REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Thursday, October 31, 2024 13:46
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PAGE 69 of 149

Wednesday, March 22, 2023 4:05 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Meanwhile, in anticipation of losing eastern Ukraine, Rishi Sunak (UK PM) decided to poison it with depleted uranium shells.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


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Wednesday, March 22, 2023 6:00 PM

THG



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Wednesday, March 22, 2023 6:01 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This action is just political theater.

SECOND: When Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Milosevic.
When Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Gaddafi.
When Bashar al-Assad of Syria was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Al-Assad.
When Putin was charged with crimes, who did Signym side with?
What do these people have in common? Russia.

THUGR: Tyrants, dictators, thug’s murderers and criminals, one and all.

SIGNY: Oh fuck you, THUGR. Your ignorance is boundless. And worse, you refuse to learn bc you can never admit that you're wrong.

THUGR: Riddle me this comrade signym. Why do the women of Iran have a bigger set of balls than the Russians when it comes to standing up to tyrants and dictators?
Can_you_see_me_laughing?


Bc Russia is not a tyranny and Putin is not a dictator, ignorant troll.



Quote:
Why Putin is casting the Ukraine war as a fight for Russia’s survival Why western press is focusing on the "meaning" of the battle in Ukraine.
by Brad Dress - 03/21/23 1:48 PM ET

Because Russia is winning.



Ukraine Pictures Show Putin Sending Ancient T-54 Tanks to War

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-pictures-show-putin-sendi
ng-ancient-t-54-tanks-to-war/ar-AA18Wkpz?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=6540d62fe82441ffadb8afb346826f1a&ei=122


If you believe comrade signym. Russia is doing this because they are winning.

T
Why do you keep believing what Kiev says? I would have thought that, by now, having been caught in so many lies you would have gotten the idea that nearly everything "Kiev says" is a lie.

When Bakhmut falls... and it will ... Kiev will claim it killed a zillion Russians. Their much-awaited spring offensive will be accompanied by announcements of success after success. It'll be just like Berlin, right before it fell to the Russians.
You're a loser




If it comforts you to pretend that I
get all my information from Kiev so be it. It has been
obvious for years you live a lie. It's expected.

T

Putin really isn't getting his own way after Sweden votes to join NATO

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Wednesday, March 22, 2023 7:37 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:
SECOND, since you can't identify differences between N Korea and Russia, it's clear that you still know nothing about anything.
You're a loser too.
N Korea and Russia both complain that they need nukes to protect them from the faraway Americans. Canadians share a border with Americans. Funny thing that Canada doesn't have nukes yet is richer than Russia and N Korea combined. I wonder how Canadians are so rich and safe despite the Americans being so close. It is a mystery that Putin and Kim should look into.

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 22, 2023 8:09 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, since you can't identify differences between N Korea and Russia, it's clear that you still know nothing about anything.
You're a loser too.
N Korea and Russia both complain that they need nukes to protect them from the faraway Americans. Canadians share a border with Americans. Funny thing that Canada doesn't have nukes yet is richer than Russia and N Korea combined. I wonder how Canadians are so rich and safe despite the Americans being so close. It is a mystery that Putin and Kim should look into.

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

OMFG SECOND do you realize how blindingly stupid you sound?
Apparently not!
Loser.


-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


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Wednesday, March 22, 2023 8:30 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:
OMFG SECOND do you realize how blindingly stupid you sound?
Apparently not!
Loser.
6ix complains that he can't get ahead in America because of Democrats. The real reasons are his personal defects such as alcoholism, etc. The North Koreans have similar complaints that they can't get ahead because of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans. The real reason, proved by South Koreans, is that North Koreans have a highly defective society. Russia is another one of those highly defective societies. Russia has killed 65 million Russians during political disputes, not just during WWII. Russia lost millions of its best people to emigration, especially to America, which doesn't have as dysfunctional a society as Russia has. Russia can't blame America for the best Russians leaving. Russia should blame itself for killing the best and driving the rest out.

To be explicit, Russians have not just killed tens of millions of Russians but have also gone on murder rampages across Ukraine. Today is one more out of many spanning centuries. That is why Russians are poor, not because Americans did this to Russians.

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 22, 2023 9:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMFG SECOND do you realize how blindingly stupid you sound?
Apparently not!
Loser.
6ix complains that he can't get ahead in America because of Democrats.


No I don't. I'm already ahead.

How was work today, bitch?



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

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

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Wednesday, March 22, 2023 10:04 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This action is just political theater.

SECOND: When Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Milosevic.
When Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Gaddafi.
When Bashar al-Assad of Syria was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Al-Assad.
When Putin was charged with crimes, who did Signym side with?
What do these people have in common? Russia.

THUGR: Tyrants, dictators, thug’s murderers and criminals, one and all.

SIGNY: Oh fuck you, THUGR. Your ignorance is boundless. And worse, you refuse to learn bc you can never admit that you're wrong.

THUGR: Riddle me this comrade signym. Why do the women of Iran have a bigger set of balls than the Russians when it comes to standing up to tyrants and dictators?
Can_you_see_me_laughing?

THUGR: Bc Russia is not a tyranny and Putin is not a dictator, ignorant troll.



Quote:
Why Putin is casting the Ukraine war as a fight for Russia’s survival Why western press is focusing on the "meaning" of the battle in Ukraine.
by Brad Dress - 03/21/23 1:48 PM ET


SIGNY: Because Russia is winning.

Ukraine Pictures Show Putin Sending Ancient T-54 Tanks to War
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-pictures-show-putin-sendi
ng-ancient-t-54-tanks-to-war/
THUGR: If you believe comrade signym. Russia is doing this because they are winning.

SIGNY: Why do you keep believing what Kiev says? I would have thought that, by now, having been caught in so many lies you would have gotten the idea that nearly everything "Kiev says" is a lie.
When Bakhmut falls... and it will ... Kiev will claim it killed a zillion Russians. Their much-awaited spring offensive will be accompanied by announcements of success after success. It'll be just like Berlin, right before it fell to the Russians.
You're a loser

THUGR: If it comforts you to pretend that I get all my information from Kiev so be it. It has been obvious for years you live a lie. It's expected.
Dood, THE TITLE of your article says "Kiev pictures". Are you saying it ISN'T from Kiev?
In any case, our CIA, SD, WH, and MSM get their "info" from Kiev so even if it's second or third-hand, and been laundered a couple of times, it's still from Kiev.

Loser.





-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


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Thursday, March 23, 2023 8:54 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No I don't. I'm already ahead.

How was work today, bitch?
I like work, especially now that my policy is to eliminate Trumptards who crossed my red lines: steal tools or fuel or money, stupidly break equipment, harass other workers, etc. The best policy is being intolerant of the endless dysfunction, deviancy and old-fashion mental illness of East Texas Trumptards. That makes work pleasant for all the other employees, including me. The Trumptards never permanently learn to be decent people. They always have got to lie and cheat when they think nobody will catch them. They didn't internalize the rules that normal people follow, they are only pantomiming what real humans do.

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, March 23, 2023 8:56 AM

SECOND

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


The flurry of videos signals that the problems that plagued Russia’s invasion throughout its first year are far from resolved, and they offer further evidence that Moscow is relying on a grim tactic of sending waves of soldiers to certain death to soften up Ukrainian positions, ahead of sending in elite, experienced fighters to then gain ground.

The tactic is even drawing criticism from pro-Russian war bloggers who question its effectiveness and the pointless loss of life in what they call “meat assaults.” Recruits have complained of being handed guns and told to run at enemy positions and shoot. In one video, recorded on March 7, conscripts in a unit from Irkutsk, a city in Siberia, complained that they were “being sent to the slaughter.” The video was their third public appeal to Putin.

While the strategy of sending waves of so-called “shock troops” is not new, it seems to have become more prevalent as Russia has lost some of its initial artillery advantage. The strategy has been a hallmark of the Wagner mercenary group’s months-long assault on Bakhmut.

U.S. officials estimate that the Wagner group alone has lost 30,000 fighters since the start of the invasion, with thousands killed in action in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Russia’s defense ministry claimed last September that just 5,937 soldiers had been killed in the conflict so far. Western governments project about 200,000 killed and wounded on the Russian side.

One group of recruits from Kaliningrad, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, claiming to be to be Unit 41698 of the 5th Motorized Brigade, said that in their first assault six members of the unit had died in a single trench.

“People die for nothing,” said one man, his face covered by a balaclava. “We are not meat. We are ready to fight with dignity, not as meat, in frontal attacks.”

Another video, apparently recorded by Regiment 1453 from Perm and the Yekaterinburg region in the Urals on March 11, spoke of “unjustified losses” and said that during a recent assault four had died and 18 were wounded.

The videos have also highlighted Moscow’s failure to address critical and embarrassing supply problems, which have led to arming soldiers with World War II-era guns and uniforms. Some of those complaints were first raised last autumn, including in an initial wave of videos, which began appearing shortly after Russia began a partial military conscription.

Russian officials have remained noticeably mute about the recent videos, and so far there is no sign that Putin will respond to the appeals. In November, during a staged meeting with of group of women described as soldiers’ mothers, Putin revealed some concern over how the mobilization and the war were being perceived and he seemed to allude to the first wave of videos.

“One should not trust the internet completely because it is full of various fake stories, deception and lies,” Putin said. “The internet is rife with information attacks because information is just another offensive weapon in the modern world, and information attacks are just another effective type of struggle.”

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in New York, said that it was unsurprising to see such problems after a year of war for which Russia was ill-prepared, and especially after the steep casualties of recent months.

“These recruits are serving involuntarily. They are not being trained properly and do not have the right equipment. Russia is clearly using its scarce sources to arm and equip its best units,” Lee said in a phone interview.

“The quality of the force is worse now,” Lee said. “Earlier in the war, the big difference was that Russia had a really substantial artillery advantage, which compensated for a lack of tactical competence in some units. Now that artillery advantage has been reduced.”

The conscripts’ appeals have been echoed by mothers and daughters of mobilized fighters who have recorded their own messages to Putin. In one video, published on March 12, about 20 women appealed to Putin and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, to remove their men from the firing line.

“Our men are sent in as meat to storm well-defended points, five people against 100 well-armed enemies,” one woman said. “They are ready to honor their duty to the motherland according to the specialization they trained for, not as assault infantry.”

None of the videos represent any kind of protest of the war. Not a single conscript or unit openly condemned the war, which the Kremlin still insists on referring to as a “special military operation.”

And in most of the videos, the recruits are careful to say that they are committed to military duty and want to continue fighting for their country. Most recruits have also taken steps to hide their identities — a sign of their concern that any complaint may run afoul of the Kremlin’s draconian wartime censorship laws, including harsh jail sentences for “discrediting the military.”

Last summer, there were also cases of Russian “refuseniks” being jailed in makeshift prisons in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine and being subjected to violence and abuse.

Conscripts began posting appeal videos last autumn, following an unpopular and sudden mobilization drive, that rapidly called up at least 300,000 new soldiers to plug the gaps resulting from a string of battlefield losses.

The videos released in this month’s wave bear many similarities to the initial appeals, including complaints of absent commanders and unclear orders, poor communications, lack of equipment and unnecessary casualties.

The complaints have also been echoed by Russia’s war bloggers, some of the more vocal critics of the direction of Putin’s war and the ineptitude of the military command. Analysts said that the new complaints about being deployed as untrained stormtroopers could indicate some failure in Russia’s efforts to train thousands of soldiers over the winter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/03/19/russia-conscripts-vide
os-putin-war/

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, March 23, 2023 9:45 AM

SECOND

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


Here’s the real lesson from the showy Xi-Putin meeting

A strong China is bolstering a weak Russia. That’s the real headline that describes the showy meetings in Moscow this week between the two countries’ leaders. The Chinese aren’t providing weapons (yet), but Xi certainly offered moral and psychological support in what might be described as a get-well visit to an ailing relative. White House spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday rightly called Putin a “junior partner.”

The paradox of the Ukraine war is that Putin’s bid for greater power in Europe has made him weaker. This diminished Russia will fall increasingly under China’s sway — unless there’s an unlikely turn post-Ukraine and a Western-leaning leader replaces Putin. Maybe that’s the biggest reason for Xi’s fraternal visit: He is bolstering a flank against America and the West.

China’s dominance over a weaker Russia will take many forms in the coming years. Russia has lost its energy markets in Europe because of its reckless invasion, so it will depend ever more on demand from China and other Asian customers. China’s economic sway grows every year in central Asia and in Russia’s own far east. Its hard power in space, cyber, robotics and artificial intelligence will increasingly dwarf Russia’s.

Though Putin was beaming in Xi’s reflected glow this week, the visit was a reminder of just how isolated the Russian leader is. President Biden hosts a prominent foreign leader at the White House every other week. When was the last time you saw a major foreign leader visit the Kremlin? (The president of Belarus doesn’t count.) Xi’s get-well visit will give his “dear friend” Putin a psychological boost and help his domestic popularity. But other than China and a few outliers, Russian stands alone.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/21/xi-putin-summit-all
iance-danger/

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, March 23, 2023 10:51 AM

SECOND

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


World Bank says $411bn cost to rebuild war-torn Ukraine

A World Bank report has estimated it will cost Ukraine $411bn over the next 10 years to recover and rebuild from Russia’s war on the country, with the bill for cleaning up the rubble from devastated towns and cities standing at $5bn alone.

The report released on Wednesday said that estimates “should be considered as minimums as needs will continue to rise as long as the war continues”.

Produced jointly by Ukraine’s government, the World Bank, the European Commission and the United Nations, the $411bn assessment marked an increase from the $349bn estimated in a report released by the bank in September.

The report details some of the economic and human toll of Russia’s war, including nearly 2 million homes damaged, more than one in five public health institutions damaged, 650 ambulances damaged or stolen and at least 9,655 civilians confirmed dead, including 461 children.

Ukraine’s reconstruction will “take several years”, the World Bank’s Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Anna Bjerde said on Wednesday.

The report calculates $135bn in direct damage to buildings and infrastructure so far, not counting the broader economic fallout from the more than year-long conflict.

But the damage could have been even worse if not for the defence mounted by Ukrainian forces, which had kept the worst of the destruction confined to the front-line regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Kherson, Bjerde said in a call with reporters.

The evaluation expects Kyiv to require $14bn for critical and priority reconstruction as well as recovery investments in 2023 alone. The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday that it reached a staff-level agreement with Ukraine for a four-year financing package worth about $15.6bn.

Despite Russia’s fierce onslaught, Ukraine continues to maintain essential public services, including keeping schools and hospitals open, paying the salaries of teachers and civil servants as well as paying pensions, the World Bank said in February.

“Supporting these critical services continues to be a priority, and Ukraine needs about $3-4 billion per month to sustain them,” the bank’s Bjerde wrote at the time.

Russia’s invasion has displaced millions of Ukrainians. Global food and energy prices have also surged as a result of the war.

To date, the World Bank said, Russia’s invasion has undone 15 years of economic progress in Ukraine, cutting its gross domestic product by 29 percent and pushing 1.7 million Ukrainians into poverty.

The report said it was essential to keep Ukraine’s government, private business sector and recovery efforts going even amid the attacks and raging fighting in the east of the country. For Ukraine to postpone rebuilding risks the country “settling into a situation of low or no growth and facing huge social challenges once the war ends”, the bank said.

Ukraine’s energy sector has seen the greatest surge in damage recently as a result of Russia’s targeted attacks on the electrical grid and other energy hubs during the winter in a bid to freeze the Ukrainian population and leadership in Kyiv into submission.

Total damage to the energy sector is now five times greater than it was last summer, the World Bank said.

“Energy infrastructure, housing, critical infrastructure, economy and humanitarian demining are our five priorities for this year,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in a statement on Wednesday.

Shmyhal also warned that “the amount of damage and recovery needs currently does not include data on the loss of infrastructure, housing and businesses in the occupied territories”.

Ukrainian authorities will start restoration work in these territories when they are liberated, he said.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/23/cost-of-rebuilding-ukraine-du
e-to-russian-war-411bn-world-bank

Learn how @WorldBank is helping Ukraine recover and rebuild: http://wrld.bg/U61650NnWMz

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, March 23, 2023 12:46 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This action is just political theater.

SECOND: When Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Milosevic.
When Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Gaddafi.
When Bashar al-Assad of Syria was charged with crimes, Signym sided with Al-Assad.
When Putin was charged with crimes, who did Signym side with?
What do these people have in common? Russia.

THUGR: Tyrants, dictators, thug’s murderers and criminals, one and all.

SIGNY: Oh fuck you, THUGR. Your ignorance is boundless. And worse, you refuse to learn bc you can never admit that you're wrong.

THUGR: Riddle me this comrade signym. Why do the women of Iran have a bigger set of balls than the Russians when it comes to standing up to tyrants and dictators?
Can_you_see_me_laughing?

THUGR: Bc Russia is not a tyranny and Putin is not a dictator, ignorant troll.



Quote:
Why Putin is casting the Ukraine war as a fight for Russia’s survival Why western press is focusing on the "meaning" of the battle in Ukraine.
by Brad Dress - 03/21/23 1:48 PM ET


SIGNY: Because Russia is winning.

Ukraine Pictures Show Putin Sending Ancient T-54 Tanks to War
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-pictures-show-putin-sendi
ng-ancient-t-54-tanks-to-war/
THUGR: If you believe comrade signym. Russia is doing this because they are winning.

SIGNY: Why do you keep believing what Kiev says? I would have thought that, by now, having been caught in so many lies you would have gotten the idea that nearly everything "Kiev says" is a lie.
When Bakhmut falls... and it will ... Kiev will claim it killed a zillion Russians. Their much-awaited spring offensive will be accompanied by announcements of success after success. It'll be just like Berlin, right before it fell to the Russians.
You're a loser

THUGR: If it comforts you to pretend that I get all my information from Kiev so be it. It has been obvious for years you live a lie. It's expected.
Dood, THE TITLE of your article says "Kiev pictures". Are you saying it ISN'T from Kiev?
In any case, our CIA, SD, WH, and MSM get their "info" from Kiev so even if it's second or third-hand, and been laundered a couple of times, it's still from Kiev.

Loser.





Days after Putin's dead-of-night trip to a city far from the front, Zelenskyy visited the heart of the bloodiest fighting in Ukraine.

Days after Putin's dead-of-night trip in Ukraine, Zelenskyy visited troops near the front lines.

Putin's visit to Mariupol featured edited videos and was criticized by Ukrainian officials.

Photos show the two leaders' starkly different trips to the two cities, one of which is the site of fierce fighting.

Days after Russian President Vladimir Putin's surprise trip to the occupied city of Mariupol, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops in Bakhmut — currently the heart of the bloodiest fighting in the war.

Putin's dead-of-night trip occurred this past weekend. State media followed the Russian President meeting with residents who told him the occupied, war-torn Ukrainian city is a "little piece of paradise." He drove along city streets, saw inside new apartment complex, and visited a children's playground and renovated theater.

Daylight tells a different story of Mariupol, though. None of the video footage showed the widespread ruin across the city. Russia's invasion destroyed vast areas of buildings and infrastructure, leaving tens of thousands dead, the city's former mayor told the Associated Press.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/days-after-putin-s-dead-of-night-
trip-to-a-city-far-from-the-front-zelenskyy-visited-the-heart-of-the-bloodiest-fighting-in-ukraine/ar-AA18WDFZ?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2af9bf517c874bc086a75ad3707df668&ei=102


Signym, you're so silly.

T

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Thursday, March 23, 2023 1:01 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
World Bank says $411bn cost to rebuild war-torn Ukraine


Fuck Ukraine.

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

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

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Thursday, March 23, 2023 1:02 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

THUGR: Riddle me this comrade signym. Why do the women of Iran have a bigger set of balls than the Russians when it comes to standing up to tyrants and dictators?

Can_you_see_me_laughing?







Cheers to you too.




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Thursday, March 23, 2023 1:34 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


It would be a relief not to see blindingly stupid posts from THUGR and SECOND every day.


-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


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Thursday, March 23, 2023 2:42 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Yeah. I could just turn on MSNBC and hear whatever they're saying word for word if I wanted listen to that bullshit.

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

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

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Thursday, March 23, 2023 8:00 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It would be a relief not to see blindingly stupid posts from THUGR and SECOND every day.
Signym, everything you post is an elaboration of The Truth is All Lies and Signym's Lies are the True Truth. How does this cycle end of Up is Down and Down is Now Redefined As Up? It never ends until the Russian troll is either dead or has her hands cut off. Signym, while you still have fingers, work your magic inversion of the truth on this paragraph:

US officials have said repeatedly that Russia has likely lost half its tank force in Ukraine, if not more. These staggering losses can be attributed to a whole slew of issues plaguing Russian forces, military experts told Insider, including a failure to provide the necessary fire support in combat, a lack of common sense, and little adaptability.

https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/ukraines-getting-dep
leted-uranium-tank-rounds-that-can-punch-holes-in-russian-armor-and-moscows-not-happy-about-it/amp_articleshow/98951915.cms

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Thursday, March 23, 2023 8:51 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Speaking of lies..

STOLEN VALOR: Top Ukraine 'volunteer' soldier revealed to be fraud, heavily promoted by Adam Kinzinger, Malcolm Nance
https://thepostmillennial.com/stolen-valor-top-ukraine-volunteer-soldi
er-revealed-to-be-fraud-heavily-promoted-by-adam-kinzinger-malcolm-nance

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


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Friday, March 24, 2023 6:39 AM

SECOND

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


After the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Putin, Russian state TV host Vladimir Solovyov spoke out to warn that “any attempt to implement [the warrant] is a declaration of war.”

"It calls for an immediate nuclear strike on that country!” Putin’s ally fumed during the broadcast. “Immediate!”

“That's to say,” Solovyov continued, “any attempt to do it, to go against the will of the Russian people, which has made itself very clear, must result in a missile strike!"

Solovyov’s recent threat to launch nukes at any country that attempts to arrest Putin came just days after fellow Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev also threatened to use nuclear weapons against adversarial Western powers.

Last month, shortly after President Joe Biden announced that “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia,” Medvedev lashed out and claimed Russia is prepared to use nukes to “defend” themselves.

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

https://radaronline.com/p/putin-confidante-threatens-immediate-nuclear
-strike-any-country-detains-despot/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, March 24, 2023 6:47 AM

SECOND

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


Russia is unable to honor its arms delivery commitments to India because of the war in Ukraine, the Indian Air Force (IAF) said, placing a potential strain on New Delhi’s relationship with its largest defense supplier as Moscow attempts to ramp up weapons production.

An IAF representative told an Indian parliamentary committee that due to the Ukraine war a “major delivery” from Moscow “is not going to take place.”

The admission, published in a report by India’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday, is the first official confirmation by Indian authorities amid swirling rumors and reports in local media suggesting shortcomings in Russian capacity.

“They have given us in writing that they are not able to deliver it,” the representative said, according to the report.

CNN has contacted the Russian Embassy in New Delhi but did not receive a response at the time of publishing.

The report did not mention the specifics of the delivery.

The biggest ongoing delivery is the S-400 Triumf air defense system units India bought in 2018 for $5.4 billion. Three of these systems have been delivered and two more are awaited, Reuters reported.

IAF also depends on Russia for spares for its Su-30MKI and MiG-29 fighter jets, the mainstay of the service branch, according to Reuters.

Russia is the world’s second-largest arms exporter, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a large-scale effort to build up capacity to produce more weapons for the war in a move he said was “urgently needed.”

Putin’s order also followed repeated complaints by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin that his mercenaries were not receiving sufficient munitions in their prolonged battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/india/india-russia-arms-delivery-ukrain
e-war-intl-hnk/index.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, March 24, 2023 11:04 AM

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


Russian forces may need to advance as far as Kyiv or Lviv, said Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and confidante of President Vladimir Putin.

In an interview with Russia's RIA Novosti on Friday, Medvedev was quoted as saying that Russian troops will go where they need to go "in order to destroy this infection."

He said that any Ukrainian attempts to take the Crimean peninsula would make Russia resort to "absolutely any weapon" against Kyiv. "Nothing can be ruled out here," Medvedev said.

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-kyiv-prepares-for-counterassault
/a-65102156

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, March 24, 2023 3:48 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Ukraine may not be able to retake all Russian-occupied territory by force, the US Secretary of State has suggested, in remarks likely to anger Kyiv.


https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/world/ukraine-may-not-be-able-to-reclai
m-crimea-by-force-us-says/ar-AA192h4B

Ya think?

Quote:
The United States is Ukraine’s most important military backer and has pledged to continue its support for “as long as it takes” to defeat the Russian invasion.

But Antony Blinken told Congress on Thursday that some of Ukraine’s stated war aims might only be possible through diplomacy.

“I think there’s going to be territory in Ukraine that the Ukrainians are determined to fight for on the ground; there may be territory that they decide that they’ll have to try to get back in other ways,” he said when asked whether the United States backed president Volodymyr Zelensky’s goal of liberating Crimea.

He added: “These have to be Ukrainian decisions about what they want their future to be and how that lands in terms of the sovereignty, the territorial integrity, the independence of the country.”
Except, if course, Blinken dismissed the Chinese diplomatic approach out of hand as "unacceptable", not even giving Kiev a chance to draw breath, much less respond

I guess we decide their diplomacy for them.
So much for respecting Ukraine's sovereignty!

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


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Saturday, March 25, 2023 6:52 AM

SECOND

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


Russian Ex-Diplomat on How West Can Isolate, Topple Putin

March 25, 2023 - Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat at Moscow's United Nations mission in Geneva, told Newsweek that Western nations should use the ICC decision as a springboard to undermine Putin's authority, unsettle influential Kremlin figures, and buoy the pro-democratic opposition movement in exile.

"Putin is already under suspicion of war crimes; we have this arrest warrant," Bondarev said, referring to the ICC measure that prompted threats of missile strikes and world war from Putin's allies. "The next step would be that the Western countries would declare Putin illegitimate, deny that he is a legal, lawful, and just president."

"Thus, that may be a declaration that Putin is the only obstacle to peace—the real peace—so he must be removed, one way or another," said Bondarev, who resigned his position at Russia's United Nations mission in Geneva in May 2022 in protest of the invasion.

Such a signal, Bondarev said, might help embolden Russian elites who are secretly against the war in Ukraine, or at least dissatisfied with its outcomes. This should be combined, he suggested, with an "open declaration" of opportunity for dissenters.

"In this declaration, there can be an invitation: 'Do the right thing, and we will treat you in the most favorable way,'" Bondarev said. "Of course, I understand that Western countries may be very much reluctant to do this because it will be a very huge escalatory step. I argue that it should be done—this declaration, this approach—should be voiced by the Russian opposition organizations in exile."

The pro-democratic opposition that has been silenced within Russia and abroad is divided into multiple—often feuding—camps. Though all agree on the need to unseat Putin, the various factions and organizations are divided on key issues.

A unified opposition, Bondarev said, could function akin to the World War II-era Free France, which worked with allied governments while in exile.

"This political structure should produce a unified political platform on how Russian people would see Russia's future," Bondarev said.

"The platform should be presented to Western governments, and this political structure can act like an alternative Russia," he added, noting the success of Belarusian opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. "So then Western capitals have someone to negotiate with who is not Putin," Bondarev said.

But the decades-long absence of fair elections in Russia, and the unreliability of polling, means it is difficult to say who should fill those shoes. Even the most well-known opposition figures abroad—among them jailed politician Alexei Navalny; oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky; and former chess master Garry Kasparov—have little claim to represent the people.

"Today, no opposition leader, or opposition speaker, or anyone has this legitimacy," Bondarev said. "They can say, 'I have the support of millions of people,' but they cannot produce any proof."

A system of online voting might go some way to addressing this issue, the former diplomat said, if the leaders in question can be convinced to risk their own prominent positions. Several opposition groups have proposed similar systems, though as yet there is no unified way forward.

A new generation of voices, Bondarev said, would inject life into the pro-democracy movement. "We need new political activists, new political leaders," he said. "There is a public demand for this, but there is no supply."

"That's why I think we need some influencers with their huge audiences to promote this idea," Bondarev proposed, adding that he has no grand ambitions of his own.

"Politically, I am a no-name," he said.

Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin by email to request comment.
https://www.newsweek.com/how-west-isolate-topple-putin-boris-bondarev-
1790174

October 23, 2022 - A former Russian diplomat has warned that President Vladimir Putin will sacrifice 10 to 20 million Russian soldiers to win the war in Ukraine.

Speaking to Sky News' Political Editor Beth Rigby, Boris Bondarev said that Putin "understands that if he loses the war with Ukraine, it will be the end of him."

"You should have no doubt about it. He may sacrifice 10 or 20 million Russians just to win this war just to slaughter all Ukrainians because it's a matter of principle. It's a matter of political survival to him."

Bondarev quit Russia's permanent mission at the United Nations in Geneva over the war in May.

The exiled diplomat warned the West against failing to meet Putin's threats head-on.

Responding to a question from Rigby about Biden's cautious responses to Putin, Bondarev said: "When you say that you don't want to provoke a bully, it gives him the wrong signal. It shows him you are afraid of him, and he will escalate further. You must show Putin a clear signal that if he wants escalation, he will get it. You must show that his threats are not working."

The exiled Russian, who worked in nuclear disarmament, according to Sky News, warned that Putin's nuclear threats were another reason to remove him from power. "While Putin and his regime are in power in Russia, this threat of war — the threat of nuclear war — will not go anywhere," he said.

Putin is using the potential of nuclear catastrophe to "compel other countries to do whatever he wants," he said.

Bondarev noted that the war had not gone to plan for the Russian leader. Speaking on day 240 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he said Putin "planned it to be very short, very easy war for one or two weeks. Now he has to win it at all costs."

Bondarev told Rigby: "I think the 20 years of him in power have been very lucky for him. He is not smart. He is just lucky. Now I think his luck is over."
https://news.yahoo.com/ex-russian-diplomat-warns-putin-110416440.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, March 25, 2023 7:06 AM

SECOND

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


A former Russian diplomat who resigned in protest of Moscow's war in Ukraine has said that the elite around President Vladimir Putin are broadly unsettled by his latest disastrous military gambit, but lack the resolve to move against "the boss."

"They really don't see any alternative to Putin," Boris Bondarev—who quit his post representing Russia at the United Nations in Geneva in May 2022 after declaring he had "never been so ashamed of my country"—told Newsweek in an interview.

Putin's Children

Members of Russia's so-called "party of peace" camp now rarely risk voicing their discontent in public. "All they can do is to mitigate the consequences," Bondarev said. "They are serving Putin, they still help him to get away with everything. They keep saying, 'What can we do? We cannot do anything. We cannot risk it, because our lives may be at risk or our children.'"

"They may be very discontented, dissatisfied, and worried about the future, but at the same time, I don't think can imagine their own futures without Putin. Without Putin, I think they would be totally lost. They feel that without Putin, without his protection, without his authority, they will be left to their own devices," he said.

"Putin grew them, raised them in this atmosphere where he decides for everybody. You don't have to decide for yourself. Putin will do it better than you can. They're like grown-up children, in a sense. People who are not used to making their own decisions, not only the elite but I think it can more or less be applied to the entire population, to some extent.

"People have been taught that you shouldn't make too many decisions. You can decide what to do with your daily life, to some extent, but all the key decisions are Putin's privilege. Everyone was quite happy about this for many years. I don't think it's easy for people to abandon this."

"The war is evidently not going as they expected," Bondarev said of Russia's most influential people. Both the pro- and anti-war camps, he said, are unsettled. "Some are annoyed and irritated by Putin's weakness, or his unwillingness to escalate and bomb NATO bases or something like that, some of the hawks in Putin's entourage."

"Others are more like 'pigeons,' and they want this war to stop as soon as possible, to return to business as usual, to lift all sanctions, and so on," he said. "I think they may soothe themselves with these illusions that there can be business as usual. I don't think that a lot of people around Putin think that what is going on now is exactly what was planned. Maybe some very stupid people."

"Maybe they realize that Putin is the key to all their problems, but I still don't think they are ready to move against him," he added.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-elite-knows-something-wrong-putin-bori
s-bondarev-1790121

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, March 25, 2023 9:47 AM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Meanwhile, in anticipation of losing eastern Ukraine, Rishi Sunak (UK PM) decided to poison it with depleted uranium shells.



Putin Has a Problem: The Russian Military Is Getting Slaughtered in Ukraine

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-has-a-problem-the-russian-m
ilitary-is-getting-slaughtered-in-ukraine/ar-AA1948fd?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=69167a0142d742b7ae7d308a367ed010&ei=18


au contraire

T

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Saturday, March 25, 2023 10:13 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Fuck Ukraine.

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

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

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Saturday, March 25, 2023 4:28 PM

SECOND

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


Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark struck a deal to run their 250+ advanced fighter jets as a single fleet, creating a new headache for Russia

The air forces of four Nordic countries agreed to operate their fleets of around 250 fighter jets as a combined force, hoping to deter Russia by working together.

Air force commanders of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark said Friday that they have signed a letter of intent to establish a unified Nordic air defense, Reuters reported.

"The ultimate goal is to be able to operate seamlessly together as one force by developing a Nordic concept for joint air operations based on already known NATO methodology," Denmark's air force said in a statement, per Bloomberg.

https://news.yahoo.com/norway-sweden-finland-denmark-struck-104242982.
html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, March 25, 2023 4:29 PM

SECOND

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


Ukraine Posts Video of Burning Ship As Russia Finally Admits Its Loss

Russia admitted the loss of Saratov on the one-year anniversary of the ship's destruction when Felix Menkov, Russian-appointed commander of the Crimea Naval Base in Sevastopol, unveiled a plaque to commemorate the sailors who had been killed.

"A year ago, in combat, we lost the combat landing ship Saratov. We also lost the crews of the Saratov, the Novocherkask, and the Caesar Kunikov," he said according to news outlet CrimeaRealii.

"Our children and grandchildren should be raised with such role models of love and service to the Fatherland," Menkov added, without detailing the exact Russian death toll.

The media outlet noted that this is the first official confirmation of the loss of the ship in combat, following a year of denials that the ships were struck with Ukrainian missiles. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.

The sinking of the Saratov took place soon after Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The incident came three weeks before the Black Sea Fleet's flagship—the cruiser Moskva—was destroyed in a strike that delivered a PR coup to Ukraine.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-black-sea-ship-burning-loss-17
90285

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, March 25, 2023 7:04 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Speaking of lies..

STOLEN VALOR: Top Ukraine 'volunteer' soldier revealed to be fraud, heavily promoted by Adam Kinzinger, Malcolm Nance
https://thepostmillennial.com/stolen-valor-top-ukraine-volunteer-soldi
er-revealed-to-be-fraud-heavily-promoted-by-adam-kinzinger-malcolm-nance




T



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Saturday, March 25, 2023 9:17 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Nearly $100 billion in deposits pulled from (US) banks; officials call system ‘sound and resilient’

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/24/100-billion-pulled-from-banks-but-syst
em-called-sound-and-resilient.html


Hmmmmmmm....

There's really no reason to panic and pull your money out of a bank that was paying 0.0035% interest when you had it buried in undisclosed locations, was there?

No sir, there wasn't.



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

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

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Sunday, March 26, 2023 7:09 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nearly $100 billion in deposits pulled from (US) banks.
Money market mutual funds have seen assets rise over the past two weeks, up $203 billion to $3.27 trillion. I'm guessing you are afraid of both banking and money market mutual funds. Do you hide cash in a coffee can buried in the backyard, 6ix? Or bury gold?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, March 26, 2023 7:10 AM

SECOND

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


Documentary: How mysterious explosions in Bulgaria are connected to Russia’s war in Ukraine



A string of mysterious explosions and a poisoning have targeted Bulgaria’s arms industry, which has been a crucial supplier of weapons to Ukraine.

But amid mounting evidence of Russian involvement, critics accuse Bulgarian authorities of dragging their feet in their investigations of these unsolved blasts.

A new @svobodna-evropa documentary looks into evidence of Russian sabotage, claims that there have been cover-ups by Bulgarian authorities, and whether Bulgarian arms depots are still at risk as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters a second year.

Bulgaria is in NATO. Russia surreptitiously attacking ammo warehouses in Bulgaria is an attack on NATO.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, March 26, 2023 7:16 AM

SECOND

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


The Problem With How the West Is Supporting Ukraine:
In short, Ukraine is being made to fight the war the hard way, not the smart way.

By Phillips Payson O’Brien

Wars are won or lost well behind the front lines. Allies should arm Ukrainians accordingly.

For the past four months, people around the world have witnessed the macabre process of Russian forces making repeated assaults near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut for only the tiniest of gains. By some counts, Russia has lost about five of its soldiers for every Ukrainian soldier lost—to say nothing of massive equipment losses. Although in theory a country can win a war by using its military forces to make forward assaults against an enemy’s forces, that’s just not a smart way to fight. Military technology long ago evolved to arm both sides in conflicts with extremely lethal weaponry, and any army that tries to approach this machinery head-on is likely to suffer major, and in some cases horrific, losses.

Far more effective is to weaken your opponent’s forces before they get to the battlefield. You can limit what military infrastructure they’re able to build, make sure what they do build is substandard, hamper their ability to train troops to operate what they build, and hinder them from deploying their resources to the battlefield. These steps are doubly effective in that they save your own forces while degrading the other side’s. Over the past two centuries, the powers that have emerged triumphant have been the ones that not only fought the enemy on the battlefield but also targeted its production and deployment systems—as the Union did by controlling the waters around the Confederacy during the Civil War and as the United States and Britain did from the air against Nazi Germany.

In light of such dynamics, the manner in which the West is supporting Ukraine’s war effort is deeply frustrating. Though NATO countries have a variety of systems that can target Russian forces deep behind their lines, recent aid has been overwhelmingly geared toward preparing Ukraine to make direct assaults against the Russian army. The most widely discussed forms of equipment—such as Leopard 2 tanks, Bradley armored personnel carriers, and even Archer long-range artillery—are not the kinds of systems that can disrupt or degrade Russian forces far behind the front lines.

In short, Ukraine is being made to fight the war the hard way, not the smart way.

Ukrainian forces have indeed been pushing back against Russia at the front. But when they have been able to create or obtain the right technology, they have also attacked Russian supply and troop-deployment chains. This approach to war was probably most evident last summer, when the Ukrainians, as soon as they gained access to HIMARS rocket launchers and other Western multiple-rocket-launcher systems, embarked on a highly effective campaign against Russian supply points from Kherson to the Donbas. They managed to wreck a logistics system that had been supplying the Russian armies with huge amounts of firepower daily.

Almost immediately the Russians had to move their large supply depots out of range of the Ukrainians’ new rocket launchers, keeping essential equipment much farther from the front. This has severely limited Russia’s operations. It can fire significantly fewer shells each day and apparently can concentrate fewer vehicles on the front. The area where the Russians can properly supply their forces for operations has shrunk.

This overall approach led the Ukrainians to one of their great successes last year: the liberation of the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson province. When faced with a large, relatively experienced Russian force around the city of Kherson, the Ukrainians tried two different tacks. One involved direct armed assaults against the Russian salient west of the river. These assaults achieved at best modest results. The Ukrainians were able at points to push the Russian front back a few miles, but they were never able to break the line for any major gain.

Yet, in the end, the Russian army withdrew from Kherson last fall. Why was that? Because the other tack had made its supply situation more and more tenuous: After a months-long Ukrainian campaign targeting Russian-held depots, bridges, and river crossings, Russian commanders decided that Kherson was not strategically valuable enough to be worth the effort to hold it. The attacks on Russian supplies and logistics, which sapped their ability to deploy and maintain force, were what made the difference.

The tanks and other assistance that Ukraine is currently receiving will help it attack the Russian army directly—which appears likely in the next few months. Ukrainian troops are training for such an operation in many partner countries and in Ukraine itself. They might well end up breaking the Russian line and advancing into the gap—the Ukrainian military has proved extremely resourceful and determined so far—but any success will likely be at significant cost to Ukraine’s own forces.

Their task would be easier if their allies had given them a stronger capacity to attack Russians from a greater distance. They clearly want to do it. One of the most extraordinary abilities the Ukrainians have shown is developing homegrown long-range systems, often incorporating drones, to attack Russian forces many miles from the front. Yet these homegrown systems are limited. NATO states could have given Ukraine longer-range equipment—including a missile system known as ATACMS and advanced fixed-wing aircraft—or made a massive effort to help the Ukrainians develop and improve their own ranged systems.

Unfortunately, NATO states, including the U.S., have been reluctant to provide the Ukrainians with missile systems with too long of a range, seemingly for fear of escalating tensions with Russia. Instead of allowing the Ukrainians to degrade Russian forces far from the front line, Ukraine is being prepared to attack that line. The Ukrainians’ fortitude and ingenuity up to this point suggest that they could indeed accomplish their task—but it’s been made much harder than it needs to be.

Phillips Payson O’Brien is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is the author of How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/ukraine-western-alli
es-support-supplies/673520/

Download free books by Phillips Payson O’Brien from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.boo/search.php?req=Phillips+Payson+O%E2%80%99
Brien

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, March 26, 2023 8:20 AM

SECOND

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


Putin Wouldn’t Win a War of Attrition in Ukraine
He wants the West to think that’s his goal, but the longer the conflict drags on, the worse things get for Moscow.

By Douglas London
March 24, 2023 6:50 pm ET

Vladimir Putin seeks to prevail in Ukraine through an exhausting war of attrition in which he outlasts his opponents, or so the "expert" consensus has it. The U.S. is supplying weapons to Ukraine at a remarkably slow pace, perhaps for fear of provoking a calamitous Russian escalation. It seems as if Washington is playing right into Mr. Putin’s hands.

But maybe not everything is as it seems. If I learned anything from decades as a Russian-speaking Central Intelligence Agency operations officer working against the Kremlin’s intelligence services, it was to be wary of anything they show you. This looks to me too convenient a narrative for Moscow, and one that’s belied by the facts.

Mr. Putin acts as if he doesn’t believe he can survive if he quits this conflict. But in reality, the war is existential only for the Ukrainian side. Ukrainians would suffer cultural genocide and war crimes if they gave in. Russia can walk away without serious consequences beyond its borders, and Mr. Putin knows it. He can ill afford for the Russian people to realize that they could not only overcome defeat, but never had to fight in the first place. But it’s not clear that the solution the Kremlin really wants is a war of attrition.

Can anyone, even Mr. Putin, imagine the Ukrainians quitting? If they lose external support, they still face an existential threat. It seems probable Ukraine would dig in and fight as long as it possibly could, even if the conflict devolved to guerrilla warfare in occupied streets.

Mr. Putin has to be accounting for this. He gambled wrong a year ago when he expected Ukrainian resolve to collapse quickly as Russian forces rolled in. Though he projects an inflexible image, Mr. Putin seems to still think like an intelligence officer. They rarely make the same mistake twice, particularly when they’ve been embarrassed. Were he really as reckless and blind to reality as he’s sometimes depicted, Russian forces wouldn’t have withdrawn from Kyiv’s outskirts a year ago. Mr. Putin has shown that he will bend when faced with serious consequences.

And that’s what a long war would entail. Mr. Putin might not grieve his heavy casualties, but they are embarrassing to the Kremlin and undermine his narrative of strength and military prowess. As Russian lines thin, he will feel increased pressure to expand mobilization beyond the rural and ethnic communities he has targeted to insulate his urban political base from the war’s consequences.

While some scoff at the effectiveness of Western economic sanctions, Moscow is furiously working to strengthen the ruble and find alternative consumers for the energy exports most of Europe has forsaken. But this still means lower profit, as Russia lures clients with increasingly discounted oil and gas. As the war endures, Mr. Putin will meet increasingly difficult choices between funding the conflict and improving the economy. And whatever military supplies Russia seeks from China, Iran and North Korea are hardly charitable donations—there’s no dictator’s discount. Even ruble remittances from new trade partners won’t help Mr. Putin pay off foreign debt held in U.S. dollars. And less income leaves less resources to dispense to those domestic political allies Mr. Putin needs to maintain control.

All this suggests that the longer the war endures, the worse things get for Moscow. Time allows Ukraine to deploy the sophisticated weapons now en route and the freshly trained Ukrainian operators returning from the West. More time will also enable the increased productivity of ammunition supply chains the U.S. is building. Add it all up, and Ukraine will likely have what’s needed for its much-anticipated counteroffensive. Mr. Putin may repulse those forces, but betting everything that he can is an immensely risky gamble. If Ukraine prevails, could he survive losing Crimea and having his forces violently pushed back across Russian borders?

Mr. Putin likely doesn’t hope for a war of attrition but wants the world to think he does. His disinformation campaigns have been designed to depict himself, and Russia, as stronger than they are. If he faces an unwinnable war, the best outcome he can hope for is to mask that weakness and intimidate his foes into blinking first. Ukraine may not want to give up, but if an outside power can broker a peace deal, that is Mr. Putin’s best option by a long shot. His openness to China’s lopsided peace proposal suggests that he is eager to fold with gains still in hand.

What he likely most fears is the U.S. and its allies slamming the accelerator. Pushing the Russian leader isn’t without risk, but validating his narrative is more likely to weaken Western resolve and escalate the conflict by inviting him to test its thresholds. It’s imperative that Washington instead work to make the war too costly to Mr. Putin to remove any doubt of Western resolve. Be wary of whatever cards he chooses to show.

Mr. London, a former CIA operations officer, is author of “The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.” He teaches intelligence studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-wouldnt-win-a-war-of-attrition-nato
-west-weapons-ukraine-resolve-china-peace-deal-crimea-sanctions-7ca7f128?mod=djemalertNEWS

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, March 27, 2023 7:44 AM

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


Where did Putin discover the Meaning of Life? From philosopher Ivan Ilyin:

After a new Russian Federation emerged from the defunct Soviet Union in 1991, Ilyin’s short book Our Tasks began to circulate in new Russian editions, his collected works were published, and his ideas gained powerful supporters. He had died forgotten in Switzerland; Putin organized a reburial in Moscow in 2005. Ilyin’s personal papers had found their way to Michigan State University; Putin sent an emissary to reclaim them in 2006. By then Putin was citing Ilyin in his annual presidential addresses to the general assembly of the Russian parliament. These were important speeches, composed by Putin himself. In the 2010s, Putin relied upon Ilyin’s authority to explain why Russia had to undermine the European Union and invade Ukraine. When asked to name a historian, Putin cited Ilyin as his authority on the past.

What interested Putin in the philosophy of Ivan Ilyin?

Like all immorality, eternity politics begins by making an exception for itself. All else in creation might be evil, but I and my group are good, because I am myself and my group is mine. Others might be confused and bewitched by the facts and passions of history, but my nation and myself have maintained a prehistorical innocence. Since the only good is this invisible quality that resides in us, the only policy is one that safeguards our innocence, regardless of the costs. Those who accept eternity politics do not expect to live longer, happier, or more fruitful lives. They accept suffering as a mark of righteousness if they think that guilty others are suffering more. Life is nasty, brutish, and short; the pleasure of life is that it can be made nastier, more brutish, and shorter for others.

Ilyin made an exception for Russia and for Russians. The Russian innocence he proclaimed was not observable in the world. It was Ilyin’s act of faith directed at his own people: salvation required seeing Russia as it was not. Since the facts of the world are just the corrupt detritus of God’s failed creation, true seeing was the contemplation of the invisible. Corneliu Codreanu, the founder of a kindred Romanian fascism, saw the Archangel Michael in prison and recorded his vision in a few lines. Although Ilyin dressed up his idea of contemplation in several books, it really was no more than that: he saw his own nation as righteous, and the purity of that vision was more important than anything Russians actually did. The nation, “pure and objective,” was what the philosopher saw when he blinded himself.

Innocence took a specific biological form. What Ilyin saw was a virginal Russian body. Like fascists and other authoritarians of his day, Ilyin insisted that his nation was a creature, “an organism of nature and the soul,” an animal in Eden without original sin. Who belonged within the Russian organism was not for the individual to decide, since cells do not decide whether they belong to a body. Russian culture, Ilyin wrote, automatically brought “fraternal union” wherever Russian power extended. Ilyin wrote of “Ukrainians” in quotation marks, because he denied their separate existence beyond the Russian organism. To speak of Ukraine was to be a mortal enemy of Russia. Ilyin took for granted that a post-Soviet Russia would include Ukraine.

Ilyin thought that Soviet power concentrated all of the Satanic energy of factuality and passion in one place. And yet he argued that the triumph of communism showed that Russia was more rather than less innocent. Communism, he maintained, was a seduction by foreigners and deracinated Russians whom Ilyin called “Tarzans.” They lusted to violate immaculate Russia precisely because it was guileless and defenseless. In 1917, Russians had simply been too good to resist the cargo of sin arriving from the West. Despite the depredations of Soviet leaders, Russians retained an imperceptible goodness. Unlike Europe and America, which accepted facts and passions as life, Russia retained an underlying “Spirit” that recalled God’s totality. “The nation is not God,” wrote Ilyin, “but the strength of its soul is from God.”

When God created the world, Russia had somehow escaped history and remained in eternity. Ilyin’s homeland, he thought, was therefore free from the forward flow of time and the accumulation of accident and choice that he found so intolerable. Russia instead experienced repeating cycles of threat and defense. Everything that happened must be an attack from the outside world on Russian innocence, or a justified Russian response to such a threat. In such a scheme it was easy for Ilyin, who knew little of actual Russian history, to grasp centuries in simple phrases. What a historian might see as the spread of power from Moscow across northern Asia and half of Europe was for Ilyin nothing more than “self-defense.” According to Ilyin, every single battle ever fought by Russians was defensive. Russia was always the victim of a “continental blockade” by Europe. As Ilyin saw matters, “the Russian nation, since its full conversion to Christianity, can count nearly one thousand years of historical suffering.” Russia does no wrong; wrong can only be done to Russia. Facts do not matter and responsibility vanishes.

More at The Road to Unfreedom 2018 by Timothy Snyder
Download all his books for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.boo/search.php?req=Timothy+Snyder

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Tuesday, March 28, 2023 6:40 AM

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


Russian Nukes in Belarus: Why Putin Is Escalating Again

Alex Kokcharov, a risk analyst specializing in Russia and Ukraine, told Newsweek that the weekend announcement "doesn't mean that the nuclear weapons will necessarily be deployed," only that the infrastructure to base them in and launch them from Belarus is being put in place.

"I think this is mostly politically motivated, and it indicates that Russia is not doing particularly well on the battlefield," Kokcharov said. "They are going back to nuclear saber rattling in order to discourage European countries from supporting Ukraine. I don't think it will work."

"If we look at the last year, Russia was ramping up their nuclear rhetoric when they were not doing particularly well on the battlefield. There was the first spike of these Russian nuclear threats in September, when the Kharkiv counteroffensive was taking place. And then another round was in late October, early November, when the Kherson operation was taking place."

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-nukes-belarus-why-putin-escalating-ag
ain-ukraine-nato-1790610

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Tuesday, March 28, 2023 9:19 AM

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


Another Day and Another Death Threat Out Of Russia:

Vladimir Putin's top security aide, Nikolai Patrushev, has insisted that the dictator is ready to destroy the West if there are any attempts to try to stop Russia's war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin insists he is ready to destroy the West with nuclear weapons as Russia launched new hypersonic missile tests today, his top security aide has said.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vladimir-putin-ready-destroy-
west-29566212

"NATO instructors and advisers train the Ukrainian military, and mercenaries fight as part of neo-Nazi battalions,” said Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev.

He added that the U.S. and its European allies are trying to prolong this military confrontation. "They do not hide their main goal — the defeat of Russia on the battlefield and its further dismemberment.”

https://www.benzinga.com/news/23/03/31506398/putin-ally-says-west-want
s-dismemberment-of-russia-nato-countries-are-a-party-to-the-conflict

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Tuesday, March 28, 2023 9:34 AM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by CAPTAINCRUNCH:
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Reports say that it was the Azov Battalion that held hostages in the theater and blew it up themselves to blame the Russians.
According to various non-Russian sources, the Russians flew no air missions or fired artillery that night in that area, so it would have been impossible for Ruusians to have destroyed the theater. We need to investigate to find the truth, since "people say" all kinds of things and often lie.

But as usual, you believe what 'sonebody said" without looking carefully at evidence. I'd sure hate to see you in a jury panel!



The stupid sht you post.
Russians might as well just sit back with all the Ukrainians killing other Ukrainians according to you.



T

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Wednesday, March 29, 2023 7:34 AM

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


Putin’s Former Publicity Masterminds Air His Dirty Laundry

The brains behind Putin’s carefully crafted ‘macho’ facade have a lot to say about the Russian president’s public image meltdown.

By Anna Nemtsova

Russian President Vladimir Putin is diving headfirst into an unprecedented—and irreversible—public image disaster over the war in Ukraine.

Long gone are the days of carefully staged photoshoots of Putin riding a horse bare-chested, or diving into rivers to find ancient Greek urns. Now, images of Volodymyr Zelensky visiting Ukrainian soldiers in combat zones across the country stand in stark contrast with reports of the Russian president holding court in the Kremlin and meeting with ministers and generals at comically long tables.

And when the Russian president did finally travel to the war zone, the image he struck shocked former aides and public relations experts.

A day after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes this month—the Kremlin announced that Putin had flown by helicopter to Mariupol and driven a car into the city. Russian officials released a shaky, amateur-style video of the Russian president looking quite miserable, nervously playing with the zipper of his parka with sounds of explosions in the background.

“Putin’s left his comfort zone in the bunker, where he has spent three years, and it is phenomenal to see how his publicity stunts have degraded,” long-time Kremlin observer, Olga Bychkova, a former presenter on Echo of Moscow radio station, told The Daily Beast. “He is surrounded by security guards. No professional cameramen have access to him any longer.”

So, how did the Russian president’s macho publicity stunts take such a nosedive?

More at https://www.thedailybeast.com/former-kremlin-flacks-dish-on-putins-pub
lic-image-crisis-over-ukraine-war

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Wednesday, March 29, 2023 10:13 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Nearly $100 billion in deposits pulled from (US) banks.
Money market mutual funds have seen assets rise over the past two weeks, up $203 billion to $3.27 trillion. I'm guessing you are afraid of both banking and money market mutual funds. Do you hide cash in a coffee can buried in the backyard, 6ix? Or bury gold?

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


I use banks. I also have CDs and Money Market Mutual Funds.

And yes, I do have money buried as well. I've got a diverse portfolio.

No gold though. Gold is a scam. If we ever enter Mad Max world it will be as useless as cash, and anybody arguing otherwise is living in pure fantasy.

At least you can wipe your ass with a $100 bill.

Where are you going to flash that gold where somebody isn't just going to take it from you or kill you outright to get it? Unarmed Democrats with gold will be unarmed and/or dead Democrats without gold in the Wasteland.

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

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

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Wednesday, March 29, 2023 10:35 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No gold though. Gold is a scam. If we ever enter Mad Max world it will be as useless as cash, and anybody arguing otherwise is living in pure fantasy.
In Mad Max World your US dollars will be as spendable as Confederate dollars. Instead, Canadian dollars are what you need to bury in your backyard. Or if you're a Texas Trumptard, Mexican pesos. Whichever border is closest, that is the currency you should be burying. In Ukraine, after Russians nuke it? Best to have buried Euros or Russian rubles, not Ukrainian hryvnias.
History of hryvnia https://bank.gov.ua/en/uah/uah-history

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Wednesday, March 29, 2023 10:49 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

No gold though. Gold is a scam. If we ever enter Mad Max world it will be as useless as cash, and anybody arguing otherwise is living in pure fantasy.
In Mad Max World your US dollars will be as spendable as Confederate dollars.


Yes. I know that. And you know that I know that because you cut that part out of my post when you quoted it.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
At least you can wipe your ass with a $100 bill.


I wasn't saying that cash would be any more valuable than gold in Mad Max world, I was just saying that the people scaremongering the dupes into using up all of their cash TODAY to pay for seriously inflated Gold prices and hoard up gold for a day that might not ever come are con artists... and very good ones at that.

Maybe not as good as SBF and crypto/NFT con artists have been short term in the last 5 or so years, but Gold has been a very long con that has made a very few people seriously rich off of very many people for decades and that grift is still very much alive and well.

Quote:
Instead, Canadian dollars are what you need to bury in your backyard. Or if you're a Texas Trumptard, Mexican pesos. Whichever border is closest, that is the currency you should be burying.


Incorrect. Canadian Dollars and Mexican Pesos will be nothing but toilet paper as well.

Quote:
In Ukraine, after Russians nuke it? Best to have buried Euros or Russian rubles, not Ukrainian hryvnias.


It doesn't matter there either.


The only currency that will be valid in the Wasteland is guns and ammo, good health, intelligence, grit, building/engineering/survivalism skills, the ability to work with others (or quickly ingratiate yourself with and prove how valuable you will be to somebody powerful and charismatic who does).

SPOILER ALERT: Democrat voting pussies in the Millennial and Zoomer generations who spent half of their college days in cry rooms and came out with college degrees in gender studies need not apply. With the exception of child bearing aged women in that demographic that don't look like a thumb, they all die within the first month.



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

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

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Wednesday, March 29, 2023 2:17 PM

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


Stockholm said on Wednesday that it was summoning the Russian ambassador to Sweden for warning the country would become a "legitimate target" of "retaliatory measures" if it joined NATO.

Russian ambassador Viktor Tatarintsev on Tuesday warned Finland and Sweden that by joining the alliance they both risked embroiling themselves in Moscow’s deepening confrontation with the West.

"If anyone still believes that this [NATO membership] in any way will somehow improve Europe's security, you can be sure that the new members of the hostile bloc will become a legitimate target for Russian retaliatory measures, including military ones," he wrote in a statement posted to the embassy’s website.

Tatarintsev said that rather than becoming safer, Sweden would be "taking a step towards the abyss."

In response, Sweden's Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom announced that "the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will summon the Russian ambassador to make a clear statement against this blatant attempt at influence.”

"Sweden's security policy is determined by Sweden — no one else," Billstrom added.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/03/29/sweden-summons-russian-envoy
-after-nato-bid-warning-a80649

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Wednesday, March 29, 2023 2:53 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Not even taking into consideration any alleged Russian threats, Sweeden and Finland would do themselves a huge favor by staying far the hell away from NATO.


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

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Thursday, March 30, 2023 6:04 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Not even taking into consideration any alleged Russian threats, Sweeden and Finland would do themselves a huge favor by staying far the hell away from NATO.
On one hand, Trump says he can protect Finland for free. On the other hand, NATO requires a country to spend 2% of its GDP on defense. Why then join NATO? Save your money, Finland! No one should join NATO, if they believe Trump is truthful:

Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday that if re-elected president, he'd use his relationships with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin to orchestrate a "very easy negotiation" for peace.

"And there's a very easy negotiation to take place. But I don't want to tell you what it is because then I can't use that negotiation. It'll never work. But it's a very easy negotiation to take place," Trump said. "I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them."

"So you'd prefer if you were president, you think you would have a negotiated settlement?" Hannity asked Trump.

"Within 24 hours," Trump said.

Trump has kept saying it will take him just one day to solve the war in Ukraine.

"It wouldn't even be tough, I know what to say to each of 'em," Trump said during a phone call to the conservative TV channel Real America's Voice, referring once again to Putin and Zelenskyy.

He made the same claim at his Saturday rally in Waco, Texas, where he declared he's currently the only presidential candidate who could promise to "prevent World War III."

Trump has not provided any concrete substantiation on how he would end a conflict in 24 hours.

In March, he said on Fox News that he "could've made a deal" for Russia to take over "certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas" in Ukraine. The international community has condemned Russia's annexation of Ukrainian territory. Zelenskyy also said in July that Ukraine will not cede territory to negotiate a ceasefire with Russia.

In March 2022, a month after the war kicked off, Trump also proposed a plan to try to end the war that involved pressuring Putin with US nuclear submarines — a suggestion that ran counter to all of the US's efforts to avoid direct military intervention in the war.

"And we say, 'Oh, he's a nuclear power.' But we're a greater nuclear power. We have the greatest submarines in the world, the most powerful machines ever built," Trump told the host Stuart Varney during an appearance on Fox Business,

"You should say, 'Look, you mention that word one more time, we're going to send them over and we'll be coasting back and forth, up and down your coast," Trump said. "You can't let this tragedy continue. You can't let these, these thousands of people die."

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-keeps-saying-solve-ukraine-034612851.html

6ixStringJack, the question for Finland is simple. Can Trump's Secret Plan end the War in Ukraine in 24 hours? If Finland does join NATO, that is a good sign that Finland does not believe Trump can do what he says.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Thursday, March 30, 2023 6:07 AM

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


‘May the force be with you’: Star Wars actor Mark Hamill lends Jedi voice to Ukraine

Chaos strike when air raid sirens start howling in war-torn Ukraine, but some Ukrainian Star Wars fans are finding comfort and strength in a familiar voice.

“Attention. Air raid alert,” says Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker in the popular sci-fi film series. “Proceed to the nearest shelter”.

After dangers from the skies pass, Hamill announces that the “air alert is over” and signs off with “May the force be with you”.

The actor has lent his voice to Air Alert, a mobile phone app linked to Ukraine’s air defence system, the Associated Press reported on Monday.

The app warns Ukrainians that Russian missiles, bombs and deadly exploding drones may be incoming when the raid sirens start howling, said the report.

“Don’t be careless,” Hamill warns. “Your overconfidence is your weakness.”

Hamil told the news agency that he has admired from California how Ukraine has “shown such resilience... under such terrible circumstances”.

Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion, now in its second year, reminds him of the Star Wars saga with fearless rebels battling and eventually defeating the Galactic Empire.

Ms Olena Yeremina, who is a business manager in Kyiv, said Hamill’s “May the force be with you” sign-off made her laugh at first. But now, its enduring humour gives her strength, according to AP.

“It’s a very cool phrase for this situation,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that I feel like a Ukrainian Jedi, but sometimes this phrase reminds me to straighten my shoulders and keep working.”

More at https://www.straitstimes.com/life/may-the-force-be-with-you-star-wars-
actor-mark-hamill-lends-jedi-voice-to-ukraine

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Thursday, March 30, 2023 6:12 AM

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The battle over Bakhmut, the eastern city in Ukraine, has turned into a “slaughter-fest" for the Russians, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Wednesday. The head of the Wagner mercenary group said the Bakhmut fighting "has already practically destroyed the Ukrainian army," but added that Wagner has "been pretty battered" as well.

There are roughly 6,000 Wagner group mercenaries fighting in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told US lawmakers on Wednesday.

“They're conducting combat operations right now in Bakhmut primarily. It's probably about 6,000 or so actual mercenaries and maybe another 20 or 30,000 recruits that they get, many of whom come from prisons,” Milley told the House Armed Services Committee alongside US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “And they are suffering an enormous amount of casualties in the Bakhmut area; the Ukrainians are inflicting a lot of death and destruction on these guys.”

“The Ukrainians are doing a very effective area defense that is proven to be very costly to the Russians. For about the last 20, 21 days, the Russians have not made any progress whatsoever in and around Bahkmut,” he said. “So it's a slaughter-fest for the Russians. They're getting hammered in the vicinity of Bahkmut and the Ukrainians have fought very, very well.”

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-03-29-23/
h_cfb6c51a8d57fdb537947bd3ea45c062

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Thursday, March 30, 2023 10:24 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Not even taking into consideration any alleged Russian threats, Sweeden and Finland would do themselves a huge favor by staying far the hell away from NATO.
On one hand, Trump says he can protect Finland for free. On the other hand, NATO requires a country to spend 2% of its GDP on defense. Why then join NATO? Save your money, Finland! No one should join NATO, if they believe Trump is truthful:


We already protect Finland for free. The only reason they have free healthcare in most of Europe is because they don't have to spend any real money on their military because Big Brother USA puts all of their money into theirs and plays world cop.

Nobody in NATO outside of the US pays their share either anyhow, so that point is moot.



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

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

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Thursday, March 30, 2023 2:00 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

We already protect Finland for free. The only reason they have free healthcare in most of Europe is because they don't have to spend any real money on their military because Big Brother USA puts all of their money into theirs and plays world cop.

Nobody in NATO outside of the US pays their share either anyhow, so that point is moot.
How did you convince yourself of that?

Health spending accounted for 9.2 % of Finland's GDP. – almost one percentage point below the EU average of 9.9 %.
https://health.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-12/2021_chp_fi_english.p
df

Compare that 9.2 % for Finland to 18.3% for the US.
https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-tr
ends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nhe-fact-sheet

Military expenditure (% of GDP) in Finland was reported at 2.0303 % in 2021.
https://tradingeconomics.com/finland/military-expenditure-percent-of-g
dp-wb-data.html

Compare that 2.0303 % for Finland to 3.4832 % for the US.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/military-expenditure-percen
t-of-gdp-wb-data.html

6ix, Finland fought two wars with Russia in the 20th century. Finland beat Russians to death in a ratio of 5 dead Russian soldiers (not civilians) per dead Finn but Russians still think Russia won, for some reason. The exact same thing happened with Germany. 5 dead Russians per dead German. I presume the average Russian is a poor warrior, just as the average Russian is poor compared to a German or a Finn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War

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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