Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Blaming "Russians" for things that happened a century ago is as nuts as blaming "Germans" for the Holocaust or blaming "Americans" for genocide of the indigenes and slavery.

So let's put those responsible on trial: the Tsar, and Lenin, and Trotsky, and Stalin....and while we're at it Hitler, Mao, and Truman, and all former American slave owners.. and Albright, Kissinger, and GWB and Hillary!

What, you say? Only Hillary and Kissinger and GWB are reachable?

Sod off, troll.

It is a long-established pattern that Russians will murder and then follow that up with endless lies. It is absolutely no surprise that Ukrainians are fighting Russians. If the Ukrainians surrender, they will die by the millions, exactly like during Holodomor, and the Russians will deny they killed the Ukrainians. The Russians must really think they have perfected their system, but any child can see that Russians are habitual murderers.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Holodomor

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 30, 2023 5:55 PM

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

There is "no question" that Russian President Vladimir Putin used a body double to appear at the Kremlin leader's latest public engagement in the wake of the Wagner Group armed rebellion, one expert has told Newsweek.

Following the Wagner Group of mercenaries' aborted military rebellion and advance towards Moscow on Saturday, Putin appeared before adoring crowds in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan for what the Kremlin said was a visit to discuss tourism in the region.

But footage from Putin's trip quickly reignited long-running rumors that the Kremlin leader was using a body double rather than greeting citizens himself. In clips widely circulating online on Thursday, Putin shakes hands with excited members of the public and kisses a schoolgirl on the head as she poses for a photo alongside the Russian leader.

Western journalists questioned the behavior displayed in the clips, as did prominent Russian nationalist military bloggers such as Igor Girkin.

Moscow has denied that Putin uses body doubles, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissing reports as "yet another lie" in April. Back in 2020, Putin told state news agency Tass that he had been offered the use of stand-ins for public appearances in the early 2000s, but he "declined these body doubles." There has been no concrete proof to show Putin has used stand-ins.

However, the marked departure from Putin's observed patterns is "extraordinary," according to Matthew Wyman, a senior lecturer in politics specializing in Russia at the U.K.'s Keele University.

"There is no question that that was not Vladimir Putin," he told Newsweek on Thursday. "That was a body double."

It is "totally inconceivable" that the Russian leader would carry out an engagement in person just days after the stability of his rule was threatened by Wagner, Wyman said.

"You are not going to put yourself in any groups of unfamiliar people at all," he said.

Long-time Putin ally and head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led an advance towards Moscow after his fighters seized control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Although his fighters abruptly stopped more than 100 miles from the capital, Western politicians and analysts said Saturday's events showed "cracks" in the Kremlin's leadership.

Wyman pointed to marked differences in Putin's demeanor compared with previous outings.

"In all sorts of ways, Putin just does not act like that," he said, adding his body language in the clips coming out of Dagestan do not match up to the past behaviors of a "man who does not show emotion publicly."

There were some observable changes to his behavior, particularly his "openness when it comes to dealing with the crowd," agreed Marina Miron, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.

"This is probably the main reason why these 'double' theories started appearing," she told Newsweek on Thursday.

Putin is "highly, highly cautious about who he lets near him," Wyman added.

Multiple reports have previously said that, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Putin put strict quarantine measures in place to protect himself from the risk of infection. Earlier this year, a former senior Russian security officer said that the Kremlin leader "surrounds himself with an impenetrable barrier of quarantines."

"Putin is not known to let anyone close to him (since the COVID-19 pandemic), and here we see him taking selfies with normal people," Miron said.

In the footage, Putin appears "much stiffer and much more controlled in the way that he moves" than in other clips, Wyman argued.

Although he declined to discuss the specifics of how such a likeness to the Russian leader could be achieved, Wyman said the strategy around appearing in public, and in Dagestan, makes little sense.

"The whole thing does not compute at any level," he said.

Several theories have circulated in recent years, including that Putin has multiple stand-ins. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said the Kremlin leader uses body doubles, with Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Kyiv's military intelligence agency, saying in an interview earlier in June that Putin "would never talk to alleged local residents."

"We know specifically about three people that keep appearing, but how many there are, we don't know," Ukrainian military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, told The Daily Mail in October 2022 of Putin's apparent encounters with members of the public.

"Gesturing, body language and earlobes" give away the body doubles, Budanov said.

But while the person in Dagestan on Thursday "of course, could be a double," Miron said, Putin may also be "keen to show that he is not afraid to let his guard down and to reinforce his public image."

"Whether or not he used a double to do this, is impossible to tell," and he may have "decided to act in a different way to seem more down-to-earth," Miron argued.

The Kremlin is likely hoping to "rather desperately" present an image of "work carrying on exactly as normal" following the mutiny, Wyman said.

"He came out victorious out of this debacle and now he's trying to regain support," Miron said.

Newsweek has reached out to the Kremlin for comment via email.

https://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-body-double-dagestan-visit-rus
sia-wagner-group-armed-rebellion-1809922

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 30, 2023 6:03 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

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

Blaming "Russians" for things that happened a century ago is as nuts as blaming "Germans" for the Holocaust or blaming "Americans" for genocide of the indigenes and slavery.

So let's put those responsible on trial: the Tsar, and Lenin, and Trotsky, and Stalin....and while we're at it Hitler, Mao, and Truman, and all former American slave owners.. and Albright, Kissinger, and GWB and Hillary!

What, you say? Only Hillary and Kissinger and GWB are reachable?

Sod off, troll.
It is a long-established pattern that Russians will murder and then follow that up with endless lies.

We could say the same of Americans. At least Russians kill Russians (you say). We kill EVERYBODY! Since the founding of our nation, in fact. And then we memory-hole it.

That probably explains why so many people in the world hate us. Which we also refuse to recognize.

Troll.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 30, 2023 6:18 PM

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

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

Blaming "Russians" for things that happened a century ago is as nuts as blaming "Germans" for the Holocaust or blaming "Americans" for genocide of the indigenes and slavery.

So let's put those responsible on trial: the Tsar, and Lenin, and Trotsky, and Stalin....and while we're at it Hitler, Mao, and Truman, and all former American slave owners.. and Albright, Kissinger, and GWB and Hillary!

What, you say? Only Hillary and Kissinger and GWB are reachable?

Sod off, troll.
It is a long-established pattern that Russians will murder and then follow that up with endless lies.

We could say the same of Americans. At least Russians kill Russians (you say). We kill EVERYBODY! Since the founding of our nation, in fact. And then we memory-hole it.

That probably explains why so many people in the world hate us. Which we also refuse to recognize.

Troll.

Signym, you have the worst case of Whataboutism I have ever seen. It is a technique Russians habitually use to "win" every argument, at least in their own minds, but it doesn't work in reality. The Ukraine War is about Russians murdering Ukrainians. The total blame is on the Russians for what they have done to Ukrainians.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 30, 2023 7:24 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Blaming "Russians" for things that happened a century ago is as nuts as blaming "Germans" for the Holocaust or blaming "Americans" for genocide of the indigenes and slavery.

So let's put those responsible on trial: the Tsar, and Lenin, and Trotsky, and Stalin....and while we're at it Hitler, Mao, and Truman, and all former American slave owners.. and Albright, Kissinger, and GWB and Hillary!
What, you say? Only Hillary and Kissinger and GWB are reachable?
Sod off, troll.

SECOND: It is a long-established pattern that Russians will murder and then follow that up with endless lies.

SIGNY: We could say the same of Americans. At least Russians kill Russians (you say). We kill EVERYBODY! Since the founding of our nation, in fact. And then we memory-hole it.
That probably explains why so many people in the world hate us. Which we also refuse to recognize.
Troll.

SECOND: Signym, you have the worst case of Whataboutism I have ever seen. It is a technique Russians habitually use to "win" every argument blah blah blah

Oh, and implying that I'm Russian is YOUR go-to distraction when you don't have an on-target response??

Say, don't you care about America? Don't you care about what America does, whether we're doing more harm than good, whether or not we have a solid economic, financial and social foundation? Why the hyperfocus on RUSSIA!RUSSIA? Russian history? Russian power structures? One would think that YOU'RE Russian!

Trying to distract from the ROT at the heart of America?

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 30, 2023 7:25 PM

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

Blaming "Russians" for things that happened a century ago is as nuts as blaming "Germans" for the Holocaust or blaming "Americans" for genocide of the indigenes and slavery.

So let's put those responsible on trial: the Tsar, and Lenin, and Trotsky, and Stalin....and while we're at it Hitler, Mao, and Truman, and all former American slave owners.. and Albright, Kissinger, and GWB and Hillary!

What, you say? Only Hillary and Kissinger and GWB are reachable?

Sod off, troll.
It is a long-established pattern that Russians will murder and then follow that up with endless lies.

We could say the same of Americans. At least Russians kill Russians (you say). We kill EVERYBODY! Since the founding of our nation, in fact. And then we memory-hole it.

That probably explains why so many people in the world hate us. Which we also refuse to recognize.

Troll.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 30, 2023 7:49 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh, and implying that anyone I'm Russian is YOUR go-to response when you don't have an on-target response??

Say, don't you care about America? Don't you care about what America does, whether we're doing more harm than good, whether or not we have a solid economic, financial and social foundation? Why the hyperfocus on RUSSIA!RUSSIA? Russian history? Russian power structures? One would think that YOU'RE Russian!

Trying to distract from the ROT at the heart of America?

Funny how every person I know who now defends Trump was a rotten person years before Trump came along. It is a small sample of Americans, mostly East Texans, admittedly causing a statistical bias, but I think the sample suggests what part of America is rotten. If this was 1865 in East Texas, the people would be former slave owners and ex-Confederates, but I think there were strong statistics to suggest Confederates were rotten people who didn't become better once they lost a war. They were even nastier, more bitter, and less trustworthy in 1865 than in 1860. It is very much the same with Trumptards after Trump lost his election. The Trumptards get even more rotten and bitter as the years pass them by.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, June 30, 2023 7:50 PM

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

Prigozhin May Be Gone, but Not the Failings He Ranted About

The problems identified by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, did not disappear with him, military analysts say, and are likely to continue to fester, enraging troops and further lowering already sickly morale.

These include an overall lack of command and control, rigid hierarchy, corruption, tangled logistics, equipment shortages and the absence of an honest, public assessment of the war in Ukraine.

The uprising highlighted the gap between the commanders and the soldiers fighting the war, who generally endorse the idea that the army is badly run and headed for defeat.

In some ways, the problems with the war go beyond the people involved and lie within the structure and culture of the Russian military.

Reforms begun more than a decade ago were meant to create a smaller, leaner, more flexible army. It was not built to conquer a large European country, so from that perspective President Vladimir V. Putin assigned the military a task beyond its grasp, said Aleksandr Golts, a Russian military analyst.

“Russia had forces that can win a short, local conflict,” he said. “That’s it.”

But the reformers fell short of achieving greater flexibility, which requires giving decision-making power to commanders in the field. That ran up against deep-seated cultural norms, particularly a penchant for rigid, hierarchical command structure and a callousness about soldiers’ casualties that some say is a legacy of Soviet times.

The Kremlin’s response to the mutiny underscored the weaknesses in the Russian military’s command-and-control structure — its inability to react quickly to unexpected developments, and poor coordination between the military and other security services.

U.S. military officials were stunned that an armored column of Wagner forces advanced within 125 miles of Moscow. The mercenaries met no resistance on the ground, but shot down half a dozen Russian military helicopters and an Il-22 airborne command post that engaged the column.

Pentagon officials said that this reflected once again the lack of coordination between Russian air and ground forces. But the muted reaction might also have been a sign that many officers and soldiers were sympathetic to the mutineers, military analysts said.

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20230630061557/https://www.nytimes.com/202
3/06/29/world/europe/prigozhin-shoigu-gerasimov-surovikin-russia-military.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 1, 2023 12:53 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh, and implying that anyone I'm Russian is YOUR go-to response when you don't have an on-target response??

Say, don't you care about America? Don't you care about what America does, whether we're doing more harm than good, whether or not we have a solid economic, financial and social foundation? Why the hyperfocus on RUSSIA!RUSSIA? Russian history? Russian power structures? One would think that YOU'RE Russian!

Trying to distract from the ROT at the heart of America?

SECOND: Funny how every person I know who now defends Trump...

Who's defending Trump? I'm reacting to your constant pathological lies

Quote:
... was a rotten person years before Trump came along.

I've never been a rotten person and CERTAINLY not a lying, sociopathic killer like you.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 1, 2023 2:59 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Prigozhin May Be Gone, but Not the Failings He Ranted About

MORE NYT BS.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 1, 2023 6:23 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
... was a rotten person years before Trump came along.
I've never been a rotten person and CERTAINLY not a lying, sociopathic killer like you.

It is very simple what you have done. Signym, you have repeatedly denied or ignored that Russia murdered millions and millions of Ukrainians. That makes you rotten to the core. I can smell your decay. The stench is offensive and the fumes are choking but you can't smell yourself. Maybe you need to see an otolaryngologist?

For people who aren't aware that Russians are mass murderers, there is a book:

Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 by R. J. Rummel
Download the free book from http://libgen.is/search.php?req=R.+J.+Rummel

Purchase the book from https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder-ebook/dp
/B073RQ94KF/

If reading a book is too much, there are websites about Russians and their murderous ways. Try googling Holodomor. https://www.google.com/search?q=holodomor

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 1, 2023 6:26 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Prigozhin May Be Gone, but Not the Failings He Ranted About
MORE NYT BS.

Russian officials and occupation authorities are attempting to explain away the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed on June 30 that Russia placed 300 Ukrainian orphans in occupied Ukraine under the foster care of Russian families in Russia.[88] Lavrov claimed that Russia publicizes the names of Ukrainian children and claimed that any direct family member can take these children out of foster care. Lavrov added that dozens of children have been picked up from their foster families. Lavrov emphasized that these children were not adopted but placed under preliminary guardianship and claimed that of all 700,000 children who entered Russia from occupied Ukraine, only 2,000 children were orphans from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Kherson Oblast Occupation Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology announced that 18 school children from occupied Kherson Oblast went to children’s camp “We Are the Children of the Volga” in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia. The ministry claimed that the program will last 10 days.[89]

Russian citizens are purchasing real estate in destroyed and occupied Mariupol city.[90] Russian investigative outlet Bumaga reported that Russian officials began selling real estate in Mariupol as early as May 3, 2022.[91] Some Russian real estate websites reportedly list and sell Mariupol apartments on average for three million rubles (about $33,780).

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-30-2023

Russia has a motive for stealing children. About a million Russians recently left Russia to avoid being drafted into this war. Several million more died from Covid. Russia is in a downward spiral, demographically, and needs more people. Ukraine has people, so why not steal some? And why not steal some real estate, too?

If you want to know how bad Russian demographics are, there is https://www.google.com/search?q=russia+demographics

Here is a cute little fact about Russia: What is the male-to-female ratio in Russia?
The Russia Gender Ratio is 86 men to 100 women (86:100) or 0.86. Russia's gender ratio is lower than the global average of 101 men to 100 women (101:100) or 1.01. Russian men are leaving Russia, either dead or alive, to avoid being Russian. Therefore Russia needs more children to compensate for deaths and emigration. That is why Russians are stealing Ukrainian children.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 1, 2023 7:01 AM

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

Russia’s population nightmare is going to get even worse

War in Ukraine has aggravated a crisis that long predates the conflict

A DEMOGRAPHIC TRAGEDY is unfolding in Russia. Over the past three years the country has lost around 2m more people than it would ordinarily have done, as a result of war, disease and exodus. The life expectancy of Russian males aged 15 fell by almost five years, to the same level as in Haiti. The number of Russians born in April 2022 was no higher than it had been in the months of Hitler’s occupation. And because so many men of fighting age are dead or in exile, women now outnumber men by at least 10m.

War is not the sole—or even the main—cause of these troubles, but it has made them all worse. According to Western estimates, 175,000-250,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the past year (Russia’s figures are lower). Somewhere between 500,000 and 1m mostly young, educated people have evaded the meat-grinder by fleeing abroad. Even if Russia had no other demographic problems, losing so many in such a short time would be painful. As it is, the losses of war are placing more burdens on a shrinking, ailing population. Russia may be entering a doom loop of demographic decline.

The roots of Russia’s crisis go back 30 years. The country reached peak population in 1994, with 149m people. The total has since zig-zagged downwards. It was 145m in 2021 (that figure, from the UN, excludes the 2.4m people of Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014 and incorporated into its national accounts). According to UN projections, the total could be just 120m in 50 years, if current patterns persist. That would make Russia the 15th-most-populous country in the world, down from sixth in 1995. According to Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer who used to work for the state statistics service, if you look just at peacetime years, the number of births registered in April 2022 was the lowest since the 18th century. April was a particularly cruel month, but it was a revealing glimpse of a chronic problem.

Population decline is not unique to Russia: most post-communist states have seen dips, though not like this. Their declines have been slow but also manageable. Russia’s population in recent decades has seen a precipitous slump, then a partial recovery (thanks to a period of high immigration from parts of the ex-Soviet Union and more generous child allowances after 2007), followed by a renewed fall.

According to the state statistics agency, in 2020 and 2021 combined the country’s population declined by 1.3m; deaths outstripped births by 1.7m. (The UN also shows a fall, but it is shallower.) The decline was largest among ethnic Russians, whose number, the census of 2021 said, fell by 5.4m in 2010-21. Their share of the population fell from 78% to 72%. So much for Mr Putin’s boast to be expanding the Russki mir (Russian world).

All this began before the war and reflects Russia’s appalling covid pandemic. The official death toll from the disease was 388,091, which would be relatively low; but The Economist estimates total excess deaths in 2020-23 at between 1.2m and 1.6m. That would be comparable to the number in China and the United States, which have much larger populations. Russia may have had the largest covid death toll in the world after India, and the highest mortality rate of all, with 850-1,100 deaths per 100,000 people.

If you add pandemic mortality to the casualties of war and the flight from mobilisation, Russia lost between 1.9m and 2.8m people in 2020-23 on top of its normal demographic deterioration. That would be even worse than during the disastrous early 2000s, when the population was falling by roughly half a million a year.

What might that mean for Russia’s future? Demography is not always destiny; and Russia did for a while begin to reverse its decline in the mid-2010s. The impact of population change is often complex, as Russia’s military mobilisation shows. The decline in the number of ethnic Russians of call-up age (which is being raised from 18-27 to 21-30) will make it harder for the armed forces to carry out the regular spring draft, which begins in April.

Such complications notwithstanding, the overall effect of demographic decline will be to change Russia profoundly—and for the worse. Most countries which have suffered population falls have managed to avoid big social upheavals. Russia may be different. Its population is falling unusually fast and may drop to 130m by mid-century. The decline is associated with increased misery: the life expectancy at birth of Russian males plummeted from 68.8 in 2019 to 64.2 in 2021, partly because of covid, partly from alcohol-related disease. Russian men now die six years earlier than men in Bangladesh and 18 years earlier than men in Japan.

And Russia may not achieve what enables other countries to grow richer as they age: high and rising levels of education. Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, argues that the country presents a peculiar combination of third-world mortality and first-world education. It has some of the highest rates of educational attainment among over-25s in the world. But the exodus of well-educated young people is eroding this advantage. According to the communications ministry, 10% of IT workers left the country in 2022. Many were young men. Their flight is further skewing Russia’s unbalanced sex ratio, which in 2021 meant there were 121 females older than 18 for every 100 males. (Male-to-female ratio = 0.826)

The demographic doom loop has not, it appears, diminished Mr Putin’s craving for conquest. But it is rapidly making Russia a smaller, worse-educated and poorer country, from which young people flee and where men die in their 60s. The invasion has been a human catastrophe—and not only for Ukrainians.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230619101016/https://www.economist.com/e
urope/2023/03/04/russias-population-nightmare-is-going-to-get-even-worse

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 2, 2023 4:39 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

OMG, this is sickening. But it is the reality of war.

This shows why the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed. It is a Bradley vehicle attempting to rescue soldiers from a shelled field thickly salted with anti- personnel mines. Most of the soldiers have bits blown off and are trying to drag themselves to safety. Towards the end of the video, one soldier, trying to rescue another, jumps from the Bradley into a hole made by an exploded mine - thinking it was safe- and trips another mine. His leg is blown off at the knee. He quickly ties a tourniquet around his thigh, drags himself back to the Bradley with a bunch of meat hanging from his knee, leaving a bloody trail.

Not for the faint of stomach. Horrible to watch, so much worse to experience.

The link won't open directly from here, but I will open from this article.

Quote:
Also, as some might have seen recently, a new video was released showing the full bore devastation and horror of AFU’s failed Zaporozhye assault on the Orekhov direction. It’s one of the more graphic videos of the war thus far, but it’s extremely enlightening in terms of how Russia’s now-famous minefields truly wreaked havoc on the elite 47th brigade. Warning, it’s brutal but shows the intractable horror of mine warfare and how even their precious M2 Bradleys couldn’t help them: Video Link.

https://odysee.com/@Overthrown:6/video_2023-06-26_13-46-30:9

Look for video link here...
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-63023-winds-gather-before

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 2, 2023 5:07 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG, this is sickening. But it is the reality of war.

• The former chief rabbi of Moscow is urging Jews to leave Russia.

• Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt himself fled the country following last year's invasion of Ukraine.

• Russia on Friday labeled Goldschmidt a "foreign agent," citing his opposition to the war.

The former chief rabbi of Moscow is urging his fellow Jews to leave Russia immediately, warning that the country has fundamentally changed after the Ukraine invasion.

In a statement on Saturday, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who himself fled the country in March 2022, noted that he had spent three decades supporting the Jews of Russia. But Goldschmidt, who now resides in Israel, said his coreligionists should get out too, having previously warned that they risk being scapegoated for the failure of Russia's "special military operation."

"Russia has changed its face," he said in a July 1 statement, as reported by The Jerusalem Post. "I call on the Jewish community to leave the country, before it is too late."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jews-should-leave-russia-before-i
t-s-too-late-says-former-chief-rabbi-of-moscow/ar-AA1dkKu0

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 2, 2023 6:09 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG, this is sickening.

The children Russia kidnapped (The Atlantic)

First they were spirited off to camps, or evacuated from cities under siege. Then they were made into Russians without history or provenance.

Lauren Wolfe

Jul 1, 2023

You may have read that Russia is stealing Ukraine’s children. But what you haven’t read before is an aspect I reported on for The Atlantic magazine, in a story out today. Not only are the Russians spiriting children across the border and forcing them to speak their language, but they are also erasing the tracks that would one day help reunite the kids with their Ukrainian families. The Russians are changing their names, adopting them out and preventing their promised return home — and, in the process, they’re obfuscating the fact that the children ever came from Ukraine.

From the article:

Amid the bombast of Russia’s one-year celebration of its war in Ukraine, a 15-year-old with thick, black hair and a gray hooded jacket was handed a microphone. In front of thousands of cheering people, Anya Naumenko thanked “Uncle Yuri”—a Russian soldier known as Yuri Gagarin—for saving her, her sister, and “hundreds of thousands of children in Mariupol,” the Ukrainian city that fell under heavy attack from the first day of Russia’s cross-border invasion, in February 2022.

Having recited words she’d clearly been told to memorize, Anya sheepishly turned to the adults next to her and said, “I forgot a little.”

“Anya,” said a woman in a stop-sign-red coat, quickly covering for the slipup, “don’t be shy! Go hug Uncle Yuri!”

Anya gave the soldier a one-armed side hug as the woman said to a handful of younger children onstage: “Everyone give a hug. Look! It’s the man who saved you all!”

Aired on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, the video was followed by an interview with Nathaniel Raymond, the executive director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab.

“It’s absolutely stomach-churning,” Raymond told the CNN host. “That, for me, Anderson, that’s a hostage video.”

Forcibly removed from Ukraine, used as leverage, “reeducated,” and “Russified,” the children at the center of Russia’s agitprop are the potential victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They are, Raymond told me in a recent interview, “pawns in a hostile situation,” and Russia’s treatment of them, far from that of a kind savior, violates the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, among other instruments of international humanitarian law.

Russian authorities have gone so far as to make what appears to be an official, concerted effort to cover the tracks that may lead to the Ukrainian children’s eventual recovery. Processed into the Russian system, the children no longer go by their given names, practice the religions they were raised in, or communicate with their families. They are entered into an adoption system that takes pains to cover up their provenance, an effort that Ukrainian advocates say not only makes the children untraceable, but forms part of a larger project of cultural erasure.

To read the rest of the story, please click over to The Atlantic via https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-children-russia-kidnapped/ar-
AA1di5e6

https://chills.substack.com/p/the-children-russia-kidnapped-the

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 2, 2023 8:10 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

OMG!!! HORRIBLE!
Children evacuated from a war zone!

I'll bet there's no video. Just more blah blah blah from SECOND's endless wellspring of psyops.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 2, 2023 8:25 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I think, in the end, the real effect of Prigozhin's antics (if there is any) would be on nations that are leaning towards Russia, like Saudi Arabia or Brazil.

Like bullied kids on a playground, these nations are very sensitive to shifts in power. If a champion, or even a reasonable kid, is able to challenge the bullies, the bullied group will cautiously start to shelter under the challenger. But will be ever-alert to any indication that the challenger might fail.

Most of these nations, tho, themselves victims of destabilization, seem in fact to be reassured by the outcome. But we'll just have to wait and see what eventually shakes out.

In the meantime, the Kremliyseems happy to let its fifth column go. Some who have left regret their choice and are attemping to return. I wonder if Russia will let them back in?

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 2, 2023 9:04 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG!!! HORRIBLE!
Children evacuated from a war zone!

I'll bet there's no video. Just more blah blah blah from SECOND's endless wellspring of psyops.

Report On Violations And Abuses Of International Humanitarian And Human Rights Law, War Crimes And Crimes Against Humanity, Related To The Forcible Transfer And/Or Deportation Of Ukrainian Children To The Russian Federation

https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/7/7/542751.pdf

Signym, I'd include some paragraphs from the report, but you can't even read the title because it has too many words for a Trumptard to finish reading. Even this sentence was too long for you to finish.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 2, 2023 11:23 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

The people of eastern Ukraine initially looked to the OSCE for justice, hoping that it would reveal Kiev's illegal shelling of their homes to the world. Ultimately they learned to despise the OSCE for the blind eye that it consistently turned to their suffering and death. They wound up painting OSCE GO HOME on buildings and vandalizing OSCE vehicles. I've seen the pic and videos.

What the media portrays as "objective" NGOs are usually just western policy extensions. Like the OPCW upper- up that completely reversed the investigators' field report, from saying a "gassing" had been staged (by extremists) to saying that Assad "gassed his people".

We would nwver have found out if it hadn't been for a courageous investigator who risked his career to blow the whistle.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 2, 2023 11:27 PM

Fuck Ukraine.

#Rootin4Putin

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 3, 2023 4:53 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
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

Why in god's name would they blow up their own reactors? There's no benefit to Russia, and all cost. ZNPP may not be producing electricity today, but it can, and will, in future. Depriving yourself of a vital resource is just plain stupid. And so far, Russia has been conducting it's war and economy in a risk-aversive, methodical, professional fashion. It's the west that's been taking big gambles.

Military Summary Channel... and remember, this is a PRO Ukrainian channel... talks about the possibility of Ukraine capturing or destroying the ZNPP (and blaming it on Russia) which in his estimation sounds pretty difficult. Bc it's in "cold shutdown" he discounts the idea of causing a nuclear explosion, and says the only way anyone would think that there's a problem in the plant is the radiological meters around the plant. What he suggests the Ukrainians do is create the APPEARANCE of plant sabotage or mining, by shelling the ZNPP area with shells containing some radioactive materials, causing a spike in the monitors and creating the justification for (presumably) NATO entry into Ukraine. Remember, this is a PRO -Ukrainian channel

Begins appx 5:00

Now that's what I call naked desperation.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 3, 2023 6:04 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Why in god's name would they blow up their own reactors? There's no benefit to Russia, and all cost. ZNPP may not be producing electricity today, but it can, and will, in future. Depriving yourself of a vital resource is just plain stupid. And so far, Russia has been conducting it's war and economy in a risk-aversive, methodical, professional fashion. It's the west that's been taking big gambles.

The reactors aren't Russia's. And if Putin kept a tally of the cost he wouldn't be destroying Ukrainian real estate. Instead, he'd be hitting very different targets. I could tell you that I know how to fight a war, but you wouldn't believe me. I'll keep it simple: this is NOT how Russia should fight a war if Putin and his MoD knew what they were doing. And the Ukrainians? When they were at the War College, they were lackadaisical students. Now that they are doing it for real, it is pretty obvious to experts, but not themselves, what they are doing wrong. It is the battle of Dumb vs Dumber, Ukraine vs Russia. The Ukrainians have had 10 years to figure out and then build or buy what they need to destroy the Kursk Bridge, but the bridge is still open. How dumb can the Ukrainians be? And the drones Ukraine allegedly sent in vain to Moscow? If the Ukrainians actually did it, it was utterly inane of them. Do the Ukrainians have no smarter ideas than the Russians do about what to target?

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 3, 2023 6:06 AM

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

Grueling Combat Ahead in Ukrainian Counteroffensive

Expecting a quick retreat, a volunteer Ukrainian unit instead faced two days of tough resistance from dug-in Russian forces.

July 2, 2023Updated 5:34 a.m. ET

The Ukrainian soldiers thought the Russians would quickly retreat from Neskuchne, a tiny village in southern Ukraine, especially after a concerted artillery barrage and a rocket strike on their headquarters.

Instead, the Russians dug in, fighting for two days before giving up the village last month, leaving their dead decaying on the roadside and piles of expended ammunition around their makeshift defenses.

The Russian defeat, on June 9, was Ukraine’s first win in a prolonged counteroffensive that is well into its fourth week but moving at a slower pace than expected. In that respect, the battle for Neskuchne served as an early warning that Kyiv’s and the Western allies’ hopes for a quick victory were unrealistic and that every mile of their drive into Russian-occupied territory would be grueling and contested.

The dayslong battle was fought largely by a contingent of volunteer fighters who attacked on foot, not by the large, NATO-trained brigades equipped with Western tanks and armored troop transports that military analysts thought would lead the long-awaited advance.

Soldiers who described the fighting, along with visual evidence of the battle still scattered around Neskuchne two weeks after it ended, made clear that Ukraine’s success had hinged on ingenuity that helped catch the Russian forces off guard.

In the days after Neskuchne’s “liberation,” which was announced on June 10, Ukrainian forces have managed to retake several villages farther south. But since that early string of victories, Ukraine’s offensive has been slow. Ukrainian forces have been mired by staunch Russian defenses, mounting casualties and field after field of land mines.

The battle for Neskuchne pitted about 70 Ukrainian troops from the 129th Territorial Defense Brigade against roughly 150 Russian soldiers from the 60th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, as well as a contingent of Russian inmates-turned-soldiers known as the Storm Z unit.

“We had to liberate house after house,” said Valeriy, a soldier from the 129th brigade, who took part in the fighting and, like others in this article, is being identified only by his first name for safety reasons. “At the beginning of the counteroffensive, we thought there were no more than 20 of them.”

Neskuchne, a village of some 500 people, had been occupied by the Russians since the early months of the war, leaving ample time for Moscow’s forces there to dig in. The terrain around the village — a gradual rise to the west and the Mokri Yaly River to the east — meant that Neskuchne acted as a gateway to a string of villages to the south. In short: There was only one way in, and one way out.

The Russians knew this, and they expected that a Ukrainian advance into the village would be supported by tanks and other heavy equipment down its main, north-south road. Ukrainian soldiers who took part in the battle said that the Russian defenses had consisted of anti-tank mines and stockpiles of anti-tank missiles, some of which still remained in the Russian headquarters that was seen by The New York Times.

But the attack, at least in its early stages, did not incorporate “combined arms,” or the NATO military strategy of coordinating artillery fire with troop and tank movements that is often cited by Western military analysts and U.S. officials as critical to Ukraine’s counteroffensive success.

Instead of using tanks, which could easily be seen from the air or heard on the ground, the Ukrainians entered the village quietly, on foot and in small groups of infantry, after a World War I-style artillery bombardment.

Pictures at https://web.archive.org/web/20230703010239/https://www.nytimes.com/202
3/07/02/world/europe/ukraine-russia-counteroffensive.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 3, 2023 9:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
I could tell you that I know how to fight a war, but you wouldn't believe me.

It's true, Sigs. Second has logged over 10,000 hours playing World of Warcraft.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 3, 2023 6:23 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Why in god's name would they blow up their own reactors? There's no benefit to Russia, and all cost. ZNPP may not be producing electricity today, but it can, and will, in future. Depriving yourself of a vital resource is just plain stupid. And so far, Russia has been conducting it's war and economy in a risk-aversive, methodical, professional fashion. It's the west that's been taking big gambles.

SECOND; The reactors aren't Russia's.

ATM they are, and they will continue to be until/unless NATO can take them back.

Quote:
If Putin kept a tally of the cost he wouldn't be destroying Ukrainian real estate. Instead, he'd be hitting very different targets.

Big misunderstanding on your part: He IS hitting different targets. For the most part, he's hitting ammo, weapons, and fuel depots, substations serving electric train routes, command centers and troop concentrations. Not water purification plants, electricity generating stations, canals, dams, gas and oil pipelines (I leave that to Ukraine and the USA) and civilian centers (unless they house weaponry, which Ukies also do), etc.

Quote:
I could tell you that I know how to fight a war, but you wouldn't believe me.

Yes, the sum total of your precious "advice" is: take aim before pulling the trigger, and kill more of them without getting killed yourself.

That is exactly what Russia is doing and why Ukraine is losing the war.
Troll

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 7:16 AM

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

If your country is not full of stupidity, millions of citizens won’t die early. But Russians, Mainland Chinese, and Trumptards don’t understand how stupidly they have run their lives and only early death will be a reminder. Go buy yourself a carton of cigarettes and enjoy, 6ix.

Death toll of World War II

Soviet Union 27,000,000
China 20,000,000
Germany 7,400,000
US 419,400

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 7:16 AM

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

Russians learned nothing from the enormous death tolls in the past:

Russia’s Medvedev says Ukraine conflict could last ‘decades,’ talks odds of nuclear threat

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president who retains close ties with the Kremlin, on Monday said that continued Western support for Ukraine makes the prospect of a nuclear war “quite probable.”

Writing in an article for Russia’s state-owned Rossiskaya Gazeta newspaper, Medvedev said that the risk of an “apocalypse” looks more likely now than during the 1962 Cuban missile, owing in part to perceived U.S. hegemony and differing views between Moscow and the West on Ukraine.

“I will note one thing that politicians of all stripes do not like to admit: such an Apocalypse is not only possible, but also quite probable,” he said, according to a Google translation.

Medvedev, now head of Russia’s Security Council, also said that Moscow remains committed to preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, and added that the conflict could endure for decades as a result.

“Our goal is simple — to eliminate the threat of Ukraine’s membership in NATO. And we will achieve it,” Medvedev said.

“You don’t have to be a visionary to understand that the confrontation phase will be very long. The standoff will last decades,” he added.

— Karen Gilchrist

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/03/ukraine-war-live-updates-latest-news-o
n-russia-and-the-war-in-ukraine.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 7:27 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Why in god's name would they blow up their own reactors? There's no benefit to Russia, and all cost. ZNPP may not be producing electricity today, but it can, and will, in future. Depriving yourself of a vital resource is just plain stupid. And so far, Russia has been conducting it's war and economy in a risk-aversive, methodical, professional fashion. It's the west that's been taking big gambles.

SECOND; The reactors aren't Russia's.
ATM they are, and they will continue to be until/unless NATO can take them back.

Signym, you have very strange and confused ideas about what ownership means and who is fighting, but then most Russians and Trumptards do which is why neither prospers in comparison to those who hold diametrically opposite ideas.

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev published an essay that reamplified inflammatory Russian rhetoric towards Ukraine and the West, likely to undermine support for Ukraine at the upcoming NATO summit.[12] Medvedev’s July 3 essay paints his usual alarmist rhetoric in new colors; he again portrayed the war in Ukraine as part of a broader existential conflict against the West, restated many of Putin’s extreme pre-war demands that transcended Ukraine, and implied that Russia is prepared to engage in this broader conflict for “decades” if these demands are not met.[13] Medvedev claimed that “armageddon” is “probable” if the West does not agree to negotiate a new world order with Russia, absurdly claiming that the nuclear “taboo” is broken (presumably by the US use of atomic weapons in 1945--it is otherwise entirely unclear to what he might be referring) to falsely imply that nuclear war is a certainty.[14] Medvedev attempted to portray Russia as connected to partners outside of the West despite Western sanctions, and that states not aligned with the West actively stand against it. Medvedev’s essay is consistent with his and other senior Kremlin officials’ prior attempts to scare Western states, organizations, and media prior to significant international discussions about military, political, and economic support for Ukraine and its effort to liberate Russian-held territories.[15] Medvedev’s essay is a restatement of existing Russian narratives and does not represent a true inflection in Russian political, military, or nuclear rhetoric.[16]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-july-3-2023

https://rg-ru.translate.goog/2023/07/02/epoha-protivostoianiia.html?fb
clid=IwAR0Vs7twSB1aTq5R64IkVx3cySkvQPDwbKCmZDwNDFDDK1YhCsKd_AILsQ0&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 9:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Signym, you have very strange and confused ideas about what ownership means and who is fighting, but then most Russians and Trumptards do which is why neither prospers in comparison to those who hold diametrically opposite ideas.

You keep saying that, but who's the one who's got to go to work today to keep paying the bank interest for all the shit he doesn't own and didn't need?

Oh. Today is a holiday that you might have off. I almost forgot that since I haven't worked in almost 4 years.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 10:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

OMG!!! HORRIBLE!
Children evacuated from a war zone!

I'll bet there's no video. Just more blah blah blah from SECOND's endless wellspring of psyops.

How about you don't invade your neighbor for any other reason than to steal from them? Their land and their resources. How about you allow the parents to decide whether or not their children should be moved to the country that invaded them, shit for brains?

It's obvious the Russians are stealing children to replenish their population. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are dying. Hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Russians have and are fleeing the country to avoid the war and to have a better future.

Look it up comrade. Because of Russia's' falling population they are economically doomed. And this started happening long before the war started.

Comrade signym, you have thoroughly shown yourself to be a shit. A complete and total shit. The proof of that is posted all throughout this site.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 10:43 AM

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

OMG!!! HORRIBLE!
Children evacuated from a war zone!

I'll bet there's no video. Just more blah blah blah from SECOND's endless wellspring of psyops.

How about you allow the parents to decide whether or not their children should be moved to the country that invaded them?

How about you let parents decide whether or not their children should be reading porn books in school in 3rd grade and have gender reassignment surgery, pedophile groomer Ted.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 10:48 AM

You cannot engage in truth telling by addressing facts with lies, whataboutisms, or fallacy of relative privations. Or by referring to your same topic, too address all other topics. Some here continue to do so because they are, well, stupid.

wink wink nod nod

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 11:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
You cannot engage in truth telling by addressing facts with lies, whataboutisms, or fallacy of relative privations. Or by referring to your same topic, too address all other topics. Some here continue to do so because they are, well, stupid.

wink wink nod nod

T

You still refuse to denounce Drag Queen Story Hour or grown ass men marching down the street in assless chaps chanting "We're coming for your kids" in the "Pride" parades. Even Second reluctantly did so after being called on it enough.

So yes. This is related, Pedophile Groomer Ted.

Don't fucking talk to me about Russian or Ukrainian kids when it's clear that you don't give a shit about the kids in your own country and you will always choose to put your party line above anything else.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 11:51 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
You cannot engage in truth telling by addressing facts with lies, whataboutisms, or fallacy of relative privations. Or by referring to your same topic, too address all other topics. Some here continue to do so because they are, well, stupid.

wink wink nod nod

T

You still refuse to denounce

No, what I refuse to do is allow you to accuse me of being something I am not, then spend my time trying to convince you I am not. Or, trying to convince you that I do not believe something is good that I don’t, and never said I did.

Shit you’ve completely made up, lies. You’ve been trying to do this same thing again and again. All in an attempt to control my conversations by lying about me. It never works Jackass. All it ever accomplishes is to expose your ignorance and complete lack of class.

So, why am I responding to more of your posts? Because, everything I’ve been saying these past few years was going to happen with Trump and his cronies that you’ve been saying won’t, is happening. I’m reminding you what an ass you are, and who is always right by posting current events that prove it. I do this while you continue to crawl in the gutter.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 12:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
You cannot engage in truth telling by addressing facts with lies, whataboutisms, or fallacy of relative privations. Or by referring to your same topic, too address all other topics. Some here continue to do so because they are, well, stupid.
wink wink nod nod

SIX: You still refuse to denounce

THUGR: No, what I refuse to do is allow you to accuse me of being something I am not, then spend my time trying to convince you I am not. Or, trying to convince you that I do not believe something is good that I don’t, and never said I did.

Shit you’ve completely made up, lies. You’ve been trying to do this same thing again and again. All in an attempt to control my conversations by lying about me. It never works Jackass. All it ever accomplishes is to expose your ignorance and complete lack of class.

So, why am I responding to more of your posts? Because, everything I’ve been saying these past few years was going to happen with Trump and his cronies that you’ve been saying won’t, is happening. I’m reminding you what an ass you are, and who is always right by posting current events that prove it. I do this while you continue to crawl in the gutter.

somebody else must be posting for you, THUGR. or else your sockpuppet persona is slipping bc, suddenly, you're a student of rhetoric?

the fallacy of the "fallacy of whataboutism": you PRETEND to care about morals, ethics, 'freedom', justice, righteousness, humaneness etc etc but anyone points out america's or the DNC's or the deep state's (horrific) misdeeds, you use 'whataboutism' to avoid/deny having to discuss 'your side's' moral, ethical, and inhumane failings. seeing as you posit 'your side' as moral, ethical, righteous, just, and humane, discussing YOUR side's failings is completely on-topic. so either you address 'your side's' failings or paint yourself as a mssive hypocrite. when YOU can discuss moral failings in an objective manner, i will too.

the fallacy of the fallacy of relative privation: dood, in the REAL WORLD it's ALL about 'relative privation' bc not all privations are equal. having no food or water or shelter is, in reality, more important than not having the latest style footware. not being killed wantonly (LIFE) is more important than freedom (LIFE, liberty, and pursuit of happiness). don't bring up this 'fallacy' again bc it's fallacious

ad hominem: 'what I refuse to do is allow you to accuse me of being something I am not' is generally called LIBEL. and it is a CRIME, and yet, you do it ALL THE TIME. 'COMRADE'

you don't like being treated the same? OH, TOO BAD!

maybe i should start doing the same. eh, pervert?

calling someone a liar: if you look up LIBEL, you'll see it's a specific form of lie. now, you may in your heart deeply 'believe' something to be true, but if there is no proof, you will, in a court of law, be found GUILTY. so, like everything else you post, and think, you might wanna be sure of your evidence b4 you start slinging accusations around bc in the REAL WORLD of real consequences, your 'beliefs'.no matter how strongly felt, don't count

so, show this to your older brother, or whoever is posting for you, and they can 'splain to you how false accusations can get you in trouble.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 1:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
You cannot engage in truth telling by addressing facts with lies, whataboutisms, or fallacy of relative privations. Or by referring to your same topic, too address all other topics. Some here continue to do so because they are, well, stupid.

wink wink nod nod

T

You still refuse to denounce

And yet you still refuse to denounce it.

That shows us exactly who you are.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 1:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
somebody else must be posting for you, THUGR. or else your sockpuppet persona is slipping bc, suddenly, you're a student of rhetoric?

Yup. Ted has trouble on a daily basis trying to struggle to string two sentences together.

Tell us again about that medifor regarding the coal minors, Ted. OPPS!!!

Fucking idiot.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 7:33 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Zelenskiy: Russia may be preparing to trigger nuclear plant explosion

President cites Ukraine intelligence that Moscow has mined Zaporizhzhia nuclear station and sent away staff
Lorenzo Tondo and Luke Harding in Kyiv
Sat 1 Jul 2023 11.55 EDT
Last modified on Sat 1 Jul 2023 13.53 EDT

Russia could be ready to provoke a localised explosion at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy has said.

Zelenskiy cited Ukrainian intelligence as the source of his information and called for greater international attention to the situation at the facility, the largest nuclear plant in Europe. Since seizing it last year, Moscow has turned it into a military base from which it has bombarded Ukrainian towns across the Dnipro reservoir.

“There is a serious threat because Russia is technically ready to provoke a local explosion at the station, which could lead to a [radiation] release,” Zelenskiy told a joint news conference in Kyiv with the visiting Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/01/zelenskiy-warns-russia-c
ould-be-ready-to-provoke-nuclear-plant-explosion

Western media is amplifying this bullshit nonstop. It's as transparent as "IRAQ! WMD! MUSHROOM CLOUD!" and "ASSAD GASSED HIS OWN PEOPLE!"

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 7:52 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

A lot of very public lobbying ahead of the July 11 NATO summit. Ursula van DER Crazy is pumping for "step on the gas! Full steam ahead! As long as it takes!"

Meanwhile Zelenskiy & Co. are blaming failure of the counteroffensive on lack of F-16s and a cornucopia of other western weapons. At the same time, desperate to drag the USA fully into war, Kiev may attempt a nuclear false flag.

NATO nations are tapped out for relevant weapons and are scrounging for older model tanks like Leopard 1s. NATO seems to be deciding against including Ukraine, which won't be allowed at the formal meeting and can only participate in side meetings.
And NATO itself can't decide on a new head, leaving Stoltenberg in for ANOTHER year beyond the normal term.

The next week is going to be very critical for Ukraine, and they may try something desperate.

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 7:56 PM

Democrats destroyed the American electoral process and put the world through two and a half years of lockdown hell and the resulting economic downturn to remove the only man who would have kept any of this from happening.

Well done, idiots.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 8:05 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Democrats destroyed the American electoral process and put the world through two and a half years of lockdown hell and the resulting economic downturn to remove the only man who would have kept any of this from happening.

Well done, idiots.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

I've been wringing my hands over our direction for decades, and for the most part it's gone from bad to worse. If Trump could have controlled his administration I think he would have saved us from lot of trouble.
Yanno, solutions to a lot of our problems are blindingly obvious, but they would clip TPTB's wings, and that -of course- would NEVER be allowed.

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 4, 2023 10:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Democrats destroyed the American electoral process and put the world through two and a half years of lockdown hell and the resulting economic downturn to remove the only man who would have kept any of this from happening.

Well done, idiots.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.
I've been wringing my hands over our direction for decades, and for the most part it's gone from bad to worse. If Trump could have controlled his administration I think he would have saved us from lot of trouble.
Yanno, solutions to a lot of our problems are blindingly obvious, but they would clip TPTB's wings, and that -of course- would NEVER be allowed.

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM

If anyone has the will to do it, it's Trump.

The real problem is that they've propagandized half of the population against him over outright lies and/or things that are trivial.

I'm honestly surprised that they haven't made Trump just disappear yet. I wouldn't think that they'd think that solution to be too gauche, or care in the slightest if they make a martyr out of him. Look what they did to Epstein and how it was covered. Ted and Second would be jerking off for months about it if it were to happen, and sadly there are a lot of mindless meatpuppets in the country who would join them in the celebrations.

I will never vote for DeSantis. The more time that passes the more time he proves himself just to be another wolf in sheep's clothing.

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

How you do anything is how you do everything.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 5, 2023 5:04 AM

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

Russian authorities are absolving Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin of financial responsibility for damages caused by the Wagner Group rebellion and reportedly returned significant liquid assets to Prigozhin, possibly as part of the deal negotiated between Putin, Prigozhin, and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. The Rostov-on-Don administration claimed that the total damages from Prigozhin’s rebellion amounted to 92.5 million rubles (roughly $1 million), and that the administration will not recover damages from Prigozhin or the Wagner Group.[21] St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka claimed, citing internal sources, that Russian authorities returned over 10 billion rubles (roughly $111 million) in cash, five gold bars, and hundreds of thousands of US dollars in cash to Prigozhin on July 2 that authorities had seized from Prigozhin-affiliated facilities in St. Petersburg on June 24.[22] Fontanka claimed that authorities only reversed their decision to hold onto Prigozhin‘s liquid assets on July 2 but did not specify a reason for the reversal. The legal basis that Russian authorities would have had for seizing Prigozhin’s assets remains unclear in any case, as Russian authorities dropped criminal charges against Prigozhin for the rebellion.[23] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that part of Prigozhin’s liquid assets were supposed to be compensation to the families of Russian pilots whom Wagner forces killed during the rebellion, but it is now uncertain whether Wagner will make those payments.[24] The milblogger assessed that Wagner will likely use at least part of the returned assets to support transferring Wagner Group personnel to Belarus.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-july-4-2023

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 5, 2023 12:12 PM

K2PO

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Kiev may attempt a nuclear false flag.

This is the latest Russian propaganda. Part of a ramp up in nuclear threats from Russia this week, Medvedev also came out with some.

For everyone wondering, this is a good sign the war is not going Russia's way.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 5, 2023 6:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
You cannot engage in truth telling by addressing facts with lies, whataboutisms, or fallacy of relative privations. Or by referring to your same topic, too address all other topics. Some here continue to do so because they are, well, stupid.
wink wink nod nod

SIX: You still refuse to denounce

THUGR: No, what I refuse to do is allow you to accuse me of being something I am not, then spend my time trying to convince you I am not. Or, trying to convince you that I do not believe something is good that I don’t, and never said I did.

Shit you’ve completely made up, lies. You’ve been trying to do this same thing again and again. All in an attempt to control my conversations by lying about me. It never works Jackass. All it ever accomplishes is to expose your ignorance and complete lack of class.

So, why am I responding to more of your posts? Because, everything I’ve been saying these past few years was going to happen with Trump and his cronies that you’ve been saying won’t, is happening. I’m reminding you what an ass you are, and who is always right by posting current events that prove it. I do this while you continue to crawl in the gutter.
somebody else must be posting for you, THUGR. or else your sockpuppet persona is slipping bc, suddenly, you're a student of rhetoric?

the fallacy of the "fallacy of whataboutism": you PRETEND to care about morals, ethics, 'freedom', justice, righteousness, humaneness etc etc but anyone points out america's or the DNC's or the deep state's (horrific) misdeeds, you use 'whataboutism' to avoid/deny having to discuss 'your side's' moral, ethical, and inhumane failings. seeing as you posit 'your side' as moral, ethical, righteous, just, and humane, discussing YOUR side's failings is completely on-topic. so either you address 'your side's' failings or paint yourself as a mssive hypocrite. when YOU can discuss moral failings in an objective manner, i will too.

the fallacy of the fallacy of relative privation: dood, in the REAL WORLD it's ALL about 'relative privation' bc not all privations are equal. having no food or water or shelter is, in reality, more important than not having the latest style footware. not being killed wantonly (LIFE) is more important than freedom (LIFE, liberty, and pursuit of happiness). don't bring up this 'fallacy' again bc it's fallacious

ad hominem: 'what I refuse to do is allow you to accuse me of being something I am not' is generally called LIBEL. and it is a CRIME, and yet, you do it ALL THE TIME. 'COMRADE' you don't like being treated the same? OH, TOO BAD!
maybe i should start doing the same. eh, pervert?

calling someone a liar: if you look up LIBEL, you'll see it's a specific form of lie. now, you may in your heart deeply 'believe' something to be true, but if there is no proof, you will, in a court of law, be found GUILTY. so, like everything else you post, and think, you might wanna be sure of your evidence b4 you start slinging accusations around bc in the REAL WORLD of real consequences, your 'beliefs'.no matter how strongly felt, don't count

so, show this to your older brother, or whoever is posting for you, and they can 'splain to you how false accusations can get you in trouble.

And we witness another of comrade signym posting tactics. Rambling subjective bullshit, and in her post here we see it in abundance.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, July 6, 2023 8:23 AM

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

Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine would end within days if the West stopped shipping weapons to the battered nation, a top Kremlin official said Wednesday.

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev also defended the Russian military, which has struggled to gain ground since early land grabs in the 16-month war. The Russian army is "modern and heroic (despite) experiencing certain problems, like any army,'' he said.

Medvedev, Russia's former president, also made an allusion to nuclear weapons as another way to end the war. It's the second time in a week he has raised the specter of nuclear war, recently saying the invasion of Ukraine could last for decades and "quite probably" could end in nuclear war.

"Actually, any war, even a world war, can stop very fast," he said Wednesday. "Either if a peace treaty is signed or if one does what the U.S. did in 1945, when it used its nuclear weapons (at) Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have, indeed, ended the war campaign back then, at a cost of lives of almost 300,000 civilians."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/ukraine/2023/07/05/ukraine-r
ussia-war-live-updates/70382620007/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, July 6, 2023 1:05 PM

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

The rebellion in Russia by Wagner mercenaries confronted Western officials with one of their gravest fears: the possibility of political chaos and instability in the country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.

Anxiety over who might gain control of Russia’s weapons of mass destruction has long tempered Western hopes that President Vladimir Putin might be ousted from power. But months of nuclear posturing by Putin and other senior Russian officials, and a new debate among Moscow analysts on using a nuclear weapon on a NATO country, have raised doubts about whether Putin really provides the stability necessary to avoid an atomic Armageddon — or if he is the risk they should fear most.

Russian officials have played on the West’s nuclear fears throughout the war in an effort to undermine Western support for Ukraine and to slow weapons deliveries, a tactic that seems to have worked.

And in recent weeks the drumbeat has intensified, with some well-connected Russian strategic analysts and think tank experts openly proclaiming the “necessity” for Moscow to carry out a preemptive tactical nuclear strike on a NATO country, like Poland — to avoid defeat in the war on Ukraine and to revive Western terror of Russia’s nuclear might.

Since the Wagner rebellion, Sergei Karaganov, a former Kremlin adviser and influential Russian political scientist, has doubled down on calls for Moscow to do so. In an earlier article last month headlined, “A Difficult but Necessary Decision,” Karaganov argued the risk of a retaliatory nuclear strike on Russia, and nuclear Armageddon, “can be reduced to an absolute minimum.”

No sane American president would put the United States at risk by “sacrificing conditional Boston for conditional Poznan,” he wrote, referring to a city in Poland.

A hawkish Moscow-based military analyst, Dmitry Trenin, supported Karaganov, arguing that “an unambiguous — and no longer verbal — signal should be sent” to Washington.

“The possibility of using nuclear weapons in the current conflict should not be hidden,” he wrote in an essay, calling for the revision of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which limits the use of nuclear weapons to cases where Russia’s existence is threatened. Both essays were published by influential Russian foreign policy think tank, the Foreign Policy Research Foundation.

Trenin lamented that Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus — which Putin says will be completed by year end — had caused no visible alarm in Western capitals.

Karaganov’s essays have a messianic tone that reflect Putin’s zealous view of his place in history, solving what Moscow likes to call “the Ukraine problem,” a reference to an independent, democratic nation choosing a pro-Europe path on Russian borders.

He argues nuclear weapons were invented by God to revive mankind’s fear of Armageddon, insisting, “That fear needs to be revived.” He sees Russia as “chosen by history” to destroy the “Western yoke,” and “finally free the world.”

Many Russian nuclear arms experts gasped in horror at the calls from Karaganov and Trenin. One, Ivan Timofeev, called it “extremely dangerous.”

Three experts from the Center for International Security writing in Kommersant newspaper, Alexei Arbatov, Konstantin Bogdanov and Dmitry Stefanovich, called the idea that Washington would not strike back “highly doubtful and likely erroneous.”

Then came the specter of civil war, with Wagner mercenaries rolling in a convoy toward Moscow in the most serious political chaos since 1993 when President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire on the country’s parliament to squash a rebellion by lawmakers.

As the Wagner rebellion unfolded last month, United States officials contacted Moscow to assure Putin that Prigozhin’s rebellion was an internal Russian matter, according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. That reassurance highlighted the worry among Western leaders that Putin, sensing a Western plot or fearing defeat, could take radical action.

The rebellion is over, but any drastic new shocks in the war could trigger instability in Russia. A major new defeat in the war could topple Putin, said Anatol Lieven, of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, or it could see him escalate and resort to a tactical nuclear weapon.

If Putin faced the loss of occupied Crimea, “the chances of escalation would be extraordinarily high because he would believe it was necessary to save Crimea, but it would also be necessary to save his regime at that point,” Lieven said.

Analysts predict a major internal crackdown in Russia to prevent any similar rebellion by any armed rogue group in the future.

After seizing a military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, Wagner fighters moved north to the city of Voronezh raising alarm about the Voronezh-45 nuclear weapons storage facility located about 130 miles farther east. But even if Wagner had targeted the weapons — and there is no evidence it did — the mercenaries would not have been able to use them, analysts said.

“Can an armed group like Wagner take control of some of Russia's nuclear weapons and somehow use or detonate them? The short answer is no, it's virtually impossible,” tweeted Pavel Podvig, nuclear arms expert at the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, after a blue-checked Twitter conspiracy theorist spread disinformation to more than 250,000 Twitter followers that Wagner leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin had “got the nukes.”

At last month’s St. Petersburg economic forum, Putin said nuclear weapons would protect Russian security “in the broadest sense of the word,” but that there was “no need” to use them at present.

Pressed at the plenary session on whether he would be willing to use them, Putin joked: “What should I say? Scare the whole world? Why do we need to scare the whole world?”

But since the invasion of Ukraine, Putin and top officials including deputy head of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have led the nuclear fearmongering. Announcing the invasion on day one, Putin warned that any country that interfered in the war would face consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history,” in an unambiguous hint about nuclear weapons.

Days later, he put Russian nuclear weapons into “special combat readiness.” Since then Russia has suspended participation in the New START accord and announced that nuclear weapons would be stored in Belarus. In September, Putin explicitly warned that Russia would use nuclear weapons if its territory was threatened, as he claimed to annex four Ukrainian regions.

In the latest nuclear warning, Medvedev said a nuclear apocalypse was “not just possible but quite probable” in an article in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Sunday, because “there is no taboo” on using nuclear weapons. Medvedev claimed that the West had to accept the annihilation of Ukraine’s “Nazi” government — “if it does not want an apocalyptic end” to civilization.

Some analysts saw the debate on nuking a NATO country as an orchestrated bluff to escalate Western nuclear fears, but others saw it merely as hard-liners venting about Russia’s failings in the war.

“It’s fair to say that people in that community feel frustration about the situation, and my take is that they are thinking out loud,” Podvig said in an interview. He said that Russian officials had been “pretty consistent, that nuclear weapons could only be used to protect Russia from some kind of existential threat.”

“The weapons are there, and there are scenarios in which they can be used. However, we are, at least at this point, two steps away from this point.” If Russia began to seriously consider using nuclear weapons in Ukraine or Poland, there would first be a much sharper switch in Kremlin rhetoric, he said.

But a worrying question is what would comprise an “existential threat” to Russia in Putin’s mind, given his profound conviction that he is the state’s sole guardian and protector.

In January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward by 10 seconds to 90 seconds to midnight, largely “because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine,” it said.

Artur Kacprzyk, analyst on nuclear arms at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said the Moscow debate on striking Poland was a form of nuclear coercion designed to intimidate NATO, and it caused “concern but definitely not panic.”

“The level of this debate in Russia, and its intensity, about potential nuclear use is higher than before,” he said. “If they believe that the West will fold, that will encourage them to just increase and increase these threats.”

Days before the Wagner rebellion, President Biden said the risk of Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon against Europe was “real,” Reuters reported.

But Kirby said last week that the United States had seen “no indication that Mr. Putin is interested in moving in that direction and nor have we seen anything that would cause us to change our own deterrent posture.”

Pro-Kremlin analysts like to argue that a nuclear power “cannot lose” the war, despite a history of bogged down military misadventures by Moscow and Washington.

According to Podvig, a source of frustration for Russia was that possessing nuclear weapons was simply not a decisive factor to win the war.

“It’s not that someone does not respect Russia’s nuclear weapons,” Podvig said. “It’s that you cannot really think of a way of using them to gain any advantage. At this point, I guess the only thing that Russia gets out of its nuclear weapons is that there is no direct involvement of NATO or the United States in this war.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/05/russia-putin-nuclear-s
trike-nato/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, July 6, 2023 1:13 PM