REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Thursday, October 31, 2024 13:46
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Monday, June 19, 2023 4:09 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You believe in fantasy?
Troll.

Fantasy is Putin's entire oeuvre. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently announced the good news: Ukraine has been demilitarized! Here are his exact words:

“Indeed, Ukraine was heavily militarized at the time of the beginning of the Special Military Operation. And, as Putin said yesterday, one of the tasks was to demilitarize Ukraine. In fact, this task is largely completed. Ukraine is using less and less of its weapons. And more and more it uses the weapons systems that Western countries supply it with.”

Peskov’s is a strikingly bizarre interpretation of demilitarization. True, Ukraine has used up much of the equipment and ammunition that hailed from Soviet days. Equally true, it’s been the recipient of far more effective and modern and NATO-compatible weapons systems from the fifty-plus countries in the Ramstein group.

Just how this amounts to demilitarization, especially at a time when Ukraine has launched what appears to be a successful counteroffensive, is unclear.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putins-big-lie-might-be-a-scheme-
to-exit-the-ukraine-war/ar-AA1cK49k


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



Because now it's no longer using it's own weapons and it's using weapons funded by your federal taxes.

This article is an admission that you are now paying for a war that Americans can't afford to be paying for.

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

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Monday, June 19, 2023 4:35 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:

Because now it's no longer using it's own weapons and it's using weapons funded by your federal taxes.

This article is an admission that you are now paying for a war that Americans can't afford to be paying for.

6ix, there is something seriously wrong with you, but you don't know it. Meanwhile, Ukrainian POWs describe Russian captivity.

“Please let me die”: Freed Ukrainian POW describes first thoughts after Russian capture | 60 Minutes



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, June 19, 2023 4:39 PM

THG


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You believe in fantasy?
Troll.






T



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Monday, June 19, 2023 7:45 PM

SECOND

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


Ukrainian POW reveals torment at hands of Russians

Speaking to Sky's Sally Lockwood, one former marine tells of being treated 'like an animal' - stripped, beaten, duct-taped, shocked and humiliated while being held captive.



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, June 19, 2023 8:27 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Because now it's no longer using it's own weapons and it's using weapons funded by your federal taxes.

This article is an admission that you are now paying for a war that Americans can't afford to be paying for.

6ix, there is something seriously wrong with you



Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment.



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Tuesday, June 20, 2023 3:49 AM

SECOND

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


Brutalized Russian Society by Natalia Antonova

During Russia’s wars on Chechnya, videos of beheadings of Russian soldiers shocked and dismayed Russian society. But only for a while. Today, that kind of brutality has become entertainment for mainstream Russian society — as long as Russians are doing it.

In a way, I wish I were shocked by the horrific video that came out last week of a screaming Ukrainian prisoner of war being brutally beheaded by Russian soldiers.

At the same time, how can I be? Russians have done the same in Syria. The brutality of Russia’s war in Ukraine is deliberate — and Russian society is caught in a paradoxical spiral of denial and applause for it.

The so-called Chechenization (a term frequently used by Russian dissidents and academics, originally to refer to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy of leaning on local warlords) of Russian society has been a long time coming. I use that term with caution; there’s nothing inherently brutal about Chechen society itself, as horrendous as the wars there were. Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov, propped up by Putin, has inflicted the greatest suffering on his fellow Chechens, whether through day-to-day oppression and corruption or through violent purges.

But the wars in Chechnya, in 1994-96 and 1999-2000, played a key role in brutalizing Russian society. The spread of technology allowed for the filming of war crimes, and, at the same time, the murders of Chechen civilians were routinely downplayed or excused in the Russian press. Violence against Russians was used to justify violence committed by Russians. Ensuing terrorism against civilian targets in Russia deepened the process of brutalization further: The Beslan school siege is one of the most soul-destroying examples.

Both then and now, what ends up in the news about Chechnya is usually the tip of the iceberg, as any seasoned observer will tell you, but even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the violence sown in the North Caucasus found ways of rippling out elsewhere.

After opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was gunned down not far from the Kremlin in 2015, the men convicted of the killing would prove to be connected to Kadyrov, though who hired them remains undisclosed. At the time, the smartest people I knew in Moscow, including academics, law enforcement officers, and businesspeople already scrambling to get out, were muttering that the murder was a sign—the “marginal” politics of Chechnya had been normalized in the heart of the Russian capital. “Things will get worse,” these people said. And so they did get worse.

Recordings of the horrific violence had arguably also been normalized. When director Kantemir Balagov included authentic videos of the torture and murder of Russian soldiers in his 2017 film Closeness, Western critics were naturally upset — while Russians didn’t bat an eye. I was in my last months in Moscow when that film came out, and I remember fainting in the theater — I had been given no warning as to what I was about to see — while the rest of the audience didn’t think it was a big deal.

A society where citizens brutalize one another and are brutalized by their own government is inevitably going to commit even greater acts of violence against anyone it perceives as both evil and weaker — remember that Russians initially didn’t count on Ukrainians to resist and are therefore all the more enraged by how their war is going now.


This leads us back to the brutality of the present day. In the video from Ukraine, which was likely filmed last year, due to the foliage present in the video, the perpetrator wears a balaclava as he is being cheerfully egged on by his friends. That these people know to conceal their faces likely means that they’ve done it before or know friends who have. The comparatively small weapon used suggests the desire to prolong the victim’s torture.

Other footage of beheaded Ukrainian soldiers began circulating around the same time. In occupied Popasna last year, the severed head of a Ukrainian POW was placed on a pole.

Russian terrorists fighting in Ukraine think the whole thing is extremely funny and promise more videos like it. Bloodthirsty propagandists such as Anton Krasovsky are meanwhile attempting to excuse it by pointing out that Ukrainians “aren’t people, they’re cosmic trash” or otherwise claiming that the video is staged.

In fact, the plan to terrorize Ukrainians by adopting so-called Chechen methods and using prominent “attack dogs” among Chechens loyal to the Kremlin has been in the works for a while. Some Putinists may find it distasteful and look away, but they are still on board with the overall objective.

If I were to do a forensic analysis of the video and those like it, I could spend many words outlining how the likes of the Wagner Group and other mercenaries are likely responsible. There are times, however, when forensics feels useless. This is a society where barbarism has triumphed and where it sets the agenda.

The idea that Wagner does not represent Russian troops as a whole has, for years, served the Kremlin well. It engenders a kind of plausible deniability. This is not, however, correct. The head of Wagner may be engaged in an on-again, off-again power struggle with regular Russian military officials, but it’s the sort of struggle that Putin finds useful and beneficial for now. Clan wars aid his war machine in that they prevent a challenger from rising up to face him directly. As such, the Russian war machine is doing exactly what it’s meant to be doing — directly aiding Putin and his clutch of friends while making everyone else miserable.

Wagner’s actions result in no accountability. There won’t be any court martials associated with the beheading video and other atrocities. Nobody is going to be punished. Nobody is even that shocked.

Russia doesn’t fight wars the way the United States does, and pearl-clutching comparisons to Iraq and whataboutism here are largely useless, too. What is useful is understanding exactly what you are dealing with. Russia is lawless, with zero meaningful oversight of its regular and irregular troops; it is growing more lawless; and it will seek to export its lawlessness at every turn.

And much like the brutality in Chechnya, what we see of Russians’ actions in Ukraine is the tip of a bloody iceberg. Individual tragedies that comprise the collective tragedy of the war will be unearthed for generations to come. Some of the horrors will come to light, and some will not. All are ultimately acceptable to Moscow, which needs a blistering defeat. In any other scenario, its bloody nihilism will never stop.


https://web.archive.org/web/20230421123531/https://foreignpolicy.com/2
023/04/20/chechnya-russian-brutality-ukraine-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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Tuesday, June 20, 2023 3:54 AM

SECOND

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


US defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin indicated that it is ready to help Ukraine fly and maintain Lockheed’s F-16 fighter jets if NATO states agree to send them to Ukraine.[10] The Financial Times quoted Lockheed Martin Chief Operating Officer (COO) Frank St. John as stating that Lockheed is prepared to build new F-16s; modify existing airframes; and provide F-16 training, equipment, and systems support if NATO agrees to supply Ukraine with F-16s. US and other Western officials have recently signaled an increased willingness to provide Ukraine with F-16s, as ISW has previously reported.[11]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-19-2023


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, June 20, 2023 4:19 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 second:
US defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin indicated that it is ready to help Ukraine fly and maintain Lockheed’s F-16 fighter jets if NATO states agree to send them to Ukraine.[10] The Financial Times quoted Lockheed Martin Chief Operating Officer (COO) Frank St. John as stating that Lockheed is prepared to build new F-16s; modify existing airframes; and provide F-16 training, equipment, and systems support if NATO agrees to supply Ukraine with F-16s. US and other Western officials have recently signaled an increased willingness to provide Ukraine with F-16s, as ISW has previously reported.[11]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-19-2023

Putin heard about the F-16s and immediately threatened to nuke somebody.

Putin warns NATO over being drawn into Ukraine war, says Russia has more nuclear weapons

“NATO, of course, is being drawn into the war in Ukraine, what are we talking here,” Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.

“The supplies of heavy military weaponry to Ukraine are ongoing, they are now looking into giving Ukraine the jets.”

The comment appeared to be a reference to the F-16 fighter jets some members of the NATO alliance are making plans to supply Ukraine with.

During his speech to the forum, Putin also suggested Russia’s large number of nuclear weapons would “guarantee” its security – noting that Russia had more such weapons than NATO countries.

“Nuclear weapons are created to guarantee our security in the broader sense and the existence of the Russian state,” Putin said.

“But first of all, there is no need and secondly the very fact of talking about it reduces the possibility of the threshold for using these weapons being reduced.”

“Also, we have more weapons like this than the NATO countries. They know it and they keep driving towards negotiation on reduction.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/17/europe/nato-danger-ukraine-war-putin-in
tl-hnk/index.html


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Tuesday, June 20, 2023 10:43 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
US defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin indicated that it is ready to help Ukraine fly and maintain Lockheed’s F-16 fighter jets if NATO states agree to send them to Ukraine.[10] The Financial Times quoted Lockheed Martin Chief Operating Officer (COO) Frank St. John as stating that Lockheed is prepared to build new F-16s; modify existing airframes; and provide F-16 training, equipment, and systems support if NATO agrees to supply Ukraine with F-16s. US and other Western officials have recently signaled an increased willingness to provide Ukraine with F-16s, as ISW has previously reported.[11]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-19-2023


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




And now you're not just blowing neo-cons... You're blowing the US War Machine too.

You guys are too funny.



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Tuesday, June 20, 2023 3:29 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:

And now you're not just blowing neo-cons... You're blowing the US War Machine too.

You guys are too funny.

Putin said he'd nuke anybody who gave F-16's to Ukraine. The manufacturer of F-16's will call Putin's bluff . . . if somebody will pay for those F-16's. I'd be impressed if Lockheed Martin gave away free F-16s, but then Lockheed Martin would be charitably losing money and daring Putin to nuke the F-16 factory in Greenville. A small Russian nuke because it is a small American town.

Behold The First F-16 Viper Built In South Carolina
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/behold-the-first-f-16-viper-buil
t-in-south-carolina


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, June 20, 2023 3:29 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


ISW (Nuland's neocon think -machine) says that there may be a "pause" in Kiev's Great Counteroffensive that isn't. Apparently Ukraine has lost over a thousand men, and hundreds of armored vehicles (including Bradleys and Leopards) and haven't advanced past the gray zone.

Yep, things are going so well for Kiev that the USA think tanks are actually considering EU troops and tactical nukes.

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


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Tuesday, June 20, 2023 3:47 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
ISW (Nuland's neocon think -machine) says that there may be a "pause" in Kiev's Great Counteroffensive that isn't. Apparently Ukraine has lost over a thousand men, and hundreds of armored vehicles (including Bradleys and Leopards) and haven't advanced past the gray zone.

Yep, things are going well. Not.

Russia announces "We Have Not Yet Begun To Fight":

Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, said on Tuesday that the potential use of US-supplied Himars and UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Crimea would mark the west’s “full involvement in the conflict and would entail immediate strikes upon decision-making centres in Ukrainian territory”. Those are seen to include the Ukrainian presidential administration and intelligence headquarters.

The Russian ultimatum comes one day after Joe Biden said that the threat of Vladimir Putin authorising a tactical nuclear strike was “real”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/20/russia-threatens-ukraine
-decision-making-centres-kyiv-western-arms-crimea


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, June 20, 2023 3:56 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Yep, things are going well. Not.

The Swedish Defence Research Agency released a report on Tuesday saying that Russia was planning for a prolonged confrontation with the west and was neither planning to end the war nor seek detente.

The risk of an escalation was also growing, the report said. “As Russia’s ground forces are severely battered, the importance of nuclear weapons increases,” said Maria Engqvist, an analyst for the organisation.

Dmitri Trenin, a prominent Russian foreign policy thinker who has grown more aggressive since the invasion, wrote on Tuesday that Russia should modernise its nuclear doctrine in order to show that the use of nuclear weapons is a “real, and not just theoretical possibility”.

He wrote: “The possibility of using nuclear weapons during the current conflict should not be hidden.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/20/russia-threatens-ukraine
-decision-making-centres-kyiv-western-arms-crimea


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, June 20, 2023 4:05 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The forces being battered are Ukrainian, not Russian. There are reports that Russians have killed up to 10 Ukrainians for every Russian soldier lost. This is borne out by the many videos of Ukrainian armored vehicles burning. I haven't seen any comparable ones of Russians being killed, and I bet that if Kiev achieved any sort of success there would be videos of it all over the internet. Or the line of contact would have moved, but it hasn't.

More lies and bullshit from SECOND.
Troll.

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


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Tuesday, June 20, 2023 4:14 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:
Yep, things are going so well for Kiev that the USA think tanks are actually considering EU troops and tactical nukes.

Signym, things are going so well for Russia that it is considering tactical nukes. As always, you get things exactly backward. It is truly a talent you, and all Russians, have. Poor Russia! Always the innocent victim of Western plots! Russia is never the murdering, lying, torturing, thieving, raping horde that the West knows Russia to be. By the way, after a peace treaty was signed in WWII, Russia killed another 2 million Germans just because Russia could and Germany was helpless. Russians are not very sporting, but they cover up that by lying about what happened.

Ruth Deyermond @ruth_deyermond
The Swedish Defence Research Agency have published an excellent report on 'Russia?s War Against Ukraine and the West: The First Year', for which I was delighted to be one of the reviewers.

10:18 AM · Jun 20, 2023
https://twitter.com/ruth_deyermond/status/1671175640110841857

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, June 20, 2023 6:09 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Lies piss me off.
Why would Russia reach for tactical nukes if it has a clear abundance/dominance of conventional weapons? Ukraine has no air force to speak of. Its air defenses are depleted ...witness Russian attack helicopters freely roaming the skies over battlefields, killing Ukie tanks and other vehicles. Missiles, bombs and drones rain down on Ukrainian depots, munitions dumps, and decision centers from east to west. It already lost its first tank and artillery force, it lost its second tranche of donated Soviet era weapons and shells, and now it's using a scraped-together hodgepodge of donated Soviet-era and western weapons. Newly-trained, well equipped Russian troops are holding firm or (in the north) advancing.

Terrorist attacks on Russian civilians and children's camps, blowing up dams, dirty bombs or tactical nukes... these are the acts of a militarily weakened, desperate command.

Russia isn't desperate. It can outlast NATO in Ukraine, playing defense to the west's offense, attriting weapons and men on their heavily fortified lines.

The worst that can happen to Russia is if NATO calls off the offensive, which might require Russia to go on the offensive. Being on the offensive is always a more costly move. If Russia goes on the offensive it might in the north, away from Ukie troop concentrations near Bakhmut and Zaparozhiy. And of course they will continue to destroy concentrations of men, materiel, and strategic bridges/tunnels in far western Ukraine and ports on the Black Sea to interdict NATO weapons.
My guess, anyway.

pro-Ukrainian Military blogger Dima, on the Military Summary Channel for twice-daily updates on the frontlines.

"Russians spring another meat grinder"



You're just a troll SECOND, and the lies you post are legion.

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


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Tuesday, June 20, 2023 6:44 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:

Russia isn't desperate. It can outlast NATO in Ukraine, playing defense to the west's offense, attriting weapons and men on their heavily fortified lines.

The worst that can happen to Russia is if NATO calls off the offensive, which might require Russia to go on the offensive.

Russia will forever brag about its victory in Ukraine. And why not? Russia cannot stop bragging about the Great Patriotic War, where 27 million Russians died but only 7 million Germans. Russia also bragged about its miraculous economic recovery, but Germany has an economy twice as big as Russia’s. Time proved that Germany was the real winner of WWII, compared to Russia. But what country only had 419,400 deaths and an economy now more than 10 times bigger than Russia’s? The USA.

Funny how Japan, conquered by the US, also has an economy many times larger than Russia's. That is because Russians are noteworthily incompetent when running businesses and wars. Funny how West Germany prospered while East Germany, under the Russians, stagnated until the Russians were gone.

The Russians fought incompetently in the past and in the present. Russians have always run their economy incompetently, too. So far, Russia is the winner of the least capable country in the world, judging by the number of deaths of its own citizens during war and after. Russia fights its Great Patriotic War, Part 2, Ukraine style! All victory will go to Russia, in the imagination of Russians, but not in reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/russia/usa

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, June 20, 2023 10:50 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Russia isn't desperate. It can outlast NATO in Ukraine, playing defense to the west's offense, attriting weapons and men on their heavily fortified lines.

The worst that can happen to Russia is if NATO calls off the offensive, which might require Russia to go on the offensive.

Russia will forever brag about its victory in Ukraine. And why not? Russia cannot stop bragging about the Great Patriotic War, where 27 million Russians died but only 7 million Germans. Russia also bragged about its miraculous economic recovery, but Germany has an economy twice as big as Russia’s. Time proved that Germany was the real winner of WWII, compared to Russia. But what country only had 419,400 deaths and an economy now more than 10 times bigger than Russia’s? The USA.

Funny how Japan, conquered by the US, also has an economy many times larger than Russia's. That is because Russians are noteworthily incompetent when running businesses and wars. Funny how West Germany prospered while East Germany, under the Russians, stagnated until the Russians were gone.

The Russians fought incompetently in the past and in the present. Russians have always run their economy incompetently, too. So far, Russia is the winner of the least capable country in the world, judging by the number of deaths of its own citizens during war and after. Russia fights its Great Patriotic War, Part 2, Ukraine style! All victory will go to Russia, in the imagination of Russians, but not in reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/russia/usa

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

More bullshit.
Troll.

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


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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 6:51 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

More bullshit.
Troll.

Have you never heard the folk wisdom "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" Russia is not rich. Its enemy, Germany, is rich. How did that happen, Signym? While you are preparing your usual response ("Troll") why did Russia fail to capture Kyiv? The short answer to both questions is "Russians are not smart." Russian State TV keeps repeating that everything is going according to plan. The plans are too simple-minded.

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, June 21, 2023 6:52 AM

SECOND

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


Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate

Russia is bracing for a long war.

By Maxim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/13/ukraine-counteroffensive-russia-p
utin-war-negotiation-ceasefire-successor
/

JUNE 13, 2023, 1:04 PM

As Ukraine accelerates its counteroffensive across several sections of the front, a rational person might conclude that 2023 must surely be the last year of Russia’s war against its neighbor. Russian military resources are depleted, Moscow’s long and bloody winter offensive in the Donbas has yielded meager results, and Russian society longs for the return of prewar stability. Logic dictates that the Kremlin has no better option than to seize any opportunity to cut short its disastrous war, saving face as far as possible by clinging to the shreds of its territorial gains. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed this line of thinking at a press conference this week, when he said that a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive could have the effect of “causing Putin to finally focus on negotiating an end to the war that he started.”

Such calculations, however, are based on rational cost-benefit analysis and underestimate the extent to which this war is the personal project of one man: Russian President Vladimir Putin. He started it single-handedly, based on his own distorted perceptions and disregarding the opinion of Russian society and ruling elites. He has continued to wage it for more than a year, defying all common sense, and there is no indication that he will ever wish to stop it. Indeed, continuing the war brings him numerous political benefits, while stopping it would offer him little but new risks.

There is no doubt that Russian elites and society largely share Putin’s resentment of the West, disregard for Ukrainian statehood, and belief that Russia is a great power entitled to use military force against other states at will. There is little sympathy for the plight of the Ukrainians among Russians of all social standing, and even less appetite for turning Russia into a democratic and responsible member of the international community. Still, many Russians significantly diverge with Putin on how much they are prepared to sacrifice in the standoff with the West.

With all the caveats about conducting opinion polls in authoritarian states, surveys indicate that steadfast popular support for Putin does not preclude the majority of Russians from perceiving their current situation as extremely stressful and welcoming immediate peace talks with Ukraine — whatever that may mean, as it’s unclear how many Russians would support giving up any of the conquered territories. Private conversations among the Russian elites also reveal major discontent with the mounting costs of the war and no understanding of its purpose. Still, the invasion goes on according to Putin’s wishes, and no one in Russia has the means to override his will.

For Putin, the invasion presents an easy way to implement the goals he had struggled for years to realize in peacetime. This has always been Putin’s trademark style of ruling: He believes that direct attempts to steer the leviathan of the Russian state are futile, and instead prefers to force the system to adapt to crises and faits accomplis he himself created.

With the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has honed this managerial approach to perfection. With one decision, he created enough momentum to send Russia hurtling in the direction of developments he has long wanted to see. Take the reorientation of Russia’s foreign trade to make it less dependent on the West, which Putin has aimed for since 2014. Eight years of devising strategies, elaborating policies, and taking various piecemeal steps all achieved less than one year of all-out war. In 2022, the country’s trade turnover with Europe more than halved, while trade with China grew by more than 40 percent and grew 2.6 times with India.

For years, Russia’s businesses and inept bureaucracy struggled to develop the infrastructure needed for cooperation with Asia. But the war has led Russia to mobilize its resources and finance a range of Asia-oriented transport projects, from a railway link to the Indian Ocean via Iran and Azerbaijan (which had been discussed since 2005) to a new gas pipeline to China, which is now within reach after more than a decade of talks. Decreasing Russia’s dependency on the U.S. dollar and Western financial system has been the government’s priority since the 1990s, but it took a full-scale war to reduce the share of Russian exports paid in U.S. dollars or euros from nearly 90 percent in January 2022 to below 50 percent in December of the same year.

Objectives such as substituting Western imports with domestic products, having Russians vacation inside the country, and restoring the prestige of the Russian armed forces have been on Putin’s agenda for decades, but in the end, only war proved capable of making Russian bureaucrats, businessmen, and wider society implement them for real. Parts of the Moscow elite might still enjoy their Italian villas, Mediterranean yachts, and French delicacies, but their numbers shrink every time the West introduces another package of sanctions.

The international developments brought on by the war dovetail even more closely with Putin’s long-held ambitions. Minsk’s involvement in the aggression against Ukraine has sealed Belarus’s isolation from the West and pushed the country into unprecedented integration with Russia—with little pressure required from Moscow. Meanwhile, Europe’s loss of access to cheap Russian gas is a permanent thorn in the side of trans-Atlantic unity, potentially creating new sources of tension between Europe and the United States.

The freezing of the Russian Central Bank’s foreign reserves has flamed fears around the globe that Washington and Brussels will weaponize their currencies for other purposes. Russia’s war has also created a new bone of contention between the West and China. Many developing countries have seized on it to be more assertive toward the United States and Europe.

In reality, of course, none of these developments are as straightforward as they may look to Putin — and their costs for Russia are immense. But the key lesson he has drawn from Russian history is that if you want to achieve something worthy in such a vast and disorganized country, the cost will inevitably be high. While the losses will fade with time, the achievements will be remembered by later generations. And even if the costs are high, Putin has not found anything that can rival the war in its destructive efficiency for shaping the history of Russia and the world.

In contrast, Putin himself has little to gain from stopping the war any time soon, especially if the Ukrainian counteroffensive proves successful. Sure, ending the war would save thousands of lives, significantly relieve the pressure on the Russian economy and society, allow Russia to stabilize its international position, and so on. But for Putin personally, putting a stop to the conflict would be a disaster for his position in Russian domestic politics and history.

No matter how repressive the Russian regime has become, ending the war would inevitably prompt public reflection. There would be many questions about the invasion’s purposes, its high cost, and whether the result justified that cost. Moreover, Putin would have to face those questions in a situation where it would no longer be possible to justify harsher repression by citing the exceptional circumstances of war.

Regardless of how worn-out Russians may be, therefore, Putin will stick to his selective perception of reality, looking for reasons for and ways to further escalate his addictive crusade against the current world order. Putin has not even made any bones about his intentions: His key decisions over the past months — from tightening the military draft system to massively investing in weapons production — clearly indicate that he is bracing his country for a long war. It is hard to see how the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive could affect these calculations, regardless of how successful it turns out to be.

No one in Russia appears to be able to stop Putin, but that is not to say they are eager to continue his undertaking once he is out of the picture. Even then, Russia is unlikely to get a democratically inclined, let alone pro-Western leadership. Rather, Putin will most likely be succeeded by a group of his henchmen who share a similar world outlook, including his view of the West and Ukraine.

Still, even if autocratic and paranoid, the next Russian leadership is bound to be less oriented toward a single man at the top. It has been a consistent pattern in Russian and Soviet history that harsh autocratic rulers purged any potential rivals so thoroughly that their departure was inevitably followed by a less powerful, more collective leadership, with none of its members able to impose their whims on all the others. By the very fact of being a collective, Russia’s rulers after Putin will inevitably tread more cautiously, elaborate decisions more thoroughly, and react more rationally, especially on the issues related to the war.

This difference may prove decisive. Given the current state of ever-increasing tensions, it is worth pondering the question of who in Russia is more likely to press the nuclear button: a lonely autocrat obsessed with historical grandeur, or a group of gray apparatchiks bogged down in their internal squabbles? The wrong answer may cost us the planet.

Maxim Samorukov is a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and the managing editor of Carnegie Politika. Twitter: @SamorukovM

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, June 21, 2023 10:29 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Ukraine Could Be Forced to Compromise

With support for the war against Russia waning in the U.S., the counteroffensive may define a new border.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-could-be-forced-to-compromise-408
e67f9?mod=opinion_featst_pos1


Quote:

At the beginning, support for Ukraine in the U.S. was strongly bipartisan. No longer. While Democrats continue to back current levels of assistance, the share of Republicans who believe that we are doing too much has risen steadily, from 9% in March 2022 to 44% today, according to Pew. Recently, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rebuffed a plan backed by both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that would provide supplemental aid for Ukraine outside the normal appropriations process, on which the debt-ceiling agreement imposes caps for defense as well as nondefense spending. Assistance to Kyiv could be cut as soon as the end of September.

Mr. Zelensky must also take into account the possibility that Donald Trump, no friend of Ukraine, will return to the Oval Office after the November 2024 election. Mr. Trump has promised to end the war within 24 hours of taking office. Allowing for hyperbole, there is every reason to believe that he would swiftly reverse current policy, weakening Ukraine’s ability to resist Russian aggression. Unless Mr. Zelensky is prepared to wager the future of his country on the whims of American voters, he should seriously consider locking in the best deal he can get from his allies while support remains strong.





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

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

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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 2:54 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate


Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?

Because they're winning?



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


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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 3:44 PM

THG


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate


Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?

Because they're winning?





Poor comrade signym. She blames everyone but the Russians for their sins upon humanity. No comrade, no. Stand next to Russia as you look in the mirror. You will see who is guilty of broken promises and crimes against humanity.

And understand this. For decades to come the crimes of Russia will be tried not only in the courts, but in the court of public opinion.

T


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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 4:35 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate

SIGNY Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?
Because they're winning?

THUGR: Poor comrade signym. She blames everyone but the Russians for their sins upon humanity. No comrade, no. Stand next to Russia as you look in the mirror. You will see who is guilty of broken promises and crimes against humanity.

And understand this. For decades to come the crimes of Russia will be tried not only in the courts, but in the court of public opinion.


Poor comrade dupe. Everything you post about Russia applies to us as well. World opinion outside of the collective west is turning sour, you're just ignoring it. You're like the bully in the schoolyard who thinks he's on top of the world ... until he's not.



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


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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 4:40 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

THE RUSSIAN WAY OF WAR IN UKRAINE: A MILITARY APPROACH NINE DECADES IN THE MAKING.

It’s fascinating enough to do a full breakdown on because much of the analysis confirms not only many things we’ve been discussing here for months, but also that Russia is adapting, evolving, and arguably revolutionizing modern warfare. And more to the point, it validates the assertions long held by those in the know that Russia’s current—sometimes mystifying—frontline tactics are precisely intentioned choices, rather than the haphazard bricolage of a fouled-up or directionless command.

The article begins with a cautionary note about how Russia’s perceived shortcomings or ‘blunders’—like the Kharkov retreat, etc.—have been over-simplified into a false narrative of a weak or failing armed forces. The author immediately establishes that Russia is actually ‘ahead of [its] time’ in terms of conceptual military strategic advancement.



MORE AT https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dissecting-west-point-think-tanks

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


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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 10:03 PM

SECOND

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


The Russian State Duma adopted a law in the third reading that increases age limitations for contract servicemen during the period of mobilization, martial law, and wartime.[69] High-ranking officers to colonel generals will serve until the age of 70, and all other contract servicemen will be able to retire at 65 years of age - likely essential to keep many aging Russian General Officers in their positions without needing special exemptions.[70] The Russian Federation Council approved a law that allows individuals who committed crimes of “small or medium gravity” and men of limited fitness for military service to sign military contracts with the Russian MoD.[71]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-21-2023


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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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 10:20 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate


Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?

Because they're winning?

Signym, you don't read much, do you?

Objectives such as substituting Western imports with domestic products, having Russians vacation inside the country, and restoring the prestige of the Russian armed forces have been on Putin’s agenda for decades, but in the end, only war proved capable of making Russian bureaucrats, businessmen, and wider society implement them for real.

None of these developments are as straightforward as they may look to Putin — and their costs for Russia are immense. But the key lesson he has drawn from Russian history is that if you want to achieve something worthy in such a vast and disorganized country, the cost will inevitably be high. While the losses will fade with time, the achievements will be remembered by later generations. And even if the costs are high, Putin has not found anything that can rival the war in its destructive efficiency for shaping the history of Russia and the world.

And that is why Putin will never agree to de-escalate.

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, June 21, 2023 10:35 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Why Putin Will Never Agree to De-escalate


Because the USA and the collective west have broken every agreement, treaty, contract, and promise we made with the USSR and Russia?
Because we bragged that the Minsk Agreement was just a delaying tactic that we
never intended to keep?
Bc we, the collective west, have shown ourselves to be dishonest, dishonorable, and "not agreement capable"?

Because they're winning?

Signym, you don't read much, do you?

Objectives such as substituting Western imports with domestic products, having Russians vacation inside the country, and restoring the prestige of the Russian armed forces have been on Putin’s agenda for decades, but in the end, only war proved capable of making Russian bureaucrats, businessmen, and wider society implement them for real.

None of these developments are as straightforward as they may look to Putin — and their costs for Russia are immense. But the key lesson he has drawn from Russian history is that if you want to achieve something worthy in such a vast and disorganized country, the cost will inevitably be high. While the losses will fade with time, the achievements will be remembered by later generations. And even if the costs are high, Putin has not found anything that can rival the war in its destructive efficiency for shaping the history of Russia and the world.

And that is why Putin will never agree to de-escalate.

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

Russia has signed multiple treaties, agreements, and contracts with us (the USA and collective west) and scrupulously kept up their end of every agreement. For example, they kept gas flowing thru Ukraine, paying transit fees even as Ukraine shelled Donbas and refused to pay Russia the $3 billion that they owed.

We OTOH have renged on every promise made and every document signed, from nuclear treaties to dicking over long-term gas contracts and loans, from stealing Russia's assets to banning Russian ballet. Russians started talking about Americans not being "agreement capable" years ago, and they just added Europe to the list.

The one lesson they learned from being constantly backstabbed by the west is that the only thing we understand is power, and the only thing that will make us stop behaving like world-class jerks is ignominious defeat.

That's our fault, not theirs.


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


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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 11:15 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:

Russia has signed multiple treaties, agreements, and contracts with us (the USA and collective west) and scrupulously kept up their end of every agreement. For example, they kept gas flowing thru Ukraine, paying transit fees even as Ukraine shelled Donbas and refused to pay Russia the $3 billion that they owed.

We OTOH have renged on every promise made and every document signed, from nuclear treaties to dicking over long-term gas contracts and loans, from stealing Russia's assets to banning Russian ballet. Russians started talking about Americans not being "agreement capable" years ago, and they just added Europe to the list.

The one lesson they learned from being constantly backstabbed by the west is that the only thing we understand is power, and the only thing that will make us stop behaving like world-class jerks is ignominious defeat.

That's our fault, not theirs.

Signym, do you realize that Russia is poor compared to nations in the EU? Putin explains it by blaming the West. That is not reality. Under Putin, Russia has developed into a fully criminal gang state where the courtiers and leading supporters of the Kremlin leadership have been permitted to plunder the state. This plundering has now continued for more than 20 years. And the state that has been plundered is a petrostate with natural gas and oil revenues with assets on the order of “low trillions” of dollars. Plundering is how Russia became poor. The late author Karen Dawisha, in her book Putin’s Kleptocracy, noted that in Russia, every year, hundreds of billions of dollars are paid to affiliates of the regime in bribery money alone.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/21/russian-frozen-assets-ukraine-rec
onstruction
/

Download all of Karen Dawisha's books for free from the mirrors at http://libgen.is/search.php?req=Karen+Dawisha

A quote from chapter 7 of Putin's Kleptocracy:

Corruption, Society, and the Economy

Russian society has had years of turbulence that produced decreased birth rates and increased mortality rates, especially among Russia’s men. While Putin’s early years brought greater social stability, this has eroded since the mid-2000s, so that by 2012 the 1.7 births per Russian woman, although slightly higher than previously (thanks to numbers from non-Russian republics like Chechnya, Dagestan, and Tuva), was still 20 percent below replacement level. Birth rates are not that different from European norms, but statistics on mortality rates are striking. The lack of adequate medical care produces five times more deaths from cardiovascular disease among women in Russia than in Europe. More Russian women die annually from domestic violence than the number of soldiers the USSR lost in the entire Afghan war. For Russian men, the situation is even grimmer. Poor workplace and road safety standards, plus high rates of suicide and homicide combine with the negative health effects of high alcohol consumption to make life especially precarious for Russian men. According to the World Health Organization, the life expectancy of a fifteen-year-old male is three years lower in Russia than in Haiti.1 Added to these demographic maladies are the millions of Russians, mainly girls, that have been lost to sex trafficking. Russia’s compliance with international conventions on human trafficking declined for nine straight years, and in 2013 the U.S. State Department finally gave Russia’s compliance the lowest ranking possible, below Rwanda.2

These statistics are directly affected by corruption. When the health budget is raided and stolen, funds dry up for neonatal care, medicines to treat cancer, public health campaigns against HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis, and improved emergency response. Russia committed to building its first eight-bed women’s shelter in St. Petersburg, but by 2013 it still had not opened.3 Despite receiving $1.6 trillion from oil and gas exports from 2000 to 2011, Russia was not able to build a single interstate highway during this time. There is still no interstate highway linking Moscow to the Far East; in contrast, China, another top-down authoritarian regime, has built 4,360 miles of modern highways annually for the last ten years . . .

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, June 22, 2023 2:51 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


dragging another red herring across your very own argument again, I see.what does poverty have to do with whether or not we (the collective west) can be trusted to keep our promises?

it doesn't.

sod off, troll.

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


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Thursday, June 22, 2023 6:13 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
dragging another red herring across your very own argument again, I see.what does poverty have to do with whether or not we (the collective west) can be trusted to keep our promises?

it doesn't.

sod off, troll.

How can CO2, increasing from 300 parts per million to more than 400 parts per million have such huge Climate effects? One part per million is so tiny that it could not possibly change things. In Russia, corruption and incompetence at the very top have increased by parts per million compared to other countries, but the effect has been disastrous for the economic climate of Russia. The Russian leadership is screaming that it is all a hoax. That things are not bad in Russia, except for what the West did to Russia. Signym, I am not sorry to tell you this but Russia's poverty relative to other countries is not a hoax. The poverty was caused by Russia's corrupt and incompetent leaders, not the West, and conquering Ukraine will not fix what is wrong with Russia.

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, June 22, 2023 6:14 AM

SECOND

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


Russian TV Threatens Destruction of London: 'We Will Bury Them'

Mikhail Delyagin, who is a deputy in the Russian parliament, gave his view on relations between Russia and the West.

"As long as the City of London is not destroyed and exists as one of the financial centers of the world — if only a secondary one...this cadaver-like poison is a danger," he said on June 15. He then added, "we will bury them."

Delyagin also said that "capitalism is ending," suggesting his critique was of London as a financial center.

The rhetoric on Solovyov's show regularly includes boasts of Russia's nuclear capabilities and even describing the West in general and sometimes Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in particular, as "satanic."

This does not necessarily reflect the thinking of the Kremlin, although presenters are regularly given a list of topics and angles on them to discuss, known as "temniki."

Presenters then often interpret these and experiment with different narratives to compete for attention from both the public and the Kremlin.

Last week, Solovyov called for the use of nuclear weapons against NATO countries where equipment and training are helping Ukraine's war effort. He also said that the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in the Ukraine conflict was "inevitable."

https://www.newsweek.com/delyagin-missiles-russia-solovyov-1808119

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, June 22, 2023 6:16 AM

SECOND

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


We Will Bury You – Russia's new Sarmat nuclear missiles

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia's new generation of Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads, would soon be deployed for combat duty.

In a speech to new graduates of military academies, Putin stressed the importance of Russia's "triad" of nuclear forces that can be launched from land, sea or air.

"The most important task here is the development of the nuclear triad, which is a key guarantee of Russia's military security and global stability," he said.

"Already about half of the units and formations of the Strategic Missile Forces are equipped with the latest Yars systems, and the troops are being re-equipped with modern missile systems with the Avangard hypersonic warhead."

The first Sarmat launchers will be put on combat duty "in the near future", Putin said.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told the assembled graduates in the Kremlin's St George's Hall, which commemorates the greatest feats in Russian military history, that the "collective West" was waging a "real war" against Russia.

Putin has repeatedly said since the start of the Ukraine conflict that Russia is ready to use all means, including nuclear weapons, to defend its "territorial integrity". Last year he said he was placing territories seized in Ukraine that Russia now claims as its own under Moscow's nuclear umbrella.

As recently as last week, however, Putin said Ukrainian forces had "no chance" in their current counteroffensive, and Russia had no need to resort to nuclear weapons.

The new Sarmat missile is designed to carry out nuclear strikes on targets thousands of missiles away in the United States or Europe. But its deployment has proceeded slower than planned, as Russia had said in April 2022 that it would be in place by autumn of that year.

Dmitry Rogozin, then head of Russia's space agency, said at that time that the missiles would be deployed with a unit in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, about 3,000 km (1,860 miles) east of Moscow.

Rogozin said they would be placed at the same sites and in the same silos as the Soviet-era Voyevoda missiles they are replacing, hailing the new "super-weapon" as an historic event that would guarantee the security of Russia's children and grandchildren for the next 30-40 years.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/putin-says-russias-
new-sarmat-nuclear-missiles-soon-ready-deployment-2023-06-21
/

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, June 22, 2023 6:41 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
dragging another red herring across your very own argument again, I see.what does poverty have to do with whether or not we (the collective west) can be trusted to keep our promises?

it doesn't.

sod off, troll.

How can CO2, increasing from 300 parts per million to more than 400 parts per million have such huge Climate effects? One part per million is so tiny that it could not possibly change things. In Russia, corruption and incompetence at the very top have increased by parts per million compared to other countries, but the effect has been disastrous for the economic climate of Russia. The Russian leadership is screaming that it is all a hoax. That things are not bad in Russia, except for what the West did to Russia. Signym, I am not sorry to tell you this but Russia's poverty relative to other countries is not a hoax. The poverty was caused by Russia's corrupt and incompetent leaders, not the West, and conquering Ukraine will not fix what is wrong with Russia.

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

And what does his have to do with whether or not the collective west can be trusted to negotiate honestly/

it doesn't.

You're a perect example of the weasels on our government, troll.

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


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Thursday, June 22, 2023 12:04 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:

And what does his have to do with whether or not the collective west can be trusted to negotiate honestly/

it doesn't.

You're a perect example of the weasels on our government, troll.

The sad and poor Russians who deposited money outside Russia might lose it all despite none of them having any animosity toward Ukraine:

How to Use Russia’s Frozen Assets to Rebuild Ukraine

Conventional institutions won’t be able to handle reparations.

by Azeem Ibrahim, June 21, 2023, 12:02 PM

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/21/russian-frozen-assets-ukraine-rec
onstruction
/

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought with it atrocities on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II. Critical civilian infrastructure including schools, hospitals, and homes have been intentionally targeted. The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam serves as the most recent reminder of a deliberate, callous, and systematic dismantling of the country.

Ukraine lost 29 percent of its GDP in 2022 — 13 million citizens have been displaced. Reconstruction costs are running over $400 billion — not including those areas to the south and east of the Dnipro occupied by Russia.

In November 2022, the United Nations formally acknowledged that Russia must bear the legal repercussions of its internationally wrongful actions, including making reparations for damages inflicted upon Ukraine and her people. This recognition also underscored the urgency for an international mechanism to facilitate this compensation.

But the stark reality is that an unrepentant Russia is bent on inflicting as much damage on Ukraine as possible and evading its international obligations. While Russia may well lose the war, it is unlikely to lose in the kind of total fashion that made extracting reparations from, for instance, Germany after the world wars possible. Russia has veto power at its disposal to obstruct conventional avenues of securing reparations through some international institutions. Progress on this, however, has been made by scholars at the New Lines Institute. The result is an innovative proposal that makes full use of the latent legal power nation-states hold through their domestic laws to do more than just freeze Russian state assets. Our report shows how these assets can be legally transferred to Ukraine for use in reconstruction efforts.

The Multilateral Asset Transfer proposal builds on past research, including the Multilateral Action Model on Reparations (MAMOR), to shed light on the legal potency of existing national law, empowering countries to go beyond the mere freezing of Russian assets. Our report shows how countries can instead legally take a step further and transfer the roughly $350 billion in Russian assets to Ukrainian escrow accounts in central banks using legal entitlements under the law of countermeasures.
https://newlinesinstitute.org/ukraine/multilateral-action-model-on-rep
arations
/
https://newlinesinstitute.org/ukraine/multilateral-framework-for-trans
ferring-state-assets
/

A distinctive feature of this model is its ability to legally function without being trapped in international institutions. The model sidesteps Russia’s United Nations Security Council veto power by using only seized and frozen Russian assets, a method already provided for in U.S. law. This innovative approach could accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery and societal rebuilding, eliminating the waiting game usually associated with traditional reparation models.

The Multilateral Asset Transfer proposal’s second great strength lies in its simplicity and adaptability — it can be molded to the legal context of each nation adopting it, enabling a unified yet flexible approach to enforcing accountability. By design, this proposal leads to the creation of a global fund that will serve as a reservoir for these assets, effectively and efficiently making resources available for reconstruction to begin as early as this year.

The result will be a global fund securing the necessary finances for a war-torn Ukraine while simultaneously preserving Russian incentives to reengage with the international order strategically. The possibility of returning remaining funds to Russian state bank accounts and restoring Russian sovereign immunity is kept open, contingent on Russia’s constructive reengagement with international law. This fits seamlessly into NATO’s carrot-and-stick approach to coercive diplomacy.

Given the global backdrop of soaring inflation, recession, rising national debts, and tightening budgets, funding Ukraine’s reconstruction from domestic budgets is likely to be an unpopular and politically unpalatable move, even among Ukraine’s staunchest allies. Across Europe, parties opposing further financial support for Ukraine are gaining political ground, arguably including Italy, Spain, Greece, and Finland. Raising funds in a way that preserves political unity in the West is a clear necessity.

There are certainly other realistic sources of reparations, such as placing a charge on Russian oil and gas revenues and subjecting Russian sovereign debt to secondary sanctions. Yet these will also require specific legal infrastructure and legislation that will take time to bring about. For a start, Russian state assets — such as the Russian Central Bank and assets held by state-owned corporations such as Gazprom, Rosneft, and Rosatom — are potentially subject to forfeiture. These sources of capital will become necessary as the reconstruction costs exceed the $350 billion of already-frozen assets.

A further source of capital that can be seized is a broader range of Russian assets held in the West. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has developed into a fully criminal gang state where the courtiers and leading supporters of the Kremlin leadership have been permitted to plunder the state. This plundering has now continued for more than 20 years. And the state that has been plundered is a petrostate with natural gas and oil revenues with assets ripe for seizure in the order of what our MAMOR report assessed to be in the “low trillions” of dollars.

Unless the world cooperates to do something about it.

The late author Karen Dawisha, in her book Putin’s Kleptocracy, noted that in Russia, every year, hundreds of billions of dollars are paid to affiliates of the regime in bribery money alone. A creative treaty regime could render those assets available for seizure and use in the fund, and work should begin so that it can be actioned in time to benefit the reconstruction efforts.

A solution is also needed that can direct funds to the areas where they are most needed and where reparation money is warranted. The report’s proposed commission would work as follows: The Ukrainian state, individual Ukrainians, and Ukrainian private and public entities would provide proof of damages, which the commission would verify. Given the scale of potential claims, it is likely that there will be millions of claims from individuals and firms, as well as from the Ukrainian state. It is likely that the compensation commission will have to develop a new mass claim system to speed things along. Once positively verified, the commission would then make an assessment on the amount it could disburse and authorize a payment from the fund.

The West finds itself scrambling to project power in ways that both put paid to any idea that its resolve is weakening and avoid any accusation of illegality or escalation. The proposed approach, in this dimension, goes beyond the immediate needs of Ukraine. It sets a precedent that could deter other border conflicts, such as those between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and potentially even China and Taiwan. It effectively conveys to nation-states contemplating acts of aggression that the international community will hold them accountable and seek compensation for damages inflicted.

Putin’s war has, unintentionally, of course, already spurred the deepening of NATO’s defense cooperation and led in several cases to a dramatic expansion of military spending. One of the defining elements of this crisis has been the unexpected solidarity among the democracies of Europe, and the swift dismissal of earlier “quietist” policies. Europe is now undergoing a phase of rearmament that demands more soldiers, expanded logistics corps, and additional resources.

Our hope is that the legal legacy will be held in equally high esteem and advance the precedents set by the postwar Paris Agreement on Reparation of 1946 and the actions of the U.N. Compensation Commission (UNCC), which used Iraqi oil revenues to compensate Kuwaiti claimants $52 billion over 30 years of operation.

The Paris Agreement saw multiple countries working together to define and collect a vast pool of assets, drawn from both public and private sources, from the defeated Nazi state. The victorious allies adopted the Paris Agreement on Reparation on Jan. 14, 1946. The agreement allowed for the seizure of German assets in those countries that had signed the treaty and provided for negotiation with those that did not to set up joint efforts to locate and seize Nazi assets internationally for use in reparations payments. Similar measures are now needed.


The New Lines Institute’s model aims to help international law and governance adapt to modern warfare — and is already under advisement by numerous major nations and economies worldwide. Its legacy will, we sincerely hope, be felt not just in the bricks and mortar of Ukraine, but in the full restoration of the peacekeeping function of international law.

This article was partially adapted from the New Lines MAMOR 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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Thursday, June 22, 2023 2:04 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.

But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!

So unless something incredible happens ... like, the whole neocon/security state/media cabal is somewhow swept from power, or NATO/USA makes real, on-the-ground concessions like removing missile installations and bases from Russia's border... expect Russia to keep fighting until they've reached their objectives satsifactorily.


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


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Thursday, June 22, 2023 2:16 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

KIEV AIMS TO LOWER EXPECTATIONS
Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has been underway for over two weeks, and Kiev has little to show for the loss of life and military equipment expended the in the operations. On Monday, a Ukrainian military official attempted to lower expectations for the counteroffensive. In Washington, members of Congress say future support Kiev depends on regaining territory.

In an interview with the Czech Present Time TV station Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov downplayed how much territory Kiev will retake in the counteroffensive. “The Russians had the opportunity to prepare. There is an incredible density of minefields,” he said. “Our officers, our commanders are maneuvering, look for opportunities, move carefully. I suggest not pushing them, not pushing them, they are doing their job. And they will do it.”

While Reznikov argued Kiev’s attempt to preserve its soldiers’ lives is slowing the operations, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, believes Ukraine will sustain massive losses during the counteroffensive. “This is a very difficult fight. It’s a very violent fight, and it will likely take considerable time and at high cost,” he said.

...

Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister, Hanna Maliar, acknowledged there was extensive fighting along the frontlines and Russian forces were on the offensive in some areas. “In the south, battles are currently taking place in the directions where Ukrainian soldiers are advancing, and the enemy is on the defensive,” she posted on Telegram. “At the same time, we have directions where, on the contrary, the enemy is advancing, and we are on the defensive. For example, Kupiansk and Lyman.”

Washington has been helping Kiev plan the counteroffensive since the Winter. The US and other NATO countries pour weapons into Ukraine for the operations. So far, Ukraine has failed to retake territory.


MORE AT https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/kiev-aims-to-lower-expectations-
for-counteroffensive
/



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


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Thursday, June 22, 2023 2:51 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.

But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!

So unless something incredible happens ... like, the whole neocon/security state/media cabal is somewhow swept from power, or NATO/USA makes real, on-the-ground concessions like removing missile installations and bases from Russia's border... expect Russia to keep fighting until they've reached their objectives satsifactorily.

Russian oligarchs are inseparable from Putin. He bribes them with hundreds of billions of US dollars per year. They are his people because of the bribes.

How Putin Conquered Russia's Oligarchy
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/29/1088886554/how-putin-con
quered-russias-oligarchy


The Ukraine war is Putin's hobby in his declining years. He won't admit that he arbitrarily and capriciously decided to go to war much like Stalin did with Finland. The sneaking little weasels running Russia have always given fake reasons for their international wars because the truth makes them look foolish. (Stalin's adventure into Finland convinced Hitler that Russia had a weak army. If Stalin hadn't invaded Finland, Hitler won't have invaded Russia. There would not have been a Great Patriotic War. Stalin was foolish. Putin is foolish, convincing the world Russia has a weak army.)

And Putin can't say the truth about why Russians are poorer than Europeans. He gives fake reasons for the same reason he invades, the true reasons make him look foolish.

Why Russia is poor despite natural resources
https://www.google.com/search?q=why+is+russia+poor+despite+natural+res
ources


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, June 22, 2023 6:31 PM

SECOND

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


Why do no decent people defend the Russians? This is why:

Putin Ally Doubles Down on Call to Use Nukes After Strike on Crimean Bridge
By Jon Jackson On 6/22/23 at 2:48 PM EDT

Vladimir Solovyov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a well-known propagandist, addressed reports that Ukrainian missiles damaged a bridge in Crimea by calling on Russia to "batter" Ukraine with tactical nuclear weapons.

Russia's military seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, and strikes on the region have escalated in recent months. On Thursday, Russian officials said Ukraine's forces had blown a hole in the Chonhar bridge, which connects Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson region with Moscow-annexed Crimea.

Ukrainian authorities did not directly claim responsibility for the attack, but Ukrainian military spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk commented on national TV about the goal of disrupting Russia's logistics.

The bridge attack resulted in Solovyov returning to a familiar theme. Throughout the war that Putin began in February 2022, Solovyov has repeatedly called for Russia to use tactical nukes in the war, and on Thursday he said the strike in Crimea is another example of why Russia should use such weapons.

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-ally-doubles-down-call-use-nukes-strike
-crimean-bridge-1808502


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, June 22, 2023 7:02 PM

THG


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.

But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!






Simple, because Russia said it would not invade Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, so they did. Russia invaded, Liars.

We said if they gave up their nukes and were attacked we would help, which we are. Honest, see comrade, simple.

T


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Thursday, June 22, 2023 7:45 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 THG:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.

But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!


Simple, because Russia said it would not invade Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, so they did. Russia invaded, Liars.

We said if they gave up their nukes and were attacked we would help, which we are. Honest, see comrade, simple.

T


When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. When Ukrainian-Russian negotiations on removing these weapons from Ukraine appeared to break down in September 1993, the U.S. government engaged in a trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia. The result was the Trilateral Statement, signed in January 1994, under which Ukraine agreed to transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination. In return, Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain; compensation for the economic value of the highly-enriched uranium in the warheads (which could be blended down and converted into fuel for nuclear reactors); and assistance from the United States in dismantling the missiles, missile silos, bombers and nuclear infrastructure on its territory. Steven Pifer recounts the history of this unique negotiation and describes the key lessons learned.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-trilateral-process-the-united-s
tates-ukraine-russia-and-nuclear-weapons
/

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, June 22, 2023 7:52 PM

THG


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by THG:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh yes, pity the poor Russian oligarchs who parasitized Russia and took their gains out of Russia.

But what does this have to do with whether we, the collective west, can be counted on to reach agreement honestly and keep up our end of the bargain? Bc, yanno, uness that happens, Russia will not negotiate with us again. They've learned their lesson, many times over!


Simple, because Russia said it would not invade Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, so they did. Russia invaded, Liars.

We said if they gave up their nukes and were attacked we would help, which we are. Honest, see comrade, simple.

T


When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. When Ukrainian-Russian negotiations on removing these weapons from Ukraine appeared to break down in September 1993, the U.S. government engaged in a trilateral process with Ukraine and Russia. The result was the Trilateral Statement, signed in January 1994, under which Ukraine agreed to transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination. In return, Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain; compensation for the economic value of the highly-enriched uranium in the warheads (which could be blended down and converted into fuel for nuclear reactors); and assistance from the United States in dismantling the missiles, missile silos, bombers and nuclear infrastructure on its territory. Steven Pifer recounts the history of this unique negotiation and describes the key lessons learned.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-trilateral-process-the-united-s
tates-ukraine-russia-and-nuclear-weapons
/

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





Simple, because Russia said it would not invade Ukraine if they gave up their nukes, so they did. Russia invaded, Liars.

We said if they gave up their nukes and were attacked we would help, which we are. Honest, see comrade, simple.


T


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Thursday, June 22, 2023 7:58 PM

SECOND

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


The key line in The Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances is this line, which Russia broke many times every day year after year:

1. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

https://treaties.un.org/Pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800000280401fbb

https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume
-3007-I-52241.pdf


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

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Friday, June 23, 2023 7:21 AM

SECOND

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


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukrainian intelligence indicates that Russian forces are preparing to conduct a possible sabotage attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). A Russian-created radiological incident at the ZNPP remains unlikely but not impossible. Zelensky stated that the planned attack would release radiation from the ZNPP, and announced that Ukrainian officials will widely share their intelligence on the planned attack with partners and international organizations in the coming days.[22] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Kyrylo Budanov reported on June 20 that Russian forces had mined additional areas at the ZNPP, including the facility’s cooling pond.[23] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated on June 21 that its representatives have not observed any mines at the cooling pond, although it did acknowledge that Russian forces have mined areas in and around the ZNPP.[24] Russian forces would not be able to control the consequences of an intentional radiological incident at the ZNPP, which could impact their forces more than Ukrainian forces across the Kakhovka Reservoir given conditions at the time of the incident. An intentional radiological incident could also leave many areas in occupied southern Ukraine uninhabitable and ungovernable, further degrading Russia’s ability to cement its occupation of southern Ukraine, and the destruction of the power plant would be a drastic act. Russian forces may be signaling that they are preparing to sabotage the ZNPP in order to dissuade Ukrainian forces from conducting counteroffensive operations in the area. The Kremlin has routinely employed threats of nuclear escalation and warned of (largely Russian imposed) threats to the safety of the ZNPP in an attempt to pressure Ukraine to constrain its military actions and prevent further Western security assistance to Ukraine.[25] However, the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam also harmed Russian forces, and possible Russian plans to sabotage the ZNPP cannot be ruled out and should be prepared for by Ukraine and its partners.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-22-2023


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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Friday, June 23, 2023 7:32 AM

SECOND

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


Either this is more Russian diplomatic nonsense, or else the Russians are truthfully claiming that if Ukraine had surrendered immediately, Russia would not have destroyed so much of Ukraine to force a surrender:

Russia Demands U.S. Pay Reparations for Helping Ukraine in War
By Isabel van Brugen On 6/22/23 at 9:02 AM EDT

Moscow's envoy in Washington, D.C. has demanded that the U.S. pays reparations for helping Ukraine in the war.

The Biden administration "is fully responsible for what is happening in Ukraine," Russian ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov told reporters on Wednesday.

According to state-run news agency Tass, Antonov was responding to remarks made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier that day at the Ukraine Recovery Conference, jointly hosted by the United Kingdom and Ukraine in London, that Russia has to bear the cost of Ukraine's reconstruction.

"The Ukrainian conflict is the result of years of deliberate efforts by the United States to create a hotbed of tensions at our borders, to turn Ukraine into 'anti-Russia,'" Antonov said.

"Here they are trying to ignore the truth: by supporting the anti-constitutional coup in Kyiv in 2014, Washington and the Western countries provoked the crisis, which has been going on for nine years," the envoy continued.

"Now the United States is even more active in fomenting confrontation. It pumps the republic with powerful weapons and cuts down any peaceful initiatives in the bud."

"Only, while it is still possible to pay for the houses, destroyed with the help of American weapons, how will then Washington evaluate the lives of innocent people? How is the United States going to settle accounts with the Ukrainians, whom they are driving into reckless frontal assaults in today's so-called counter-offensive?" Antonov said.

The diplomat added: "That's why it is up to the United States to rebuild the country."

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned in December that members of the NATO military alliance providing Ukraine with assistance could be "legitimate military targets."

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-us-antonov-blinken-reparations-ukraine
-war-1808439


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

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Friday, June 23, 2023 10:39 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukrainian intelligence indicates that Russian forces are preparing to conduct a possible sabotage attack at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).

Why would ANYONE repeat this with a straight face?

This makes as much sense as Russia bombing its own pipelines (when it could simply have turned off the taps) or blowing open its own dam (when it could simply open the floodgates) - or shelling its own people at the ZNPP.

If Russia ruins the power plant -which it controls, is in its territory, and supplies electricity to its portion of the former Ukraine - not only will it lose electricity from the Europe's largest npp, it will face a monumental cleanup of the facility itself and the surrounding area.

You'd have to be a psycho like SECOND to believe Zelensky's coke-addled delusions. This is IMO just a preplanted 'explanation' for Ukraine itself creating a nuclear disaster and blaming it on Russia.

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


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Friday, June 23, 2023 11:20 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


THE THEORY AND ART OF WAFARE
This is extracted from a hugely long article and itself was edited for brevity.

Quote:

But the author [of a USA report] leaves us with one final very important point:

However, current battlefield conditions are adding the related difficulty of achieving the concentration of forces necessary for establishing main efforts during offensive operations. This is reducing large-scale engagements and thereby necessitating a concentration and synchronization of effects, rather than a traditional physical massing of troops. In turn, this places an extra burden on command and control, especially when contested by electronic warfare. Only by disrupting the opponent’s kill chain can larger formations regain the ability to concentrate and engage in maneuver warfare. During the war in Ukraine, superiority in kill-chain effectiveness has become one of the prime objectives for both sides. In this war and any other characterized by the same dynamics, this superiority becomes an essential condition for victory.

It may read as a bit of a word salad for the uninitiated, but allow me to break it down because it converges with a conclusive point I myself made a few reports back about how it’s possible to break the feared modern deadlock.

Firstly, it reiterates the obvious one last time: that achieving the necessary force concentration required to make breakthroughs is nearly impossible because large globs of units are too vulnerable to instant annihilation by unstoppable long range precision systems. Just last week there was ‘rumor’ that a Chechen commander who gave a ‘rousing speech’ to a large collection of his troops ended up being visited by the HIMARs fairy within moments.

The simple fact is, small modern drones are nearly invisible to radars.
... The point being that there is simply no way to get around the fact that small drones will be buzzing and watching you at all times no matter how big of a ‘super power’ you are, and any troop concentration you foolishly expose onto the field will be quickly bombed by a competent foe.

But the key is the next sentence, which I’ll paste again:

This is reducing large-scale engagements and thereby necessitating a concentration and synchronization of effects, rather than a traditional physical massing of troops. In turn, this places an extra burden on command and control, especially when contested by electronic warfare.

This is the crux of it all: in order to circumvent this deadlock, the only way is by creating a highly efficient, fluid and well-trained command and control that can very competently coordinate the various units and ‘effects’ (EW, fires, psych/hybrid, etc.) in a potently synchronized fashion so as to enable advancing ground units to make punctures and breakthroughs in the enemy’s lines by way of the other coordinated systems identifying and suppressing key defensive structures, batteries, etc.

In short, it requires a full spectrum combined arms capability where airforce, [includig satellite], divisional artillery, signals/EW troops, and lower command all operate in smooth synchronization to make the advance together. If you’ll recall, this was exactly the chief point I belabored in explaining why the AFU’s first big Leopard/Bradley foray failed in the minefields, and how they weren’t able to synchronize all the required elements in order to suppress Russian defenses (artillery, ATGMs, mine re-layers, etc.), which caused a herky jerky advance that sometimes saw the AFU armor convoys having to “stop and wait” in place for extended periods of time while their forward scouts or drone ISR teams slowly relayed coordinates to fires groups in an attempt to suppress the defenses enough that the armor group can advance without instant destruction.

The problem is Russia still has issues with integration of this sort. It may be better than Ukraine’s, and it’s improving every day, with some sectors and unit pairings / theater commands faring better than others. But there have been cases in the past, particularly during the Kharkov offensive of last year, where horror stories abounded about the lack of communication/coordination between Russian air groups and ground forces, as an example, with Su-25 pilots trying desperately to call troops on the ground with their cellphones in order to figure out who to bomb.

You might wonder how that’s possible when the entire point of this article is to convey Russia’s decades of military brilliance in theorizing these very solutions. [operaional theory, which bridges tactics and strategy] The issue lies in the fact that it’s one thing to theorize all this, and a whole different thing to smoothly institute it into your command structures and, most importantly, train and inculcate it into every one of your troops and units. So, while they developed these systems on paper, the actual implementation of it remains patchy—but it’s greatly improving all the time.



MORE. LOTS MORE. AT https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dissecting-west-point-think-tanks

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


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Friday, June 23, 2023 11:33 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THE THEORY AND ART OF WAFARE
This is extracted from a hugely long article and itself was edited for brevity.

MORE. LOTS MORE. AT https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/dissecting-west-point-think-tanks

The article ends with this gem of wistfulness leftover from the good-old Soviet Union days: "When the modernization catches up with that critical saturation point of the necessary high-tech networked systems, it’s clear that Russia will have turned a corner, and we will see a Russian army like no other. The decades of theorizing and doctrine evolution will have converged with the technological progress necessary to successfully implement these doctrines into practice. And at that point, no other army in the world will have both the institutionalized doctrinal grounding and the technology, equipment, and experience to overcome the great enigma of the modern battlefield."

Alternatively, a Russian could shoot Putin in the head and the next Russian leader could then declare "Ukrainian Mission Accomplished" and forget these wasteful dreams of a super Army that can't lose.

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

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Friday, June 23, 2023 11:59 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

If Russia ruins the power plant -which it controls, is in its territory, and supplies electricity to its portion of the former Ukraine - not only will it lose electricity from the Europe's largest npp, it will face a monumental cleanup of the facility itself and the surrounding area.

Signym, you know I check your statements. All 6 reactors are shutdown, producing no electricity.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-asks-iaea-ensure-zaporizhz
hia-nuclear-plant-security-2023-06-23
/

In a final show of contempt for Ukrainians and their property and farmlands, if Russia blows up these reactors because it lost the war, Russia will not clean this up any more than clean up the damage Russia has done elsewhere in Ukraine.

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

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Friday, June 23, 2023 12:12 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


Quote:

Originally posted by second:


“Please let me die”: Freed Ukrainian POW describes first thoughts after Russian capture | 60 Minutes






Can you link to another site, maybe bitchute, rumble or odysee,

it says Age Restricted on Susan Wojcicki's u tube

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