Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

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

Ukraine Submits Application to Join NATO

“We are taking our decisive step by signing Ukraine’s application for accelerated accession to NATO,” Mr. Zelensky said in a statement posted on the presidential website. He said Ukraine was already cooperating closely with NATO and argued that Ukraine’s army has already helped secure alliance members in Europe against Russian aggression by inflicting battlefield defeats on the Russian army in Ukraine.

“It is in Ukraine that the fate of democracy in the confrontation with tyranny is being decided,” he said. “It is here, with the firmness of our state borders, that we can secure the firmness of the borders of all European states. Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine’s application could be fast-tracked similarly to the applications of Sweden and Finland.

https://president.gov.ua/en/news/mi-robimo-svij-viznachalnij-krok-pidp
isuyuchi-zayavku-ukrayi-78173

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

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Saturday, October 1, 2022 7:47 AM

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

Self-generated imperial authoritarianism is the real curse of Russia and the cause of all its troubles. Opportunities to get rid of it are provided by history.

Russia had its last chance of this kind after the end of the U.S.S.R., but both the democratic public inside the country and Western leaders at the time made the monstrous mistake of agreeing to the model — proposed by Boris Yeltsin’s team — of a presidential republic with enormous powers for the leader. Giving plenty of power to a good guy seemed logical at the time.

Yet the inevitable soon happened: The good guy went bad. To begin with, he started a war (the Chechen war) himself, and then, without normal elections and fair procedures, he handed over power to the cynical and corrupt Soviet imperialists led by Putin. They have caused several wars and countless international provocations, and are now tormenting a neighboring nation, committing horrible crimes for which neither many generations of Ukrainians nor our own children will forgive us.

In the 31 years since the collapse of the U.S.S.R., we have witnessed a clear pattern: The countries that chose the parliamentary republic model (the Baltic states) are thriving and have successfully joined Europe. Those that chose the presidential-parliamentary model (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia) have faced persistent instability and made little progress. Those that chose strong presidential power (Russia, Belarus and the Central Asian republics) have succumbed to rigid authoritarianism, most of them permanently engaged in military conflicts with their neighbors, daydreaming about their own little empires.

In short, strategic victory means bringing Russia back to this key historical juncture and letting the Russian people make the right choice.

The future model for Russia is not “strong power” and a “firm hand,” but harmony, agreement and consideration of the interests of the whole society. Russia needs a parliamentary republic. That is the only way to stop the endless cycle of imperial authoritarianism.

https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2022/09/30/alexei-navalny-this-is-wha
t-a-post-putin-russia-should-look-like/

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

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Sunday, October 2, 2022 6:01 AM

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

Russia's withdrawal from Lyman comes a day after Putin said he was annexing the region.

Moscow's withdrawal from Lyman prompted immediate criticism from some Russian officials.

The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, blamed the retreat, without evidence, on one general being "covered up for by higher-up leaders in the General Staff." He called for "more drastic measures."

Meanwhile, on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, the governor of the city of Sevastopol announced an emergency situation at an airfield there. Explosions and huge billows of smoke could be seen from a distance by beachgoers in the Russian-held resort. Authorities said a plane rolled off the runway at the Belbek airfield and ammunition that was reportedly on board caught fire.

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/01/1126404515/russia-withdraws-troops-ukra
ine-city-lyman

In Washington, President Joe Biden signed a bill Friday that provides another infusion — more than $12.3 billion — in military and economic aid linked to the war Ukraine. The bill passed the House by a vote of 230-201. Republicans overwhelmingly opposed the measure.

https://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/national/biden-signs-bill-to-avert-
government-shutdown-aid-ukraine/article_2d91d9cf-b67b-51e3-9d1f-606307ce65c6.html

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

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Sunday, October 2, 2022 6:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

If they can cut off bank accounts to an entire nation, the Freedom Convoy never stood a chance.

The New World Order is in control now.

Look back fondly on 2019 and before it. Because the life we used to know will never be again.

Russia, China, and Iran are the New Axis powers. Between them they have everything they need (armies, nukes, oil revenues) to take over half the world, especially when the weak and woke West is "too civilized" to do a damn thing about it.

During 1945 when Russia was invading Germany from the East and then sacking Berlin, the Russian Army was actually encouraged by their officers to terrorize the civilian population. As many as 3 million German women and girls were brutalized and raped, often gang-raped. I wonder how CNN and the rest of their oh-so-progressive ilk will live with that reality playing out in front of their smug self-righteous retarded faces.

You're a fucking moron Jongsstraw. Comrade signym, can_you_see_me_laughing?

T

Old uniform and boots that don't fit. After Vladimir Putin announced the mobilization in Russia, more and more conscripts complain that all military uniforms are completely unusable. According to the recruits, not only are they forced to go to war, but they also have to buy the equipment with their own money. Another problem of the Russian army is the strikingly low level of providing soldiers with weapons. Many have weapons that date back to the Soviet era. In several military units, the Russian command has handed out rusty Kalashnikov assault rifles, which were used during the first Chechen war.

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Sunday, October 2, 2022 7:37 PM

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Monday, October 3, 2022 5:38 AM

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

Alexei Navalny: This is what a post-Putin Russia should look like

By Alexei Navalny, September 30, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. EDT

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security penal colony. This essay was conveyed to The Post by his legal team.

If we examine the primary things said by Western leaders on this score, the bottom line remains: Russia (Putin) must not win this war. Ukraine must remain an independent democratic state capable of defending itself.

This is correct, but it is a tactic. The strategy should be to ensure that Russia and its government naturally, without coercion, do not want to start wars and do not find them attractive. This is undoubtedly possible. Right now the urge for aggression is coming from a minority in Russian society.

In my opinion, the problem with the West’s current tactics lies not just in the vagueness of their aim, but in the fact that they ignore the question: What does Russia look like after the tactical goals have been achieved? Even if success is achieved, where is the guarantee that the world will not find itself confronting an even more aggressive regime, tormented by resentment and imperial ideas that have little to do with reality? With a sanctions-stricken but still big economy in a state of permanent military mobilization? And with nuclear weapons that guarantee impunity for all manner of international provocations and adventures?

It is easy to predict that even in the case of a painful military defeat, Putin will still declare that he lost not to Ukraine but to the “collective West and NATO,” whose aggression was unleashed to destroy Russia.

And then, resorting to his usual postmodern repertoire of national symbols — from icons to red flags, from Dostoevsky to ballet — he will vow to create an army so strong and weapons of such unprecedented power that the West will rue the day it defied us, and the honor of our great ancestors will be avenged.

And then we will see a fresh cycle of hybrid warfare and provocations, eventually escalating into new wars.

To avoid this, the issue of postwar Russia should become the central issue — and not just one element among others — of those who are striving for peace. No long-term goals can be achieved without a plan to ensure that the source of the problems stops creating them. Russia must cease to be an instigator of aggression and instability. That is possible, and that is what should be seen as a strategic victory in this war.

There are several important things happening to Russia that need to be understood:

First, jealousy of Ukraine and its possible successes is an innate feature of post-Soviet power in Russia; it was also characteristic of the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. But since the beginning of Putin’s rule, and especially after the Orange Revolution that began in 2004, hatred of Ukraine’s European choice, and the desire to turn it into a failed state, have become a lasting obsession not only for Putin but also for all politicians of his generation.

Control over Ukraine is the most important article of faith for all Russians with imperial views, from officials to ordinary people. In their opinion, Russia combined with a subordinate Ukraine amounts to a “reborn U.S.S.R. and empire.” Without Ukraine, in this view, Russia is just a country with no chance of world domination. Everything that Ukraine acquires is something taken away from Russia.

Second, the view of war not as a catastrophe but as an amazing means of solving all problems is not just a philosophy of Putin’s top brass, but a practice confirmed by life and evolution. Since the Second Chechen War, which made the little-known Putin the country’s most popular politician, through the war in Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, the war in Donbas and the war in Syria, the Russian elite over the past 23 years has learned rules that have never failed: War is not that expensive, it solves all domestic political problems, it raises public approval sky-high, it does not particularly harm the economy, and — most importantly — winners face no accountability. Sooner or later, one of the constantly changing Western leaders will come to us to negotiate. It does not matter what motives will lead him — the will of the voters or the desire to receive the Nobel Peace Prize — but if you show proper persistence and determination, the West will come to make peace.

Don’t forget that there are many in the United States, Britain and other Western countries in politics who have been defeated and lost ground due to their support for one war or another. In Russia, there is simply no such thing. Here, war is always about profit and success.

Third, therefore, the hopes that Putin’s replacement by another member of his elite will fundamentally change this view on war, and especially war over the “legacy of the U.S.S.R.,” is naive at the very least. The elites simply know from experience that war works — better than anything else.

Perhaps the best example here would be Dmitry Medvedev, the former president on whom the West pinned so many hopes. Today, this amusing Medvedev, who was once taken on a tour of Twitter’s headquarters, makes statements so aggressive that they look like a caricature of Putin’s.

Fourth, the good news is that the bloodthirsty obsession with Ukraine is not at all widespread outside the power elites, no matter what lies pro-government sociologists might tell.

The war raises Putin’s approval rating by super-mobilizing the imperially minded part of society. The news agenda is fully consumed by the war; internal problems recede into the background: “Hurray, we’re back in the game, we are great, they’re reckoning with us!” Yet the aggressive imperialists do not have absolute dominance. They do not make up a solid majority of voters, and even they still require a steady supply of propaganda to sustain their beliefs.

Otherwise Putin would not have needed to call the war a “special operation” and send those who use the word “war” to jail. (Not long ago, a member of a Moscow district council received seven years in prison for this.) He would not have been afraid to send conscripts to the war and would not have been compelled to look for soldiers in maximum-security prisons, as he is doing now. (Several people were “drafted to the front” directly from the penal colony where I am.)

Yes, propaganda and brainwashing have an effect. Yet we can say with certainty that the majority of residents of major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as young voters, are critical of the war and imperial hysteria. The horror of the suffering of Ukrainians and the brutal killing of innocents resonate in the souls of these voters.

Thus, we can state the following:

The war with Ukraine was started and waged, of course, by Putin, trying to solve his domestic political problems. But the real war party is the entire elite and the system of power itself, which is an endlessly self-reproducing Russian authoritarianism of the imperial kind. External aggression in any form, from diplomatic rhetoric to outright warfare, is its preferred mode of operation, and Ukraine is its preferred target. This self-generated imperial authoritarianism is the real curse of Russia and the cause of all its troubles. We cannot get rid of it, despite the opportunities regularly provided by history.

Russia had its last chance of this kind after the end of the U.S.S.R., but both the democratic public inside the country and Western leaders at the time made the monstrous mistake of agreeing to the model — proposed by Boris Yeltsin’s team — of a presidential republic with enormous powers for the leader. Giving plenty of power to a good guy seemed logical at the time.

Yet the inevitable soon happened: The good guy went bad. To begin with, he started a war (the Chechen war) himself, and then, without normal elections and fair procedures, he handed over power to the cynical and corrupt Soviet imperialists led by Putin. They have caused several wars and countless international provocations, and are now tormenting a neighboring nation, committing horrible crimes for which neither many generations of Ukrainians nor our own children will forgive us.

In the 31 years since the collapse of the U.S.S.R., we have witnessed a clear pattern: The countries that chose the parliamentary republic model (the Baltic states) are thriving and have successfully joined Europe. Those that chose the presidential-parliamentary model (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia) have faced persistent instability and made little progress. Those that chose strong presidential power (Russia, Belarus and the Central Asian republics) have succumbed to rigid authoritarianism, most of them permanently engaged in military conflicts with their neighbors, daydreaming about their own little empires.

In short, strategic victory means bringing Russia back to this key historical juncture and letting the Russian people make the right choice.

The future model for Russia is not “strong power” and a “firm hand,” but harmony, agreement and consideration of the interests of the whole society. Russia needs a parliamentary republic. That is the only way to stop the endless cycle of imperial authoritarianism.

One may argue that a parliamentary republic is not a panacea. Who, after all, is to prevent Putin or his successor from winning elections and gaining full control over the parliament?

Of course, even a parliamentary republic does not offer 100 percent guarantees. It could well be that we are witnessing the transition to the authoritarianism of parliamentary India. After the usurpation of power, parliamentary Turkey has been transformed into a presidential one. The core of Putin’s European fan club is paradoxically in parliamentary Hungary.

And the very notion of a “parliamentary republic” is too broad.

Yet I believe this cure offers us crucial advantages: a radical reduction of power in the hands of one person, the formation of a government by a parliamentary majority, an independent judiciary system, a significant increase in the powers of local authorities. Such institutions have never existed in Russia, and we are in desperate need of them.

As for the possible total control of parliament by Putin’s party, the answer is simple: Once the real opposition is allowed to vote, it will be impossible. A large faction? Yes. A coalition majority? Maybe. Total control? Definitely not. Too many people in Russia are interested in normal life now, not in the phantom of territorial gains. And there are more such people every year. They just don’t have anyone to vote for now.

Certainly, changing Putin’s regime in the country and choosing the path of development are not matters for the West, but jobs for the citizens of Russia. Nevertheless, the West, which has imposed sanctions both on Russia as a state as well as on some of its elites, should make its strategic vision of Russia as a parliamentary democracy as clear as possible. By no means should we repeat the mistake of the West’s cynical approach in the 1990s, when the post-Soviet elite was effectively told: “You do what you want there; just watch your nuclear weapons and supply us with oil and gas.” Indeed, even now we hear cynical voices saying similar things: “Let them just pull back the troops and do what they want from there. The war is over, the mission of the West is accomplished.” That mission was already “accomplished” with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the result is a full-fledged war in Europe in 2022.

This is a simple, honest and fair approach: The Russian people are of course free to choose their own path of development. But Western countries are free to choose the format of their relations with Russia, to lift or not to lift sanctions, and to define the criteria for such decisions. The Russian people and the Russian elite do not need to be forced. They need a clear signal and an explanation of why such a choice is better. Crucially, parliamentary democracy is also a rational and desirable choice for many of the political factions around Putin. It gives them an opportunity to maintain influence and fight for power while ensuring that they are not destroyed by a more aggressive group.

War is a relentless stream of crucial, urgent decisions influenced by constantly shifting factors. Therefore, while I commend European leaders for their ongoing success in supporting Ukraine, I urge them not to lose sight of the fundamental causes of war. The threat to peace and stability in Europe is aggressive imperial authoritarianism, endlessly inflicted by Russia upon itself. Postwar Russia, like post-Putin Russia, will be doomed to become belligerent and Putinist again. This is inevitable as long as the current form of the country’s development is maintained. Only a parliamentary republic can prevent this. It is the first step toward transforming Russia into a good neighbor that helps to solve problems rather than create them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/alexei-navalny-parl
iamentary-republic-russia-ukraine/

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

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Monday, October 3, 2022 10:22 AM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Great article - visionary. It seems to be one of the great hurdles mankind faces at the moment, trying to advance (evolve) past the current glut of sociopathic dictator/ authoritarian dinosaurs. These fcking old men and their old ideas.

My only disagreement is with the author's suggestion that the West needs to push for >blank< a specific type of government after Putin. That's a sure way to fire up even more anti-Western feelings. "Are we going to let them dictate to us who we are?!?!"

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Monday, October 3, 2022 10:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by CAPTAINCRUNCH:
Great article - visionary. It seems to be one of the great hurdles mankind faces at the moment, trying to advance (evolve) past the current glut of sociopathic dictator/ authoritarian dinosaurs. These fcking old men and their old ideas.

My only disagreement is with the author's suggestion that the West needs to push for >blank< a specific type of government after Putin. That's a sure way to fire up even more anti-Western feelings. "Are we going to let them dictate to us who we are?!?!"

Yeah. "Let's shape Russia into current year America."

Doesn't seem like a great sales pitch. It never has been, no matter when or where we've forced it and no matter which members of which political party held the reins of the government at the time, because it's always ended up in corruption and failure.

I still have to admit that Cap'n somehow has maintained the ability for critical thinking despite the last 3 years. That center of the brain isn't always working for him, of course, but at least there is evidence that it does exist, and that means there's still hope.

Without critical thinking skills you are just an easily programmable automaton. Most of the time when I'm posting here it feels like I'm having conversations with AI bots.

Thanks Cap'n.

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Monday, October 3, 2022 4:47 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by CAPTAINCRUNCH:
Great article - visionary. It seems to be one of the great hurdles mankind faces at the moment, trying to advance (evolve) past the current glut of sociopathic dictator/ authoritarian dinosaurs. These fcking old men and their old ideas.

My only disagreement is with the author's suggestion that the West needs to push for >blank< a specific type of government after Putin. That's a sure way to fire up even more anti-Western feelings. "Are we going to let them dictate to us who we are?!?!"

Yeah. "Let's shape Russia into current year America."

Doesn't seem like a great sales pitch. It never has been, no matter when or where we've forced it and no matter which members of which political party held the reins of the government at the time, because it's always ended up in corruption and failure.

I still have to admit that Cap'n somehow has maintained the ability for critical thinking despite the last 3 years. That center of the brain isn't always working for him, of course, but at least there is evidence that it does exist, and that means there's still hope.

Without critical thinking skills you are just an easily programmable automaton. Most of the time when I'm posting here it feels like I'm having conversations with AI bots.

Thanks Cap'n.

The article put the blame here: "monstrous mistake of agreeing to the model — proposed by Boris Yeltsin’s team — of a presidential republic with enormous powers for the leader. Giving plenty of power to a good guy seemed logical at the time.

Yet the inevitable soon happened: The good guy went bad. To begin with, he (Boris Yeltsin) started a war (the Chechen war) himself, and then, without normal elections and fair procedures, he handed over power to the cynical and corrupt Soviet imperialists led by Putin. "

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

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Tuesday, October 4, 2022 7:51 AM

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

Russia's flagging fortunes have led to a shift in mood on state media, where talkshow hosts have been acknowledging setbacks and searching for scapegoats. The commander of Russia's western military district, which borders Ukraine, has lost his job, Russian media reported, the latest top official to be fired after defeats.

"For a certain period of time, things won't be easy for us. We shouldn't be expecting good news right now," said Vladimir Solovyov, the most prominent presenter on state television.

https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-forces-break-through-russian-def
ences-south-advance-east-2022-10-03/

I shall make a prediction: Putin can fire every commander, blow up every natural gas pipeline, sink LNG carriers crossing the Atlantic to Europe, and drop some nukes, but I expect Russia won't be better off for having done everything it can, until Russia gets rid of Putin, which would turn the situation completely around.

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

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Tuesday, October 4, 2022 9:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russia's flagging fortunes have led to a shift in mood on state media, where talkshow hosts have been acknowledging setbacks and searching for scapegoats. The commander of Russia's western military district, which borders Ukraine, has lost his job, Russian media reported, the latest top official to be fired after defeats.

"For a certain period of time, things won't be easy for us. We shouldn't be expecting good news right now," said Vladimir Solovyov, the most prominent presenter on state television.

https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-forces-break-through-russian-def
ences-south-advance-east-2022-10-03/

I shall make a prediction: Putin can fire every commander, blow up every natural gas pipeline, sink LNG carriers crossing the Atlantic to Europe, and drop some nukes, but I expect Russia won't be better off for having done everything it can, until Russia gets rid of Putin, which would turn the situation completely around.

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

Russia didn't blow up that pipeline, moron.

I know that Democrats were willing to work with the Chinese and destroy the world economy after two years of bad policy for a non-lethal virus that they unleashed and ultimately allowed them to cheat a Presidental election, but I'm kind of surprised they're going straight to threatening WWIII for a mid-term. I would have thought they'd save that for 2024.

The faster we get you fucks out of office for good the better for everyone in the world.

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Tuesday, October 4, 2022 9:20 PM

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

Russia’s elites are starting to admit the possibility of defeat

Tatiana Stanovaya writes Oct 3, 2022:

When Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine back in February, many believed a Rubicon had been crossed after which the Russian president’s relationship with his elites would never be the same. It was then that Putin began to be seen as a desperate leader, no longer capable of normal interaction with the outside world.

Nonetheless, the feelings of despondency and doom that prevailed among the elites didn’t stop them from continuing to demonstrate loyalty to the president or from feeling collective anger at the West. It helped Putin’s case that many senior officials sincerely held Washington and Brussels responsible for the conflict, blaming them for pushing Russia so far that it had no choice but to take action.

In recent weeks, however, this fragile faith has been rocked by the humiliating Russian retreat from Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the announcement of a partial mobilization that looks likely to become a full mobilization, and growing doubts over whether Russia can actually win this war. This raises the question of whether the Russian elites are prepared to stick with Putin until the bitter end, particularly amid growing threats to use nuclear weapons.

Until recently, it looked like despite their informal mutterings and grim expectations, the elites would not desert their president, no matter what the price of victory. The inter-elite consensus was based upon a well-established set of beliefs subscribed to not just by the siloviki, or security service officials, but by the pragmatist technocrats too: that the West will do everything it can to bring Russia to its knees; that since Russia has begun this war, it must win it; and that any compromises Russia makes will be used against it, and are therefore not an option.

But now, with the chaotic implementation of the mobilization and the sorry state of affairs on the front, the idea that Russia will inevitably prevail has started to be overshadowed by doubt over what price Russia is prepared to pay in order to bring Ukraine to heel. The longer the conflict rages and the more resources the Russian regime throws into the furnace of war, the more divided Russia’s elites may become, and the more serious those divides.

For a start, there are no signs that the Russian elite sees Ukraine as an existential problem for Russia. For Putin, it is an extremely emotional and personal topic. He is fixated on ideas of historical justice, Russian ancestral lands, and the desire to “liberate” the fraternal Ukrainian people from anti-Russian “occupiers” sponsored by the West. But this viewpoint is not shared even by many hawks, never mind the technocrats, for whom it is incomparably more important to end this war without being defeated, which would cover a far broader spectrum of outcomes than outright “victory.”

There is also a profound lack of understanding of Russia’s end goal in this war. For Putin, judging by his public statements, that goal is not limited to annexing certain regions, but also includes establishing a pro-Russian regime in the rest of Ukraine, with the understanding that the western part of the country may break away. For now, Putin continues to hope that time is on Russia’s side, and that Kyiv will fall sooner or later. But many more pragmatic representatives of the elites would be satisfied with far more modest “achievements,” such as the annexation only of southeastern Ukraine.

Right now, following the annexation of four more Ukrainian regions, there is informal talk among parts of the Russian leadership of there being “light at the end of the tunnel,” reflecting hopes for the post-annexation freezing of the conflict and de-escalation. But Putin’s penchant for keeping his plans to himself only exacerbates the lack of understanding and gulf in expectations. There is no official position or inter-elite unanimity on what can be considered a definitive victory.

More at https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88072

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

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Wednesday, October 5, 2022 5:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by CAPTAINCRUNCH:
Great article - visionary. It seems to be one of the great hurdles mankind faces at the moment, trying to advance (evolve) past the current glut of sociopathic dictator/ authoritarian dinosaurs. These fcking old men and their old ideas.

My only disagreement is with the author's suggestion that the West needs to push for >blank< a specific type of government after Putin. That's a sure way to fire up even more anti-Western feelings. "Are we going to let them dictate to us who we are?!?!"

I think when all is said and done, we need to leave them to themselves.

T

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Wednesday, October 5, 2022 5:18 PM

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

Ukraine needs weapons. It’s particularly vital to increase the supply of weapons capable of taking out distant command and logistical centers.

Now is not the time for the West to soften its resolve in the fight against Putin — it’s time to step it up. There is no “escape ramp” to offer him; no elegant way of enabling him to declare victory. Those pushing such “solutions” don’t understand Putin — or worse, they’re advocating a policy of appeasement against a fascist dictator to try to reduce their gas bill.

Instead, by far the most efficient way to put an end to Putin’s energy blackmail and nuclear threats would be a further rout of his invasion force.

-- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former political prisoner and CEO of Yukos Oil company, is the author of “The Russia Conundrum: How the West Fell for Putin’s Power Gambit – and How to Fix It.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-the-critical-moment-has-arrive
d/

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

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Wednesday, October 5, 2022 9:43 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Russia didn't blow up that pipeline, moron.

Did you know that Russia is the biggest supplier of heavy weapons to Ukraine? The Russians really are that stupid. They blew up their own pipeline as a tactic of economic war against the EU:

Combined with weapons taken during Russia’s retreat from Kyiv and other parts of northern Ukraine in April, these recent gains have turned Moscow into by far the largest supplier of heavy weapons for Ukraine, well ahead of the U.S. or other allies in sheer numbers.

One Ukrainian battalion, the Carpathian Sich, seized 10 modern T-80 tanks and five 2S5 Giatsint 152-mm self-propelled howitzers after it entered the town of Izyum last month, said its deputy chief of staff, Ruslan Andriyko.

“We’ve got so many trophies that we don’t even know what to do with them,” he said. “We started off as an infantry battalion, and now we are sort of becoming a mechanized battalion.”

The chief of staff of a Ukrainian artillery battalion on the Kharkiv front said his unit now operates four recently captured Russian 2S19 Msta 152-mm self-propelled howitzers, alongside American-made guns, and now has abundant Soviet-caliber ammunition.

“The Russians no longer have a firepower advantage. We smashed up all their artillery units before launching the offensive, and then we started to move ahead so fast that they didn’t even have time to fuel up and load their tanks,” said the officer. “They just fled and left everything behind.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-s-new-offensive-is-fueled
-by-captured-russian-weapons/ar-AA12CIDc

It takes less than a hour to blow up an ammo dump. By not doing that, the Russians let Ukraine have all those shiny weapons and shells. Damn Russians are stupid.

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

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Wednesday, October 5, 2022 9:46 PM

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

Russia didn't blow up that pipeline, moron.
Did you know that Russia is the biggest supplier of heavy weapons to Ukraine? The Russians really are that stupid. They blew up their own pipeline as a tactic of economic war against the EU:

No they didn't.

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Wednesday, October 5, 2022 9:59 PM

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

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

Russia didn't blow up that pipeline, moron.
Did you know that Russia is the biggest supplier of heavy weapons to Ukraine? The Russians really are that stupid. They blew up their own pipeline as a tactic of economic war against the EU:

No they didn't.

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

6ix, there is nothing about your past history or present occupation that makes you even minimally competent to give an educated guess at what the Russians are doing. But your mental illnesses, which you helpfully have written about many times, have convinced you you know. Don't you know that about yourself? All the Trumptards I know think they're hot shit, just like you do. Almost forgot: Trump will be fine, same as Putin.

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

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Thursday, October 6, 2022 6:13 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No they didn't.

So many things the Russians didn't do because they were too proud, too confident, and too lazy:

Putin is losing the war in all four Ukrainian regions he claims to have ‘annexed’ | October 5, 2022

Michael Weiss and James Rushton report:

To hear pro-Russian military analysts tell it, in the last 72 hours Ukraine has managed to simultaneously recapture about 1,000 square kilometers of terrain in the northeast of the country and 2,200 square kilometers in the south.

Although it is difficult to independently confirm these figures, the very fact that they’re coming from cheerleaders of Vladimir Putin’s war highlights just how disastrously things have gone for the Russian president in a month that has seen him resort to a chaotic mobilization to replenish manpower shortages, and a heralded “annexation” of Ukrainian territory that is slipping through his fingers by the hour. And he is losing ground not just in one of the oblasts he has illegally claimed as his own, but in all four.

Rumors of deep Ukrainian advances into Russian-controlled areas of Kherson, directly north of the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea, have been confirmed by pictures of victorious Ukrainian soldiers hoisting the Ukrainian flag above liberated villages. The Ukrainians have been advancing down the west bank of the Dnipro River, using the natural barrier of the waterway to secure their left flank, while threatening to encircle the Russian troops to their east. And their progress has been so rapid that pro-Russian voices on Telegram, a global messaging service, are in a state of total panic, begging any of their readers with a well-placed contact in the Russian military to immediately send air support, although none appears forthcoming. “We need aviation more than ever!” begged one Russian Telegram channel. “If anyone has access to command, send it to us!!!”

According to a conversation said to be between Russian soldiers intercepted by the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security service, the use of U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) has been as devastating in the south as they have been elsewhere along the frontline. One Russian soldier is allegedly recorded saying, “Here the legs are shaking. [The HIMARS] hits, the earth is shaking. Here, ours are all trembling.” In another intercept, a Russian soldier calls his father back home encouraging him to avoid mobilization. Eight of his comrades, the soldier said, recently left a hospital in Kherson without arms and legs. And Ukrainian advances on the west bank of the Dnipro have now brought the majority of the Kherson Oblast within range of Ukraine’s supremely accurate Western-supplied artillery, giving them a host of new Russian targets to destroy.

The Russian troops on the west bank have been increasingly poorly supplied due to Ukrainian strikes against the bridges crossing the Dnipro, massively complicating Russian logistics. In addition to Western artillery platforms, the Russians have been subjected to countless harassment attacks from small Ukrainian drones, many of them repurposed civilian models, which have been dropping grenades and mortars onto unsuspecting targets, often under cover of darkness. Kyiv’s combined arms approach has contributed to the steady degradation of the Russians’ capability in Kherson, where many Russian troops have been fighting since the beginning of March without interruption.

According to Joel Rayburn, a retired U.S. Army colonel and Washington’s former special envoy for Syria, “The Russians won’t be able to support anything on the right bank of the Dnipro. Those guys will be trapped and will run out of ammo. I’m discounting Russian cross-river fire support, including aviation, because they don’t appear to be able to use it. A hasty defense is very vulnerable to armored forces. The Russians apparently didn’t prepare any fallback defensive lines, and now it’s too late. They’re not dug in.”

Russia’s defensive concept in the area was to use strongpoints with no real firepower or mobile reserves in a discontinuous, rather than continuous, line. The Ukrainians are thus able to easily bypass the strongpoints and cut them off, leaving them isolated in the field. “It’s what the Germans did to the U.S. 106th and 99th Divisions at the Battle of the Bulge,” Rayburn told Yahoo News. “The whole episode shows us the Russians never expected to have to defend these areas from attack, so they didn’t prepare a defense in depth.”

More at https://news.yahoo.com/putin-ukraine-russia-war-losing-regions-annexed
-143855287.html

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

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Thursday, October 6, 2022 9:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SECOND:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No they didn't.
So many things the Russians didn't do because they were too proud, too confident, and too lazy:

Stay on topic cunt.

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Thursday, October 6, 2022 5:23 PM

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

The CIA Thought Putin Would Quickly Conquer Ukraine. Why Did They Get It So Wrong?

Short answer: High-tech surveillance blinded the U.S. to how corruption has weakened the Russian military.

The Central Intelligence Agency was so pessimistic about Ukraine’s chances that officials told President Joe Biden and other policymakers that the best they could expect was that the remnants of Ukraine’s defeated forces would mount an insurgency, a guerrilla war against the Russian occupiers.

U.S. intelligence reports at the time predicted that Kyiv would fall quickly, perhaps in a week or two at the most.

The U.S. intelligence community’s stunning failure at the beginning of the war to recognize the fundamental weaknesses in the Russian system mirrors its blindness to the military and economic weaknesses of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when Washington failed to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

U.S. intelligence did not recognize the significance of rampant corruption and incompetence in the Putin regime, particularly in both the Russian army and Moscow’s defense industries, the current and former intelligence officials said. U.S. intelligence missed the impact of corrupt insider dealing and deceit among Putin loyalists in Moscow’s defense establishment, which has left the Russian army a brittle and hollow shell.

“There was no reporting on the corruption in the Russian system,” said the former senior intelligence official. “They missed it, and ignored any evidence of it.”

Following a string of Russian defeats, even prominent Russian analysts have begun to openly blame the corruption and deceit that plagues the Russian system. On Russian television last weekend, Andrey Gurulyov, the former deputy commander of Russia’s southern military district and now a member of the Russian Duma, blamed his country’s losses on a system of lies, “top to bottom.”

Additionally, Putin imposed an invasion plan on the Russian military that was impossible to achieve, one current U.S. official argued. “You can’t really separate out the issue of Russian military competency from the fact that they were shackled to an impossible plan, which led to poor military preparation,” the official said.

The inability of the U.S. intelligence community to recognize the significance of Russian corruption appears to be the result of an over-reliance on technical intelligence. Before the war, high-tech satellites and surveillance systems allowed the U.S. to track the deployment of Russian troops, tanks, and planes, and to eavesdrop on Russian military officials, enabling U.S. intelligence to accurately predict the timing of the invasion. But it would have needed more human spies inside Russia to see that the Russian army and defense industries were deeply corrupt.

Since the war began, a long list of weaknesses in the Russian military and its defense industries have been exposed, symbolized by the so-called jack-in-the-box flaw in Russian tanks. Ukrainian forces quickly learned that one well-placed shot could blow off a Russian tank turret, sending it sky high and killing the entire crew. It became clear that Russian tanks had been designed and built cheaply — with ammunition stored openly in a ring inside the turret that can explode when the turret is hit — and that crew safety had not been prioritized. In July, Adm. Tony Radakin, Britain’s military chief, said that Russia had lost almost 1,700 tanks in Ukraine.

One of the biggest mysteries for U.S. analysts has been Russia’s failure to gain control of Ukraine’s skies, despite having a far larger air force. Aircraft design flaws, poor pilot training, and gaps in aircraft maintenance have left Russian aircraft vulnerable to Ukraine’s air defenses, which have been bolstered with Stinger missiles and other Western air defense systems.

The failure of U.S. intelligence to see the dysfunction in the Russian army and defense industries means that it also didn’t foresee Russia’s ongoing battlefield defeats, which are now having a profound political and social impact on both Putin and Russia.

https://theintercept.com/2022/10/05/russia-ukraine-putin-cia/

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

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Friday, October 7, 2022 5:41 AM

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

https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war

How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end?
Timothy Snyder
18-23 minutes

At first, no one could imagine that the Russo-Ukrainian war could begin. And yet it began. And now, no one can imagine how it will end. And yet end it will.

War is ultimately about politics. That Ukraine is winning on the battlefield matters because Ukraine is exerting pressure on Russian politics. Tyrants such as Putin exert a certain fascination, because they give the impression that they can do what they like. This is not true, of course; and their regimes are deceptively brittle. The war ends when Ukrainian military victories alter Russian political realities, a process which I believe has begun.

The Ukrainians, let's face it, have turned out to be stunningly good warriors. They have carried out a series of defensive and now offensive operations that one would like to call "textbook," but the truth is that those textbooks have not yet been written; and when they are written, the Ukrainian campaign will provide the examples. The have done so with admirable calm and sang-froid, even as their enemy perpetrates horrible crimes and openly campaigns for their destruction as a nation.

Right now, though, we have a certain difficulty seeing how Ukraine gets to victory, even as the Ukrainians advance. This is because many of our imaginations are trapped by a single and rather unlikely variant of how the war ends: with a nuclear detonation. I think we are drawn to this scenario, in part, because we seem to lack other variants, and it feels like an ending.

Using the mushroom cloud for narrative closure, though, generates anxiety and hinders clear thinking. Focusing on that scenario rather than on the more probable ones prevents us from seeing what is actually happening, and from preparing for the more likely possible futures. Indeed, we should never lose sight of how much a Ukrainian victory will improve the world we live in.

But how do we get there? The war could end in a number of ways. Here I would like to suggest just one plausible scenario that could emerge in the next few weeks and months. Of course there are others. It is important, though, to start directing our thoughts towards some of the more probable variants. The scenario that I will propose here is that a Russian conventional defeat in Ukraine is merging imperceptibly into a Russian power struggle, which in turn will require a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine. This is, historically speaking, a very familiar chain of events.

Before I lay this out, we will first have to clear away the nuclear static. Speaking of nuclear war in a broad, general way, we imagine that the Russo-Ukrainian War is all about us. We feel like the victims. We talk about our fears and anxieties. We write click-bait headlines about the end of the world. But this war is almost certainly not going to end with an exchange of nuclear weapons. States with nuclear weapons have been fighting and losing wars since 1945, without using them. Nuclear powers lose humiliating wars in places like Vietnam and Afghanistan and do not use nuclear weapons.

To be sure, there is a certain temptation to concede mentally to nuclear blackmail. Once the subject of nuclear war is raised, it seems overwhelmingly important, and we become depressed and obsessed. That is just where Putin is trying to lead us with his vague allusions to nuclear weapons. Once we take his cue, we imagine threats that Russia is not actually making. We start talking about a Ukrainian surrender, just to relieve the psychological pressure we feel.

This, though, is doing Putin's work for him, bailing him out of a disaster of his own creation. He is losing the conventional war that he started. His hope is that references to nuclear weapons will deter the democracies from delivering weapons to Ukraine, and buy him enough time to get Russian reserves to the battlefield to slow the Ukrainian offensive. He's probably wrong that this would work; but the rhetorical escalation is one of the few plays that he has left.

As I'll explain in a moment, giving in to nuclear blackmail won't end the conventional war in Ukraine. It would, however, make future nuclear war much more likely. Making concessions to a nuclear blackmailer teachers him that this sort of threat will get him what he wants, which guarantees further crisis scenarios down the line. It teaches other dictators, future potential blackmailers, that all they need is a nuclear weapon and some bluster to get what they want, which means more nuclear confrontations. It tends to convince everyone that the only way to defend themselves is to build nuclear weapons, which means global nuclear proliferation.

Insofar as there is some kind of nuclear threat, it is directed not against us, but against the Ukrainians. They have been resisting nuclear blackmail for seven months; and if they can do it, surely we can too. When prominent Russian political figures such as Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov talk about nuclear use, they mean in Ukraine. But this is also not how the war is going to end. Kadyrov also claims that he is sending his teenage sons to fight in Ukraine. So that they can be irradiated by Russian nuclear weapons?

Russia claims to be mobilizing hundreds of thousands of new troops. This is not going at all well, but even so: would Putin really take the political risk of a large-scale mobilization, send the Russian boys to Ukraine, and then detonate nuclear weapons nearby? Morale is a serious problem already. It appears that more than half a million Russian men have fled the country rather than be sent to Ukraine. It would not help the situation if Russians thought that they were being mobilized to a zone where nuclear weapons would be detonated. They will get no appropriate protective gear. Many mobilized soldiers lack the appropriate gear for a conventional war.

Russia has just declared that parts of eastern and southern Ukraine are Russia. This is of course ridiculous. But would Moscow really use nuclear weapons on lands that it claims are Russian, killing or irradiating the people it claims are Russian citizens, civilians and soldiers alike? It's not impossible. But it's very unlikely.

And even if it happened, it wouldn't end the war, or at least not with a Russian victory. I have been reasoning thus far without even mentioning deterrence: the anticipation that use of a nuclear weapon would trigger powerful responses from other countries. The Americans have been given months to think about this, and I would imagine that their response to nuclear use by Russia has been calculated to be disabling for the Russian armed forces and humiliating for Putin personally. Another more indirect form of deterrence is the sure knowledge that the use of a nuclear weapon would lose Putin and Russia support around the world.

I also wonder whether Russia would take the risk of bringing nuclear weapons into or even near Ukraine, given Ukraine’s accurate long-range artillery, Russia's leaky logistics, and the ability of the Ukrainians to get hold of weapons systems the Russians have brought into their country. It is hard to overstate the difficulty the Russians have in to keeping hold of their own stuff. Sure, the Russians might use a missile instead; but some of their missiles fall to earth and more are shot down. Russian planes tend to crash and to get shot down, to the point that Russian sorties are rare -- and attract negative attention.

Assuming that Russia did want to detonate a small nuclear weapon in Ukraine and succeeded in doing so, despite all of this, this would make no decisive military difference. There are no big clusters of Ukrainian soldiers or equipment to hit, since Ukraine fights in a very decentralized way. If there were a detonation, Ukrainians would keep fighting. They have been saying so for months, and there is no reason to doubt them.

There is also the problem of motive. Putin wants us to sympathize with his situation, which is of course a highly suspect move in itself. But is what he says even credible? We say that "Putin is backed to the wall. What will he do?" That is how we get ourselves talking about nuclear weapons: Putin gets us into what we are to supposed to believe is his own psychological space. But this is all just feeling. It is not really a motive.

If sheer emotion resulting from defeat was going to motivate nuclear use, it would already have happened, and it hasn't. Little can be more humiliating than the Russian defeat at Kyiv, a month into the war. The collapse in Kharkiv region last month was also a shock. As I write, the Ukrainians are making significant gains in regions that Putin just claimed would be Russia forever in a giant televised ceremony; the official Russian response has been to say that their borders are not defined. The Russian reaction to superior force has been to retreat.

So let us take a harder look at Putin's position. The Russian armed forces are not "backed against a wall" in Ukraine: they are safe if they retreat back to Russia. The "wall" metaphor is also not really helpful in seeing where Putin stands. It is more like the furniture has been moved around him, and he will have to get his bearings again.

What he has done in Ukraine has changed his position in Moscow, and for the worse. It does not follow from that, though, that he "must" win the war in Ukraine, whatever that means ("can" comes logically before "must"). Holding on to power in Moscow is what matters, and that does not necessarily mean exposing himself to further risk in Ukraine. Once (and if) Putin understands that the war is lost, he will adjust his thinking about his position at home.

Through the summer, that position was simpler. Until very recently, probably until he made the speech announcing mobilization in September, he could simply have declared victory on mass media, and most Russians would have been content. Now, however, he has brought his senseless war to the point where even the Russian information space is beginning to crack. Russians are anxious about the war now, thanks to mobilization (as opinion polls show). And now their television propagandists are admitting that Russian troops are retreating. So unlike the first half-year of the war, Putin cannot just claim that all is well and be done with it. He has to do something else.

The earth has moved under Putin's feet. His political career has been based on using controlled media to transform foreign policy into soothing spectacle. In other words: regime survival has depended upon two premises: what happens on television is more important than what happens in reality; and what happens abroad is more important than what happens at home. It seems to me that these premises no longer hold. With mobilization, the distinction between at home and abroad has been broken; with lost battles, the distinction between television and reality has been weakened. Reality is starting to matter more than television, and Russia will start to matter more than Ukraine.

There is a cleft both in elite and public opinion in Russia, and it is now becoming visible on television. Some people think that the war is a holy cause and can be won if heads roll, leadership behaves honorably, and more men and materiel are sent to the front. Among them are the military bloggers who are actually at the front, and whose voices are becoming more mainstream. This is a trap for Putin, since he is already sending everything that he can. Those voices make him look weak. Other people think that the war was a mistake. These voices will make him look foolish. This is just the most basic of a number of contradictory positions that Putin now faces, from an exposed and weakened position.

If a war abroad is weakening your position, and if that war cannot be won, it is best to end it today rather than tomorrow. I would suspect that Putin does not yet see this. He has, however, come far enough to understood that he must act in the real world, though thus far his choices have not been good ones.

Mobilization was the worst of both worlds: big enough to alienate the population, too small and above all too late to make a difference before winter. It was probably the result of a compromise, which shows us that Putin is not ruling alone. Putin is trying to command the troops in Ukraine. His failures open him up to criticism (indirect, so far). But Putin seems to be stuck: just ending the war now, without the the subject changing, would strengthen some of his critics. But now that mobilization has already been tried, he has few means of applying greater force. So how does the subject change?

It is changing on its own. Putin is now trapped by an event that was supposed to be televisual and about a faraway place, but which has taken on an immediate political form inside Russia. Two prominent Russian political figures, Ramzan Kadyrov and Yevgeny Prigozhin, have criticized the Russian high command quite brutally. Given that everyone knows that Putin is doing the actual commanding, this has to be divisive. The Kremlin responded to Kadyrov directly, and army propaganda has been showing a criticized commander with his troops in the field.

By what I take to be no coincidence, both Kadyrov and Prigozhin control something like a private armed force. Kadyrov, the de facto dictator of Russia's Chechnya region, has his own militia. It was deployed to Ukraine, where it seemed to specialize in terrorizing civilians and instagramming itself. After pushing for mobilization in Russia last month, Kadyrov then announced that no one from Chechnya would be mobilized. One might conclude that he is saving his men for something else.

Prigozhin is the leader of the murky mercenary entity Wagner, and has been making himself more visible in that capacity. (He is also responsible for the Internet Research Agency, which was one of the actors in the hybrid war against Ukraine in 2014 and the cyberwars against Britain and the United States in 2016.) Wagner has been involved in a number of attempts at regime change, including blood purges of the Russian puppet governments in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and the attempts to assassinate Volodymyr Zelens'kyi at the beginning of the war. These were at Putin's orders, no doubt. But it is an unnerving skill set.

Right now Wagner is leading the daily Russian attempts at offensives in the Bakhmut area of Donetsk region, which are not actually going anywhere. Wagner does not seem to be very active where the Ukrainians are advancing, which is rather more important. Yesterday Gulagu.net reported that a Wagner fighter shot a Russian army officer, which would seem to indicate that all is not well on that part of the front. Is it a stretch to suppose that Prigozhin is sparing whatever valuable men and material he has left? He has been openly recruiting Russian prisoners to fight for Wagner in Ukraine; I would venture the supposition that he is sending them to die and keeping back the men and equipment who might have a future in some other endeavor.

Prigozhin and Kadyrov are calling for is an intensification of the war, and mocking the Russian high command in the most aggressive possible tone, but meanwhile they seem to be protecting their own men. That too seems like a trap. By criticizing the way the war is fought, they weaken Putin's informational control; by forcing him to take responsibility even as they will not do so, they expose his position further. They are telling him to win a war that they do not, themselves, seem to be trying to win.

In the overall logic that I am describing, rivals would seek to conserve whatever fighting forces they have, either to protect their own personal interests during an unpredictable time, or to make a play for Moscow. If this is indeed the present situation, it will soon seem foolish for everyone involved to have armed forces located in distant Ukraine, or, for that matter, to get them killed there day after day. Then comes a tipping point. Once some people realize that other people are holding back their men, it will seem senseless to expend (or alienate) one's own.

At a certain moment, this logic applies to the Russian army itself. As Lawrence Freedman has pointed out, if the army wants to have a role in Russian politics or prestige in Russian society, its commanders have an incentive to pull back while they still have units to command. And if Putin himself wants to remain in power, neither a discredited nor a demoralized army is in his interest.

Mobilization itself starts to look like a spear pointed the wrong way: is there a point in sending thousands of unprepared and underequipped men into what they increasingly know is doom? Putin's presupposition, of course, is that mobilized soldiers will either die or win; but if they flee instead, they become a dangerous group, perhaps ready for another leader.

And so we can see a plausible scenario for how this war ends. War is a form of politics, and the Russian regime is altered by defeat. As Ukraine continues to win battles, one reversal is accompanied by another: the televisual yields to the real, and the Ukrainian campaign yields to a struggle for power in Russia. In such a struggle, it makes no sense to have armed allies far away in Ukraine who might be more usefully deployed in Russia: not necessarily in an armed conflict, although this cannot be ruled out entirely, but to deter others and protect oneself. For all of the actors concerned, it might be bad to lose in Ukraine, but it is worse to lose in Russia.

The logic of the situation favors he who realizes this most quickly, and is able to control and redeploy. Once the cascade begins, it quickly makes no sense for anyone to have any Russian forces in Ukraine at all. Again, from this it does not necessarily follow that there will be armed clashes in Russia: it is just that, as the instability created by the war in Ukraine comes home, Russian leaders who wish to gain from that instability, or protect themselves from it, will want their power centers close to Moscow. And this, of course, would be a very good thing, for Ukraine and for the world.

If this is what is coming, Putin will need no excuse to pull out from Ukraine, since he will be doing so for his own political survival. For all of his personal attachment to his odd ideas about Ukraine, I take it that he is more attached to power. If the scenario I describe here unfolds, we don't have to worry about the kinds of things we tend to worry about, like how Putin is feeling about the war, and whether Russians will be upset about losing. During an internal struggle for power in Russia, Putin and other Russians will have other things on their minds, and the war will give way to those more pressing concerns. Sometimes you change the subject, and sometimes the subject changes you.

Of course, all of this remains very hard to predict, especially at any level of detail. Other outcomes are entirely possible. But the line of development I discuss here is not only far better, but also far more likely, than the doomsday scenarios we fear. It is thus worth considering, and worth preparing for.

https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war

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

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Saturday, October 8, 2022 7:00 AM

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

Putin has repeatedly signaled that he could resort to nuclear weapons to protect the Russian gains in Ukraine — a harrowing threat that shatters the claims of stability he has repeated throughout his 22-year rule.

“This is really a hard moment for him, but he can’t accuse anyone else. He did it himself,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “And he is going straight ahead to big, big problems.”

By unleashing the disastrous war in Ukraine, Europe’s largest military conflict since World War II, Putin has broken an unwritten social contract in which Russians tacitly agreed to forgo post-Soviet political freedoms in exchange for relative prosperity and internal stability.

Mikhail Zygar, a journalist who has had extensive contacts among the Kremlin elite and published a bestselling book about Putin and his entourage, noted that the invasion came as a complete surprise, not only for the public but for Putin’s closest associates.

“All of them are in shock,” Zygar said. “None of them wanted to see the developments unfold in such a way just because they are going to lose everything. Now they are all stained by blood, and they all understand they have nowhere to run.”

Stanislav Belkovsky, a longtime political consultant with extensive contacts among the ruling class, described the invasion as a mechanism of “self-destruction for Putin, his regime and the Russian Federation.”

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/07/putins-path-pledges-of-
stability-nuclear-threats.html

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

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Saturday, October 8, 2022 8:16 AM

Nah.

Election day is a month away. This will all cool off then.

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Saturday, October 8, 2022 9:56 AM

If we're going to see a nuke it going to be now. Happy Birthday Putin...

T

"This bridge was a pillar to Vladimir Putin's regime. Annexing Crimea was something his regime was built on in the last eight years."

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Sunday, October 9, 2022 5:04 AM

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

When the US actually did move ‘heaven and earth’

Brian Finch, opinion contributor
6-7 minutes

Forty-nine years ago this month, Israel’s survival was in serious doubt. A coalition of Arab nations, led by Egypt and Syria, had surprised the Israeli military with a coordinated, all-out assault on the Jewish nation as it observed the holiest day of its year, Yom Kippur. Armed with the latest in Soviet weaponry, Arab forces quickly destroyed Israeli warplanes and tanks in numbers so shockingly large that a complete conquest of Israel — previously unthinkable — suddenly seemed all too possible.

In desperate need of rearmament, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir sent multiple appeals to the United States for military aid. Some of President Richard Nixon’s military advisors counseled against such a move, as they feared it would rapidly spiral into open warfare between America and the Soviet Union.

Nixon, after huddling with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, ordered a decisive response that few if any expected: a full-on emergency mobilization of the American military to immediately bring the Israeli military back to its pre-invasion strength.

Launched just six days after the first Egyptian and Syrian attacks, “Operation Nickel Grass” constituted a resupply campaign that surpassed anything ever seen before — or since — in American history. U.S. military transports filled to the brim with weapons and supplies immediately took off for Israeli airbases, shadowed by American fighters with orders to shoot down any plane that appeared even remotely hostile.

Quickly restocked with fresh American equipment, Israeli forces rapidly regained control of the battlefield and, by the time a cease fire took hold four weeks later, once again had little to fear from its enemies.

The success of Nickel Grass, driven in no small part by Nixon’s order to use “everything that can fly” to resupply Israel, is more than an interesting historical anecdote: It makes one wonder why the Biden administration’s pledge to move “heaven and earth” for Ukraine’s military hasn’t been fulfilled with similar urgency.

Since the moment Russian forces crossed into his territory last winter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — much like Golda Meir — has repeatedly beseeched America and its allies to replenish his rapidly attritted weapons stockpiles. Zelensky’s pleas have become increasingly urgent even as Ukrainian troops retake swaths of captured territory, thanks to fears that Russia’s newly announced mobilization of 300,000 plus troops will allow it to regain the battlefield initiative.

The Biden administration can of course rightly point out that it has committed over $17 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and that U.S.-supplied weapons like the highly touted “HIMARS” rocket artillery systems have played a vital role in some of Kyiv’s recent military victories.

Still, when compared to the pace and scale of Operation Nickel Grass, the Pentagon’s efforts to resupply Ukraine seem far more half-hearted.

Consider the kinds of weapons delivered through Nickel Grass. The Nixon administration immediately transferred its most advanced fighter jets to Israel’s inventory. Some, previously earmarked for the U.S. Air Force, were instead flown straight from the Boeing factory in St. Louis to Israeli airbases. Others were flown from Air Force squadrons in America and Europe to Israel. In more than a few cases, American pilots landed their jets at Israeli airbases and watched an hour or two later as Israeli pilots took off in them for combat missions, some with still hastily painted Star of David emblems still drying over the U.S. Stars and Stripes.

Hundreds of America’s latest battle tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces, along with tens of thousands of tons of critical ammunition also went straight to frontline Israeli troops. Those transfers played a key role in turning the tide of the war: One U.S. intelligence study concluded that the majority of the nearly 2,000 Arab tanks lost in the Yom Kippur War were destroyed by American anti-tank missiles delivered to the Israelis through Nickel Grass.

Western arms shipments to Ukraine have paled in contrast. Yes, the much-ballyhooed HIMARS rockets and various shoulder-launched missiles have helped blunt Russian attacks, but the kind of weapons Ukraine needs to dominate the battlefield — like advanced jets, missiles, and armored vehicles — are still being held back. At the same time, some of the weapons systems promised to Ukraine either won’t arrive for upwards of two years or consist of pre-Vietnam era systems long-retired from frontline service.

Part of the reason for this barrel-bottom scraping can be attributed to regrettable Pentagon decisions like literally shredding upwards of 10,000 modern “MRAP” armored vehicles — something desperately needed by Ukrainian troops — rather than shipping them back from Afghanistan. Equally head scratching is the U.S.’s donation of 200-plus frontline M1 Abrams tanks to Morocco. One can only imagine how much of a difference America’s undisputed king of the armored battlefield would have made in Ukrainian hands instead of motoring around in a country that last saw a serious armored threat from Erwin Rommel’s World War II Africa Korps.

Western governments, including the U.S., undoubtedly have moved slowly on Ukrainian military aid over fears of unduly provoking a nuclear armed Vladimir Putin. It cannot be ignored however that when U.S. faced a similar calculus in 1973, it acted decisively and undoubtedly saved Israelis from the same misery now befalling innocent Ukrainian citizens. Perhaps it is time for the Biden administration to take a page from history and launch its own Operation Nickel Grass.

Brian Finch is an attorney in Washington, D.C. who focuses on global and cyber security issues.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3679463-when-the-us-actually
-did-move-heaven-and-earth/

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

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Sunday, October 9, 2022 5:19 PM

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

Russia appoints notorious general to lead Ukraine offensive

Russia has appointed a notorious general who opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the 1990s as its first overall commander for the war in Ukraine, as the Kremlin struggles to halt a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has left its forces in disarray.

The appointment of Gen Sergei Surovikin came on the same day as Vladimir Putin was dealt a humiliating blow after an explosion on the Kerch bridge sank a section of the motorway into the Kerch Strait and caused a major fire on the railway.

Surovikin is a veteran commander who led the Russian military expedition in Syria in 2017, where he was accused of using “controversial” tactics including indiscriminate bombing against anti-government fighters.

His appointment is the first of an overall battlefield commander for Russian troops in Ukraine. It may indicate that Moscow now understands that its military is in danger of collapse in Ukraine, with Kyiv’s forces advancing in all four of the regions that Putin claims to have “annexed”.

A former head of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Surovikin was installed in the summer as head of the southern military grouping, replacing Gen Alexander Dvornikov, who lasted just months in the position.

He is seen as having improved the effectiveness of Russian forces fighting in east Ukraine, where poor communication and cooperation has plagued the Russian invasion force.

Yet Surovikin also has a checkered history that includes two stints in jail for allegedly selling weapons and for leading a military column against protesters during the 1991 coup. He has also previously served in Tajikistan and Chechnya.

“For over 30 years, Surovikin’s career has been dogged with allegations of corruption and brutality,” wrote British intelligence officials in a recent report on Surovikin’s likely promotion to lead the southern military group.

During the 1991 coup d’état attempt launched by Soviet hardliners, Surovikin, then a captain, led a rifle division that drove through barricades erected by pro-democracy protesters. Three men were killed in the clash, including one who was crushed.

“It is highly symbolic that Sergei Surovikin, the only officer who ordered to shoot on revolutionaries in August 1991 and actually killed three people, is now in charge of this last-ditch effort to restore Soviet Union,” wrote Grigory Yudin, a Russian political scientist and sociologist. “These people knew what they were doing, and they know now.”

With the appointment, the Kremlin may also be seeking to combat criticism from nationalists who have accused the army of mismanaging the war in Ukraine and of failing to use harsh tactics to try to force the Kyiv government to submit.

Among Russians who welcomed the appointment of Surovikin was Yevgeny Prigozhin, the notorious founder of the Wagner private military company and a vocal critic of the military leadership.

“Surovikin is the most able commander in the Russian army,” Prigozhin said, according to a statement put out by Concord, a company he is associated with. He is a “legendary figure, he was born to serve his motherland faithfully.”

“Having received an order [in 1991], Surovikin was that officer who without hesitation got in his tank and went forward to save his country.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/08/russia-appoints-notoriou
s-general-sergei-surovikin-ukraine

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

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Sunday, October 9, 2022 6:16 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

A pipeline with valves that Russia can open and close, and pumps that Russia can turn on and off, gives Russia leverage. A pipeline that is mostly kaput and that would take months to repair removes that leverage.

OTOH the USA benefits from detroying the pipeline by removing for the forseeable future negotiation between Russia and Germany.

SECOND literally can't see what's in front of his face.

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

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Sunday, October 9, 2022 6:38 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:
A pipeline with valves that Russia can open and close, and pumps that Russia can turn on and off, gives Russia leverage. A pipeline that is mostly kaput and that would take months to repair removes that leverage.

OTOH the USA benefits from detroying the pipeline by removing for the forseeable future negotiation between Russia and Germany.

SECOND literally can't see what's in front of his face.

If you sell LNG to the EU, the price the EU will pay has risen by 1,000% as the EU gets panicky. The cost for sellers of LNG has increased by 0%. I detect inflated profits for LNG sellers! The most motivated people in the world to destroy those pipelines would be sellers of LNG. The next most motivated are people who have still operating pipelines running into the EU, e.g. Russia. With natural gas sales, Putin is extorting the EU.

October 9, 2022 • 5:59pm ET
Ukraine and Moldova move to disarm Vladimir Putin’s energy weapon
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-and-moldova
-move-to-disarm-vladimir-putins-energy-weapon/

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

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Sunday, October 9, 2022 6:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

The big sellers of LNG to the EU would be USA-based. There is also a geopolitical angle that you havent taken into account. USA is still implicated.

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

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Sunday, October 9, 2022 7:00 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:
The big sellers of LNG to the EU would be USA-based. There is also a geopolitical angle that you havent taken into account. USA is still implicated.

Since the U.S. government can't keep a secret, blowing up two Nord Stream pipelines will become known to the EU. Maybe not immediately, but surely by the end of the year. For Biden to command the pipelines be targets for the Navy would be a disaster on the order of JFK okaying the "replacement" of Ngo Dinh Diem. With that, JFK lost the Vietnam War for certain. It merely took another decade for everything to come crashing down into defeat, but defeat was inevitable. If Biden gave the order to destroy those pipelines, he guaranteed Russia wins the war with Ukraine. On the other hand, if Putin did it, he guaranteed large profits (because the EU is panicking and foolishly paying super-inflated prices) from the sale of Russian natural gas in the pipelines still operating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_assassination_of_Ngo_Dinh_Die
m#US_reaction

Signym, don't ever go into the natural gas business because you do not understand how it works. You will miss out on all the lovely profits. Perhaps you would even go bankrupt.

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

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Sunday, October 9, 2022 8:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

The Biden* admin is stupid enough to do exactly what would be the stupidest thing to do. We have a couple of years of examples already.

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

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Sunday, October 9, 2022 9:08 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:
The Biden* admin is stupid enough to do exactly what would be the stupidest thing to do. We have a couple of years of examples already.

Today I got a newsletter from Brian Babin, D.D.S., and U.S. Congressman: "Biden's Foolishness Continues". Babin is an ultra-partisan. Too bad for you if he was your dentist. He will say anything, which is whatever the angry poor white trash of Texas want to hear, to get reelected rather than go back to being a dentist.

https://babin.house.gov/forms/form/?ID=33&utm_campaign=2548-387

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 5:20 AM

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

Igor Girkin made severely pessimistic predictions about the invasion following the setback in Kharkiv, predicting that Russian forces would ultimately fail in Ukraine.

"The war in Ukraine will continue until the complete defeat of Russia," Girkin posted to Telegram in the wake of the counteroffensive. "We have already lost, the rest is just a matter of time."

Girkin previously served in the Russian military as a Federal Security Service officer, playing a part in the operations that led to the annexation of Crimea. He also later served as the de facto leader for separatist forces in the Donbas.

https://www.newsweek.com/russias-ukraine-offensive-absolutely-senseles
s-ex-military-leader-1750215

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 5:40 AM

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

‘Ukraine is going to win’: Estonia’s departing spy chief opens up on Putin’s war

“Ukraine is going to win,” Marran says without hesitation. “They have to win because for Ukraine, it’s an independence war. It’s not just a regional conflict, and that’s why they are highly motivated.” Though he is less certain of when, exactly, that victory will come.

By running raw manpower into the meat grinder of war, Putin can prolong the fighting. “My father was fond of the expression Nado, Fedya, nado,” Marran says, quoting a line from the hit 1965 Soviet comedy “Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures.” Literally it means “it’s necessary, Fedya, it’s necessary,” but it connotes a sense of implacable stubbornness in the face of extreme adversity.

“The Russians are like this, and we shouldn’t underestimate their ability to press on when others would give up. The first conscripts who will arrive, or have already arrived, at the war zone are the easiest targets for Ukrainians, but it’ll likely be a kind of a Darwinist cycle of events. The ones that survive the first months will learn how to do the job and they’ll become better soldiers because Nado, Fedya, nado.”

https://news.yahoo.com/mikk-marran-estonia-ukraine-183016285.html

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 8:37 AM

lol

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Monday, October 10, 2022 8:43 AM

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

Exaggerate Much?

Not everyone is as receptive to the idea of an indefinite war against Ukraine. Behind the scenes, many are anxious for the armed conflict to be over. In light of this rapidly growing trend, state TV propagandists have been tasked with convincing the public that unless Russia wins, its citizens would be locked “in concentration camps,” enslaved by the West or killed.

Mardan invited his guest, political commentator Evgeny Norin, to specify what Russia’s defeat would look like. Norin ushered in the historical memories of Russia’s distant past. He opined: “Russia’s defeat would resemble the Mongol yoke, with a modern technological twist… Crimea, Donbas and other contested regions would be taken away, just to put us in our place. From the standpoint of national humiliation, we would be forced to give up Sevastopol. Remember the fate of Serbia and Yugoslavia, who had to give up all of their military and political elites. Of course, many people here would say, ‘So they’ll cut off their heads, no big deal.’ Our soft pacifists say exactly that… Naturally, we’d also be forced to pay an enormous amount of reparations, huge amounts would be taken.”

Mardan and Norin concurred that Russian oligarchs and major companies would find a way not to pay and the cost of reparations would land on everyday citizens. Norin mused that Russia would not be allowed to manufacture anything that is more sophisticated than a foot stool and Western companies would lure away all of the specialists — much as they’re already doing. He predicted: “After the capitulation, we would be unable to offer them anything aside from the joy of standing by your Motherland.”

Norin darkly predicted that Russia’s capitulation “would be like Yugoslavia on steroids,” with decolonization as “a cherry on top.” He said Russia would be forced to break up into at least 10 separate parts, with Sharia law being instituted in at least some of them.

During the same show, State Duma member Alexander Kazakov offered a cheerful imperialistic prediction of what will happen if Russia perseveres and prevails: “If we win, we’ll take back what’s ours and whatever is theirs as well.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-tv-host-sergey-mardan-says
-ukraine-has-been-underestimated

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 10:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

The Biden* admin is stupid enough to do exactly what would be the stupidest thing to do. We have a couple of years of examples already.

UN to take up Russian annexations in Ukraine

The UN General Assembly on Monday will open debate on a draft resolution condemning Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions, as Western powers seek to underscore Moscow's international isolation.

The decision to bring the matter before the General Assembly, where the 193 UN members have one vote each -- and no one wields veto power -- was taken after Russia used its veto in a Security Council meeting September 30 to block a similar proposal.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-to-take-up-russian-annexations
-in-ukraine/ar-AA12Mpbt?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d86b3c8588cd44aea95b6c766e2d0ff5

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Monday, October 10, 2022 12:44 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Russia Launches Large-Scale Strikes On Some 20 Ukrainian Cities In Response To "Terrorist" Crimea Bridge Blast

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/large-scale-strikes-many-cities
-across-ukraine-response-terrorist-crimea-bridge-blast

I don't think Russia gives a fuck what the UN says, because the UN never follows its own laws. Kiev has been shelling civilians in Donetsk for YEARS and the UN didn't give a fuck.

I would tar OSCE, OPCW and many "democracy" NGOs with the same nasty brush. Too many incidents of fake news, rewritten reports, and phoney accusations
Assad gassed his own people.
Navalny "poisoning"
Skripal "poisoning".
Qaddafi massacred his own people.
Milosevic committed "genocide"
Xinjiang "concentratiom camps"
and too much other bullshit to believe much of what comes out of western-dominated do-gooder organizations

Russia has been holding back, and you were too stupid to see that. Instead, you were celebrating meaningless Kiev "victories" and slavering over the downfall of Russia.
which, if you were honest, you would admit was your REAL agenda all along. Had nothing to do with "democracy in Ukraine" bc Kiev has alwys been a corrupt, dysfunctional, semi-Nazi predatory administration anyway.

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 12:54 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Professor Sachs: "Ukraine Needs To Stop Bombing Nuclear Power Plant And Blaming It On Russia"

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/professor-sachs-ukraine-needs-s
top-bombing-nuclear-power-plant-and-blaming-it-russia

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 12:57 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Biden Should "Back Off" Armageddon Language, Quickly Get Russians To Negotiating Table: Adm. Mullen

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-should-back-armageddon-la
nguage-quickly-get-russians-negotiating-table-adm

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 6:22 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:
Russia Launches Large-Scale Strikes On Some 20 Ukrainian Cities In Response To "Terrorist" Crimea Bridge Blast

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/large-scale-strikes-many-cities
-across-ukraine-response-terrorist-crimea-bridge-blast

I don't think Russia gives a fuck what the UN says, because the UN never follows its own laws. Kiev has been shelling civilians in Donetsk for YEARS and the UN didn't give a fuck.

I would tar OSCE, OPCW and many "democracy" NGOs with the same nasty brush. Too many incidents of fake news, rewritten reports, and phoney accusations
Assad gassed his own people.
Navalny "poisoning"
Skripal "poisoning".
Qaddafi massacred his own people.
Milosevic committed "genocide"
Xinjiang "concentratiom camps"
and too much other bullshit to believe much of what comes out of western-dominated do-gooder organizations

Russia has been holding back, and you were too stupid to see that. Instead, you were celebrating meaningless Kiev "victories" and slavering over the downfall of Russia.
which, if you were honest, you would admit was your REAL agenda all along. Had nothing to do with "democracy in Ukraine" bc Kiev has alwys been a corrupt, dysfunctional, semi-Nazi predatory administration anyway.

Do you believe what you wrote is true? You took the side of every dictator on Earth, living or dead, except for Kim Jong-un. Why did you do that?

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 6:29 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:
Biden Should "Back Off" Armageddon Language, Quickly Get Russians To Negotiating Table: Adm. Mullen

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-should-back-armageddon-la
nguage-quickly-get-russians-negotiating-table-adm

Russian President Vladimir Putin is incapable of accepting defeat in Ukraine, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said on Monday at a joint press conference in Oslo with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

Both Nordic leaders condemned deadly strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine on Monday. “This is an unacceptable attack on civilians and a breach on all principles key to humanitarian law and international rules and regulations,” the Norwegian Prime Minister said.

“Nuclear threats, mobilization and sham referenda and annexation of territory under occupation is simply unacceptable and it has to be rebuffed by the democracies of Europe in a very consistent way,” he added.

Niinistö said: “What has happened now in Ukraine, well, it is indiscriminate bombing targeting civilians, targeting also infrastructure which is most important for civilians. Of course it’s terror [in] people’s minds. Unfortunately, it seems that, in the war, there is a new pace opening or starting and that is a kind of escalation in the situation.”

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-10-10-22#
h_41294d04001fdcae771da5132a3028cd

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 6:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Russia Launches Large-Scale Strikes On Some 20 Ukrainian Cities In Response To "Terrorist" Crimea Bridge Blast

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/large-scale-strikes-many-cities
-across-ukraine-response-terrorist-crimea-bridge-blast

I don't think Russia gives a fuck what the UN says, because the UN never follows its own laws. Kiev has been shelling civilians in Donetsk for YEARS and the UN didn't give a fuck.

I would tar OSCE, OPCW and many "democracy" NGOs with the same nasty brush. Too many incidents of fake news, rewritten reports, and phoney accusations
Assad gassed his own people.
Navalny "poisoning"
Skripal "poisoning".
Qaddafi massacred his own people.
Milosevic committed "genocide"
Xinjiang "concentratiom camps"
and too much other bullshit to believe much of what comes out of western-dominated do-gooder organizations

Russia has been holding back, and you were too stupid to see that. Instead, you were celebrating meaningless Kiev "victories" and slavering over the downfall of Russia.
which, if you were honest, you would admit was your REAL agenda all along. Had nothing to do with "democracy in Ukraine" bc Kiev has alwys been a corrupt, dysfunctional, semi-Nazi predatory administration anyway.
Do you believe what you wrote is true? You took the side of every dictator on Earth, living or dead, except for Kim Jong-un. Why did you do that?

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

It is who she is TWO. It is who she has always been. I've been saying, this is who she is since I started posting here. Putin deliberately kills children; she is good with that. It is who she is. She, as does Putin, represent the worst of the worst.

T

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Monday, October 10, 2022 9:14 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

It is who she is TWO. It is who she has always been. I've been saying, this is who she is since I started posting here. Putin deliberately kills children; she is good with that. It is who she is. She, as does Putin, represent the worst of the worst.

T

The worst of the worst is the Russian Military (top notch at targeting kindergartners on a playground and maternity hospitals, but not so great at winning wars ):

Putin will fail because he has 'a terrible army' and not even 'George Patton' could fix it

While Surovikin has a well earned reputation as a hardliner, Anderson was skeptical he could turn things around given the current state of Russia's military.

"I don't think there's going to be a new approach because he's incapable of doing a new approach as long as the Russian army is what it is, which is a terrible army," he said.

Anderson elaborated on why new leadership won't be nearly enough to fix what's broken in the Russian military.

"It's not like the soldiers are going to jump into a phone booth and come out as Superman," he said. "They have a terrible army. They're ten years away from having a good army that can take on the Ukrainians and achieve the military objectives they wanted. They have a low morale... They're incapable of executing the military operations that Vladimir Putin wants. George Patton couldn't make this a success for Putin."

https://www.rawstory.com/putin-russia-ukraine-war-2658419189/

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 9:14 PM

In related news, Joe Biden* and his Democrats are a cancer on the world.

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

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Monday, October 10, 2022 10:09 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Boy, it sure is a good thing Russia ran out of missiles! Otherwise, just think what they might have done!

Quote:
Russia, Having 'Run Out Of Missiles', Launches Barrage On Ukraine

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/10/russia-having-run-out-of-missile
s-launches-barrage-on-ukraine.html#more

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

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Monday, October 10, 2022 11:05 PM

Quote:
"We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is heading towards this."

America does NOT support Ukraine.

Fuck Crossdresser, kid-fucker Z.

And fuck Joe Biden* for giving him billions while inflation is killing poor people here.

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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus

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Tuesday, October 11, 2022 9:06 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:
Boy, it sure is a good thing Russia ran out of missiles! Otherwise, just think what they might have done!

Quote:
Russia, Having 'Run Out Of Missiles', Launches Barrage On Ukraine

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/10/russia-having-run-out-of-missile
s-launches-barrage-on-ukraine.html#more

According to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Russia launched 75 missiles, 41 of which were shot down by Ukraine’s air defenses, with almost all confirmed impact targets being civilian, not military, in nature.

Ukraine’s National Police said at least five people were killed in Kyiv, with 12 more injured, although the final toll for fatalities and casualties is likely to be much higher.

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-launches-missile-strikes-across-ukraine-
hitting-mostly-civilian-targets-162249496.html

Signym, if Russia is going to win, it needs to fire 75 missiles every hour, of every day, until Kyiv surrenders. Does Russia have that many thousands of missiles?

Fortunately there are only 75 days until Xmas, a day of peace and surrendering, which makes it easy to calculate how many missiles Putin needs: 75 * 75 * 24 = 135,000

135,000 might be more missiles than Putin has. Firing 75 missiles per hour might be too much for Russia.

What if Putin fires just 75 missiles per day until Xmas?
75 * 75 = 5,625

5,625 might also be more than Putin can handle.

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

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Tuesday, October 11, 2022 9:15 AM