Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

And your incessant virtue signaling is boring.

You have no moral compass, and it shows. Bigly.

Vladimir Putin's escalation of the war is running into increasing opposition within Russia. Police have arrested more than 1,000 people demonstrating against the call-up of reservists at nationwide protests. And Flights to foreign destinations are also selling out, as many fear it could be their last chance to leave.

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Thursday, September 22, 2022 7:13 PM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I did an independent search for the investigative findings on Bucha, which I linked in a previous post. No mention of torture, even by vehemently anti-Russian The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/09/with-bloodied-gloves-for
ensic-teams-uncover-gruesome-secrets-of-bucha-in-ukraine

One quick search on the Guardian web site says you're a terrible, lazy liar.

While investigators uncover the remains of civilians, heartbroken families wait nearby to reclaim their loved ones

by Bethan McKernan in Bucha, Ukraine
Sat 9 Apr 2022 13.40 EDT

Sometimes the dead have more to say than the living. Those lying beneath the soft, yellow earth in the grounds of the church of Andrew the Apostle, in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, have many terrible stories to tell.

In a deep mass grave, a forearm and hand, the fingertips turning black, lay under a foot at a sickening angle; another man’s arm looked like it was clawing its way out of the disturbed soil in an attempt to escape his fate.

On Friday morning a team of forensic investigators from Kyiv arrived at the site to begin documenting the terror inflicted on civilians by Russian troops during Moscow’s six-week-old invasion. They strapped a door to a municipal digger to create a makeshift gurney, and got to work.

All of the people they uncovered had died violently. One man was missing a large chunk of his skull; another body was so badly burned only his head and half of his torso remained, the whites of his eyes subsumed by charred flesh. One person appeared to have been beheaded.

As each new cadaver was laid in front of him, the lead investigator knelt over it and softly murmured an inventory while a colleague wrote it down: leather jacket, mobile phone, no ID. He checked inside decaying mouths, the range of motion of broken limbs, and documented burns, bullet wounds and injuries caused by shrapnel, before volunteers from the town helped put each corpse into a fresh body bag.

And this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/04/why-did-they-do-this-to-
us-buchas-survivors-come-out-of-hiding

‘Why did they do this to us?’: Bucha’s survivors come out of hiding
With the Russians gone, the Ukrainian town’s inhabitants are trying to make sense of the carnage and horror they witnessed

Full report: EU leaders denounce ‘possible genocide’ as Russia issues denials

Kremlin reverts to type in denial of alleged war crimes in Bucha
by Daniel Boffey in Bucha
Mon 4 Apr 2022 16.50 EDT

Those seeking a quiet life, tired of the price and pace of Kyiv, once came to live on Vokzal’na Street in the small town of Bucha, 17 miles north-west of Ukraine’s capital. It was known as “little Switzerland”, so comfortable was the living.

Today, Vokzal’na is burned out, its broken homes and the churned-up military hardware littering the muddy quagmire of what was the road make up some of the defining images of the devastation wrought by Vladimir Putin’s war.

It is barely conceivable that anyone could have survived what was thrown at Vokzal’na from both sides during what was clearly a vicious battle on the road to Kyiv.

There is not a brick unscathed nor a patch of mud that will not have been mixed with blood. But, now that the Russians have gone, Vokzal’na’s residents are emerging from their cellars, tired, tearful and angry.

Serhiy Savenko, 43, who lives with his mother, Larisa, 72, at No 35, had counted the Russian armoured vehicles as they rolled past at 9.10am on 27 February, heading south towards the neighbouring town of Irpin and on towards the capital.

“There was 70 of the armoured vehicles, like tanks, and Russian soldiers walked alongside,” he said. “It took about 40 minutes for them to pass our house. I watched and counted. And then the Ukrainians launched their shells at the Russians.”

The first took out Savenko’s shed in his large back garden. It was the first of many. The horribly exposed armoured vehicles tried to turn around, in panic, as the next, more accurate wave of shells rained down upon them.

Thirty minutes of devastation ensued. Russian bodies were strewn across the road, hot metal flew through the air, smashing every window, enveloping the trees in fire, and turning the burning vehicles white hot.

Across Savenko’s 30-metre long hedge alone, nine devastated armoured vehicles were left burnt out, filling the air with the acrid smell of burning oil and metal.

Those Russians that could escape did. But an hour after the Ukrainian assault, the Russians came back to retrieve their dead – and to entrench themselves in Vokzal’na’s gardens and what was left of its buildings, establishing points from which to send their artillery fire at the Ukrainian defenders. It would be a long and cruel occupation.

“We were in our cellar the whole time,” Savenko said. “The Russians set up their weapons and a fire in the front garden. One came down to the cellar and saw us. He said to be quiet. He said he was a nice guy but his colleagues would get us on our knees and shoot us. They took our phones and said, no fires, as if we could make some sort of signal.”

Standing outside her home at No 31, gripping a note, with tears streaming down her face, Zinaida, 62, had been in her cellar since 5 March."

========

We get it - you don't come here for the truth. Curious why lying, shielding the guilty matters to you so much. O-well.

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Friday, September 23, 2022 3:12 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Of for gods sake, you stupid sod. All I had to do was look at the date to know that was even BEFORE an investigation. This is gossip, sensationalism, and bullshit. No investigator would ever put their name to it, and never did .

You're stupider than I thought.

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

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Friday, September 23, 2022 4:10 AM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You're stupider than I thought.

Actually, Zigglette, the reality is we're not as stupid as you wish we were. Your name calling is a tell. "You's so stupid!" It's a tell that you have nothing and you're scrambling, deflecting. We see this all the time when second runs circles around you and makes you look like an idiot. You come out swinging with the insults. You've been exposed as a fraud and your only defense is.... if we get bored. Such goals.

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Friday, September 23, 2022 5:29 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You're stupider than I thought.

Actually, Zigglette, the reality is we're not as stupid as you wish we were. Your name calling is a tell. "You's so stupid!" It's a tell that you have nothing and you're scrambling, deflecting. We see this all the time when second runs circles around you and makes you look like an idiot. You come out swinging with the insults. You've been exposed as a fraud and your only defense is.... if we get bored. Such goals.

One of these mornings I might wake to news that Kyiv has been nuked. Signym will state that it is only logical that the Ukrainians killed themselves in a false flag operation. Russia will deny involvement. Then Signym will say it is stupid to think Russia did it. Where is the proof? More than likely it was America growing tired of the war and wishing to end it quickly because the cost to America was too high to continue. Signym is pure magic. With a few words (presto chango!) the entire meaning of nuking Kyiv is turned upside down.

Kyiv urges west to spell out how it would respond to Russian nuclear strike
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/21/kyiv-urges-west-to-spell
-out-how-it-would-respond-to-russian-nuclear-strike
Ukraine asks world leaders to say ‘very firmly’ that nuclear strike would have catastrophic consequences for Russia

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

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Friday, September 23, 2022 8:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You're stupider than I thought.

Actually, Zigglette, the reality is we're not as stupid as you wish we were.

Yes. Yes you are.

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Friday, September 23, 2022 10:28 AM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by SECOND:

Tucker Carlson weighs in much the same way Ziggy has:
"Tucker Carlson talked about Putin’s threat of nuclear weapons and said: “And Ukrainians, of course, are also making explicit nuclear threats.”

Ukraine doesn’t have nuclear weapons, you POS scumbag Russian asset.

Also, Turns out Putin has changed his mind, or he was misreported.

@JuliaDavis:
"There was palpable frustration in the Russian media that many in the West misunderstood what Putin said?—he was threatening the West, not Ukraine, with nuclear strikes. And so, droves of propagandists have been sent out to tell the West: push us into a corner and everybody dies. https://pic.twitter.com/quXcMZd7SE "

How do you say you're desperate without saying you're desperate?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/kremlin-media-wants-rich-russians-to-hel
p-save-vladimir-putins-failing-war-in-ukraine
"Putin's state TV mouthpieces insist that rich Russian oligarchs should pitch in to help save his failing invasion of Ukraine

The Kremlin’s cronies are now demanding that Russians “who are fattened up” help fuel Vladimir Putin’s disastrous war."

@DannyPunton
"Central Asian banned their citizens from fighting in Ukraine as they were needed for regional fighting.
The embassies of #Kyrgyzstan, #Kazakhstan and #Uzbekistan in #Moscow released separate statements, banning their citizens in #Russia from participating in the war in #Ukraine. This was reported by Anadolu Agency."

Not our fcking war, freak!

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Friday, September 23, 2022 12:11 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:

Tucker Carlson weighs in much the same way Ziggy has:
"Tucker Carlson talked about Putin’s threat of nuclear weapons and said: “And Ukrainians, of course, are also making explicit nuclear threats.”

Ukraine doesn’t have nuclear weapons, you POS scumbag Russian asset.

Did you know that Fox News hosts, Russia's defenders, and Trump's defenders keep a "moral compass" in their pocket? I know this is true because they always have an instant answer to which direction is Truly Moral, but I suspect they bend the meaning of moral by keeping a "moral" magnet in their pocket to cheat the "moral compass" so that whatever they want is always "moral". According to Signym:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
And your incessant virtue signaling is boring.

You have no moral compass, and it shows. Bigly.

Presumably, Signym's enemies are lost without the perfect moral compasses kept in hand by Signym, Putin, Trump, and Tucker Carlson. These people own virtue so they never virtue signal because that would be redundant.

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

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Friday, September 23, 2022 1:29 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You're stupider than I thought.

Actually, Zigglette, the reality is we're not as stupid as you wish we were. Your name calling is a tell. "You's so stupid!" It's a tell that you have nothing and you're scrambling, deflecting. We see this all the time when second runs circles around you and makes you look like an idiot. You come out swinging with the insults. You've been exposed as a fraud and your only defense is.... if we get bored. Such goals.

The fact that you focus on ONE SENTENCE but can't answer my point tells me that you're the one scrambling and deflecting.

So, let me repeat my post without the objectionable bits and see what you have to say then.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM: All I had to do was look at the date to know that was even BEFORE an investigation. This is gossip, sensationalism, and bullshit. No investigator would ever put their name to it, and never did .

Now I'm going to add a bit more that should have been pellucidly clear on first reading:

All they were doing was providing gruesome descriptions of bodies as they were first being dug up.

Contorted positions?
Burned?
Blown to bits?
Head caved in?
Died violently?
YOU BET!

But Bucha WAS the site of military fighting. I have seen, and you would have seen (had you bothered to look) the same thing of people in Donetsk killed by Kiev's shelling: Heads caved in by falling masonry. Legs, arms, heads blown off by explosion. Burned in house fires.

It takes a post-mortem to determine HOW someone died, not a eyewitless account of a disinternment.

IN THE END, AFTER THE POST MORTEMS, NOTHING POINTED TO TORTURE, OR MASSACRE. If there was any evidence of that, it would have been in our media for weeks. What they DID find were people killed by flechettes. Of course, our media would never retract their story, the one beginning with "Kiev said...".

So, where is evidence of this torture and/or masscre that you keep going on about?
If you have something CREDIBLE to post, please post it now. I'm moving on.

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

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Friday, September 23, 2022 2:40 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Again, thinking out loud ...

Was listening to a roundtable yestderday hosted by an American-educated Chilean currently living in Kharkiv (Gonazlo Lira). The participants were- an American living in Thailand (Brian Berlectic), an American former CIA/security expert (Larry Johnson) and a Greek-born American currently posting from Greece, Cypress and other nations from SE Europe.

I only mention this in case you want to hear the video.

Anyway, there was nothing much new in it for me altho it may sound alien to ome of you. But there was one takeaway in it for me: The need for a "galvanizing event" to get the people of Europe and USA involved, another Pearl Harbor or 9-11.

Now, I believe that Russia is doing its damnedest to keep things from going nuclear (literally) and one of the things they might be trying to avoid is that "galvanizing event". Their responses so far have been calibrated to maximize the west's disunity and minimize coalescence. It's not like the M$M hasn't been trying to gin up SOME kind of galvanizing event, either by claiming victories or Russian atrocities, but so far people aren't very interested.

And it's not like the west hasn't been escalating all along, increasing the lethality of donated weapons, NATO intelligence, planning, command/control, and contract specialists. They even tried shelling a nuclear power plant hoping to blackmail Russia with potential nuclear disaster (they even claim tht Russia is shelling ... itself!), but so far they haven't taken the big step of providing long range missiles or actual NATO-enlisted troops.

Russia HAS warned the west against sending long-range missiles into its territory, however. Given the short flight time into Russia and short response time required, since any long-range missile can be tipped with nuclear warheads, I don't think that Moscow is going to wait for the explosion to decide what to do: If they see missiles coming over their border they're going to assume they're nuclear and respond with nukes.

So, what are the west's options now that Russia has the option of formally being at war with NATO (assuming a NATO nation takes the step of attacking or arming an attack on the newly-acquired oblasts) and NATO has been warned against sending missiles ove the border?

Well, I think it's a balancing act. Russia still doesn't want to provide a galvaniign event. So I imagine it will still be a slow grind on the ground, but with the added factor of (more) missile strikes against those ("secret") NATO centers in Ukraine that NATO can't object to bc they're not supposed to be there.

It'll be interesting to see if I'm right, or not.

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

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Friday, September 23, 2022 5:42 PM

... stay crunchy...

Originally posted by SIGNYM: The fact that you focus on ONE SENTENCE but can't answer my point tells me that you're the one scrambling and deflecting.

Also Originally posted by SIGNYM: Like SECOND'S posts I get one or two sentences in and I trip over something so egregiously stupid I have to stop.

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Friday, September 23, 2022 6:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You're stupider than I thought.

Actually, Zigglette, the reality is we're not as stupid as you wish we were. Your name calling is a tell. "You's so stupid!" It's a tell that you have nothing and you're scrambling, deflecting. We see this all the time when second runs circles around you and makes you look like an idiot. You come out swinging with the insults. You've been exposed as a fraud and your only defense is.... if we get bored. Such goals.

Hey comrade signym, take a swing at this.

T

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Friday, September 23, 2022 8:15 PM

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

Russia is a country with a lot of valuable natural resources and a reasonably well-organized resource extraction sector. Countries like that — including core members like Canada and Norway and more peripheral ones like the UAE — are treated pretty well. Canada does not need a nuclear arsenal to prevent the stronger United States from storming in to take the oil sands and the hydroelectric dams. Russia is not going to get a better deal than that by becoming the junior partner in a Chinese-dominated alliance system. And they’re not going to obtain anything useful by destroying Ukraine or seizing its provinces. Whatever legitimate security interests Russia may have been trying to advance have only been undermined by this war. And the only real way out of the nightmare is for Russians to come to see that and act accordingly. In the meantime, we can tighten the noose on sanctions, keep supplying Ukraine, and continue to improve western energy policy. But there’s a nightmare lurking that only the Russians can avert.

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

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Friday, September 23, 2022 8:46 PM

Do you retards do anything productive on any given day, or is this all you've got in your sad, pathetic lives?

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 2:35 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

So, again, thinking out loud.

What are the west's options at this point?

Conventional warfare: the west has emptied its warehouses of junk, and doesn't have any USEFUL weapons (HIMARS, etc) or munitions to spare. Western tanks wouldn't help w/o trained tank crews. Same with aircraft. I doubt that there are thousands, let alone tens of thousands, of mercenaries/paid volunteer infantry at the ready. We're already supplying as much intel and suport as we can. The only things that come to mind are long range missiles and sabotage/terror groups. Escalating to long range missiles might have terrible consequences, but I'm not sure our leadership is sane enough to care. But unless they go into crazy-land with misiles, or sabotage/terrorism I think we're stymied along those lines.

Sanctions: What is there left to sanction? Besides, it seems that sanctions are hurting the EU more than Russia. I suppose "secondary sanctions" ... i.e. applying sanctions to nations that continue to trade with Russia ... might be an avenue to explore. How other nations respond to being strong-armed by the USA prolly depnds on how economically vulnerable they are to the USD. China could be vulnerable to secondary sanctions bc China has a huge amount of USD and Treasury reserves which could be stolen by the USA at any moment. Not sure about India, since China is its biggest trading partner. A nation would have to be pretty tough-minded to withstand secondary sanctions.

A second (or third) front: The USA is adept at creating chaos in multiple arenas. They could crank up trouble in any of the CSTO nations, which would create an extra demand on CSTO's military/security forces, including Russia's. Taiwan. Syria (again, still). Venezuela. Iran. Any of the 'stans.

Regime change in Russia itself: I don't think it would happen, but it still might be tried.

False flag: This would be to create that "galvanizing event" that would persuade western nations (and people) to endure privation for the foreseeable future and provide an excuse for NATO to step in directly. CIA and MI6 are good at setting up false flags, but it would have to be so horrific as to finally engage the public: a major strike on territory outside Ukraine, a nuclear event, biowarfare ... something that would make the western public fearful for their personal safety.

The nuclear option: It's always on the table. Z, Liz Truss, van der Crazy and other western leaders talk about winning a nuclear war. I don't think it's on the top of the list, but I think it's always there.

Repression at home, propaganda 24/7: Of course, western press will continue to spread disinfo and propaganda to anyoen who will listen. The problem is that anyone who was able to be propagandized already is, and anyone who isn't is already dismissing what the western media has to say.And, of course, the (non democratic) EU and individual eurocrats and USA deep staters will do their best to repress/intimidate anyone not following the narrative, keeping people "in line".

Unless there's some brilliant scheme I haven't thought of, seondary sanctions, terrorism in Russian or pro-Russian areas (with plausible deniability), second/third fronts, and repression at home seem like the most likely. It won't change what's going to happen in Ukraine, but Ukraine was never the point anyway: it's all about destroying Russia.

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

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 6:11 AM

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

Nuclear War 'Already a Given' Says Russian TV: 'Everyone Will Be Destroyed'
By Gerrard Kaonga On 9/23/22 at 6:30 AM EDT

Russia State TV Warns The West If They Are Pushed Into A Corner Everybody Dies

Russian state TV hosts and guests have warned the West that if they feel Russia has been pushed into a corner they will ensure "everyone will be destroyed."

The rhetoric surrounding the war in Ukraine has been escalated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave a speech earlier this week. In the pre-recorded statement on Wednesday, he announced the partial mobilization of Russians to go fight in Ukraine.

In addition, Putin warned the West that Russia wasn't bluffing about the use of nuclear weapons being used if Ukraine continues to receive support.

Military expert Igor Korotchenko and state TV host Olga Skabeeva agreed that Russia would use nuclear weapons if they felt Russia was under threat of being destroyed.

The video has also gone viral with over 160,000 views, after being posted by the Daily Beast's Julia Davis.

Korotchenko said: "The only thing the West fears today is the possibility of Russia using its tactical nuclear weapons.

"In this regard, the words uttered by Vladimir Putin are very valuable nonetheless.

"In the West they're considering them and analyzing what would be the circumstances for Russia to use such an argument in order to avoid any scenarios that Moscow would consider to be unacceptable."

"The West has to understand: if certain weapons exist, taboos and limitations on using them could be lifted in certain circumstances."

The host went on to defend Russia's position regarding Ukraine and said the country was not looking for conflict.

"What do they want? They want a victory over Russia," Skabeeva said.

"It is impossible to defeat Russia without a nuclear explosion. It's out of the question.

"We will not allow the destruction of our country, if you're trying to destroy us, you will be destroyed along with us.

"What are our next actions? [Striking] the decision-making centers? In Kyiv, London, Washington - where?

"What should we do to avoid the nuclear war, or is it already a given? It certainly seems that way.

"If they don't stop, it will become a reality. What is the goal of the collective West?

"The victory of Ukraine and the defeat of Russia. As long as the Russian Federation has nukes, [and we do], its defeat is impossible.

"Push us into the corner- everyone will be destroyed. Is that what they're trying to achieve?

"Putin said it so succinctly, so clearly. We aren't threatening, we don't want war. We're the first in line to stop it.

"We don't want a nuclear winter or nuclear war, But if you declare that we will be destroyed, we will have to destroy you."

Newsweek has contacted Russia's ministry of foreign affairs for comment.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-nuclear-weapons-strike-america-west-wa
rning-nukes-everybody-dies-vladimir-putin-1745649

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

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 7:42 AM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
... but Ukraine was never the point anyway: it's all about destroying Russia.

So... the West made Russia invade Ukraine... so the West could destroy Russia...? Eh?

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 7:46 AM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Nuclear War 'Already a Given' Says Russian TV: 'Everyone Will Be Destroyed'
Russia State TV Warns The West If They Are Pushed Into A Corner Everybody Dies

It would be extremely helpful if they would define "Pushed Into A Corner."

and

I guess we have no choice but to nuke them first. < / snark >

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 8:51 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Nuclear War 'Already a Given' Says Russian TV: 'Everyone Will Be Destroyed'
Russia State TV Warns The West If They Are Pushed Into A Corner Everybody Dies

It would be extremely helpful if they would define "Pushed Into A Corner."

and

I guess we have no choice but to nuke them first. < / snark >

Signym did that thing Signym always does with a few magic words -- presto chango! Sigymn magically converts the daily reality that Russia is attacking Ukraine into some future magical fantasy where the world will be attacking Russia at some indeterminate time yet to be revealed:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
CIA and MI6 are good at setting up false flags, but it would have to be so horrific as to finally engage the public: a major strike on territory outside Ukraine, a nuclear event, biowarfare ... something that would make the western public fearful for their personal safety.

The nuclear option: It's always on the table. Z, Liz Truss, van der Crazy and other western leaders talk about winning a nuclear war. I don't think it's on the top of the list, but I think it's always there.

It is the same old story out of Russia, which can stop the West from attacking Russia by Russia attacking first. To this day I don't think the Russians will ever understand that Russia started two wars with Finland, and lost both, but blaming Finland for being belligerent. https://www.google.com/search?q=russian+war+with+finland

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

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 9:24 AM

... stay crunchy...

‘An Army of Zombies Is Leading Us to Hell’

An interview with a Moscow professional who just quit Russia to escape Vladimir Putin’s military draft
By Anna Nemtsova
The Atlantic
SEPTEMBER 23, 2022, 7:30 AM ET

After President Vladimir Putin announced this week that Russia was conscripting some 300,000 reservists and military veterans to reinforce its war effort in Ukraine, international flights out of Russian cities quickly sold out. This latest wave of Russia’s exodus included Anton Shalaev, a 38-year-old senior manager at an IT company, and 15 colleagues.

On less than a day’s notice, these men of military age all left their relatively comfortable lives in downtown Moscow to fly to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Because of Putin’s war, Shalaev tossed a book, an iPad, and a laptop in a backpack and got out of Dodge.

Shalaev and his co-workers are true tech geeks, producers of high-value computer games. They represent their country’s brightest and best, members of a tech elite that was the economic foundation of Russia’s new middle class. In a last selfie from Moscow, Shalaev brandished a coffee mug that bore the slogan not today, satan.

Anna Nemtsova: Why didn’t you want to be drafted to fight in Ukraine?

Anton Shalaev: On the day Putin declared the war, I knew I would never fight on behalf of this new Nazi Reich. They are my personal enemies: mercenaries who steal my country from me, occupy foreign territories, and kill innocent people. Putin’s army commanders have had plenty of time to turn down their contracts; instead, they are recruiting more cannon fodder now.

So I chose to help Ukrainians suffering from this horror—pay for shelters in Kyiv with cryptocurrency and write antiwar posts on social media. To encourage Russians at home, I said: “Guys, look, I am writing this from Moscow.”

Nemtsova: What was your escape like?

Shalaev: Unlike state-owned companies such as Yandex or the Mail.ru Group, which are making their employees stay, we were independent of government funding, so we made an immediate decision to relocate.

The atmosphere at passport control in the airport was quiet but tense; men waiting for the flight around me were exchanging alerted glances. I had bought my ticket right before the announcement—we were already hearing rumors of the mobilization—so it cost me only about $300. But my colleagues got their tickets the next day, and they cost more than $1,000.

The departure was super stressful. The border guards took each of my friends aside into a small room, interrogated them, asked if they had ever served in the military, and if not, why not. And you know that type of sly border official making their little jokes: “Aha, you are leaving on the day of conscription.” Of course, they checked whether our names were in the database for the mobilization.

Nemtsova: Did you do military service, in fact, when you turned 18?

Shalaev: No, I entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, which had a military department, so that released me from the service obligation. I studied political science, and dreamed of becoming a Russian diplomat—Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was a graduate there. For a long time, I considered myself a Russian patriot, ready to serve.

When I enrolled in college, in 2001, there was some ideological diversity: We had a neo-Stalinist who taught us about how “Josef” ruled with an iron fist, but the next class would be with a professor telling us about liberal values. Today, the school recruits students for the secret services. And lately, I heard that the dean has urged students to call for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to surrender.

Nemtsova: What do you think of the Kremlin’s decision making?

Shalaev: A few old men and an army of zombies are leading us to hell. I say that because people around me in Russia behaved as if they had been bitten by a zombie, dragging my entire country into a dreadful war. All I saw was Russian loser husbands beating their wives, while the entire rotting house of the state system has turned my people into an army of the dead.

They are my enemies.

Nemtsova: What do you know of the situation in Ukraine?

Shalaev: I constantly follow the war news in Ukraine—and I seek out the best, most objective analysts. My main sources on the atrocities are Ukrainian refugees from cities bombed by Russian forces.

I realize that I would rather go to prison than go to fight against the Ukrainian army. I openly embrace my antiwar position. I urge my social-media followers to donate to Ukrainians. This entire war is a crime against humanity.

Nemtsova: What do you think of the Russian state media?

Shalaev: Russian propaganda is a weapon, and the bastards working there are war criminals. The greatest guilt in this entire tragedy belongs to a small bunch of old men at the top: KGB officers.

Nemtsova: Do you yourself feel guilt?

Shalaev: I blame myself for our careless life, for our hedonism. We were completely relaxed, a bunch of computer geeks enjoying a happy and comfortable decade of Moscow life, creating and playing our games. We thought the entire country was like us; we did not know our country.

On February 24, when the invasion of Ukraine began, it became clear to me that the old man had nothing to lose. He is a psychopath and does not care what happens to us all, to our economy, to our future.

My only hope is that he has some instinct for self-protection that will stop him from nuking us all.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/09/russia-exile
-putin-military-draft/671541/

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 1:53 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Speaking of repression "at home"

Edited for readability

Quote:
EU Commission President [Ursula von der Leyen, an unelected eurocrat] Threatens Italy On Eve Of Election, Says Brussels Has 'Tools' If Wrong Parties Wins

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is being accused of election interference after threatening to use “tools” if the wrong election result is achieved in Italy’s national elections, set to take place this Sunday, Sept. 25.

Von der Leyen added that those same tools are already being used against Hungary and Poland.
“We will see the result of the vote in Italy,” said von der Leyen. “If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.”
Giorgia Meloni’s electric performances at political rallies have made her a virtual shoo-in to become Italy’s first female prime minister in Sunday’s ballot. She’ll also be the first to campaign with the flame symbol, evoking the former fascist leader, Benito Mussolini.
The prospect of a charismatic nationalist taking power with almost no government experience has investors and officials on edge. Italy, of course, is wrestling with the fallout from the most serious conflict in Europe since WWII. But the country has been adrift for years, struggling to hit on a formula which can unlock its potential while staying true to its identity. - Bloomberg

https://global-macro-monitor.com/2022/09/23/the-great-reset-saluta-la-
signora-mussolini-il-nuovo-pm-ditalia/

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

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 2:51 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Speaking of repression "at home"

Edited for readability

Quote:
EU Commission President [Ursula von der Leyen, an unelected eurocrat] Threatens Italy On Eve Of Election, Says Brussels Has 'Tools' If Wrong Parties Wins

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is being accused of election interference after threatening to use “tools” if the wrong election result is achieved in Italy’s national elections, set to take place this Sunday, Sept. 25.

Von der Leyen added that those same tools are already being used against Hungary and Poland.
“We will see the result of the vote in Italy,” said von der Leyen. “If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.”
Giorgia Meloni’s electric performances at political rallies have made her a virtual shoo-in to become Italy’s first female prime minister in Sunday’s ballot. She’ll also be the first to campaign with the flame symbol, evoking the former fascist leader, Benito Mussolini.
The prospect of a charismatic nationalist taking power with almost no government experience has investors and officials on edge. Italy, of course, is wrestling with the fallout from the most serious conflict in Europe since WWII. But the country has been adrift for years, struggling to hit on a formula which can unlock its potential while staying true to its identity. - Bloomberg

https://global-macro-monitor.com/2022/09/23/the-great-reset-saluta-la-
signora-mussolini-il-nuovo-pm-ditalia/

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

A history of "Democracy" in Italy:

General elections were held in Italy on 6 April 1924 to elect the members of the Chamber of Deputies.[1] They were held under the Acerbo Law, which stated that the party with the largest share of the votes would automatically receive two-thirds of the seats in Parliament as long as they received over 25% of the vote.[2] The National List of Benito Mussolini (an alliance of Catholic, liberal and conservative political parties) used intimidation tactics against voters,[2] resulting in a landslide victory and a subsequent two-thirds majority. This was the last multi-party election in Italy until 1946.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Italian_general_election

The people Democratically elected the best man -- Mussolini. Once he was in, the only way to be rid of him was violence, but a decade too late, long after he had wrecked Italy. That is Italian-flavored Democracy. Since the 1940's, individual Italian voters have given no indication that they actually understand their personal responsibilities for how screwed up their Democracy is. Instead, they watch it happen without comprehending what they are doing wrong. The voters have picked one stupid ass government after another for 75 years.

The longest-serving prime minister in the history of Italy was Benito Mussolini, who ruled the country from 1922 until 1943; the longest-serving prime minister, but only because he couldn't be removed except by force. The Italians had a bad government, but at least the government clearly knew what its goals were.

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

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 4:30 PM

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

Former opposition MP Dmitry Gudkov left Moscow well before the war, saying he was warned to go - or go to jail. Today, all prominent Russian opposition figures are either in custody, dead, or in exile.

So at a recent gathering in Vilnius, a slogan on stage called on those abroad to "be brave, like Ukraine", but the mood was subdued with a hint of helplessness.

Many are actually now looking to Ukraine to do what they could not achieve peacefully inside Russia: defeat Putin.

"I think the West should ramp up military assistance to Ukraine, that's the only option," Mr Gudkov says.

Alexei Navalny's team agrees but goes further. Since the opposition politician was imprisoned, dozens of his team have moved to Vilnius to escape prosecution as "extremists" themselves.

"Putin committed his gravest mistake when he invaded Ukraine. I believe he dramatically decreased the duration of his reign," Mr Navalny's right-hand man, Leonid Volkov, tells me.

This week's call-up has confirmed that belief, as videos of men saying tearful goodbyes to their families pops up all over the country.

"No one attacked Russia, no one needed these separations and these deaths," Mr Volkov wrote on Twitter. "But on 24 February, a maniac led his country down a dead-end."

Mr Navalny's team has been trying to undermine support for the war via YouTube. The audience for their shows, made in Vilnius, has doubled since the invasion.

They are also pushing for more Western sanctions - not visa bans against a whole nation.

They want Ukraine's allies to look beyond President Putin's near-circle and sanction those whom Mr Volkov calls "war enablers" - a list of over 6,000 names, from judges to state journalists.

"Our call to Western governments is to sanction all those people and present them with an exit strategy: tell them what they have to do to get off the list," Mr Volkov says.

"This will create splits. Many will start to jump ship, and Putin's system can't work without them," he adds.

Russian troops have since been forced into retreat from large areas of Ukraine and President Putin has responded as usual: by escalating.

As well as the call-up, there is his threat of annexing more Ukrainian land and another nuclear warning for the West.

Russia's president has staked a huge amount on this campaign and things could well get much worse.

That leaves activist Anastasia Shevchenko struggling with a sense of guilt that she could not do more to stop him.

"I blame myself and it's not a good feeling, believe me," she admits.

But her decision to leave Russia was sealed when her son had to write a letter at his primary school to the soldiers, wishing them victory.

Instead, he told them they had no right to fight their neighbours.

"I think all we can do now as Russians is say sorry - and protest against Vladimir Putin," Anastasia says. "Because Putin personally is the reason for what's going on. Why so many people are dying."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63000034

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

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 6:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You're stupider than I thought.

Actually, Zigglette, the reality is we're not as stupid as you wish we were. Your name calling is a tell. "You's so stupid!" It's a tell that you have nothing and you're scrambling, deflecting. We see this all the time when second runs circles around you and makes you look like an idiot. You come out swinging with the insults. You've been exposed as a fraud and your only defense is.... if we get bored. Such goals.

Putin is a dead man walking.

T

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Saturday, September 24, 2022 8:10 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:

Putin is a dead man walking.

And one of these days, he will die.

But then, one of these days your clock will stop ticking too.

Tick tock

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

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Sunday, September 25, 2022 7:23 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Putin is a dead man walking.

And one of these days, he will die.

But then, one of these days your clock will stop ticking too.

Tick tock

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

Shortly after dawn on the morning of Saturday, December 22, 1849, the twenty-eight-year-old Dostoevsky stood on a black-draped scaffold erected on the drilling ground at Semyonovsky Square in his native St. Petersburg, and prepared to die at the hands of a firing squad. It was a cold, overcast, Russian winter day, with flakes of snow falling at the condemned man’s feet. Dostoevsky was bound to a stake between two other men, a biblical trinity he would have recognized, with nine more prisoners awaiting their turn in the wings. All of them had been convicted of what the presiding court called a “conspiracy of ideas” to undermine the tsarist regime. On the frozen ground behind the scaffold stood a row of carts laden with twelve empty coffins.

A black-robed priest mounted the scaffold and faced the first group of prisoners at the stake. He quoted Romans 6: “The wages of sin is death.” Yet by acknowledging their sins, the condemned could still hope to inherit eternal life. All three of the bound men silently kissed the priest’s cross when it was offered to them. It’s said that Dostoevsky remained calm, remarking to the man next to him on the scaffold that he had recently read Le dernier jour d’un condamné, Victor Hugo’s novel about a criminal facing the guillotine who believes that in the end Christ’s law will replace that of man. Perhaps it was one of those timeless moments, when eternity intrudes into the world and we catch a glimpse of what the life of man was meant to be and, by the grace of God, may yet be.

There was a drumroll. No fewer than forty-five soldiers, in three rows of fifteen, shuffled into position in front of the scaffold, their rifles cocked. Their commanding officer raised his sword as a signal for them to take aim. And at that precise moment, with the condemned men suspended between life and death, a carriage turned the corner and raced onto the cobbled square, a uniformed arm frantically waving a white cloth from the window. The firing squad held its position as a deep-chested man in military braid leapt down from the coach and ran to the presiding officer with a sealed envelope. It contained a slip of paper bearing the news that the condemned men had been reprieved by gracious order of the tsar. They would instead merely be sent into internal exile. It later became known that the whole spectacle at Semyonovsky Square had been a piece of macabre theater. The mock execution was in fact part of the men’s punishment. One of the three individuals who had been tied to the stake that morning went permanently insane. One was never heard from again. The third went on to write Crime and Punishment.

https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-use-and-abuse-of-history/article
s/to-the-depths-and-back

Ask yourself what kind of ruler would play such games? See any connections to Putin and his threatening to drop nukes? What interested Dostoevsky is the morality of crime, and how people can come to rationalize even the most depraved homicidal frenzy. Again, Putin with his rationalizations.

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

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Sunday, September 25, 2022 10:49 AM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ask yourself what kind of ruler would play such games? See any connections to Putin and his threatening to drop nukes? What interested Dostoevsky is the morality of crime, and how people can come to rationalize even the most depraved homicidal frenzy. Again, Putin with his rationalizations.

Hell of a read.

The irony of what Putin is doing now to Russia, (set aside Ukraine and global implications) is his ego is saying he wants to return Russia to "greatness" - (gee, where have we heard that before??), but since the start, little by little, he's actually destroying it. Some Russians left when the Special op started, and now, with the call up thousands more are fleeing. Borders and airports are crowded with those with the money and the will to flee. The ones left, mostly low income with few resources, will be sent to maybe/probably die in the mud in another country. The evil stupid is amazing. Old men who crave the past and are selfish and willing to kill thousands to try and relive it. Hard to believe anyone who isn't afraid for their life, would support that sht.

Another good read:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-cri
mes-united-nations.html

U.N. experts find that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine.

By Nick Cumming-Bruce
Sept. 23, 2022

GENEVA — Russian soldiers have raped and tortured children in Ukraine, a United Nations-appointed panel of independent legal experts said in a damning statement on Friday that concluded war crimes had been committed in the conflict.

A three-person Commission of Inquiry set up in April to investigate the conduct of hostilities in four areas of Ukraine laid out the graphic allegations in an unusually hard-hitting, 11-minute statement to the U.N Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“The commission has documented cases in which children have been raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined,” the panel’s chairman, Erik Mose, told the council.

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Sunday, September 25, 2022 1:11 PM

https://www.dailywire.com/news/president-zelensky-suggests-ukraine-may
-pursue-nuclear-weapons-to-counter-russia-putin-responds

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
President Zelensky Suggests Ukraine May Pursue Nuclear Weapons To Counter Russia, Putin Responds

Quote:
Cheers as Liz Truss says she's ready to press nuclear button and unleash 'global annihilation'

https://news.yahoo.com/audience-liz-truss-ready-press-nuclear-button-u
nleash-global-annihilation-103552126.html

Quote:
In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed every line. We constantly hear threats against our country, our people. Some irresponsible politicians in the West not only talk about plans to organize the supply of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine – systems that will allow strikes against the Crimea and other regions of Russia.

Such terrorist strikes, including with the use of Western weapons, are already being carried out on the border settlements of the Belgorod and Kursk regions. In real time, using modern systems, aircraft, ships, satellites, strategic drones, NATO carries out reconnaissance throughout southern Russia.

In Washington, London, Brussels, they are directly pushing Kyiv to transfer military operations to our territory. No longer hiding, they say that Russia should be defeated by all means on the battlefield, followed by the deprivation of political, economic, cultural, in general, any sovereignty, with the complete plunder of our country.

Nuclear blackmail was also launched. We are talking not only about the shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is encouraged by the West, which threatens a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction against Russia – nuclear weapons.

For those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, I would like to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and for some components more modern than those of the NATO countries.

And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/09/text-of-putin-speech-announcin
g-partial-mobilization.html

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

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Sunday, September 25, 2022 4:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Another good read:

htt p s://www .nytimes.com/

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Monday, September 26, 2022 5:08 AM

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

Die for Putin and you shall receive an eternal reward in heaven was the sermon preached by Putin's personal friend, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-orthodox-church-argues-th
at-sacrificing-life-in-war-against-ukraine-washes-away-sins/ar-AA12eAS2

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

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Monday, September 26, 2022 5:13 AM

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

Putin is taking a maddening risk which could result in the collapse of his regime, but – just as likely – could lead to Russia drowning Ukraine in a sea of blood and by extension defeating the US-led West in this conflict.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/25/putins-suicidal-gamble

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

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Monday, September 26, 2022 8:02 AM

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

The Dangers of Desperation

RUSSIA/ UKRAINE

The once-vaunted, now-demoralized Russian military could be on the brink of collapse – a retired British Air Marshal put the odds at 35 percent in a recent interview with Sky News.

By now, seven months after the invasion of Ukraine, this mighty military was to have overthrown the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and “cleanse the country of Nazis.” But the Russians’ lightning-quick strike on the capital of Kyiv failed in what the Associated Press described as a “defeat for the ages,” and they scaled back the invasion to focus on the south and east.

After withdrawing from Kyiv, the military held firm for a while in eastern Ukraine where they had previously established separatist regions or puppet states years ago, as Politico wrote, even as Ukraine managed to reclaim a large swathe of territory in Russia’s supposed strongholds in the east, National Public Radio reported.

As a consequence, four separatist regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – began holding referendums over the weekend to join Russia, sometimes forcing voters at gunpoint to go to the polls, to give Russia the excuse that it is defending its own territory, the Washington Post reported. The outcomes of the votes are a foregone conclusion, as is the switching of tactics the sign of a desperate dictator, the newspaper added.

“These are the hypocritical, backpedaling words of a dictator who badly miscalculated by seeking to destroy Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and who finds himself in need of a new rationale for war,” it wrote, referring to a speech Wednesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin, explaining the referendums, the instituting of a partial draft and the penalties for avoiding military service.

Putin has boxed himself into a corner; he needs more soldiers and equipment, but asking for them highlights his failure to protect the ones he has already deployed. Meanwhile, military experts doubt it will make a difference in the war.

It did, however, make a difference to the imposed peace within Russia itself, the Canadian Broadcasting Company wrote, noting the draft’s unpopularity among ordinary Russians. As men began receiving call-up orders, protests erupted around the country on Wednesday and again over the weekend with more than 2,000 people being arrested because protests are illegal. Meanwhile, Russians scrambled to find flights out of the country as tickets quickly sold out, and “how to leave Russia” searches began spiking on Google, Business Insider reported.

Meanwhile, it’s no secret to many Russians what the 300,000 being called up will face.

Letters left behind by Russian soldiers detailed their demoralization and sorrow, the Washington Post wrote, explaining also why some soldiers are refusing to fight after “humiliating losses on the battlefield,” according to the Daily Beast. This could explain the fast pace of Ukrainians’ advances against Russian troops, added the Kyiv Post, a Ukraine-based English-language newspaper.

Meanwhile, at the United Nations this week, Zelenskyy mocked Putin and demanded a peace plan on Ukraine’s terms, maybe following a script that bloodying the bully’s nose reduces his menacing aura. “A crime has been committed against Ukraine, and we demand punishment,” Zelenskyy told delegates at the UN in a virtual address in his trademark combat fatigues, CNN reported.

Zelenskyy also called for the UN to strip Russia of its veto power in the Security Council, a move that would pave the way for significant action in the council that presumably only China could stop. China is the only non-Western, veto-wielding Security Council member. The other three veto-power countries are the US, Britain and France.

But Chinese leaders are reportedly not very happy with Russia, either. As Newsweek wrote, Chinese President Xi Jinping is not sending weapons nor making public proclamations in support of the war, a stunning silence for two ostensible allies. And Xi has recently expressed concerns over the war. Putin acknowledged as much recently.

Meanwhile, India, another ally, also began criticizing Putin and the war recently, the Economist noted. And old Russia stalwart, Serbia, said it would not accept the results of referendums in eastern Ukraine. That’s even though Serbia signed a cooperation agreement with Russia last week.

The Atlantic Council believes that Putin’s empire is collapsing just like those of the Tsar and the Communists did in the last century.

Maybe so. Unfortunately, there will be a lot more pain in Ukraine, Russia and around the world before that happens.

https://www.dailychatter.com/2022/09/26/the-dangers-of-desperation/

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

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 6:47 AM

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

Author of "Putin's Wars" says the Russian president is doomed — but the West's anti-Russian rhetoric is dangerous

After the debacle in Ukraine, what comes next for Russia and its president? I recently spoke with Mark Galeotti, one of the world's leading experts on Russia, transnational crime and military affairs. He is the author of many books, including "The Weaponisation of Everything," "A Short History of Russia" and "We Need to Talk About Putin." His forthcoming book, to be published in November, is "Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine."

In this conversation, Galeotti explains how Vladimir Putin has put himself inside an information echo chamber that encourages his worst impulses.

Galeotti also offers his analysis of why the Russian military has failed in Ukraine and why so many military experts were so deeply wrong in their initial assessments. He shares his thoughts on the early lessons to be taken from the war in Ukraine about the future of conventional warfare and other high-intensity conflicts. Although victory appears to be in sight for the Ukrainians, Galeotti cautions that the U.S. and Western allies cannot take such an outcome as a given. He argues that the Ukrainians must receive more support and not less in order to ensure a final victory.

In the end, Galeotti warns that the endgame of the Ukraine conflict will be critical for global security and peace. If the Russian people feel humiliated by the U.S. and the West that may lead to even more aggressive nationalist forces taking control of their county in the future.

Q: Given the war in Ukraine and all of the other global crises, how are you feeling? How do you make sense of all this?

On a personal level, I'm deeply depressed by what happened. As of June, I was actually banned from entry indefinitely by the Russian government. I like Russia as a place to visit. I have friends and colleagues there. Putin has obviously been terrible for 40 million or so Ukrainians. He has been pretty terrible for the Russians too. But for those of us who study Russia, he has been very good for business. There is a sense at times of being some type of hyena, feasting on the entrails of the global body politic. But I try to put such feelings aside. I'm very busy and am just trying to keep some perspective amidst all this extraordinary madness.

Q: How do you maintain perspective? Pundits and commentators are often rewarded for sensationalism and "hot takes." But most such claims will mostly be disproved by history — and may even be disproven in the present by more serious and careful thinkers. Do such people simply not care? Is it all about making an impact and getting paid, and only secondarily the truth?

This is one of the problems caused by Twitter and other forms of social media and 21st-century media more generally. People can make a name for themselves by delivering "hot takes" that are a bit more exciting, a bit more strident and frankly a bit more lunatic than even the ones that came before. It would be nice to believe that there was some kind of grand karma at work, where at the end such people who are playing that game would be found out.

It's a very depressing aspect of modern society because we now get to curate our own individual information bubbles, an echo chamber where we just hear the same things that confirm our beliefs. That means delusions can be maintained quite successfully, independent of reality on the ground. I predate the real internet age. I started studying Russia when it was still the Soviet Union. So from the phenomenal upwelling of optimism of the Gorbachev years, I saw the system collapse amidst chaos and recrimination. There was the gangster 1990s, and then the period in which Putin did seem to be, in his own brutal and ugly way, doing good for Russia and the world. He brought stability to that chaos.

Q: How are the Russian people going to deal with this national humiliation?

Most Russians don't really know what's going on, and quite frankly, are happy to keep their heads in the sand. It's an old Soviet practice. When you think there are some dangerous truths out there, you make sure that you aren't aware of them for as long as possible. The war in Ukraine is going to define Putin's legacy. Everything that was built up over his earlier terms is being squandered, be it the economy, Russia's place in the world or a military that he spent 20 years dumping huge amounts of money into that is now being ripped apart.

If we are hostile to the Russian people and treat them all like they're in league with Putin, we may force them into a very aggressive position.

One of the biggest challenges facing us now is to think about what comes next after victory for Ukraine. I'm worried about some of the very anti-Russian rhetoric that is now commonplace across the U.S. and Europe. I think of that as dangerous, because this is Putin's war. This is not a war that most Russians are enthusiastic about. If we are hostile to the Russian people and treat them all like they are in league with Putin and the Kremlin, then we have forced them into a very aggressive position. My concern is that if the West is not careful, the outcome will be something like what happened after the Versailles Treaty at the end of the First World War. A hostile deal will make the Russian people very angry, and in the future there may likely be a more aggressive Russia on the global scene.

Q: It was generally agreed among military experts that Russia could invade and defeat Ukraine in several weeks. We are now at the seven-month mark. How did this go so wrong for Russia so fast?

We have to give the Ukrainians full credit. That is particularly so because they have spent the last eight years since 2014 and the annexation of Crimea thinking very carefully about how the Russians fight — and therefore how they would resist them. Second, Russia's military reforms have not been anything like as successful as they looked from the outside. Sure, the Russian military parades really nicely through Red Square. But they still hadn't solved fundamental issues about logistics, personnel training, having a proper NCO corps and all their other infrastructure and leadership problems.

Even more important than any of these issues is that the Russian military was not sent to fight the way it trains and prepares to fight. If the world had been as Putin believed it to be, we would probably now be talking about his extraordinary strategic brilliance. It is precisely because Putin believed that Ukraine would be an easy victory that he didn't share his plans with anyone, including the generals and other officers who would be carrying out the operation. They may have found out a week before the attack, which is nothing like the kind of time you need to properly prepare. They only had supplies for maybe a two-week operation.

The ordinary soldiers weren't even told what the real mission was. Russia did not fight according to their own doctrine, which is very bureaucratic and carefully structured, where there is a massive air and missile bombardment and then a big combined arms operation on just two or three axes of advance.

What Russia's military did instead was to conduct an extraordinarily amateurish, halfhearted attempt where Putin really seemed to believe that a couple of companies of paratroopers could just motor into the middle of Kyiv and arrest the government. Putin said the attack on Ukraine was a "special military operation" instead of a war. True, that was propaganda for domestic purposes. But that language also reflected the fact that Putin simply didn't think it was going to be a real war. The consequence was that in the first couple of weeks, the best of the Russian military was ripped apart because it was stuck in a conflict that it was not ready to fight.

. . .

Q: Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth II both passed away within weeks of one another. How do you make sense of their legacy, relative to Putin and Ukraine?

They represented restraint. Both Queen Elizabeth II and Gorbachev were willing to accept that there are some things you shouldn't do. There is a great problem with the modern personalistic age of leaders, whether it's Trump or Putin or even Xi Jinping, where they are committed to a mythology in which people like them can grab the world and shift it on its axis through the sheer force of personality and will. Too many people actually believe in that dangerous mythology.

Q: What are some lessons Vladimir Putin should learn from this moment?

Frankly, it is too late for Putin to learn a lesson about the danger of overreach. Putin has reached so far that he is beyond bringing back from the precipice. The only question is when he falls.

More at https://www.salon.com/2022/09/26/putins-doom-expert-mark-galeotti-on-h
ow-a-once-feared-leader-threw-it-all-away/

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

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 8:47 AM

lol

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:12 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Congress Stuffs $12BN In Ukraine Aid Into Stopgap Funding Bill

How about spending some of that money here, Nancy and Joe*?

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

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:27 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Ukraine Confirms Receipt Of Longer-Range Missiles It's Long Sought From US

Tuesday, Sep 27, 2022 - 02:00 AM

Despite this past week which has seen US officials echo growing concerns over Moscow's ratcheting nuclear rhetoric - which Ukraine too has said it is taking seriously - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is now boasting his country has received a new, advanced US missile system.

He confirmed in a fresh interview with CBS’s "Face the Nation" that the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) has been long sought after by Kyiv, but previously in the war repeatedly denied:

* Zelensky thanked the U.S. for the system as well as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems it’s received, but added that his troops "absolutely need the United States to show leadership and give Ukraine" additional air defense systems it has requested.

MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-confirms-receipt-longer
-range-missiles-its-long-sought-us

Kiev talks a lot of smack. But if our government is hiding this, it's only hiding this from us, citizens of the USA. I'm sure the Kremlin knows all about it.

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

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 11:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Putin is a dead man walking.

And one of these days, he will die.

But then, one of these days your clock will stop ticking too.

Tick tock

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60433

T

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 11:39 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Putin is a dead man walking.

SIGNY: And one of these days, he will die.
But then, one of these days your clock will stop ticking too.
Tick tock

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60433

I thought that was rather funny!
Also, true.
Life isn't a reward for paying your taxes or being virtuous, and death isn't a punishment for being a sociopath.

We all die some day.

Tick tock

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

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 11:47 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Referendums: Early Turnout Numbers on Joining Russia Revealed
September 25, 2022 By NEWS WIRE Leave a Comment

Preliminary results on the third of five voting days reveal that the required threshold of voter participation for a viable referendum been reached in Donbass and Zaporozhye, and nearly met in Kherson.

Despite the high turnout, Ukraine and its Western allies are claiming that the referendums have ‘no legal force’ and that the votes are nothing more than ‘an illegitimate attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory’.

MORE AT
https://21stcenturywire.com/2022/09/25/referendums-early-turnout-numbe
rs-on-joining-russia-revealed/

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

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 12:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Putin is a dead man walking.

SIGNY: And one of these days, he will die.
But then, one of these days your clock will stop ticking too.
Tick tock

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60433

I thought that was rather funny!
Also, true.
Life isn't a reward for paying your taxes or being virtuous, and death isn't a punishment for being a sociopath.

We all die some day.

The link to your thread about Hillary being a war monger isn't funny. It's a sad reminder of your incessant shilling for Putin and your trying to contribute to America's downfall.

I give you a failing grade on not just that but for all your posts suggesting Russia was a superpower. They are currently being dismantled by Ukraine with America's support. The world is watching gleefully.

T

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Tuesday, September 27, 2022 10:23 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Referendums: Early Turnout Numbers on Joining Russia Revealed
September 25, 2022 By NEWS WIRE Leave a Comment

Preliminary results on the third of five voting days reveal that the required threshold of voter participation for a viable referendum been reached in Donbass and Zaporozhye, and nearly met in Kherson.

Despite the high turnout, Ukraine and its Western allies are claiming that the referendums have ‘no legal force’ and that the votes are nothing more than ‘an illegitimate attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory’.
MORE AT
https://21stcenturywire.com/2022/09/25/referendums-early-turnout-numbe
rs-on-joining-russia-revealed/

The votes are in! The RIA state news agency reported votes of 98.19 percent in favor in Zaporizhzhia and 96.97 percent in Kherson in the south, and 97.91 percent in Donetsk and 97.82 percent in Luhansk in the east.

What's up with Kherson? Less than 97% in favor of joining the motherland? What kind of unpatriotic bastards are these guys? (Sorry to inform you, but it is all fake results from Russia.)

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moscows-proxies-occupied-ukraine-
regions-report-big-votes-join-russia-2022-09-27/

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

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Thursday, September 29, 2022 3:52 AM

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

The Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO – Moscow’s answer to NATO – includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

How are things going for the “Russian NATO”?

Well, four of its members are at war, without getting much support from the others. Two of them have even started fighting each other: two weeks ago Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan escalated a long-standing border dispute into clashes that have killed more than 100 and left thousands of civilians displaced. Armenia, another member, has been invaded by non-member Azerbaijan, which has simply decided to ignore – or in some cases even attack – the Russian soldiers tasked with carrying out Moscow’s will in the region. Kazakhstan has been publicly denying rumors that it plans to withdraw from the organization, but is quick to add that it won’t “bow to Moscow” because of the alliance. Belarus, after being used as a launching point for Putin’s failed attempt to capture Kyiv, shows few signs of actually wanting to get any more involved in the war in Ukraine than it must, to placate Moscow.

And of course Russia itself is increasingly on its own globally, its military ambitions plagued by Ukrainian soldiers equipped with NATO weaponry.

Suffice to say, if you take the actual “collective security” part out of CSTO, you’re left with just a meaningless piece of paper and an organizational chart with a fancy logo. So it probably isn’t surprising that there are Armenians who have begun asking: What good is the CSTO if it doesn’t provide any security?

In Armenia, plenty of suffering has been endured before: death marches, ethnic cleansing and concentration camps were all part of the Armenian Genocide just over a century ago, shortly before the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the wake of World War I. Some researchers estimate that between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were slain from 1915-1917.

As Armenians face an unrestrained Azerbaijan with a superior military – and as Azeri antiwar protesters are rounded up by the authoritarian state’s security services – one can, perhaps, forgive those who actually live in Russia’s “sphere of influence” if they look toward the uncertain future not with hope, but with apprehension.

If things continue to fall apart for the Kremlin, instability will only spread throughout Russia’s satellites, proxies and client states. While Putin’s enemies may be eager to cheer that on, power vacuums lead to chaos, conflict, bloodshed and widespread misery – the prominent features of most geopolitical collapses.

More at https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/ukraine-invasi
on-putin-russia-offensive-1234600578/

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

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Thursday, September 29, 2022 2:56 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Referenda vote observed by people from

Germany, Mozambique, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), France, Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Central African Republic.

It seems that if the west really believed this was going to be a sham vote and wanted to discredit it, they would have flooded the area with observers. Obviously, chose to avoid the referenda and criticize from afar/ without evidence bc they were afraid to give the vote credibility.

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

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Thursday, September 29, 2022 6:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Referenda vote observed by people from

Germany, Mozambique, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), France, Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Central African Republic.

It seems that if the west really believed this was going to be a sham vote and wanted to discredit it, they would have flooded the area with observers. Obviously, chose to avoid the referenda and criticize from afar/ without evidence bc they were afraid to give the vote credibility.

Comrade signym makes this claim even though everyone knows it's bullshit. Too funny...

Comrade, can_you_see_me_lauhing?

T

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Thursday, September 29, 2022 7:07 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

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

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Friday, September 30, 2022 12:48 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Referenda vote observed by people from

Germany, Mozambique, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), France, Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Central African Republic.

It seems that if the west really believed this was going to be a sham vote and wanted to discredit it, they would have flooded the area with observers. Obviously, chose to avoid the referenda and criticize from afar/ without evidence bc they were afraid to give the vote credibility.

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

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy, speaking in Kyiv after Putin, announced that Ukraine was formally applying for fast-track membership of the NATO military alliance, something Moscow fiercely opposes.

The Russian president proclaimed Russian rule over 15% of Ukraine - the biggest annexation in Europe since World War Two.

It comes as Russian forces in one of the four regions being annexed face being encircled by Ukrainian troops after Putin ordered a massive mobilisation drive to get hundreds of thousands of Russian men to the front.

https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-host-kremlin-ceremony-annexing-par
ts-ukraine-2022-09-29/

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

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Friday, September 30, 2022 1:06 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Of course, YouTube censors any content it doesn't like. No wonder so many Americans are in the dark about... well, pretty much anything.

Well, YouTube can't censor this: A brief history of the Donbas

Quote:
The ethnic Russian people in Ukraine feared being canceled People in [eastern and southern] Ukraine protested and a some in the east took up arms. They twice defeated the Ukrainian army and volunteer formations sent against them. The Minsk I and II agreements that followed required Ukraine to give those Donbas oblasts significant autonomy. The United Nations Security Council acknowledged and supported the agreements. But any attempts to implement them were sabotaged by the U.S. via the armed right wing movements that had control over the government in Kiev.

For eight long years the people in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics defended their borders against constant Ukrainian ... violence. While the people in those republics had voted ... to become a part of Russia, the Kremlin did not want to accept that. It wanted that those republics stay within Ukraine and insisted on the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

On February 17 the Ukrainian army launched artillery preparations for an all out attack on the Donbas republics. Over the next days the shelling increased from some 40 artillery explosions per day to over 2,000 per day Russia had to act. On February 22 it recognized the independence of the Donbas republics and signed defense agreements with them. On February 24 it send its troops to defeat the Ukrainian army and to make any future attacks on the Donbas impossible.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/ukraine-four-oblasts-join-russia
.html#more

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

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Friday, September 30, 2022 6:42 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Of course, YouTube censors any content it doesn't like.

You censored this gem that shows Putin to be a Drama Queen: Putin accused the West of fueling the hostilities as part of what he said is a plan to turn Russia into a “colony” and a “crowds of slaves.”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/09/ukraine-four-oblasts-join-russia
.html

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

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Friday, September 30, 2022 7:10 PM