to achieve its objectives and demonstrated remarkably little progress in planning since the Chechen wars. The extent of its struggles and failures took many analysts, including some Ukrainians, by surprise.
The Russian leadership was no doubt somewhat perplexed as well. In 2000, Putin’s long reign began with military tragedy. Just three months after his taking office as president, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk exploded and sank in the Barents Sea, killing the crew of 118 sailors. The outcry was so massive that Putin himself had to take part in a clearly uncomfortable conversation with the families of the dead sailors. He promised the grieving relatives a smaller, better-equipped, more technologically advanced military. He has since devoted great effort throughout his tenure to improving the Russian military.
The effects of this effort are clear. From the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2021, the Russian defence budget almost tripled, from $22.84 billion to $65.91 billion (in 2020 US dollars). In those 22 years, Russia spent over $1.1 trillion on the military, had three full-term ministers of defence and four chiefs of the general staff who oversaw three military reforms, a short war with Georgia, an intervention in Syria, and several smaller deployments in former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet republics. Yet, when that military was finally tested in a full-scale conflict, almost nothing appeared to have changed.
Both Russian government and external military analysts have struggled to understand this persistent Russian military failure. Arguably, the issue is that analysts have paid too much attention to measurable factors – weapons, technology, doctrine, and training – and have neglected the more intangible factors such as morale, skills and leadership, which defy easy measurement.
This paper seeks to fill that gap.
More at https://ecfr.eu/publication/brass-tacks-why-russias-military-fails-to-
reform/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Preface: The Riddle of War
This is an ambitious book. It sets out to find the answers to the most fundamental questions relating to the ‘riddle of war’. Why do people engage in the deadly and destructive activity of fighting? Is it rooted in human nature or is it a late cultural invention? Have people always engaged in fighting or did they start to do so only with the advent of agriculture, the state, and civilization? How were these, and later, major developments in human history affected by war and, in turn, how did they affect war? Under what conditions, if at all, can war be eliminated, and is it declining at present?
These questions are not new and have seemingly resisted conclusive answers to the point that both questions and answers appear almost as clichés. In reality, however, they have very rarely been subjected to rigorous comprehensive investigation and, indeed, have largely been regarded as being too ‘big’ for serious scholarly treatment. With war being connected to everything else and everything else being connected to war, explaining war and tracing its development in relation to human development in general almost amount to a theory and history of everything. As so much is relevant to the subject, one is required to read pretty much ‘everything’ and become sufficiently expert in many fields. These are the prerequisites that it has been necessary to meet to produce this book.
Download the free book from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=War+in+Human+Civilization
War in Human Civilization
Author(s): Azar Gat
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, Year: 2006
ISBN: 9780199262137,0199262136
http://library.lol/main/C12834E9577A7150FD5ED4FF1FF49147
Description:
Overall this was a fascinating book to read. It will take you some time to get through it. As more than one reviewer has pointed out, this is not a small text. Then again, when covering such a large and diverse field as 'war in human civilization' this book seems like just the beginning. The positive aspects of this book are that reading it will give you a good sense of where warfare fits into history. The debate between Hobbes and Rousseau regarding where warfare fits in human history was well developed and the author makes it known where his stance lies. Starting from Neanderthals up to the present day the reader is taken through each time period and war is put into an understandable context with other variables like politics, economics, ideology, nationalism, etc. taking their place as contributing or detracting forces. Seeing how warfare has evolved throughout the ages and how the reasoning behind it has either changed or fluidly adapted to the new environment human beings found themselves in will give readers a new perspective and understanding of how history has been shaped. The one problem I encountered a few times when dealing with a part of history that I try to keep up-to-date on and specialize in, early twentieth-century history, is that when it comes to some of the details the author can be wrong or reductionist at times. You cannot hold it against him as he is not only covering the history of the world, to some extent, within his book but also a variety of subjects outside of history (ethnography, anthropology, etc). That is the main reason why I give this work 4 stars. It is highly commendable to undertake such a diverse topic with multiple scholarly inputs, but you will undoubtedly encounter problems when it comes to details as you can only spend so much time on each subject/fact and, even worse, you have limited time to do the research. Nonetheless, this is an excellent text which I'll come back to time and time again.
War in Human Civilization
Azar Gat
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/war-in-human-civilization-9780
199236633?cc=us&lang=en&;#
Table of Contents
Part 1: Warfare in the First Two Million Years: Environment, Genes, and Culture
1:Introduction: The Human 'State of Nature'
2:Peaceful or War-like: Did Hunter-Gatherers Fight?
3:Why Fi
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Nobody cares.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President. 
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Russia says U.S. is responsible for deadly Ukrainian attack on Crimea
Responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on the civilians of Sevastopol is borne above all by Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, and by the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this strike was carried out," the ministry said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-says-us-is-responsible-for
-deadly-ukrainian-attack-on-crimea/ar-BB1oJMOO
Civilians in Crimea killed using ATACMS, programmed by USA techs, and armed with cluster warheads.
To continue the story
Quote:
Civilians killed on Sevastopol beach were ‘occupiers’ – top Zelensky aide
There cannot be any “peaceful life” in Crimea, Mikhail Podoliak has warned
The four Russian civilians killed by a Ukrainian cluster munitions attack on a Crimean beach were “occupiers,” as are the residents of the region at large, and as such their deaths are justifiable, Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide, Mikhail Podoliak, declared on Monday.
...
“There are not and cannot be any ‘beaches’, ‘tourist zones’ and other fictitious signs of ‘peaceful life’ in Crimea,” he wrote. “Crimea is definitely a foreign territory occupied by Russia, where hostilities are taking place, a full-scale war is ongoing.”
“Crimea is also a large military camp and warehouse, with hundreds of direct military targets, which the Russians cynically try to mask and cover with their own civilians,” he continued, adding that these civilians are considered “occupiers” by Kiev.
https://www.rt.com/russia/599887-podoliak-crimea-beach-civilians/
He's going to be hung by his own words, like Netanyahu.
Since this missile was knocked off course and detonated over the wrong area, he should have said "oops".
What I find interesting about this is that Russia is making Big Deal about USA being responsible. That means they're prepared to take on the USA directly.
There is considerable pressure in Moscow, I have heard (The Duran), to start blowing American drones out of the Black Sea sky.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meanwhile ...Quote:
Putin Names Two Conditions For Ending The War 'This Very Minute'
Friday, Jun 14, 2024 - 08:55 AM
Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Friday speech addressed the West's efforts to host a major Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland this weekend. Though scores of world leaders will be there, Russia has not been invited, and China [India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and other invited attendees] has [have] snubbed the event citing that it's pointless without Moscow's representation given it is a party to one side of the war.
Putin outlined his "conditions" for peace. He said for the military operation to be halted Ukrainian forces would have to withdraw from the four regions annexed by the Russian Federation. "Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions," Putin said in a televised address.
Russia held referendums in late September 2022 for these war-torn oblasts, and the overwhelming majority of voters were in favor of being absorbed into Russia, which Kiev and the West called a "sham" election.
Putin also stipulated a second main condition for ending the war: Ukraine must reject ambitions to join the NATO alliance.
"As soon as Kyiv says it is ready to do this and begins really withdrawing troops and officially renounces plans to join NATO, we will immediately — literally that very minute — cease-fire and begin talks," Putin said in the talk given to a gathering of diplomats.
Interestingly, Putin showed signs he could be willing to compromise when it comes to territory, which is a bit of the first and hopeful sign that he's serious about finding ways to wind down the war. According to AFP:
The Russian leader said he did not "rule out maintaining Ukrainian sovereignty" over the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions "on the condition that Russia has a strong land link with Crimea."
But despite what appears to be very serious possible overtures, the Zelensky government has long maintained that it will not countenance negotiations or peace settlement until there is a full withdrawal of Russian armed forces from Ukrainian territory as existed pre-February 2022.
The weekend Swiss peace summit is expected to focus on gaining full international backing for Zelensky's 10-point peace formula, however international press has acknowledged this as still "a largely symbolic effort".
The sixth point of Kiev's plan reads as follows: it calls on Russia "To cease the hostilities, Russia must withdraw all its troops and armed formations from the territory of Ukraine, plain and simple. Ukraine’s full control over its state border, recognized internationally, needs to be restored."
Putin also took opportunity Friday to reiterate that Zelensky is 'illegitimate' and is serving as a mere puppet of the West:
For Moscow this of course remains a non-starter, and Putin has frequently emphasize that it will never give up the newly acquired four eastern territories, which have long been Russian-speaking areas, both historically and currently.
OH well...
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
When I hear nonsense like ..."destroyed 30 refineries" I know he's fullacrap.
Son, have you ever been to a refinery?? I've been to several.
They are HUGE. And built to withstand heat and pressure.
A drone is a fart compared to a refinery.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ukraine war latest: Russia increases use of chemical weapons on battlefield, Kyiv says
June 24, 2024 11:54 PM
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-15/
Ukraine recorded 715 cases of Russian chemical weapons use on the battlefield in May, 271 more than in the previous month, the Ukrainian military's Support Forces said on June 24.
In a post on Facebook, the Support Forces said most cases were of CS gas, also referred to as tear gas and typically used as a crowd-control agent by law enforcement agencies around the world.
Although less lethal than other chemical weapons, it was used extensively in World War I before the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons in war.
The Support Forces said that, from Feb. 15, 2023 to May 24, 2024, a total of 2,698 cases had been recorded which had led to 1,385 incidents of Ukrainian soldiers needing medical attention.
Ukrainian military officials have previously accused Russia of using chloropicrin and other chemical weapons.
Chloropicrin is often used as an herbicide. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), exposure to its vapors can cause severe irritation to the skin, eyes, and, if inhaled, internal organs.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on May 7 that accusations from both Ukraine and Russia that the other has used chemical weapons during the full-scale invasion remain "insufficiently substantiated."
"Both the Russian Federation and Ukraine have accused one another and reported allegations of use of chemical weapons to the organization," the OPCW said in a statement.
"The information provided to the organization so far by both sides, together with the information available to the secretariat, is insufficiently substantiated."
The OPCW said the situation "remains volatile and extremely concerning" and reiterated that it was against international law to use "riot control agents at war on the battlefield."
The organization also noted it had not received official requests to investigate the use of chemical weapons from either Ukraine or Russia.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Yeah, our MSM is taking the dodge of saying "according to Kiev" so they can get it in a headline and manage to disavow responsibility for publishing it.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah, our MSM is taking the dodge of saying "according to Kiev" so they can get it in a headline and manage to disavow responsibility for publishing it.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
According to our anonymous sources who wish to remain anonymous for anonymity purposes.
Why don't they just go back to making up fake names like they used to. Nobody believes anything that they write anyhow, and being completely incapable of ever getting anybody to go on the record saying anything anymore certainly isn't helping with that.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov stated that a sufficient quantity of US-provided long-range ATACMS missiles could allow Ukrainian forces to strike the Russian-built Kerch Strait Bridge in occupied Crimea and sever an important Russian ground line of communication (GLOC) between occupied Crimea and Russia.[4] Budanov stated that Ukraine could isolate occupied Crimea, which the Russian military uses as a rear staging area, by conducting long-range ATACMS missile strikes against the Kerch Strait Bridge. The Russian military continues to use Crimea's GLOCs to transport military personnel, weapons, materiel, and fuel from Russia to the frontlines in Ukraine and reinforced its air defense umbrella to cover occupied southern Ukraine from Crimea.[5] Ukrainian officials have recently stated that Russian forces have reduced their military logistics transport across the Kerch Strait Bridge, presumably due to efforts to establish logistics lines connecting mainland Russia and occupied Crimea through occupied southern Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts, but the Kerch Strait Bridge likely remains essential to maintaining Russia's occupation of Crimea.[6] Ukrainian long-range strikes against the Kerch Strait Bridge would sever an important GLOC for Russian forces based in occupied Crimea and likely complicate their ability to maintain their occupation of and basing within the peninsula. The destruction of the bridge would force Russian military to rely on the long route along northern coast of the Sea of Azov and exacerbate vulnerabilities for Ukrainian forces to exploit along the Russian main GLOC.
Current US policy regarding Ukraine's use of Western-provided weapons allows Ukraine to strike anywhere within Russian-occupied Ukraine, which presumably includes using long-range ATACMS to strike the portion of the Kerch Strait Bridge within Ukraine's internationally recognized land and maritime borders.[7] ISW assesses that 13 kilometers of the Kerch Strait Bridge — which Russian authorities built without Ukraine's approval following Russia's illegal occupation of the peninsula in 2014 — are within Ukraine's internationally recognized territorial waters. The US policy on the Ukrainian ATACMS use, therefore, technically should allow Ukrainian forces to strike at least a section of the bridge if not the entire bridge. Pentagon Spokesperson Major Charlie Dietz also notably stated on June 24 that “Ukraine makes its own targeting decisions and conducts its own military operations."[8] Then–US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert stated on May 15, 2018, that the US condemns Russia's construction and partial opening of the Kerch Strait Bridge, that the bridge "serves as a reminder of Russia’s ongoing willingness to flout international law," and represents Russia's attempt to "solidify its unlawful seizure and its occupation of Crimea."[9]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-24-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The American historian and expert on Russia has written a definitive study of the flamboyant life and mysterious death of the oligarch, a confidant of Yeltsin and a man to whom Putin was once indebted
Mon 24 Jun 2024 02.00 EDT
In the week before his mysterious death, the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky made plans. He booked a trip to Israel. There, he intended to combine business meetings with a holiday. His 23-year-old girlfriend – one of a string of younger lovers – would join him at the beach resort of Eilat. Berezovsky spoke to friends, met the headteacher of his daughter Arina’s boarding school and enjoyed a meal of veal chops and pasta.
All of which made Berezovsky’s end – on 23 March 2013 at his ex-wife’s mansion outside London – deeply puzzling. His Israeli bodyguard found him mid-afternoon lying dead on the floor of the bathroom. Berezovsky’s cashmere scarf was tied around his neck. Surrey police concluded he hanged himself. After all, the bathroom door was locked from inside. A coroner gave an open verdict. Family members and allies were certain he was murdered.
In her definitive study of Berezovsky’s life and flamboyant times, The Kremlin’s Noose, Amy Knight leans towards the second version of events. His actions in the days leading up to his death, she writes, “do not suggest that he was a man about to take his own life”. The main suspect behind this tantalising possible crime was easy to identify. It was a person Berezovsky had, 14 years earlier, fatefully helped to become Russia’s president: one Vladimir Putin.
By telling the story of Putin and Berezovsky – a sort of modern reincarnation of Stalin and Trotsky – Knight shines a penetrating light on post-communist Russia.
It’s a fascinating insight into 1990s Russia, where personal bonds counted for everything, and not much was written down.
More at https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jun/24/the-kremlins-noo
se-vladimir-putin-bitter-feud-with-oligarch-by-amy-knight-review-vital-primer-on-putins-russia-and-boris-berezovskys-death
Download all Amy Knight’s books on Russia for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?&req=Amy+Knight
Knight – a Soviet and Russian affairs specialist – has written an invaluable primer on Moscow’s transformation from semi-democracy under Yeltsin into today’s “closed fortress”. Berezovsky would not have been surprised by Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Or by Russia’s ongoing struggle with the west.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Two major international bodies—the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) — announced decisions on June 25 confirming Russia's long-term perpetration of war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine. The ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II (the chamber in charge of the ICC's Ukraine-related investigations and prosecutions) announced on June 25 that it had issued arrest warrants for former Russian Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the Russian General Staff Army General Valery Gerasimov for "the war crime of directing attacks at civilian objects" in Ukraine.[1] The ICC noted that there is reasonable evidence to believe that both Shoigu and Gerasimov bear individual responsibility for the war crimes of causing incidental harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects and the crime of inhumane acts, both of which are violations of the Rome Statute. The ICC also emphasized that even in the case of Russian forces targeting "installations that may have qualified as military objectives at the relevant time," the incidental civilian harm was excessively weighed against the expected military advantage—contrary to the international legal principle of proportionality.[2] The ICC concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Shoigu's and Gerasimov's military decision-making intentionally inflicted serious bodily harm and suffering on Ukraine's civilian population.
The ECHR's Grand Chamber also ruled on June 25 that Russia has committed various human rights violations in Crimea since the beginning of its illegal occupation of the peninsula in February 2014.[3] The ECHR found that Russian officials and forces in Crimea committed numerous violations of the European Convention of Human Rights, including violations of the right to life, prohibition of inhumane or degrading treatment, right to liberty and security, right to no punishment without law, right to respect for private and family life, right to freedom of religion, right to freedom of expression, right to freedom of assembly, right to property, right to education, and right to freedom of movement, among other human rights violations. The ECHR's ruling emphasized that the evidence that the Ukrainian government has provided to the court amounts to "a pattern or system of violations" perpetrated by Russia in Crimea. The decision is the first in which any international legal body has recognized Russia's widescale and systemic violation of human rights spanning over a decade in occupied Crimea.[4]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-25-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Shocking new footage of bomblets raining down on Russian beachgoers
CCTV footage capturing the moment when M74 submunitions from the MIM-140 ATACMS missile with cluster warhead struck the water and beach in Sevastopol, Crimea, on June 23.
https://x.com/Archer83Able/status/1805581567491760388
I've been trying to understand what's going in with that cluster muntions strike that killed and wounded so many Russian civilians, bc as I understand it the missile went off course and wasn't targeted specifically at them.
So on the face of it, it makes no sense for Russia to blame USA and Kiev for killing civilians, and no sense for Podolyak (Kiev spox) to say, rather defensively, that Russian civilians don't deserve a normal life, that they shouldn't have gotten in the way, and that Russia was cynically shielding its military installations with civilians.
But it seems there's an explanation in the technical details that wouldn't be known to most people.
Apparently, ATACAMS missiles have a sufficient range to be launched from a number of places in Ukraine and still reach the Belbek naval air base in Crimea. They didn't have to take that particular flight path, which was over the beach on the way to the air base.
Also, most ATACMS are brought down by point defenses like the Pantsir, not S300s or S400s, which have a greater range and bring down missiles much farther away and higher up in their flight.
The thinking goes that, knowing this, Americans deliberatelyb programmed the ATACMS to fly over or near the beach, with the idea that Russian air defense operators would hesitate firing because of the risk of killing Russian beachgoers.
Instead of Russians using civilians to shield military installations, it looks like Americans used Russian civilians to shield their ATACMS.
This ICC thing just looks like preemptive accusation to dilute Russian accusations of the USA and Kiev doing exactly what they accuse Russia of doing. But, I think Russia understands that the ICC is pretty much a tool of the west. They're not gonna bother fighting this in a stacked court, their response will probably be military.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Supposedly Russia is saying that Ukraine targeted the beach, not the airbase.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:What is difficult to understand? Russians go on vacation in a war zone and get killed because that is a foolish place to vacation? What next? Vacation on the sunny beaches of Gaza?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I've been trying to understand what's going in with that cluster muntions strike that killed and wounded so many Russian civilians, bc as I understand it the missile went off course and wasn't targeted specifically at them.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Harrowing Torture and Atrocities: Ukrainian POWs Suffer Severe Abuse in Russian Captivity
By Veronica Neifakh | 06/26/2024
https://themedialine.org/people/harrowing-torture-and-atrocities-ukrai
nian-pows-suffer-severe-abuse-in-russian-captivity/
Russian forces subject Ukrainian prisoners of war to inhumane treatment, torture, sexual violence, and psychological abuse
Thousands of Ukrainians who are being held captive in Russia face severe torture, hunger, and psychological abuse, according to the testimony of released prisoners and information obtained by the United Nations and human rights organizations.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has raged since 2014, escalating significantly in 2022. By early 2022, the war had claimed the lives of over 14,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Between February 24, 2022 and February 15, 2024, more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians were killed, and nearly 20,000 were injured, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed in February 2024 that Russia’s military had killed or injured 444,000 Ukrainian combatants since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine.
The number of Ukrainians held in Russia as prisoners of war is unknown. As of the latest prisoner exchange on Tuesday, Ukraine has recovered 3,300 military personnel and civilians since the war began, according to the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (CHTPOW), a Ukrainian government body.
One such former prisoner is Roman Horilyk, 40, a former Ukrainian National Guard officer who says he endured two years of torture in Russia before being returned to Ukraine this May. Photos of the emaciated Horilyk, published by CHTPOW and the Ukrainian project I Want To Live, evoke associations with Nazi concentration camps.
Another example is the story of 24-year-old Maryana Chechelyuk, who was sent in May 2022 for “filtering” after being evacuated from Azovstal in Ukraine to Russian-controlled territories. Previously an investigator in the Ukrainian police, Chechelyuk was suspected of having connections with the Ukrainian Armed Forces and was taken captive by Russian forces. She shared that she was constantly beaten, starved, and tortured with cold. She returned to Ukraine on May 31.
UN reports provided to The Media Line indicate that Ukrainian prisoners of war are enduring severe torture. According to the report, Russian forces beat prisoners, use stun guns to administer electric shocks, force prisoners to stand in painful positions for long periods, and expose them to cold by making them walk naked and barefoot outside during winter. In several facilities, prisoners had to stand still in their cells all day, leading to inflammation and swollen legs.
Pictures at https://themedialine.org/people/harrowing-torture-and-atrocities-ukrai
nian-pows-suffer-severe-abuse-in-russian-captivity/
“It’s not Putin giving instructions to torture like this, it’s the people doing it themselves. They have families, children, mothers, and they are capable of such things. This has no right to exist,” Hartman concluded.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Ukraine’s pervasive shortage of critical air defense missiles is inhibiting Ukraine’s ability to protect its critical infrastructure against Russian strikes. Private Ukrainian energy enterprise DTEK Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk told the Kyiv Post on June 26 that for every one interceptor missile that Ukraine possesses to defend against Russian strikes on the energy grid, Russia has five to six missiles to launch at Ukraine.[40] Sakharuk noted that if Russia were to launch 10 missiles at any target in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces would need to respond with at least 12 air defense missiles to adequately protect against the attack. Sakharuk emphasized that the stark difference in Ukraine's necessary and actual ratios of Ukrainian air defense to attacking Russian missiles means that the shortage in interceptor missiles is making it impossible to cover energy grid units that Ukraine has repaired or is repairing. Russia’s air strike campaign against the Ukrainian energy grid has already imposed serious constraints on Ukraine’s power generation capacity, and Russian forces have been able to exploit air defense shortages caused by a lack of Western-provided air defense systems to maximize the damage to Ukraine’s energy capacity over the course of 2024.[41]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-26-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Maybe Russia should bomb Kiev wholesale instead of limiting themselves to military targets and dual use infrastructure?
Originally posted by second:Quote:What is difficult to understand? Russians go on vacation in a war zone and get killed because that is a foolish place to vacation? What next? Vacation on the sunny beaches of Gaza?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I've been trying to understand what's going in with that cluster muntions strike that killed and wounded so many Russian civilians, bc as I understand it the missile went off course and wasn't targeted specifically at them.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Cause I know how much you enjoy people dying.
BTW, has anyone told you that you're too stupid to be a psychpoath? But you're an excellent sociopath.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Russian history is filled with misfortune. This happens for reasons that Russians refuse to acknowledge about themselves. Russia is a sad place and poor relative to the EU because Russians are foolish people. Specifically, booking a vacation in a war zone is foolishness.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Maybe Russia should bomb Kiev wholesale instead of limiting themselves to military targets and dual use infrastructure?
Originally posted by second:Quote:What is difficult to understand? Russians go on vacation in a war zone and get killed because that is a foolish place to vacation? What next? Vacation on the sunny beaches of Gaza?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I've been trying to understand what's going in with that cluster muntions strike that killed and wounded so many Russian civilians, bc as I understand it the missile went off course and wasn't targeted specifically at them.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Cause I know how much you enjoy people dying.
BTW, has anyone told you that you're too stupid to be a psychpoath? But you're an excellent sociopath.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Germany's history is filled with misfortune.
Poland's history is filled with misfortune.
Jewish history.... oy vey! Is it filled wih misfortune!
Palestinian history...
Central and South America ...
What's your point?
Oh, that's right. You never have one.
That's just your sociopathy rearing its ugly head again, 'cause you get off on people being killed.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You fixated on the word "misfortune" which signals that you are silliness personified. Does being silly make you feel like booking your next holiday in Crimea? When misfortune strikes you while holidaying in Ukraine, be sure to blame anything other than foolishly vacationing in a war zone.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Germany's history is filled with misfortune.
Poland's history is filled with misfortune.
Jewish history.... oy vey! Is it filled wih misfortune!
Palestinian history...
Central and South America ...
What's your point?
Oh, that's right. You never have one.
That's just your sociopathy rearing its ugly head again, 'cause you get off on people being killed.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Further proof that the war is Dumb vs Dumber:
Amid war setbacks and complaints, Ukraine changes another top general
By Isabelle Khurshudyan, Serhii Korolchuk | June 26, 2024
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/26/ukraine-army-sodol-zel
ensky-syrsky/
KYIV — A prominent Ukrainian officer this week accused a top commander of incompetence, blaming him for “thousands” of casualties in a rare public criticism from within the military that reflects growing discontent among the troops as Russia has advanced on the battlefield.
Maj. Bohdan Krotevych, the chief of staff of the influential Azov Brigade, filed a request to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation concerning “a [Ukrainian] general who in my opinion has killed more Ukrainian soldiers than any Russian general,” he wrote Monday in a post on Telegram.
Within hours, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he had replaced Lt. Gen. Yuriy Sodol as Ukraine’s Joint Forces’ commander. Sodol is also in charge of the ground forces for the critical section of the front stretching across the eastern Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, and is expected to be removed from that post as well.
The incident is the latest in a series of military leadership shake-ups this year amid Ukraine’s struggles along the 600-mile front line. Sodol had been in the post for just four months after he was installed by Ukrainian military chief Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, whom Zelensky only appointed to the top position earlier this year.
Analysts said Sodol’s swift removal could weaken Syrsky — already widely disliked by rank-and-file soldiers for what they consider to be brutal and old-school tactics reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s army leadership. It also threatens to backfire on Zelensky, who took greater ownership over battlefield decisions when he sacked popular Gen. Valery Zaluzhny in February.
Since Russia invaded more than two years ago, public scrutiny of Ukraine’s military — consistently rated the country’s most trusted institution in polling — has been taboo. And disputes and grievances within the ranks are typically kept private; soldiers who criticize their command could face retribution. Discussion of combat losses are considered a state secret, something Ukraine’s political leadership has chosen to downplay so as to not weaken society’s morale.
Krotevych’s call for an investigation into Sodol is a surprising display of the fractures within the Ukrainian command. It echoed what other Ukrainian military personnel have been quietly grumbling about for months — what they considered unreasonable orders that led to casualties while they were undermanned and lacking weapons.
All of this is occurring against the backdrop of Russia retaking some 260 square miles in the past four months.
“It bothers me that they convict battalion and brigade commanders for the loss of an observation post, but they don’t convict a general for the loss of [regions] and dozens of cities and thousands of soldiers,” Krotevych said on Telegram.
In his nightly address Monday, Zelensky didn’t provide a reason for Sodol’s dismissal, only saying that he would be replaced by Brig. Gen. Andriy Hnatov. On Wednesday morning, Zelensky posted a video from the Donetsk region, after a visit to soldiers in the area with Syrsky and Hnatov.
“General Hnatov’s task is clear: to destroy the occupier and, importantly, to preserve the lives of our soldiers as much as possible,” Zelensky said.
According to his complaint, which was obtained by The Washington Post, Krotevych accused Sodol of a litany of missteps dating back to his role as commander of the doomed defense of the city of Mariupol in 2022. It was in this siege that the Azov Brigade, part of the National Guard, gained fame for holding out in the Azovstal plant long after the rest of the city had fallen.
“Although Gen. Sodol did not manage the city’s defense and did not spend a single hour in Mariupol, he was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine,” Krotevych wrote, adding that he di
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Further proof that the war is Dumb vs Dumber:
Russia Sends Waves of Troops to the Front in a Brutal Style of Fighting
By Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt, Marc Santora | June 27, 2024, 10:38 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/us/politics/russia-casualties-ukrai
ne-war.html
May was a particularly deadly month for the Russian army in Ukraine, with an average of more than 1,000 of its soldiers injured or killed each day, according to U.S., British and other Western intelligence agencies.
But despite its losses, Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month — roughly as many as are exiting the battlefield, U.S. officials said. That has allowed its army to keep sending wave after wave of troops at Ukrainian defenses, hoping to overwhelm them and break through the trench lines.
It is a style of warfare that Russian soldiers have likened to being put into a meat grinder, with commanding officers seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are sending infantry soldiers to die.
At times, this approach has proved effective, bringing the Russian army victories in Avdiivka and Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. But Ukrainian and Western officials say the tactics were less successful this spring, as Russia tried to take land near the city of Kharkiv.
American officials said that Russia achieved a critical objective of President Vladimir V. Putin, creating a buffer zone along the border to make it more difficult for the Ukrainians to strike into the country.
But the drive did not threaten Kharkiv and was ultimately stopped by Ukrainian defenses, according to Western officials.
“President Putin and Moscow have really tried to make big gains, to break through the front lines this spring,” Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, said in an interview with The New York Times editorial board. “They tried and they failed. They made very small gains, and they are paying a very high price.”
Russian casualties have spiked at other times, especially during the assaults on Avdiivka and Bakhmut. But the assaults on those cities were spread out over several months. The push in May, both outside Kharkiv and along the eastern front, involved more intense periods of Russian wave attacks. British military intelligence analysts said Russia’s casualties in May, which they put at an average of 1,200 a day, were the highest of the war.
The fighting last month decimated the town of Vovchansk, about 40 miles from Kharkiv, where Ukrainian and Russian are engaged in a grueling battle for control.
Russian soldiers have said on Telegram, the social media and messaging platform, that their units are suffering high casualties. Some say their ranks are being cut down by drones, machine gun fire and artillery barrages.
Russia’s use of infantry in wave attacks reflects one of its advantages in the war: Its population is much larger than Ukraine’s, giving it a bigger pool of potential recruits.
But the casualties have forced Russia to ship new recruits to Ukraine relatively quickly, meaning that the soldiers sent to the front are poorly trained.
The lack of structured training, and the need to commit new recruits to combat operations, has limited Russia’s ability to generate more capable units. It also increases casualties.
But it is more complicated than that. The changing nature of modern warfare has also increased the body count in recent months.
Ubiquitous drones have made it easy for both sides to spot, and target, enemy forces. And mines and cluster munitions make movement across open ground a nearly suicidal endeavor.
Since Mr. Putin launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, at least 350,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III recently said. British estimates put the number of Russians killed or wounded at more than 500,000.
U.S. estimates of casualties in the war are based on satellite imagery, communication intercepts, social media and news media dispatches from reporters, as well as official reporting from Russia and Ukraine. But su
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:By that logic, Ukrainians shouldn't feel safe anywhere either, and have no reason to complain when civilians are killed
Originally posted by second:Quote:You fixated on the word "misfortune" which signals that you are silliness personified. Does being silly make you feel like booking your next holiday in Crimea? When misfortune strikes you while holidaying in Ukraine, be sure to blame anything other than foolishly vacationing in a war zone.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Germany's history is filled with misfortune.
Poland's history is filled with misfortune.
Jewish history.... oy vey! Is it filled wih misfortune!
Palestinian history...
Central and South America ...
What's your point?
Oh, that's right. You never have one.
That's just your sociopathy rearing its ugly head again, 'cause you get off on people being killed.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Let the mayhem begin!
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Ukrainians are NOT safe anywhere. Do you recall that Russia is on a clear path to destroying all electric power plants? Russia doesn't have enough bombs to destroy all civilians unless it drops nukes. Instead, Russia is concentrating on the easiest thing to kill them all, their electricity.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
By that logic, Ukrainians shouldn't feel safe anywhere either, and have no reason to complain when civilians are killed
Let the mayhem begin!
Slow grinding Russian offensive operations in the Toretsk direction are in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin's articulated theory of victory that posits that Russian forces will be able to continue gradual creeping advances indefinitely, prevent Ukraine from conducting successful operationally significant counteroffensive operations, and win a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces.[11] The current rate of Russian advance suggests that Russian forces may pursue individual operationally significant objectives over the course of many months if not years, and Russian forces may accept the prospect of conducting offensive operations for months to seize Toretsk and advance northwestward towards Kostyantynivka.[12] The Russian military command likely hopes that offensive pressure in the Toretsk direction will aid its efforts to prevent Ukraine from accumulating the personnel and resources Ukraine needs to contest the theater-wide initiative, and this objective may supersede any specific territorial operational objective that Russian forces have in the Toretsk area.[13] The West must proactively provide Ukrainian forces with the necessary equipment and weapons at the scale, timing, and regularity that Ukrainian forces require for operations that liberate significant swaths of occupied Ukraine and challenge Putin's belief that he can gradually subsume Ukraine should rapid total victory appear unreachable.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-27-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:SECOND
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
By that logic, Ukrainians shouldn't feel safe anywhere either, and have no reason to complain when civilians are killed
Let the mayhem begin!
Ukrainians are NOT safe anywhere.
And yet, up until a couple of months ago, when "recruiters" started grabbing men off the streets, the nightclubs in Kiev and Odessa were doing good business.
Quote:
Slow grinding Russian offensive operations in the Toretsk direction are in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin's articulated theory of victory that posits that Russian forces will be able to continue gradual creeping advances indefinitely, prevent Ukraine from conducting successful operationally significant counteroffensive operations, and win a war of attrition against Ukrainian forces.[11] The current rate of Russian advance suggests that Russian forces may pursue individual operationally significant objectives over the course of many months if not years, and Russian forces may accept the prospect of conducting offensive operations for months to seize Toretsk and advance northwestward towards Kostyantynivka.[12] The Russian military command likely hopes that offensive pressure in the Toretsk direction will aid its efforts to prevent Ukraine from accumulating the personnel and resources Ukraine needs to contest the theater-wide initiative, and this objective may supersede any specific territorial operational objective that Russian forces have in the Toretsk area.[13] The West must proactively provide Ukrainian forces with the necessary equipment and weapons at the scale, timing, and regularity that Ukrainian forces require for operations that liberate significant swaths of occupied Ukraine and challenge Putin's belief that he can gradually subsume Ukraine should rapid total victory appear unreachable.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-27-2024
Yep, Vicki Nuland's think tank is once again publishing drivel.
It's funny. No matter what spin they put on their latest piece, it always ends the same:
Ukraine is winning! More money and weapons!
The war is in stalemate. More money and weapons!
After Kiev, Russia takes Europe! More money and weapons!
Ukraine is getting battered! More money and weapons!
I don't know why they keep publishing stories because I already know the ending.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:The Russians are out of their minds:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yep, Vicki Nuland's think tank is once again publishing drivel.
It's funny. No matter what spin they put on their latest piece, it always ends the same:
Ukraine is winning! More money and weapons!
The war is in stalemate. More money and weapons!
After Kiev, Russia takes Europe! More money and weapons!
Ukraine is getting battered! More money and weapons!
I don't know why they keep publishing stories because I already know the ending.
Russia Moves to Investigate ‘Finnish Genocide of Soviet Peoples’ - The Moscow Times
June 27, 2024
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/06/27/russia-moves-to-investigate-
finnish-genocide-of-soviet-peoples-a85538
Russian prosecutors announced Thursday that they have asked a court to recognize crimes committed by Nazi Germany and its then-collaborator Finland in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk as a “genocide.”
The Prosecutor General’s Office said archival documents and witness testimonies indicated that over 8,000 civilians and 18,000 Soviet prisoners of war were killed in more than 100 concentration camps built during the 1941-44 occupation of the Soviet region of Karelia.
“More than 7,000 prisoners died in Petrozavodsk concentration camps during the Finnish occupation alone,” the law enforcement body said in a statement.
Russia estimates damages to Karelia’s economy — from “destroyed towns, villages and all industrial and agricultural enterprises” — at 20 trillion rubles ($231.9 billion).
It was not immediately clear how Moscow would seek compensation from Finland, but a similar World War II-era “genocide” case claims 6.4 trillion rubles in damages from Nazi Germany’s actions in the Moscow region. Both countries are members of the EU, whose relations with the Kremlin have plummeted since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin has regularly evoked World War II history in justifying the full-scale invasion, claiming it was needed to “denazify” Ukraine and stop “genocide” against the Russian-speaking population of partially occupied eastern Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies have dismissed those arguments.
The Russian authorities have launched a series of investigations into World War II atrocities committed by Nazi invaders across Soviet Russia. This comes amid what observers say is renewed interest — spearheaded by Putin — in the war and how Russia remembers the conflict.
Around 27 million Soviet citizens were estimated to have been killed in World War II, which Russia and some former Soviet republics refer to as the Great Patriotic War. Ukraine estimates it lost at least 8 million as part of the Soviet Union in that war.
The conflict between Soviet Russia and Finland during World War II, known as the Winter War (1939-1940) and the Continuation War (1941-1944), arose from Soviet territorial demands and the subsequent Finnish resistance, leading to significant battles and occupations, particularly in the region of Karelia.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Nobody gives one single fuck about Ukraine.
That was true 3 years ago when you worthless, virtue signalling fucks couldn't stop talking about it, and $200 Billion+ later it sure as hell true now.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:6ixStringJack, you keep reminding everybody that you are stupid. Can you stop telling them about how empty you are inside?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody gives one single fuck about Ukraine.
That was true 3 years ago when you worthless, virtue signalling fucks couldn't stop talking about it, and $200 Billion+ later it sure as hell true now.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ixStringJack, you keep reminding everybody that you are stupid. Can you stop telling them about how empty you are inside?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody gives one single fuck about Ukraine.
That was true 3 years ago when you worthless, virtue signalling fucks couldn't stop talking about it, and $200 Billion+ later it sure as hell true now.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
Sure thing, buddy.
I'm the stupid guy who's always eventually proven right and gets to laugh at you in your face, over and over and over and over and over again.
You're the empty one man. A shell of a human being who was hollowed out by your TDS and you've had your brain pumped full of Legacy Media poison with all that room they made where your personality used to lie.
Your world is crashing down all around you, just like I said it would.
And at the end of the day the fact that Joe Biden* won* the 2020 election was ultimately the undoing of everything you thought you wanted.
Tick Tock
Oh... and Happy Pride Month, BTW... In case you didn't even realize it was almost over since nobody talks about it at all in 2024.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You recommended that Julian Assange move to Russia to avoid being assassinated by Biden.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sure thing, buddy.
I'm the stupid guy who's always eventually proven right and gets to laugh at you in your face, over and over and over and over and over again.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
I'd recommend that Trump move to Russia to avoid the same if he loses.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=66090&mid=11956
25#1195625
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russia’s Most Dangerous Jets Are Parked In The Open A Hundred Miles From Ukraine. But Kyiv Needs Washington’s Permission To Strike Them.
By David Axe | Jun 28, 2024, 05:58pm EDT
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/06/28/russias-most-dangerou
s-jets-are-parked-in-the-open-a-hundred-miles-from-ukraine-but-kyiv-needs-washingtons-permission-to-strike-them/
Voronezh Malshevo air base, in southern Russia 100 miles from the border with Ukraine, might be the most important—and most vulnerable—target in Russia.
But it’s seemingly off of Ukraine’s list of targets for now.
From the base, Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers belonging to the Russian air force’s 47th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment fly daily sorties lobbing powerful glide bombs at Ukrainian troops and civilians from 25 miles away or farther.
The carnage is staggering. “It takes only minutes for a [Sukhoi] jet to reach the launch area near the border and then return to the base,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight explained. “The large number of jets stationed at the airfield enables the simultaneous deployment of bombs, allowing multiple targets in Ukrainian territory to be engaged at once.”
The regiment’s dozens of Sukhoi Su-34s—possibly representing around half of Russia’s active fleet of the supersonic, twin-engine fighter-bombers—routinely park out out in the open on the tarmac of the recently renovated base.
They’re within range of Ukraine’s best deep strike weapon—its American-made Army Tactical Missile System rockets. “Ukraine could potentially incapacitate the entire operational fleet stationed there if permitted to conduct such a strike,” Frontelligence Insight noted.
But the administration of Pres. Joe Biden hasn’t yet given the Ukrainian government permission to aim the ATACMS at Voronezh Malshevo. And so, for now, the Su-34s at Voronezh Malshevo bomb with near impunity—lobbing a significant percentage of the roughly 100 glide bombs the Russians drop on Ukrainian positions and cities every day, killing soldiers and civilians alike.
To be clear, Ukrainian forces have other ways of stopping the glide bombers. So far, however, they’re not working on the planes from Voronezh Malshevo.
One option is to shoot down the bombers before they release their munitions. The problem is that the Ukrainian air force doesn’t have enough of its best U.S.-made Patriot air-defense batteries to protect major cities—to say nothing of extending that protection close enough to the border to intercept the 47th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment’s Sukhois.
Ukraine has just five Patriot batteries in place or on the way. One protects Kyiv. It seems others protect Odesa and Kharkiv. Two additional batteries that Germany and the United States have pledged—but not yet delivered—could safeguard Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih.
Unless and until Ukraine’s allies send a lot more Patriot batteries, don’t expect the Ukrainians to risk one along the northern border between Voronezh Malshevo and Kharkiv.
The last time the Ukrainian air force hit the road with a mobile Patriot battery, a Russian drone spotted it—and a Russian rocket blew up two of its truck-mounted launchers. “Attempting to ambush these jets [from Voronezh Malshevo] with a Patriot battery in a drone-saturated environment ... poses considerable risks,” Frontelligence Insight pointed out.
Likewise, it would be risky for the Ukrainian air force to deploy its future fleet of ex-European F-16 fighters against the glide bombers. “The glide-bomb sorties will be very challenging to intercept regularly,” analyst Justin Bronk wrote in a new study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.
The main problem is Russia’s ground-based air defenses, which make it extremely dangerous for Ukrainian warplanes to fly at high altitude practically anywhere in Ukraine—but especially within a hundred miles or so of the front line, well within reach of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries.
“When close to the front lines, Ukrainian pilots will have to fly them at very low a
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Why would anyone want to leave Russia, the greatest country on Earth? There are reasons:
Mikhail Baryshnikov on Leaving Everything Behind
Fifty years ago, Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union. “It was the start of a new life,” he says of the night in 1974 when he dodged K.G.B. agents in Toronto as he rushed to meet Canadian and American friends in a getaway car.
By Javier C. Hernández | June 28, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/arts/dance/mikhail-baryshnikov-sovi
et-union-defection.html
On the night of June 29, 1974, after a performance with a touring Bolshoi Ballet troupe in downtown Toronto, Mikhail Baryshnikov made his way out a stage door, past a throng of fans and began to run.
Baryshnikov, then 26 and already one of ballet’s brightest stars, had made the momentous decision to defect from the Soviet Union and build a career in the West. On that rainy night, he had to evade K.G.B. agents — and audience members seeking autographs — as he rushed to meet a group of Canadian and American friends waiting in a car a few blocks away.
“That car took me to the free world,” Baryshnikov, 76, recalled in a recent interview. “It was the start of a new life.”
His cloak-and-dagger escape helped to make him a cultural celebrity. “Soviet Dancer in Canada Defects on Bolshoi Tour,” The New York Times declared on its front page.
But the focus on his decision to leave the Soviet Union has sometimes made Baryshnikov uneasy. He said he does not like how the term “defector” sounds in English, conjuring an image of a traitor who has committed high treason.
“I’m not a defector — I’m a selector,” he said. “That was my choice. I selected this life.”
Baryshnikov was born in Soviet-occupied Riga, Latvia, and moved to Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in 1964, when he was 16, to study with the renowned teacher Alexander Pushkin. When he was 19, he joined the Kirov Ballet, now known as the Mariinsky, and quickly became a star on the Russian ballet scene.
Q: You were born eight years after Latvia was forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union; your father was one of the Russian workers sent there to teach. How does your experience growing up there affect how you see this war?
A: I spent the first 16 years of my life in Soviet Latvia, and I know the other side of the coin. I was the son of an occupier. I knew that experience of living under the occupation. The Russians treated it like their territory and their land, and they said the Latvian language is garbage.
I don’t want Putin and his army to enter Riga. Finally Latvia has real independence, and they’re doing pretty good. My mother is buried there. I feel when I’m coming to Riga, I’m coming back to my home.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You recommended that Julian Assange move to Russia to avoid being assassinated by Biden.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sure thing, buddy.
I'm the stupid guy who's always eventually proven right and gets to laugh at you in your face, over and over and over and over and over again.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
I'd recommend that Trump move to Russia to avoid the same if he loses.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=66090&mid=11956
25#1195625
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Trump won't lose.
Why would Joe Biden* assassinate Trump if he won again?
You are a really fucked up dude.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:It is like asking why the leadership of the Allies put enormous effort into killing the Axis leadership by hanging when the Axis had already lost WWII. (Hint: because citizens of the Axis nations would follow those old leaders at the first opportunity that comes up when the Allies leadership looks away. To make sure that did not happen, the old leaders were declared to be criminals and then were executed. That's gonna be Trump's fate: time in jail, or at least be forced to pay all his income taxes for the first time in his life. I think Trump should flee to Russia and avoid the necessity to pay what he owes to the IRS.)
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You recommended that Julian Assange move to Russia to avoid being assassinated by Biden.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sure thing, buddy.
I'm the stupid guy who's always eventually proven right and gets to laugh at you in your face, over and over and over and over and over again.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
I'd recommend that Trump move to Russia to avoid the same if he loses.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=66090&mid=11956
25#1195625
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Trump won't lose.
Why would Joe Biden* assassinate Trump if he won again?
You are a really fucked up dude.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:It is like
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You recommended that Julian Assange move to Russia to avoid being assassinated by Biden.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sure thing, buddy.
I'm the stupid guy who's always eventually proven right and gets to laugh at you in your face, over and over and over and over and over again.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
I'd recommend that Trump move to Russia to avoid the same if he loses.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=66090&mid=11956
25#1195625
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Trump won't lose.
Why would Joe Biden* assassinate Trump if he won again?
You are a really fucked up dude.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
You are a really fucked up dude.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Wars answer the question about ownership. 6ix and Trumptards in general support Trump's claim they own America. (Specifically, 6ix writes Biden* with the * indicating Biden is not the real president while Trump lives.) Putin claims Russia owns Ukraine. (Specifically, Putin would write President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy*.) The Axis powers claimed they own the world. War is about violently knocking down these false claims of ownership. Beyond their Army's defeat, the leadership spreading these false claims have to be knocked down and trampled on or else the war will start again at the first opportunity.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You are a really fucked up dude.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
* Putin says Ukraine's Zelenskiy lacks legitimacy after term expired
May 24, 2024, 5:02 PM CDT
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-legitimacy-ukraines-ze
lenskiy-is-over-2024-05-24/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
A Russian milblogger claimed that new Russian personnel receive roughly 14 days of training on average before deploying to the frontline.[63] The milblogger noted that new Russian personnel receives four to five days of real training and that the 14 days encompass the time between signing a military contract and arriving at the front in Ukraine.[64] A former Storm-Z instructor agreed with the milblogger's assessment and bemoaned problems with general training.[65] The milblogger also noted that an average Ukrainian soldier appears to receive much more training than the average Russian soldier.[66] The Russian military is currently committing all Russian forces, regardless of their formal designations, to more or less similar operations along the front and continues to mainly leverage mass in infantry and occasional mechanized assaults to make creeping advances instead of relying on highly trained units.[67] This decision has likely lowered training requirements for most new Russian personnel set to fight in Ukraine, although 14 days is still insufficient for generating even limited combat effective personnel. While many new Russian personnel may receive inadequate training, Russian forces likely provide Russian personnel with further training following deployment to Ukraine and are likely attempting to offer better training for select elements.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-29-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
More propaganda from Vicki Nuland's think tank?
Yanno, SECOND, drenching yourself in propaganda is never gonna help you understand the world.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Putin's current theory of victory rests on Russia's ability to outlast and overcome pledged Western security assistance to Ukraine and Ukrainian efforts to mobilize more of its economy and population for the war effort.[11] Putin and the Russian military command are increasingly viewing the retention of the theater-wide initiative as a strategic imperative and will continue to leverage the initiative to try to force Ukraine to commit manpower and materiel to current defensive operations and to prevent Ukraine from accumulating the personnel and resources Ukraine needs to contest the initiative.[12] Putin's theory of victory rests on the assessment that Ukraine lacks the capability to liberate operationally significant territory — Russia's creeping advances hold no operational significance if Ukraine can undo those gains more rapidly when Ukraine regains the battlefield- or theater-wide initiative. Western security assistance and Ukrainian force generation efforts that allow Ukraine to contest the initiative are thus crucial to changing Putin's calculus, and it is unlikely that Putin will change his assessment regarding the feasibility of destroying Ukraine without further significant Russian defeats. Western security assistance that provides Ukrainian forces with the necessary equipment and weapons at the scale, timing, and regularity that Ukrainian forces require for operations that liberate significant swaths of occupied Ukraine remains the only likely path for reducing Putin's current commitment to destroying Ukrainian statehood and identity regardless of time or cost.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More propaganda from Vicki Nuland's think tank?
Yanno, SECOND, drenching yourself in propaganda is never gonna help you understand the world.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-30-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
What if Russia Wins the War in Ukraine?
By Carl Bildt, the co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden. | July 1, 2024, 12:41 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/01/russia-ukraine-war-europe-politic
s-refugees/
A Russian victory and collapse of the Ukrainian state would have extremely grave consequences for Europe.
In the Ukrainian territories Russia has occupied — first in 2014 and then since 2022 — the population is now a fraction of what it was before. If a similar ratio applies to further Russian conquests, it would be realistic to count on 10 million to 15 million refugees, in addition to the slightly more than 4 million Europe is hosting already, flowing into nearby European states.
A Russian victory would transform European politics. Defense expenditures — set to reach 4 percent of GDP in Poland this year and at least 2 percent across much of NATO — will need to double yet again in order to credibly deter threats from the Russian regime.
New conflicts could be on the horizon. To which old borders would Russian President Vladimir Putin like to restore the Kremlin’s empire? Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states were all once ruled from Moscow, and anyone with access to Kremlin-approved television can find Russian imperialist dreamers talking in these terms.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Patriotic Russian poetry praising Vladimir Putin and backing his war in Ukraine has turned out to be translations of Nazi verses penned in the 1930s and 1940s. The 18 poems of Gennady Rakitin have attracted quite a following in Russia in the past year and been mentioned in poetry prizes, but pranksters have revealed they invented Rakitin and simply translated poems such as Führer and odes to Nazi stormtroopers, replacing references to Germany with Russia. “We read collections of Z poetry and saw straight-up nazism there. We suspected that they probably wrote exactly the same things in Nazi Germany, and we turned out to be right,” said the group behind the project, in written responses to questions from the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/02/ukraine-war-brie
fing-thousands-of-ukrainian-convicts-join-fight-against-russian-forces
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
"There is an impenetrable civilizational divide between us and the Russian Federation. Just yesterday, a horrifying photo of a Ukrainian defender tortured in Russian captivity circulated nationwide. Today, we show how true soldiers, who have honor and dignity, treat enemy prisoners," reads the post by Ukrainian soldiers.
The military refers to the photo of Oleksandr Hrytsiuk from Kivertsi in Volhynia, who Russians captured in April 2022. In January 2024, his family was informed that his body had returned from captivity. "His head was entirely blue, his nose to the side, and his index fingers had no nails. There were signs of torture all over his body," says Hrytsiuk's wife. The soldier "did not want to speak Russian."
Dozens of occupiers were taken captive. "Most of them were mobilized and were sentenced to death in 'meat attacks.' They chose life," add the defenders. They emphasized that the prisoners are treated well and by international law.
"Our fighters provided them with the necessary qualified medical assistance and behaved as humanely as possible, given the combat conditions. Atrocities, civilian murders, torture, and abuse of the unarmed are the path of dark Russia. On the front, we are doing everything to erase even the traces of the Russian Federation in our free, civilized country," assured the fighters of the Ukrainian "Rubizh" brigade.
https://essanews.com/ukrainian-rubizh-brigade-captures-russian-soldier
s-in-dramatic-surrender,7044414512817793a
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
This war is Dumb vs Dumber: “A million years of war, sheep do not learn anything.”
The Ukrainian Air Force Parked Six Su-27 Fighters In The Open 100 Miles From The Front Line. A Russian Missile Destroyed Two Of Them.
On or just before Monday, July 1, six Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-27 supersonic fighters were parked in the open at the base in broad daylight. A Russian Iskander missile barreled in, destroying two of the precious Sukhois and damaging the other four.
The Ukrainian air force went to war in February 2022 with around 125 Su-27s, Su-25s, MiG-29s and other jets. In 28 months of hard fighting, the Ukrainians have lost around 90 jets that the analysts at Oryx have confirmed.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/07/01/the-ukrainian-air-for
ce-parked-six-su-27-fighters-in-the-open-100-miles-from-the-front-line-a-russian-missile-destroyed-two-of-them/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russia missed out on an opportunity to steamroll Ukraine and secure notable battlefield gains, former Australian major general Mick Ryan said on Tuesday.
"Russia has built strategic momentum with its assaults on Ukraine in the past six months. However, they have largely failed to exploit their opportunities," Ryan, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote on X. "Russia appears to have blown what might have been its last chance to strike a decisive blow against Ukraine in this war," he said.
The former general said Russia missed an opportunity to make gains that emerged in late 2023 when Ukraine wrapped up its unsuccessful counteroffensive, running short on munitions and manpower.
Ryan argued that "the Russians over the last six months have generally failed to capitalise on this convergence of opportunities."
This situation, he said, "was probably Russia's best opportunity to make significant gains on the battlefield which it could then turn into significantly increased political and diplomatic pressure on Ukraine for peace negotiations."
He pointed to Russia's limited progress, noting that the Russians have paid in hundreds of lives for each kilometer of territory captured. That's a "poor return on investment - in any war," Ryan said.
"The question now is whether Ukraine, which seeks to liberate more of its territory occupied by Russia, can build all the different physical, moral and intellectual elements of offensive combat power to do better than Russia has either later this year or in 2025," Ryan concluded.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-missed-probably-its-best-o
pportunity-to-steamroll-ukraine-war-analyst-argues/ar-BB1piwfN
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russia has become so economically isolated that China could order the end of war in Ukraine
Published: July 1, 2024 12:23pm EDT
https://theconversation.com/russia-has-become-so-economically-isolated
-that-china-could-order-the-end-of-war-in-ukraine-232951
Western leaders are becoming increasingly frustrated by China’s role in enabling the war in Ukraine. And they are right to focus on China’s position of power. Russia is now so dependent on the only major economy still taking the risk to support its regime, that China could effectively force Vladimir Putin to end the conflict.
The extent of Russia’s economic dependence became apparent fairly quickly after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Just a few months later, things were not going to plan.
In the hope of putting pressure on European countries supporting Ukraine, Russia decided to cut almost all of its exports of gas to the west. Before the war, Russia had provided about 40% of Europe’s gas.
While at first that decision provoked an energy crisis and a surge in bills across the continent, Europe eventually managed to wean itself from Russia’s supply. They did this in part by replacing gas with other sources of energy, but also by substituting Russian imports with gas from other countries, including the US.
Electricity prices in Europe are now roughly back to pre-war levels. And while gas prices are still high, they have dropped, with storage facilities expected to be almost full later this year.
So now Russia faces a massive problem of its own: selling its gas.
For the first time in over 20 years, the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom sustained a financial loss in 2023. Until then, the custom and tax revenues from the company contributed around 10% of the country’s budget.
Revenue from oil exports has also decreased. As western countries have banned Russian oil, the country is forced to sell it for less, absorbing the additional costs of transporting production to the likes of China and India while mainstream transporters refuse to risk carrying it.
As for natural gas, geography makes things even worse for Russia. China is the only potential customer large enough to justify a new pipeline to replace the ones which used to deliver to Europe. But given this privileged position, China feels able to demand the gas at a huge discount.
In this kind of bargaining situation, China has the upper hand.
China can buy gas from anywhere in the world, but Russia can only sell it (at the volumes it needs) to China. Then there is the question of urgency – Russia needs to finance a war now, while China has no pressing energy need it cannot fulfil.
Bargaining basement
Russia’s dependence on China applies to other sectors of the economy too. The Chinese yuan now accounts for 54% of trades in Russia’s stock exchange since it was cut off from the global banking system in 2022. It has no credible alternative to replace that money if China started to apply similar sanctions.
Even more crucial for the war, China is responsible for around 90% of Russia’s import of “high priority” dual-use goods – electronic components, radars, sensors – without which it could not build advanced military hardware. Again, there is no alternative supplier.
It is hard to win a war with only North Korea and Iran – two countries themselves subject to heavy economic sanctions – on your side. In short, this means that China is now in a position to demand anything from Russia.
More at https://theconversation.com/russia-has-become-so-economically-isolated
-that-china-could-order-the-end-of-war-in-ukraine-232951
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Russian Note To The U.S.: Your Drones Are Now Targets
A new statement by the Russian Defense Ministry says:
The Russian Defence Ministry noted the increased intensity of U.S. strategic unmanned aerial vehicles over the Black Sea waters, which are conducting reconnaissance and targeting high-precision weapons supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine by Western states to launch strikes at Russian facilities.
This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kiev regime.
Such flights increase the possibility of air incidents involving the Russian Aerospace Forces' aircraft, increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between the alliance and the Russian Federation.
The NATO countries will be responsible for this.
The Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation Andrei Belousov has instructed the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces to make proposals on measures for rapid response to provocations.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
When I hear nonsense like ..."destroyed 30 refineries" I know he's fullacrap.
Son, have you ever been to a refinery?? I've been to several.
They are HUGE. And built to withstand heat and pressure.
A drone is a fart compared to a refinery.
Think CIA...
T
How Ukraine Wins The War Against Russia
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Russian Note To The U.S.: Your Drones Are Now Targets
A new statement by the Russian Defense Ministry says:
The Russian Defence Ministry noted the increased intensity of U.S. strategic unmanned aerial vehicles over the Black Sea waters, which are conducting reconnaissance and targeting high-precision weapons supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine by Western states to launch strikes at Russian facilities.
This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kiev regime.
Such flights increase the possibility of air incidents involving the Russian Aerospace Forces' aircraft, increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between the alliance and the Russian Federation.
The NATO countries will be responsible for this.
The Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation Andrei Belousov has instructed the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces to make proposals on measures for rapid response to provocations.
T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Uh, you DO remember how Afghanistan ended, right?
Bc you seem to have forgotten that the goal of the military is winning wars, not making movies.
*****
Meanwhile, according to Military Summary (with geolocated videos, official, and reliable reports from both sides)
and Alexander Mercouris (The Duran)
Russia destroyed three Ukrainian airfields, including 5(?) Su-27s (the kind that carry storm shadows and glide bombs), Mig-29s and helicopters.
Chasov Yar microdistrict was taken, "citadels" (heavily defended areas of high rises) in three villages were taken, Ukraine is losing 2000+ soldiers a day, and the front is moving so quickly I don't even recognize the names of the villages anymore.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev claimed on July 4 that around 190,000 Russians signed military service contracts during the first six months of 2024 during a Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) meeting about staffing the Russian military with contract soldiers.[65] Medvedev noted that the MoD's average daily recruitment rate is 1,000 people and praised the MoD for fulfilling its force generation tasks. The Russian MoD claimed on April 3 that more than 100,000 Russians signed military service contracts since the beginning of 2024.[66] (93 days from January 1 - April 3, 2024)
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-july-4-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
America Is in Denial About Ukraine's Future in NATO
An alliance that includes Ukraine will require a vastly larger military and economic commitment.
By Daniel Treisman, a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
July 5, 2024, 10:02 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/05/america-nato-ukraine-denial/
U.S. President Joe Biden has said for years that Ukraine will one day become a member of NATO. In fact, he was asserting this before most Ukrainians had any desire to join the alliance. “If you choose to be part of Euro-Atlantic integration, which I believe you have, then we strongly support that,” he announced on a trip to Kyiv as vice president in 2009. In Ukraine that year, only 28 percent favored NATO membership for their country, while 51 percent opposed it. Biden has remained committed to the idea in principle. “Ukraine’s future lies at NATO,” he insisted again in Vilnius, Lithuania, last summer.
At the same time, he has made extremely clear that the United States is not prepared to go to war with Russia to defend Kyiv. Any direct involvement of U.S. troops in the current conflict could mean “World War III,” he said in 2022, and “we will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.” Biden raced to pull all U.S. troops out of the country ahead of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. And, to avoid provoking Moscow, he has delayed supplying Kyiv with advanced weapons and has restricted their use in ways that critics say have hamstrung Ukraine’s defense.
There’s no direct inconsistency in these positions. After all, Ukraine is not a NATO member yet. And Biden has said the country will not become one until after the current war is over. It is eminently reasonable for a U.S. president to worry about nuclear escalation. And at times the White House seems to have received alarming intelligence about Russian preparations to use tactical nuclear weapons.
But Biden’s stance raises some difficult questions. If he is unwilling to risk provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin into a nuclear confrontation, then why are we promising to commit to do just that if necessary to defend Ukraine in the future? After Ukraine enters NATO, that is what Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty will require, as Biden clearly recognizes. If defeating Russia in Ukraine is a U.S. vital interest, then why are we holding back now? And if it is not, then why should we pledge to risk everything on Ukraine’s behalf later?
These questions about Ukraine point to a troubling contradiction in how NATO has expanded in the recent past. The alliance’s deterrent power depends on widespread belief in the strength of its members’ mutual commitment. At the height of the Cold War, U.S. leaders really were prepared to raise the nuclear ante to defend their European allies. But the way NATO grew after 1989—with no obvious military threat looming, a blurry mission, and little discussion of the dangers—invites speculation about just how strong that commitment is today.
The U.S. public was never much engaged with the issue. As foreign-policy experts clashed in early 1997 about NATO expansion, only 20 percent of American respondents said they were following the debates even “fairly closely.” Later that year, only 10 percent could identify even one of the potential new members. What made NATO enlargement sellable to Western publics was, paradoxically, the sense that it was not really needed. Back then, Russia hardly looked threatening, so what did it matter what one promised to its neighbors? Had Western citizens thought they might have to send troops to defend Tallinn or Warsaw, opposition would certainly have been louder.
NATO expansion was supposed to be not just safe but cheap: It was not meant to cut into the promised “peace dividend.” This led to the odd spectacle of a defense alliance simultaneously expanding its territory and slashing its armaments and military spending (as a share of GDP). At times, NATO looked less like a military partnership than a disarmament pact.
Since 1989, NATO has adde
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Fuck Ukraine. Fuck NATO.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You are an isolationist Republican.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine. Fuck NATO.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
Lend-Lease was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and 1945. The aid was given free of charge on the basis that such help was essential for the defense of the United States.[2] After a decade of neutrality, Roosevelt knew that the change to Allied support must be gradual, given the support for isolationism in the country.
Opposition to the Lend-Lease bill was strongest among isolationist Republicans in Congress, who feared the measure would be "the longest single step this nation has yet taken toward direct involvement in the war abroad". When the House of Representatives finally took a roll call vote on February 8, 1941, the 260 to 165 vote was largely along party lines. Democrats voted 236 to 25 in favor and Republicans 24 in favor and 135 against.[19]
The vote in the Senate, which occurred on March 8, revealed a similar partisan difference: 49 Democrats (79 percent) voted "aye" with only 13 Democrats (21 percent) voting "nay". In contrast, 17 Republicans (63 percent) voted "nay" while 10 Senate Republicans (37 percent) sided with the Democrats to pass the bill.[20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Yeah. Some of the Democrats had brains back then.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I get the strong feeling that you would have supported Hitler's side rather than France and England but wish to obscure your true nature by pretending that non-participation promotes prosperity, peace, and long life.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yeah. Some of the Democrats had brains back then.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I get the strong feeling that you would have supported Hitler's side rather than France and England but wish to obscure your true nature by pretending that non-participation promotes prosperity, peace, and long life.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yeah. Some of the Democrats had brains back then.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump will be fine.
He will also be your next President.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Funny you should mention that, since we decided to start funding ... Yanno... ACTUAL Nazis in Ukraine. (Azov Brigade.)
I see nothing wrong with being an isolationist. The Founding Fathers thought we should be. So why do we feel we HAVE to run around the world butting in anyway? It's one thing to to help out a nation with mutual interests. It's another thing to stir up trouble just for the helluvit. That seems to be what we're doing 90% of the time.
Oh, BTW, just bc you're trying to stay out of a fight doesn't mean you support one side or the other. False dilemma and mind reading.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Putin's rejection of any ceasefire agreement contradicts the Kremlin's previous effort to place the onus for negotiations on the West and Ukraine. Putin blamed the West and Ukraine for the lack of negotiations while explicitly rejecting future Russian participation in any meaningful ceasefire negotiations during his July 4 press conference at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a stark contradiction in his rhetoric.[12] Putin also dismissed the possibility that any international body or head of state could mediate a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine, despite previously presenting China and various Western leaders as possible actors that Russia could negotiate with. Russian opposition outlet Meduza reported on July 5 that it obtained a Kremlin manual ordering pro-Kremlin and Russian state media to highlight Putin's July 4 statements blaming the West and Ukraine for impeding peace negotiations with "ultimatums" and framing Russia as a willing, good-faith negotiator.[13] The manual recommends that Russian state media should present Putin's demands for Ukrainian capitulation as logical and realistic and Ukraine and the West as untrustworthy and deceptive. Putin's statements during his July 4 press conference and July 5 meetings will likely complicate the apparent ongoing Kremlin effort to convince select audiences that Russia remains interested in negotiations.[14]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-july-5-2024
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:That is not true. August 1775 to July 1776:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I see nothing wrong with being an isolationist. The Founding Fathers thought we should be.
As the defeat of Continental forces in Quebec became a reality, the attention of Congressional leaders was drawn fully into the search for an explanation for that defeat. Some, like John Adams and Richard Henry Lee, adopted a deus ex machina approach, specifically blaming the outbreak of smallpox that ravaged Continental troops outside the walls of Quebec City for the failure of American arms.3 Most others, however, laid the blame for the Continental defeat in Quebec elsewhere. Rather than look upwards for the source of Continental defeat, most Congressional leaders chose instead to look inwards. This choice was based primarily upon a series of reports issued by a Congressional committee (composed of Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll Jr. of Maryland) appointed to investigate the problems facing Continental troops in Quebec.4 Eventually, it was established by the members of the Continental Congress as the official explanation for their forces’ ultimate defeat. These reports, written in May 1776, made it clear that the blame for Continental defeat should be laid squarely on the shoulders of Congressional leaders themselves. More specifically, Congressional leaders’ indecision and lack of organization had prevented Continental troops from receiving the financial and military support necessary to execute any sort of effective military strategy.
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedi
a/article/quebec-campaign
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
SECOND, grasping at straws.
The intention of the Founding Fathers is crystal clear:
Quote:
The Founding Fathers had just broken free from one empire, and the idea that foreign power could influence their young democracy was a prominent source of anxiety.
When the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, they represented a loosely held confederacy of Atlantic states recently freed from British rule. If the American experiment was going to work, the founding fathers knew that they had to insulate their new republic from deep-pocketed interests and old alliances from Europe.
Through a course of heated conversations and compromises, safeguards against foreign influence as a corrupting force were built into the Constitution.
“The founders had just broken free from one empire, and the idea that some other empire was going to swallow them up was a constant source of fear for them,” says Mary Sarah Bilder, law professor and constitutional historian at Boston College Law School, and author of Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention.
American statesmen like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were no strangers to the backroom deals and soap-opera plot lines of 18th-century European politics. Gift-giving was common practice among foreign dignitaries, as was bestowing of titles of nobility on foreign political friends. Intermarriage of royal families was another classic way to bind the interests of two nations together.
If the United States was going to be different, the framers needed a founding document that fully recognized and defended against the corrupting influence of foreign money and power, particularly on the president.
“Article II of the Constitution gives such power to the president to run the executive branch that a president under the influence of a foreign nation would be far more dangerous than any other single individual,” says Stephen Saltzburg, professor at The George Washington University Law School. “That kind of conflict, between loyalty to the United States and loyalty to a foreign nation, would be intolerable.”
Two Key Provisions Protect Against Presidential Corruption
To guard against such conflicts and provide a remedy for a worst-case scenario of presidential corruption, the founders built two key provisions into the Constitution: the so-called “emoluments clause” and the power to impeach a president.
The emoluments clause is laid out in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution: “And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”
MORE AT https://www.history.com/news/foreign-influence-constitution-founding-f
athers
Quote:- Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.'
Quote:- George Washington
"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world."
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Signym, you are joking. It is not just Canada that the Founding Fathers attacked. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson made treaties as an expeditious way to defraud the Indian nations. For isolationist Republicans, the USA has always intervened with other nations.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, grasping at straws.
The intention of the Founding Fathers is crystal clear:Quote:- Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.'Quote:- George Washington
"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world."
I thought the number of broken treaties with Indian nations was in the thousands. But I was too cynical about treaties being a cheap way to steal another nation’s land because the actual number broken was only hundreds: A treaty is a contract between nations. Nearly four hundred treaties were signed between Indian tribes and the U.S. until 1871 when Congress passed a law (25 U.S.C. 71) that prohibited the federal government from entering into additional treaties with the Indian tribes. The Supreme Court held, in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903), that treaties with Indian tribes may be abrogated (broken) by federal law and Congress has abrogated many Indian treaties in this fashion.
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ana/fact-sheet/american-indians-and-alaska-nat
ives-treaties
Also for isolationist Republicans, besides invading Canada 1775-1776, the USA invaded Mexico and stole much of it, too. See Texas history for a particular example of how that worked.
At no time in American history was it "Isolationist" when there was material gain to have by interfering with other nations. There is gain in interfering with Russia gobbling up Ukraine, even if 6ixStringJack or Signym can't see what is to be gained.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The FF weren't entirely consistent. They wrote about all men being created equal but failed to extend that to women or slaves. And they were worried about Old World alliances bc those had enough money and weapons to create problems for the new nation. Jefferson, for example, bought a large part of southern USA (Louisiana Purchase) from France, considerate of French claims, but apparently didn't consider natives as having claims.
That doesn't take away from the fact that here we are, messing around in those nations that the FF EXACTLY warned us about!
BTW, Canada wasn't a nation either.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:You are missing the larger point that America has always, even back in 1775 with Canada, stopped being Isolationist when there is something to gain. When it is not obvious how much is to be gained, the Isolationists loudly protest against intervening but get quiet later for their various and sundry reasons after enough time passes to make the situation obvious to these numbskulls. Sometimes the Isolationists are correct. The Vietnam War was lost the day Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated: November 2, 1963. Maybe that War was lost even earlier when Diem refused to carry out the 1954 Geneva Accords, which had called for free elections to be held throughout Vietnam in 1956 in order to establish a national government. With the south torn by dissident groups and political factions, Diem established an autocratic regime that was staffed at the highest levels by members of his own family.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The FF weren't entirely consistent.
That doesn't take away from the fact that here we are, messing around in those nations that the FF EXACTLY warned us about!
BTW, Canada wasn't a nation either.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
You are missing the larger point that America has always, even back in 1775 with Canada, stopped being Isolationist when there is something to gain.
You just admitted we wage war to steal, not to "spread freedom" or "defend democracy" or "fight terrorism".
On other words, we're an empire.
Glad you agree.
So, why are we fighting a proxy war in Ukraine?
What did TPTB expect to get out of it? (Not that most of us would get anything ... we just pay the taxes.)
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:How much tax money should the West spend to stop Russia from murdering the West once it finishes with Ukraine?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
You are missing the larger point that America has always, even back in 1775 with Canada, stopped being Isolationist when there is something to gain.
You just admitted we wage war to steal, not to "spread freedom" or "defend democracy" or "fight terrorism".
On other words, we're an empire.
Glad you agree.
So, why are we fighting a proxy war in Ukraine?
What did TPTB expect to get out of it? (Not that most of us would get anything ... we just pay the taxes.)
Khrushchev once said, "We will bury you." Signym, Russia claimed that was a translation error, and that Russia had no intention of destroying the West. Time passes and Putin has made it very clear he does intend to destroy Ukraine. Simultaneously, he is working very hard to do the same to the West.
Signym, what do you think is the best response to a threat to destroy the West? Give Russia what it demands in hopes that Ukraine is enough to satisfy its cravings? Or should the West realize that Putin's words are not a translation error? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you
Russia is trying to put a price tag on Nato’s involvement in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin is seeking reckless new ways to impose costs on the US and its allies
By Alexander Gabuev, Director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin
July 6 2024
https://www.ft.com/content/036f2b85-dfd6-4dee-8576-57ca08ab62db
When Nato leaders meet in Washington on July 9, the pivotal topic will be support for Ukraine and strengthening military deterrence against Russia. With the situation on the battlefield gradually turning in Moscow’s favour, the focus will be on Kyiv’s most immediate requirements, along with the need for Europe to increase its defence spending. Yet Nato also needs to discuss and act upon the dangerous new ways Vladimir Putin is finding to impose costs on the US and its allies — with the potential for ruinous spillover effects beyond anybody’s control.
In year three of its war against Ukraine, perceived by the Kremlin as just one thread in its broader confrontation with the west, inflicting pain on Kyiv’s supporters is increasingly a priority for Putin. The Kremlin wants to put a price tag on Nato’s growing involvement in the war on Ukraine’s behalf — as both deterrence and revenge. The latest White House decision to allow Kyiv to use western long-range weapons for strikes inside Russia itself, beyond occupied Ukrainian territory, as well as recent Ukrainian drone strikes on radars that are part of Russia’s nuclear attack early warning system, are prompting Putin to act more boldly than ever.
Since the start of the war, the west’s primary concern has been the possible use of nuclear weapons. Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin is again beating the tired drum of nuclear escalation. Moscow has started drills involving tactical nukes, and Putin is publicly talking about making Russia’s nuclear doctrine more offensive. Still, the risk of actual use is lower than it was in autumn 2022 after Ukraine made battlefield gains. With the outlook now more favourable for Russia, it’s unlikely that Putin will reach for the most potent instrument at his disposal — one better kept as the ultimate insurance against defeat.
But Putin is not short of other tools. Right now, Moscow’s primary instrument for escalation is the use of missiles and drones against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. An air strike campaign scaled up in spring has already destroyed more than half of Ukraine’s generation capacity. Repairs to some power stations will take years. With the onset of winter, large population centres will face the prospect of freezing and blackouts. Putin aims not only to pull the plug on military manufacturing plants in Ukraine, but to drive millions of new refugees westward, putting pressure on Europe and helping politicians who wa
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
How much tax money should the West spend to stop Russia from murdering the West... blah blah blah
Oh, yeah.
Tell us again how Trump "colluded with Russia, and how Joe is fit for Presidency, and about those dominoes in SE Asia.
I don't think even YOU believe that crap.
How about hanging on to that one nugget of truth you stumbled on ... how the USA fights wars to steal ... instead of drenching us with propaganda?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Signym, too bad for your entire way of life, but Russia did do what it is accused of doing:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
How much tax money should the West spend to stop Russia from murdering the West... blah blah blah
Oh, yeah.
Tell us again how Trump "colluded with Russia, and how Joe is fit for Presidency, and about those dominoes in SE Asia.
I don't think even YOU believe that crap.
How about hanging on to that one nugget of truth you stumbled on ... how the USA fights wars to steal ... instead of drenching us with propaganda?
1) RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN 2016 U.S. ELECTIONS
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/cyber/russian-interference-in-2016-u-s-elec
tions
2) Senate Releases Final Report On Russia's Interference In 2016 Election
August 18, 2020
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/903616315/senate-releases-final-report-
on-russias-interference-in-2016-election
3) Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election March 2019
https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl
4) Mueller's Report Shows All The Ways Russia Interfered In 2016 Presidential Election April 18, 2019
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/18/714810702/muellers-report-shows-all-the
-ways-russia-interfered-in-2016-presidential-electi
Russia did not slow down after 2016. Instead, Russia increased the speed of its attack on the West all while denying it is doing what it is doing. You have got to be pretty damn stupid and gullible to believe Russia's explanations, justifications, and insincere insinuations about its behavior and the West's behavior in response to what Russia has done.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME