Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

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

Is there a reason to think Russians are crazy killers? Maybe:

Russia hawks exploit blogger’s death to demand executions and an even harsher crackdown on dissent

One of Russia’s most popular television hosts, Vladimir Soloviev, said that Trepova “should be shot,” along with her husband, who is living abroad.

“Drag him by his ears back to Russia and put him up against the wall,” Soloviev said on his show.

Soloviev also said that other Russian dissenters living abroad “should be thrown into sacks, brought back to Russia” to “rot in prison” or “be shot.”

On another popular Russian show called “60 Minutes,” one senior regional official, Andrey Gurulev, said he longed for the “days of Stalin…when the enemies of the people would get a pick and an axe and have fun waving it at a [Siberian prison camp].”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/europe/russia-hawks-blogger-death-crack
down-intl/index.html

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

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Wednesday, April 5, 2023 3:00 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Finland just fucked itself.

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

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

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/it-is-finn-ished/

Quote:
Congrats, Finland on becoming the thirty-first member of NATO. Imagine their shock when they realize being a member of NATO means fighting NATO’s wars of choice.

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

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

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Wednesday, April 5, 2023 10:54 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Ukraine ‘ready’ to talk to Russia on Crimea if counteroffensive succeeds

https://www.ft.com/content/d68b4007-4ddf-4320-b29a-f2eee2662d6e

... but behind a subscription wall.

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

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Thursday, April 6, 2023 1:28 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ukraine ‘ready’ to talk to Russia on Crimea if counteroffensive succeeds

https://www.ft.com/content/d68b4007-4ddf-4320-b29a-f2eee2662d6e

... but behind a subscription wall.

Firefox's Toggle Reader View (F9) will get "behind a subscription wall". I will show you an example of how that works:

Ukraine ‘ready’ to talk to Russia on Crimea if counteroffensive succeeds

Christopher Miller, Felicia Schwartz

Kyiv is willing to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if its forces reach the border of the Russian-occupied peninsula, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the Financial Times.

The comments by Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office, are the most explicit statement of Ukraine’s interest in negotiations since it cut off peace talks with the Kremlin last April.

“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open a diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” Sybiha said, referring to Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive.

He added: “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army.”

Sybiha’s remarks may relieve western officials who are sceptical about Ukraine’s ability to reclaim the peninsula and worry that any attempt to do so militarily could lead President Vladimir Putin to escalate his war, possibly with nuclear weapons.

To date Zelenskyy has ruled out peace talks until Russian forces leave all of Ukraine, including Crimea.

Sybiha is a veteran diplomat who focuses on foreign policy in the president’s office and has been at Zelenskyy’s side at key moments in the war.

He said the president and his aides were now talking specifically about Crimea, as Ukraine’s army gets closer to launching its counteroffensive to regain territory.

A spokesperson for Zelenskyy did not respond to requests for comment.

Rear Admiral Tim Woods, the British defence attaché in Washington, said on Wednesday that Crimea would need “a political solution because of just the concentration of force that is there and what it would mean for the Ukrainians to go in there”.

He added: “I don’t think there’s going to be a very quick military solution . . . hence we need to see what are favourable conditions for Ukraine to negotiate and I think Ukraine would be up for that.”

In the early days of the war, Ukraine was willing to negotiate with Moscow over the future of Crimea rather than insisting on regaining it militarily at all costs.

But at present the only known contacts between Kyiv and Moscow are to negotiate prisoner of war exchanges and the return of children forcibly deported to Russia.

Ukraine broke off the peace talks after the discovery of alleged Russian war crimes in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, while Zelenskyy signed a decree declaring negotiations with Putin impossible after the Kremlin annexed four provinces in September.

Ukraine’s president has repeatedly made clear his ultimate goal of bringing all his country’s land, including Crimea, under Kyiv’s control.

But in May last year he indicated Ukraine could consider a peace deal if Russian forces returned to positions in eastern Ukraine predating last year’s invasion and suggested the issue of Crimea would be resolved later through diplomacy.

Crimea has been under Russian occupation since February 2014 and was annexed by Moscow the following month after a mock referendum — a move condemned internationally as an illegal land grab.

Ukrainian forces have recently stepped up their attacks on Russian military facilities in the peninsula, including land and sea-based drone assaults.

Kyiv is also hoping that its coming counteroffensive will make headway south — possibly through Zaporizhzhia province — and sever a land bridge that allows Russia to supply its invasion forces from Crimea.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Zelenskyy adviser, told Radio Free Europe on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces would be on Crimea’s doorstep in “five to seven months”.

But some of Ukraine’s western allies fear Putin could resort to tactical nuclear weapons to defend the peninsula, whose status the Kremlin says is non-negotiable.

“Some of them are so afraid of Ukraine approaching the administrative border of Crimea that they are directly or indirectly trying to postpone this moment,” said Alyona Getmanchuk, director at the New Europe Centre, a Kyiv-based think-tank.

She added that concern was so high about fighting over Crimea escalating that it affected some allies’ “decisions on what kind of weapons to supply Ukraine with and at what speed”.

Getmanchuk also said the Ukrainian leadership felt “that after a successful counteroffensive [in the rest of the country] Putin might be eager to talk”.

But a shift by Ukraine on negotiations could face resistance at home. A poll in February and March by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 87 per cent of Ukrainians considered any territorial concessions to achieve peace unacceptable. Only 9 per cent said they would accept concessions if it meant lasting peace.

The poll found 64 per cent of Ukrainians want Ukraine to try to retake all of its territory, including Crimea, “even if there is a risk of a decrease in western support and a risk of a protracted war”.

WestB commented:

Quote:
It is for Ukrainians to decide how they want to take back their Crimea.

Give them the weapons they need to make sure russians do another "goodwill gesture" and retreat.

No need to be afraid.

Ukrainians certainly aren't.

Russia is all talk, psy-ops, lies and hot air.

They are dusting off their WW2 tanks to send to Ukraine and fire back the missiles Ukraine sent to russia back in 1994 when Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for the - now false -security guarantees from russia.

What strategic and other weapons could we be talking about?

The sooner they are kicked out of all of Ukraine the better for Europe and the world.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Thursday, April 6, 2023 8:16 AM

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

With every passing day, the chances that the Russian military would achieve an operational breakthrough on the ground before the large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive lessen.

Despite throwing men and weapon systems against multiple points in the Donbas and the east, the Russian forces have failed to achieve anything but some marginal territorial gains since they began their large-scale offensive in January.

To make the situation harder for the Kremlin, the turn for the Ukrainian military to respond approaches.

The weather and operational conditions for the large-scale Ukrainian counteroffensive are improving, and Kyiv is expected to attack in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, on day 405 of the conflict, Finland formally joined NATO, thus doubling the transatlantic alliance’s land border with Russia.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/04/putins-ukraine-war-is-slowly-break
ing-the-russian-military/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Thursday, April 6, 2023 10:29 AM

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

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded to a reporter’s question Wednesday regarding Russia’s relationship with the United States:

“We really are in a hot phase of the war, because Ukrainian Nazis are using American weapons, first and foremost. And the American administration keeps threatening to deliver longer-range and more deadly weapons systems," Lavrov said. "But nevertheless, I think we should continue to support our relations, and we hope that the Americans will wake up at once and return to the negotiating table. We'll see, we won't have to wait much longer."

Some background: Throughout the conflict Russian President Vladimir Putin has continuously framed his invasion of Ukraine – a country with a Jewish president – as a campaign of supposed “denazification,” a description dismissed by historians and political observers alike.

Last year, Lavrov – Putin’s top diplomat – sought to justify Moscow’s goal of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine by claiming Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood” and that “the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews.”

https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-04-06
-23/

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, April 6, 2023 3:58 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

There Is No Fixing Stupid When It Comes to Western Delusions About Russia
https://sonar21.com/there-is-no-fixing-stupid-when-it-comes-to-western
-delusions-about-russia/

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

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Thursday, April 6, 2023 5:29 PM

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

Chinese Ambassador to the EU Fu Cong stated on April 5 that the Russian–Chinese joint statement declaring there were “no limits” to their ties released in February 2022 was misrepresented, calling “no limits” a “purely rhetorical statement.”[7]

Fu added that China does not support Russia’s war in Ukraine and is not providing Russia weapons.

Fu’s statement is consistent with ISW’s March 21 assessment that Putin has not been able to secure the benefits from the no-limits bilateral partnership with China which he likely hoped for when meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow between March 20 and March 22.[8]

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-a
ssessment-april-5-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Friday, April 7, 2023 9:55 AM

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

Lukashenko delivered boilerplate rhetoric that continues to indicate that he has no intention of involving Belarus further in Russia’s war effort.

Lukashenko stated that NATO is conducting a purposeful buildup of forces along the borders of the Union State and that the West has unleashed an informational, political, and economic war against Belarus and Russia.[10] Lukashenko has previously employed such rhetoric in an attempt to justify resisting Kremlin pressure to further support the Russian war effort in Ukraine by arguing that Belarus needs to protect the western flank of the Union State.[11]

ISW has written at length about why Lukashenko is extraordinarily unlikely to further involve Belarus in the war in Ukraine.[12] ISW has previously assessed that Lukashenko is increasingly losing maneuvering room with the Kremlin amid the Kremlin’s steady pressure campaign to formalize the Russian-Belarusian Union State, and Lukashenko may be acquiescing to further integration measures while rejecting Putin’s likely larger demand for the direct participation of Belarusian forces in Russia’s war against Ukraine.[13]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-6-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Saturday, April 8, 2023 8:10 AM

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

Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Since then, Russia has launched four great offensives. Three were military; the fourth was economic. And while you don’t hear much about that last offensive, its failure offers some very important lessons. What can we learn from the failure of Russia’s energy offensive?

First, Russia looks more than ever like a Potemkin superpower, with little behind its impressive facade. Its much-vaunted military is far less effective than advertised; now its role as an energy supplier is proving much harder to weaponize than many imagined.

Second, democracies are showing, as they have many times in the past, that they are much tougher, much harder to intimidate than they look.

Finally, modern economies are far more flexible, and far more able to cope with change, than some vested interests would have us believe.

For as long as I can remember, fossil-fuel lobbyists and their political supporters have insisted that any attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be disastrous for jobs and economic growth. But what we’re seeing now is Europe making an energy transition under the worst possible circumstances — sudden, unexpected and drastic — and handling it pretty well. This suggests that a gradual, planned green energy transition would be far easier than pessimists imagine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/opinion/putins-energy-natural-gas.h
tml

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, April 9, 2023 4:31 AM

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

Russia’s missile campaign to degrade Ukraine’s unified energy infrastructure has failed definitively, and Russia appears to have abandoned the effort.

Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko announced on April 8 that Ukraine is resuming energy exports for the first time since October 11, 2022.[24]

Russian authorities began efforts in October to degrade Ukrainian energy infrastructure to a significant extent by the end of winter, which Russians consider March 1;[25] however, the series of large-scale Russian missile strikes on energy infrastructure failed to achieve the assessed Russian aims of causing a humanitarian disaster, weakening Ukrainian military capabilities, and forcing Ukraine to negotiate. State-run Russian media acknowledged this failure on March 1.[26] Russia likely abandoned the effort soon after.

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) noted on April 8 that the frequency of Russian large-scale, long-range attacks on energy infrastructure has decreased since March 2023. The UK MoD assessed that Russia continues small-scale strikes (strikes using fewer than 25 munitions) with predictably less effect.[27] Russia maintains the capability to renew such strikes though, if it so desired. Halushchenko stated that Ukraine has the flexibility to adjust Ukrainian energy exports if the situation changes.[28]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) may be setting conditions for a false flag attack in Sumy Oblast. The Russian MoD claimed on April 8 that Ukrainian forces have been delivering dead bodies from morgues to Okhtyrka, Sumy Oblast and applying toxic chemicals to the remains and the area in order to allege that Russian forces used chemical weapons.[35] Russian forces may be attempting to set informational conditions for future chemical weapons attacks in Sumy Oblast or to justify previous chemical weapons use, although ISW has not observed Russian forces recently using chemical weapons in the area. It is unclear what overarching effect the Kremlin intends to achieve with increasingly outlandish and ineffective Russian information operations alleging Ukrainian false flag attacks.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-8-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, April 9, 2023 2:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

There Is No Fixing Stupid When It Comes to Western Delusions About Russia
https://sonar21.com/there-is-no-fixing-stupid-when-it-comes-to-western
-delusions-about-russia/

Do you mean delusions like this guys.

T

YOU BELONG TO YOUR RUSSIAN MOTHERLAND | You don't Belong To Yourself

INSIDE RUSSIA
202K subscribers

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Sunday, April 9, 2023 2:51 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Waiting for two signal events...

The fall of Bakhmut. Coming soon.

Kiev's long-advertised spring offensive. Coming... soon?
Makes more sense aiming at Kherson, not Zaparozhiy.

*****
Kiev takes a page from USA racism and jihadists, burns churches.

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

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Sunday, April 9, 2023 3:32 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Waiting for two signal events...

The fall of Bakhmut. Coming soon.

Kiev's long-advertised spring offensive. Coming... soon?
Makes more sense aiming at Kherson, not Zaparozhiy.

Russian state TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, nicknamed 'Putin's voice' because of his ideological affinity with the Russian president, predicted Russia will "fully move onto the war footing" if Ukraine achieves "strategic success" with a counter-attack.

Claiming he has "no doubt" how Putin would respond to such a reverse, he said: "If necessary, there will be a mobilization of our society and industries. All necessary army reserves will be brought in.

"The country will fully move onto the war footing. It will get stirred up like never before and will continue to fight, despite temporary losses, until the Nazi Ukrainian nation is completely destroyed along with its collaborators, including Poland, the Baltic states, and other dirtbags."

Russian State TV Host Attacks 'Pacifists' Against Using Nuclear Weapons
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-tv-host-attacks-pacificists-aga
inst-using-nuclear-weapons-1793349

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, April 9, 2023 5:19 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

There are rumors going around speculating what the west will do if Kiev's long-advertised fails to meet it's objectives (whatever they are).

Redefine the objectives to match the results?

Use nukes?

One interesting rumor is that some neocons would like to create a Polish-Lithuanian -western Ukraine Commonwealth. Seems like it would be a hard sell to Germany and France, creating a strong bloc like that. OTOH we DID manage to convince Germany to commit economic suicide, and just to make sure we blew up their ~~pipelines~~ lifelines, with nary a peep of protest. So while knows? Maybe Germany will roll over like it's done before.

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

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Sunday, April 9, 2023 5:37 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
There are rumors going around speculating what the west will do if Kiev's long-advertised fails to meet it's objectives (whatever they are).

One interesting rumor is that some neocons would like to create a Polish-Lithuanian -western Ukraine Commonwealth.

Give a citation for where you got the rumors. Did you make them up because they seem plausible to you? For example: "a Polish-Lithuanian -western Ukraine Commonwealth" is from 1569 and 2020, not 2023: Lublin Triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lublin_Triangle

Just to make it a little clearer because Signym is far too articulate (as in talks and gossips too much) and yet is completely stupid about practicalities, the Lublin Triangle is not some secret conspiracy by neocons . . .

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

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Sunday, April 9, 2023 6:36 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Foreign Policy (FP) magazine has been referenced. Supposedly in the last month.
.... Ah, here it is.

Quote:
A political construct created nearly 700 years ago offers solutions for Europe today.
By Dalibor Rohac, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

In 1386, the last pagan ruler of Lithuania, Jogaila, married the child queen of Poland, Jadwiga, then in her early teens. The marriage created a political union between Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which encompassed large parts of today’s Belarus and Ukraine. By doing so, it solved a twofold problem. One, it helped bring the vast Eastern European territories, including lands of the former Kyivan Rus’, into the fold of Western Christendom. Two, the union addressed the immediate security concern facing both Poles and Lithuanians: the threat of Teutonic Knights.

MORE AT
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/26/its-time-to-bring-back-the-polish
-lithuanian-union/

Be a dear and get us the rest of the text.

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

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Sunday, April 9, 2023 8:34 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh BTW SECOND whenever I delve into your "Putin says/ some random member of the Duma says/ some random Russian commentator says" posts, I find - in the first para or so- the headlines misquote take out of context, or completely fabricate shit. Not going to do a point-by-point refutation bc, really, it's not worth my time. Just a general observation that they're written by droids who can't even lie without tripping over themselves.

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 7:25 AM

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

Russia continues to weaponize religion in an effort to discredit Ukraine in the international arena and is using information operations about religion to advance military objectives despite itself committing gross violations of religious freedom in occupied Ukraine.

The Kremlin continues an information operation aimed at falsely portraying Russia as a religiously tolerant state while deliberately repressing religious freedoms in Ukraine. Putin consistently presents Russia as the defender of traditional “Christian values” that also supports Orthodox, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism religions.[37] The Kremlin uses this information operation to accuse Ukraine of religious intolerance towards the Moscow Patriarchate and gain favor with religious communities worldwide. This information operation is at odds with Russian religious repressions on the ground. The Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration’s indicated that Russians have reduced religious diversity by over 50 percent in Crimea, for example.[38] The Kremlin continues to use long-standing false narratives that the Ukrainian government is oppressing religious liberties as a moral justification for its refusal to negotiate with Ukraine, likely in the hopes of turning international public opinion against Ukraine.[39] The Kremlin is especially keen on accusing the Ukrainian government of persecuting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP).[40]

Much more at https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-9-2023

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh BTW SECOND whenever I delve into your "Putin says/ some random member of the Duma says/ some random Russian commentator says" posts, I find - in the first para or so- the headlines misquote take out of context, or completely fabricate shit. Not going to do a point-by-point refutation bc, really, it's not worth my time. Just a general observation that they're written by droids who can't even lie without tripping over themselves.

Signym, you have written the same lines a hundred times. Do you have a special key to produce it on your Russian-made computer?

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 7:39 AM

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

Religious freedom in Ukraine – especially the freedom of religious minorities – are far better defended in Ukrainian-controlled territories than in Russia or Russian-occupied Ukrainian lands. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) found that Russia is one of the worst violators of religious freedoms due to its restrictive state policies and prosecution of peaceful religious activities that are legal under Ukrainian law.[49] Ukraine’s Evangelical Baptist community, for example, expanded to encompass 2,272 churches and over 113,000 believers between 1991 and 2017.[50] Conversely, the Russian government has effectively outlawed foreign missionary work in Russia and persecuted Baptists along with many other Protestant sects since 2016.[51] Russia’s campaign of religious repression relentlessly targets Ukrainian churches and ”undesirable” Russian minorities in occupied Ukraine on a systematic basis. Russian forces will likely intensify this campaign and seek to eradicate religious organizations independent of Kremlin control, as Russian forces have done with Crimea’s Muslim Crimean Tatar population since occupying the peninsula in 2014.[52]

Moscow’s religious persecution campaign seeks to eradicate the Autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which Moscow views as schismatic despite the decision by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 2019 granting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church its independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. Russian occupation authorities are likely systematically eliminating OCU churches in occupied Ukraine. ISW’s research found that 34 percent of the reported persecution events targeted the OCU, making it the single most targeted religious group. The high percentage of persecution events aimed at the OCU is not surprising on the one hand because it is the most popular confession in Ukraine. It is surprising on the other hand because the Kremlin has been posturing as the defender of Christianity in general and Eastern Orthodoxy in particular.[20] Witness reports indicate that Russian authorities are seemingly targeting the OCU for its Ukrainianess. The Russians pursued such targeted attacks on the OCU even during the short-lived Russian partial occupation of Kyiv Oblast early in the war, suggesting that this targeting was an intentional component of the Russian invasion from the outset.[21]

Russian occupation officials are systematically seizing UOC property to transfer to the Moscow Patriarchate and are eliminating worship in the Ukrainian language. The synod of the Russian Orthodox Church issued a decision to officially annex the OCU’s dioceses in Dzhankoi, Simferopol, and Feodosia in Crimea on June 7, 2022, “out of the need to maintain an effective canonical and administrative connection with the central church authorities.”[22] Six Russian FSB agents raided an OCU church in Melitopol, detained and deported its priest for conducting the liturgy in the Ukrainian language, and then closed the church in November 2022.[23] Russian authorities have converted several OCU churches in occupied Ukraine to the Moscow Patriarchate.[24] The full extent of Russian efforts to forcibly convert Ukrainians in occupied territories to Russian Orthodoxy is unclear. Russian occupation authorities have made no explicit statement allowing the OCU to coexist with the Russian Orthodox Church in occupied Ukraine, which is alarming given the documented instances of repression and forced conversion of OCU churches.

Much more at https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-9-2023

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 8:27 AM

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

How America let Putin off the hook after Crimea

A POLITICO investigation shows that the tough sanctions put in place starting in 2014 suffered from weak enforcement at the Department of Justice and a lack of cooperation from allies, allowing oligarchs and their enablers to skate free.

Although Washington has since 2014 imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine, the Justice Department under the Obama and Trump administrations did not prioritize prosecutions related to that war — filing relatively few cases until after Putin escalated it in 2022.

POLITICO’s findings support critics who argue that Washington, and the West more broadly, was too lenient toward Russia for too long, especially when it came to Ukraine. Such critics, who include Russian dissidents and Ukrainian activists, say America in particular should have imposed — and enforced — tougher Ukraine-related sanctions and other penalties more often and faster in the wake of the initial 2014 invasion.

“There was a whole appeasement psychology for a long time,” said Bill Browder, a British financier who has tangled with Putin and long argued for a tougher U.S. approach to the Kremlin. “It’s obvious to anyone who was close to the situation that Putin was maybe 95 percent responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, but we were 5 percent responsible by not doing anything up to this point.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/09/putin-russia-ukraine-sanction
-justice-department-00090386

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 9:25 AM

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

As Ukraine prepares its spring offensive, Russia goes from defeat to defeat

by Max Boot

There hasn’t been much movement on the front lines of Ukraine since Ukrainian forces liberated the city of Kherson in early November. It’s easy to conclude that the war is at a stalemate pending the outcome of Ukraine’s widely expected spring offensive — which would benefit from even more Western support than it has been getting. While there might be an element of truth to that assumption, it also masks a lot of developments in the past five months that have been positive for Ukraine and negative for Russia.

One of Vladimir Putin’s pseudo-justifications for his war of aggression was the supposed fear that Ukraine would join NATO. That was never likely (and still isn’t). But, as a result of his invasion, Finland just joined NATO, and Sweden should be close behind. Not only does Finland have Europe’s largest artillery force, but it also recently agreed to combine its warplanes with those of Norway, Denmark and Sweden in a joint operating force. The Nordic partners have 250 front-line combat aircraft, instantly creating a new military superpower in northern Europe. Thanks, Vlad, for making NATO stronger than ever.

So, too, Putin has no one but himself to blame for his recent indictment on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court. That won’t have any immediate impact, but it’s not the kind of thing anyone wants on his résumé. At a minimum, it further delegitimizes Putin and hampers his travel to avoid arrest. Someday, like Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, he could even wind up on trial for his crimes.

Putin tried to show that he was not isolated by hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Moscow last month. But, beyond the photo op, Putin did not get much out of the meeting: Xi did not agree (at least publicly) to supply weapons to Russia or even to build another gas pipeline from Russia to China. China’s ambassador to the European Union just said that China’s “no limits” friendship with Russia — proclaimed last year by Xi and Putin — is “nothing but rhetoric.”

By contrast, the support that Ukraine has received from more than 50 donor nations is much more than just rhetorical. All that aid has turned Ukraine, during the past year, into one of the strongest military powers in Europe. Putin hoped to use a cutoff of Russian gas supplies to force the Europeans to stop supporting Ukraine. The Russian gambit failed; Europe adjusted to the cutoff and hasn’t wavered in its support of Ukraine.

Ukraine has not only been winning the battle for international support. It has also won another critical and underappreciated victory in recent months in its battle to keep the lights and heat on.

In early October, frustrated that Russia’s advance on the ground had stopped, Putin began targeting Ukrainian electrical and heating infrastructure with missile and drone strikes. The Russian strategy was to make life so unbearable for Ukrainians that they would sue for peace. It didn’t work, thanks to all the air defenses, generators and spare parts sent by the West and all the dedication shown by Ukrainian air-defense and electrical-repair crews. Now spring is arriving, the lights are still on, and, according to one recent poll, 97 percent of Ukrainians still believe they will win the war. Ukraine is even exporting electricity once again.

Russia’s piecemeal offensive in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine hasn’t gone any better than its attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. A three-week battle for control of the coal-mining town of Vuhledar ended in disaster for the Russians. Repeatedly ambushed by skillful Ukrainian defenders, the lumbering Russian columns had to pull back after losing an estimated 130 tanks and armored personnel carriers and 5,000 soldiers killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

Russia has suffered even heavier losses of personnel — mostly prisoners and mercenaries from the Wagner Group — in its suicidal, human wave attacks on the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. After more than eight months of fighting, the Russians have moved into the city center and are beginning to envelop Bakhmut on the flanks, but these advances have come at staggering cost. Western intelligence agencies estimated last month that Russia had lost 20,000 to 30,000 killed and wounded in the Bakhmut meat-grinder, making this the bloodiest battle in Europe since World War II.

For 21 days in March, a U.S. official told me, the Russian advance actually stalled altogether. Last week it resumed. The Russians eventually might force the defenders out — but to what end? Bakhmut has little strategic significance and, this official told me, Russian forces are so exhausted they cannot advance past Bakhmut. A Ukrainian military spokesman claims that Bakhmut is Wagner’s “last stand.”

“Russia’s much-ballyhooed Winter Offensive amounted to just more Russian casualties and revealed the lack of operational capabilities, depth and imagination on the Russian side,” retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe, told me. “The Ukrainians certainly suffered a lot of casualties during this time, but I think they’ve managed to prevent Russia from gaining any successes while simultaneously building up their own capabilities in preparation for a coming counteroffensive.”

That offensive will be undertaken by troops who have been training not only in Ukraine but also in Germany and Poland for combined arms warfare utilizing Western tanks and armored fighting vehicles. They will not have an easy road ahead of them. Offensive operations are inherently more difficult than defensive operations, and the Russians have had months to build multiple lines of fortifications across southern Ukraine and Crimea. One of Putin’s few successes in the past six months was the mobilization of 300,000 draftees. Those are low-quality troops who lack the training or equipment for maneuver warfare, but they can staff static defensive positions across Russian-occupied territory.

Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, cautioned me “that the expectations on the Ukrainians to pull off a miracle counteroffensive are very high, but the capabilities we have provided are not enough to meet those expectations. Putin doesn’t care how many soldiers and equipment he has to throw at this, so unless there is a significant breakthrough in the U.S. to provide jets and long-range missile systems, we need to lower expectations of what the Ukrainians will be able to achieve with the Western weapons they have.”

Her point is well taken; it’s shameful that it took the West so long to supply modern armored vehicles and that it still hasn’t supplied Western fighter aircraft or longer-range rockets. But U.S. officials remain hopeful that the better-trained, better-equipped, better-motivated Ukrainians can sever the Russian “land bridge” between Crimea and Donbas. “That would send an important signal to the Russians,” one U.S. official told me, “that this war is not going well and not worth continuing.”

To be sure, Putin is not giving any indication that he will sue for peace anytime soon. He still hopes to outlast the West, and he leads a vast country with a lot of staying power. No one can yet see how or when this conflict will end. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the central facts revealed by the war: namely, the skill of the Ukrainians and the ineptitude of the Russians.

“It’s been an unbroken string of bad news for Putin and Russian forces,” Hodges told me, “and I see no bright lights on the horizon.” Perhaps that’s why, after a hiatus of a few months, Putin has returned to nuclear saber-rattling — this time by announcing plans to deploy tactical nukes in Belarus. That’s not a sign that he is planning to actually use nukes. It’s a sign that he’s trapped in a quagmire and doesn’t know what to do next.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/10/ukraine-russia-defe
ats-spring-offensive/

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 12:51 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

If Russia is doing so bad, how come the propaganda machine keeps working overtime to tenderize your idiot brain, Second?

You are so fucking stupid.

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

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 1:37 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I stopped reading at the byline because everybody knows Max Boot is a neocon 'tard.

I noticed that SECOND and THUGR are avoiding that whole "leaked top secret Pentagon docs show Kiev in poor position for spring offensive" topic. ... or anything tainted with actual facts

Did you notice that they always post OPINION?
Who are they trying to kid?

DOJ Races To Find Source of Leaked Pentagon Documents
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/doj-races-find-source-leaked-pe
ntagon-documents

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 2:31 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I stopped reading at the byline because everybody knows Max Boot is a neocon 'tard.

I noticed that SECOND and THUGR are avoiding that whole "leaked top secret Pentagon docs show Kiev in poor position for spring offensive" topic. ... or anything tainted with actual facts

Did you notice that they always post OPINION?
Who are they trying to kid?

DOJ Races To Find Source of Leaked Pentagon Documents
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/doj-races-find-source-leaked-pe
ntagon-documents

If I post facts, you call them lies. Here is the truth: everyone I know who shares your opinions/your version of facts about reality are people who created for themselves unnecessarily difficult lives. I assume your life is as messy as theirs. I attribute their unfortunate lives to being crazy / having difficult personalities / generalized lack of wisdom when they make major decisions. All of this also describes Russia, which has an economy smaller than Canada. None of that means anything to you, but just imagine if Canada was a person as obnoxious as Russia. Canada could cause major problems in the world and, especially, in the US.

Getting back to those messy people, they tend to have short lives full of failures and heartbreak and blame Biden for it. Trump will save them, they claim. I'm expecting Russians will be feeling their own misfortune in Ukraine, this year and next, and blaming it all on Biden. If only Trump had been President, Ukraine would have been an easy conquest.

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 2:38 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
SECOND: I assume your life is as messy as theirs.

You know what they say about assumptions SECOND: they make an "ass" out of "u" and "me". Well, maybe you, bc I'm.not the one making assumptions.

As usual SECOND, I get about one or two sentences into your post and then I trip over something so egregiously stupid I stop.

Save yourself some time: limit your replies to one or two sentences bc the rest is just shit-canned.

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 2:58 PM

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

Ukraine gives Russia two options: Leave Crimea peacefully or be ready for battle

Politico reports:

Ukraine has not changed its plans for the return of territory occupied by Russia, including Crimea.

“Ukraine will choose the way to bring Crimea back, using political and military means,” Tamila Tasheva, the Ukrainian president’s envoy on Crimea, told POLITICO.

“To minimize Ukrainian military losses, minimize threats to civilians who live in occupied territories, as well as the destruction of civilian infrastructure, Ukraine plans to give Russia a choice on how to leave Crimea. If they don’t agree to leave voluntarily, Ukraine will continue to liberate its land by military means,” Tasheva added.

Her comments come after Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of the president’s office, gave an interview to the Financial Times in which he said Ukraine might be ready to discuss the future of Crimea with Moscow if Kyiv succeeds in achieving its strategic goals on the battlefield.

“We are ready to open a diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” Sybiha said in the interview, referring to Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive. “It doesn’t mean that we exclude the way of liberation [of Crimea] by our army.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-russia-crimea-war-peace-volody
myr-zelenskyy/

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 3:32 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukraine gives...

= shitcan

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 4:06 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukraine gives...

= shitcan

Russian Ka-52 Helicopter Obliterated in 'Edelweiss' Brigade Strike

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ka52-attack-helicopter-ukraine-losses-
1792905

A Russian Ka-52 combat helicopter was shot down by Ukrainian forces near the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine's military.

The "Alligator" Ka-52 combat scout-attack helicopter "was shot down during an airstrike attempt on our positions," Ukraine's "Edelweiss" 10th separate mountain assault brigade wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. This was confirmed by Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's East Grouping of Forces, Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported.

The helicopter was brought down using the Piorun MANPADS, a portable air-defense system, Cherevatyi said.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian defense ministry for comment via email.

The Kamov Ka-52 is one of Russia's prized attack helicopters. The twin-seat, all-weather attack aircraft is a "highly upgraded version" of the earlier model Ka-50, according to the U.S. military. It can fire anti-tank missiles, air-to-air guided missiles, and be fitted with a 30-millimeter armament.

The Ka-52 can "execute any combat task with high efficiency," according to Russian state military exporter Rosoboronexport. It has coaxial main rotors and a modernized avionics suite, traveling at a maximum speed of approximately 186 miles per hour.

It's designed to destroy tanks, military vehicles, aircraft and manpower, including on the front lines, Rosoboronexport said.

Ukraine has previously publicized reports of downed Russian Ka-52 helicopters, and its General Staff said in an update on Thursday that Moscow had lost 292 helicopters since the start of the invasion. However, this tally doesn't specify the number of Ka-52 aircraft lost, and Ukraine's counts typically come in higher than many Western estimates.

Although Russia started its invasion of Ukraine with around 100 Ka-52 helicopters, according to Forbes, one count suggests it has now lost around one-third of its "Alligator" day-and-night attack helicopters, as of Thursday.

Russia has lost 33 Ka-52 "Alligator" helicopters since February 24, 2022, according to a count by Dutch open-source outlet Oryx, which visually confirms military losses in Ukraine.

By October 25, 2022, Russia had lost at least 23 Ka-52 "Alligator" helicopters, which represented "nearly half of Russia's total helicopter losses in Ukraine," the British defense ministry wrote on Twitter.

The losses were likely linked to Ukraine's use of MANPADS, and Russian commanders appeared to be turning to "high-risk attack helicopter missions" to back up its troops, the ministry added.

Back in January, Ukraine's air force said Kyiv's military had shot down three Ka-52 helicopters in just 30 minutes. The aircraft had been flying over the disputed Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the air force said in a post shared to Twitter.

Karolina Hird, a Russia analyst with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank, previously told Newsweek that the Ka-52 is an "effective attack helicopter that is generally comparable to the U.S. AH-64 Apache."

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 4:16 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukraine gives...

= shitcan
Russian Ka-52 Helicopter Obliterated in 'Edelweiss' Brigade Strike
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ka52-attack-helicopter-ukraine-losses-
1792905
A Russian Ka-52 combat helicopter was shot down by Ukrainian forces near the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut, according to Ukraine's military.

= shitcan

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 4:22 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
= shitcan
= shitcan

Ukraine Drone Scores Direct Hit on Russian Commander, Video Shows
By Ellie Cook On 4/10/23 at 8:56 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-drone-strike-russia-commander-video-1
793398

Footage posted online appears to show a Ukrainian drone striking a commander in a Russian infantry fighting vehicle.

In a clip posted to Reddit, a grenade appears to be dropped on a Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle from a height, purportedly filmed from the perspective of a drone operator.

The vehicle's operators can then be seen emerging from the vehicle and attempting to leave the vicinity of the attack.

The clip may be linked to Ukraine's 72nd mechanized brigade, according to a description appearing at the beginning of the excerpt.

Newsweek could not independently verify the location or veracity of the clip, nor when it was recorded.

Newsweek has reached out to the defense ministries of Ukraine and Russia for comment and to Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces regarding the clip's authenticity.

Russia's BMP amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicle comes in several iterations, based on the BMP-1. The upgraded BMP-2 and the later BMP-3 feature modernized systems, with the BMP-3 combining "the best of an infantry fighting vehicle, tank destroyer, fire support vehicle, and amphibious personnel carrier," according to Russian state military exporter, Rosoboronexport. It has a top road speed of around 43 miles per hour, and a cruising range of approximately 370 miles, the state defense company said.

The BMP-3 is equipped with a 100mm cannon-missile launcher, 30mm automatic cannon, and 7.62mm machine gun, as well as machine guns fitted to the hull.

According to Dutch open-source military tracking outlet Oryx, Russia has lost a total of 2,286 infantry fighting vehicles—including 1,478 destroyed and 610 captured vehicles—as of Monday. Of these, 374 BMP-1 variants have been lost, as well as several hundred BMP-2 and 249 BMP-3 vehicles. However, the outlet only registers visually-confirmed losses, so the total figure may be higher.

Ukraine's authorities frequently share footage of attacks, including drone strikes recorded through unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Drone clips that surfaced last June also showed Ukrainian UAVs targeting a Russian BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle.

Earlier this month, Ukraine's military shared a video of a soldier targeting a Russian tank using a U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank missile. In late March, Ukrainian forces posted footage of a drone taking out a Russian-TOR-M2 missile system.

Drones have taken on a prominent role in the Ukraine war for both Moscow and Kyiv's forces.

"They are the super weapon here," Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs, told Newsweek in February. "This war is a war of drones," he added.

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 5:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I stopped reading at the byline because everybody knows Max Boot is a neocon 'tard.

I noticed that SECOND and THUGR are avoiding that whole "leaked top secret Pentagon docs show Kiev in poor position for spring offensive" topic. ... or anything tainted with actual facts

Did you notice that they always post OPINION?
Who are they trying to kid?

DOJ Races To Find Source of Leaked Pentagon Documents
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/doj-races-find-source-leaked-pe
ntagon-documents

Not avoiding anything comrade. My hesitancy to believe the documents story is true, is because we did the same thing during World war 2 to great success. Time will tell if it is true or not.

T

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Monday, April 10, 2023 5:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh BTW SECOND whenever I delve into your "Putin says/ some random member of the Duma says/ some random Russian commentator says" posts, I find - in the first para or so- the headlines misquote take out of context, or completely fabricate shit. Not going to do a point-by-point refutation bc, really, it's not worth my time. Just a general observation that they're written by droids who can't even lie without tripping over themselves.

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Monday, April 10, 2023 6:22 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

THUGR: - not according to Russia.

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 6:24 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
= shitcan
= shitcan
Ukraine Drone Scores Direct Hit on Russian Commander, Video Shows
By Ellie Cook On 4/10/23 at 8:56 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-drone-strike-russia-commander-video-1
793398

Footage posted online appears to show a Ukrainian drone striking a commander in a Russian infantry fighting vehicle.

In a clip posted to Reddit, a grenade appears to be

= shitcanned.

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 6:30 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THUGR: - not according to Russia.

Russian economic statistics are a collection of lies and distortions. They are meant to convince people at home that their economy is chugging along despite the war, and people abroad that Western economic sanctions don’t work and therefore should be rescinded. Many international economists, including official organizations, have bought into this type of Russian propaganda.

During the Cold War, the CIA concluded, using Soviet statistics, that the Soviet Union had the world’s second-largest economy whose size and production capabilities rivaled those of the United States. But when communism collapsed, Russia’s economy turned out to be not much larger than Portugal’s.

Statistics in contemporary Russia are equally deceptive.

https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/opinion/article-738731

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 6:36 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
= shitcan
= shitcan
= shitcanned.

These Russians have been shitcanned because they refused to pay attention to reality all around them:

Grenade Detonates as Russian Troops Huddle Together, Video Shows
By Ellie Cook On 4/10/23 at 11:07 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-grenade-detonate-russia-troops-video-
1793416

Footage of a grenade detonating after being launched at Russian troops which appears to have been captured by a Ukrainian drone is circulating online.

The video shows a grenade being dropped from above a group of soldiers, described as Russian troops "huddled next to their vehicle." An explosion occurs, with the figures visibly moving following the detonation. Newsweek could not independently verify the source or the provenance of the video, although it appears to have been posted at one point by a Russian-language Telegram channel for war footage.

Footage of the war in Ukraine has long circulated online, including clips posted by Russia and Ukraine's militaries. Video recorded by Ukrainian drones, targeting Russian vehicles and military equipment, are frequently posted by social media channels belonging to Ukraine's military.

The Supernova+ Telegram account indicated that the grenade in the latest footage was a "VOG," apparently suggesting it is a high explosive grenade-launched VOG-25. Newsweek could not verify this claim.

Newsweek reached out to Ukraine's and Russia's defense ministries and the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces via email for comment.

In an operational update on Monday morning, Ukraine's General Staff said Russian forces had launched 26 air strikes and four missile strikes on Ukrainian territory overnight. S-300 missiles were launched to the east and the south of Ukraine, it said.

Russia's "main efforts" were concentrated on the Donetsk settlements on Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivska and Maryinka, it added, saying Ukrainian forces fended off 58 attacks in these areas on Sunday.

More than 290 Ukrainian troops were killed in the Donetsk direction, the Russian defense ministry said on Monday, adding that 11 Ukrainian drones had been downed in the east of the country over the past day.

Long-touted plans for a Ukrainian spring counteroffensive continue to make the headlines, although Ukrainian officials have largely refrained from offering up details on Kyiv's military plans in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, leaked documents appearing to detail Kyiv's requirements and NATO analyses of Ukraine's capabilities for a planned counteroffensive circulated online, prompting a Pentagon investigation. Ukraine's top officials dismissed the documents as false, but said they would focus on "measures to prevent the leakage of information regarding the plans" of Kyiv's military.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told European media last week that a counteroffensive was expected in "the coming weeks," which the Kremlin then said its military had noted. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank suggested on Sunday that Russia could propose an Orthodox Easter ceasefire later this month to delay a Ukrainian counteroffensive, which the Kremlin denied.

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 6:49 PM

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

THUGR: - not according to Russia.
Russian economic statistics are a collection of lies and distortions. They are meant to convince people at home that their economy is chugging along despite the war, and people abroad that Western economic sanctions don’t work and therefore should be rescinded. Many international economists, including official organizations, have bought into this type of Russian propaganda.

During the Cold War, the CIA concluded, using Soviet statistics, that the Soviet Union had the world’s second-largest economy whose size and production capabilities rivaled those of the United States. But when communism collapsed, Russia’s economy turned out to be not much larger than Portugal’s.

Statistics in contemporary Russia are equally deceptive.

https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/opinion/article-738731

No matter what the topic, comrade signym posts what she wishes to be true. I take great pleasure in the fact that what she wishes to be true, never is.

Another way to say it is, she never gets what she wants. Too funny...

T

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Monday, April 10, 2023 7:05 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

No matter what the topic, comrade signym posts what she wishes to be true. I take great pleasure in the fact that what she wishes to be true, never is.

Expanding on that thought reveals, what she wants she never gets. Too funny...

T

The North Koreans and the Russians share a trait: they cannot stop bragging about how well their economies are doing compared to their enemies. According to North Korea, South Korea is a slum. According to statistics, North Korea is delusional. Russia has also been living under the same delusions as North Korea: nuclear weapons make the country prosperous, proud, and mighty compared to its enemies. The Russians and the North Koreans are missing out on much of life because they eat, sleep, and work with a steady diet of lies to keep them going. It is a very unhealthy way to live, which is reflected in their shortened lifespans compared to neighboring countries.

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 7:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

No matter what the topic, comrade signym posts what she wishes to be true. I take great pleasure in the fact that what she wishes to be true, never is.

Expanding on that thought reveals, what she wants she never gets. Too funny...

T
The North Koreans and the Russians share a trait: they cannot stop bragging about how well their economies are doing compared to their enemies. According to North Korea, South Korea is a slum. According to statistics, North Korea is delusional. Russia has also been living under the same delusions as North Korea: nuclear weapons make the country prosperous, proud, and mighty compared to its enemies. The Russians and the North Koreans are missing out on much of life because they eat, sleep, and work with a steady diet of lies to keep them going. It is a very unhealthy way to live, which is reflected in their shortened lifespans compared to neighboring countries.

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

That, and how much they drink.

T

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Monday, April 10, 2023 8:04 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

That, and how much they drink.

T

Boris Yeltsin, who chose Putin, was a drunken fool: “Secret Service agents discovered Yeltsin alone on Pennsylvania Avenue, dead drunk, clad in his underwear, yelling for a taxi.” - https://www.history.com/news/bill-clinton-boris-yeltsin-drunk-1994-rus
sian-state-visit

Putin is moderate compared to Yeltsin: 'Emotional' Putin reflected on life in German 'paradise' drinking 3 litres of beer a week
Vladimir Putin adored his life in Germany during the final few years of the Cold War, drinking copious amounts of beer and pouring over Western shopping catalogues.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1752678/putin-kgb-officer-germany
-spt

No surprise when bucket heads Yeltsin and Putin went berserk and killed people by the hundreds of thousands, possibly while drunk with the power to do what felt good.

How did Putin end up at the top? Bizarrely: As the Kremlin clock ticked down the final minutes of the 1990s, a dour-faced representative of that “new generation” appeared before the nation as Russia’s acting president. “Like you, I intended this evening to listen to the New Year greetings of President Boris Yeltsin,” said Vladimir Putin, the former state security service chief who had been named prime minister just four months earlier. “But things turned out otherwise.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-20-years-on-anni
versary/

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

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Monday, April 10, 2023 11:25 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I stopped reading at the byline because everybody knows Max Boot is a neocon 'tard.

I noticed that SECOND and THUGR are avoiding that whole "leaked top secret Pentagon docs show Kiev in poor position for spring offensive" topic. ... or anything tainted with actual facts

I'm wondering if it's because they're in denial or because their extremely limited sources of "news" just aren't reporting on it at all.

Quote:
Did you notice that they always post OPINION?
Who are they trying to kid?

Yes. Always.

They don't watch news. They watch propaganda and editorialism. Period.

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

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

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Tuesday, April 11, 2023 7:21 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I stopped reading at the byline because everybody knows Max Boot is a neocon 'tard.

I noticed that SECOND and THUGR are avoiding that whole "leaked top secret Pentagon docs show Kiev in poor position for spring offensive" topic. ... or anything tainted with actual facts

I'm wondering if it's because they're in denial or because their extremely limited sources of "news" just aren't reporting on it at all.

If Kyiv knows it truly is in a poor position for a spring offensive, Kyiv better wait until it is in a better position.

But Kyiv hasn't been sharing everything with the Pentagon because it knows that the US military consists mostly of violent incompetent weirdos like Trump's first National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn. That guy couldn't be trusted around secrets.

1) Former Trump adviser Michael Flynn ‘at the center’ of new movement based on conspiracies and Christian nationalism
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/former-trump-adviser-michael-fly
nn-at-the-center-of-new-movement-based-on-conspiracies-and-christian-nationalism

2) The U.S. Army increasingly lets soldiers charged with violent crimes leave the military rather than face trial
https://www.propublica.org/article/military-army-administrative-separa
tion

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

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Tuesday, April 11, 2023 7:22 AM

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

Wagner forces are reportedly continuing to commit war crimes by beheading Ukrainian servicemen in Bakhmut. Russian social media users published footage purportedly showing the remains of a head belonging to a Ukrainian serviceman on a spike at an unspecified area in Bakhmut.[55] Social media users recalled similar instances of skulls mounted on spikes in Popasna, Luhansk Oblast, where Wagner troops operated over spring–summer of 2022.[56] The Geneva Convention prohibits the mutilation and despoilment of dead bodies in war.[57]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-10-2023

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

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Tuesday, April 11, 2023 7:23 AM

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

Russian officials and occupation authorities continue to deport children to Russia under the guise of medical, rehabilitation, and voluntary evacuation schemes. The Ukrainian Office of the General Prosecutor issued a notice of suspicion against a Crimea-based businesswoman under accusations that she has helped deport 1,000 Ukrainian children and 64 guardians to Sevastopol, Crimea, under the guise of tourism and voluntary evacuation.[66] Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Ambassador to Russia Rodion Miroshnik claimed on April 10 that Russia has returned 10 Ukrainian children and their mothers to Horlivka, Luhansk Oblast, after they reportedly received medical treatment at the Klyazma sanitorium in Moscow Oblast.[67] Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne Novosti on April 10 shared the story of a 16-year-old boy whom Russian forces had illegally transported to a political re-education camp after he had spent two weeks resting at the “Dream” sanatorium in Yevpatoria, Crimea.[68] Suspilne Novosti amplified reports that Russian occupation authorities continue to brainwash Ukrainian children at re-education camps in Russia, coercing them to abandon their Ukrainian identity and instead show pro-Russia sentiment.[69] LNR head Leonid Pasechnik claimed on April 9 that occupation authorities have conducted professional medical evaluations on more than 94,000 Ukrainian children in occupied Luhansk Oblast, thousands of whom Russian occupation officials have since deported to Russia for medical treatment.[70] Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereschuk stated on April 10 that Russia is illegally holding 4,396 deported Ukrainian children in Russia and announced that Ukraine is forming an international coalition to return the children to Ukraine.[71]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-10-2023

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

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Tuesday, April 11, 2023 3:46 PM

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

I stopped reading at the byline because everybody knows Max Boot is a neocon 'tard.

I noticed that SECOND and THUGR are avoiding that whole "leaked top secret Pentagon docs show Kiev in poor position for spring offensive" topic. ... or anything tainted with actual facts

Did you notice that they always post OPINION?
Who are they trying to kid?

DOJ Races To Find Source of Leaked Pentagon Documents
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/doj-races-find-source-leaked-pe
ntagon-documents

Not avoiding anything comrade. My hesitancy to believe the documents story is true, is because we did the same thing during World war 2 to great success. Time will tell if it is true or not.

Bombshell Rumor: Russia’s Top General Plans To ‘Throw’ War While Putin Has Chemo, Leaked Docs State

One slide in particular insinuates that Russia National Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev and Chief of the General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov are planning to pull back on the war while Putin gets cancer treatment.

The document about "throwing" the war was marked (TS//SI//REL TO USA, FVEY/FISA), which means it is top secret and should only be available to the United States or the other "Five Eyes" countries, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bombshell-rumor-russia-s-top-gene
ral-plans-to-throw-war-while-putin-has-chemo-leaked-docs-state/ar-AA19Jmbt?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=9cbaa4129d304144ef4d2a5c5a076fba&ei=92

Update comrade. What do you think? Still believe the leaked documents are factual?

T

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Tuesday, April 11, 2023 4:28 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

THUGR: The documents themselves are legitimate. The information they contain is of mixed quality.

For example, there is an assessment of Kiev's air defenses (will run out of anti-air missiles by May 30) which depends a bit on what Kiev has told them, since I can't imagine NATO being able to take a reliable inventory.

There is a list of which nations are training which portions of the troops reserved for this big offensive... something that FVEY and NATO control and therefore have good info.

And then there is this (from your article)

Quote:
That slide is said to have been containing information from a Ukraine official who has a source with access to Kremlin officials.

Yeah. Right.

Anything... and I mean ANYTHING... coming from Kiev is tainted, and should be mentally warehoused until it's confirmed by events or by another, unconnected source.

Dood, this is an example of what I've been trying to tell you: you have to be your own analyst. Consider the source's reliability and bias. See if it makes sense. "Cui bono?" and "Why now?"

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

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Tuesday, April 11, 2023 4:33 PM

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

Russia moves to tighten conscription law, pressing more men to fight
Robyn Dixon

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/11/russia-conscription-mi
litary-mobilization-war/

RIGA, Latvia — When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a mobilization in the fall to commandeer reinforcements for the war against Ukraine, thousands of men fled the country or went into hiding. But tough new measures approved by Russia’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday will make it almost impossible for Russians to dodge conscription in the future.

The law provides for electronic military summonses with bans on draftees leaving the country, making it possible to quietly sweep up thousands more men to fight — even as the Kremlin is denying plans for a controversial new mobilization.

The State Duma, which is the lower chamber, approved the legislation with just one abstention. The upper house, the Federation Council, is expected to adopt it Wednesday, and send it on to Putin for his approval, which is widely expected.

Last year’s chaotic mobilization — in which military officers were obliged to physically hand out paper notices — created scenes of young men being grabbed from the streets and at subway stations, or wrestled to the ground in shopping malls. In some cases, passersby filmed men fleeing military officials.

Under the new rules, electronic summonses will be issued to conscripts under Russia’s compulsory military service for men ages 18 to 27, but also potentially to members of the Russian military reserve and others. Under Russian law, conscripts must not be deployed to Ukraine, however complaints have surfaced that in some cases they have been sent there and killed in action.

Andrei Kartopolov, head of the State Duma defense committee, spelled out tough penalties for those who do not respond to electronic summonses, including potential bans on driving, registering a company, working as a self-employed individual, obtaining credit or loans, selling apartments, buying property or securing social benefits. These penalties could apply to the thousands of men who are already outside the country.

The electronic summons will be issued via a government services portal, Gosuslugi, used for all manner of state payments and services including taxes, passports, housing services, social benefits, transport documents, medical appointments, employee insurance and countless other matters.

Under the law, personal data of conscripts including identity documents, personal tax numbers, driver’s license details, phone numbers and other information will be transferred by Gosuslugi to military enlistment offices. Universities, business employers, hospitals and clinics, government ministries, law enforcement agencies, the electoral commission and the tax authority are also required to transmit data to the military.

With the Kremlin anxious to avoid unpopular mobilization measures, the new rules highlight Russia’s need for more military personnel, after a largely ineffective winter offensive that gained little ground despite high casualties, and ahead of an expected new Ukrainian counteroffensive ahead.

As the Kremlin prepares Russians for a long war, the need to continually reconstitute depleted Russian military units could drag on for years.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense has recently recruited hundreds of prisoners on 18-month contracts to fight in the war, according to Russia Behind Bars, a prisoners’ rights group, after the Wagner mercenary group was blocked from recruiting in jails.

The military has also been offering Russian passports to foreigners who join the Russian armed forces and has been running a voluntary recruitment campaign.

In December, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced plans to increase the size of Russia’s military by 30 percent to 1.5 million servicemen, including 695,000 volunteer contract soldiers.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the new law is “absolutely necessary” but added that it is not connected with the mobilization of more Russian men to fight in the war.

“W?e need to improve and modernize the military accounting system,” Peskov said.

However, Putin’s written mobilization decree was never rescinded and legally remains in force.

Last year’s mobilization triggered anger and public protests, with many conscripts drawn from Russia’s most impoverished regions, while the privileged sons of officials such as Peskov and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said they would not fight in Ukraine, when contacted by members of the team of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Russian political analyst Andrei Kolesnikov, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a recent analysis that the Kremlin’s claim it was fighting the West, not Ukraine, had created a “people’s war,” in which citizens are expected to lay down their lives for victory and critics of the war or the Kremlin are branded traitors.

The goal of defeating the West — much like the goal of building communism in Soviet times — is ever receding into the future, he continued. “The specific parameters of what such a victory would look like or how it may be achieved remain entirely unclear, but the rest of eternity can be spent moving toward that horizon,” Kolesnikov wrote.

The new measures follow a flurry of denials from Russian officials that summonses would be issued through the state services portal.

Once an electronic summons is issued, a citizen is bound by it until his military duty is discharged.

The deputy chairman of the Duma’s defense committee, Yuri Shvytkin, told Russian media that conscripts who deleted their accounts on the state services website would be deemed to be draft dodgers and face arrest and punishment.

“It was just one of the goals, to minimize the percentage of dodgers,” he told Russian media outlet Ura.ru.

The bar on departing the country takes effect from the moment the draft notice is electronically sent. Military draft offices can register draftees in the military in their absence, ditching the current practice where conscripts and draftees appear in person to sign forms and undergo medical examinations.

The new measures come with mobilized soldiers from regions across Russia posting dozens of videos on Russian media complaining that they are sent to the slaughter in near-suicidal assaults on Ukrainian positions without adequate training, arms or equipment, a problem that has haunted Russia throughout the war.

State Duma member Andrei Lugovoi, one of the bill’s developers, said on Telegram that problems during last year’s mobilization operation had proved the need for a more efficient way of calling men up for military duty.

“There were so many complaints about the military registration and enlistment offices, people erroneously mobilized, and those who were able to hide under the pretext of a non-received summons,” he said. The bill allows the military to “put things in order” and “eliminate any inconsistency or erroneous actions in the future.”

The move to bar real estate sales makes it difficult for conscription evaders to flee the country without losing assets. It also means that those who fled Russia last year to avoid fighting in Ukraine will not be able to cash out of their Russian property.

Although conscripts are not supposed to be deployed to combat zones, including Ukraine, those completing their compulsory military service have come under intense pressure from superiors to sign military contracts making them eligible for deployment to the front, according to Russian independent media interviews with the mothers of conscripts.

The war is hitting Russia’s economy, depleting the nation’s ranks of young workers.

Last year’s combination of migrants fleeing Russia and the military call-up led to a sharp decline in the number of Russian workers younger than 35, which dropped by 1.3 million workers from 22.83 million, including mostly men, according to a study of Russian state statistics published on Tuesday in RBC newspaper. The drop was most apparent among workers ages 25 to 29, falling by 724,000 to 7.2 million workers.

Natalia Abbakumova contributed to this report.

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

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Tuesday, April 11, 2023 4:37 PM