Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Thursday, October 31, 2024 13:46
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Thursday, January 26, 2023 12:39 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

If it was Russia alone facing the collective west, that might be a problem. But it isn't. It's Russia, China, India, and Saudi Arabia.

As it is, the collective west is being demilitarized and deindustrialzed. The west thinks it's going to bleed Russia, even as we're hemorrhaging money and weapons. This is a global war of attrition.

AFA striking Moscow. You think Russia wouldn't retaliate? How about seeing Kiev, or Warsaw, ot Brussels or London disappear? The west is traget-rich and defense-poor. It wouldn't take nuclear weapons, but a few well-placed hypersonic missiles would make mincemeat out of decision-makers

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

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 12:41 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Ukraine Pivots To F-16 Fighter Jets Hours After Securing Tanks

The Ukrainian side is of course fully aware that its strategy to keep pressing the West for bigger and more advanced weapons at all costs is working. The aforementioned defense ministry adviser explained to Reuters further:

"They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us HIMARS systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks," Sak said.

"If we get them, the advantages on the battlefield will be just immense," he added. "It’s not just F-16s: fourth generation aircraft, this is what we want."

And then this amazing, brazen admission: "Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get," Sak added.

What is the limiting principle at this point? Because all we ever hear is the robotic mantra, "whatever Ukraine needs." Next week they may claim to "need" a nuclear warhead...?
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 26, 2023

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-presses-hard-f-16-fight
er-jets-immediately-after-securing-tanks

Oh Jeez. More wasted taxpayer dollars. At what point is Z going to ask for NATO soldiers so we can waste American lives too?
This is playing out like Vietnam

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

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 1:04 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ukraine Pivots To F-16 Fighter Jets Hours After Securing Tanks

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-presses-hard-f-16-fight
er-jets-immediately-after-securing-tanks

Oh Jeez. More taxpayer dollars. At what point is Z going to ask for NATO soldiers?
This is playing out like Vietnam

If this was Vietnam, the first thing JFK would have done is okay the "removal" of the Ukrainian President. JFK was shocked, shocked I tell you! when "removal" actually meant the assassination of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_assassination_of_Ngo_Dinh_Die
m

By the way, Signym, Ukraine asked for those F-16s a year ago. But unlike the South Vietnamese, the Ukrainians will use these machines as intended because, unlike the South Vietnamese, losing this war means the Ukrainians either die horribly or have to leave Ukraine. The South Vietnamese died by the millions, but they never acted like losing a war was the end of their country. The South Vietnamese figured that the North Vietnamese would show mercy. The Ukrainians know for a hard fact that Russia will show no mercy to Ukrainians. The Holodomor is remembered by Ukrainians even if Russians pretend to have never heard the word.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/16/f-16s-patriots-ukraine-negoti
ations-00057262

April 29, 2022: Ukraine Wants F-16s, But USAF Officials Say That’s ‘Not A Recipe for Success’
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/ukraine-wants-f-16s-but-usaf-officia
ls-say-thats-not-a-recipe-for-success/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 1:26 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

You forget, SECOND,a Ukrainian President was already removed. That's what started this whole thing.

Z's corrupt buddies have already died, been fired, or quit. And there's no need to remove him, since he's doing exactly what the neocons want: fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.

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

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 1:37 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You forget, SECOND,a Ukrainian President was already removed. That's what started this whole thing.

Z's corrupt buddies have already died, been fired, or quit. And there's no need to remove him, since he's doing exactly what the neocons want: fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.

Where is Viktor Yanukovych living, today? Russia. Of all the places he could be, he picks Russia. Back in Jan 2019, he was guilty of treason. It is not farfetched that a President would commit treason. There was this thing about Nixon committing treason, too. Did Nixon serve out his 4-year term or was he forced from office early? Nixon's V.P., Spiro Agnew, was forced from office for cheating on his taxes.

Ukraine's ex-president Viktor Yanukovych found guilty of treason
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/ukraine-ex-president-vik
tor-yanukovych-found-guilty-of-treason

Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal.
https://www.google.com/search?q=nixon+guilty+of+treason

The fall of Spiro Agnew
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1973/10/13/The-fall-of-Spiro-Agnew/594813
0122572/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 2:26 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You forget, SECOND,a Ukrainian President was already removed. That's what started this whole thing.

Z's corrupt buddies have already died, been fired, or quit. And there's no need to remove him, since he's doing exactly what the neocons want: fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Where is Viktor Yanukovych living, today? Russia. Of all the places he could be, he picks Russia. Back in Jan 2019, he was guilty of treason. It is not farfetched that a President would commit treason. There was this thing about Nixon committing treason, too. Did Nixon serve out his 4-year term or was he forced from office early? Nixon's V.P., Spiro Agnew, was forced from office for cheating on his taxes.

Ukraine's ex-president Viktor Yanukovych found guilty of treason
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/ukraine-ex-president-vik
tor-yanukovych-found-guilty-of-treason

Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal.
https://www.google.com/search?q=nixon+guilty+of+treason

The fall of Spiro Agnew
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1973/10/13/The-fall-of-Spiro-Agnew/594813
0122572/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Yanukovich was never guilty of treason, you lying sack of shit. But nice try rewriting history.

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

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 2:56 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yanukovich was never guilty of treason, you lying sack of shit. But nice try rewriting history.

Let me check your accuracy, Signym:

Beginning in May 2017, Yanukovych was tried in absentia for high treason and abetting Russian aggression against Ukraine. The trial included testimony from several senior Ukrainian officials, including Pres. Petro Poroshenko, and Yanukovych’s lawyers attempted to characterize the prosecution as a politically motivated stunt by Poroshenko’s administration. Poroshenko, in turn, painted Yanukovych as an instigator of “Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine.” In January 2019 Yanukovych was found guilty of high treason and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Yanukovych’s attorneys appealed the decision, although Yanukovych’s continued exile in Russia meant that it was extremely unlikely that Ukrainian authorities would have the opportunity to carry out the sentence.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Viktor-Yanukovych

Signym, you have made an error!

For future context: Viktor Yanukovych is the former Ukrainian president Putin reportedly wants to put back in power.

Putin has long described Yanukovych, 72, as Ukraine’s only legitimate president, and his false claim that the former president’s exit from power was the result of a Western-backed coup is central to the Kremlin narratives and efforts to justify the February invasion.

As Russian troops accumulated in the tens of thousands along Ukraine’s borders in December 2021, Moscow-friendly former leader Viktor Yanukovych was preparing for an offensive of his own – a bid to overturn, in court, the Ukrainian legislature’s decision that stripped him of his title and status as president in 2014.

Two months later, the Russian forces poured across the frontier, many of them pushing southward toward Kyiv in what was widely seen as an attempt to topple President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government and secure the installation of a Moscow-friendly leader.

Media reports and other evidence suggest the Kremlin may have considered Yanukovych a candidate for that role. A journalistic probe by Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, uncovered details about a pair of court cases that could have lent the fugitive ex-president’s appointment an air of legitimacy – on paper, at least, if not in the minds of millions of Ukrainians.

And while the Russian military’s march toward Kyiv failed spectacularly, the timing of the lawsuits and the judicial response to Yanukovych’s push for reinstatement raise persistent questions about the vulnerabilities of Ukraine’s court system to influence from abroad.

The court that ruled on both of Yanukovych’s suits, the Kyiv District Administrative Court (OASK), which handles suits against Ukrainian public institutions, has strong ties to the former president, who appointed its key judges during his 2010-14 term.

The judge who ruled on the first case, Ihor Kachura, served as a deputy minister of industrial policy during Yanukovych’s stint as prime minister in 2006-07; the judge who decided on his second case, OASK Deputy Chairman Yevhen Ablov, is a Yanukovych appointee.

Both Kachura and Ablov are among those accused in an indictment alleging “the creation of a criminal organization and abuse of power" that has been brought before an anti-corruption court by prosecutors. Four other OASK judges, including the chief, are also accused.

At no time did these factors prompt any public move to consider whether the fact that these judges were trying Yanukovych’s cases represented a conflict of interest.

More at https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-yanukovych-courts-investigation-invasi
on-president-schemes/32155704.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:06 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Yeah, tried in absentia by a politicized court. Bullshit. Just like "Trump colluded with Russia" and I'm a Russian troll.

You pass manure as prodigiously as a cow.

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

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:38 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah, tried in absentia by a politicized court. Bullshit. Just like "Trump colluded with Russia" and I'm a Russian troll.

You pass manure as reliably as a cow.

Signym, if the treason trial was not held in Ukraine, I am curious about where this trial should have been held? Any opinions about that, Signym?

Yanukovych treason trial kicks off in Kyiv by Dmytro Hubenko

May 4, 2017

Ukrainian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych's trial has opened in a district court in Kyiv. But how did the former head of state come to face treason charges? DW summarizes the key facts.

https://www.dw.com/en/treason-trial-against-yanukovych-begins-in-ukrai
ne/a-38682124

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:42 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

It should not have been held at all, liar.

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

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Thursday, January 26, 2023 5:04 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It should not have been held at all, liar.

Ukrainian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych is not the only ex-President charged with treason. Petro Poroshenko has been charged, but he showed up for the legal proceedings, unlike Putin's choice for President. Poroshenko is even allowed to come and go from Ukraine.

Apparently, Poroshenko trusts the Ukrainian legal system to give him a fair trial. I wonder why Yanukovych didn't trust the system? Could it be because 100 witnesses testified under oath that Yanukovych was working for Putin? Yanukovych was bribed by Putin, same as, for an American example, Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who was fined $10,000 for not paying his income taxes on bribes he received. Agnew resigned as part of the leniency deal he got.

Ukraine’s Ex-president Poroshenko Leaves Country for Political Meeting by Lulu Saghie
June 25, 2022
https://theowp.org/ukraines-ex-president-poroshenko-leaves-country-for
-political-meeting/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, January 27, 2023 8:31 AM

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

After two decades of reforming its armed forces, Russia expected a lightning victory in Ukraine, but the ill-starred invasion has revealed their deficiencies.

Book Reviewed: Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine by Mark Galeotti

The most stunning geopolitical surprise of the past year is how poorly the Russian military has been fighting in Ukraine. When Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion in February 2022, everyone—including the US intelligence analysts who had predicted it—assumed that Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv would fall within a few weeks or even days and be replaced by a Moscow-bred puppet regime. Some anticipated that a long insurgency war might then follow, but no one was impetuous enough to guess that nearly a year later the Ukrainians would be not only fighting the Russians to a standstill but pushing them back on nearly every front.

Has the Ukrainian army turned out to be much better than imagined, or has the Russian army turned out to be a lot worse, or both? In Putin’s Wars, Mark Galeotti, a British scholar and journalist highly regarded by experts on Russian military matters, attributes the unexpected battlefield outcome to Russian weaknesses as well as Ukrainian strengths (greatly abetted by NATO weapons and American intelligence resources), but he lays out a persuasive, detailed case that Russia’s deficiencies are more severe and more deeply rooted than many Western officials and pundits had detected.

Galeotti notes that Moscow overloads its army with weapons but allots too little money and attention to the mundane stuff of logistics—spare parts, food, water, and the trucks to transport them—thus leaving supply lines vulnerable and making offensive operations unsustainable. Junior officers receive rote training, so they’re unprepared to take the initiative—a deliberate policy to keep them from rebelling against senior officers, though as a consequence, campaigns can plunge into chaos if they don’t go as planned. Combine all this with widespread hazing of enlisted men, ramshackle barracks, poor nutrition, and low pay, and it should have been foreseeable that while today’s Russian soldiers might be roused to defend the motherland, they’re lackluster at invading other countries.

Up to a week before the invasion, I was predicting that for all these reasons Putin would not go through with it. I thought he might send in troops to occupy Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, a slice of which Russian Special Operations Forces and Moscow-backed separatist militias already controlled, but trying to conquer all of Ukraine—next to Russia itself, the largest country in the former Soviet Union, with a population of 40 million people—seemed a losing proposition. My military analysis, it turned out, was spot-on; I went wrong in overestimating Putin’s rationality.

Galeotti dissects the many ways that Putin miscalculated his military’s strength. When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, so did its armed forces, as a result of which the new Russian state “initially had no army as such.” By the time Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin in 2000, the military—still suffering from post–cold war torpor, like the country as a whole—was “scarcely functional.” Over the next decade and a half, through an enormous infusion of money (facilitated by higher oil prices) and spurts of creative reorganization, commanders (most of them recruited or promoted from outside the normal chain of succession) transformed it into a fighting force “capable of waging and winning a whole range of conflicts”—an impressive feat. But the range of wars that the Russian military waged and won was narrow. None of them involved the tactical complexities or fierce resistance that it met in Ukraine; and, even so, its victories were harder to pull off than they should have been.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/09/putins-wars-from-chechnya-
to-ukraine-galeotti/

Download this and all Mark Galeotti’s books for free from https://libgen.unblockit.ink/search.php?&req=Mark+Galeotti

Putin’s Wars Chapters
1 Introduction

PART ONE: Before Putin
2 Born in Chaos
3 A Military in Crisis
4 The First Chechen War
5 The Wars of Russian Assertion

PART TWO: Enter Putin
6 Putin’s Priorities
7 The Second Chechen War
8 Ivanov, the Initiator
9 Serdyukov, the Enforcer
10 Georgia, 2008 (1):Tbilisi’s Move ...
11 Georgia, 2008 (2): ... Moscow’s Counter
12 ‘New Look’ Army

PART THREE: The New Cold War
13 Shoigu, the Rebuilder
14 Crimea, 2014
15 Donbas, 2014—
16 Lessons of the Donbas War
17 Syria, 2015— (1): The Unexpected Intervention
18 Syria, 2015— (2): Lessons of the Syrian Campaign

PART FOUR: Rearming Russia
19 Rumble for Ruble
20 Armiya Rossii
21 The Sky is Russia’s!
22 Contesting the Sea
23 Power Projection: Blue and Black Berets
24 The Spetsnaz
25 The Nuclear Backstop

PART FIVE: The Future
26 Political Warfare
27 New Generation Warfare
28 The Challenges of the Future
29 Ukraine 2022: Putin’s Last War?
30 Conclusions: The Eurasian Sparta?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, January 27, 2023 2:06 PM

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

Russia’s Funeral Industry Booms Amid Heavy War Losses

“The boom began during the pandemic when demand for cremation increased,” said Dmitry Yevsikov, a mortician and crematorium equipment specialist in annexed Crimea. “In addition, land in cemeteries is physically running out,” Yevslikov told The Insider.

Yakushin identified the southern city of Rostov-on-Don near the Ukrainian border as a transshipment hub for bodies returning from Russia’s “special military operation.” He said the city is so overwhelmed that it is building a new crematorium, which he predicted would be kept busy for the next two to three years.

“Crematoriums are growing exponentially in Russia,” Yevsikov told The Insider, which estimates that the 33 crematoriums currently operating in Russia are unable to meet surging demand.

One final destination for the dead soldiers was identified as the village of Bakinskaya located 250 kilometers south of Rostov-on-Don. The New York Times reported this week that the Bakinskaya cemetery — used by the Wagner mercenary group, whose fighters are taking part in the invasion of Ukraine — has expanded sevenfold in the past two months.

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed last month that fighters were buried in Bakinskaya after space ran out at another Wagner cemetery and chapel 18 kilometers west.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/01/27/russias-funeral-industry-boo
ms-amid-heavy-war-losses-a80062

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, January 27, 2023 2:13 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It should not have been held at all, liar.

Ukrainian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych is not the only ex-President charged with treason. Petro Poroshenko has been charged, but he showed up for the legal proceedings, unlike Putin's choice for President. Poroshenko is even allowed to come and go from Ukraine.

Apparently, Poroshenko trusts the Ukrainian legal system to give him a fair trial. I wonder why Yanukovych didn't trust the system? Could it be because 100 witnesses testified under oath that Yanukovych was working for Putin? Yanukovych was bribed by Putin, same as, for an American example, Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who was fined $10,000 for not paying his income taxes on bribes he received. Agnew resigned as part of the leniency deal he got.

Ukraine’s Ex-president Poroshenko Leaves Country for Political Meeting by Lulu Saghie
June 25, 2022
https://theowp.org/ukraines-ex-president-poroshenko-leaves-country-for
-political-meeting/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

You think aftr being VIOLENLY OVERTHROWN and running for his life, Yanukovich should trust Ukraine's "justice system"? You're confabulating, SECOND. That's what nutty people do, and people with Alzheimer's. Might want to get a checkup from the neckup.

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

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Friday, January 27, 2023 2:17 PM

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

Russian president Vladimir Putin is pardoning convicts to allow them to fight in Ukraine as members of the Wagner paramilitary group, the Kremlin has admitted.

Russia also dismissed the US Treasury’s move to label Yevgeny Prigozhin’s group, which is playing an increasingly prominent role on the front lines as Putin’s full-scale invasion enters its 12th month, as a “transnational criminal organisation”.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday said prisoners were being pardoned “in strict adherence with Russian law” and praised one convicted armed robber recruited by Wagner for “heroism” on the battlefield after the president gave him a medal.

After nearly a decade of shrouding the mercenary operation’s activities in secrecy, with its founder Prigozhin even claiming it did not exist, the Kremlin has embraced Wagner as a key element of its faltering efforts to defeat Ukraine and rally support for the war among an anxious population.

Though Russia initially denied the group was fighting in Ukraine, the poor performance of Russia’s regular army and widespread discontent about the campaign among Russia’s elite have allowed the former caterer, nicknamed “Putin’s chef” and himself a former convict, to establish a role as the leader of a hardline pro-war faction, and won Wagner praise on state television for its recent battlefield exploits.

Russian’s constitution gives Putin sole authority to pardon prisoners, though Peskov said “there are open decrees and there are decrees marked classified”, declining to comment further.

On New Year’s eve Putin gave Aik Gasparyan, who was serving a seven-year sentence for an armed robbery committed in 2019, a medal for “courage.” Peskov said Gasparyan “is participating in the special military operation, and he demonstrated heroism, which was rewarded with a state honour”.

Peskov shrugged off Washington’s recent move to limit Wagner’s international reach in response to extensively documented reports of alleged atrocities committed by the group in countries such as the Central African Republic, Libya and Syria, where it has taken part in covert mercenary deployments.

Peskov claimed the US had been “demonising” Wagner for “many years” and said the accusations were “unfounded”.

As part of the designation, the US issued new sanctions on Thursday against Wagner, in addition to 15 other Russian entities, eight individuals and four aircraft, in an attempt to target Russia’s battlefield resources in Ukraine.

Prigozhin has been under US sanctions since 2017 over his alleged role running an infamous troll farm in St Petersburg whose employees attempted to influence the 2016 US election by posing as Americans on social media.

In a statement published by Concord, his catering company, on Friday, Prigozhin said: “We have held an internal investigation into Wagner’s crimes, but have not found anything damaging. If anyone has any information about Wagner’s crimes, please send it to our press service or publish it in the media. So we can help our American colleagues form their position.”

UK intelligence estimates Prigozhin, a longtime Putin confidant, has recruited at least 50,000 prisoners to fight for Wagner in Ukraine.

Prigozhin has explained the recruitment drive as a necessary measure to reduce public opposition to the war stemming from Moscow’s over-reliance on the highly unpopular draft launched by Putin last September. The mobilisation prompted hundreds of thousands of men to flee the country.

He admitted to running the shadowy group later that month.

Prigozhin was pictured with alleged Wagner fighters in a salt mine in the captured town of Soledar in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region earlier this month. The Kremlin acknowledged the group’s role in capturing Soledar, a rare success following a series of humiliating retreats from territory such as the southern city of Kherson that Putin had attempted to annex for Russia.

However, Wagner’s forces have made little concrete progress and sustained high casualties in Donbas, according to western and Ukrainian officials.

https://www.ft.com/content/82748bdd-5b34-4204-b3ad-d08da2c58982

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, January 27, 2023 2:32 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It should not have been held at all, liar.

Ukrainian ex-President Viktor Yanukovych is not the only ex-President charged with treason. Petro Poroshenko has been charged, but he showed up for the legal proceedings, unlike Putin's choice for President. Poroshenko is even allowed to come and go from Ukraine.

Apparently, Poroshenko trusts the Ukrainian legal system to give him a fair trial. I wonder why Yanukovych didn't trust the system? Could it be because 100 witnesses testified under oath that Yanukovych was working for Putin? Yanukovych was bribed by Putin, same as, for an American example, Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew, who was fined $10,000 for not paying his income taxes on bribes he received. Agnew resigned as part of the leniency deal he got.

Ukraine’s Ex-president Poroshenko Leaves Country for Political Meeting by Lulu Saghie
June 25, 2022
https://theowp.org/ukraines-ex-president-poroshenko-leaves-country-for
-political-meeting/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
You think aftr being VIOLENLY OVERTHROWN and running for his life, Yanukovich should trust Ukraine's "justice system"? You're confabulating, SECOND. That's what nutty people do, and people with Alzheimer's. Might want to get a checkup from the neckup.

Investigators Say Yanukovych Gave 'Criminal Order' To Kill Protesters, which is why Yanukovych had to flee Ukraine and never return for his treason trial.

Quote:
Ukrainian security officials say the killings of protesters in Kyiv in February occurred "under the direct leadership" of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, and accused Russian security services of involvement in the repression.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told a news conference in Kyiv on April 3 that Yanukovych "issued the criminal order...to open fire against protesters on February 18-20."

More than 100 people were killed during the protests which started in November, most of them between February 18 and February 20. Many of those who died appeared to have been killed by snipers.

Yanukovych fled the day after the worst of the killings by sniper fire on February 20 and was later ousted by parliament.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that "huge amounts of evidence" contradicted the statement by Ukrainian authorities that snipers loyal to Yanukovych opened fire on Kyiv protesters.

Lavrov told reporters that "the truth about snipers has to be established in a transparent way."

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-yanukovych-behind-protest-deaths/25320
039.html

The investigation that Russia demanded was done. In 2018, the policemen working directly for Yanukovych who killed protestors were on trial for murder. Since Yanukovych left for Russia, he did not show up for the trial.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/magazine/ukraine-protest-video.html

How did the trial end? It has not ended, yet. It is very complicated because some of the defendants were in a prisoner exchange and others fled to Russia before the trial began and still others were improperly released by a judge who then fled to Russia. It is a huge mess. https://www.google.com/search?q=ukrainian+court+rules+on+Maidan+murder
s

Here is a sample of how absurdly lawyers have handled the situation:

Imagine a European capital city where dozens of unarmed protesters are shot down in broad daylight. Now imagine that six years later, those responsible for the slaughter have still not been brought to justice. Inconceivable? Incredibly, this is precisely the situation in today’s Ukraine, where scores of protesters participating in the country’s Revolution of Dignity were killed in the vicinity of Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan) in late February 2014.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has inherited this thorny case from the previous administration of Petro Poroshenko, says that everything is being done to uncover the truth about these crimes. Emphasizing that he and his team have the political will and determination to see this through, he nevertheless cautions that enduring flaws in the legal system still stand in the way.

Zelenskyy acknowledged last week that the killings on Maidan remain “the most complicated case in our country.” He told the media that evidence and documents have been lost, while the scene of the crime has been tampered with and “cleaned up.” He could not say when those who gave the orders would be found, but gave assurances that the matter is being “dealt with faster than several years ago.” It is receiving proper attention, he stressed, “and we are doing everything possible.”

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/unsolved-maidan-mas
sacre-casts-shadow-over-ukraine/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, January 27, 2023 2:38 PM

Fuck Ukraine.

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

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

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Friday, January 27, 2023 5:41 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Yeah, and Milosevic was accused of genocide. He died in prison but, hey! He was (eventually) found innocent!

You should know all about bogus accusations, SECOND. You make them all the time!

Oh, and ... Fuck Ukraine.

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

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Friday, January 27, 2023 6:36 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah, and Milosevic was accused of genocide. He died in prison but, hey! He was (eventually) found innocent!

You should know all about bogus accusations, SECOND. You make them all the time!

Miloševic was found dead in his cell on 11 March 2006, but he was NOT found innocent. That after 295 witnesses, about 5,000 exhibits, and 466 hearing days. In 2021, two Milosevic aides were convicted of war crimes. The men entered court custody in 2003 and were acquitted in an initial trial in 2013. But appeals judges ordered a retrial in 2015. The product of a trial is words, not justice. Lawyers do love to talk but do hate to make irrevocable decisions. Unlike slow lawyers, I am unafraid when my quick decisions are cast in concrete and steel.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Milosevic+guilty

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, January 27, 2023 6:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yeah, and Milosevic was accused of genocide. He died in prison but, hey! He was (eventually) found innocent!

You should know all about bogus accusations, SECOND. You make them all the time!

Oh, and ... Fuck Ukraine.

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

Hehe.

Rawdawged... And without buying dinner first.

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

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

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Friday, January 27, 2023 7:50 PM

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

With the deplorable support of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, the president has elevated what he insists on calling his “limited military offensive” into an existential struggle between a spiritually ordained Great Russia and a corrupt and debauched West.

But Russians are aware that Ukraine was not widely perceived as an enemy, much less a mortal enemy, until Mr. Putin seized Crimea and stirred up a secessionist conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Until then, Russians and Ukrainians traveled freely across their long border, and many of them had family, acquaintances or friends on the other side.

And after all the poverty, repression and isolation under Soviet rule, Russians need to remember that until Mr. Putin began trying to change Ukraine’s borders by force in 2014, they were finally enjoying what those in other industrialized countries had long considered normal — the opportunity to earn decent salaries, buy consumer goods and enjoy vastly expanded freedoms to travel abroad and speak their mind.

The West they visited was not the caricature of depravity presented by Mr. Putin or Patriarch Kirill. And their Russia was hardly a pure and spiritual model, with the alcoholism, corruption, drug abuse, homophobia and other sins so familiar to all Russians.

In the end, the question is whether any of Mr. Putin’s lectures on history really provide a justification for the death and destruction he has ordained. Russians know the horrors of all-out war; they must know that nothing Mr. Putin has concocted remotely validates the leveling of towns and cities, the murder, rape and pillaging, or the deliberate strikes against power and water supplies across Ukraine. Like the last great European war, this one is mostly one man’s madness.

If Ukraine was not an enemy before, Mr. Putin has ensured it is one now. Battling an invader is among the most potent methods of forging a national identity, and for Ukraine, Russia as its enemy and the West as its future have become indelible elements. And if the West was indeed divided and indecisive on how to deal with Russia or Ukraine before, Moscow’s invasion has unified the United States and much of Europe in relegating Russia to a threat and an outcast and raising a heroic Ukraine to a friend and ally.

Claiming to champion Russian greatness, Mr. Putin has turned Russia into a pariah state in many parts of the world. He claims Russia has everything it needs to withstand the cost of the war and sanctions. But according to a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank, Russia faces decades of economic stagnation and regression even if the war ends soon. ( https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88664 ) Industrial production, even military, is likely to continue falling because of its reliance on high-tech goods from the West that it can no longer get. Many Western companies have left, trade with the West has dwindled, and financing the war is draining the budget. Numerous foreign airlines have ceased service to Russia. Add to that the millions of Russia’s best and brightest who have fled, and the future is bleak.

The true scope of Russia’s casualties is also being kept from its people. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Moscow’s casualties were “well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded.” About 300,000 men have been pressed into cannon-fodder duty in the army and many more may follow.

It is possible that Mr. Putin might eventually seek a negotiated settlement, though that becomes ever more remote as the Ukrainians suffer ever greater destruction and loss, and as their determination not to cede an inch of their country deepens. For now, Mr. Putin seems to still believe he can bring Ukraine to its knees and dictate its fate, cost be damned.

In his public appearances, Mr. Putin still cultivates the image of a self-confident strongman. Where there are failures, it is the fault of underlings who do not obey his will. He played out that scene on Jan. 11, in his first televised meeting with government ministers in the new year, when he tore into Denis Manturov, deputy prime minister, over aircraft production figures Mr. Putin insisted were wrong and Mr. Manturov defended. Mr. Putin finally exploded, “What are you doing, really, playing the fool?” “Yest’,” Mr. Manturov finally said, the Russian equivalent of “Yes, sir.”

Russians have seen this act before in the Kremlin. They might do well to ponder whether, in this version, Mr. Putin is the omniscient czar and Mr. Manturov the bumbling functionary — the intended lesson — or whether they are being played for fools by Mr. Putin’s vanity, delusions and spitefulness.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/opinion/russia-ukraine.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, January 27, 2023 9:52 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?

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

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Friday, January 27, 2023 11:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?

Certainly not anything that the professional liars at NYT have to say about, well... anything.

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

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

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Saturday, January 28, 2023 6:42 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?

A military coup in Russia is likely as President Vladimir Putin is starting to look like a "second-rate dictator," his former aide said on Thursday.

In an opinion column for the Russian media outlet Mozhem Obyasnit, Abbas Gallyamov wrote that Russian military generals are growing increasingly frustrated as their troops continue to suffer defeats on the Ukrainian front.

Gallyamov is a political consultant and ex-speechwriter to Putin. He has been living in exile in Israel since 2018. Gallyamov first worked in Putin's speech-writing team from 2000 to 2001, and then from 2008 to 2010.

"It must be understood that the vast majority of commanders in the army of an authoritarian nation are not staunch supporters of the authorities, but run-of-the-mill opportunists," Gallyamov wrote in the column, according to a translation from The Daily Beast.

"As problems pile up in the country and the army, that the authorities are unable to solve, Putin is more steadily transforming in people's eyes from a great strategist to an ordinary, second-rate dictator," he said.

Commanders will fight on the side of whoever seems most likely to win, he predicted.

Gallyamov also argued problems on the battlefield are creating rifts among Russia's military leadership, specifically with Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose troops fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine.

"Prigozhin has completely discredited the regime in the eyes of service members with his rhetoric, and anger at the authorities for allowing a criminal to walk all over them is growing stronger," Gallyamov said.

"The longer the war drags on, the clearer its pointlessness becomes," he added.

Since the start of Putin's invasion last year, Gallyamov has regularly commented on the state of the war and Russian politics in general.

Last month, the former speechwriter said that Putin likely already has an escape plan in the event he loses the war in Ukraine, citing unnamed sources.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-military-chiefs-are-losin
g-patience-with-putin-and-could-soon-turn-on-him-in-a-coup-former-aide-predicts/ar-AA16OxpJ

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, January 28, 2023 6:44 AM

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

Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán said former U.S. President Donald Trump is the only person who can end the war in Ukraine.

Speaking at a panel event in Berlin, Orbán proposed that the U.S. should conduct peace talks with Russia and that Trump should lead the negotiations on the American side.

“Now what I'm saying is going to sound brutal. But hope for peace is called Donald Trump,” he said.

https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/10/29230548/putins-key-ally-says-dona
ld-trump-is-the-one-to-end-war-in-ukraine-this-is-going-to-sound-brutal-but

Trump agrees with Viktor Orbán that Trump is the greatest:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
IF I WERE PRESIDENT, THE RUSSIA/UKRAINE WAR WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED, BUT EVEN NOW, IF PRESIDENT, I WOULD BE ABLE TO NEGOTIATE AN END TO THIS HORRIBLE AND RAPIDLY ESCALATING WAR WITHIN 24 HOURS. SUCH A TRAGIC WASTE OF HUMAN LIFE!!!
Jan 26, 2023, 6:06 PM

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109758248712795394

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, January 28, 2023 3:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

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

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Saturday, January 28, 2023 3:59 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:

Rickards: Has World War III Begun?
Friday, Jan 27, 2023 - 06:45 PM
via DailyReckoning.com,

Has World War III already begun?

That’s a serious question and deserves serious consideration by investors. A wave of analysts and commentators have warned that the war in Ukraine could spin out of control and escalate into World War III.

One variation on that theme is that the war could escalate into a nuclear war with tactical nuclear weapons deployed. Most point a finger at Russia as the party that will launch a nuclear strike out of desperation at a failing campaign in Ukraine.

Actually, the opposite is true.

The Russian campaign is not failing (it has been on hold for several months awaiting the right conditions to launch a winter offensive). You just don’t hear about it in the mainstream media, which is essentially a propaganda outlet for Ukraine.

And the party most likely to use nuclear weapons first is the U.S. in order to save face and destabilize Russia once Ukraine is on the brink of collapse.

Reality Check

Many people have a hard time believing that. They’ve been told that Putin is the devil incarnate and would probably like to destroy the world. We like to think that in modern times we’re sophisticated and above falling prey to propaganda. Unfortunately, it isn’t true.

The fact is the U.S. did wage the only nuclear war in history from Aug. 6–9, 1945 and had a successful outcome. I’m not getting into the morality of it here, one way or the other. I’m just being objective.

Either way, another nuclear war could not be contained and it would be tantamount to World War III. It amounts to the same thing.

But my point is different. It’s not that we may be headed to World War III; it’s that we’re already there. The issue of when wars in general and world wars in particular begin and end is not as clear cut as many believe. There are many examples.
When Does a War Officially Begin? It’s Complicated

When did World War I begin? There were many precursors including the Agadir Crisis in Morocco (1911), the Italian-Turkish War (1911–12) and the Balkan Wars (1912–1913).

Clearly, the First World War was in a countdown phase as early as 1911.

More specifically, did World War I begin with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914? The Austria-Hungary declaration of war on Serbia on July 28, 1914? Germany’s declaration of war on Russia on Aug. 1, 1914?

The fact is the beginning of World War I (then called the Great War) was a series of blunders. There were many other mistakes in addition to those just mentioned. Of course, the U.S. did not enter World War I until April 6, 1917.

The end of World War I was also a muddle. Most students recite Nov. 11, 1918, as the day the war ended. That’s not quite right. That is the day an armistice was signed and the shooting stopped. But an armistice is a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. The actual Versailles Treaty that ended the war was signed on June 28, 1919.

There’s nothing new about blurry lines on when wars begin and end. The Korean War stopped with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953, but it’s still technically not over; there has never been a peace treaty.

The most interesting case (and the one most pertinent to the war in Ukraine) is the beginning of World War II.
When Did World War II Really Begin?

Most Americans reflexively date this from Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. That’s the right date for U.S. entry, but of course, the war began on Sept. 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The U.K. and France declared war on Germany on Sept. 3.

Yet did World War II actually begin much earlier?

Japan invaded Manchuria on Sept. 18, 1931. They established a puppet regime there called Manchukuo led by Emperor Puyi (the infamous “Last Emperor” of China, and a descendant of the Qing Dynasty). This was followed by a full-scale invasion of China by Japan in 1937 and the horrific Rape of Nanjing in December 1937.

Of course, the European and Pacific theaters of World War II were different and geographically separated, but it is at least arguable that World War II began in China in 1931 or 1937 at the latest. I lean to that view personally.

And let’s not ignore the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) in which Germany bombed Guernica, Russia financed the Popular Front and mercenaries formed the International Brigades, including the American Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The spectacle of the U.S. and Russia fighting Germany on Spanish soil was a neat preview of World War II.

The influx of foreign fighters to the war in Ukraine offers a modern parallel.

The Case for the Start of World War III

So the case for fuzzy beginnings and endings of wars is clear. What’s the case for saying World War III has already begun based on the situation in Ukraine?

The first point is the number of nations directly involved. It’s nonsense to say that NATO members are cheering on Ukraine from the sidelines. Those countries are directly involved in supplying weapons, intelligence, money, ammunition and boots on the ground.

Polish troops are operating as mercenaries in Ukrainian uniforms. U.S. and U.K. special operators are inside Ukraine supplying intelligence, weapons training and help with logistics. (These special operators are often hired as contractors by the CIA and MI6 to disguise their connections to U.S. and U.K. intelligence.)

Poland and Lithuania are supplying sophisticated Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The U.K. is preparing to supply their most sophisticated tank — the Challenger II, as well. The U.S. is providing Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker armored vehicles.

The U.S. is also supplying HIMARS (long-distance guided missile artillery) and Patriot anti-missile batteries. The West is providing Ukraine with ammunition, cash, drones, satellite imaging, signals intelligence (SIGINT) and human intelligence (HUMINT).

Russia has been no slouch when it comes to enlisting allies and mercenaries. The Wagner Group, a privately owned mercenary army, has been on the front lines near Soledar and Bakhmut.

Russia is getting drones from Turkey and Iran. Fighters are arriving from Syria. China is providing financial support and offering technology that helps Russia to build its weapons and continue its missile attacks.
Up the Escalation Ladder

Physical warfighting has occurred in Poland (a misguided Ukrainian missile), Belarus (also a misguided Ukrainian missile), Russia (drone attacks on airbases inside Russia with nuclear weapons nearby) and Germany (the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines). There have also been naval battles on the Black Sea.

Of course, a long list of countries is providing support for Ukraine by participating in U.S.- and EU-led financial and economic sanctions.

The countries now directly involved in the war in Ukraine with weapons, money, intelligence, mercenaries or financial sanctions include the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Poland, Lithuania, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Japan, Romania, Belarus and Moldova. These countries span four continents. The economic ramifications are global. If this is not a world war, it’s not clear what is.

The Third World War is here. It may be at the 1937 stage rather than the 1941 stage. Let’s hope that status prevails. It likely will not.

Importantly for investors, this war is not close to a conclusion. It is far more likely to expand in terms of affected nations, financial sanctions and kinetic warfare.

The danger of escalation to a nuclear exchange is real and growing. Will anyone stop it before it’s too late?

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

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Saturday, January 28, 2023 6:49 PM

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

Russian Host Explodes

"World War Three is already underway," he said in the clip, tweeted by journalist and founder of the Russian Media Monitor, Julia Davis. "And the West has returned to its Nazi roots."

He said that he had previously warned that Adolf Hitler would be "rehabilitated" as he referred to the widely dismissed "denazification" justification for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, adding "this is where everything is heading."

Solovyov blamed Russia for allowing this to happen and questioned why Moscow had not conducted strikes against New York or Washington, D.C.

He said this should have been the least response to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines last September, which Moscow and the West have blamed each other for.

"They blew up our pipelines...they're delivering heavy tanks," he said. "Stop talking about red lines—it's a totally empty phrase."

"Berlin, Paris, Madrid, London, Washington should be on fire," he said and asked, "Why wasn't Kyiv wiped off the face of the earth" after the "Nazi nation" of Ukraine was blamed for strikes on Russian territory, such as in Belgorod.

"Why do Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk [Dnipro] still exist?" Solovyov questioned, also condemning "the silence" from Moscow about the impending delivery of Western weapons to Kyiv.

"Did we destroy a single base on NATO territory? No. Did we conduct strikes against the vile Polish dogs? We didn't do a damn thing," he said.

Solovyov, who has regularly said on his evening television show that Moscow should use its nuclear capabilities against the countries that back Ukraine, said: "How are we planning to respond?"

"By howling that avoiding nuclear war is the most important thing? Then why the heck do we have a stockpile of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons? To be afraid to use it?"

"We have strategic nuclear weapons, why aren't they put on high alert?"

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-host-explodes-over-us-help-ukraine-vl
adimir-solovyov-1777264

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, January 29, 2023 7:02 AM

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

The realistic scenarios of Russian collapse we should be prepared for

By Hryhoriy Riy
https://english.nv.ua/opinion/the-realistic-scenarios-of-russian-colla
pse-we-should-be-prepared-for-50300393.html

General Ben Hodges said that the world must be ready for the collapse of the Russian Federation, comparing its potential collapse with the disintegration of the USSR, for which the West was not ready. At the beginning of January 2023, several leading publications at once (Politico, Foreign Policy, The New York Sun, The Sunday Guardian) devoted articles and comments to the issue of Russian disintegration.

A recent survey of 167 experts by the Atlantic Council showed 40% of respondents expected Russia’s collapse within the next decade due to revolution, civil war, political disintegration, or other reasons.

Let's consider Russia's potential disintegration from a historical perspective.

The key issue, in my opinion, in the process of the collapse of the Russian Federation is the strength and influence of national movements (that is, those forces that seek to gain independence for their ethnic groups or autonomous entities) within modern Russia. In addition, there is the influence of legal, economic, and security factors, in particular the support of Western democracies for the disintegration aspirations of the peoples of Russia.

From the point of view of the policy of imperial Moscow, all levers have been used to suppress such movements in the past few decades, as, in principle, has been done for centuries before. Despite the fact that Tatarstan, Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Karelia, Yakutia (Sakha), Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, like some other subjects of the federation, are republics and have their own constitutions with the established right to national self-determination, this is not evidence of these national communities’ free democratic development. Rather the opposite.

We know from the history of Ukraine that in June 1917 the Ukrainian Central Rada (UCR) proclaimed its First Universal Declaration, and on November Third, about the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). The situation was similar in other regions of the former empire. In December 1917, the Republic of Tatarstan was proclaimed. From this period originates the formation of the Turkic state of Idel-Ural, which spanned the lands of the modern Chuvash Republic, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and a number of nearby regions of Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, and Samara Oblasts. In February 1918, the Kuban People's Republic was created, and in June, the Siberian Republic.

All these entities eventually ceased to exist under the pressure of the Red Army. The nations that managed to proclaim and maintain their independence were those that had strong national movements, a relatively recent tradition of having their own state, as well as support among officials from the United States, Great Britain, and France – the countries that won the First World War and created a new world order. Thus, independence was successfully proclaimed by the Poles, Finns, Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians.

During this period, the Russian Empire experienced a half-collapse, but over time it was restored by the Bolsheviks. In their new empire, the Bolsheviks could not ignore national feelings, and therefore, with the policy of so-called “indigenization," they tried to have these conquered peoples “become their own,” temporarily giving the population of these territories certain features of real national entities, as paraphernalia. Thus, the Russian Empire was transformed from a monarchical state into a federation of socialist republics - the USSR. However, imperialism did not go away, and the "independence" of the national republics was conditional.

An attempt at another restructuring of the "old" Russian empire in the mid-1980s in the midst of military failures in Afghanistan and the democratization of public life failed and led to another half-collapse. First, the Central European countries broke away from the imperial center, and then this trend continued in the Soviet republics. The Ukrainian SSR, which was located closest to such states, and whose national movement could not be suppressed by terror, wars, and repressions, and which was especially active in exile, proclaimed sovereignty in 1990, and independence a year later. A few months later, the USSR ceased to exist.

We took advantage of this opportunity and embarked on the so-called parade of sovereignties and territories that are now part of the Russian Federation. In 1990, the Republic of Tatarstan proclaimed its declaration of sovereignty, but the matter did not come to a declaration of independence. Officials in Tatarstan enjoyed autonomous rights within the Russian Federation for some time, but recently Putin canceled them. In 1991, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic proclaimed its sovereignty and became the 16th union republic. After its division into Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the Chechens exercised their right to withdraw from the union treaty and declared independence, which was suppressed by the Russians in the early 2000s after two bloody wars.

Overall, after the collapse of the USSR, the Russian leadership, using the typical imperial "carrot and stick" method, was able to keep all subjects of the Russian Federation under control. However, the outbreak of the full-scale war with Ukraine has already provoked certain crises with resistance to mobilization in the republics. Moreover, Russian propaganda continues to use the images of “Kadyrovtsy” and soldiers from the Buryat and other non-Russian peoples as the most cruel and trained participants in the hostilities in Ukraine, trying in this way to transfer future responsibility for the crimes of the Russian army to members of other peoples.

Modern Russia is an authoritarian country with a fascist regime in power. Its cult of personality and propaganda are key to keeping Putin's entourage in power and continuing to wage war on Ukraine. In recent years, the Kremlin has done everything it could to suppress any impulses in the subjects of the federation to separate themselves.

Russian collapse would presumably happen with a domino effect, whereby a declaration of independence in one republic provokes the same actions in other regions, and 20 different independent states could appear from the territory of the Russian Federation. Chechnya is considered one of the republics with the most potential to provoke a domino effect in modern Russia. It is the Chechens who have a history of a long struggle for their own recognition against the Kremlin, as well as a large and influential diaspora. It is possible that local elites, headed by Ramzan Kadyrov, who are now Putin's servants, with his weakening or death, will see more benefit for themselves in making a complete break. However, it is important that members of the national Chechen movement outside Chechnya be ready to support the desire for breaking off, and also be able to find understanding with those who have not left the territory of the republic. And here, in my opinion, there is the greatest threat to the successful restoration of Chechen independence. This state of affairs could provoke a new military conflict in the Caucasus, which may also involve neighboring regions.

This scenario, sometimes referred to as the "Yugoslav scenario," is feared by the governments of Western states, and they are therefore wary of lending any support to the national aspirations of the peoples of Russia.

A much more likely and desirable scenario would be peaceful disintegration, something like 1991 and the collapse of the USSR. This process could start from Tatarstan, a republic located on the Volga. This territory is quite independent in economic terms and lost its autonomous features not so long ago. In addition, as already noted, there was an attempt in 1917 to unite all the Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga region into the single state of Idel-Ural. Therefore, it is quite likely that, relying on historical tradition and having recent experience of autonomous rule, in a period of turbulence and a vacuum of political power in Russia, Tatarstan, like other entities in this region, will be able to peacefully secede and declare independence.

The situation in Siberia and the Far East may develop radically opposite. The People's Republic of China (PRC), which has not yet clearly outlined its attitude to the war unleashed by Putin in Ukraine, but whose friendship with the Russian Federation is supposedly without limits, may assert its claims to this region. This will allow the PRC to strengthen itself not only in territorial and mineral resources, but will give access to the Arctic Ocean, whose cover is decreasing every year, and the struggle for whose resources lays ahead.

The modern empire of the Russian Federation will eventually undergo another collapse. Under the influence of the war Russia has unleashed, the economic recession, the internal struggle of different political groups, the increase in national consciousness, and the weakening of the dictator, the Russian Federation may begin to undergo the process of disintegration. As difficult as it is to answer now, its success will depend on the strength of the national movements and the readiness of the Western democracies to support the peoples of Russia on their way to the formation of independent states.

It is important that Ukraine, as the country at the forefront of the fight against Russian imperialism, does everything possible to weaken the positions of the Putin regime in the republics and autonomous entities of the Russian Federation and to strengthen their national movements. Of course, certain steps have already been taken. Ukraine has recognized Chechnya as temporarily occupied, and units consisting of members of the peoples of the Russian Federation are fighting in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. However, greater coordination of their struggle in terms of foreign policy is required.

In 1943, not far from Rivne, the First Conference of Enslaved Peoples was held, which aimed at the formation of national revolutionary armies from among the national formations of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). They were, in the course of the movement of the Soviet-German front to the west and the weakening of the power apparatus of the USSR, to break into their own national territories and create independent entities. At that time, this scenario could not be realized, but it was possible to unite in the diaspora, under the leadership of Ukrainians, representatives of all peoples enslaved by communism and Russian imperialism in the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN). We now need to take into account this historical experience and adjust it to the needs of today's realities of the struggle against Moscow.

https://english.nv.ua/opinion/the-realistic-scenarios-of-russian-colla
pse-we-should-be-prepared-for-50300393.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, January 29, 2023 7:25 AM

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

To Fix Its Problems in Ukraine, Russia Turns to the Architect of the War
by Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt

President Vladimir V. Putin is on his third overall commander in Ukraine. But his military’s fundamental issues have not been addressed, Western officials say.

WASHINGTON — Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the architect of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, took over the day-to-day running of Russia’s war effort this month by convincing his boss that his predecessor was too passive, American and European officials say.

But General Gerasimov’s turbocharged strategy is what led to Russia’s problems to begin with, and Moscow still does not have the troops, ammunition or equipment that military officials say it needs to mass the big offensive promised by the country’s senior military leader.

Since General Gerasimov replaced Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was in the job for only three months, Russia’s military leadership has focused on tactical issues like whether troops should travel in civilian vehicles and the dangers of their cellphone use, Western officials say. But while those matters have certainly bedeviled service members, there is no evidence that the Russian military has begun to address its fundamental problems, like shortages of ammunition and well-trained troops, despite the musical chairs of generals, according to these officials.

In Washington, where military and defense officials walk the halls of the Pentagon with lists of the steadily growing number of Russian generals who have been fired or demoted during 11 months of war (nine so far), the latest installment of who’s in charge is viewed as part of a drama with an ever-evolving cast of characters who have not gotten the job done.

“It’s kind of like a reality TV show,” Colin H. Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters last week. “And I think it’s more indicative that the Russians have still not figured it out about how they intend to command the fight, and I think the dysfunction among Russian commanders is pretty profound.”

Now on his third overall war commander, Mr. Putin has accomplished few of his goals. Russian troops have failed to seize Kyiv, the capital; President Volodymyr Zelensky is still in power; Ukraine has closer ties to the West than ever; and despite signs of some cracks, NATO remains united. Even Russia’s more limited goal of taking over the entire eastern region of Donbas remains elusive.

To fix this mess, Mr. Putin has turned to none other than General Gerasimov.

For 10 years, General Gerasimov was believed to be working to modernize the Russian armed forces as the chief of general staff for the military — the equivalent of the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had studied American misadventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the former Yugoslavia and Libya, and aimed to incorporate those insights into the plans.

But evidence of that effort has yet to emerge on the Ukrainian battlefield.

General Gerasimov, 67, comes complete with contradictions that characterize senior Russian leaders: His counterparts in the West say he has personal integrity, but that he pushes the lies of his government. He told Western officials early last year that Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine; weeks later, Russian troops had crossed the border. He has also remained close to Mr. Putin, who appointed him head of his military more than a decade ago.

In rare public comments, mimicking Mr. Putin’s propaganda, General Gerasimov portrayed Russia as a victim of Western aggression, without explaining his strategy to neutralize the perceived threat.

“Our country and its armed forces today are opposing practically the entire collective West,” he said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Arguments and Facts published on Jan. 24, adding that NATO is “using Ukraine for a hybrid war against our nation.”

As he sought to overhaul the Russian military, General Gerasimov elevated the irregular warfare tactics that he falsely believed that Americans were conducting, instead of focusing on what the United States did well — combined arms warfare, blending various military capabilities to create overwhelming force, Seth G. Jones, the national security expert, argues in his book “Three Dangerous Men.”

As a result, Russia’s military gained expertise in subterfuge and clandestine tactics, like sending Russian Spetsnaz special forces units, without insignia, to Crimea before Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014.

But the war in Ukraine has required a different kind of maneuvering: offensive campaigns by large numbers of ground forces operating in different areas with the goal of seizing land. There, General Gerasimov has been ineffective.

The troops sent to take Kyiv in the early days of the war lacked even basic supplies and soon stalled outside the city. He did not hone the military’s ability to move large numbers of different kinds of troops, by land, air and sea, yet his invasion plan depended on that. Russian forces got bogged down, and then eviscerated, in northern Ukrainian cities and towns.

General Gerasimov himself almost fell victim to his military’s poor planning when, in late April, he narrowly escaped being killed in a Ukrainian strike when he visited troops. Dozens of Russians were killed instead, in an incident that prompted Moscow to scale back visits from leaders to the front.

“This goes to the lack of serious training and operational experience in the Russian Ministry of Defense,” said Frederick Hodges, a retired lieutenant general and former top U.S. Army commander in Europe. “When you get into a real war, like the one in Ukraine, all their shortcomings are immediately exposed.”

The result of those shortcomings was on display last November in a scene broadcast on Russian state television. Standing in front of a map and a Russian flag, and wearing army fatigues, General Surovikin announced Russia’s retreat from the southern city of Kherson, calling it a “difficult” decision.

“Having assessed the situation, I propose to take up defense on the left bank of the Dnipro,” he told his superiors, in a reference to the river that offered the sole remaining escape route.

Missing from the scripted televised meeting was Mr. Putin — an absence, American and NATO officials said, that reflected his desire to distance himself from what was by any account a stunning military defeat.

Just a month earlier, General Surovikin had been appointed to lead the Ukraine effort, replacing Gen. Aleksandr Dvornikov.

But General Surovikin, according to American military officials and Biden administration officials, had solidified a shaky Russian position in Ukraine, particularly in the south. He had pushed for Russian forces to abandon Kherson and conducted a retreat that minimized Russian casualties. He then focused his forces on what the U.S. military calls “defense in depth,” building secondary trench lines.

While his defensive moves raised worries in Washington that Russia might be able to withstand renewed Ukrainian offensives, Russian military bloggers had a far different reaction.

The bloggers, who have emerged as an influential voice during the conflict, criticized the Russian military command for the retreat from Kherson. Mr. Putin had been uncomfortable with that plan, initially rejecting General Surovikin’s recommendation to pull back. U.S. and allied officials believe that General Gerasimov and Sergei K. Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, used Mr. Putin’s skepticism of the defensive stance against General Surovikin.

American officials predicted in December that General Gerasimov and Mr. Shoigu would try to reassert their control over the military amid intense jockeying for Mr. Putin’s ear. In January, the two made their move, engineering a field demotion for General Surovikin.

The officials say that General Gerasimov and Mr. Shoigu attacked General Surovikin’s defensive posture and proposed a return to the “hyper offensive,” with a potential initial goal of taking Kramatorsk, in the east. Russian-controlled separatists initially took the city in 2014 but were driven out by Ukrainian forces during an earlier phase of the war.

In another sign of a broader shake-up, Gen. Col. Mikhail Teplinsky has probably been dismissed as one of Russia’s key operational commanders in Ukraine, according to a British defense intelligence assessment this week.

“Teplinsky was the officer on the ground in charge of Russia’s relatively successful withdrawal from west of the Dnipro in November 2022, and he has received praise in Russia as a capable and pragmatic commander,” the assessment said.

Promoting General Gerasimov, U.S. and other Western military officials say, was intended to both deflect criticism of the war effort from the military bloggers and to check the rising power of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary group Wagner that has spearheaded the bloody Russian offensive at Bakhmut in the Donbas. Mr. Prigozhin has also been a staunch supporter of General Surovikin.

“The recent shake-up in commanders of the war effort seems like the result of political infighting and cronyism,” said Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation in Washington.

With Mr. Putin still insisting that Russia will seize the Donbas and even Kyiv, expectations are rising that General Gerasimov will be under immense pressure to carry out a successful offensive this spring, military officials and analysts say.

“It’s now on him, and I suspect Putin has unrealistic expectations again,” Mark Galeotti, who studies Russian security affairs, said in a Twitter message, calling General Gerasimov’s promotion “the most poisoned of chalices.”

Anatoly Kurmanaev contributed reporting from Berlin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/28/us/politics/russia-generals-ukraine
.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, January 29, 2023 9:52 AM

Fuck Ukraine. Let it fall into rubble.

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

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

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Sunday, January 29, 2023 11:30 AM

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

Ukraine is pushing the U.S. to start training its fighter pilots on the F-16s now, before President Joe Biden approves supplying the jets, according to the Ukrainian official and one of the people familiar. But there is no appetite in the Pentagon for this proposal, U.S. officials said. One alternative under discussion at lower levels is to start training Ukrainian pilots on introductory fighter tactics in trainer jets.

Ukraine has also considered contracting with private companies in the U.S. to begin training pilots, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Ukraine has identified a list of up to 50 pilots who are ready now to start training on the F-16, according to a DoD official and a Ukrainian official, as well as three other people familiar with the discussions. These seasoned pilots speak English and have thousands of combat missions under their belts, and could be trained in as little as three months, the people said.

It’s likely U.S. military training would not start without a presidential decision to supply American fighters. One concern for the Biden administration all along is that sending advanced weapons could be seen by Russia as an escalation, prompting Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons.

But officials point out that the F-16 was first built in the 1980s, and the Air Force is already retiring parts of the fleet. While sending Ukraine the stealthy American F-22s or F-35s would be considered escalatory, sending F-16s would not, they said.

“Let’s face it, a nuclear war isn’t going to happen over F-16s,” the DoD official said.

One European official agreed, saying F-16s “cannot be considered escalatory.”

“It’s simply part of the toolkit of having conventional weapons,” the person said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/28/pentagon-send-f-16s-ukraine-0
0080045

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, January 30, 2023 9:15 AM

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

Kremlin says Boris Johnson's claim about Putin missile strike threat "is a lie" (It's not. Putin's mouth was faster than his brain when he said what he should never say out loud. Per usual, Russians handle such situations by denying it happened.)

From CNN's Anna Chernova

The Kremlin said Monday former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s claim about Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening him with a missile in a phone call ahead of Russia's invasion of Ukraine “is a lie.”

“What Mr. Johnson said is not true. More precisely, it is a lie,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a regular conference call.

Peskov said he's aware of what was discussed during that conversation, but stressed “there were no missile threats.”

According to Peskov, “Speaking about the security challenges for the Russian Federation, Putin noted that in the event of Ukraine joining NATO, the potential deployment of NATO or American missiles near our borders would mean that any missile would reach Moscow in a matter of minutes.”

“If this passage was understood in this way, it is a very awkward situation,” he added.

Johnson told the BBC earlier Monday that Putin threatened him with a missile that “would only take a minute.” The exchange was released as a preview to the documentary "Putin vs the West," scheduled to release later Monday, which examines Putin's interactions with world leaders.

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-1-30-23/h
_cc75481fca09439aa6a84d524d34b2ef

BBC Documentary "Putin vs the West" at
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0dlz7gc/putin-vs-the-west

or download "Putin vs the West" from https://comment.rlsbb.ru/putin-vs-the-west-s01-1080p-ip-web-dl-h264-rn
g/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, January 30, 2023 10:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

RUSSIA REPLACES WAGNER UNIT! Current Ukraine War Footage And News With The Enforcer (Day 341)

Fundraiser
Quote:

T

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Monday, January 30, 2023 10:40 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Now you're attributing a post to me that I never made?

Or, more likely, you've got your formatting screwed up - again. Please learn formatting, THUGR. It's really simple.

Also, it's over 2h30min. SOMEWHERE in there, buried in 2h30min of crap, is the crap that you titled. If you want anyone to listen to that particular piece of crap, post a timestamp, willya?

Jeez.

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

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Monday, January 30, 2023 10:46 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Brian Berletic, of the New Atlas, with Donbass Devushka . Donbass Devushka explains the Russian Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) - why it was created, how it is formed, its relationship to its brigade, how it operates, its command structure etc

Unlike some of THUGR's videos, this is probably informative.

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

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Monday, January 30, 2023 11:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Brian Berletic, of the New Atlas, with Donbass Devushka . Donbass Devushka explains the Russian Battalion Tactical Group (BTG) - why it was created, how it is formed, its relationship to its brigade, how it operates, its command structure etc

Unlike some of THUGR's videos, this is probably informative.

I cut the video because they screw up the page when they are reposted. Besides, it's about the concepts behind a Russian Tank Brigade. Not how they are functioning in Ukraine in actuality. They are being destroyed quicker than they can send them.

Loser comrade signym. The Russian army consists of nothing but losers. And boy oh boy I told you so.

T

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FnPB0OxXoAEq-9H?format=jpg&name=large

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Monday, January 30, 2023 9:17 PM

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

Kremlin 'Didn't Take It Far Enough' in WWII, Russian Lawmaker Says

"We will win, 100 percent," said Andrey Gurulyov, a Russian parliament member and former military commander. "Where? Everywhere! Everywhere!"

Gurulyov began by saying that Russia must make plans "beyond the horizon" so that "we know what happens in one year, three years, five years and 10 years and harshly move towards it in this paradigm."

"We will win, 100 percent," he asserted. "Where? Everywhere! Everywhere!"

"And this is by far not about Ukraine. Everywhere! Russia was, is, and will be a great nation, capable of bringing peace. Peace is the key word! We bring peace and calm!" Gurulyov continued.

"But we have to draw the conclusion that we didn't take it far enough in 1945. Today, we have to keep pushing to make sure there is no danger and trouble for our country ever again," the politician added.

He said on state television earlier this month that if Russia had wanted to kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, it would have already done so.

"If a nail had to be hammered into Zelensky's coffin, it would have been done a long time ago, I assure you," he said on Russia-1. "No such goal or objective was set. That is why Zelensky is alive at this stage."

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-state-tv-wwii-andrey-gurulyov-1777402

Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews tweeted "Meanwhile on Russian TV: State Duma member Andrey Gurulyov, former deputy commander of Russia's southern military district, argues that striking America with nuclear weapons is the only way forward, because Russia brings peace and calm everywhere it goes."
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1619844026638938113

"Russia brings peace and calm everywhere it goes." For 875 years MOSCOW has brought war to everyone in the neighborhood and now wants to export Russia's Wars to the rest of the WORLD. It was the Allies, not Russia, who didn't go far enough. They should have destroyed the USSR and should have handed over Stalin and his KGB buddies to the Hague Court... The world would be a much better place now. It's not too late... PUTIN should face the Hague courts.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 5:01 AM

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

Putin vs the West review: World leaders seem rightly shamefaced about how they got taken for a ride by the Russian president

The Independent US by Sean O'Grady January 30, 2023, 4:00 PM

Putin vs the West is the latest series from the legendary Norma Percy, and the three-parter contains everything you’d expect from the veteran documentarian – the right blend of revelation, anecdote, history, drama, forensic analysis and storytelling. It’s Putin, the Ukraine war and how the West fouled up, all made comprehensible. It’s brilliant, and you have to watch it to understand how we got to where we are now.

It is in fact so brilliant that you find yourself in the unexpected position of being almost on the edge of your seat listening to the testimony from the half-forgotten dullards – such as former French president Francois Hollande; ex President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso; Cathy Ashton, once a sort of surrogate EU foreign minister; and various other former apparatchiks, advisors, politicians and ambassadors – who have had the usually bruising experience of dealing first hand with Vladimir Putin over the years.

In the hands of the programme makers, stock archive footage of ministerial comings and goings at EU summits and conferences in Brussels and Minsk take on the quality of a tense thriller, as they are interspersed by revelations about what was going on behind the scenes. Episode one deals with the events that led up to the first Russian invasion of 2014, when they took Crimea and the eastern Donbas region, with minimal Western resistance and punishment, and maximum Western disunity and disarray. The Russians bluffed and fibbed their way to victory. When Putin turns up at a big conference and the Ukrainians confront him with hard evidence that they’ve captured scores of Russian soldiers on their territory, such as ID tags and official orders, Putin comes up with a series of Pythonesque excuses: the Ukrainians are making it up; the Russians were “on holiday”; or they “lost their way” along the border.

On another occasion, when Putin denies unmarked Russian forces have infiltrated and occupied eastern Ukraine, Merkel tells him not to be so silly, according to a witness. However, she still won’t push the Russians too far, for fear of escalation and loss of gas supplies. The EU was utterly divided, as was NATO. Elsewhere, Barack Obama seemingly deliberately calls Russia a “regional power”, something that was particularly offensive to Putin – and hardened his attitudes. Obama talked tough on sanctions, but, like Germany, the Americans then were simply not going to send military assistance and risk a war. This is something we learn from Obama’s close advisers at the time. Merkel and Obama didn’t give an interview for the series, which is understandable because they come out of it quite badly.

They got bamboozled by Putin. “Deny and lie” was and is the standard Russian approach, and the only Western leader who seems able to cope with it is Boris Johnson. Funny, that. To his credit, he took no notice of Putin’s jolly threat to target him with a cruise missile.

Cameron, Hollande, Barroso and the rest of the gullible talking heads are mostly filmed in front of impressively full bookcases or inside what look like ornately furnished palaces. Juxtaposed with bombed-out Ukrainian schools or tanks rolling down Crimean roads, this makes them look rather detached from the bloody reality they allowed to happen.

They at least seem rightly shamefaced about how they got taken for a ride. Somehow, they apparently only believed what was politically convenient, and never took Putin at his word when he went off on one about how he wanted to take back control of Ukraine. Barroso, for example, tells how he listened, open-mouthed, as Putin told him that Ukraine was a creation of the CIA and the European Commission. He acknowledges that European divisions encouraged Putin to push and push.

Hollande almost, but not quite, comes to an apology: “Europe is still facing this threat of its unity. When we do not punish hard enough at first, we are forced to punish more severely later. And that’s what’s happening today.” There’s no dispute about that. We can only hope that it’s not too late, and that the next Norma Percy series isn’t titled “How Putin Beat the West”.

https://www.aol.com/news/putin-vs-west-review-world-220000011.html

Download the three episodes from either the BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlz7tz/putin-vs-the-west-serie
s-1-1-my-backyard
or from here:
https://comment.rlsbb.ru/putin-vs-the-west-s01-1080p-ip-web-dl-h264-rn
g/#comments

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 5:48 AM

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

How to Get a Breakthrough in Ukraine
The Case Against Incrementalism

By Michael McFaul January 30, 2023

Nearly a year after he invaded Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has failed to achieve any of his major objectives. He has not unified the alleged single Slavic nation, he has not “denazified” or “demilitarized” Ukraine, and he has not stopped NATO expansion. Instead, the Ukrainian military kept Russian troops out of Kyiv, defended Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and launched successful counteroffensives in the fall so that by the end of 2022, it had liberated over 50 percent of the territory previously captured by Russian soldiers that year. In January, Putin removed the general in charge of the war in Ukraine, Sergei Surovikin, whom he had appointed just a few months earlier. Wartime leaders change their top generals only when they know they are losing.

Ukraine is doing so well in part thanks to the unified Western response. Unlike reactions to Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2014, the Western pushback against Putin’s latest war has been strong along multiple fronts. NATO enhanced its eastern defenses and invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. Europe has provided shelter to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. Led by the Biden administration, the West has provided massive amounts of military and economic support at amazing speed, levied punishing sanctions, and begun a difficult shift away from Russian energy. Even Chinese leader Xi Jinping has offered Putin only faint rhetorical support for his war. He has not provided Russia with weapons and has cautiously avoided violating the global sanctions regime.

These are the reasons for optimism. The bad news, however, is that the war continues, and Putin has shown no signs of wanting to end it. Instead, he is planning a major counteroffensive this year. “The Russians are preparing some 200,000 fresh troops,” General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, warned in December. “I have no doubt they will have another go at Kyiv.” Even though Putin must understand by now that Ukrainians are willing to fight for as long as it takes to liberate their country, he still believes that time is on his side. That is because Putin expects Western governments and societies to lose their will and interest to keep helping Ukraine. If Putin or his aides watch the television personality Tucker Carlson on Fox News or saw the protests last fall in Prague, their hunch about waning Western support would be confirmed.

If Russia starts winning on the battlefield, or even fights to a stalemate, few will remember U.S. President Joe Biden’s remarkable leadership in galvanizing the world to assist Ukraine in 2022. This is why Western leaders need to shift how they approach the conflict. At this stage, incrementally expanding military and economic assistance is likely to only prolong the war indefinitely. Instead, in 2023, the United States, NATO, and the democratic world more broadly should aim to support a breakthrough. This means more advanced weapons, more sanctions against Russia, and more economic aid to Ukraine. None of this should be doled out incrementally. It needs to be provided swiftly, so that Ukraine can win decisively on the battlefield this year. Without greater and immediate support, the war will settle into a stalemate, which is only to Putin’s advantage. In the end, the West will be judged by what happened during the last year of the war, not by what happened in the first.

. . .

As long as Russian soldiers occupy their country, Ukrainians will fight. They will fight with or without new advanced weapons, with or without harsher sanctions, with or without money to help them run their country. Understanding this key insight about the Ukrainian mentality today leads to an obvious policy recommendation for the West: help Ukraine win as fast as possible.

The best way to commemorate February 24, the anniversary of Putin’s invasion, is to make clear that this is the West’s strategy. This requires a rollout—coordinated by dozens of countries on the same day—of more and better weapons, tougher sanctions, new economic assistance, greater public diplomacy efforts, and a credible commitment to postwar reconstruction. This is also the best way to avoid being in the same place when February 24, 2024, rolls around.

More at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/how-get-breakthrough-ukraine

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 8:06 AM

Fuck Ukraine. May it fall into rubble and be a concrete barrier between Russia and NATO.

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

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

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 2:01 PM

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

“A better future for Ukraine and Europe is possible,” writes the historian Timothy Garton Ash. “It’s worth emphasizing the scale of this historic opportunity. Anchoring Ukraine … firmly in the geopolitical West would mean the effective end of the Russian empire. As a result, for the first time in European history, we would have a fully postimperial Europe.”

Ash writes: Tetiana, a young activist I met in Lviv last December, works part-time as a tattooist. People often ask for tattoos of the Ukrainian flag or the country’s trident symbol, she told me, but one of the most popular since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago is the word volya, which means both “will,” as in willpower, and “freedom.” It captures the essence of what I saw in Ukraine—and of what Ukraine is reminding the world.

“The secret of happiness is liberty,” Thucydides has Pericles say in a funeral oration in ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy, “and the secret of liberty is courage.” The courage to live and die for freedom is most obviously apparent in the men and women of the Ukrainian armed forces.

More at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/23/ukraine-in-our-future-timo
thy-garton-ash/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 3:02 PM

T

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 3:27 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

The end stage of McFaul's twitch is giving nukes to Ukraine. McFaul doesn't understand that none of our conventional weapons are superior in number or capability to Russia's. As Obama pointed out, Russia has "escalatory dominance". That leaves only one option.

And neocons are rabid enuf to go there.

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

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 3:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The end stage of McFaul's twitch is giving nukes to Ukraine. McFaul doesn't understand that none of our conventional weapons are superior in number or capability to Russia's. As Obama pointed out, Russia has "escalatory dominance". That leaves only one option.

And neocons are rabid enuf to go there.

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

No. There's that option, and there's another option.

The US and NATO countries can just keep giving weapons and tanks and our tax dollars to Ukraine until every last Ukrainian dies for NATO's proxy war while idiots like Ted wave digital Ukrainian flags online and cheerlead their deaths.

Either Russia wins, or we all lose.

Because the 3rd option, which is minding our own fucking business and disbanding NATO isn't an option at all. At least not with the cunts we've got running the show right now.

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

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

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 4:33 PM

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

Silent Gestures RUSSIA

Muscovites recently have been laying wreaths of flowers, stuffed animals, photographs and other mementos at the feet of a statue dedicated to the early 20th century Ukrainian writer, Lesya Ukrainka. The makeshift memorial, appearing after a Russian missile hit a residential building in Dnipro in Ukraine just over a week ago, killing 46 people and injuring 80 others, is a subtle sign of discontent over Russia’s bloody, humiliating standstill war in Ukraine, the New York Times wrote.

“In contemporary Russia, under these conditions, it is a battle – a silent battle,” a Russian chemist who contributed to the memorial told the newspaper, alluding to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal crackdown on free expression and dissent over the military’s so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.

With the help of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leaders have prospered personally under Putin’s watch, as the Australian Broadcasting Company reported, Putin still maintains a solid grip on the media and other institutions that claim to reflect public sentiment and civil society.

Prominent opposition activist Aleksei Navalny has been imprisoned for the past two years, Amnesty International wrote. Russian authorities routinely shut down organizations that promote anti-war sentiments or refuse to bow to government censors, Human Rights Watch said. Putin has especially cracked down on other spaces of resistance to his conservative vision for Russian society, like the LGBTQ community, added the BBC.

Still, the Russian army’s failures in Ukraine have clearly undermined Putin’s power, Military.com countered. The Kremlin’s current regime is creaking under the stress, it said. Army generals are at odds with the Wagner Group, the Russian military contracting force that has fielded some of the toughest fighters against the Ukrainian army, for example, indicating that members of Putin’s team are pointing fingers at each other.

The increasingly outlandish statements of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are another sign of the chaos in Putin’s camp. At his recent annual press conference, Lavrov, who has served in his position at the pinnacle of the Russian political elite since 2004, said the US and Europe were pursuing a “final solution” to the “Russian question,” comparing Russia’s current diplomatic and economic isolation to the Holocaust.

“Just as Napoleon mobilized practically all of Europe against the Russian Empire, just as Hitler mobilized and captured … the majority of European countries and sent them against the Soviet Union, now the United States has organized a coalition,” Lavrov said, according to the Times of Israel.

And while Putin still seemingly has the loyalty of the elite and voters, cracks have appeared. Polls showed his popularity dipping, especially after imposing a partial draft last year. Meanwhile, he appeared to take swipes at elites who are less than supportive of the war effort, Newsweek reported.

One source close to businessmen from Putin’s “inner circle” told Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet that operates from the Baltics that, “It’s started to dawn on people: We’ve lost the real war.”

More notably, supporters are openly speaking about how the “special operation” has achieved little, noted Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, in an opinion piece for the Washington Post.

Unfortunately, countries become more, not less, unpredictable and dangerous as they near their breaking point.

https://www.dailychatter.com/2023/01/31/silent-gestures/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 4:48 PM

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

Are we seeing the beginning of the end of Putinism?

by Michael McFaul

Wartime leaders change generals when they’re losing, not winning. On Jan. 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, was to replace Sergei Surovikin, who was appointed just a few months earlier in October, as his new overall commander of Russian military forces in Ukraine. The only reasonable conclusion: Putin understands that Russia is losing in Ukraine.

This shake-up at the top of the military is not the only sign of Putin’s recognition of failure. He canceled his annual end-of-year news conference, evidently reluctant to take questions even from a mostly loyal and controlled press corps. His solitary and subdued appearance at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Kremlin on Orthodox Christmas communicated little confidence.

His propagandists sound depressed. Strikingly, one of them, Sergei Markov, summed up the previous year by stating bluntly, “The USA was the main winner of 2022. Especially Biden.” Newspaper reporter Maksim Yusin recently said on a talk show that Russia’s “special military operation” had achieved none of its original goals. Former Putin adviser Sergei Glazyev lamented in public that Russia does not have a clear end objective, a sound ideology or the resources to win the war against the collective West.

Putin plans to reverse 2022’s Russian losses by launching a spring offensive after drafting several hundred thousand more soldiers. But even with incremental successes, he will never be able to restore the reputation he once enjoyed among his subjects as an all-powerful and all-knowing leader. Putin will not recover from his disastrous war in Ukraine.

First, major Russian victories on the battlefield are unlikely. Russia’s armed forces have neither the capabilities nor the will to capture all four Ukrainian regions that Putin annexed on paper last fall. Successful Ukrainian counteroffensives are more likely, especially if President Volodymyr Zelensky receives the offensive weapons — tanks, longer range missiles and jet fighters — he requested from the United States and NATO. Putin is very unlikely to resurrect his reputation by achieving military glory. Oligarchs in Moscow, communist leaders in Beijing and Russian nationalist bloggers on Telegram all seem to understand this.

Second, Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine triggered the most comprehensive sanctions we’ve seen imposed against a single country, ending two decades of Russian integration into the global economy. This isolation will continue for as long as Putin is in power. Sanctions are sticky. They will begin to unwind only when new leaders who are less aggressive and autocratic come to power. In the meantime, Russians will face economic malaise and stagnation, a fact the economic elite already understands and laments. Tens of thousands of Russia’s best and brightest have left; thousands more are trying to do so. Putin won’t regain respect from Russia’s private business sector.

Third, Putin’s societal support is soft and declining. Public opinion polls show he still enjoys popular support. But these polls in Russia have high refusal rates, which should not be surprising in a country where you can go to jail for 15 years for “public dissemination of deliberate false information about the use of Russian Armed Forces.” The minority responding to these polls supports the regime, but the majority who choose not to respond likely do not. And even these highly flawed polls show little enthusiasm and declining support for the war, and a solid majority ready to support Putin if he ends the invasion. Anxiety about the conflict is growing. And the demographics of his support are clear: The older, more rural, less educated and poorer support Putin in greater numbers than the younger, more urban, more educated, wealthier Russians. Putin is losing the future.

Other indicators look equally grim for Putin. Organic mass movements in support of Russian imperialism have not emerged over the past year, but antiwar protests have. Before the war began, Putin arrested Russia’s most popular opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, who continues to denounce the war from his jail cell. Since Putin invaded Ukraine, almost 20,000 people have been detained and arrested for protesting the war, including most recently opposition leaders Alexei Gorinov and Ilya Yashin, who received seven- and eight-year sentences respectively for telling the truth about Russian war atrocities in Ukraine. If the war was truly popular, why would Putin’s regime need to arrest these allegedly marginal, unpopular critics?

Likewise, a paranoid Putin felt compelled to shut down many independent media channels — including TV Rain and Echo of Moscow radio — and ban Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Yet viewership of Russian state-controlled media outlets is declining while audiences increasingly consume independent media operating from exile. Viewership of Navalny’s YouTube channels, operated by his team in exile, jumped dramatically in 2022, especially after Putin announced a new draft in September. (Only a week after the order was issued, as many men or more fled Russia than enlisted.)

Revolutions are hard to predict, but Putin remains in little danger of being overthrown through a palace coup or a popular revolt. Over two decades in power, he has constructed a highly repressive dictatorship; his inner circle fears him, while his main critics sit in prison. And in the unlikely event that one of his hawkish critics were to seize power, such a regime would not last long, since none of these militant nationalists enjoy mass followings or ideological appeal. The most likely scenario is Putin will remain in control for the near future, albeit discredited and diminished.

It is hard to escape the sense though that the best days for Putin and his ideas are behind him. Like Leonid Brezhnev in Afghanistan, Putin has overreached in Ukraine. He and his regime will never recover. Even if the process of unwinding begins in earnest only once he is out of power, Putin’s colossal failure in Ukraine could well be the beginning of the end of Putinism. The Russian president’s recent behavior suggests that even he might understand this fact.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/24/putin-ukraine-war-l
egitimacy-support/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 5:25 PM

lol

I can't wait until the Leftists are purged from the mainstream.

We're getting there.

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

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

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 5:43 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol

I can't wait until the Leftists are purged from the mainstream.

We're getting there.

You are channeling Russia's favorite propagandist and politician: Tucker Carlson and Trump. I would have compared you with Rush Limbaugh, but he is dead because he denied smoking causes cancer. But don't give up smoking, 6ix! Tucker Carlson says tobacco smoke is “the most American of all pleasures … the smell of freedom”.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-gives-indoor-smok
ing-his-heartfelt-endorsement

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 31, 2023 6:02 PM

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

I can't wait until the Leftists are purged from the mainstream.

We're getting there.
You are channeling...

I'm doing no such thing.

I'm absolutely sick and tired of the Leftist Propaganda churned out 24/7 from the Leftist ran media machine.

Just like everybody else in the fucking country is.

We're done with you idiots. Everything you touch turns to shit.

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

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

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