REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Thursday, October 31, 2024 13:46
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Wednesday, February 22, 2023 7:32 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The neocons thought they had a "no fail" plan to collapse Russia. One year later, the plan still hasn't succeeded despite the neocons successively doubling down, like any obsessed gambler.

The neocons should take some advice from Kenny Rogers



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


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Thursday, February 23, 2023 9:27 AM

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


United West, divided from the rest: Global public opinion one year into Russia’s war on Ukraine

Citizens in China, India, and Turkiye prefer a quick end to the war even if Ukraine has to concede territory. People in these non-Western countries, and in Russia, also consider the emergence of a multipolar world order to be more probable than a bipolar arrangement.

A year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there is little doubt the war is a turning point in world history. The conflict has challenged Europeans’ most basic assumptions about their security, brought the spectre of nuclear confrontation back to their continent, and disrupted the global economy, leaving energy and food crises in its wake.

Yet while Russia’s aggression is an event of global significance, people in different parts of the world have experienced and interpreted it in diverse ways. According to a former national security adviser to the prime minister of India, “for many parts of the globe, a year of war in Ukraine has done less to redefine the world order than to set it further adrift, raising new questions about how urgent transnational challenges can be met.” In contrast to opinion in the West, people in many non-Western countries appear to believe that the post-cold war era is finished. They do not expect the next international order to be characterised by polarisation between two blocs led by the United States and China; instead, they see as more likely a fragmentation into a multipolar world.

The key findings of a new multi-country global poll indicate that, a year since Russia’s war on Ukraine began, the US and its European allies have regained their unity and sense of purpose. But the study also reveals a wide gap between the West and the ‘rest’ when it comes to their desired outcomes for the war and differing understandings of why the US and Europe support Ukraine. The poll took place in December 2022 and January 2023 in nine EU countries and Great Britain, and in China, India, Turkiye, Russia, and the US (the CITRUS countries, to use the shorthand of the University of Oxford’s Europe in a Changing World project). Its results suggest that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine marks both the consolidation of the West and the emergence of the long-heralded post-Western international order.

The new consensus among European governments is that only a Ukrainian victory will stop Putin’s war. Although significant numbers of European citizens still wish the war to cease as soon as possible, the poll appears to show a clear trend over the last year towards preferring Ukraine to win even if the conflict endures some time longer. Americans similarly believe that Ukraine must regain its territory if lasting peace is to be secured.

In contrast, people in non-Western countries possess a clear preference for the war to end now – even if it means Ukraine having to give up territory. In China, a plurality of those asked (42 per cent) agree that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine needs to stop as soon as possible, even if it means Ukraine giving control of areas of its territory to Russia. This desire to end the war soon is even stronger in Turkiye (48 per cent) and India (54 per cent). It is worth noting, however, that almost a third of people in both these countries would prefer Ukraine to regain all of its territory, even if it means a longer war or more Ukrainians being killed and displaced.

More at https://ecfr.eu/publication/united-west-divided-from-the-rest-global-p
ublic-opinion-one-year-into-russias-war-on-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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Thursday, February 23, 2023 9:59 AM

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Putin is very trustworthy... for Russians. Russians can count on him for looking out for their interests while maintaining national sovereignty.

I wish I could say the same for our politicians, who are so much more concerned with small faraway nations and the poor illegal migrants that they forget their own citizens.
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The neocons thought they had a "no fail" plan to collapse Russia. One year later, the plan still hasn't succeeded despite the neocons successively doubling down, like any obsessed gambler.

The neocons should take some advice from Kenny Rogers
I noticed a disturbing trend with people who defend Putin and/or Trump: to the very end of their lives, they insist Putin and Trump are doing what is best for Putin's and Trump's people. I sure would like for them to seek out some tangible proof of that rather than hear them tell me their feelings about Putin and Trump. If they had some measured, solid, hard proof then I would not have the queasy "feeling" that Putin's and Trump's people are hollow inside, empty vessels that Putin and Trump fill with patriotic feelings.

If Russians compared their lives and economy to another country, Canada for example, they could not rationally be saying Putin is doing what is best for Russians. Similarly, North Koreans could not rationally be saying Kim is doing what is best for North Korea, but only if North Koreans compare themselves to South Koreans. Somehow the comparisons never get made, perhaps because Putin and Kim discourage rational comparisons, preferring emotional comparisons such as who is most likely to use H-bombs and is most willing to die for their maximum leader.

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, February 23, 2023 12:21 PM

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


How Russia Uses Retired US Colonel’s Ukraine Misinformation for Domestic Propaganda

On February 15, Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency quoted retired U.S. Colonel Douglas Macgregor’s interview with the “Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom” program, streamed on YouTube that same day.

The Russian translation of Macgregor’s claim isn’t precise but represents his ideas accurately:

"We just don't have ammunition to send. We have reached the limit; our own reserves are rapidly coming to an end."

This statement is misleading and fits into the Kremlin’s anti-U.S. and anti-Ukraine propaganda targeting Russia’s domestic audiences.

In reality, for most categories of ammunition, the U.S. can provide support to Ukraine indefinitely. Only for two types of ammunition -- 155 mm artillery ammunition, which includes a wide variety of non-precision projectiles, and 155 mm Excalibur GPS-guided precision artillery shells -- the United States may have a shortage in the coming years if it doesn’t replenish. However, the U.S. has already moved to increase munitions production to avoid shortages. Another way to prevent ammunition shortages is to purchase it from third countries. The U.S. military has already purchased Soviet-standard 152 mm and 122 mm artillery shells and 125 mm tank shells outside the United States.

According to the Pentagon, “Since 2014, the United States has committed approximately $24 billion in security assistance to Ukraine and approximately $21.2 billion since the beginning of Russia's unprovoked, full-scale invasion on February 24.”

Russian use of Macgregor’s misinformation

1) On December 15, 2021, when the United States was warning about an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Kremlin was denying any such plans, RIA Novosti reported it was unlikely that the Ukrainian army could withstand a Russian military invasion for more than three to four days. The agency quoted an article in The National Interest written by Macgregor and former CIA officer George Beebe:

“Under these circumstances, it is not unreasonable to assume that Russian ground forces would reach their operational objectives along the Dnieper River in as little as seventy-two to ninety-six hours.”

However, the Russian troops were unable to reach their goals in the Dnipro River basin even by mid-March 2022.

2) RIA Novosti quoted Macgregor again on March 6 as telling Fox Business that the Russian army in Ukraine was being very careful to protect civilians:

“The colonel noted that the Russian side is trying to act as carefully as possible and minimize damage, unlike, in particular, the US army in Iraq. He also expressed the opinion that the defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is inevitable, and President Zelensky is trying to delay it by any means.”

That claim was also false. Ukrainian and international authorities, including the United Nations, reported mass atrocities against Ukrainian civilians allegedly committed by the Russian troops, some of which potentially constitute war crimes.

Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group, reported on February 25, 2022, that the Russian army had carried out indiscriminate missile and bomb strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine. In just the first five days of the war, at least 102 Ukrainian civilians were killed (including seven children) and 304 injured, according to the United Nations.

3) On March 25, 2022, RIA Novosti quoted Macgregor as falsely claiming in an interview with the “Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom” YouTube show that a majority of the residents of eastern Ukraine were Russians. Calling the Russia-occupied regions of eastern Ukraine “these republics,” in language used by the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign, Macgregor said:

“These republics are fundamentally pro-Russian. And, in general, mostly Russians live in eastern Ukraine. … They should not be forced to speak Ukrainian, write Ukrainian, they are not Ukrainians.”

But the 2001 census, the last before Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, showed that most of eastern Ukraine residents are ethnic Ukrainians, with ethnic Russians the region’s largest minority.

4) The Voice of America asked the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to comment on Russia’s use of Macgregor’s erroneous forecasts and analysis in its domestic disinformation.

“Douglas Macgregor is a private citizen, exercising his 1st Amendment rights as an American, and so his views are his own and not representative of official U.S. or DOD policy,” DOD spokesman Lt. Col. Garron Garn said.

Macgregor did not answer Polygraph.info’s inquiry.

https://www.polygraph.info/a/fact-check-how-russia-uses-retired-us-col
onel-s-ukraine-misinformation-for-domestic-propaganda-/6972765.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, February 23, 2023 12:28 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Since everything you post about Russia comes from an unfathomably deep well of ignorance and disinformation, your opinions are tossed in the trash, where they belong.

And since everything you post about Trump supporters is equally stupid, that goes into the trash, too. I will say this about Trump: he had four good ideas,

Stop engaging in feckless war
Protect our southern border
Withdraw from "free trade" agreements that destroy our sovereignty
Repatriate capital

He was ineffective implementing them. And he had a lot of crappy ideas, too. But UNLIKE BIDEN*, OBAMA, the CLINTONS, GWB- he had America's interests at heart. Which is more than I can say for you, since you OBVIOUSLY hate most Americans


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


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Thursday, February 23, 2023 12:42 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


One thing Trump never would have done: Given the WHO control over an American pandemic response

Quote:
Republican Senators Push Back Against Accord Giving WHO Power Over US Pandemic Response

https://www.theepochtimes.com/republicans-push-back-against-accord-giv
ing-who-power-over-us-pandemic-response_5070968.html

American policies should be to protect American interest, not to pander to a globalist plan


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


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Thursday, February 23, 2023 3:40 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Russia’s Declaration of Independence — A Review of Putin’s Speech to Russia’s National Assembly

21 February 2023 by Larry Johnson

Reflecting on Putin’s long awaited speech to Russia’s national assembly I was struck by some similarities with Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. What do I mean? Jefferson started with his iconic preamble (i.e., We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .) and then proceeded to present an indictment of Great Britain that created the predicate for the rebellion of the Colonies:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

That is precisely what Putin did in the first 45 minutes of his speech — he presented the “history of repeated injuries and usurpations” by the United States and NATO that forced Russia’s hand to undertake the Special Military Operation. Here are some of the key points:

* Russia did everything possible to solve the problem in Ukraine by peaceful means. But the statements of Western leaders turned into a forgery and a lie.

The West supplied weapons, trained the nationalist battalions. Even before the start of the SMO, negotiations were underway on the supply of air defense systems and aircraft. We remember Kyiv’s attempts to obtain nuclear weapons.

The United States deployed bases and biological laboratories near our borders, mastered the theater of military operations, prepared Ukraine for a big war.

We received a refusal on all fundamental positions. It became clear that the go-ahead for the implementation of aggression had been given. The threat grew every day. By February 2022, everything was ready for the next punitive action of Kiev in the Donbass.

They spare no expense to encourage unrest and coups around the world. At a conference in Munich, Russia was blamed so that everyone would forget what the West had done in recent decades. Entire regions are in chaos. American experts say that as a result of the wars unleashed by the United States after 2001, more than 900 thousand people died, more than 38 million became refugees.

In the 1930s, the West opened the way to power in Germany for the Nazis, today they are making “anti-Russia” out of Ukraine, this project goes back to the 19th century, Austria-Hungary, Poland nurtured it to tear off historical territories from our country. *

Putin then shifted gears and identified red-lines that will escalate the current conflict from demilitarizing and de-nazifying Ukraine to a full scale war if the United States and NATO continue to fund the war and arm Ukraine with more sophisticated weapons. Putin said:

* The more long-range Western systems will come to Ukraine, the further we will be forced to move the threat away from our borders.

The goal of the West is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, to end us once and for all. We will respond accordingly, because we are talking about the existence of our country.

We remember what problems the late Soviet economy faced. The Russian economy was created on a market basis. However, in the end, our economy became oriented towards the West, as business was aimed at selling resources and making quick profits. It took years to break this trend, and we have achieved visible change.

The image of the West as a safe haven turned out to be fake. Those who considered Russia only as a source of income have lost a lot. In the West they were simply robbed.

In early February, a NATO statement was made with the actual demand for Moscow to “return to the implementation of the strategic offensive arms treaty”, including the admission of inspections to our facilities. We know that the West is involved in Kyiv’s attempts to strike at our strategic aviation bases. Now they still want to inspect our defense installations? This sounds like bullshit.

The United States and NATO openly say that their goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and at the same time they are going to drive around our facilities? I have signed a decree on putting new ground-based strategic systems on combat duty. Are we going to let them in there?

A week ago, I signed a decree on putting the latest ground-based missile systems on combat duty.

Russia suspends its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty. *

As Putin delivered his plan of action, the Russian’s reportedly summoned the American Ambassador to the Foreign Ministry and delivered a strong Démarche:

* The note of protest handed over to the ambassador emphasizes that the pumping of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with weapons, as well as the transfer of target designations for strikes against Russian military and civilian infrastructure, clearly prove the inconsistency and falsity of the assertions of the American side that the United States is not a party to the conflict. It is also indicated that the weapons supplied to Kyiv, as well as service personnel, including American citizens, are a legitimate target.

In this regard, the ambassador was told that the current aggressive course of the United States to deepen confrontation with Russia in all areas is counterproductive. It was especially noted that in order to de-escalate the situation, Washington must take steps that involve the withdrawal of US-NATO military and equipment, as well as the cessation of hostile anti-Russian activity.

The Russian side also emphasized that the United States should give explanations about the explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines and not interfere with an objective investigation to identify those responsible.*

This means Russia is putting the United States on notice that Moscow will hold America accountable and that any U.S. military and equipment inside Ukraine will be treated as legitimate targets. As I have watched the commentary on this speech, I have seen no one pick up on Russia’s new “red line.”

Prior to start of Russia’s Special Military Operation in February 2022, there were many in the Russian Government, including Putin, who believed that they could negotiate in good faith with the West. The events of the past year
Er, past 25 years...
Quote:
and the belligerent rhetoric from Washington politicians and Europe’s ruling class have convinced the Russians that traditional diplomacy is dead. Russia is fighting for its very existence.

Whether you agree with this is irrelevant. It is what Russia’s leaders believe, not just Putin. The West will make a fatal mistake if they ignore what Putin said today.

https://sonar21.com/putins-declaration-of-independence-a-review-of-put
ins-speech-to-russias-national-assembly/


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


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Thursday, February 23, 2023 4:14 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Russia has been calling the USA "not agreement capable", with good reason, for years.

Medvedev's comment on the START treaty:


Quote:
Yesterday we had an address by the President of Russia to the Federal Assembly, in which, among other things, he announced the suspension of our participation in START III. A long overdue decision, the inevitability of which I noted last year. A decision prompted by the war the United States and other NATO countries have declared on our country. A decision that will have a huge resonance in the world in general and in the United States in particular.

The reasoning of the American establishment so far has been this: we will shit all over you, we will supply huge volumes of weapons to the Kiev regime, we will work to defeat Russia, we will limit and destroy you, but strategic security is a separate issue. It is not related to the overall context of the U.S.-Russia relationship. It is almost a sacred cow.
And the reason for this is that the USA lost the nuclear arms race 10 years ago. So now we reap the rewards of our belligerence.

Quote:
This conclusion is worse than a crime-it’s a grave mistake by Americans. A mistake born of their mania grandiosa. Their sense of superiority and impunity. After all, it is obvious to all reasonable forces that if the U.S. wants to defeat Russia, then we are on the brink of a world conflict. If the U.S. wants to defeat Russia, we have the right to defend ourselves with any weapon, including nuclear weapons. As Putin rightly said: “It is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield. This is precisely why we have suspended (for now) START III. Let the elites in the U.S., who have lost touch with reality, think about what they have achieved. Let us also watch the reactions of the other NATO nuclear powers: France and Britain. Their Strategic nuclear forces were not usually included in the balance of nuclear warheads and carriers in the preparation of agreements between the US and the USSR (Russia), and it is high time to do so.


https://sonar21.com/are-russia-and-china-moving-towards-a-mutual-defen
se-pact/



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


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Thursday, February 23, 2023 4:35 PM

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


Russian warlord’s feud with Putin’s generals explodes into the open with gruesome PR campaign

Updated 2:39 PM EST, Thu February 23, 2023

Prigozhin posted a picture on Telegram showing the bodies of several dozen slain Wagner fighters, piled unceremoniously in a courtyard. Alongside that shocking photo, he posted the image of a formal request from Wagner for more ammunition, pointing the finger of blame squarely at the Russian Ministry of Defense for squandering those lives.

“This is one of the gathering places of the dead,” Prigozhin said. “These are the guys who died yesterday due to the so-called ‘shell starvation’ [by the Russian MOD]. There should have been five times fewer of them. So mothers, wives and children will get their bodies.”

What was the rationale behind this ghoulish spectacle?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has no clear successor, and some political insiders speculated that some opportunistic upstart – a Prigozhin, for instance – might sense a potential opening or chance to build a power base independent of Putin.

Certainly, Prigozhin’s outbursts would have been unthinkable before February 24, 2022, when open criticism of the defense leadership by a military contractor would not have been tolerated. Earlier this week, Prigozhin escalated his spat with Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, accusing them of “treason” for their alleged failures to support and supply the Wagner group in Ukraine.

More at https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/23/europe/russia-ukraine-yevgeny-prigozhin
-wagner-campaign-intl-cmd/index.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, February 23, 2023 5:38 PM

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Russia claims Ukraine is planning a false flag attack on Moldova

The warning, announced on the Russian Defense Ministry’s Telegram account, suggested the troops involved would dress up as Russians. “As a pretext for the invasion, it is planned to stage an alleged offensive of Russian troops from the territory of Transnistria,” the message warned, referring to the pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova. “To do this, the Ukrainian saboteurs participating in the staged invasion will be dressed in the uniform of the military personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

In the build-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, the Kremlin attempted to stage or mock up a number of incidents in the Luhansk and Donbas regions which they claimed were Ukrainian military actions targeting pro-Russians. Alarmingly for Moldova, it was all just a pretext for Russia's all-out assault on Ukraine.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-claims-ukraine-plans-false-flag-f
ake-attack-on-moldova

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, February 24, 2023 4:54 AM

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


UN resolution demanding Russia’s immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Ukraine supported by 141 nations

The demand that Russia withdraw was a bitter pill for Moscow’s friends. Besides Russia, the other no votes were Belarus, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, North Korea and Syria. The 32 abstentions included China, Iran, India and South Africa and other developing countries that have remained mostly neutral or skeptical of Western motives.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said before the vote that “never in history has the line between good and evil been so clear.” But no line will ever be clear to people who make excuses for Trump.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-n-nations-call-for-russia-to-exit-ukrai
ne-as-war-nears-one-year-mark-e8506794?mod=djemalertNEWS

India abstained from the vote because of oil: "How much money did India save in a year by buying Russian fuel?" https://qz.com/how-much-money-has-india-saved-by-buying-russian-fuel-1
850153966 If India had voted, then millions of barrels of discounted oil per week would not be sold by Russia to India.

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, February 24, 2023 4:54 AM

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


You can’t understand the war in Ukraine without knowing history

By Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University and the author of “The Road to Unfreedom” and “Bloodlands.” His updated audio edition of “On Tyranny” includes 20 new lessons about Ukraine.

Teaching a lecture class on Ukrainian history last fall, I felt a touch of the surreal. The war in Ukraine had been going on for half a year when I began. A nuclear power had attacked a state that had given up its nuclear weapons. An empire was trying to halt European integration. A tyranny was attempting to crush a neighboring democracy. On occupied territories, Russia perpetrated genocidal atrocities with clear expressions of genocidal intent.

And yet, Ukraine was fighting back. Ukrainians resisted the nuclear blackmail, scorned the vaunted empire and took risks for their democracy. At Kyiv, Kharkiv and, later, Kherson, they beat back the Russians, halting the torture, the murder and the deportation.

We were at a historical turning point. But where was the history? The television screens were full of Ukraine day in and day out, and the one thing any viewer could say with confidence was that the commentators had never studied Ukraine. I heard from my former students, now in government or in journalism, that they were glad to have taken Eastern European history. They said that they were a little less surprised than others by the war; that they had more reference points.

The contrast between the historical importance of this war and the lack of coursework in history reveals a larger problem. We know too little history. We have designed education to be about technical questions: the how of the world. And solving everyday problems is very important.

But if we deprive ourselves of history, everything is a surprise: 9/11, the financial crisis, the storming of the Capitol, the invasion of Ukraine. When we are shocked out of the everyday but have no history, we grope for reference points, and become vulnerable to people who give us easy answers. The past then becomes a realm of myth, in which those with power generate narratives most convenient to themselves.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told a story about the past that had nothing to do with history. Russia and Ukraine, according to him, were conceived together in a ruler’s baptism a thousand years ago. They shared the same culture, and therefore should be ruled by the same person. If anything else seemed to happen, it was not really history. Should Ukrainians not believe that they were Russians, this was the nefarious work of outsiders. Putin not only said such things; he had memory laws passed to prevent Russians from being challenged by history, and even had the word “Ukraine” stricken from textbooks.

As logic, this is circular; and as politics, it is tyrannical. If I can claim that Canadians are Americans because they speak the same language, or because we share a common history, that would strike us as an idiotic reason to order an invasion. When a dictator claims the power to define other people’s identity, then the question of their own freedom never arises. If identity is frozen forever at the whim of a ruler, citizens soon find themselves without choices.

As we observe where this logic led Russians, we begin to question the validity of such stories. But it shouldn’t have taken such an obvious atrocity for us to doubt. Until recently, far too many commentators were happy to go along with Putin: Russia and Ukraine were somehow eternally alike, people who spoke Russian were somehow Russians, culture as defined by a dictator was destiny.

It was surreal in a different way when millions of people joined my class online. Americans had recognized that something was wrong with the Russian myth but did not know how to fill the gap. It was heartening to hear, in the thousands of emails I received, that the gap could be filled by history. It was a lively semester; history was getting the students thinking. When we think historically, we recognize that political communities rise and fall, and that human choice — including the perverse choices of militarist tyrants — is always part of the story. We get better at taking in events as they come. We are awakened to the experience of others. For me personally, it was touching to hear from Ukrainians, including soldiers on the front line, who were listening to the class online.

Ukrainian history makes today’s world make more sense. Our entire Western civilization trajectory, from the Greeks forward, is clearer if we understand that Athens was fed by what is now southern Ukraine. The fantastic history of the Vikings becomes still more so when we understand that they founded a state in Kyiv. The age of exploration takes on a new dimension when we recognize that Polish and Russian powers made their empires by pushing east into the Eurasian landmass, where they ultimately met in Ukraine. The age of empire is completed by Nazi and Soviet neo-imperial projects, both of which had their focus in Ukraine. That horribly bloody confrontation made Ukraine the most dangerous place in the world during the totalitarian era of 1933 to 1945. That and the Russification that followed have made the story of Ukraine difficult to tell, including for Ukrainians.

Until now, that is. Practically everything I said in my lectures came from the work of Ukrainian historians. Yaroslav Hrytsak, one of the best of them, has said for decades that Ukraine will survive once a new generation comes into its own. This has now happened, not only in my own field, but in journalism, civil society, business and politics. Ukraine is different from Russia thanks to its distinct history, including the history of these past 30 years, since the end of the Soviet Union. While Putin has pushed his country into the quicksand of myth, Ukrainians — with their votes, their protests and their defiance — have pushed their way into a confident sense of who they are.

As they make history, they remind us that we need history to understand them better, to understand this war better — and also understand ourselves better. Like the Ukrainians, we are living through a historical turning point. Like them, we will need to learn history and defy myth to make it to a democratic future.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230222224109/https://www.washingtonpost.
com/opinions/2023/02/22/timothy-snyder-ukraine-russia-war-history/

Download Timothy Snyder’s books for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.bio/search.php?req=Timothy+Snyder

Timothy Snyder: The Making of Modern Ukraine.
Class 1: Ukrainian Questions Posed by Russian Invasion



Syllabus of my Ukraine lecture class
"The Making of Modern Ukraine," Fall 2022
https://snyder.substack.com/p/syllabus-of-my-ukraine-lecture-class

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, February 24, 2023 7:03 AM

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


The Ukraine War Could Mean the End of Russia

Historically Russia always succumbed to centrifugal forces each time it suffered a defeat on the battlefield – this happened in 1905 after it lost to Japan, in 1917 after it lost to Germany in Europe, and then again in 1991 after it lost to the United States at the end of the Cold War.

It’s worth remembering that while in 1913 the Russian imperial court celebrated three hundred years of Romanov rule, with unparalleled pageantry in St. Petersburg and across the country, a mere four years later the country was wracked by two revolutions, while the great emperor Nicolas II and his family were butchered by the Bolsheviks. The empire was no more.

Little attention has focused on what might happen in Russia in the wake of this incredible folly committed by Putin last February. One question that ought to be on everyone’s mind is: where is Russia heading (after this war)?

What Putin Wants and What History Teaches

Putin’s Russia is re-litigating 1991 – in that sense, it is another aspirational empire, much like interwar Germany – still convinced that the Russian people can reclaim their imperial place in the sun once the treachery of its politicians has been expunged. Putinism is much like the Dolchstoßlegende (Stab-in-the-back myth) narrative during the Weimar Republic insofar as there is a sense among the citizenry that the Russian military never lost against the West, but was subverted by politicians – cowardly Gorbachev, drunken Yeltsin, you name it.

This imperial resentment gave Germany Adolf Hitler and a war that lit Europe on fire and which did not end until the back of German imperialism was finally and unequivocally broken. At a risk of over-rationalizing history, this is where Russia is today.

Putin’s claim that he is restoring the great Russian people, velikiy russkiy narod, follows the same tropes of resentment and entitlement to empire that Europe endured in the mid-20th century when Germany was intent on re-litigating Versailles.

And if Europe is to know lasting peace, the Russian armies that have raced into Ukraine must be unequivocally defeated in such a way that it shatters all illusions of Russian empire in the minds of Russian citizens.

More at https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/02/the-ukraine-war-could-mean-the-end
-of-russia/

The Russo-Japanese War 1904 to 1905
https://www.history.com/topics/asian-history/russo-japanese-war
The costly and humiliating series of Russian defeats in the Russo-Japanese War left the Russian Empire demoralized, added to Russians’ growing anger at the failed policies of Czar Nicholas II, and would fan the flames of political dissent that ultimately resulted in the overthrow of the government during the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, February 24, 2023 9:23 AM

SECOND

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


Russian support for Putin’s war in Ukraine is hardening

Putin has unleashed a wave of repression not seen since his KGB hero Yuri Andropov ruled, jailing citizens for the slightest hints of questioning of his official line, a mix of Russian imperial and Soviet nostalgia that has been rushed into curricula for schools and universities across the country. Artists, writers and actors have been hounded from their jobs for even suggesting critical views, their works and exhibits replaced by new ones scrubbed for adherence to the neo-Soviet “traditional values” Putin wrote into law. Schoolchildren denounce teachers and parishioners priests for suggesting peace instead of war.  

To shore up support, his government has doled out cash payments to citizens in the country’s impoverished regions and shut down the few remaining media outlets that challenged the official state version of events. In stage-managed events lavishly covered by the state media, Putin maintains the image that the war is far away, rarely referring to it directly, highlighting economic successes, new welfare benefits and renovated clinics. That was the message of his state-of-the-nation speech this week, which blamed the conflict on the US and its allies but offered no hint of when it might end. Instead, Putin offered new benefits to veterans and their families, touting the value of combat experience as the “best school of life.”

So far, the message is working. Even as the invasion has dragged on far longer than the few days that the Kremlin originally hoped and casualties have mounted into the tens of thousands, the majority of Russians say they are ready to keep fighting, according to independent polls. Only about a fifth of Russians want to bring a quick end to the war if that means admitting defeat, according to a Kremlin consultant.

Around the country, Putin’s explanation that Russia is fighting not Ukraine but the entire “collective West,” a narrative adopted after a string of defeats at the hands of Kyiv’s forces, has resonated more than the initial claims the war was about removing the government in Kyiv, according to pollsters. The fact that the US and its allies aren’t actually fighting doesn’t shake that conviction.

The perceived strength of the support reinforces the Kremlin’s confidence that it can triumph in the conflict by outlasting Ukraine and its allies, even if that means tolerating much greater sacrifice, according to people close to the leadership.

Since he came to power in 2000, Putin has been remaking Russia to harden his control over society for just this kind of conflict, crushing potential threats to his power and eradicating opponents and dissenting views. Since he sent troops into Ukraine a year ago, that effort has accelerated exponentially. Staffers are already laying plans for his re-election campaign in 2024, which would keep him in power at least until 2030, the people said.

The Kremlin spent two decades forging the ‘Putin Majority’ — the tens of millions of Russians sure that the former KGB operative knows best — and is confident it’s still solid and ready for whatever he decides, the people said. That’s likely to be a war that may last years, but also could be a temporary truce to win time to gird for a new fight. At the same time, surveys show that anything that brings the war close to home for Russians — such as last year’s mobilization of 300,000 reservists — fuels alarm and support for a negotiated settlement.

The educated middle class in the country’s largest cities that had for decades been less antagonistic toward the West has been transformed or eradicated. Upwards of a million Russians, many of them young professionals, have left the country in the biggest exodus since the 1990s. Those in the elite once considered relative ‘liberals’ who’ve stayed are cowed into silence by fear of retribution or have embraced the Kremlin’s anti-western line.

Dmitry Medvedev, who as Putin’s hand-picked president from 2008-2012 embodied the hopes of the ‘liberal’ wing, has become one of the most outspoken hardliners, threatening nuclear war in social media posts. Within the Kremlin, his clout is growing, according to insiders, as Putin values his commitment. Senior officials now regularly attend meetings Medvedev calls, the people said. Putin has dispatched him to China, a key ally, and given him an expanded role in supervising military production.

What little public criticism of the official line is tolerated is limited mainly to hardliners calling for an even greater commitment to the war effort, with more strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine or even NATO.

“For many, it’s become impossible to maintain a neutral position,” said Svetlana Erpyleva of the Public Sociology Laboratory, a group of researchers that’s conducted hundreds of anonymous interviews with Russians on their views on the war. “They feel the pressure of the environment and they choose support.”

The hardening of pro-war views has left the few Russians willing to speak out openly against it even more isolated.

More at https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2023-02-23/russian-support-put
in-war-hardening-9228818.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, February 25, 2023 6:49 AM

SECOND

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


Russia's current plan to take over Ukraine is to exhaust the country and its military over a long campaign, rather than focusing on taking new territory, according to the latest report from the UK Ministry of Defence.

Defence Intelligence

UPDATE ON UKRAINE
24 February 2023

INTELLIGENCE UPDATE

• Since 2014 Russia's strategic goal in Ukraine has highly likely been consistent: to control its neighbour. Over 2014-2021, it pursued this objective through subversion, by fomenting an undeclared war in the Donbas, and by annexing Crimea.

• On 24 February 2022, Russia pivoted to a new approach and launched a full-scale invasion which attempted to seize the whole country and depose its government. By April 2022, Russia realised this had failed, and focused on expanding and formalising its rule over the Donbas and the south. It has made slow and extremely costly progress.

• In recent weeks, Russia has likely changed its approach again. Its campaign now likely primarily seeks to degrade the Ukrainian military, rather than being focused on seizing substantial new territory. The Russian leadership is likely pursuing a long-term operation where they bank that Russia's advantages in population and resources will eventually exhaust Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1628997992039473153

The strategy outlined by the MOD matches what experts say Russia has been doing lately.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, February 25, 2023 7:24 AM

SECOND

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


Official: Explosion reported at Russian ammunition depot in occupied Mariupol

by The Kyiv Independent news desk
February 25, 2023 11:27 am

An explosion allegedly occurred at a Russian ammunition depot in occupied Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast, earlier on Feb. 24, reported Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to the mayor of Mariupol.

Andriushchenko said, citing a local resistance group, that the depot was destroyed. The official did not provide further details.

On the morning of Feb. 25, Andriushchenko also said explosions were heard in near Yalta and Yurivka, the villages near Mariupol. According to him, numerous Russian troops had been temporarily stationed there.

Earlier on Feb. 23, Ukraine's Southern Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk said that the area of Russian-occupied Mariupol was "no longer completely unreachable" for Ukrainian forces.

Earlier the same day, the city council reported three explosions in Mariupol with "a high probability" of hitting the area where Russian troops had been temporarily stationed.

Mariupol, located on the Azov Sea in Donetsk Oblast, has been under Russian occupation since May 2022, following a three-month-long siege that destroyed most of the city.

https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/official-explosion-reported-at-r
ussian-ammunition-depot-in-occupied-mariupol

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, February 26, 2023 8:27 AM

SECOND

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


My year of living under constant attack in Kyiv

Mariia Shuvalova writes:

At 5 a.m. on February 24, 2022, my husband woke me up in our Kyiv apartment. He had heard explosions.

In complete darkness, I tried to dress and pack documents, a laptop, and cash into a backpack. Immediately I started experiencing nausea, diarrhea, and pain in the bottom of my stomach. My period began three weeks earlier than it normally would (something that also happened to many Ukrainian women with whom I’ve spoken). And I also had COVID.

We went to our relatives’ place, as they had a basement.

On February 10, 2023, we were still in Kyiv, and I was once again ill with COVID. Russia continues to attack my country with missiles from jets and a frigate in the Black Sea, so I hear air raids almost constantly. But this morning, my husband woke me up and said, “Morning bombardments again, so we are going out to eat waffles.”

Our emergency backpacks—containing vital documents, cash, tactical first aid kit, knife, protein bars, coffee beans in chocolate, torch, lighters, warm socks, gloves, and a laptop with a power source—are always near our front door. This morning, we picked them up, and walked out—to a waffle cafe, located in a basement, with a sign on the door reading, “We Do Not Work During Massive Shellings!!!”

It’s been one year since Russia escalated its war on Ukraine to one of nationwide, full-scale military aggression. The act of going out for waffles is one way we try—despite living under mortal threats and enduring the collapse of the lives we once lived—to recreate what was once a normal world. These old routines don’t feel the same, though they are valuable as they give us the fleeting comfort of feeling we can control at least this one little thing.

Great danger forces you to appreciate basic things. Small stories make up big landscapes, like going out for waffles during airstrikes. Here are some reflections on living my life during wartime.

More at https://www.thedailybeast.com/my-year-of-living-under-constant-attack-
in-kyiv

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, February 26, 2023 5:11 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Pobrecito!
Maybe those ppl in Kiev should have thought twice about shelling Donetsk city. For 8 years.

*****

Bakhmut and western hills about to be encircled. Ukrainian lifespan at the Bakhmut front about 4 hours.

https://www.newsweek.com/bakhmut-life-expectancy-near-four-hours-front
lines-ukraine-russia-1782496



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


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Sunday, February 26, 2023 6:09 PM

SECOND

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


Putin Casts War as a Battle for Russia's Survival

President Vladimir Putin cast the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people - and said he was forced to take into account NATO's nuclear capabilities.

A year since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is increasingly presenting the war as a make-or-break moment in Russian history - and saying that he believes the very future of Russia and its people is in peril.

"They have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part - the Russian Federation," Putin told Rossiya 1 state television in an interview recorded on Wednesday but released on Sunday.

The NATO and the West dismiss such narrative, saying their objective is to help Ukraine defend itself against an unprovoked attack.

President Vladimir Putin cast the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people - and said he was forced to take into account NATO's nuclear capabilities.

A year since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is increasingly presenting the war as a make-or-break moment in Russian history - and saying that he believes the very future of Russia and its people is in peril.

"They have one goal: to disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part - the Russian Federation," Putin told Rossiya 1 state television in an interview recorded on Wednesday but released on Sunday.

The NATO and the West dismiss such narrative, saying their objective is to help Ukraine defend itself against an unprovoked attack.

Putin said the West wanted to divide up Russia and then control the world's biggest producer of raw materials, a step, he said, that could well lead to the destruction of many of the peoples of Russia including the ethnic Russian majority.

"I do not even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people will be able to survive in the form in which it exists today," Putin said. He said the West's plans had been put to paper, though did not specify where.

The United States has denied that it wants to destroy Russia, while President Joe Biden has warned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could trigger World War Three, though he has also said Putin should not remain in power.

Putin said the tens of billions of dollars' worth of U.S. and European military assistance to Ukraine showed that Russia was now facing off NATO itself - the Cold War nightmare of both Soviet and Western leaders.

Ukraine says it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from Ukraine, including from Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014.

RUSSIA

Putin's existential framing of the war allows the 70-year-old Kremlin chief to gird the Russian people for a much more deeper conflict while it also allows him much greater freedom in the types of weapons he could one day use.

Russia's official nuclear doctrine allows for the use of nuclear weapons if they - or other types of weapons of mass destruction - are used against it, or if conventional weapons are used, which endanger "the very existence of the state."

Putin has signalled he is ready to rip up the architecture of nuclear arms control - including the big powers' moratorium on nuclear testing - unless the West backs off in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, he sought to underscore Russian resolve in Ukraine by suspending a landmark nuclear arms control treaty, announcing new strategic systems had been put on combat duty and warning that Moscow could resume nuclear tests.

Putin said Russia would only resume discussion once French and British nuclear weapons were also taken into account.

Russia, which inherited the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons, has the world's biggest store of nuclear warheads. It has more warheads that the United States, France and Britain combined, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

"In today's conditions, when all the leading NATO countries have declared their main goal as inflicting a strategic defeat on us, so that our people suffer as they say, how can we ignore their nuclear capabilities in these conditions?" Putin said.

Putin said the biggest result of the past year was the unity of the Russian people.

(Reporting Reuters, editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Tomasz Janowski)

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-02-26/putin-russia-mus
t-take-into-account-nato-nuclear-capability-state-tv

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, February 26, 2023 6:21 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin Casts War as a Battle for Russia's Survival


Biden*, Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan and SECOND cast war in Ukraine as plan to destroy Russia.




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


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Sunday, February 26, 2023 6:47 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin Casts War as a Battle for Russia's Survival


Biden*, Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan and SECOND cast war in Ukraine as plan to destroy Russia.
Signym, per usual, you misunderstand the situation completely.

Putin and Signym were shocked when Colonel Qaddafi died, suddenly, from a bayonet puncture in a very private spot, but the Colonel should have expected it because he was playing the role of a Strong Man. He was too old for that role (69 years), had been in the job too long (42 years), and had acquired many enemies. He didn’t have the sense to retire sooner. Likewise, Putin has been serving for an awfully long time, he is older than Qaddafi, and he is not a convincing actor in the role of Strong Man. He has created enemies by the millions. Putin is due for his own bayoneting.

Muammar Gaddafi Capture and assassination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi#Capture_and_assassinatio
n

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, February 26, 2023 7:55 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


Hillary did she know there would be Slave Markets?

Second talks about Libya like Flooding the West with islamists was a good thing

with Russians you won't have people who go to a mosque five times a day, it will be chemical engineers, ex- soldiers good at math, people who fix your lawnmower or tv or hack, guys who know building and chemistry, thugs and killers and brawlers and ex drinkers and ex drug addicts and mafia type, physicist engineer, ex-KGB type, people mentally damaged from battles, some might even be part of a group in a factory and build hyper-sonic missiles....and its a good idea to flood these Russians across the former USSR and the rest of the world? maybe some Nuclear Engineers or someone who can home make a chemical or bio weapon
and all these mixed with real genuine 'refugees'





Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:


People are individuals. But Democrats don't understand that because all they want to do is throw everyone in intersectional boxes.


identity politics continues with Nu-Democrats

anyways some news

Putin casts war as a battle for Russias survival
ttps:// www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-russia-must-take-into-account-nato-
nuclear-capability-state-tv-2023-02-26/


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Sunday, February 26, 2023 10:28 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin Casts War as a Battle for Russia's Survival


Biden*, Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan and SECOND cast war in Ukraine as plan to destroy Russia.
Signym, per usual, you misunderstand the situation completely.

Putin and Signym were shocked when Colonel Qaddafi died, suddenly, from a bayonet puncture in a very private spot, but


SECOND doubles down on evil. Because a failed state where women (and men) are openly sold on the street as slaves is SO MUCH MORE PRFERABLE to a nation with a high standard of living and literacy!



Meanwhile

China openly sides with Russia and condemns USA bullying, I reference, forced regime changes, and hegemony.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-year-later-china-blames-us-hege
mony-not-russia-for-war-in-ukraine/ar-AA17NgmE





Wagner forces are hurriedly collecting Ukrainian bodies by the hundreds from around Bakhmut before the coming thaw starts them decaying.
Price of Russian oil holds firm at $71/ bbl.
China rattles EU cages at the Munich Security Conference.


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


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Monday, February 27, 2023 5:02 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND doubles down on evil. Because a failed state where women (and men) are openly sold on the street as slaves is SO MUCH MORE PRFERABLE to a nation with a high standard of living and literacy!

Meanwhile

China openly sides with Russia and condemns USA bullying, I reference, forced regime changes, and hegemony.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-year-later-china-blames-us-hege
mony-not-russia-for-war-in-ukraine/ar-AA17NgmE

Wagner forces are hurriedly collecting Ukrainian bodies by the hundreds from around Bakhmut before the coming thaw starts them decaying.
Price of Russian oil holds firm at $71/ bbl.
China rattles EU cages at the Munich Security Conference.
"Everything is going according to plan." - V. Putin.

Putin has spoken that phrase, or variations, a thousand times. That one little phrase is all it takes to cause even the most apparently monumental loss to be completely turned on its head. Putin has been reading TV Tropes to learn what villains say. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllAccordingToPlan

You might not know this, Signym, but when the bad guy falls, be he a Libyan Strong Man like Colonel Muammar Gaddafi or a Russian Strong Man such as Tsar Nicholas II, the people who depended on him suffer also. That is why Strong Men should not be empowered. When Strong Man Putin finally gets what he deserves, the people depending on him will suffer. Maybe only a little. Maybe a great deal if the Russian Federation falls apart. That all could be prevented if Putin would step down early rather than continue on-and-on, with no scheduled endpoint, as Strong Man for Life.

Signym, before you insist that Putin was democratically elected, the same is true for Kim in North Korea. Kim always wins. Kim always is the Strong Man until he dies. North Korea has not done well economically because there is always a new Kim to be the Strong Man. Russia has not done well economically because of its version of Strong Men leading a nation where everything is going according to plan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Russian_presidential_election

Kim Jong Un Wins 100% of Votes in North Korea Election
Young leader seals remarkable victory in country "seething with election atmosphere," according to state media.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/kim-jong-un-wins-100-votes-north-ko
rea-election-n49011

China's Xi allowed to remain 'president for life' as term limits removed
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43361276

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, February 27, 2023 7:48 AM

SECOND

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


Former Russian president, prime minister, and current Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev issued a new round of threats to the West on Monday that the continued supply of arms to Ukraine will lead to atomic armageddon.

"Of course, the pumping in of weapons can continue .... and prevent any possibility of reviving negotiations," Medvedev said according to a Reuters report. "Our enemies are doing just that, not wanting to understand that their goals will certainly lead to a total fiasco. Loss for everyone. A collapse. Apocalypse. Where you forget for centuries about your former life, until the rubble ceases to emit radiation."

https://www.alternet.org/dmitry-medvedev-collapse-apocalypse-ukraine/

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Monday, February 27, 2023 8:07 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


I think its wrong to say China is supporting Russia, as both China and India are calling for an end to the war the Chinese even recently pushed a peace plan.
Many of Russia's former allies are calling for Russian withdrawal.

At the UN votes the only countries to vote no in support of Moscow were Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria.

The West accuses Iran and North Korea of selling weaponry.

Belarus got directly involved in the war

Russia economy falling makes goods cheaper for India, Arabia, South America, China and other buyers of Russian goods.

Of course there are many on both sides selling guns and making profit from bloood for some it will be like business as usual.

testing new killer robots

and are wars becoming failures or stalemates...does anyone win wars anymore

interwebs opinions

Russia will not win this war
https://www.happierabroad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=44918
'We come in Peace ... Shoot to Kill!' ...
https://forum.davidicke.com/index.php?/topic/29808-we-come-in-peace-sh
oot-to-kill/
War
Ukraine border
https://atthemac.proboards.com/thread/380/ukraine-border
https://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/3360156-u
kraine-war-1367.html
2022-2023 Russo-Ukrainian War
https://www.worldaffairsboard.com/forum/international-defense-geopolit
ics-discussion/europe-and-russia/1578933-2022-2023-russo-ukrainian-war/page506
Five futures for Russia Ukraine war
https://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=182943
Ukraine War Video
https://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1648588695
Russian invasion of Ukraine ...They wouldn't be that stupid, would they?
https://www.avforums.com/threads/russian-invasion-of-ukraine.2386753/
Ukraine war and when Russia will collaps?
https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=334674&postdays=0&a
mp;postorder=asc&start=225
Interesting conversation about Ukraine, one year into the war
https://politicalhotwire.com/t/interesting-conversation-about-ukraine-
one-year-into-the-war.265437/
the show must go on?
Eurovision tickets to be allocated to displaced Ukrainians in UK
https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/364326-eurovision-ti
ckets-to-be-allocated-to-displaced-ukrainians-in-uk/
Russian invasion of Ukraine
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7173708
Ukraine Crisis
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news-politics/ukraine-crisis-t57137.
html

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Monday, February 27, 2023 4:15 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
I think its wrong to say China is supporting Russia, as both China and India are calling for an end to the war the Chinese even recently pushed a peace plan.
Many of Russia's former allies are calling for Russian withdrawal.

At the UN votes the only countries to vote no in support of Moscow were Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria.
But many nations, including China and India, abstained.

Also, what China presented was not a "peace plan". It didn't lay out terms.and concessions from each side. It wasn't even a "road map" (i.e. first this has to happen then that has to happen.,)

It was a set of principles for lasting peace, worldwide, which called for- among other things- an end to color revolutions, interference in other nation's internal affairs, respect for sovereignty etc and listed America's numerous invasions and destabilizations. China CLEARLY puts the blame for the Ukraine clusterfuck on the United States.

You should read the actual Chinese statements and not speak from such a deep well of ignorance.

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


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Monday, February 27, 2023 4:48 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

But many nations, including China and India, abstained.

Also, what China presented was not a "peace plan". It didn't lay out terms.and concessions from each side. It wasn't even a "road map" (i.e. first this has to happen then that has to happen.,)

It was a set of principles for lasting peace, worldwide, which called for- among other things- an end to color revolutions, interference in other nation's internal affairs, respect for sovereignty etc and listed America's numerous invasions and destabilizations. China CLEARLY puts the blame for the Ukraine clusterfuck on the United States.

You should read the actual Chinese statements and not speak from such a deep well of ignorance.
I know why an end to color revolutions is on Signym's list. An end to color revolutions is on Putin's list:

War in Ukraine ‘stems from the Orange Revolution, a humiliating ordeal for Putin’

Issued on: 26/02/2023 – 18:17

Text by: Lou ROMÉO

One year into the war that Russia launched against Ukraine, FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at the anti-Western rhetoric President Vladimir Putin used to justify the conflict, which is rooted in events in the early 2000s, according to historian Françoise Thom, an expert on post-Communist Russia.

On February 24, 2022, as a Putin speech was broadcast on television, Russian troops were penetrating into Ukrainian territory, initiating the most important military operation on European soil since World War II.

During his speech, the Russian president tried to justify the invasion with a brutal tirade against the Kyiv government, which he described as “neo-Nazi”, and against the perceived threat posed by NATO and the US against Russia.

This rhetoric, far from being new, dates back to Ukraine's Maidan Revolution in 2014 and Orange Revolution in 2004, according to historian Françoise Thom, an expert on post-Communist Russia, who spoke with FRANCE 24.

FRANCE 24: In February 2022, Putin justified the invasion of Ukraine by citing the necessity to shield Russia from NATO and the West. When was the first time the Kremlin used this rhetoric?

Françoise Thom: Vladimir Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric is long-standing. We can date the change in the Kremlin’s discourse to the colour revolutions between 2003 and 2004. At that time, a wave of anti-corruption and pro-democratic liberal movements were sweeping across several post-Soviet states, namely Georgia – the Rose Revolution – and in Ukraine where the Orange Revolution took place in 2004.

In my opinion, the ongoing war stems from the Orange Revolution, which was a humiliating ordeal for Putin. The candidate he backed, Viktor Yanukovych, lost the popular vote to a pro-European candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, in the 2004 elections.

The outcome was a slap in the face for Putin and he developed an intense hatred towards Ukraine and its people. Interpreting the turn of events as the result of US interference, the ex-KGB agent saw scheming by the US as the only reason for his candidate’s loss.

Putin’s paranoid rhetoric took root from that point on. As illustrated by Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov in a 2004 text: “The enemy is on our doorsteps, we have to defend every Russian and every household against the West”.

During the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin challenged the West, especially the US. He then followed up by launching a reform of Russia’s military in 2008. The war against Ukraine therefore has very old roots. Far from an improvisation, the current conflict is part of a wider context tied to Russia’s row with the West.

FRANCE 24: US foundations were quite active in Ukraine and Georgia in the 1990s and 2000s. What was their role that Putin condemned?

Françoise Thom: Indeed, there were US foundations operating in Ukraine as well as in Georgia during the colour revolutions. They aimed to train a new generation of executives, which was expected to succeed apparatchiks from the Soviet era. However, we should not see them as manifestations of US foreign policy: They did not necessarily align themselves with the sitting president’s political agenda.

In order to build a starting block for the development of political parties based on liberalism, the role that these foundations played during the colour revolutions was chiefly structured around promoting various tools of election campaigning and on-the-ground organising among these new elites. Even so, the uprisings that took place between 2003 and 2004 were definitely not orchestrated: The population was incensed by post-Communist corruption and the elites were themselves divided.

Putin, who accused the foundations of anti-Russia tendencies that were not necessarily true, thus heavily exaggerated their participation in the colour revolutions. They mainly sought to lend a helping hand to the establishment of liberal democracies ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

FRANCE 24: What is the relationship between the Kremlin and the EU? Did the annexation of Crimea in 2014 mark a turning point?

Françoise Thom: In 2013, an association proposed by the European Union to post-Soviet countries, namely Ukraine, set off the powder keg. The project clashed with Putin’s desire to integrate Ukraine into a customs union, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), led by Russia.

Putin seeks to build a large European space, from Brest to Vladivostok, where Russia can establish its supremacy while dispelling US influence. In 2013, Ukraine's then president Yanukovych, under pressure from the Kremlin, rejected the association agreement with the EU while opting to join the EEU. Massive protests erupted in Ukraine, which led to the 2014 Maidan Revolution, an insurrection that Yanukovych tried to repress but failed. He absconded and a new government, which Putin labelled as Nazi, came into power.

Putin annexed Crimea several days later, claiming that it was to defend Russia from NATO and that Crimea has always been Russian despite the transfer to Ukraine in 1954, an error he said was committed by the USSR's then leader Nikita Khrushchev. Putin also attempted to conquer southern and eastern Ukraine, but had to settle for two separatist enclaves in the east. The armed conflict ended with the ratification of the Minsk agreements on September 5, 2014.

With the Kremlin’s hostility directed towards the US, Putin seeks to re-enact the Cold War but with a different outcome this time, one that would restore Russia to power. In this respect, Putin’s anti-European discourse is principally a consequence of the ties between the UE and the US and NATO.

Until February 2022, Europe was not considered a real political issue by Putin, but rather as an object of dispute with the US. He thought he was subjugating the region via its reliance on Russian gas, which worked until the invasion of Ukraine that month. Putin's discourse with regard to Europe has become more and more hostile as it became apparent in February that the continent was closing ranks around NATO.

This article is a translation of the original in French.

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230226-war-in-ukraine-stems-from-
the-orange-revolution-a-humiliating-ordeal-for-putin

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, February 28, 2023 2:08 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


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

But many nations, including China and India, abstained.

Also, what China presented was not a "peace plan". It didn't lay out terms.and concessions from each side. It wasn't even a "road map" (i.e. first this has to happen then that has to happen.,)

It was a set of principles for lasting peace, worldwide, which called for- among other things- an end to color revolutions, interference in other nation's internal affairs, respect for sovereignty etc and listed America's numerous invasions and destabilizations. China CLEARLY puts the blame for the Ukraine clusterfuck on the United States.

You should read the actual Chinese statements and not speak from such a deep well of ignorance.
I know why an end to color revolutions is on Signym's list. An end to color revolutions is on Putin's list:
So, I take it you would be OK with Russia or China .... or Soros ... funding revolution in the USA?

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


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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 5:48 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

So, I take it you would be OK with Russia or China .... or Soros ... funding revolution in the USA?
The USA did NOT fund the color revolutions which Putin despises. Putin said the USA did fund the color revolutions because Putin didn't want to state aloud the real reason: Putin doesn't want Russians to get the idea that Putin could be overthrown as were Putin's chosen political candidates.

There is an unfortunate psychological mechanism working inside people like Putin. The Strong Man always judges himself as irreplaceable, whether his name is Putin, or Kim, or Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, or Bashar al-Assad, or Donald Trump. Any lie, any violence, anything is justified to remain the Strong Man. How do Strong Men get away with this unfortunate behavior?

Most people don't know when a dictator is a dictator because he was elected. For example, every Kim received 100% of the vote for generation after generation. How could a Kim be a dictator when 100% of his people love him? How could Bashar al-Assad possibly be a dictator when he receives 95% of the vote? The man is loved by his people, I tell you! Before Colonel Gaddafi's death, he was loved and had the votes to prove it. Kim, Assad and Putin are all buddies. Dictators couldn't be re-elected in a Democracy, could they? The people would never vote for a dictator, would they?

How did Colonel Muammar Gaddafi maintain and grow the love his people felt for him?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Libya_under_Muammar_Gaddafi#
Revolutionary_sector

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, February 28, 2023 5:51 AM

SECOND

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


A year after it invaded Ukraine, Russia is weakened and humiliated

The war has been catastrophic for both sides. But Putin’s “special military operation” has been a strategic disaster

By Ruth Deyermond, February 23, 2023

One year after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, both countries and the rest of Europe have been transformed by the war. As at other great turning points in European history, this transformation is irreversible; there is no way to return to the world before February 2022, however the war ends. The future of European and global security will be shaped by how states and institutions address this fact.

The domestic and international effects on Russia have been profound and shocking. Already an authoritarian state, it has descended with frightening speed into something approaching totalitarianism, where military training is compulsory for schoolchildren, peaceful protest against the war is punished by 15 years in prison and TV pundits threaten Ukraine-supporting states with nuclear annihilation.

Since the start of the war, hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country in an exodus that has been compared to the wave of emigration after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Rich Russians have relocated to Dubai and other places where they can dodge the effects of sanctions. Large numbers of conscription-age men have sought refuge in other states of the former Soviet Union. Tens of thousands of workers in the IT sector are reported to have left, posing significant problems for the economy. It is unclear how many of these people—some of the most highly skilled and economically active Russian citizens—will ever return to their home country. The Kremlin needs them back but, unsurprisingly, has not been able to persuade them.

While the rich and educated have escaped, those in some of the poorest parts of society have not been so lucky. Mobilisation has disproportionately targeted men from Russia’s ethnic minority populations in regions far from Moscow and St Petersburg. In return, their families have been given frozen fish or bags of vegetables or, in one infamous case, packs of towels when soldiers have died. And the state is not the only organisation treating marginalised Russians with contempt. The Wagner mercenary group has recruited thousands of inmates from Russia’s prison system to act as little more than cannon fodder. Staggering numbers of them—reportedly up to 80 per cent of those deployed—have been killed, wounded or captured.

The UK government estimates that there have been 200,000 Russian casualties, 60,000 of them killed—four times more than the number of Soviet troops killed in a decade-long war in Afghanistan. Perhaps as startling as the numbers is the ratio of killed to wounded; observers have suggested that this is partly a result of inadequate medical support but also of poor unit cohesion, with soldiers unwilling to risk their own lives to save injured men.

It is hard to see how any of this can be sustained in the medium or long term, either organisationally or politically. Across Nato and the EU, policymakers and analysts are contemplating the prospects for Putin’s political survival, and who might replace him if discontent and infighting within elite circles grow. The possibility of a state collapse on the scale of the USSR’s dissolution in 1991 concerns many western policymakers, as was clear from President Macron’s recent comments on the need to avoid crushing Russia. A Soviet-style implosion seems unlikely, but the fact it is being discussed at all is a sign of how much expectations have changed over the last year.

The war has crushed Russia’s claims to anything like a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space

All this is a consequence of Russia’s profound military failure in Ukraine. The damage to the armed forces’ reputation is hard to overstate; the war has been a disaster in every way imaginable. The humiliation of the first phase has been replaced with a war of attrition in which tiny gains are being presented as great victories, because there are no meaningful successes to show for a year of death and defeat. The US’s most senior military officer has rightly said that Russia has lost strategically, tactically and operationally. To make matters worse, this is an entirely unnecessary war of choice, the product of an extraordinary series of miscalculations by Putin about Ukrainians’ capacity to resist, the west’s willingness to support them and even the capabilities of his own armed forces.

Even worse military embarrassment has been avoided by the involvement of Wagner. But this is itself another form of humiliation, demonstrating that what was supposed to be one of the world’s most powerful armed forces has to rely on mercenary groups to avoid deeper defeat. One analyst has observed that not only is Russia’s military not the world’s second most powerful, as widely suggested before the war, it is now not even the most powerful military in the former Soviet Union.

The war has been just as bad for Russia beyond the battlefield. An attempt to assert its revived great power status, the invasion of Ukraine has made the country a far weaker international actor. Forced to look elsewhere to compensate for the loss of European energy customers, it now needs its economic ties with China more than ever, giving Beijing significant leverage in its dealings with Moscow. As a result, what looked a decade ago like a partnership of approximate equals now seems like a relationship of dependence.

Attempting to compensate for this loss of influence, Putin has tried to position Russia as a leader in the fight against imperialism. Although there are many countries outside the west where narratives of Nato aggression play well, there is very little active support for the war from the states of the global south, either materially or diplomatically in forums like the UN General Assembly. The change of government in Brazil seems to have ended any chance of the Kremlin building the Brics grouping of major emerging national economies as a diplomatic support base.

Most damagingly of all, the war has crushed Russia’s claims to anything like a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space. The Kremlin has lost influence in each of the area’s sub-regions, even among previously close allies. In Europe, Ukraine and Moldova are closer than ever before to membership of western institutions, while the president of Belarus has so far resisted pressure to join the war, despite his dependence on Putin for his political survival. In the South Caucasus, the president of Armenia, another country traditionally dependent on friendly ties to Russia, has been publicly critical of Moscow, while Azerbaijan has taken advantage of the war to revive the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In Central Asia, the Kazakh government has failed to support Putin despite the Russia-led intervention to protect it during large-scale anti-government protests in January 2022. The idea of Russia as a great power—central to its national identity—has always rested in significant part on its ability to dominate the region of the former Soviet Union. The war has destroyed that power.

For Ukraine, the war has been an unimaginable catastrophe. The scale of Russia’s destruction of cities, infrastructure, cultural heritage, and the environment is unprecedented in Europe since the end of World War Two. The atrocities committed by Putin’s troops include the torture, rape, and murder of civilians of all ages and the mass abduction of children. The Kremlin has repeatedly made it clear that it intends to erase Ukrainian identity, culture, and language through a forced assimilation into a greater Russian nation. Putin’s project is genocide.

In the face of this existential threat, the government and people of Ukraine have shown extraordinary resilience and bravery, collectively committing to the idea of their country and to its defence in a way not seen since the collapse of the USSR. One of the Kremlin’s seemingly countless failures is that the war appears to have achieved a greater cohesion of Ukrainian national identity than at any point in the last 30 years, and a rapid move away from Russian language and culture for many Ukrainians.

Another is that far from demilitarising Ukraine—one of Putin’s stated aims for the “special military operation”—the war has transformed the capabilities and international reputation of the Ukrainian army, making some form of closer military integration with Ukraine a far more attractive prospect for Nato.

Actual Nato membership still looks unlikely, but membership of the European Union is now under serious consideration. It is a mark of Putin’s geopolitical incompetence that Russia’s attack on Ukrainian sovereignty—begun in 2013 to prevent Kyiv developing closer ties to Brussels—has finally made EU accession a realistic possibility.

This is because of the ways that the war has changed both Ukraine and Europe as a whole. Ukraine still experiences many of the classic problems plaguing post-Soviet societies and states, but it has taken significant steps to address them. A high-profile fight against corruption is one example of this; another is an emphasis on liberal values. These developments reflect and are reflected by societal changes, such as the major shift in recent years on attitudes to LGBT rights.

The fight against invasion has made the idea of Ukraine as a European state even more central to its national identity. At the same time, the identity of Europe as a political, cultural, and security space is now tied to Ukraine and what happens there. Earlier this month, Zelensky told the European Parliament that “free Europe cannot be imagined without free Ukraine”; this feeling is shared across the continent in a way that would have been unimaginable before February 2022.

European security has been transformed by the war. Russia is understood to be a serious and immediate threat, and states and institutions are transforming their policies and practices in order to address it. Sweden and Finland’s application for Nato membership is a dramatic example of this; so is the rapid move away from dependence on Russian energy.

Some sections of Europe’s political class, and the advisers and analysts who support them, still cling to the idea that business as usual can resume once the fighting ends; Putin’s ally Orbán aside, this is perhaps the most common reason for talk of “off-ramps” and settlements in which Ukraine compromises on its territorial integrity. But these voices have diminished as the reality of the war and its consequences have been better understood. There is no going back to the world before the war. This seems to be increasingly accepted, however reluctantly. Europe’s security, as well as Ukraine’s, depends on Nato, the EU, and their individual member states acting consistently in ways that reflect this understanding.

The decision to invade Ukraine a year ago is one of the greatest strategic errors in recent history. A war intended to restore Moscow’s Soviet-era geopolitical prestige by exploiting western weakness has triggered the likely expansion of Nato and the possible expansion of the EU; created greater resolve and unity among their members than has been seen for decades; eroded Russia’s influence in what it sees as its sphere of influence; and put the weakness and incompetence of its armed forces on global display.

It was clear from very early in the war that for all these reasons Putin had lost. That failure has transformed Ukraine, Russia, and the whole of Europe. The war to restore Soviet-style great power has finally put an end to post-Soviet Europe. Global security depends on Moscow and western states adjusting to a post-post-Soviet future.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/russia-invasion-ukraine-putin
-zelensky-eu-nato

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, February 28, 2023 6:28 AM

SECOND

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


If Russia wins, China is more likely to invade Taiwan because Putin has proved the world will not strongly and effectively resist countries being exterminated one by one, as China already has done to Tibet.

U.S. intelligence shows that China’s President Xi Jinping has instructed his country’s military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan though he may be currently harboring doubts about his ability to do so given Russia’s experience in its war with Ukraine, CIA Director William Burns said.

Burns, in a television interview that aired Sunday, stressed that the United States must take “very seriously” Xi’s desire to ultimately control Taiwan even if military conflict is not inevitable.

“We do know, as has been made public, that President Xi has instructed the PLA, the Chinese military leadership, to be ready by 2027 to invade Taiwan, but that doesn’t mean that he’s decided to invade in 2027 or any other year as well,” Burns told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“I think our judgment at least is that President Xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion,” he said.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-taiwan-politics-united-state
s-government-eaf869eb617c6c356b2708607ed15759

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, February 28, 2023 7:08 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


The Chinese use two ways to describe Ukraine both of them both Traditional Chinese and the modern simplified Chinese character use the food measurement term 'grams' to spell out Ukraine, maybe it was know as a bread basket back then, as a nation I don't think the Japanese use these old hanzi / kanji characters and instead pronounce the country more phonetically using one of their four alphabets 'katana' just as Koreans use modern Hangul, some words translated have a deeper meaning and others used for their phonetic tone and sounds and do not provide any meaning. This usage is similar to that of the Japanese Katakana and Hiragana, in each countries description of old Ukraine they often refer to historical Kingdoms, or nation states or wars or Kievan Rus (Rus), Slavic culture, which formed the basis of Ukrainian and Russian identity as the center of East Slavic culture, invasions and Wars Rus Khaganstate, East Slavic, West Slavic. We used to have many skilled readers of Hanzi, Japanese China based characters Kanji, Hanja or Vietnamese based Chinese Chu-Nom characters on this site, posting and translating back in the early days, historic use of words and writing used throughout the Sinosphere moving as far as Singapore. Hindu Indian culture is old but the Republic of India as a Democracy is new, e Republic of India recognized Ukraine as a sovereign country in December 1991.

in news

‘No conditions for peace’: Russia reacts to China’s 12-point plan to end war
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/kremlin-on-china-plan-says-no-cond
itions-for-peace-at-the-moment-in-ukraine/hadibgj9n

The People's Republic of China's stance on Crimea is based upon its longstanding policy of noninterference in the domestic affairs of other nations. China sees the Crimean problem as an issue that should be solved within Ukraine. And thus, China argues that neither the involvement of Russia nor NATO is legitimate. In the United Nations, China abstained from condemning the referendum in Crimea as illegal. China does not recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea and recognizes Crimea as a part of Ukraine.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2015/04/01/explaining-china-s-position-o
n-crimea-referendum-pub-59600
,
https://thediplomat.com/2014/03/china-reacts-to-the-crimea-referendum/


The Indian government took a relatively balanced position on the situation in Ukraine. India in the past has not historically made supporting democracy abroad a central tenet of its foreign policy and said in its official statement that they would observe the situation in Ukraine and respect the decisions of both sides as long as they are peaceful. The Ministry of External Affairs asked its nationals, particularly students, to leave the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, effective from 29 May 2014, in eastern Ukraine which is witnessing frequent violent clashes and warned Indian travelers to be cautious and avoid non-essential travel in parts of eastern and southern Ukraine and to remain vigilant about their personal safety and security. According to officials, there were about 1,000 non-resident Indians living in the affected regions
https://web.archive.org/web/20150601151232/http://www.dw.de/indias-bal
ancing-act-in-crimea-crisis/a-17534847
'
http://www.firstpost.com/world/ukraine-crisis-india-asks-nationals-to-
leave-donetsk-lugansk-1550523.html

Russia-Ukraine conflict drives refugees into Lithuania
http://en.people.cn/n3/2023/0228/c90000-10213900.html
Italy's purchasing power halved since start of Russia-Ukraine crisis
https://english.news.cn/europe/20230228/03ba275ac8a9422a8f2ecb6e1b4445
21/c.html

Two dead in Russian drone attack in west Ukraine
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/two-dead-in-russian-drone-
attack-in-west-ukraine/article66559974.ece
Russia's £274m A-50U Surveillance Aircraft 'blown Apart' By Pro-Kyiv Supporters In Belarus
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/europe/russias-274m-a-50u-sur
veillance-aircraft-blown-apart-by-pro-kyiv-supporters-in-belarus-articleshow.html
Vidit Baya



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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 7:26 AM

SECOND

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


Putin’s former advisor was particularly critical of the Russian President’s decision to invade Ukraine last February. The day after the invasion, Pavlovsky told the Financial Times:

"He’s even more isolated than Stalin. In the last years of his life, Stalin didn’t come to the Kremlin and lived in his dacha, but the politburo came to see him and they talked and drank. Putin doesn’t have that. He’s as isolated as he can be. And in that situation rational issues become irrational."

He continued:

"Putin’s used to being lucky. That’s very dangerous for a gambler because he starts believing fate is on his side. When you play Russian roulette, you feel that God is on your side until the shot rings out."

In April 2022, Pavlovsky told RFE/RL's Georgian Service that Putin made a serious misjudgment, and his decision made 'no political sense'. He said:

"This is all Putin's own personal decision. Nobody other than Putin would have made it… Nobody, including myself, realized just how maniacally obsessed he must have been with Ukraine. We underestimated the extent of decay of the Russian government."

He continued that Putin 'stepped into a trap in Ukraine' and would find it hard to declare 'victory'. Pavlovsky also believed it was no longer 'unthinkable and impossible' that the conflict could 'spill into conventional warfare between Russia and the West, with NATO'.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vladimir-putin-s-ex-advisor-who-s
aid-he-s-maniacally-obsessed-with-ukraine-dies-from-serious-illness/ar-AA180U4L

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, February 28, 2023 3:55 PM

SECOND

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


A concerted attack against the Crimean peninsula – isolating it, neutralising and inflicting severe damage against its military infrastructure by long range strikes – would be a major blow for Russian morale. In the absence of decisive battlefield success elsewhere, it would represent a defeat for Moscow that it could not disguise, and could lead to collapse of Russian forces in the field and even to Putin’s downfall.

But – as so often in this war – without boosting our support, it is unachievable. Even this more limited operation would demand massively increased Western assistance, including many more tanks than have been promised, much larger quantities of ammunition, as well as long-range missile systems which so far have not been provided at all. This additional support would have to be sustained and that would mean stepping up defence industrial production in the US and Europe beyond what has been contemplated so far in this war.

To achieve this is a question of political will on the Continent, one that remains shaky. There are signs now of European leaders pushing Zelensky towards peace talks with Russia rather than the defeat of Moscow’s invasion. That was the message delivered directly to the Ukrainian leader in Paris recently by President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Both their countries have said they will not be providing new types of weapons this year. All talk at the moment is of future security assistance and guarantees to Ukraine from Nato after the war ends, as a means of pressuring Zelensky into an accommodation.

Putin recognises this wavering of Western support for Ukrainian offensive action and will be encouraged to press forward his own offensive to maximise territorial gains in advance of any potential negotiations. He is unlikely to achieve his full objectives on the battlefield, but neither will he willingly surrender what he now holds, which is significantly greater Ukrainian territory than when the war began.

With Ukraine denied the resources for decisive success, the scene would then be set for a period of relative quiet followed by the next round of Russian aggression. General Hodges’s plan for Crimea may be overly optimistic, but he is absolutely right to suggest that long-term peace is contingent on Russian battlefield defeat. The scenario that Nato leaders are now planning equals the vanquishment of the West and the emboldenment of both Russia and China. It is a crying shame when the possibility of a total Russian collapse remains within reach.

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former infantry commander

https://news.yahoo.com/total-russian-collapse-surprisingly-close-19000
0011.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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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 4:29 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Everything you post is bullshit, SECOND. Putin is not a gambler and neither is the Russian Security Council. They have been building up their military since 2007 in preparation for western aggression.

And Ukraine is never going to retake Crimea.

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


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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 4:33 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


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

So, I take it you would be OK with Russia or China .... or Soros ... funding revolution in the USA?
The USA did NOT fund the color revolutions which Putin despises.


BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Jeezus, SECOND, do you think we're as stupid as you are?

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


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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 7:04 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I'm surprised you missed this

Quote:
Mass Drone Attack Unleashes Chaos, Air Raid Sirens Inside Russia
...
Amid all the local reports coming out of Russia, there were in total possibly half-a-dozen to a dozen or more inbound drones which had been sent against various Russian cities overnight into Tuesday.

This comes after a past year which witnessed a number of sporadic drone and alleged sabotage attacks on sensitive Russian facilities, including military bases, as Ukraine and its backers grow more emboldened.
desperate. You don't resort to pinprick drone attacks if you're winning on the battle field. Which Ukraine/NATO are not.

Quote:
One December investigative report written by a US special forces veteran said the CIA was behind many of the covert sabotage operations happening with increasing frequency on Russian soil. President Putin has recently said he sees the conflict in Ukraine and West-backed proxy war there as a fight for the survival of the Russian people, alluding to it as an 'existential threat' in fresh comments.

MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/mass-drone-attack-unleashes-cha
os-air-raid-sirens-inside-russia

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


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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 7:08 PM

SECOND

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


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

So, I take it you would be OK with Russia or China .... or Soros ... funding revolution in the USA?
The USA did NOT fund the color revolutions which Putin despises.


BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Jeezus, SECOND, do you think we're as stupid as you are?
Why are you unaware that "leaders" who supported Putin are leaders until death? Kim in N Korea, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the lifetime officeholder Ali Khamenei in Iran. Xi in China has set up a legal framework to be the next Chairman Mao who will die in office. All these men have killed people by thousands to hold on to jobs that, in more rational countries, will constantly be moving to new officeholders. And then there is Putin, who has threatened to destroy the world before he will step aside. Putin definitely intends to die in office.

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, February 28, 2023 7:10 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Zelensky Hints At Withdrawing From Russian-Encircled Bakhmut: 'Out Of Options'
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zelensky-hints-withdrawing-russ
ian-encircled-bakhmut-out-options

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


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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 7:16 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


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

So, I take it you would be OK with Russia or China .... or Soros ... funding revolution in the USA?
The USA did NOT fund the color revolutions which Putin despises.


BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Jeezus, SECOND, do you think we're as stupid as you are?
Why are you unaware that "leaders" who supported Putin are leaders until death? Kim in N Korea, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the lifetime officeholder Ali Khamenei in Iran.
With the exception of N Korea and China, those nations hold elections. As do India,bBrazil,and other nations that support Russia.

And, no, they have not "killed millions". At least, not in the last 50 years. That would be the USA.

Really, SECOND, just how stupid do you think we are? Cause we're not as stupid as you.

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


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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 9:55 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

With the exception of N Korea and China, those nations hold elections. As do India,bBrazil,and other nations that support Russia.

And, no, they have not "killed millions". At least, not in the last 50 years. That would be the USA.

Really, SECOND, just how stupid do you think we are? Cause we're not as stupid as you.
Signym, I wrote thousands, not millions died. And Kim Jong Un Wins 100% of Votes in North Korea Election. So you are wrong about N Korea not holding elections. How about China? 100% for Xi. Signym, where do you get your ideas about China and N Korea not being Democracies? Democracies are what those two countries claim to be (The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, The People's Republic of China) so we have to take their word when the maximum leader receives 100% that the best man won in the finest tradition of Democracies everywhere.

But, Signym, you missed the bigger point that Putin's allies are men who will remain in their government offices until they die, as will Putin. And Putin's allies are absolutely loved by their people because the votes prove they are loved and deserve to serve their countries forever. Or until death. Putin is loved, too, by the voters! Why should he ever leave office when he is so lovable?

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, February 28, 2023 9:59 PM

SECOND

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


Feb 28, 2023
Some of the starkest images of Russian brutality in Ukraine emerged from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha last year. Ukrainian officials say 1,700 people were killed and 9,000 war crimes were committed there. With the support of the Pulitzer Center, special correspondent Simon Ostrovsky and videographer Yegor Troyanovsky returned to Bucha to tell the story of a group of Ukrainians executed in cold blood.

Ukrainians in Bucha reflect on horrors and brutality suffered at hands of Russian forces



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, February 28, 2023 10:30 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Neither Xi nor Kim are elected directly
You stupid, SECOND.

****
Yanno, you post walls of gibberish, SECOND. The more desperate you are, the more words you post.

But all the words in the world won't change reality. So keep on blathering, bc you'll look dumber with every post.

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


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Tuesday, February 28, 2023 11:23 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Neither Xi nor Kim are elected directly
You stupid, SECOND.
The US President is NOT directly elected. Biden only received 306 votes while Trump received 232, but the US is a Democracy, just as North Korea and China are "Democracies". Just ask Kim or Xi about it. They will tell you that they were "Democratically" elected, but unlike Biden, Kim and Xi got 100%, so they must be really loved by their people. With so much love, Kim and Xi will never leave office while still alive. They are needed, much the same as Russia needs Putin forever and ever.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
****
Yanno, you post walls of gibberish, SECOND. The more desperate you are, the more words you post.

But all the words in the world won't change reality. So keep on blathering, bc you'll look dumber with every post.
Signym, you, 1kiki, and 6ix always gave off the odor that you are very articulate yet very unsuccessful people. Signym, you proved it again by misunderstanding how the Electoral College works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election

Here is an example of Signym being an overly articulate idiot. Note that it wasn't hard to find:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, in terms of ACTUAL SCIENCE... it seems that the spike protein by itself is cytotoxic... that is, it damages cells by itself. I already posted a link to that study.
Spike protein toxicity was studied in the context of Covid infection, with spike proteins circulating in the bloodstream.

In other words, one would expect the same spike protein toxicity from an actual infection as one might expect from a vaccination. So far, the risks of infection seem higher for certain groups of people.

The only ways I could imagine the vaccine being MORE toxic than the vaccine are:

The vaccine spike protein being circulated by the bloodstream before the body has a chance to mount an immune response. That is, in the case of a normal Covid infection, it begins in the nose and throat, and your body starts reacting to the virus before it gets to the lungs and starts dumping a lot of virus and virus particles into the bloodstream. That might help explain the one side effects of vaccines that doesn't appear with infection: appendicitis or intestinal perforation.

Complete spike proteins had a "open frame reading" coding and, I presume, a "stop" codon. A fragment without a stop codon may overproduce. Early batches of vaccine with higher amount if fragments had higher negative reaction rates.

And now for something possibly even more dangerous than the vaccine in terms of clotting:

Erythritol.

Artificial Sweetener Linked to Blood Clots, Heart Attacks: Study

https://www.webmd.com/stroke/news/20230228/artificial-sweetener-linked
-blood-clots-heart-attack-study
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65226&mid=11701
63#1170163

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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Wednesday, March 1, 2023 12:45 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Neither Xi nor Kim are elected directly
You stupid, SECOND.
The US President is NOT directly elected. Biden only received 306 votes while Trump received 232, but the US is a Democracy, just as North Korea and China are "Democracies". Just ask Kim or Xi about it. They will tell you that they were "Democratically" elected, but unlike Biden, Kim and Xi got 100%, so they must be really loved by their people. With so much love, Kim and Xi will never leave office while still alive. They are needed, much the same as Russia needs Putin forever and ever.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
****
Yanno, you post walls of gibberish, SECOND. The more desperate you are, the more words you post.

But all the words in the world won't change reality. So keep on blathering, bc you'll look dumber with every post.
Signym, you, 1kiki, and 6ix always gave off the odor that you are very articulate yet very unsuccessful people. Signym, you proved it again by misunderstanding how the Electoral College works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election

Here is an example of Signym being an overly articulate idiot. Note that it wasn't hard to find:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, in terms of ACTUAL SCIENCE... it seems that the spike protein by itself is cytotoxic... that is, it damages cells by itself. I already posted a link to that study.
Spike protein toxicity was studied in the context of Covid infection, with spike proteins circulating in the bloodstream.

In other words, one would expect the same spike protein toxicity from an actual infection as one might expect from a vaccination. So far, the risks of infection seem higher for certain groups of people.

The only ways I could imagine the vaccine being MORE toxic than the vaccine are:

The vaccine spike protein being circulated by the bloodstream before the body has a chance to mount an immune response. That is, in the case of a normal Covid infection, it begins in the nose and throat, and your body starts reacting to the virus before it gets to the lungs and starts dumping a lot of virus and virus particles into the bloodstream. That might help explain the one side effects of vaccines that doesn't appear with infection: appendicitis or intestinal perforation.

Complete spike proteins had a "open frame reading" coding and, I presume, a "stop" codon. A fragment without a stop codon may overproduce. Early batches of vaccine with higher amount if fragments had higher negative reaction rates.

And now for something possibly even more dangerous than the vaccine in terms of clotting:

Erythritol.

Artificial Sweetener Linked to Blood Clots, Heart Attacks: Study

https://www.webmd.com/stroke/news/20230228/artificial-sweetener-linked
-blood-clots-heart-attack-study
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65226&mid=11701
63#1170163

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

Everything I posted is verifiable fact. Unlike the bullshit you post.

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


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Wednesday, March 1, 2023 5:53 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

And...?

Everything I posted is verifiable fact. Unlike the bullshit you post.
Verifiable fact? You mentioned a study of Artificial SweetenerS (ASS abbreviated). Here is the "logic" of the study: 1) Fat people are bigger ASS users. 2) Fat people have more heart attacks. 3) Therefore ASS causes heart attacks, the only logical explanation. Such a brilliant study. Here are "verifiable" facts from Putin. He uses "logic" in the same manner as the ASS study did. His "logic" would never misunderstand the facts and come to wrong conclusions since Putin is brilliant:

Vladimir Putin RAGES Against NATO, Claims The 'West Wants To Destroy & Dismantle Russia' In Latest Rant

Putin also expressed fear that Ukraine’s Western allies might soon start to use their “nuclear capabilities” against Russia and ultimately kill a large number of Russian citizens in the process.

"When all the leading NATO countries have declared their main goal as inflicting a strategic defeat on us, so that our people suffer as they say, how can we ignore their nuclear capabilities?” Putin fumed during an interview with Russian state television outlet Rossiya 1 on Monday.

"They have one goal: To disband the former Soviet Union and its fundamental part – the Russian Federation,” he continued.

The Russian leader also indicated "such an ethnic group as the Russian people may not be able to survive in the form in which it exists today” should the West be successful in their alleged plans to “destroy and dismantle” Russia.

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Putin’s remarks on Rossiya 1 on Monday came shortly after former Russian president-turned-Putin spokesman Dmitry Medvedev slammed the West, President Joe Biden, and claimed Russia would use its own nukes to defend itself from “the verge of a world conflict.”

“After all, it is obvious to all reasonable forces that if the United States wants the defeat of Russia, then we are on the verge of a world conflict,” Medvedev wrote last week.

“If the United States wants to defeat Russia, then we have the right to defend ourselves with any weapon,” he added, “including nuclear.”

Medvedev’s remarks were seemingly in response to a speech President Biden gave days earlier in which the United States leader proclaimed that while “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia,” the U.S. and Ukraine’s other Western allies “do not seek to control or destroy Russia.”

Putin also recently pulled out of a 2010 nuclear treaty between the U.S. and Russia that allowed each nation to inspect the other’s nuclear arsenal.

President Biden called Putin’s decision to pull out of the treaty “not very responsible” and a “big mistake.”

“This war was never a necessity. It's a tragedy,” Biden said during his speech in Poland last week. “If Russia stopped invading Ukraine, it would end the war. If Ukraine stopped defending itself against Russia, it would be the end of Ukraine.”

https://radaronline.com/p/vladimir-putin-rages-nato-west-destroy-disma
ntle-russia-rant/

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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Wednesday, March 1, 2023 11:15 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Is the erythritol study really the hill you choose to die on, instead of the Ukraine one?
Or are you just trying to create a diversion from your massive intelligence failure?
Probably the latter.

But let me snipe at your "erythritol" position:

If there is a correlation, A can cause B, B can cause A, A and B are both caused by C, or it's coincidence. In THIS CASE, the causative factor was backed by both lab (in vitro) and animal studies.

Quote:
Animal and lab studies reinforced the idea that erythritol might cause clots, said Dr. Stanley Hazen, who led the research and chairs the department of cardiovascular and metabolic sciences at the Cleveland Clinic.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/02/27/sugar-substitute
-erythritol-increase-risk-stroke/11330213002/

Look it up.
And now, back toour originally-scheduled topic.
At some point, I should list EVERY POINT you've been wrong on, which is just about every one you've ever made on the topic

Oh, and go fuck yourself, stupid.



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


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Wednesday, March 1, 2023 11:55 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Is the erythritol study really the hill you choose to die on, instead of the Ukraine one?
I am being as blunt as possible: if anything in the article is true, then erythritol requires that several different groups all start their own human study immediately and finished ASAP. It is an emergency, but nobody is treating it at all like thousands will die from heart attacks and strokes. Instead, everybody is all "ho-hum, we'll get around to it one of these days. Maybe next year. When we have more time. We are busy-busy and cannot change priorities in less than 12 months."

Same thing with Putin. He threatens to nuke the world unless Ukraine capitulates to him and everybody, except Ukrainians, act as if this is "ho-hum, we'll get around to Putin in time, but not immediately." The world does not want to respond too fast because, as in the example of French voters who are cheese-eating surrender monkeys, the French don't want France to do too much for Ukraine. The French are so busy-busy and cannot change their priorities for Ukraine. And then there is the expense of doing anything more than sending a token number of weapons that France has no use for, except if Putin actually invades France, which he won't be doing if Putin is stopped by 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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Wednesday, March 1, 2023 1:39 PM

THG




Opinions are useless without fact backing them up. This is why comrade signym does not respond to my posts in the other threads. I post too much truth for her to spin into bullshit.

T

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