REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Thursday, October 31, 2024 13:46
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Saturday, November 12, 2022 6:06 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

PS: The USA is at war with Russia.
I have often been amazed at how much money the Pentagon can spend without tangible results to show the American public. In Ukraine, there is something to show. Although Ukraine is a very small expense compared to what the Pentagon spends in a typical year, the Pentagon is getting back a great deal of accurate information about the adversary the Pentagon has used for the last 77 years to justify around $100 trillion in spending, adjusting past spending for inflation to 2022 dollars:

November 09, 2022 - Democratic President Joe Biden, with little congressional review, has sent nearly $20 billion in arms and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the war started in late February.
https://www.voanews.com/a/democrats-republicans-say-they-will-back-ukr
aine-whoever-controls-congress/6827454.html

Biden's 2023 Budget Proposal Sees Another $6.9 Billion For Ukraine, NATO
https://www.rferl.org/a/biden-budget-ukraine-nato/31774703.html

Each year federal agencies receive funding from Congress, known as budgetary resources. In FY 2022, the Department of Defense (DOD) had $1.94 Trillion distributed among its 6 sub-components. Agencies spend available budgetary resources by making financial promises called obligations.
https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2022

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

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Saturday, November 12, 2022 6:11 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nobody cares.

I'm flat out rooting for Russia now.

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

I'm a Democrat now. Let's erase history, burn everything down and start over. China's going to end up owning everything anyways.
The longer this war goes on, the longer Russia can't find buyers for its natural gas, which just so happens to be very profitable for Texas, which can sell all the natural gas it produces since Texas is not at war with anybody.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Except, if course, for the bottleneck of turning nat gas into LNG and shipping it overseas.

Russia has no problems selling natgas to China and India. The high prices are a result of the EU and UK shooting themselves in the foot and blowing up the Nordstreams. Now they have to pay ANY price for non-Russian natgas, and since this is a global commodity spot prices rise everywhere.

PS: The USA is at war with Russia.


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



Oh. I know the US is at war with Russia. And we're sending in idiot Ukraine citizens in to die for Raytheon.

I'd vote Putin over Biden in 2024 if he were on the ticket.

Fuck Ukraine. Fuck Democrats. Fuck Neo-Cons. Fuck NATO. Fuck the War Machine.

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

I'm a Democrat now. Let's erase history, burn everything down and start over. China's going to end up owning everything anyways.

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Saturday, November 12, 2022 7:18 PM

SECOND

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


"After defeat in Kherson, Russia’s status as a great state is questionable,” one pro-Putin political analyst revealed following the withdrawal. "They will be putting pressure on, and demand soft capitulation.”

“If Russia wants to win, we must switch the economy into a military regime,” the strategist added. “This decision is already six months late. We have got to be tougher. Tougher. Drones, communication, missiles and shells must be produced by our factories 24/7.”

The failure to launch the Poseidon missiles from the Belgorod, and the retreat from the Ukrainian city of Kherson, also comes as a vast majority of Putin’s troops are either surrendering, mutinying or begging the Kremlin’s top brass officials to change their strategy in the war against their neighboring nation.

https://radaronline.com/p/vladimir-putin-suffers-loss-doomsday-nuclear
-powered-torpedo-fails-launch/

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

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Saturday, November 12, 2022 8:19 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
November 09, 2022 - Democratic President Joe Biden, with little congressional review, has sent nearly $20 billion in arms and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the war started in late February.
https://www.voanews.com/a/democrats-republicans-say-they-will-back-ukr
aine-whoever-controls-congress/6827454.html

Biden's 2023 Budget Proposal Sees Another $6.9 Billion For Ukraine, NATO
https://www.rferl.org/a/biden-budget-ukraine-nato/31774703.html


That's enough US taxpayer dollars to end world hunger for almost 5 years according to Twitter.

Fuck Joe Biden*.

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

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

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Saturday, November 12, 2022 11:38 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Surovikin’s Difficult Choice
Russia Abandons Kherson
Big Serge
5 hr ago
General Armageddon

In January, 1944, the newly reconstituted German Sixth Army found itself in an operationally cataclysmic situation in the southern bend of the Dnieper River, in the area of Krivoi Rog and Nikopol. The Germans occupied a dangerous salient, jutting out precariously into the Red Army’s lines. Vulnerable on two awkward flanks, and facing an enemy with superiority in manpower and firepower, any general worth his salt would have sought to withdraw as soon as possible. In this case, however, Hitler insisted that the Wehrmacht hold the salient, because the region was Germany’s last remaining source of manganese - a mineral crucial for making high quality steel.

A year prior, in the opening weeks of 1943, Hitler had intervened in another, more famous battle, forbidding the previous incarnation of the Sixth Army from breaking out of a pocket forming around it at Stalingrad. Prohibited from withdrawing, the Sixth was annihilated wholesale.

In both of these cases, there was a clash between pure military prudence and broader political aims and needs. In 1943, there was neither a compelling military nor political reason to keep the 6th Army in the pocket at Stalingrad - political intervention in military decision making was both senseless and disasterous. In 1944, however, Hitler (however difficult it is to admit it) had a valid argument. Without manganese from the Nikopol area, German war production was doomed. In this case, political intervention was perhaps warranted. Leaving an army in a vulnerable salient is bad, but so is running out of manganese.

These two tragic fates of the Sixth Army illustrate the salient issue today: how do we parse the difference between military and political decision making? More specifically, to what do we attribute the shocking Russian decision to withdraw from the west bank of the Dnieper in Kherson oblast, after annexing it just a few months ago?

I would like to parse through this issue. First off, one cannot deny that the withdrawal is politically a significant humiliation for Russia. The question becomes, however, whether this sacrifice was necessary on military or political grounds, and what it may signify about the future course of the conflict.

As I see it, the withdrawal from west bank Kherson must be driven by one of the four following possibilities:

The Ukrainian Army has defeated the Russian Army on the west bank and driven it back across the river.

Russia is setting a trap in Kherson.

A secret peace agreement (or at least ceasefire) has been negotiated which includes giving Kherson back to Ukraine.

Russia has made a politically embarrassing but militarily prudent operational choice.

Let us simply run through these four and examine them in sequence.
Possibility 1: Military Defeat

The recapture of Kherson is being fairly celebrated by Ukrainians as a victory. The question is just what kind of victory it is - political/optical, or military? It becomes trivially obvious that it is the first sort. Let’s examine a few facts.

First off, as recently as the morning of November 9 - hours before the withdrawal was announced - some Russian war correspondents were expressing skepticism about the withdrawal rumors because Russia’s forward defensive lines were completely intact. There was no semblance of crisis among Russian forces in the region.

Secondly, Ukraine was not executing any intense offensive efforts in the region at the time the withdrawal began, and Ukrainian officials expressed skepticism that the withdrawal was even real. Indeed, the idea that Russia was laying a trap originates with Ukrainian officials who were apparently caught off guard by the withdrawal. Ukraine was not prepared to pursue or exploit, and advanced cautiously into the void after Russian soldiers were gone. Even with Russia withdrawing, they were clearly scared to advance, because their last few attempts to push through the defenses in the area became mass casualty events.

Overall, Russia’s withdrawal was implemented very quickly with minimal pressure from the Ukrainians - this very fact is the basis of the idea that it is either a trap or the result of a backroom deal that’s been concluded. In either case, Russia simply slipped back across the river without pursuit by the Ukrainians, taking negligible losses and getting virtually all of their equipment out (so far, a broken down T90 is the only Ukrainian capture of note). The net score on the Kherson Front remains a strong casualty imbalance in favor of Russia, and they once again withdraw without suffering a battlefield defeat and with their forces intact.
Possibility 2: It’s a Trap

This theory cropped up very soon after the withdrawal was announced. It originated with Ukrainian officials who were caught off guard by the announcement, and was then picked up (ironically) by Russian supporters who were hoping that 4D chess was being played - it is not. Russia is playing standard 2D chess, which is the only kind of chess there is, but more about that later.

It’s unclear what exactly “trap” is supposed to mean, but I’ll try to fill in the blanks. There are two possible interpretations of this: 1) a conventional battlefield maneuver involving a timely counterattack, and 2) some sort of unconventional move like a tactical nuclear weapon or a cascading dam failure.

It’s clear that there’s no battlefield counter in the offing, for the simple reason that Russia blew the bridges behind them. With no Russian forces left on the west bank and the bridges wrecked, there is no immediate capacity for either army to attack the other in force. Of course, they can shell each other across the river, but the actual line of contact is frozen for the time being.

That leaves the possibility that Russia intends to do something unconventional, like use a low yield nuke.

The idea that Russia lured Ukraine into Kherson to set off a nuke is… stupid.

If Russia wanted to use a nuclear weapon against Ukraine (which they don’t, for reasons I articulated in a previous article) there’s no sensible reason why they would choose a regional capital that they annexed as the site to do it. Russia has no shortage of delivery systems. If they wanted to nuke Ukraine, very simply, they wouldn’t bother abandoning their own city and making that the blast site. They would simply nuke Ukraine. It’s not a trap.
Possibility 3: Secret Deal

This was sparked by the news that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has been in contact with his Russian counterpart, and specifically the sense that the White House has been pushing for the negotiations. Under one rumored variant of the “Sullivan Deal”, Ukraine would acknowledge Russia’s annexations east of the Dnieper, while west bank Kherson would revert back to Kiev’s control.

I find this unlikely for a variety of reasons. First off, such a deal would represent an extremely pyrrhic Russian victory - while it would achieve the liberation of the Donbas (one of the explicit goals of the SMO) it would leave Ukraine largely intact and strong enough to be a perennial thorn in the side, as an inimical anti-Russian state. There would be the problem of probable further Ukrainian integration into NATO, and above all, the open surrender of an annexed regional capital.

On the Ukrainian side, the issue is that the recovery of Kherson only enhances the (false) perception in Kiev that total victory is possible, and that Crimea and the Donbas can be recovered entirely. Ukraine is enjoying a string of territorial advances, and feels that it is pushing its window of opportunity.

Ultimate, there seems to be no deal that satisfies both sides, and this reflects that the innate hostility between the two nations must be resolved on the battlefield. Only Ares can adjudicate this dispute.

As for Ares, he has been hard at work in Pavlovka.

While the world was fixated on the relatively bloodless change of hands in Kherson, Russia and Ukraine fought a bloody battle for Pavlovka, and Russia won. Ukraine also attempted to break Russia’s defenses in the Svatove axis, and was repulsed with heavy casualties. Ultimately, the main reason to doubt news of a secret deal is the fact that the war is continuing on all the other fronts - and Ukraine is losing. This leaves only one option.
Possibility 4: A Difficult Operational Choice

This withdrawal was subtly signaled shortly after General Surovikin was put in charge of the operation in Ukraine. In his first press conference, he signaled dissatisfaction with the Kherson front, calling the situation “tense and difficult” and alluding to the threat of Ukraine blowing dams on the Dnieper and flooding the area. Shortly thereafter, the process of evacuating civilians from Kherson began.

Here is what I think Surovikin decided about Kherson.

Kherson was becoming an inefficient front for Russia because of the logistical strain of supplying forces across the river with limited bridge and road capacity. Russia demonstrated that it was capable of shouldering this sustainment burden (keeping troops supplied all through Ukraine’s summer offensives), but the question becomes 1) to what purpose, and 2) for how long.

Ideally, the bridgehead becomes the launching point for offensive action against Nikolayev, but launching an offensive would require strengthening the force grouping in Kherson, which correspondingly raises the logistical burden of projecting force across the river. With a very long front to play with, Kherson is clearly one of the most logistically intensive axes. My guess is that Surovikin took charge and almost immediately decided he did not want to increase the sustainment burden by trying to push on Nikolayev.

Therefore, if an offensive is not going to be launched from the Kherson position, the question becomes - why hold the position at all? Politically, it is important to defend a regional capital, but militarily the position becomes meaningless if one is not going to go on the offensive in the south.

Let’s be even more explicit: unless an offensive towards Nikolayev is planned, the Kherson bridgehead is militarily counterproductive.

While holding the bridgehead in Kherson, the Dnieper River becomes a negative force multiplier - increasing the sustainment and logistics burden and ever threatening to leave forces cut off if Ukraine succeeds in destroying the bridges or bursting the dam. Projecting force across the river becomes a heavy burden with no obvious benefit. But by withdrawing to the east bank, the river becomes a positive force multiplier by serving as a defensive barrier.

In the broader operational sense, Surovikin seems to be declining battle in the south while preparing in the north and in the Donbas. It is clear that he made this decision shortly after taking command of the operation - he has been hinting at it for weeks, and the speed and cleanliness of the withdrawal suggests that it was well planned , long in advance. Withdrawing across the river increases the combat effectiveness of the army significantly and decreases the logistical burden, freeing resources for other sectors.

This fits the overall Russian pattern of making harsh choices about resource allocation, fighting this war under the simple framework of optimizing the loss ratios and building the perfect meatgrinder. Unlike the German Army in the second world war, the Russian army seems to be freed from political interference to make rational military decisions.

In this way, the withdrawal from Kherson can be seen as a sort of anti-Stalingrad. Instead of political interference hamstringing the military, we have the military freed to make operational choices even at the cost of embarrassing the political figures. And this, ultimately, is the more intelligent - if optically humiliating - way to fight a war

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


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Sunday, November 13, 2022 1:56 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Surovikin’s Difficult Choice
Russia Abandons Kherson
Big Serge <-- WHO IS THIS?

Ultimate, there seems to be no deal that satisfies both sides, and this reflects that the innate hostility between the two nations must be resolved on the battlefield. Only Ares can adjudicate this dispute.

As for Ares, he has been hard at work in Pavlovka.

While the world was fixated on the relatively bloodless change of hands in Kherson, Russia and Ukraine fought a bloody battle for Pavlovka, and Russia won. Ukraine also attempted to break Russia’s defenses in the Svatove axis, and was repulsed with heavy casualties. Ultimately, the main reason to doubt news of a secret deal is the fact that the war is continuing on all the other fronts - and Ukraine is losing. This leaves only one option.
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/surovkins-difficult-choice

Signym, this is a load of bullshit from the anonymous BigSerge. The comment section is pure Russian propaganda:
Quote:
To all those who may be dooming or wildly rejoicing. This war is not between Russia and Ukraine. This is not even war, this is a special military operation and for good reason. Let me elaborate. First things first this struggle is between American empire and Russia, not Russia and the west, and certainly not Russia and Ukraine. The empire chose to precipitate matters maybe as an example for China or to have Russia defeated before attacking China. Regardless why, what was intended was for Russia to come in all guns blazing takeover all of Ukraine in short order and THEN get mired in a long bloody insurgency loosing men materiel and treasure. The freezing of assets and overwhelming sanctions would then further deteriorate the internal conditions such as that political instability would set in finally resulting in regime change. Russia could then be raped dismembered devoured by the empire at leisure. This is why the special military operation is a special military operation and not a war. The objective here is not simply to defeat the Ukrainian army, it is rather designed to bring maximum damage to the empire while keeping the costs for Russia manageable. The Russian campaign is running on simmer being careful not to let the situation boil over at any point. The pace of operations is glacial on purpose. The longer the conflict is drawn out the more harm the empire and it's allies will endure. Their policies will result in self inflicted pain, their hubris will not let them walk back to more sensible positions. The empire is trapped in a pit it has dug, its allies are mere hostages. Is there a point of pain that can be reached where the citizens of Europe may demand of their leaders to revolt against the empire? Who knows if such a point exists, if it is reached this winter or the next? However there is another sphere where the battle is taking place and that is in the nation's that are not in the hallowed west. Here in the nations some poor and some not so much an evaluation of prospects is being done. Siding with the west is safe from reprisals but in the emerging economic scenario might be tantamount to suicide. Even the dimmest leaders know their fate if they fail to keep their citizens fed and supplied with essentials. Considerable shifts have already materialised and more are sure to follow as things get tighter. The empire potentially losing European allies or losing influence across the globe are far more valuable objectives than a quick roll up of the Ukrainian army.

Signym, that is a long paragraph, but the propaganda is just getting started:

On the tactical side the Ukrainian leadership continues to throw it's troops onto prepared Russian defences and continues to suffer unfavorable casualty ratio of at least 1 to 5 if not more. Can Ukraine continue this frivolous behaviour for another six months a year two years? Can they continue to be supplied for as long? Can the West ,will the west continue to foot the bill to keep Ukraine running and fighting? How many more Ukrainian refugees will Europe accomodate? 10 mln? 20 mln?

Russian aim of denazification will be accomplished either by destruction on the contact line of those willing to fight or by emigration of those unwilling to fight.

Signym, that's not the end of the comment, but there is no truth here.


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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 2:00 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


All you do is post propaganda dude.

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

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 2:16 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
All you do is post propaganda dude.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
6ix, it was just last week that you predicted the Democratic Party is dead. Didn't happen. Likewise, the Russian propagandists predict Ukraine is dead and for the same psychological reasons as 6ix shoots his mouth off about Democrats. Russian propagandists don't need to know the truth or even recognize that truth exists because that would slow the rate at which they produce rubbish, falsehoods and subtle deceit for publication. https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2022-midterm-election/

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 4:07 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
All you do is post propaganda dude.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
6ix, it was just last week that you predicted the Democratic Party is dead.


Mail in fraud is a thing that needs to be taken care of.

Have you stopped to ask yourself just how in the hell the Republicans won the popular vote in the mid-terms? That hasn't happened once before in my life.

All it takes is a bunch of harvested, unsolicited mail-in fraud ballots in swing states to win. You guys have done it twice now.

The funny thing is that you never do it in states like California and New York because you should always win those and look what happened there. A few surprises, huh?

My predictions are sound. You guys keep cheating and you'll get that Civil War you keep talking about. Fuck around and find out.

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

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 7:37 AM

SECOND

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:
All you do is post propaganda dude.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
6ix, it was just last week that you predicted the Democratic Party is dead.


Mail in fraud is a thing that needs to be taken care of.

Have you stopped to ask yourself just how in the hell the Republicans won the popular vote in the mid-terms? That hasn't happened once before in my life.

All it takes is a bunch of harvested, unsolicited mail-in fraud ballots in swing states to win. You guys have done it twice now.

The funny thing is that you never do it in states like California and New York because you should always win those and look what happened there. A few surprises, huh?

My predictions are sound. You guys keep cheating and you'll get that Civil War you keep talking about. Fuck around and find out.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
6ix, you are insane. Likewise, Putin is insane but he directs more of his craziness and misunderstanding of reality toward Ukraine than toward Democrats. The two of you, three if you count Signym, have got much in common:

Russia’s objectives in the war against Ukraine are anything but clear.

They have included “denazification” and “decommunisation”;
ensuring the security of inhabitants of the Donbas;
the demilitarisation and non-admission of Ukraine to Nato;
the return of formerly Russian lands;
the protection of the Russian language;
and even the “saving” of Ukrainian cities from gay parades.

The lack of clearly defined objectives makes the definition of victory uncertain. But this ambiguity also makes the criteria for defeat unclear — let alone one so bad as to endanger Putin. In fact, the Russian president had already survived several serious defeats: the invasion’s opening “blitzkrieg” failed, and Russian troops were forced to retreat from around Kyiv and several other cities. Russia lost the Moskva, the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, and abandoned Snake Island, its first successful capture from the start of the war. After the hasty retreat from the outskirts of Kharkiv, another symbolically important target — the bridge to Crimea — was attacked. Other leaders might have already been toppled by such military failures, but not Putin.

The fact is that Putin’s supporters do not perceive the invasion of Ukraine as an act of aggression. For them, it’s a retaliation against the much more powerful west. Researchers of Russian society are observing a startling paradox. History puts Russia in a row of vast western colonial empires. But after its defeat in the cold war, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic hardships of the 1990s, a growing number of Russians felt they had been reduced to a colony ruled by western forces. They now believe they are casting off the yoke which so humiliated their country and “imposed” capitalism upon it.

In the eyes of dissatisfied Russians, any form of resistance to the west is a victory, almost regardless of the end result. Even in retreat, they will console themselves with the thought of having prevented Russia’s “further enslavement”. This is why there is no direct link between military setbacks and the weakening of Putin’s power. It is as difficult for the president to lose this war as it is to win it. Domestically, even the invasion itself is a sort of victory. Meanwhile, the passive majority can be convinced that any outcome is the best possible one. And the critics will be silenced with repression, just as they are now.

Peace endangers Putin’s status as the challenger of the west. The Russian president is pushed into a virtually endless war for its own sake.

https://www.ft.com/content/01cdcc3e-22b9-4230-ac11-6c7056098f3f

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 8:20 AM

SECOND

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


Published: October 12, 2022

The Russian draft isn’t likely to help Vladimir Putin win the war in Ukraine

New troops are unlikely to turn the tide in eastern Ukraine.

Understanding the effect of the mobilization requires a bit of background in the organization of the Russian military.

The Russian military is designed around the idea that in the event of war with NATO, professional units — with advanced weapons and the skills to use them — are fleshed out and supported by large numbers of newly mobilized individuals. Military service is mandatory for young Russian men aged 18 to 27.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, however, it did not mobilize its population. Instead, only professional units were used, with Rosgvardia (Russian National Guard) and conscripts undertaking their mandatory military service, employed to try and make up the difference.

Current Russian retreats show the war has wreaked havoc on professional units.

The Ukrainian military clearly developed a detailed plan to confront a Russian invasion that allowed them to inflict heavy losses. This involved using small groups, armed with advanced anti-tank weapons like the American Javelin and British NLAW rockets, to harass Russian forces. Russia’s logistical challenges exacerbated this, leading to bottlenecks and poor organization that only made Ukraine more successful.

Russia’s professional military — the backbone of its capacity to mobilize — has been heavily degraded.

Adding 300,000 soldiers will only worsen this problem.

Though Russia retains far more military hardware than Ukraine, its ability to use it — which is what ultimately matters — has been depleted.

Ukraine’s primary advantage is morale rather than hardware. The war has strengthened Ukrainian nationalism, giving its soldiers a genuine feeling of fighting for liberation. Russian forces, on the other hand, face the reality of fighting an unsuccessful war of aggression against people many regard as being just like them.

Morale gulf

As Russia introduces 300,000 reservists who are not happy to be in the armed forces in the first place, the morale gulf between the Russian and Ukraine forces will become more pronounced. Right now, it’s unlikely an influx of reluctant Russian troops will drastically change the outcome of the war.

More at https://theconversation.com/the-russian-draft-isnt-likely-to-help-vlad
imir-putin-win-the-war-in-ukraine-191838

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 9:46 AM

SECOND

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


Posting on Telegram, Ultranationalist Alexander Dugin, known as "Putin's Brain," called the Russian president an autocrat with ultimate power over the war as he accused him of "surrendering" the city on November 12.

He said that the retreat undermines Russian ideology by failing to defend "Russian cities." On 30 September President Putin formally annexed four Ukrainian provinces, including the southern Kherson region, into Russia.

Pro-war Dugin, whose daughter was killed in a Moscow car explosion earlier this year, said an autocrat has a responsibility to save his nation all by himself or face the fate of the "king of the rains," according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The U.S. think tank said the quote was a reference to Sir James Frazer's 'The Golden Bough', where a king was killed because he was unable to deliver rain amidst a drought.

The ISW added: "Dugin also noted that the autocrat cannot repair this deviation from ideology merely with public appearances, noting that 'the authorities in Russia cannot surrender anything else' and that 'the limit has been reached.'"

Dugin then referenced the use of tactical nuclear weapons. According to the ISW: "He (Dugin) suggested, however, that Russia must commit to the Russian idea rather than pursuing the 'stupid' use of nuclear weapons." (Is there a 'smart' use? Is Russian 'smart' nearly the same as 'stupid'?)

Russian state TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, who is nicknamed "Putin's voice" due to his support of the president, expressed frustration at Moscow's forces blowing up bridges as they retreated from Kherson.

On Saturday, Solovyov, appearing on his Vesti FM radio show 'Full Contact,' claimed Russia had withdrawn its troops from some parts of Ukraine as a "goodwill gesture." But he soon became increasingly animated and suggested the Russian army should have attacked Ukrainian infrastructure earlier as he discussed reports that troops had blown up bridges across the Dnipro river during their retreat.

He said: "I've been screaming out loud since February that we need to strike the bridges, destroy the infrastructure, delivery entryways. They [Russian military] said, 'You don't understand anything, they'll bring their equipment to the same area and we will smash it!'

"So did you smash it? You don't understand, it's a brotherly nation, we'll have to restore these bridges, we'll enter through them." He added: "Where? Where will we enter? When they were leaving [Kherson], they blew up the bridges. Where are we going to enter?"

Newsweek has contacted the U.K. Ministry of Defence and the Kremlin for comment.
(The question being asked by Newsweek: Are Russians crazy? Or do they only appear crazy because they are the most brilliant people with the greatest military minds on Earth?)

More at https://www.newsweek.com/putins-brain-turns-russian-leader-king-rains-
warning-1759139

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 12:15 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
All you do is post propaganda dude.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
6ix, it was just last week that you predicted the Democratic Party is dead.


Mail in fraud is a thing that needs to be taken care of.

Have you stopped to ask yourself just how in the hell the Republicans won the popular vote in the mid-terms? That hasn't happened once before in my life.

All it takes is a bunch of harvested, unsolicited mail-in fraud ballots in swing states to win. You guys have done it twice now.

The funny thing is that you never do it in states like California and New York because you should always win those and look what happened there. A few surprises, huh?

My predictions are sound. You guys keep cheating and you'll get that Civil War you keep talking about. Fuck around and find out.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
6ix, you are insane.


No. I'm not.

You didn't notice that yet, did you?

Democrat Popular vote (2022): 47,301,792 - 46.7%
Republican Popular vote (2022): 52,084,705 - 51.4%
Republicans (2022) - +4.7

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2022/house/

Republicans managed so far to have nearly 5 Million more votes than Democrats did in the popular vote. Two years ago, Democrats had 5 Million more votes than Republicans in California alone.

California Democrat votes (2020): 11,110,250 63.5% 34.3%
California Republican votes (2020): 6,006,429
California Democrats (2020) - 29.2%

https://www.cookpolitical.com/2020-national-popular-vote-tracker

You guys cheated. Twice now.

How many times do you suppose you're going to get away with that?

You are going to find out.

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

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 12:44 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Surovikin’s Difficult Choice
Russia Abandons Kherson
Big Serge

SECUND: <-- WHO IS THIS?


I don't know. Who cares?
Does what he post make sense, or not?

Quote:
Big Serge: ... hard at work in Pavlovka.

While the world was fixated on the relatively bloodless change of hands in Kherson, Russia and Ukraine fought a bloody battle for Pavlovka, and Russia won. Ukraine also attempted to break Russia’s defenses in the Svatove axis, and was repulsed with heavy casualties. ... https://bigserge.substack.com/p/surovkins-difficult-choice

SECOND: Signym, this is a load of bullshit from the anonymous BigSerge.

YOU don't mind posting anonymous sources, so . BFD.

Yes, Russia just took Pavlovka. Not sure where the focus will be next. I heard a couple of comments elsewhere that made sense. One of them was that Surovikin was made overall commander bc the militias were each fighting their own war, attacking Bakhmut then switching to Advivka, launching a scattering of unfocused attacks. (This was a bit like Syria, that really didn't have a national army, just a hodgepodge of essentially local militias. It was difficult to get a militia to fight in another region, so defenses were scattered and unfocused. Eventually Russia gave up trying to retrain the Syrian Army and just created a whole new division. But that's another story.)

The other is that Surovikin will have to show SOMEthing for this tactic. Apparently it was a hard-fought decision that had been argued over for a long time. The military wanted one thing, the politicians wanted something else.

I wonder if maybe Russia annexed territories not so much to take land but to unify the military command and increase its population. But again, that's another story.

Quote:
SECOND: The comment section is pure Russian propaganda:
But I didn't post, or even read, the comment section. It's not what Big Serge posted, so ...

Did what he write make sense? Is it consistent with the facts? It seems so to me.
Why aren't you addressing that instead of going off in the comments?

Oh, I know. It's bc you can't.

I notice that whenever your argument runs into trouble you change the topic. Usually you post something about Trump and insult people.

So obvious.

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


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Sunday, November 13, 2022 1:56 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It's not what Big Serge posted, so ...

Did what he write make sense? Is it consistent with the facts? It seems so to me.
Why aren't you addressing that instead of going off in the comments?

Oh, I know. It's bc you can't.

I notice that whenever your argument runs into trouble you change the topic. Usually you post something about Trump and insult people.

So obvious.
Consistency and logic are easy to create, Signym. Novelists create consistency and logic as a way of life. Perhaps you read The Lord of the Rings? Tolkien's world creation is consistent and logical, but it is not real. Neither is Big Serge's world creation real. Despite Tolkien and Big Serge being in the same business, you don't believe either, except if you suspend your judgment and become a believer in fantasies.

Here is an example of a fantasy, but it does have some real quotes from other people's fantasies:

A creeping coup is underway in Russia as high-ranking officials are deliberately not carrying out orders properly to "sabotage" Vladimir Putin, a respected Moscow political analyst has claimed. The Russian president is being hit by a “paralysis in decision-making”, according to analyst Kirill Rogov.

While Mr Rogov does not expect an “archaic palace coup” as the president’s “powerful” security service will protect him, he has still forecast that ultimately “it will disappear with him”.

Unease with the war in Ukraine and its impact on the economy and society is threatening Putin’s power, he indicated.

Mr Rogov was formerly a leading research fellow at the Institute for Economic Policy, and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and is now a senior researcher with the INDEM Foundation and a Board Member of the Liberal Mission Foundation.

He said: “A conspiracy can be a creeping one. Sabotage of decisions becomes the most effective type of plot.” A refusal to execute decisions “does not imply high risks” but is effective in undermining the regime, he claimed on YouTube in a channel linked to the Andrei Sakharov Foundation.

“When some fraction of the elites feels strong enough to show it, then it becomes a plot to a significant extent,” said Rogov, who has previously advised the Russian government. “It is enough to have the forces that will not allow the president’s security service to arrest you…”

His words could indicate a widespread resistance to Putin and his war within high-ranking officials, with Russian officials and others finding subtle means to disrupt his operations.

“It is hard to conduct an archaic palace coup, but that is not necessary, because political mechanisms work differently.” He stated:”If some fraction [of the Russian elites] has enough power to make decisions and to disobey, and to be invulnerable in their area of responsibility, then it already is a collapse of management which is followed by serious consequences….

“Because everyone else sees that it can be done, and unpleasant things start happening.”

Meanwhile one of Putin’s leading cronies issued an appeal for Russians to stay loyal to the beleaguered president.

“Only the closest unity, daily hard work and the highest morale can ensure victory for the country,” said ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Kremlin’s shadowy security council.

His statement, appearing to smack of desperation, ignored the humiliating loss of Kherson.

“It is Russia that protects its citizens,” he said,“and that it is our country that returns and has already returned its ancestral Russian land…and this will continue.”

He claimed it was Putin and “not the States and Britain or dark Kyiv” that was “shaping the future world order”, and that Russia “alone is fighting NATO and the Western world”. “Therefore any parallels with the past are wrong or tentative. Except for one: we alone know how to destroy a powerful enemy or enemy alliances.”

The Putin apologist said: “Russia is fighting, trying to save the lives of our servicemen and civilians as much as possible. “Our enemies do not count the lives of their soldiers and civilians. And that is our great moral difference with them.”

He claimed that Russia “has not yet used its entire arsenal of possible means of destruction for reasons that are obvious to all reasonable people. “Nor has it struck every possible enemy target located in populated areas. And not just out of our inherent human kindness. All in good time.”

The statements come after Russian forces suffered a humiliating loss in Kherson, the only regional capital they took since beginning their invasion of Ukraine, with even Putin's extensive propagandists struggling to put a positive spin on the defeat.

Russian armed forces appeared to be in retreat across the Dnipro river, while blue and yellow flags once more festooned official buildings.

Nonetheless, the mood in Kyiv remains one of caution, with Zelensky reportedly wary of a trap in the so-called "media war".

Although retreating across the river, Russian forces are now likely to dig themselves into stronger defensive positions for what looks to be a harsh winter.

Meanwhile, the memory of chilling reports from liberated regions Mariupol, Kharkhiv, and Zaporizhzhia makes the blood run cold at the prospect of what further evidence of war crimes may yet be uncovered in Kherson.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/putin-threatened-creeping-cou
p-orders-28474455

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 2:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It's not what Big Serge posted, so ...

Did what he write make sense? Is it consistent with the facts? It seems so to me.
Why aren't you addressing that instead of going off in the comments?

Oh, I know. It's bc you can't.

I notice that whenever your argument runs into trouble you change the topic. Usually you post something about Trump and insult people.

So obvious.

SECOND: Consistency and logic are easy to create, Signym. Novelists create consistency and logic as a way of life. Perhaps you read The Lord of the Rings? Tolkien's world creation is consistent and logical, but it is not real.

blah blah blah ...

There's one thing missing from your bullshit... well, there ate several things missing from your crap splatter, SECOND.
Logic.
And consistency.
Bc you CONSTANTLY contradict yourself.

That's a problem with lying: it's hatd to keep your story straight, innit?
You don't even bother with that anymore, do you?

But besides that, the other important missing thing?
Evidence.

You think that if you post some made-up gossip, rumor, and allegation (which btw contradicts your other gossip, rumors, and allegations*) that has anything to do with reality?

It's completely knowable whether Russia withdrew from an area, or took an area.

* For example, you JUST POSTED that Putin has widespread support. Now you're posting that there are coup plotters. That's why I don't read your posts. They're as meaningful as crap-splatters on a wall.

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


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Sunday, November 13, 2022 2:49 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
All you do is post propaganda dude.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
6ix, it was just last week that you predicted the Democratic Party is dead.


Mail in fraud is a thing that needs to be taken care of.

Have you stopped to ask yourself just how in the hell the Republicans won the popular vote in the mid-terms? That hasn't happened once before in my life.

All it takes is a bunch of harvested, unsolicited mail-in fraud ballots in swing states to win. You guys have done it twice now.

The funny thing is that you never do it in states like California and New York because you should always win those and look what happened there. A few surprises, huh?

My predictions are sound. You guys keep cheating and you'll get that Civil War you keep talking about. Fuck around and find out.

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
6ix, you are insane.


No. I'm not.

You didn't notice that yet, did you?

Democrat Popular vote (2022): 47,301,792 - 46.7%
Republican Popular vote (2022): 52,084,705 - 51.4%
Republicans (2022) - +4.7

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2022/house/

Republicans managed so far to have nearly 5 Million more votes than Democrats did in the popular vote. Two years ago, Democrats had 5 Million more votes than Republicans in California alone.

California Democrat votes (2020): 11,110,250 63.5% 34.3%
California Republican votes (2020): 6,006,429
California Democrats (2020) - 29.2%

https://www.cookpolitical.com/2020-national-popular-vote-tracker

You guys cheated. Twice now.

How many times do you suppose you're going to get away with that?

You are going to find out.

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

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 3:02 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

There's one thing missing from your bullshit... well, there ate several things missing from your crap splatter, SECOND.
Logic.
And consistency.
Bc you CONSTANTLY contradict yourself.
Let's make it clear: Russian military leadership needs a bullet in the back of the head. Two to make sure it is dead. Hunting season is now open.

The West must stop ‘shooting behind the duck’ and provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs

by Garrett I. Campbell, Opinion Contributor
8-10 minutes

Eight months into Russia’s invasion, Vladimir Putin remains committed to the territorial conquest and destruction of Ukraine. Ukrainians have had successes, such as the recent counteroffensive around Kharkiv and now Russia’s ordered pullout from Kherson. Still, the future is uncertain, with winter approaching and the outcome of Putin’s mobilization in play. The West must stop “shooting behind the duck” regarding its military aid to Ukraine.

Ukraine has shown it can defeat Russian forces and deter future Russian aggression, but it requires Western leaders to recognize what Russia is doing militarily and what is needed to defeat it. It’s time for the West to send a strong message to Putin and his generals that come spring, their military will meet a worse fate if they renew the offensive.

Russia’s strategic approach to the war is neither haphazard nor representative of a military power grasping at straws. Russia is pursuing a war-of-attrition strategy meant to slowly wear down the Ukrainian military while relentlessly destroying civilian infrastructure. Putin is playing the long game and, predictably, has fallen back on traditional Russian military strategy and doctrine.

After its defeat in the initial phase of the war and the battle for Kyiv, Russia shifted its military strategy to seizing the Donbas. The shift represented a definitive return to Russia’s traditional doctrinal approach of attrition warfare. It quickly became evident that Ukraine needed weapons to offset Russian firepower advantages, more than simply Javelins and Stingers. Withholding heavier weapons contributed to the destruction of Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. From May to July, many observers opined that Ukrainian military losses were unsustainable, and in an effort to avoid the destruction of its Donbas forces, the Ukrainians retreated from their last positions in Luhansk Oblast, allowing the Russians to occupy roughly 25 percent of Ukrainian territory.

Wars of attrition go both ways, however, and the Russian strategy of attrition effectively exhausted their own army. As Russia paused to reconstitute its forces, Ukraine began to field an influx of Western artillery systems, including HIMARS, to destroy Russian command-and-control and logistics hubs and key infrastructure such as the bridges, robbing the Russians of the operational pause they needed and setting the stage for Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

While the Russians prepared for the counteroffensive around Kherson, Ukraine’s biggest success came by exploiting the weakened Russian defenses around Kharkiv. With the momentum again swinging in favor of Ukraine, the Russian military responded by shifting their strategy — again in line with Russian military doctrine. The shift to an air and missile campaign with the aim of decimating Ukraine’s civil and military infrastructure is central to attrition warfare. However, the West once more found itself shooting behind the duck and scrambling to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses.

While rightfully characterized as a “terror campaign” against Ukrainian civilians, we are witnessing the execution of well-known elements of Russian military doctrine — strategic aerospace operations against critical infrastructure meant to disorganize and undermine an adversary’s war effort. It’s a rough version of Russian strategic aerospace operations (SAO) and strategic operations to destroy critical infrastructure targets (SODCIT), two of the four Russian military strategic operations developed for war with NATO. With a new Russian commander in Ukraine — Gen. Sergey Surovikin, the former aerospace commander who employed this strategic operation effectively in Syria — it should be no surprise that the Russians returned to this element of their military doctrine.

The recognizable shifts in Russian military strategy provide Western leaders with a guide for future security assistance efforts that might deter and defeat Russian forces. With this in mind, it is likely the aerospace campaign will be followed by a return to major ground offensives. Now is the time to stop shooting behind the duck and proactively provide the Ukrainians what they need to continue to alter the course of the war.

Of course, this will require more of the same weapons that have forced the Russian military to change its strategy — artillery, HIMARS, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS), and armored vehicles — as well as new ones that we have been reluctant to provide. Some will require training that can be undertaken during the winter; others can be transferred now to ensure the Ukrainians can both keep the Russian military on its heels and remain ready come spring.

The arrival of NATO air defense systems is welcomed, but it is time to revisit the strike-fighter debate and provide modern aircraft. Russia’s response to the West’s earlier self-deterrence regarding the transfer of MiG-29 aircraft has been continuous escalation using air and missile attacks on Ukraine’s cities. In addition to drones, Iran reportedly now may provide Russia with advanced missile systems to replace its depleted inventory. This cannot go unanswered. We should no longer deny the Ukrainians armed combat drones such as the MQ-1 Predator/Gray Eagle and MQ-9 Reaper.

The attack on the Black Sea Fleet on Oct. 29 should be just the beginning. The West should continue to provide such systems, as the strategic implications of Russia’s ability to wage unrestricted drone and missile strikes on NATO’s Black Sea periphery and project maritime power from southern Russia are obvious. Empowering the Ukrainians to impose losses on Russian air and naval platforms (and their sanctuary operating areas) will impart to Putin what he will incur if he continues the war.

There are also short-term answers to meet the next shift in Russian strategy, likely to springtime ground offensives. Ukraine needs Army Tactical Advanced Missile Systems (ATACMS) with greater ranges to destroy Russian logistics and C2 nodes and drone bases. GMLRS and 155mm cluster munitions, specifically the Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM), are needed. These munitions are compatible with current systems, bring efficiencies, and can be provided immediately. The Ukrainians understand the risks associated with these weapons and we should honor that. For naysayers who rebuke the idea of transferring cluster munitions because the United States has a moratorium on providing them, or for fear of escalation, we have failed to get out in front of the Russian military strategy to date and, as a result, the Ukrainians have been unable to set conditions for negotiated conflict termination.

This is no ordinary time. The West has acknowledged the stakes that Putin’s war presents to the European security environment and international order. If we continue to shoot behind the duck, allowing the Russians to reconstitute their forces and launch springtime offensives, we will be confronted with these same decisions again, after more Ukrainian lives and territory have been lost.

Putin has responded to Western self-deterrence with escalation, reinforcing his belief that he is winning and the West is weak and strategically inept. Shifts in Russia’s strategy aligned with their military doctrine provide us with clues to where they are going. These trends may be imperfect, but they are still evident — and the West must send a strong message by providing weapons for not only today’s fight, but also tomorrow’s. That could irreversibly alter Putin’s strategic calculus and level of risk, and thus the course of this war.

Retired Capt. Garrett I. Campbell directed the U.S Navy’s Staff OPNAV N5 Russia Strategy, Policy, and Engagement Branch, and served as a federal executive fellow at the Brookings Institution.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3727884-the-west-must-st
op-shooting-behind-the-duck-and-provide-ukraine-the-weapons-it-needs/

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

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Sunday, November 13, 2022 3:29 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Didn't even bother to read, SECOND.
It prolly contradicts your immediately previous post.
I hope you don't mind.


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


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Sunday, November 13, 2022 4:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Didn't even bother to read, SECOND.
It prolly contradicts your immediately previous post.
I hope you don't mind.


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





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

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

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Monday, November 14, 2022 7:45 AM

SECOND

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


Day 264

Zelenskiy accused Russian soldiers of war crimes and killing civilians in Kherson. “Investigators have already documented more than 400 Russian war crimes. Bodies of dead civilians and servicemen have been found. The Russian army left behind the same savagery it did in other regions of the country it entered,” he said on Sunday.

Significant new damage to the major Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, which the Russians attempted to blow up during their withdrawal from nearby Kherson, was seen via satellite imagery from US company Maxar. Ukrainian authorities are trying to assess the damage and it is not clear if the structural integrity of the reservoir is at risk. With a water volume of 18.2 cubic km, the reservoir could flood a huge area, including the city of Kherson, if destroyed.

Pro-Moscow forces are putting up a fierce fight in the eastern Donetsk region. “Battles in Donetsk region are just as intense as they have been in previous days,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “The level of Russian attacks has not declined. And the level of our resilience and courage is at its highest. We will not allow them through our defence.”

US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, said some sanctions on Russia could remain in place even after any peace agreement with Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported. Yellen said that any eventual peace agreement would involve a review of the penalties the US and its allies have imposed on Russia’s economy, according to the Journal. “I suppose in the context of some peace agreement, adjustment of sanctions is possible and could be appropriate,” Yellen said in an interview in Indonesia, where she is attending the G20 summit.

Russia’s education minister, Sergey Kravstov, has said that military training will return to Russian schools next September, according to the latest update by the UK’s Ministry of Defence. The programme is supported by Russia’s Ministry of Defence, which states that no less than 140 hours per academic year should be devoted to this training.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/14/russia-ukraine-war-at-a-
glance-what-we-know-on-day-265-of-the-invasion

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

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Monday, November 14, 2022 8:39 AM

SECOND

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


Both sides are already fighting in very muddy conditions. They will not likely stop fighting when winter freezes the ground and makes it even more conducive to large-scale mechanized maneuver warfare. Combat is more likely to intensify than to slacken as temperatures drop.

Any attempt at a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities at this time would overwhelmingly favor Russia. Putin should desire such a ceasefire in his own interest. He should recognize that he needs to give his forces time to recover and allow the reservists flowing into the theater time to integrate into their units, train up, and prepare for serious combat. He should want to stop the Ukrainians from capitalizing on the emotional lift of their recent victories. The fact that Putin continues to whip his generals to offensives in these circumstances is thus a grave error from a military perspective. It likely results from whatever psychological factors led Putin to order the invasion in the first place but also increasingly from Putin’s need to show his toughness to the hardline faction led, at least in public, by Wagner financier Yevgeny Prigozhin. Putin is unlikely to be willing to seek a ceasefire, therefore, unless it is accompanied by tremendous Ukrainian or international concessions.

Napoleon famously quipped: Never interrupt your enemy whilst he is in the midst of making a mistake. That aphorism has never been truer — Ukraine and its backers should take advantage of Putin’s error by continuing to press the counter-offensive in circumstances far more favorable to Kyiv than to Moscow.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221114075054/https://www.understandingwa
r.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates

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

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Monday, November 14, 2022 9:44 AM

SECOND

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


Putin’s losing. Now what?

Western allies are war-gaming scenarios, from accelerating civilian atrocities in Ukraine to sabotage in Europe to Russian schemes to bide time.

Sabotage European life

Russia is unlikely to directly challenge a NATO ally, but the Kremlin appears increasingly willing to clandestinely take out the systems undergirding NATO countries’ societies.

First, there were explosions on the Nord Stream undersea gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe — a sabotage plot with suspected Kremlin fingerprints.

Then, over the weekend, someone cut the cables keeping Germany’s trains running, raising the specter of another possible Kremlin plot.

Other possible sabotage scenarios are, disturbingly, myriad.

“We have many pipelines, oil and gas, we have data cables,” said Latvia’s Prime Minister Krišjanis Karinš.

“We simply need to increase our own awareness of what could be vulnerable,” he said in a phone interview, “and then strengthen the defense of our potentially vulnerable infrastructure.”

NATO conceded earlier this year in an updated strategy document that such “hybrid attacks” could grow serious enough to trigger the military alliance’s Article 5 clause, which states that a military attack on one ally is an attack on all.

Speaking on Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that following the Nord Stream incidents the alliance has “doubled” its presence in the Baltic and North Seas and that allies are “increasing security around key installations.”

Yet despite efforts over the past years to boost “resilience” across NATO, experts and officials acknowledge that Europe’s infrastructure networks are so vast — and often owned by private companies — that governments’ options are limited.

National authorities can increase patrols, on land and sea — thus boosting deterrence — but even then it is not feasible to monitor everything. There’s also the cyber threat, which adds yet another unwieldy dimension.

“It is very difficult” to assess in advance where and how an attack could happen, and to adopt protective measures, said Brauss.

“In general,” he added, “we all are vulnerable.”

Buy time

While Putin is seemingly raising the stakes, experts said he is also likely trying to buy time, hoping that cold weather will change the conflict’s dynamics and the west will ultimately tire of arming and funding Ukraine.

“Putin has shifted from ‘how do I win this?’ to ‘how do I avoid losing this?’ approach,” said Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He called the Russian leader’s approach “strategic patience.”

Putin’s move to draft several hundred thousand new Russians into the fight is part of this ploy, experts argued.

“The whole purpose for this is to trade bodies for time,” said Hodges, the former American commander.

Western leaders are well aware Putin is betting on war fatigue and high energy prices to reduce public interest in supporting Ukraine. In response, there is a sense in western capitals that Ukraine’s allies must develop their own long-term strategy and still consider Putin — despite the setbacks — a vital threat.

“The problem,” according to one senior western European diplomat, “is that he is still strong, or has strong capabilities at his disposal. Our response to unpredictability can only be predictability. This is what we have ensured over the past months.”

Russia watchers also cautioned that Moscow’s long game — whether under Putin or a possible future regime — can go far beyond Ukraine. Russia has an extensive history of fueling unrest abroad, with a particular focus on the former Soviet countries along the EU’s eastern edge.

“I believe we have to be prepared for further escalations,” said Daniel S. Hamilton, a former U.S. official who is now a senior fellow at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute. Western governments, he argued on a recent panel, must be “prepared for an unsettled situation as far east as you want to go in Europe.”

Threaten the apocalypse

Then there’s the prospect of nuclear war — a concept that seemed unthinkable until recently.

Specialists caution that nukes remain the least-likely option for Moscow, whether it be a tactical nuke with more limited power, a nuclear bomb exploded over the water as a show of force, or an all-out nuclear assault.

“Obviously, we focus understandably on the hints of nuclear use,” said Galeotti. “I think we’re a long way away from that, if ever.”

Instead, the nuclear rhetoric, according to officials and experts, offers an intimidation tactic meant to scare both people within Ukraine and across the NATO countries backing Kyiv.

Western leaders have adopted a two-pronged approach — don’t let the nuclear rhetoric dictate Ukraine policy and simultaneously warn Moscow of the disastrous consequences that would come with any nuclear action.

“If Russia can threaten nuclear weapons in order to secure territory that it has temporarily conquered, then we are all — any of us — subject to blackmail,” said Karinš, the Latvian prime minister. “So what next, Putin, Russian troops move into Moldova and threaten nuclear attack if anyone does anything about it? And then it probably can just go further and further.”

The consensus is that Washington must take the lead on dissuading Putin from breaking the nuclear taboo, laying out exactly how it would respond.

Major countries like China and India, which are helping keep Russia’s economy afloat, could also play a role. A nuclear assault would inevitably shock an already tremoring international system and global economy, something even Russia’s allies would like to avoid.

Thus far, American officials have stayed deliberately vague on their response plan, indicating that Washington has communicated its thinking privately to Russian officials. Expectations are that the U.S. reaction would not involve its own nuclear arsenal, but that it would certainly be severe.

“They’ll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been,” Biden vowed in September, without offering specifics.

“I’m not sure that we would respond in kind,” said SAIS’s Hamilton.

But there are “many responses,” he said, that “would be consequential.”

More at https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-president-vladimir-putin-losing
-war-ukraine-now-what/

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

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Monday, November 14, 2022 12:26 PM

THG




Hello SECOND. Anything Putin does only exposes possible holes in NATO's defense, i.e., cyber. That brings them to or attention and allows us to address them. It shows us what else Russia has in its war arsenal and how it plans to wage wars in the future.

T

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Monday, November 14, 2022 1:22 PM

SECOND

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


The Russian army’s trouble runs deep

by Alexander J. Motyl, Opinion Contributor, 11/14/22

Nov. 6 may go down in history as one of the most important dates in the Russo-Ukrainian War. On that day, the 155th Marine Brigade of the Russian armed forces penned a letter to the governor of Primorsky region in the Far East in which they openly and unabashedly blamed their commanders for the loss of 300 men and half their tanks and mechanized vehicles in just four days of fighting against the Ukrainians. https://t.me/grey_zone/15698
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/11/07/elite-russian-marine-unit-sl
ams-military-leaders-for-baffling-battle-losses-a79303

Besides accusing their commanders of falsifying casualty data, they also claim that the commanders are incompetent, concerned only with self-promotion, and utterly indifferent to the lives of their men, whom “they call fodder.” Unfortunately, although “there are good commanders, they are a minority that’s been consumed by the system” that favors “these pedophiles,” the letter states. The 155th Brigade concluded its appeal by asking the governor to “turn to the Supreme One” — presumably a reference to Vladimir Putin — to form an independent commission to investigate matters.

The letter is important for several reasons.

First, the marines were not afraid to make these accusations publicly. That may be because they are fearless fighters who want nothing but justice or desperate soldiers on the margins of survival — or both. Either way, Russian soldiers are obviously getting restless. They know, far better than the ethically challenged Russian population and the morally evil Russian elites, just what conditions are like on the front. The soldiers know they are losing, and they know they are losing because the army is poorly led, poorly equipped, and poorly fed. And I’ll bet the marines also suspect that the “Supreme One” has something to do with the catastrophe that is killing them.

Second, if the 155th Brigade is experiencing such doubts and fears, we may be certain that they are not alone. Many other brigades, facing the same kind of incompetence and experiencing the same kind of losses, surely believe that something is grossly amiss in the army and its leadership. All Russian soldiers along the entire front are probably desperate and suffer from low morale and despondency. While writing an appeal to one governor in the distant East does not amount to a rebellion, it does, if multiplied by scores of not-yet-written letters, presage a rebellious mood that will do nothing to hasten a Russian military victory. It will take very little — a trigger, a spark, some chance event — to spur Russian soldiers to mass insubordination. Before long, the Supreme One will become the focus of the soldiers’ ire.

Third, 300 casualties in just four days are a lot. Fifty percent of tanks and other mechanized vehicles is also a stunningly large figure. Not only do these numbers testify to the incompetence of the Russian army but they also suggest, perhaps even prove, that Ukrainian estimates of Russian fatalities are accurate. As of Nov. 9, the Ukrainians claim to have killed 77,950 Russians. In the past two to three weeks, Kyiv estimated that approximately 500 to 800 Russian soldiers lost their lives daily. The numbers strike some analysts as too high, but the marines’ letter lends them a high degree of plausibility. If only one brigade lost that many soldiers, how many soldiers died if that brigade’s experience wasn’t unique?

In a word, Russia is losing badly, and thousands of young Russians are being sacrificed to the maniacal dreams of an unhinged elite and deranged Supreme One.

Just how delusional Russian elites have become is evident in a Nov. 4 Telegram statement by former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s sidekick and attack dog. Here’s an especially juicy part that, I emphasize, reflects the rhetoric of the entire Russian elite:

“A part of a dying world is against us today. It’s a handful of mad Nazi drug addicts, people who’ve been drugged and intimidated by them, and a large pack of howling dogs from the Western kennel. With them is a motley pack of grunting swine and the narrow-minded people from the fallen Western empire who have saliva running down their chin as a result of degeneration. They have no faith and ideals, except for the harmful habits they invent and the standards of doublethink they impose, denying the morality granted to normal people. Therefore, by rising up against them, we have acquired sacred power.”

Small wonder that the Russian army is in deep trouble. With political and military leaders incapable of living in the real world, victory is impossible and defeat is inevitable. Nov. 6 may come to be known as the date the Russian army realized that.

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3727910-the-russian-army
s-trouble-runs-deep/

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

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Monday, November 14, 2022 3:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I haven't bothered to read, SECOND.

It probably contradicts your immediately previous post.

I hope you don't mind.



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


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Monday, November 14, 2022 5:00 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I haven't bothered to read, SECOND.

It probably contradicts your immediately previous post.

I hope you don't mind.



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

I have a theory that Signym leaves clues to what is wrong with Signym's mind.

Here are two clues from today that were left at around 3 AM in the morning, when sane people are asleep: http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65350&mid=11646
52#1164652
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Hahaha!! I don't know, but I'm glad it hasn't been driiled into my head, yet!

When was it aired??

I generally DON'T listen to music. I knew people at work, it was their passion. They went to Coachella every year and it was like a competition almost to find the newest most under- appreciated group/singer before anyone else did.

I think the only time I listen is when somebody brings something tomy attention. I heard "some of us" on Bones and "Hallelujah" in Shrek. When I was reviewing data somebody brought me a thumb drive of compiled videogame music, so that started me on PrimeCronus. Or I would hear something that somebody was playing at work that was interesting. One of the posters here (I forget who) put me on to Two Cellos, and that popped up the Pentatonix. And if course there's Favorite Songs that exposes me to music I might not have heard otherwise. I bunny trailed my way to the call to prayer (it's quite beautiful), church bells, and other liturgical music.

But mostly, I don't listen. Lots of music passes me by. I actually listen to geopolitical podcasts when I'm working in the kitchen, it keeps me from getting bored but it's what I call "bubblegum for the mind"- I chew on it while it's there but when it's gone, it's gone.

I should probably find a more productive use fro my ears. Stock picks, or something.

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

The clues about Signym's state of mind are in the songs!

Clue 1) "Hallelujah" in Shrek

Clue 2) "some of us" on Bones

So much sadness in each song:

1) Shrek (2001) - Hallelujah Scene



Shrek didn't use the whole song, but here are the complete Shrek Hallelujah Lyrics



2) Bones ~ Some of Us with lyrics



6ixstringJack gave far too many clues about his damaged mind when he reviewed the movie Joker. 6ix convinced me that his life story is as horrifying as the origin story of the Joker. It is absolutely no surprise when 6ix has written a dozen times: "Fuck Ukraine." The movie version of Joker would feel the same toward 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, November 14, 2022 5:03 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I haven't bothered to read, SECOND.

It probably contradicts your immediately previous post.

I hope you don't mind.




He said Russia is getting its ass kick.

Can_you_see_me_laughing?

T

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Monday, November 14, 2022 5:33 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

I haven't bothered to read, SECOND.
It probably contradicts your immediately previous post.
I hope you don't mind.


SECIND: I have a theory that Signym leaves clues to what is wrong with Signym's mind. blah blah blah
Son, you don't leave "clues" you leave great sweeping walls of incoherence.
And libel, personal insults, and red herrings.
When you start putting some thought into your posts, they might be worth reading.



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


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Monday, November 14, 2022 6:08 PM

SECOND

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:

I haven't bothered to read, SECOND.
It probably contradicts your immediately previous post.
I hope you don't mind.


SECIND: I have a theory that Signym leaves clues to what is wrong with Signym's mind. blah blah blah
Son, you don't leave "clues" you leave great sweeping walls of incoherence.
And libel, personal insults, and red herrings.
When you start putting some thought into your posts, they might be worth reading.



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

A new clue for Signym, but about Russia rather than about Signym:

EU at UN-NY @EUatUN tweeted:

Adopted Today @UN General Assembly recognizes Russia must be held accountable for its aggression against Ukraine.

Adopted by 94 to 14 votes, the #UNGA resolution recommends the establishment of a registry of damages & recognizes the need for compensation for damages caused.

European External Action Service - EEAS and 6 others
12:32 PM · Nov 14, 2022 ·Twitter Web App
https://twitter.com/EUatUN/status/1592224051086651392

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

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 3:29 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I haven't bothered to read, SECOND.
It probably contradicts your immediately previous post.
I hope you don't mind.


SECOND: I have a theory that Signym leaves clues to what is wrong with Signym's mind. blah blah blah

SIGNY: Son, you don't leave "clues" you leave great sweeping walls of incoherence.
And libel, personal insults, and red herrings.
When you start putting some thought into your posts, they might be worth reading.


[
SECOND: A new clue for Signym, but about Russia rather than about Signym:

EU at UN-NY @EUatUN tweeted:

Adopted Today @UN General Assembly recognizes Russia must be held accountable for its aggression against Ukraine.

Adopted by 94 to 14 votes,
Let's see... 193 members. That's 94 for, 14 against, and 85 abstentions.

Since arithemtic isn't your thing, there were more no votes and abstentions (99) than votes for. Not a ringing endorsement, is it?

You know what this is about? Ursula van der Crazy is trying to find a way to seize the Russian assets that they froze last year. The EU is just trying to find a way to steal Russia's money.


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


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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 5:51 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Let's see... 193 members. That's 94 for, 14 against, and 85 abstentions.

Since arithemtic isn't your thing, there were more no votes and abstentions (99) than votes for. Not a ringing endorsement, is it?

You know what this is about? Ursula van der Crazy is trying to find a way to seize the Russian assets that they froze last year. The EU is just trying to find a way to steal Russia's money.


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

Obviously, you failed to see the point about Russian behavior, Signym. Will you fail to understand this next point because some nations abstain from expressing their opinion of Russia out of fear of Russia?

The Death Penalty – Russian Style

Footage of the summary killing of Yevgeny Nuzhin was posted over the weekend by the Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone. In the video, Nuzhin was shown lying down with his head taped to a brick wall as an unidentified man in combat clothing hits him with a sledgehammer.

Wagner is a notorious military group run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful Russian businessman and a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin, who is under western sanctions for his role in Wagner, on Sunday voiced his approval for the killing, calling Nuzhin a “traitor”. “Nuzhin betrayed his people, betrayed his comrades, betrayed consciously,” he said.

Following his capture by Ukrainian forces in September, Nuzhin gave a series of interviews in the country, in which he said he had joined the Wagner group to get out of prison. In the interviews, he criticised the Russian leadership and expressed his desire to join the Ukrainian forces and fight against Moscow. Unconfirmed reports said Nuzhin had been part of a recent Russian-Ukrainian prisoner exchange.

The Kremlin on Monday sought to distance itself from the video, which has been widely discussed on Russian social media, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying “it was not our business”.

More at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/14/family-expresses-horror-
at-video-of-killing-of-russian-wagner-group-defector

Signym didn’t read, but after WWII, the Russians executed Russians who were freed in prisoner exchanges. And not just Russians. https://web.archive.org/web/20190525192646/https://www.latimes.com/arc
hives/la-xpm-1992-11-12-mn-234-story.html
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/forced-repatriation-to-the-soviet-union
-the-secret-betrayal/

Once again, some nations abstain from expressing their opinion of Russia out of fear of Russia. Signym would take abstentions as evidence that Russia is righteous.

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

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 10:07 AM

SECOND

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


Russia has angrily rejected international calls for it to pay for war damage it has inflicted in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said it would work to stop the West seizing its international reserves to pay for reparations.

Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accused the West of attempting to "formalise robbery" and violate the rules of private property and international law.

There have been previous examples of countries being ordered to pay reparations after conflicts.

The most famous is the 269bn marks that Germany was told to pay by the allies after World War One - around $300bn (£250bn) in today's money.

The high price was intended to ensure that Germany would not be capable of more war for many years.

But it ended up having the opposite effect, as many historians argue the crippling reparations and labelling of Germany as the "guilty" party in the war were a key driver of resentment that led to World War Two.

Germany and other axis powers were also forced to pay reparations after World War Two, but with a greater emphasis on rebuilding damaged infrastructure in Europe than on punishing Germany for its actions.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63632819

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

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 12:32 PM

THG


Hey comrade signym...

T

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 4:32 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I thought this was interesting.

Quote:
The Kherson question
November 15, 2022 22 Comments

Notes and reflections by Nora Hoppe for the Saker blog

To retreat or not to retreat

Preface:
I have no idea about war… I have never experienced one. I understand nothing of military campaigns, strategies, manoeuvres, weapons, etc. I’ve only seen several war films, read novels featuring war and followed the news on various wars…

* * *

I have heard that each war is different, and that comparisons are only useful for “certain aspects”.

I follow the news regularly on Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine. And I have recently read and heard many varying and divisionary views on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, a city that is now lawfully part of Russia.

Dispensing with the views of the pro-NATO side, which are of no interest, I am observing the division of thought amongst analysts, journalists and commenters in forums siding with the Russians: There are those who are outraged and see the withdrawal from Kherson as “a disgrace”, “a sign of weakness”, “an embarrassment”, “a poor strategy”, “unattractive optics”, etc. Others see it as the outcome of a difficult but wise decision – that was primarily made to save the lives of Russian soldiers, who would have been cut off by a massive flood if NATO were to blow up the Kakhovka Dam. (There may well be additional tactical reasons for the withdrawal, but they are not (yet) known to the public.)

When people speak of the “optics not looking good“… a film set immediately comes to my mind (I have worked in the film world for many years). And that immediately tells me how some people view this operation – as spectators: it has to have a good catchy script, suspense, uninterrupted action and – heaven forbid – no lulls! It has to ultimately supply a dopamine release. It has to have a “Dirty Harry Catharsis”.

This reminds me of similar reactions to the prisoner exchange in mid-September, where some saw it as a sign of weakness to even think of releasing Azov prisoners… or when the Chinese government did not deliver a dramatic retort when Pelosi went to do her skit in Taiwan.

What is at the base of these kinds of reactions? Why such impatience? Why such concern with “appearances”? Why such a need to satiate one’s own personal sense of justice and retribution? Does it have something to do with consuming? Especially in the western world one has become an addicted consumer of not only things but “experiences” that can be lived indirectly.

Today we witness events of other peoples’ wars and battles on computer screens from the comfort of our homes or on our tiny phones from chic cafés… these events can accessed at any moment – just press a key… and they appear – like a scene in a film, a game, a contest, a sports match. Even the dead bodies that lie mangled, bloodied or in gory stumps strewn over the mud become the pieces of a broken puppets on a stage. “Hell, one gets used to it…” The sacredness of Life is gone.

We have become spectators… and our world has become a spectacle.

Untitled:Users:Nora:Desktop:image-20151104-21235-9z091s.jpg

In his philosophical work and critique of contemporary consumer culture, “The Society of the Spectacle”, Guy Debord describes modern society as one in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: “All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.” He argues that the history of social life can be understood as “the decline of being into having… and having into merely appearing.” This condition is the “historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonisation of social life.”
As an aside, I witnessed this during one of our lab and staff happy hours. The venue was too noisy to have a conversation or share a laugh with the person across the table. The two most vivacious people, both attractive women were sitting next to each other, mugging for their paired selfies, looking like they were having as much fun as a beer commercial. If you were to look at pictures of their bright smiles and raised beer steins, you would think so, too. Except I was sitting next to one, and from what I could hear the words were vapid and the "fun" was hollow.
I have been at happy hours where people were in stitches. This wasn't one of them.

Quote:
I don’t want to veer off into the film world or into a philosophical discourse here… but I just want to ask the question: When are we going to wake up to the real, authentic world?

When are we going to stop fussing about “cool appearances”, “sensational manoeuvres” and “snappy rebuttals”… and start remembering what this operation is all about in the first place?

Isn’t it essentially about LIVES? Not only about the lives of those who have been suffering injustices and atrocities in Donetsk and Lugansk (and elsewhere) since 2014 (at least)… but also the lives of those fighting for the salvation and survival of those other lives… and – by extension – the lives of sovereign human beings on the planet who yearn to live in a better, multipolar world?
And also the lives of Kiev soldiers being used as cannon fodder?

Quote:
President Vladimir V. Putin had tried to avoid a military response in Ukraine for many long years until the Russian people and Russia began to be faced with its devastation from outside, especially with the burgeoning NATO menace and the enhanced cultivation of the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine. It is not an easy decision to take risky military measures to confront an inevitable clash. In his speech on National Unity Day before the historians and representatives of Russia’s traditional religions on 4th November he visibly expressed his horror and personal pain over the profound tragedy of this clash and over what was befalling the Ukrainian people: “The situation in Ukraine has been driven by its so-called ‘friends’ to the stage where it has become deadly for Russia and suicidal for the Ukrainian people themselves. And we see this even in the nature of the hostilities, what is happening there is simply shocking. It’s just as if the Ukrainian people do not exist. They are thrown into the furnace and that’s it.”

Perhaps the “transient” retreat from Kherson is not a setback and can be even seen as a victory, another kind of victory – a moral victory.
A victory of saving lives over social media spectacles. IMHO.

Quote:
In his powerful masterpiece, “War and Peace”, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy depicts the Battle of Borodino as the greatest example of Russian patriotism… The collective engagement of all those involved in the Battle of Borodino is what ultimately attained the end result: despite all their losses and the sacrificial need to evacuate Moscow and burn its resources – in order to save the army and Russia, the Russians, achieved a moral victory in this battle… which ultimately led to the comprehensive victory of the Russian army and the entire campaign.


The blogosphere horrified at the withdrawal from Kherson city would have been infinitely more horrified at the Russian withdrawal from Moscow and the burning of the harvest...a move that ultimately led to Napoleon's defeat.

Quote:
“Several tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and various uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davýdov family and to the crown serfs—those fields and meadows where for hundreds of years the peasants of Borodinó, Górki, Shevárdino, and Semënovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the dressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space of some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded and unwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to Mozháysk from the one army and back to Valúevo from the other. Other crowds, exhausted and hungry, went forward led by their officers. Others held their ground and continued to fire.” [“War and Peace” – book 10; chapter 39]


The author then goes on to discuss people attaching themselves to some sort of "infinite".

I can't claim to know what the Kiev leadership, or the individual soldiers, are fighting for. Or what the Russian leadership and soldiers are fighting for. I'm overall wary of a fight for an ideology... "freedom", "god", "religion", "patriotism" or something equally evanescent. IMHO if you're going to fight for something, it had better be specific.

But you can find the rest of her article here

http://thesaker.is/the-kherson-question/


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


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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 6:01 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I thought this was interesting.

I can't claim to know what the Kiev leadership, or the individual soldiers, are fighting for. Or what the Russian leadership and soldiers are fighting for. I'm overall wary of a fight for an ideology... "freedom", "god", "religion", "patriotism" or something equally evanescent. IMHO if you're going to fight for something, it had better be specific.
Is this specific enough?

A WWII refugee from Ukraine links Putin’s war to Stalin’s famine

By Oleh Wolowyna

According to our estimates of the famine’s impact, about 4 million people, or 13% of Soviet Ukraine’s population in 1933, were starved to death between 1932 and 1934, and 600,000 children were not born.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an updated version of Stalin’s deliberately manufactured famine. Stalin denied the famine’s existence; Mr. Putin claimed he had no intention of invading Ukraine. Mentioning the famine was punishable by law, as is the case today with describing the invasion as war. Ukrainians starved to death during the Holodomor because Stalin took away most of the grain produced by Ukrainian peasants; Mr. Putin is stealing hundreds of thousands of tons of Ukrainian grain. In terms of Ukrainian identity, though, Mr. Putin has in some ways gone a step further than Stalin by denying the very existence of Ukraine and claiming that all Ukrainians are Russian.

When the war is over, I will probably return to Ukraine and, with my colleagues there, face the task of documenting a second genocide. We will try to determine how many civilians were killed, how many children were not born because of the war, and what proportion of future generations has been lost forever.

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20220627192429/https://www.csmonitor.com/C
ommentary/2022/0627/A-WWII-refugee-from-Ukraine-links-Putin-s-war-to-Stalin-s-famine

Is this specific enough for you, Signym?

R.J. Rummel, Lethal Politics - Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 (Published 1990)

While there are estimates of the number of people killed by Soviet authorities during particular episodes or campaigns, until now, no one has tried to calculate the complete human toll of Soviet genocides and mass murders since the revolution of 1917. Here, R. J. Rummel lists and analyzes hundreds of published estimates, presenting them in the historical context in which they occurred. His shocking conclusion is that, conservatively calculated, 61,911,000 people were systematically killed by the Communist regime from 1917 to 1987.

https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder/dp/15600
08873/

Preface

This book is part of a project on government genocide and mass killing in this century. The aim is to test the hypothesis that the citizens of democracies are the least likely to be murdered by their own governments; the citizens of totalitarian, especially Marxist systems, the most likely. The theory is that democratic systems provide a path to peace, and universalizing them would eliminate war and minimize global political violence. This was the conclusion of my Understanding Conflict and War,' and has been further confirmed by systematic, empirical tests since.

In the process of that research, I discovered that governments have murdered tens of millions of their own citizens, and that in some cases, the death toll may have actually exceeded that of World War II. To get some idea of the numbers involved, I surveyed the extent of genocide and mass killing by governments since 1900. The results were shocking: according to these first figures—independent of war and other kinds of conflict—governments probably have murdered 119,400,000 people—Marxist governments about 95,200,000 of them. By comparison, the battle-killed in all foreign and domestic wars in this century total 35,700,000.

These monstrous statistics sharply reoriented my research. For more than thirty years as a political scientist and peace researcher, I had focused my research on the causes and conditions of war, conflict, and peace. I had believed that war was the greatest killer and that nuclear war would be a global holocaust. Now I have found that the total killed by government in cold blood was almost four times that of war. It was as though a nuclear war had already occurred.

Download all R.J. Rummel books for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.page/search.php?req=R.J.+Rummel

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

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 6:50 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


OMG SECIND, you are so stupid.
The point bounced off your fender-head.

You're posting an analogy as a purpose.
"Putin is like Stalin".
I dispute the analogy.

But more importantly, your post doesn't explain what Russia is fighting FOR.

Dunderhead.
* Walks away, muttering*

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


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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 7:16 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG SECIND, you are so stupid.
The point bounced off your fender-head.

You're posting an analogy as a purpose.
"Putin is like Stalin".
I dispute the analogy.

But more importantly, your post doesn't explain what Russia is fighting FOR.

Dunderhead.
* Walks away, muttering*

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

Putin declared what Russia is fighting for. Pick whichever reasons from Putin's list that you think are real reasons, or pick all of them. I think all of Putin's reasons are lies. He invaded Ukraine for his personal glorification in the history books as the next Peter the Great, but the Russian Army is not performing gloriously. If Putin has to kill a few million Ukrainians on his way to being Putin the Great, so it has to be according to Putin:

Russia’s objectives in the war against Ukraine are anything but clear.
They have included “denazification” and “decommunisation”;
ensuring the security of inhabitants of the Donbas;
the demilitarisation and non-admission of Ukraine to Nato;
the return of formerly Russian lands;
the protection of the Russian language;
and even the “saving” of Ukrainian cities from gay parades.

The lack of clearly defined objectives makes the definition of victory uncertain. But this ambiguity also makes the criteria for defeat unclear — let alone one so bad as to endanger Putin. In fact, the Russian president had already survived several serious defeats: the invasion’s opening “blitzkrieg” failed, and Russian troops were forced to retreat from around Kyiv and several other cities. Russia lost the Moskva, the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet, and abandoned Snake Island, its first successful capture from the start of the war. After the hasty retreat from the outskirts of Kharkiv, another symbolically important target — the bridge to Crimea — was attacked. Other leaders might have already been toppled by such military failures, but not Putin.

The fact is that Putin’s supporters do not perceive the invasion of Ukraine as an act of aggression. For them, it’s a retaliation against the much more powerful west. Researchers of Russian society are observing a startling paradox. History puts Russia in a row of vast western colonial empires. But after its defeat in the cold war, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic hardships of the 1990s, a growing number of Russians felt they had been reduced to a colony ruled by western forces. They now believe they are casting off the yoke which so humiliated their country and “imposed” capitalism upon it.

In the eyes of dissatisfied Russians, any form of resistance to the west is a victory, almost regardless of the end result. Even in retreat, they will console themselves with the thought of having prevented Russia’s “further enslavement”. This is why there is no direct link between military setbacks and the weakening of Putin’s power. It is as difficult for the president to lose this war as it is to win it. Domestically, even the invasion itself is a sort of victory. Meanwhile, the passive majority can be convinced that any outcome is the best possible one. And the critics will be silenced with repression, just as they are now.

Peace endangers Putin’s status as the challenger of the west. The Russian president is pushed into a virtually endless war for its own sake.

https://www.ft.com/content/01cdcc3e-22b9-4230-ac11-6c7056098f3f

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

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 7:53 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG SECIND, you are so stupid.
The point bounced off your fender-head.

You're posting an analogy as a purpose.
"Putin is like Stalin".
I dispute the analogy.

But more importantly, your post doesn't explain what Russia is fighting FOR.

Dunderhead.
* Walks away, muttering*


SECIND: Putin declared what Russia is fighting for. Pick whichever reasons from Putin's list that you think are real reasons, or pick all of them. I think all of Putin's reasons are lies. He invaded Ukraine for his personal glorification in the history books as the next Peter the Great,


You've posted so many conflicting opinions ...

Russians support the war in Ukraine. Except when they don't.

Russian soldiers are brave and stalwart when the confront their military. Except when they commit atrocities.

Russians don't know how to fight wars/kill efficiently. Except when they use standoff weapons, and then they're cowards.

We're not at war with the Russian people. Except they're no better than orcs.

We're not at war with Russia. Except we want to destroy it.

I'm sure you'll post some other bullshit in the next post or two that will completely contradict what you just posted.

The incoherence of your posts is why I rarely bother with more than a sentence or two.


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


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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 8:26 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You've posted so many conflicting opinions ...

Russians support the war in Ukraine. Except when they don't.

Russian soldiers are brave and stalwart when the confront their military. Except when they commit atrocities.

Russians don't know how to fight wars/kill efficiently. Except when they use standoff weapons, and then they're cowards.

We're not at war with the Russian people. Except they're no better than orcs.

We're not at war with Russia. Except we want to destroy it.

I'm sure you'll post some other bullshit in the next post or two that will completely contradict what you just posted.

The incoherence of your posts is why I rarely bother with more than a sentence or two.


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

Russians are traumatized people. Their lives make little sense and are going nowhere, one action contradicted the next action. But their lives do drift ever so slowly into one disaster after another that can be seen from their recent history. Signym, if you watch Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, you would know this about Russians.

“To understand Russia now – and what might happen in the future – you have to understand what happened back then. For it is out of that rage, the violence, the desperation and the overwhelming corruption that Vladimir Putin emerged.”- filmmaker Adam Curtis, who also made The Century of the Self.

Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone
What It Felt Like To Live Through the Collapse of Communism . . . and Democracy

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/other/adam-curtis-astonishing-
autopsy-of-the-fall-of-russia-will-leave-you-wide-eyed/ar-AA12U7PL

A few places to see the 7 part TV show:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0d3hwl1/russia-19851999-trauma
zone

https://comment.rlsbb.ru/russia-1985-1999-traumazone-s01-1080p-ip-web-
dl-h264-playweb/

https://tpb25.ukpass.co/search.php?q=TraumaZone




RUSSIA: Adam Curtis on the fall of the Soviet Union's worrying parallels with modern Britain

Adam Curtis is a journalist and filmmaker. His latest documentary, Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, is out now on BBC iPlayer.



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

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 10:14 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You've posted so many conflicting opinions ...

Russians support the war in Ukraine. Except when they don't.

Russian soldiers are brave and stalwart when the confront their military. Except when they commit atrocities.

Russians don't know how to fight wars/kill efficiently. Except when they use standoff weapons, and then they're cowards.

We're not at war with the Russian people. Except they're no better than orcs.

We're not at war with Russia. Except we want to destroy it.

I'm sure you'll post some other bullshit in the next post or two that will completely contradict what you just posted.

The incoherence of your posts is why I rarely bother with more than a sentence or two.


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

Russians are traumatized people.
Hahaha!!!

See what I mean?

In another post or two you'll change your mind.

If you're going to blame their inconsistency on trauma, SECOND... what does that say about you? Bc I don't believe they're inconsistent. It's you.





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


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Tuesday, November 15, 2022 10:42 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Hahaha!!!

See what I mean?

In another post or two you'll change your mind.

If you're going to blame their inconsistency on trauma, SECOND... what does that say about you? Bc I don't believe they're inconsistent. It's you.





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

Signym, you might think you're making sense, but you haven't looked at Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone. The Russians have been in the middle of a mental crisis for decades. What they are doing with their lives makes very little sense, except maybe to somebody who is just like them, by which I mean you and the Russians are crazy.

By the way, if Russia does win, I don't think that will be the end of Russian insanity. It will be an excuse to go crazy on another country after Ukraine.

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

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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 12:53 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Hahaha!!!

See what I mean?
In another post or two you'll change your mind.
If you're going to blame their inconsistency on trauma, SECOND... what does that say about you? Bc I don't believe they're inconsistent. It's you.


SECOND: Signym, you might think you're making sense, but you haven't looked at Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone. The Russians have been in the middle of a mental crisis for decades.
blah blah blah.. will be an excuse to go crazy on another country after Ukraine.


Your problem, SECOND, is that you think of "Russians"... or "Trumptards"... or "Jehovah's Witnesses"... as if they're all the same.

You land on one characteristic ... Russians under the Tsars craved authoritarianism. Or, were backward. Superstitious. What-have-you. And then you apply it to ALL Russians, from time immemorial to the indefinite future.

You land on ANOTHER characteristic... Russians lost too many people fighting WWII .. and you apply THAT to all Russians throughout time and space.

And then you land, like a fly, on yet another characteristic: Russians are traumatized. And you apply it to Russians who suffered thru the breakup of their union and the depredations of the west, to those who never did.

You're dredging up anything negative that you can find and you splatter it liberally, whether it fits or not.

In my observation, SECOND, people who spend as much time AS YOU virtue-signalling how great they are and trying to break others down feel anxious, depressed, and massively guilty about themselves

Why do you feel like shit, SECOND?

****

And now, back to our regularly scheduled topic.

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


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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 7:20 AM

SECOND

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:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Hahaha!!!

See what I mean?
In another post or two you'll change your mind.
If you're going to blame their inconsistency on trauma, SECOND... what does that say about you? Bc I don't believe they're inconsistent. It's you.


SECOND: Signym, you might think you're making sense, but you haven't looked at Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone. The Russians have been in the middle of a mental crisis for decades.
blah blah blah.. will be an excuse to go crazy on another country after Ukraine.


Your problem, SECOND, is that you think of "Russians"... or "Trumptards"... or "Jehovah's Witnesses"... as if they're all the same.

You land on one characteristic ... Russians under the Tsars craved authoritarianism. Or, were backward. Superstitious. What-have-you. And then you apply it to ALL Russians, from time immemorial to the indefinite future.

You land on ANOTHER characteristic... Russians lost too many people fighting WWII .. and you apply THAT to all Russians throughout time and space.

And then you land, like a fly, on yet another characteristic: Russians are traumatized. And you apply it to Russians who suffered thru the breakup of their union and the depredations of the west, to those who never did.

You're dredging up anything negative that you can find and you splatter it liberally, whether it fits or not.

In my observation, SECOND, people who spend as much time AS YOU virtue-signalling how great they are and trying to break others down feel anxious, depressed, and massively guilty about themselves

Why do you feel like shit, SECOND?

****

And now, back to our regularly scheduled topic.

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

Signym, Russians are measurably crazy. Take for example Andrei Sakharov - Father of the Russian H-bomb and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He was smart, but the crazy contradiction within that Russian was being very slow at understanding the consequences of building for Stalin H-bombs which still threaten the world.

Does Canada, a country with a larger economy than Russia, need H-bombs to protect itself from the evil USA stealing Canadian wealth? It does not, and neither does Russia. But Russians think their H-bombs are the only thing protecting them from the USA.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/bomb-ussr-scienti
sts/

Signym, another measurably insane Russian is Putin ally Margarita Simonyan, who posted an ominous message on Tuesday, making a nod to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 — a confrontation between the U.S. and then-Soviet Union that almost catapulted a full-scale nuclear war.

In a post shared to her Telegram channel, all Simonyan wrote was "Good evening, 1962."

Her remarks came just hours after Russia launched one of the broadest aerial strikes on Ukraine since the war began — an attack that reportedly included two missiles that spilled into neighboring Poland, killing two people in the NATO country. The attack also affected Moldova, which suffered a massive power outage after a key power line was knocked out by the strike.

Shortly after Tuesday's attack, Simonyan, who heads state-run media outlet RT, casted doubt as to whether the incident on the Polish side involved a missile from Russia, saying, "Before you accuse a country capable of erasing Poland into nuclear ashes, take the trouble to present evidence." Signym, a sane person would not act like Simonyan.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-ally-posts-ominous-message-about-us-con
flict-russia-1759845

There are many more examples of Russian craziness. Killing Ukrainian prisoners of war then claiming the Ukrainians killed the prisoners. If Russians were sane they would either stop killing prisoners or stop making false claims about who the killers are. But Russians can't pick only one or the other because they are crazy.

Special Military Operation? Or War? If Russians weren't crazy with fear, they would not tolerate this nonsense of making the word "War" punishable by prison. Journalists could be jailed for up to 15 years. Russian officials assert it's false to call their military operations in Ukraine a war or an invasion.
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/05/1084729579/russian-law-bans-journalists
-from-calling-ukraine-conflict-a-war-or-an-invasion

Then there is biggest craziness of all, 61,911,000 people were systematically killed by the Communist regime from 1917 to 1987. Signym, just in case you don't understand, sane people won't tolerate Putin pretending that is The Distant Past and never again would happen to today's Ukrainians.
https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder/dp/15600
08873/

Signym, please write that you stopped reading after one or two sentences. You have written that on hundreds of occasions because you are crazy and you can't stop yourself.

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

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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 11:34 AM

SECOND

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


Witnesses recount detentions, torture, disappearances in occupied Kherson

By Michael E. Miller and Anastacia Galouchka November 14, 2022 at 10:38 a.m. EST
12-15 minutes

KHERSON, Ukraine — Few people paid attention to the drab concrete building, tucked away on a quiet residential street, that had long housed unruly youths behind a high wall and a spool of barbed wire. But after Russian soldiers swept into Kherson in early March, the anonymous building quickly became infamous.

Black sedans with tinted windows and missing license plates arrived at all hours, disgorging Ukrainian detainees with bags over their heads. Screams began to escape the three-story structure, piercing the once-calm neighborhood, residents said.

Sometimes, the gates would open, and a detainee would be dumped on the street, physically and mentally broken. Other captives were sent to a larger prison, or never seen again. “If there is a hell on Earth, it was here,” said Serhiy, 48, who lives across the street and whom The Washington Post is only identifying by first name to protect him from retribution.

Days after Russian forces fled in retreat, surrendering the only regional capital Russia had managed to seize since the start of its invasion, the horrors that occurred in this stately 18th-century port city are just starting to come into focus.

During a visit to the city on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said occupying Russian forces had committed “hundreds” of atrocities in the Kherson area, though he said the precise number was not yet known.

What is already apparent, however, is that the Russians here operated a detention system on a scale not seen in any of the dozens of other cities, towns and villages liberated by Ukrainian forces in recent weeks.

An outline of mass incarceration was already appearing on Saturday and Sunday, when a dozen people told The Post that they had either been detained themselves or were searching for someone who had been taken. Many approached reporters on the street, asking for help in finding their loved ones.

Some Kherson residents were arrested because they were accused of being freedom fighters. Others said locals were locked up because they had Ukrainian tattoos, wore traditional clothing, took selfies standing near Russian troops, or simply dared to say, “Slava Ukraini” — “Glory to Ukraine.”

A mother was arrested in front of her teenage son and held for two months on a suspicion of helping Ukrainian forces.

A 64-year-old man was detained and beaten with a hammer for fighting — eight years ago.

A priest was arrested and sent to Crimea, according to a congregant. Even the mayor was arrested. Still, no one knows where he is.

“We’re talking about thousands of people,” said Oleksandr Samoylenko, head of the regional council of Kherson. “On any given day, the Russians had 600 people in their torture chambers.”

Samoylenko said it would take time to figure out how many people were detained, how many remain missing, and if mass graves, like those found in other liberated areas, would also be discovered here.

“A lot of people have disappeared,” Samoylenko said, adding that he feared the city’s name would soon join the ranks of cities such as Bucha, Irpin and Izyum, which are now synonymous with Russian atrocities.

“It was a nightmare,” he said.

‘Everyone could hear the torture’

What could set Kherson apart is the emerging scale of abuses.

Located where the Dnieper River meets the Black Sea, Kherson, with a prewar population of nearly 300,000, is by far the biggest city to be liberated. It was also the first to be occupied. Of cities that fell under Russian occupation, only Mariupol, which suffered severe destruction and remains under Russian control, is bigger.

And as a regional capital crucial to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan to annex the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Kherson city is a window into the Russian military-administrative machine.

Moscow-backed officials took over the regional administrative building downtown and began pumping out social media messages urging residents to obtain Russian passports to continue receiving their pensions and other benefits.

Some residents said officials offered cash payments — in Russian rubles — to get people to take a Russian passport. Schools were ordered to implement Russian curriculums, and Ukrainian nationalist songs were banned.

“Russia is here forever,” billboards vowed.

As the Russian forces fled last week, however, that administrative state collapsed. Moscow-backed officials moved their headquarters to the small town of Henichesk, a port city on the Sea of Azov, closer to illegally annexed Crimea.

The deputy head of the Kherson occupation administration, Kirill Stremousov, who had criticized Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other Russian military commanders over battlefield setbacks, died in a car accident last week on the same day that Shoigu approved the retreat from the city.

Even the pro-Russian billboards are now being torn down.

What remains, however, is the architecture of mass incarceration, and many missing people.

Most people who spoke to The Post said they or their loved ones were first taken to the drab concrete building in the north of the city.

Serhiy said he often saw Russians drag Ukrainian prisoners out of black sedans with bags on their heads and take them inside.

“Everyone could hear the torture, the screams, the shouts,” he said.

The building, a former youth detention center, was easy to adapt into a torture chamber. Most people who spent time in or around the place believed it was run by officers of the FSB, Russia’s feared Federal Security Service.

“The rooms were ready for them,” said a nearby neighbor, Ihor Nikitenko, 57.

“They brought everyone they could get their hands on: partisans, activists, you name it,” his wife, Larysa Nikitenko, 54, said as the couple shopped at a store next to the detention center.

Almost as often as prisoners arrived, others were thrown onto the street, confused, half-naked and often seriously injured, they said.

Oleksandr Kuzmin said he was held in the detention center for a day, during which people he suspected to be FSB agents smashed his leg with a hammer — all because he had fought against Russian-backed separatists in Donbas nearly a decade ago. In occupied towns, Russian forces routinely searched for men with prior military experience, often demanding that other residents identify them.

Kuzmin said that in a room below his cell, he could hear people screaming in pain, and he said a young man brought into his cell told him that he had been arrested for helping others access hryvnia, the Ukrainian currency, which Russia was trying to replace with the ruble.

The Russians had shocked the young man with electricity on his nipples and penis, Kuzmin said.

Prisoners were forced to say, “Hail Putin” or “Hail Russia” to receive meals, according to neighbors who had spoken to detainees after their release. Those who refused received electric shocks.

‘We wanted to kill them so badly’

While residents of the neighborhood could hear the torture inside, they said they could also see the Russians enjoying themselves. Russian men came into shops on the street to buy food and copious amounts of alcohol. They also brought in women who appeared to be prostitutes, several locals said.

“We wanted to kill them so badly but we had to smile to their faces because we knew that one wrong word could land us in there,” Serhiy said.

In a house just a few blocks away, Yuriy, 68, described how his son ended up in the detention center and is still being held captive in Crimea. The son, Roman, 38, had been part of a local territorial defense unit. When the Russians occupied Kherson in early March, his unit stayed and became resistance fighters, or partisans, smuggling weapons between safe houses and sometimes carrying out missions.

The Post is only identifying Yuriy and Roman by first name to avoid putting them at risk, or jeopardizing the son’s safe return.

For weeks, the Russians were looking for Roman. They finally caught him on Aug. 4 and took him to the detention center, where he was beaten for several days. After two or three weeks, Roman was transferred to a prison downtown — a fate that befell many of those accused of more-serious offenses.

At the prison downtown, inmates let Roman use a smuggled telephone to call his dad. For the next two months, Yuriy was able to leave painkillers, medicine, cigarettes and candy for his son at the larger detention center, though he was never allowed to see him.

He dealt with Ukrainian prison officials, he said, and filled out Ukrainian documents from the 1980s that were written in Russian. When he last spoke to his son on Oct. 20, there was no hint that anything was about to change. But a day or two later, Yuriy heard that many of the prisoners had been taken to Crimea.

After almost a month of searching, Yuriy said he finally learned Roman was alive and being held in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea. Yuriy said he has no idea what will happen to his son, who, as a resistance fighter, is facing serious charges. Even if his son is released, Yuriy said has no idea how Roman will return home.

“He has no documents, no passport, no nothing,” he said.

Others also told The Post they suspected friends or family members had been sent to Crimea as the Ukrainian armed forces advanced on Kherson city.

Some believed their loved ones might be much closer: just across the Dnieper River in the Russian-held town of Chaplynka. But others said they had no idea where to start looking.

Oleksandr Zubrytskiy approached reporters on the street outside the detention center to ask for help finding his best friend, Petro Pikovskiy. Pikovskiy, 62, had gone out looking for his son who had been arrested by the Russians, only to vanish himself, Zubrytskiy said.

‘Work for us or leave’

Serhiy Didenko, 42, was walking to join the celebration in Kherson’s main square on Sunday morning when he saw smoke rising from the large prison complex downtown where he used to work.

Didenko stepped over broken glass and followed inside after a team of soldiers who were clearing the building of mines and booby traps. Potatoes, presumably spilled by fleeing Russians a few days earlier, were strewn along the path into the building. Elsewhere inside, riot gear was scattered on the floor as if tossed aside in a hurry.

“I can’t express how I feel right now,” Didenko said, examining his office, from which the Russians had stolen a television, microwave, even an old sofa. Eventually, he summoned the words: “pure anger.”

The Russians had arrived at the building on May 12, he said, and delivered an ultimatum: “Work for us or leave.” He chose the latter, and this was his first time back in the building.

The 700-person detention center had been half-full when he left, Didenko said. But it quickly filled with suspected partisans, activists or anyone bold enough to raise their voice to a Russian.

The new jailers put some of the prisoners to work building wooden structures for military trenches, according to two men who had been locked up since before the war began. Maksym Karynoi and Serhiy Tereshchenko, both 41, said they believed they were targeted because of their past military service fighting Russian separatists.

The Russians also introduced themselves to the inmates with terror, throwing hand grenades and randomly shooting inside the massive Soviet-built complex, according to three other inmates who were also already serving sentences when the prison was taken over.

“One person refused to get on his knees, so they shot him,” said Andriy, a rail-thin 35-year-old prisoner who asked that his last name not be used. “They left his dead body in the cell for 24 hours.”

Andriy and two other inmates told The Post that they believed the Russians had executed some of the suspected partisans.

“There would be one person on either side,” said another inmate, Vardan Maglochyan, 61. “They would drag them outside. Then we’d hear gunshots.”

They never saw those inmates again, they said.

The Post was unable to inspect the building where the inmates believed the men were killed because it was on fire and the roof was collapsing on Sunday. The fire could have been caused by Ukrainian demining teams detonating explosives the occupiers left behind. But the inmates had another explanation. They said they believed the Russians were destroying evidence.

Neighbors suspected something similar across town, at the detention center, where smoke began to pour from the upper floors on Friday night, just a few hours after the last Russians had left Kherson.

Kamila Hrabchuk contributed to this report.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221115062851/https://www.washingtonpost.
com/world/2022/11/14/kherson-disappearances-detentions-torture-occupation/

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

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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 1:10 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Hahaha!!!

See what I mean?
In another post or two you'll change your mind.
If you're going to blame their inconsistency on trauma, SECOND... what does that say about you? Bc I don't believe they're inconsistent. It's you.


SECOND: Signym, you might think you're making sense, but you haven't looked at Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone. The Russians have been in the middle of a mental crisis for decades.
blah blah blah.. will be an excuse to go crazy on another country after Ukraine.

SIGNY: Your problem, SECOND, is that you think of "Russians"... or "Trumptards"... or "Jehovah's Witnesses"... as if they're all the same.

You land on one characteristic ... Russians under the Tsars craved authoritarianism. Or, were backward. Superstitious. What-have-you. And then you apply it to ALL Russians, from time immemorial to the indefinite future.

You land on ANOTHER characteristic... Russians lost too many people fighting WWII .. and you apply THAT to all Russians throughout time and space.

And then you land, like a fly, on yet another characteristic: Russians are traumatized. And you apply it to Russians who suffered thru the breakup of their union and the depredations of the west, to those who never did.

You're dredging up anything negative that you can find and you splatter it liberally, whether it fits or not.

In my observation, SECOND, people who spend as much time AS YOU virtue-signalling how great they are and trying to break others down feel anxious, depressed, and massively guilty about themselves

Why do you feel like shit, SECOND?

****

And now, back to our regularly scheduled topic.

Second: Signym, Russians are measurably crazy.

You see? You're doing it again

You take one example, mind-read the shit out of it, then apply it liberally to an entire group of people.

The only crazy person here is you.

Get yourself fixed, SECOND, or at least stop using this board as your toilet.

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


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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 1:58 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Another lie from Kiev:

Quote:
Kyiv Demands Access To Poland Blast Site, Doubles Down On 'Russian Attack' Narrative


Fortunately some PTB pay attention to reality and not malicious allegation.

****

Edited to add:

Quote:
Suspected Ukrainian Drone Strikes Fuel Depot Deep In Russian Territory

Wednesday, Nov 16, 2022 - 06:05 PM

Though all eyes have been on the Polish border blast and resulting back-and-forth on who was to responsible, a separate major attack unfolded in southern Russia near the Ukraine border on Wednesday.

Russian authorities described a suspected drone attack after a fuel depot exploded. It took place in Oryol oblast about 125 miles from the Ukrainian border. "Today [Wednesday] at 04:00 [01:00 GMT] a suspected drone blew up a fuel depot in the village of Stalnoi Kon. There were no casualties," the Oryol regional governor said in a statement.
Aftermath of drone attack on fuel depot. Source: ogtrk.ru/Moscow Times

If confirmed that it was a Ukrainian drone attack, it marks a significant escalation, given the distance of the facility from the border.

The AFP/Moscow Times observes, "Most of the attacks occurred against targets only tens of kilometers from the border, which makes Wednesday's incident stand out for taking place deeper into Russian territory."

It's likely Ukrainian retaliation for the ongoing devastating Russian airstrikes seeking to degrade and disable Ukraine's energy infrastructure at a moment frigid winter temperatures approach. Starting last Spring, and in the months that followed, Ukraine's military launched a series of attacks on Russia's next door Belgorod region.

On Tuesday, Kyiv reported many dozens of Russian strikes across the country which hit as far West as Lviv. Zelensky's office cited that the national energy was "critical" after the sustained attacks.

As The Guardian described, "Ukraine’s public broadcaster reported that the strikes targeted Kyiv, Kyiv region, Kharkiv city as well as Poltava, Mykolaiv, Dnipro, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskiy, Lviv, Volyn, Rivne, Cherkassy, Odesa, Kirovohrad, and Chernihiv regions."

State energy company Ukrenergo announced emergency shutdowns "for all categories of consumers have been introduced" in the northern and central regions, which were the areas which suffered the most immediate damage from the strikes.


https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/suspected-ukrainian-drone-strik
es-fuel-depot-deep-within-russian-territory

Well, this is a war after all

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


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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 4:02 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:


You see? You're doing it again

You take one example, mind-read the shit out of it, then apply it liberally to an entire group of people.

The only crazy person here is you.

Get yourself fixed, SECOND, or at least stop using this board as your toilet.

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

Signym, is this your response to the story about Russians torturing Ukrainians? That story is here: http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=64887&mid=11648
10#1164810 I would love for you to deconstruct that story line by line to show how every fact can be proved to be a lie, or illogical, or physically impossible.

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

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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 4:23 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


How long do you suppose you're going to keep this thread of lies going on, you Neo-Con bootlicking worm?

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

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

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Wednesday, November 16, 2022 5:51 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How long do you suppose you're going to keep this thread of lies going on, you Neo-Con bootlicking worm?

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

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
Very soon Trump will be President. His personal diplomacy brought peace between North Korea and South Korea, convincing North Korea to end its H-bomb program. He'll bring peace between Russia and Ukraine, and convince Russia to end its H-bomb program. Trust Trump.



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

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