REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Thursday, October 31, 2024 13:46
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Saturday, September 2, 2023 12:59 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:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses
From the article you are quoting: The New Orleans panel's book introduction concluded "that Bacque is wrong on nearly every major and nearly all his minor charges seem to us to be overwhelmingly obvious. To sum up: Eisenhower was not a Hitler, he did not run death camps, German prisoners did not die by the hundreds of thousands, there was indeed a severe world food shortage in 1945, there was nothing sinister or secret about DEF designation or about the Other Losses column. Bacque's "Missing Million" were old and young boys in the militia dismissed early from the American camps; they were escapees from camps and POWs/DEFs transferred from camp to camp in Germany and Europe for various reasons."[43]

Signym, you wrote falsehoods or, at even worst, you deliberately are misleading.

On the other hand, Russians deliberately slayed millions after peace was declared in WWII, so Ukrainians would not be surrendering to Russians during this most recent 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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Saturday, September 2, 2023 2:06 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Why were Red Cross inspections not allowed? Why was a separate category created ("disarmed enemy force" similar to our "enemy combatant") which placed the prisoners - clearly POWs - outside of the Geneva Convention? Was some kind of rationale ever expressed...eg fear that free communication to outsiders might create some sort of resistance movement? Or was it just knowledge that due to the food and materiel shortage in Europe (and USA commander reluctance to request massive allotments for former enemies) that prisoners would be on starvation rations and not held under required conditions?

On what basis did New Orleans (sic) book panel decide he was wrong? Did they do a separate investigation? Go to original sources.. food allotments for the camps, transfer or release documents, numbers of blankets and bunks and toilets etc. Or do we have only the military's word that everything was fine? Or did we release prisoners to local custody where we knew they would be mistreated?

AS I POSTED, I didn't believe the book word for word. In fact, I disputed it vigorously when I read it. But it made me realize that I had nothing but ASSUMPTION on my part, and it raised enough questions backed by evidence (photos, manifests, testimony) that I realized the whole issue actually would need a detailed investigation in order to be resolved. So to me the issue is unresolved.

But I don't ASSUME, as you did SECOND, that we didn't kill or mistreat anyone.

-----------
"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



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Saturday, September 2, 2023 2:16 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


And now, back to the topic at-hand: Ukraine's counteroffensive is clearly failing. Over two months, an estimated 40,000+ have been killed. Zelenskiy is going to dragoon people off the streets: he wants to raise another 200,000 now and 300,000 in the winter.

So the question is: what will Russia do? Will they come out from behind their defenses?

-----------
"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



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Saturday, September 2, 2023 11:19 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


If you want to know the real history of Russia- not the cartoon that SECOND always pushrs- listen to the first 5-8 minutes of Ray McGovern. Ray is a former CIA analyst on Russia, and an advisor to Presidents. He knows the Russian language, Russian history , and Russian politics.

If you care to listen further, they discuss why Biden* is so desperate to remain President. But I'll address that in the thread about 2024 elections.




-----------
"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



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Sunday, September 3, 2023 6:22 AM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

And now, back to the topic at-hand: Ukraine's counteroffensive is clearly failing. Over two months, an estimated 40,000+ have been killed. Zelenskiy is going to dragoon people off the streets: he wants to raise another 200,000 now and 300,000 in the winter.

So the question is: what will Russia do? Will they come out from behind their defenses?



Ukraine deals “crushing blow” to Russian soldiers in Bakhmut

Ukraine has dealt a “crushing blow” to Russian ground forces in Bakhmut. This reports the German news website n-tv.de with reference to a corresponding Telegram post by Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukrainian ground forces.

According to the report, Ukrainian soldiers would continue to advance on the front line near Bakhmut. “The soldiers are constantly destroying Russian equipment and manpower.” The 22nd Separate Mechanized Brigade was deployed on the ground, he said. A BM-21 “Grad” missile system had delivered a devastating blow to enemy infantry. To back up the statement, Syrskyi posted a video to the post. “Combat operations continue,” Syrskyi concludes at the end of his report.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-deals-crushing-blow-to-ru
ssian-soldiers-in-bakhmut/ar-AA1ganso?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=8b60a2a40ca3413b9708e32e12b64c9e&ei=56


T

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Sunday, September 3, 2023 6:34 AM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

If you want to know the real history of Russia- not the cartoon that SECOND always pushrs- listen to the first 5-8 minutes of Ray McGovern. Ray is a former CIA analyst on Russia, and an advisor to Presidents. He knows the Russian language, Russian history , and Russian politics.

If you care to listen further, they discuss why Biden* is so desperate to remain President. But I'll address that in the thread about 2024 elections.




-----------
"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





T

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Sunday, September 3, 2023 6:34 AM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

If you want to know the real history of Russia- not the cartoon that SECOND always pushrs- listen to the first 5-8 minutes of Ray McGovern. Ray is a former CIA analyst on Russia, and an advisor to Presidents. He knows the Russian language, Russian history , and Russian politics.

If you care to listen further, they discuss why Biden* is so desperate to remain President. But I'll address that in the thread about 2024 elections.




-----------
"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





Oops

T

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Sunday, September 3, 2023 7:38 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 you want to know the real history of Russia- not the cartoon that SECOND always pushrs- listen to the first 5-8 minutes of Ray McGovern.

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
Russia's real history is reenacted by North Korea today:

North Korea stages mock 'nuclear attack', 9 hours ago

Pyongyang's intent was to show strength and "warn enemies."

As part of the drill, mock atomic warheads attached to two long-range missiles were testfired off the west coast of the country.

South Korea's joint chief of staff confirmed on Saturday that an unspecified number of cruise missiles were launched toward the Yellow Sea.

Pyongyang said that the joint exercises reflected how the US and South Korea were pursuing "confrontation hysteria."

That statement came even as North Korea this year has conducted a record number of weapons tests.

UN resolutions prohibit isolated North Korea from launching and testing ballistic missiles of any range.

https://www.dw.com/en/north-korea-stages-mock-nuclear-attack/a-6670562
1

Signym, North Korea also slaughtered tens of millions of North Koreans, reenacting that part of Russian history. Identical to Russian history, the most capable North Koreans left the country, leaving the less capable Koreans to run things poorly. The prosperity gap between North and South Korea proves the less capable remain in North Korea. The prosperity gap between Russia and the EU proves the less capable remain in 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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Sunday, September 3, 2023 9:10 AM

SECOND

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


New Russian Schoolbooks Preach Hatred of Ukraine and the West

Alexey Kovalev, Sunday September 3, 2023, 7:00 AM

When some million and a half 10th- and 11th-graders across Russia and the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine started the school year on Friday, they received new textbooks for their history classes. Of these, the most notable is the new 11th-grade Russian history text, hastily written at the direction of a Kremlin aide to justify what the Russian government calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine. Along with the other new schoolbooks, this volume marks the latest step in the Kremlin’s years-long effort to rewrite the Russian and Soviet past for the purposes of historical whitewashing and patriotic indoctrination.

The new textbook, titled History of Russia: 1945 to the Early 21st Century, serves an obvious purpose: to imprint the Kremlin’s version of its war against Ukraine on the next generation, including thousands of young Ukrainians in the territories still occupied by Russia. Leaked online after its presentation to Russian education authorities early last month, the textbook has been blasted by Western experts and exiled Russian journalists as a wholesale falsification of commonly accepted facts—even many facts previously accepted in Russia. On Friday, Amnesty International denounced the book as a “blatant attempt to unlawfully indoctrinate school children in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories,” pointing out that teachers in the occupied parts of Ukraine “are at risk of violence, arbitrary detention and ill-treatment” if they refuse to teach the material.

If the book’s final chapter glorifying Russia’s brutal war has rightfully attracted attention, what’s even more illuminating is the entire book’s obsession with Ukraine. Over more than 400 pages, Ukraine is mentioned more often than any other former Soviet or Russian possession. Its supposedly central role in Russia’s own history is unambiguously promoted, while Ukrainian independence and alignment with Europe are “unthinkable” and “civilization-ending.” Tellingly, the co-author of and main force behind the book, Vladimir Medinsky, is no historian, but a former journalist and public relations operative who was once Russia’s minister of culture. As a propagandist, he was part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Commission to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia’s Interests—a body that kick-started various efforts to rewrite Russian history and cast the current regime in a better light. (Russian diplomatic academy historian Anatoly Torkunov is named as a second author, but it’s unclear how much of a role he played in crafting the book.)

Very much in the tradition of Soviet conspiratorial paranoia, the book also builds a narrative of constant perfidy by the West and its collaborators. Medinsky and his co-author re-litigate 77 years of Soviet and Russian history since 1945, presenting Moscow as beset by domestic and foreign enemies constantly striving to paint its actions in a bad light. The most infamous periods of Soviet history — genocides, mass deportations, political prisons, mass executions — are barely mentioned at all. If they are, they are always bookended by commentary that diminishes the atrocities, whitewashes the perpetrators, and blames the victims or the West.

Rather than shining a light on history, the new book erases it—and nowhere more so than when it talks about Ukraine. When describing Russia’s supposedly “historical” ownership of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, for example, the book claims that ethnic Russians make up the “absolute majority” of Crimea’s population. But Russians only became the dominant ethnicity in Crimea through a policy of colonization and ethnic cleansing—especially after 1944, when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of the indigenous Crimean Tatar population, which he falsely accused of collectively collaborating with the Nazis.

Tens of thousands of Tatar women, children, and elderly men—estimates are as high as 250,000—were loaded into cattle cars and dumped in the steppes of Central Asia; many either perished on the gruesome journey or at their destination, while Tatar men fighting at the front were demobilized and imprisoned in labor camps. Medinsky only mentions the deportations in passing, conveniently omitting the fact that the Tatars’ removal was followed by a massive resettlement program that handed the emptied Crimean towns, villages, and farmland to mostly ethnic Russian settlers. Although the Soviet government belatedly acknowledged this ethnic cleansing as the “barbaric actions of the Stalinist regime” in 1989, that act of historical honesty has been thoroughly revoked in today’s Russia. Echoing Stalinist propaganda, the textbook cynically claims that the Soviet authorities made “maximum effort to ensure that the [deportees] were properly fed and housed.”

Describing the Soviet dissident movement in the 1960s and 1970s, the textbook briefly acknowledges the censorship that stifled creativity in the Soviet Union. But that’s Medinsky’s cue to scold the censored and persecuted artists, writers, film directors, dancers, and musicians for having their plight covered by Western media and emigrating in search of “freedom of expression”—a term he places in scare quotes, lest anyone think that persecuted artists had a legitimate reason to turn their backs on the Soviet Union.

If the book idealizes and whitewashes everything it covers, it reserves a special nostalgia for the supposedly golden Brezhnev era, previously known as a time of great stagnation and imperial overreach that paved the way for the Soviet collapse. The book celebrates the era’s industrial and technological advancements, the Soviet Union’s rise to superpower status, and what, for ordinary Soviet citizens, was an unprecedented level of stability and relative prosperity. When the textbook acknowledges that continued shortages and lack of consumer goods could not satisfy the growing demands of the population, it predictably pivots to blaming the West: Foreign films and advertisements had supposedly spread a false “image of the Western way of life,” creating unrealistic expectations among the Soviet masses.

It will come as no surprise that the book channels Putin’s frustrations about the collapse of the Soviet empire. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s decision to withdraw Soviet troops from the other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War was “especially ill-thought out,” the authors write. They also question the failure by the hard-liners organizing the 1991 coup against Gorbachev to repress pro-democracy protesters by force.

All throughout the book, the emphasis is always on how an action makes Russia look. Whenever approaching a sticky subject, the authors make sure that the student knows it’s not Russia or the Soviet Union that did something bad, but the dastardly West that forced Russia to look bad in some way. Whether it’s the construction of the Berlin Wall or the persecution of Soviet citizens by their own government, the book’s laser focus is invariably on how it makes the country look—never the plain, observable, recorded facts. Nothing in this world happens on its own, and every action is always driven by some hidden agenda.

It is no coincidence that Medinsky began his career as a spin doctor in the 1990s, and he doesn’t mince words about his approach to writing history. In the epilogue to War: Myths of the USSR 1939-1945, one of a series of books Medinsky wrote to glorify Soviet and Russian history and present negative views as Western slander, he makes his intention as a writer plain: “It all begins with interpretations, not facts. If you love your Motherland, your nation, then the history written by you will always be positive. Always!”

It should be clear that Russian students will not be learning about history as much as about channeling the historical grievances of Putin and his propagandists in hopes that they will support the Kremlin’s goals of reestablishing its empire. Even according to the inherently unreliable official polls, Russian youth are lukewarm at best about the invasion. The indoctrination of young Russians is therefore a clear priority for the Kremlin, especially since many of them will be expected to fight and die for Russia’s ambitions. It remains to be seen whether the textbook’s heavy-handed misrepresentations can fool Russian teenagers, many of whom are technologically savvy enough to seek out and find alternative sources of information despite the Kremlin’s best efforts to block them.

In its relentless attempt to give a positive spin to everything the Kremlin does, the textbook even manages to turn Russia’s increasingly bleak war economy and economic isolation into a herald of a bright future. “After the departure of foreign companies, many markets are open before you,” the authors tell their young readers. “This is a fantastic opportunity for launching a career in business or a start-up. Don’t miss this chance. Today’s Russia is truly a land of opportunity.”

Provided, of course, you don’t get forcibly conscripted into the Russian army after graduation, like thousands of your peers, and thrown into the trenches to defend the charred ruins of an occupied town in a foreign country—where the fact that you’re hated can’t be blamed on anyone’s dastardly machinations but your own nation’s.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/03/russia-schoolbook-schools-ukraine
-west-indoctrination-history-falsification-war-hatred-putin/


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

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Sunday, September 3, 2023 9:55 AM

SECOND

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


The Witness, Russia’s first feature-length film about its invasion of Ukraine, premiered across the country on 17 August.

The Witness centres on a fictional character called Daniel Cohen, an esteemed Belgian violinist who arrives in Kyiv to perform in February 2022, days before Russian troops entered Ukraine.

As Russia launches its war, Cohen gets caught up in the fighting, witnessing a series of “inhuman crimes and bloody provocations by Ukrainian nationalists”, according to the movie’s premise.

At one point, a Ukrainian commander is seen walking around with a copy of Mein Kampf, while other Ukrainian soldiers pledge their allegiance to Adolf Hitler. As a witness to these unspeakable horrors, Cohen sets out to tell the world the “truth” about the conflict.

In two hours of screen time, the film covers a wide spectrum of falsehoods that the Kremlin has used to justify its invasion of Ukraine. On the eve of the invasion, Vladimir Putin said Moscow had to “denazify” its neighbour, the lie that Ukraine was infiltrated by dangerous “Nazis”.

The release of The Witness comes on the back of plans announced by the Russian authorities to boost the production of movies glorifying Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.

As the Russian authorities ramp up their war rhetoric at home, movies like The Witness raise questions about just how effective Russian propaganda films actually are.

“Russians get force-fed propaganda everywhere they go – on state television, on the street, in schools and universities,” said Ivan Philippov, creative executive at AR Content, the production company of the renowned film producer Alexander Rodnyansky.

A closed Kremlin study cited last week by the Brief telegram channel said that sociologists concluded that Russian society largely wished to ignore the war in Ukraine.

Russia has a long history under Putin of pushing propaganda-style films. Shortly after Moscow illegally annexed Crimea, the county’s culture ministry financed the movie Crimea which justified the seizure of the peninsula. Its creators said the idea for the film came directly from Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister.

Not much later, a state-sponsored romantic comedy The Crimean Bridge – about the Kerch Bridge, Putin’s prestige project – was written by Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the government-funded RT network. Just like The Witness, both films were box-office disasters and received scathing reviews from independent critics.

“Z culture simply lacks talented people,” said the veteran culture critic Mikhail Kozyrev, using a popular term to refer to creatives who have rallied around the Russian pro-war Z symbol.

Ever since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, hundreds of prominent film-makers, writers and singers have left the country, an exodus that has drawn parallels with the 1922 Soviet philosophers’ ships – boats that carried some of Russia’s leading intellectuals into exile.

“The level and professionalism of the artists that decided to stay in Russia and work with the state is low,” Kozyrev said. “And the viewers can feel when a movie is made on orders by the state. It just isn’t authentic.”

For some in the country, the pink alternate universe of Barbie has provided a welcome escape. While Warner Bros, the producer of the hit US film Barbie, pulled out of the country shortly after the war started, Russians have found creative ways to work around American copyrights laws, finding bootleg copies of the film that are then screened at pop-up cinemas. Some cinemas sell visitors tickets to little-known Russian short films and then show the pirated Barbie movie during the previews.

In an attempt to discourage the Barbie craze, Russia’s culture ministry on Thursday said that it won’t issue special permission to pirate copyrights to the movie, as the film was “not in line with the goals set by our president to strengthen the spiritual & traditional values of our citizens”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/02/kremlins-propaganda-film
-ukraine-war-plays-to-empty-cinemas

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

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Sunday, September 3, 2023 12:45 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Wow, you DO cling to your narrative, don't you SECOND?

You want to know how I know you're lying?

It's whenever you post.


*****

Meanwhile, in the real world.... Russia will come out from behind their defenses when they think the Ukrainian army has been attrited enough to offer little resistance. Until then, they're perfectly willing to let the Ukrainian military impale itself on their defenses. There are a few good reasons why:

It reduces Russian losses. Defenders survive better than attackers, especiallly with well-constructed fortifications defended by an array of weapons, from long range (striking in the far distant rear of Ukie military) to artillery, drones, tanks, mortars and helicopter gunships.

It increases Ukrainian losses. In this era of universal ISR there's no such thing as gathering your forces for a blitzkreig/ surprise/ combined arms attack. Bc once you've collected your forces, you become a juicy target. The Pentagon seems to want Ukraine to do just that. It's a criminal waste of Ukrainian lives, and yet despite Ukraine taking horrific losses during their "counteroffensive" - with little territorial gains to show for it - the Pentagon (or whoever is driving this bus. Nuland, maybe?) apparently hasn't learned. I've posted this before: the worst thing Ukraine can do to Russia is go on the defensive.

It reduces infrastructural destruction. By fighting on essentially static lines, fewer hamlets/villages/towns are detroyed.

According to Andrei Martyanov, Russia's MoD has this all calculated with a series of differential equations: Rate of supply and rate of delivery minus rate of fire/loss. And they supposedly have this calculated for Ukraine as well.

So they have a rough idea, for example, when Ukraine will run out of 155 mm shells: A trickle arriving from the west minus the weapons stores Russia can destroy from a distance is the maximum average rate of Ukrainian fire.

Ditto such things as drones, tanks, APCs, air defenses, even including trained soldiers. The west is scraping the barrel bottom, and coming up with alternates ... cluster munitions instead of explosive 155mm shells, depleted uranium shells, Abrams tanks (too heavy, not suited to most Ukrainian bridges or mud), cross border attacks on civilian targets (terror attacks, good for Ukrainian morale but not much else), sabotage attacks etc.

Supposedly Kiev is planning on drafting a whole new batch of soldiers (200,000) this winter, and up to 300,000 in srping. Reaching a long arm into Germany, Poland etc to grab back military-age men who fled the war. In order to make it stick, they fired all of the recruiters bc of extensive bribe-taking. The collective west plans a new tranche of weapons in spring (I think) - F-16s, Abrams tanks, Leopard 1s, possibly long-range cruise missiles.

So the question for Russia is, do they attack in winter (when the ground is frozen and armored vehicles can move more freely) or withstand the next tranche of attacks some time in spring, and attrit Ukrainian forces and NATO spare weapons once and for all?

It seems a close call to me. There is the rsik that the longer this drags on and the more desperate the State Dept/ Biden* neocons get, the more likely they will escalate to something ridiculously dangerous: tactical nukes, false flag, direct NATO involvement, infrastructural attacks elsewhere (South Stream, commercial shipping, Syria). Something stupid like that.

OTOH, as long as NATO keeps things conventional, Russia can probably outlast the collective west's last gasp, and having Project Ukraine go up in flames next summer would be a image that would be hard for necons of BOTH parties to shake.

What do you think?


-----------
"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



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Sunday, September 3, 2023 1:42 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:

What do you think?
Russia has the same attitude as North Korea does. North Korea has been predicting imminent victory against South Korea for 70 years and Russia has been predicting the same against Ukraine for two years. In North Korean and Russian imaginations, when the time is right, but soon, North Koreans shall defeat South Korea (Ukraine in Russia's case) and humble the USA (EU in Russia's case).

The USA never stopped supporting South Korea and the EU will never stop supporting Ukraine. Perhaps Russia will be predicting its victory in Ukraine for the next 70 years, but the victory won't arrive. That's my prediction -- Russia will be endlessly hostile toward Ukraine, but never achieves a permanent victory, only periods of less hostility before the next military attack by Russia on Ukraine.

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

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Sunday, September 3, 2023 2:52 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Maybe in your case, SECOND, I should have shortened the question to "Do you think?"

To me, west's support of Ukraine sounds a lot like us predicting victory in Vietnam.




-----------
"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



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Monday, September 4, 2023 12:00 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:
Maybe in your case, SECOND, I should have shortened the question to "Do you think?"

To me, west's support of Ukraine sounds a lot like us predicting victory in Vietnam.
Between 1979 and 1991, there was 12 years of war between China and Vietnam. China lost, despite being richer, larger, more populous, better armed, etc.

The Ukrainian War could go the same direction for 12 years. China finally realized it was wasting time, money, life itself and decided to quit the war-making on Vietnam. If you didn't notice, quitting made China prosperous. Quitting would make Russia prosperous.

Sino-Vietnamese conflicts (1979–1991)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_conflicts_(1979%E2%80%93
1991)#Background

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, September 4, 2023 2:38 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by SECOND:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Maybe in your case, SECOND, I should have shortened the question to "Do you think?"

To me, west's support of Ukraine sounds a lot like us predicting victory in Vietnam.
Between 1979 and 1991, there was 12 years of war between China and Vietnam. China lost, despite being richer, larger, more populous, better armed, etc.

The Ukrainian War could go the same direction for 12 years. China finally realized it was wasting time, money, life itself and decided to quit the war-making on Vietnam. If you didn't notice, quitting made China prosperous. Quitting would make Russia prosperous.

Sino-Vietnamese conflicts (1979–1991)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_conflicts_(1979%E2%80%93
1991)#Background

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


First of all there wasn't '12 years of war between Chian and Vietnam'. There was a brief border conflict in 1979 that lasted less than a month, and intermittent border clashes to 1991. It was hardly an existential, industrial-scale war between China and Vietnam, and nothing like OUR massive effort that took 50,000 American and roughly 2 million southeast Asian lives.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

My god, son, you lie about EVERYTHING, don't you? I can't imagine what it must be like living in that head of yours, and I'm not sure I want to find out.


Also, I don't know if you noticed, but Russia isn't fighting Ukraine, it's fighting NATO in Ukraine. And Ukraine isn't fighting a war on it's own behalf, it's fighting a proxy war, armed and directed by the USA which has a habit of losing wars against smaller weaker nations like Vietnam and Afganistan.

Yanno, maybe if the UNITED STATES stopped war-making across the globe, WE could be prosperous.

-----------
"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



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Monday, September 4, 2023 1:46 PM

SECOND

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


Russian State TV Threatens Nuclear Strike on US

By Brendan Cole On 9/4/23

"The most important message we should send to the Americans is that we will not wage war with you in Europe. In response to your attacks on Russian military or civilian facilities, the first strike will be a preventative limited strike against targets on the territory of the United States of America, " he told the anchor of 60 Minutes, Yevgeny Popov. Last week, Russia announced that its Sarmat strategic missile system, which can reach the U.S., had been put on combat duty.

https://www.newsweek.com/kremlin-nuclear-strike-us-popov-korotchenko-1
824285

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, September 4, 2023 2:47 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


We, the Unsited States, have ringed Moscow with nuclear misiles and nuclear capable facilities (Poland, Romania) within minutes of Moscow.

Quote:
Beyond the alliance’s three nuclear powers [USA, UK, France], five others participate in U.S. nuclear sharing: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Seven more participate in the Support of Nuclear Operations With Conventional Air Tactics (SNOWCAT), providing assistance in nuclear missions through conventional air support: Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Poland and Romania. All 30 members of the alliance excluding France are also a part of the Nuclear Planning Group, which discusses policy issues. The North Atlantic Council remains NATO’s ultimate authority, and member states retain control over their own nuclear forces.

The United States and its NATO allies do not disclose exact figures for its European-deployed stockpiles. In 2021, it is estimated that there are 100 U.S.-owned nuclear weapons stored in five NATO member states across six bases: Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel Air Base in Germany, Aviano and Ghedi Air Bases in Italy, Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands, and Incirlik in Turkey. The weapons are not armed or deployed on aircraft; they are instead kept in WS3 underground vaults in national airbases, and the Permissive Action Link (PAL) codes used to arm them remain in American hands. To be used, the bombs would be loaded onto dual-capable NATO-designated fighters. Each country is in the process of modernizing its nuclear-capable fighters to either the F-35A, the F-18 Super Hornet, or the Eurofighter Typhoon.


That cuts the Kremlin's nuclear response on a hair-trigger. There is no way to tell whther any particular nuclear-capable jet (such as, BTW, the F-16) is carrying nuclear warheads or not.

Somehow we did this with the supreme confidence that we Americans are protected by miles and miles of ocean on either side, and if anyone would be damaged by the fallout of an accidental nuclear exchange, it would be our allies pawns/ dupes in Europe.

Since the American elite apparently don't give a shit about Russian security or European fallout from a nuclear war, Moscow is telling our decision-makers that they, too, are in the crosshairs and need to consider their own personal safety.

They've made this statement many times. I think they're basically reminding USA decision-makers, who seem remarkably blase about nuclear war, not to resort to tactical nukes or large bombs on Russia. I think they're doing this because they project that American decision-makers will become politically desperate by summer 2024 because they're losing militarily and might resort to WMD.

I think the answer to this is simple: Don't escalate and bomb Russia. Keep the war geographically limited and don't use nukes.

BTW, America and the EU has been steadily escalating involvement in Ukraine. They crossed the many red lines that they initally set for themselves. The concern that they would cross this one, too, is well-founded.


-----------
"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



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Monday, September 4, 2023 2:47 PM

SECOND

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


Russia has North Korea’s backing / Ukraine has the EU’s backing

Kim Jong-un and Putin Plan to Meet in Russia to Discuss Weapons

Russia seeks more weaponry for its war in Ukraine, and a North Korean delegation recently traveled to Russia by train to plan for Mr. Kim’s visit this month, officials say.

By Edward Wong and Julian E. Barnes
Reporting from Washington

Sept. 4, 2023, 2:06 p.m. ET

Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, plans to travel to Russia this month to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin to discuss the possibility of supplying Russia with more weaponry for its war in Ukraine and other military cooperation, according to American and allied officials.

In a rare foray from his country, Mr. Kim would travel from Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, probably by armored train, to Vladivostok, on the Pacific Coast of Russia, where he would meet with Mr. Putin, the officials said. Mr. Kim could possibly go to Moscow, though that is not certain.

Mr. Putin wants Mr. Kim to agree to send Russia artillery shells and antitank missiles, and Mr. Kim would like Russia to provide North Korea with advanced technology for satellites and nuclear-powered submarines, the officials said. Mr. Kim is also seeking food aid for his impoverished nation.

Both leaders would be on the campus of Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok to attend the Eastern Economic Forum, which is scheduled to run Sept. 10 to 13, according to the officials. Mr. Kim also plans to visit Pier 33, where naval ships from Russia’s Pacific fleet dock, they said. North Korea celebrates the anniversary of its founding on Sept. 9.

On Wednesday, the White House warned that Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim had exchanged letters discussing a possible arms deal, citing declassified intelligence. A White House spokesman, John F. Kirby, said high-level talks on military cooperation between the two nations were “actively advancing.” U.S. officials declined to give more details on the state of personal ties between the leaders, who are considered adversaries of the United States.

The new information about a planned meeting between them goes far beyond the previous warning. The intelligence relating to the plans has not been declassified or downgraded by the United States, and the officials describing it were not authorized to discuss it. They declined to provide details on how spy agencies had collected the information.

While the White House declined to discuss the new intelligence, Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement that Sergei K. Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, traveled to North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to try to persuade Pyongyang to sell artillery ammunition to Russia.

“As we have warned publicly, arms negotiations between Russia and the DPRK are actively advancing,” she said. “We have information that Kim Jong-un expects these discussions to continue, possibly to include high level diplomatic engagement in Russia.”

At other times since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials have released declassified intelligence to try to dissuade North Korea, China and other countries from supplying Russia with weapons. U.S. officials say White House warnings about planned transfers of North Korean artillery shells stopped previous cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

In late August, a delegation of about 20 North Korean officials, including some who oversee security protocols for the leadership, traveled by train from Pyongyang to Vladivostok, and then flew to Moscow, an indication that North Korea was serious about a visit by Mr. Kim. Their trip, believed to be a planning expedition, took about 10 days, according to officials briefed on the intelligence reports.

One potential stop for Mr. Kim after Vladivostok, an official said, is Vostochny Cosmodrome, a space launch center that was the site of a meeting in April 2022 between Mr. Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus and a partner of Mr. Putin’s in the war in Ukraine. The center, whose first rocket launch took place in 2016, is about 950 miles north of Vladivostok.

The idea for the Russia visit came out of the trip by Mr. Shoigu to North Korea in July for Mr. Kim’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of the “victory” over South Korean and U.S. forces in the Korean War, officials said. (In reality, the three-year war halted in 1953 in a stalemate and armistice agreement, and the two Koreas are still officially at war.)

Mr. Kim took Mr. Shoigu to an exhibition of weaponry and military equipment that included ballistic missiles banned by the United Nations.

During the meeting, Mr. Kim presented Mr. Shoigu with options for greater military cooperation and asked for Mr. Putin to visit North Korea, officials said. Mr. Shoigu then made a counterproposal, suggesting that Mr. Kim travel to Russia.

Mr. Shoigu’s visit to North Korea was the first by a Russian defense minister since the fracturing of the Soviet Union in 1991. Mr. Shoigu presented Mr. Kim with a letter from Mr. Putin, according to the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, the country’s state news service.

The agency did not indicate that Mr. Kim had explicitly mentioned Ukraine in the conversations, but it said that he had “expressed his views on the issues of mutual concern in the struggle to safeguard the sovereignty, development and interests of the two countries from the highhanded and arbitrary practices of the imperialists and to realize international justice and peace.”

Mr. Putin has characterized his war against Ukraine as one of protecting Russian sovereignty, since in his view Ukraine should be part of a restored Russian Empire.

In June, Mr. Kim sent Mr. Putin a message on Russia’s national day in which he pledged to “hold hands” with the Russian leader and promised that the Russian people would have North Korea’s “full support and solidarity” for their “all-out struggle,” according to the KCNA.

“The strengthening of the Russia-North Korea alliance comes at an opportune time for two countries with very few allies and a shared adversary in the United States,” said Jean H. Lee, a recent senior fellow on the Koreas at the Wilson Center. “It’s the resurrection of a traditional alliance that serves the strategic interests of both Putin and Kim.”

A Chinese delegation led by Li Hongzhong, a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, also visited North Korea for its celebration, and Mr. Li handed Mr. Kim a letter from Xi Jinping, China’s leader, according to North Korean state media.

Mr. Kim often exchanges affectionate and sometimes downright effusive letters with foreign leaders whom he considers allies or potential partners. He and President Donald J. Trump exchanged a series of letters as they prepared for historic face-to-face summits.

For the second of those summits, held in February 2019 in Hanoi, Vietnam, Mr. Kim traveled by armored train for two days from Pyongyang through China and across its tropical border with Vietnam. Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, and his grandfather, Kim Il-sung, both preferred to travel by train outside the country.

Mr. Kim first visited Russia in 2019, when he arrived in Vladivostok on his armored green train to meet with Mr. Putin. As the train pulled slowly into the station, white-gloved North Korean attendants raced alongside it, frantically wiping down any handholds and other surfaces that Mr. Kim might touch as he disembarked.

The United States first warned about cooperation between North Korea and Russia a year ago. Officials, citing declassified U.S. intelligence, said that Russia planned to buy artillery shells for use in Ukraine.

In subsequent disclosures, Mr. Kirby said North Korea had shipped munitions to Russia through the Middle East and North Africa.

But U.S. officials said that the disclosures had deterred North Korea and that few if any North Korean weapons had made it to the front lines in Ukraine.

Deterring support for Russia from North Korea, Iran and China is a critical element of the Biden administration’s strategy for helping Ukraine in its defense against Russia.

China, warned by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in February not to provide lethal aid, has supplied dual-use technology and components but has not yet sent drones or heavy weaponry to the Russian military, U.S. officials said.

Iran has supplied drones and is helping Russia build a drone factory. But U.S. officials believe their warnings have helped prod Iran to reconsider plans of providing ballistic missiles to Russia, at least so far.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/04/us/politics/putin-kim-meeting-russi
a-north-korea-weapons.html

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

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Monday, September 4, 2023 2:55 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Russia doesn't need N Korea. But I'll bet they want to bring N Korea in from the cold.

Since the USA wants to make trouble anywhere it can (Africa, Mideast, Central Asia, Asia especially Taiwan, Thailand etc) I see this as a countermove on the Asian front.

There is a N Korea/Russian border, and Russia could pipe gas directly to N Korea and indirectly to S Korea and Japan, if S Korea and Japan will let them.

-----------
"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



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Monday, September 4, 2023 6:43 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 doesn't need N Korea. But I'll bet they want to bring N Korea in from the cold.
Russia should send food to North Korea. North Koreans can't eat H-bombs, one thing that is abundant there.

Many stories over the years about Starvation North Korea
https://www.google.com/search?q=starvation+north+korea

One in particular: Food Distribution Suspended to High-Ranking Officials - July 28, 2023

In 2023, the situation worsened even further. Since January, rice supply has been cut off at food sales stations nationwide. Even in Pyongyang, food supply through sales stations has stopped in most areas. In fact, out of Pyongyang's 19 districts and 4 counties, 13 districts and all 4 counties have suspended supply through food sales stations.

In the remaining six central districts (Jung, Pothonggang, Moranbong, Songyo, Taedonggang, and Mangyongdae), rice was supplied through food sales stations until they were closed in May. High-ranking officials of the Workers' Party and the government used to receive food from exclusive supply stations until supplies ceased in June.

Military officers, security officers, and security guards received 700 grams (1.5 pounds) of food rations per person per day until May. But this was suspended in June 2023. Similarly, distributions to their families (500 grams or 1.1 pounds per person per day) have stopped since around November 2022. Some central government agencies and factories have purchased food on their own and distributed it to their employees.

North Korea's new "Arduous March" is currently underway. Many people are dying from diseases and starvation, as well as the freezing temperatures during the winter, even in the capital of Pyongyang.

https://japan-forward.com/speaking-out-mounting-deaths-in-north-korea-
as-famine-worsens/

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, September 5, 2023 12:41 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Too bad Russia doesn't grow rice. I wonder how N Koreans feel about noodles?

-----------
"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



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Tuesday, September 5, 2023 12:43 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Meanwhile, BACK ON TOPIC:

Ukraine's Chief of Defense Reznikov was fired.

Must be all of that winning!

*****

Waiting for SECOND's diversion to N Korea, Trump, or anything but the current military status in 3...2...1...


-----------
"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



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Tuesday, September 5, 2023 5:59 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:
Meanwhile, BACK ON TOPIC:

Ukraine's Chief of Defense Reznikov was fired.

Must be all of that winning!

*****

Waiting for SECOND's diversion to N Korea, Trump, or anything but the current military status in 3...2...1...
Signym, you could not be more nuts if your sinus infection had spread to your brain.
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meanwhile, my sinuses seem to have turned absolutely septic. It's a good thing I had pre-scheduled an appt with an ENT this week.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=65350&mid=11801
39#1180139

Head of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine Erik Mose stated on September 4 that the commission has not yet concluded that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. Mose stated that the commission must determine the intent of the perpetrators and identify the “need” to physically or biologically exterminate a certain group to meet the legal qualifications under the Genocide Convention.[25] Mose stated that the commission has found evidence for a large number of war crimes, specifically evidence of torture and strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure that the commission could consider as crimes against humanity.[26] Mose also stated that the commission previously determined that certain statements in Russian mass media could be considered as incitement to commit genocide.[27] Mose noted that the commission’s investigation into genocide in Ukraine will continue.[28] Article II of the 1948 Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention) states that “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measure intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”[29] Article III states that “the following acts shall be punishable: genocide; conspiracy to commit genocide; direct and public incitement to commit genocide; attempt to commit genocide; complicity in genocide.”[30]

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

Signym will claim something crazy to deny the truth of what Russia is doing to 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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Tuesday, September 5, 2023 6:00 AM

SECOND

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


Limitations on Russian artillery capabilities and Ukrainian advantages in counter-battery fire are forcing the Russians to deviate from their own doctrine, RUSI reported. RUSI stated that Russian forces have been attempting to adapt their fire doctrine since before Ukrainian counteroffensive operations began.[11] RUSI noted that Russian forces are attempting to prioritize strike accuracy over volume because they lack enough ammunition to sustain doctrinally designated artillery fire, have difficulties transporting a large volume of ammunition to frontline areas, and are seeing diminishing effectiveness of mass strikes as they lose counterbattery radars and their guns suffer from barrel wear.[12] RUSI stated that Russian forces are attempting to increase the production of Krasnopol laser-guided shells and the use of Lancet drones (loitering munitions) in order to increase accuracy and reduce the number of munitions used in attacks.[13] RUSI also observed that Russian forces have often prepared their fighting positions for remote demolition with improvised explosives instead of striking their own positions with artillery after Russian forces have withdrawn, as Russian doctrine dictates.[14] These adaptations suggest that reduced Russian artillery capabilities may be further weakening the Russian defense in certain sectors as artillery fire is a critical component of the Russian elastic defense. A shift towards more precise fire doctrine may allow Russian forces to strengthen these capabilities, but constraints on Russian training capacity will likely prevent Russian forces from implementing this shift at scale in the near term. Russian sources have continually claimed since the start of the counteroffensive that the Russians lack sufficient counterbattery capabilities on various sectors of the front.[15] Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center Commander Colonel Margo Grosberg reported on September 1 that Ukrainian artillery capabilities are “equal or even better” than those of Russian forces and have been able to push Russian artillery units back from the frontline, preventing them from supporting Russian forces.[16]

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

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, September 5, 2023 11:39 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meanwhile, BACK ON TOPIC:
Ukraine's Chief of Defense Reznikov was fired.
Must be all of that winning!

*****
Waiting for SECOND's diversion to N Korea, Trump, or anything but the current military status in 3...2...1...

SECOND: Signym, you could not be more nuts if your sinus infection had spread to your brain.


Well, who could have predicted that SECOND would use my SINUSES as a diversion!


Yanno, it's funny, SECOND, but that sentence of yours is the classic, and I mean THE CLASSIC ... as in, people have used it as an example ... ad hominem. Instead of addressing the point (Reznikov being fired is an indication that Ukraine is losing the war) you essentially replied with "Well, you have boogers in your nose". When you resort to random name-calling, we all know you've got nothing relevant to say.

Seriously, dood, you've got to get a new style.


-----------
"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



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Tuesday, September 5, 2023 12:13 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:

Well, who could have predicted that SECOND would use my SINUSES as a diversion!

Yanno, it's funny, SECOND, but that sentence of yours is the classic, and I mean THE CLASSIC ... as in, people have used it as an example ... ad hominem. Instead of addressing the point (Reznikov being fired is an indication that Ukraine is losing the war) you essentially replied with "Well, you have boogers in your nose". When you resort to random name-calling, we all know you've got nothing relevant to say.

Seriously, dood, you've got to get a new style.
Let's get to the point: you, Trump, and Putin are out of your minds. Not respecting your sanity may qualify in your mind as ad hominem attacks, but it is not. I have seen too many crazy people in Texas and overseas who were oblivious to their own malfunctioning. In their illness, their problems only exist because the world is faulty, not their brain's fault. Or in Putin's diseased brain, NATO is the cause of Russia's poverty, not Russia's sickly delusions of adequacy.

Putin is a mass murderer. Signym, sorry if you think that is ad hominem attack until he has been convicted in the International Criminal Court. By the way, Trump is a crook. Again, Signym, sorry if that too may seem to be another ad hominem attack until he has been convicted in four different courtrooms but sometimes decisions have to be made now, not years later after the legal machinery slowly grinds through courtroom delays, appeals, etc.

International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_arrest_warr
ants_for_Vladimir_Putin_and_Maria_Lvova-Belova

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, September 5, 2023 1:13 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, who could have predicted that SECOND would use my SINUSES as a diversion!

Yanno, it's funny, SECOND, but that sentence of yours is the classic, and I mean THE CLASSIC ... as in, people have used it as an example ... ad hominem. Instead of addressing the point (Reznikov being fired is an indication that Ukraine is losing the war) you essentially replied with "Well, you have boogers in your nose". When you resort to random name-calling, we all know you've got nothing relevant to say.

Seriously, dood, you've got to get a new style.

SECOND: Let's get to the point: you, Trump, and Putin are out of your minds.


And you have boogers in your nose!



EDITED TO ADD

Quote:
In Ukraine the biggest development continues to happen around the growing mobilization threat. It’s now all but certain that a new repressive press-gang regime will take effect this fall. A plethora of documents and information continues to pour out in this vein, as well as further underlining evidence of unprecedented ongoing losses.

All sorts of ‘exemptions’ are being cancelled. Anyone with a medical exemption is now being forced to re-process as this crazy video illustrates.

Some as yet uncorroborated sources even claim that strictness will be relaxed on a slew of serious diseases in order to make eligible as many Ukrainians as possible:



https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-9423-first-challengers-burn




-----------
"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



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Tuesday, September 5, 2023 3:48 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


From 2016

'He is not dead yet' : Traumatic footage shows 'Ukrainian soldiers burying a Russian separatist ALIVE'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3654505/Horrific-video-shows-
soldiers-burying-man-alive-Ukraine.html

THIS YEAR

Bradley fighting vehicles


Leopard 2 tanks in Ukraine


Challenger 2 tank in Ukraine



-----------
"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



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Tuesday, September 5, 2023 4:19 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 you have boogers in your nose!



EDITED TO ADD
North Korea exists because of Russia. South Korea exists because of the USA.

Signym -- Which Korea is more prosperous? Which Korea has the nukes and killed tens of millions of its citizens, just like Russia did?

Signym, prosperity follows from being sane. Not surprising that neither North Korea nor Russia is prosperous. On the other hand, being crazy leads to a shortened life. Not surprising that North Koreans and Russians have short life spans.

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, September 5, 2023 4:41 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Picking narrow examples and basing your questions on false premises?

Also, dragging the thread wildly off-topic???

Too obvious!


-----------
"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



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Tuesday, September 5, 2023 4:55 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Picking narrow examples and basing your questions on false premises?

Also, dragging the thread wildly off-topic???

Too obvious!
Russia invaded the Korean peninsula but because the USA interfered, Russia was not able to set up a puppet government for the entire Korean culture. Russia has invaded Ukraine and is now setting up another puppet government:

Moscow stages local elections in occupied parts of Ukraine
By Felix Light and Felix Hoske
August 31, 2023

Russian-installed authorities began holding regional elections on Thursday in parts of Ukraine Russia claimed as its own last year, seeking to cement Moscow's authority in what it calls its "new territories" despite the ongoing conflict.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moscow-stages-local-elections-occ
upied-parts-ukraine-2023-08-31/

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, September 5, 2023 8:25 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Corrupt Billionaire Behind Zelensky's Rise To Fame & Power Arrested


https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/corrupt-billionaire-behind-zele
nskys-rise-fame-power-arrested

-----------
"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



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Tuesday, September 5, 2023 11:56 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, who could have predicted that SECOND would use my SINUSES as a diversion!
Yanno, it's funny, SECOND, but that sentence of yours is the classic, and I mean THE CLASSIC ... as in, people have used it as an example ... ad hominem. Instead of addressing the point (Reznikov being fired is an indication that Ukraine is losing the war) you essentially replied with "Well, you have boogers in your nose". When you resort to random name-calling, we all know you've got nothing relevant to say.

Seriously, dood, you've got to get a new style.

SECOND: blah blah blah.... Or in Putin's diseased brain, NATO is the cause of Russia's poverty, not Russia's sickly delusions of adequacy.
Russia isn't poor, and RUSSIANS aren't poor. In terms of GDP by purchasing power parity, Russia is right there with Germany, and most recent data says Germany has fallen one place. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/real-gdp-purchasing-power
-parity/country-comparison

Furthermore, Russia's GINI index is significantly lower than the USA's, indicating a more even distribution of income.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

While there are underdeveloped areas of Russia, you don't see hordes of desperately poor people living on the street like you do here. Catch up to the 2020's, m'kay?


Quote:
Putin is a mass murderer.
Oh, you're just butt-hurt bc Russia is winning. The reality is that you don't give a crap about people being killed. I didn't hear you objecting to the #of people killed in the Vietnam war (which was also waged in Cambodia and Laos) other than it was a waste of ammmo.

The Russian MoD has been very careful to stay away from civilian targets. Ukraine deliberately targets civilians.

-----------
"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



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Wednesday, September 6, 2023 6:17 AM

SECOND

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


Putin Killed Prigozhin Over Business, Not Vengeance

By Dmitri Alperovitch, Sept 5, 2023

When Wagner mercenary group leader, caterer, and convicted robber Yevgeny Prigozhin met his fiery death alongside other Wagner leaders 30 miles southeast of Valdai, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s favorite lakefront residence, most assumed that it was the Russian president’s long-awaited revenge for Prigozhin’s failed mutiny this summer. But real reasons for what was almost certainly an assassination, and the implications of the killing for regime stability, are likely quite different.

When Wagner mercenary group leader, caterer, and convicted robber Yevgeny Prigozhin met his fiery death alongside other Wagner leaders 30 miles southeast of Valdai, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s favorite lakefront residence, most assumed that it was the Russian president’s long-awaited revenge for Prigozhin’s failed mutiny this summer. But real reasons for what was almost certainly an assassination, and the implications of the killing for regime stability, are likely quite different.

The idea that this was revenge is tempting, given that Prigozhin’s mutiny, even if it rapidly disintegrated, seemed like a humiliation for Putin. But look at events since then, and it doesn’t add up. Revenge motive is inconsistent with Putin’s apparent forgiveness of Prigozhin in the strange deal struck in June, when in return for amnesty, the mutineer agreed to pull back his armored column marching on Moscow, disarm his troops, and go into exile to Belarus. Instead, judging by the flight records of Prigozhin’s private jet and in-person sightings all over St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Africa, he had done everything but set up residence in a Minsk villa.

Prigozhin and Putin both rose to wealth and power in the tumultuous and chaotic 1990s. That was the time of razborki—gangland confrontations, where disputes over the spoils of power would be resolved in a montage of violence. Bombings and contract shootings of oligarchs, rival businessmen, politicians, and organized crime figures were a regular occurrence on the streets of Russia’s major cities. Being a rich man in Russia was an inherently risky and deadly business.

Part of Putin’s appeal to Russia’s elite, whether they were criminals, businessmen, or politicians, was that he ended, or at least capped, that violence. Indeed, as of 2021, the homicide rate in Russia had dropped nearly 76 percent since the start of Putin’s tenure. Disputes could be resolved nonlethally by the system established by Putin, not by bullets fired into a limousine. Enemies of the regime, such as journalists, were fair game, but the gangsters who held power, officially or otherwise, were protected. In the aftermath of his failed mutiny, Prigozhin was offered a chance to keep playing by those rules; his refusal, and his brutal end, may mean a return to the era of bloody contestation.

Far from being ostracized by Russia’s president, by Putin’s own account, Prigozhin met with him in the Kremlin only a mere week after the armed revolt. In July, Prigozhin posted a photograph of himself attending the Kremlin-organized Africa leaders’ summit in St. Petersburg, where Putin held court with 17 heads of state, hardly an indication of a man on the run from Russian intelligence.

The theory that Russia’s president was simply trying to lull Wagner’s leader into a sense of safety before ordering a bomb to be placed on his plane is also illogical. The Kremlin had numerous opportunities to order Prigozhin’s death during his free-wheeling travels across Russia over the past two months.

To be sure, revenge can be a famously cold dish. But it wasn’t cost-free for Putin to appear to change his mind and revoke his pledges of Prigozhin’s safety. Having failed to destroy Wagner during its “March for Justice” on Moscow—and officials in Kyiv shared information with me indicating that Russian combat pilots had refused to follow orders to fire on the mutineers—Putin acquiesced to a pardon for Prigozhin to end the uprising and publicly guaranteed his safety. Playing into that decision was likely not just a desire to quickly and with limited destruction put an end to this embarrassing episode, but also a belief that Wagner forces—the only ones who have demonstrated ability to conquer Ukrainian territory this year—could prove useful to Kremlin’s imperialist ambitions in the future. The price of the deal was merely a promise to let Prigozhin disappear into obscurity.

While Putin certainly lies routinely to the world community, the press, and the Russian public, doing so to an elite insider in the Russian government’s clannish and mafia-like system is much more consequential. Other security elites and oligarchs might start wondering if they themselves could fall victim to similar deception, and whether Putin’s word could ever be trusted. The unwritten oligarch rule of the Putin era is this: As long as you share the spoils of your gains with officials in power, abide by Kremlin’s wishes in whatever may be asked of you, and don’t engage in unsanctioned political activities, the system will take care of you, provide personal safety, and ensure your continued enrichment. The consequences for Putin of breaking that sacrament could mean the eventual loss of elite’s trust and backing.

Another indication that Prigozhin was not perceived as a traitor who deserved death for his betrayal is the reaction of key members of the Russian elite to his death. Alexey Dumin, a former Putin bodyguard and the current governor of the Tula region and often-mentioned possible successor as minister of defense, declared that Prigozhin was a “true patriot who had done a lot for his country and Motherland will remember him for it,” going even as far as to proclaim about the dead Wagner leaders that “traitors they were not.” Ramzan Kadyrov, the powerful head of Chechnya and a Putin loyalist, said that Prigozhin’s death is a “big loss for the nation.” This praise from key Kremlin power elites would be unlikely if Prigozhin had been eliminated for disloyalty.

The reason why Prigozhin could have been earnestly forgiven for his armed uprising is that his actions were not intended to challenge Putin’s position in power. Instead, Prigozhin was protesting—albeit with armored troop columns that shot down multiple helicopters and a command and control aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces—the plan by Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu to dismantle private military companies like Wagner and subsume them under Russian armed forces. Prigozhin’s mutiny was not about replacing the Kremlin’s leader; it was about keeping control of his mercenary troops and the highly lucrative opportunities they afforded him. The entire uprising was effectively a business dispute among Russian elites—one that resulted in murderous mayhem .

The more likely explanation for why Putin ultimately ordered the assassination is that it was Prigozhin, not Putin, who had gone back on their June agreement mediated by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Said or unsaid, it is clear that the penance for Prigozhin’s act of rebellion was the demand for the mutineer to give up much of his vast business empire and allow the Kremlin’s friends to subsume its various parts.

And initially, this went as agreed. Prigozhin shut down his propagandist media organizations—including the infamous Internet Research Agency troll farm, whose interference in U.S. elections had earned Prigozhin an indictment by the Justice Department. He also had his Wagner troops return their heavy arms to the Russian military and reportedly terminated his catering contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense.

But there was one part of his important business interests he was not willing to give up—his security and mining operations in Africa. For nearly a decade, Wagner had been operating across the continent to provide security assistance, training, and occasional coup support (and torture and terror killing campaigns) in Mali, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Mozambique, Libya, and Chad. In exchange, Prigozhin locked up for himself valuable mining interests for regional natural resources, such as gold, diamonds, oil, and gas.

On my recent trip to Kyiv, I was informed by Ukrainian government officials that they had information indicating that Prigozhin had accumulated more than $4 billion worth of gold alone from these endeavors. But Putin decided after Wagner’s rebellion that it was time for Prigozhin to give up these mercenary protection rackets—and time for his Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, and other regime-affiliated private military companies such as Redut, to take them over. More reliable members of the security state would be rewarded while Prigozhin was punished.

As the Wall Street Journal reported recently, Putin had personally told the president of Central African Republic that it was time to end his relationship with Prigozhin, and the Russian Ministry of Defense had sent delegations to African strongmen to tell them that from now on they were to deal directly with the Russian government.

But Prigozhin apparently refused to take the hint. Instead, in his last days, he was crisscrossing Africa—going from Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, to Bamako, the capital of Mali. Everywhere he went, he insisted—in private meetings and a video that he later released on his Telegram social media channel—that Wagner would continue to increase its presence and support to these African leaders. To his allied commanders in Sudan, who had brought him gold from Darfur’s Songo mine, the Journal reported that he said, “I need more gold.”

These defiant actions must have infuriated Putin. In the TV broadcast eulogy after Prigozhin’s death, Putin referred to him as a “talented businessman” who had made “serious mistakes in life,” but he also went into a strange and seemingly out-of-place level of detail on Prigozhin’s business dealings in Africa—the only specific reference to the oligarch’s vast business empire—and his engagement “in oil, gas, precious metals, and stones there.”

From Putin’s perspective, Prigozhin, rather than taking a chance at clemency and disappearing into oblivion, had the arrogance to continue to oppose Putin’s wishes. There could not and would not be a second forgiveness. Once again, Prigozhin arrogantly miscalculated a business dispute with Putin and other Russian elites, and it led to his demise.

Others seem to have made similar mistakes. The strain on the system caused by Putin’s botched invasion of Ukraine has meant an intensification of violence, albeit for most in a less flashy way. With far less money to go around, a growing security paranoia, and the hollowing out of the state grimly exposed by military failures, competition is deadlier that it has been for decades. This year alone, 16 prominent Russian business figures and government officials, in addition to Prigozhin, have perished from causes as varied as falling out of windows, dying days after receiving a cancer diagnosis, traffic accidents, drowning, suicide, and even being burned alive from a fire started by a lit cigarette. Now we can add a plane disintegrating in the sky to that long list.

Razborki and elite infighting are back in Russia after more than 20 years of Putin-enforced stability, and with them comes the increasing likelihood that Russia devolves further and further into chaos, which could one day endanger Putin’s own hold on power.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/05/yevgeny-prigozhin-assassination-v
ladimir-putin-wagner-deal-revenge/

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, September 6, 2023 6:21 AM

SECOND

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


Russian President Vladimir Putin drew historical parallels between Soviet participation in the Second World War and the current war in Ukraine to set ideological expectations for a prolonged war effort.

Putin gave a speech on September 5 that invoked the memory of significant Soviet military victories during the Second World War, including turning points in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk and recapturing the Caucasus and Donbas.[18] Putin had notably attended a concert in honor of the Battle of Kursk’s 80th anniversary as Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane crashed on August 23.[19] Putin criticized the international community’s “attitude” to the buildup to the Second World War — very likely criticizing European countries for failing to intervene against Nazi Germany prior to the outbreak of war (and ignoring the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that briefly allied the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany, permitted the Soviet invasion of the Baltic States, and partitioned Poland) — as also creating conditions for the current conflict in Ukraine and drew parallels between reconstruction efforts and veterans assistance measures during and after the Second World War and the current war in Ukraine.[20] Putin also reamplified the Kremlin information operation falsely portraying the Ukrainian government as a “Nazi regime.” These direct parallels between the “special military operation” and the Second World War are likely the closest that Putin or any other senior Russian official has come to acknowledging the war in Ukraine as an actual war. These parallels also message to a domestic Russian audience that the ongoing Russian war effort is really a war effort despite the insistence on the euphemistic “special military operation.”

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-september-5-2023

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, September 6, 2023 6:33 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:

Russia isn't poor, and RUSSIANS aren't poor. In terms of GDP by purchasing power parity, Russia is right there with Germany, and most recent data says Germany has fallen one place. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/real-gdp-purchasing-power
-parity/country-comparison
I am pretty sure the CIA and Russia want Russia to look richer than it is. Other sources point out that Russia is poorly run compared to . . . Canada. North Korea is poorly run, too. Both Russia and North Korea have killed tens of millions of their best people and exported the rest, leaving criminals and the untalented who couldn't hope for a better life to run things:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Compare+gdp+russia+canada

Signym, I suppose it needs to be mentioned that North Korea, set up to be Russia's little puppet, has kept its corner of the world in turmoil. Russia has done the same. Small minds copy each other's moves of threatening their prosperous neighbors with invasion and nuclear 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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Wednesday, September 6, 2023 2:05 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Russia isn't poor, and RUSSIANS aren't poor. In terms of GDP by purchasing power parity, Russia is right there with Germany, and most recent data says Germany has fallen one place. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/real-gdp-purchasing-power
-parity/country-comparison

SECOND: I am pretty sure the CIA and Russia want Russia to look richer than it is.
WTH would the CIA want THAT??? I mean, we sanctioned Russia to infinity and beyond, and the narrative is supposed to be that "Russia is in tatters, tatters I tell you!" and that they're pulling chips out of washing machines(!) to make fighter jets.


Quote:
SECOND: Other sources point out that Russia is poorly run compared to
Other sources that estimate Russian GDP and growth are the IMF and World Bank.
Are you telling me that there is a transnational cabal of financiers and spooks who WANT to make our sanctions look like they failed?

The reality is... oh yeah, that nasty word again... that Russia is doing much better than even Russian planners expected. Come into 2023, my friend. You seem to be stuck in 1970.

-----------
"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



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Wednesday, September 6, 2023 3:01 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:

The reality is... oh yeah, that nasty word again... that Russia is doing much better than even Russian planners expected. Come into 2023, my friend. You seem to be stuck in 1970.
When will you notice that Russia got beaten in 2022 by Ukraine? Ukraine does not have a powerful military or a huge economy or a vast population and yet Russia is still blustering about its superiority and still threatening to nuke Ukraine, which would be like nuking part of Russia, assuming you believe Putin's claim that there is no Ukraine, only Russia all the way to Crimea. The way Russia can prove its superiority over Ukraine is to take control of Ukraine, but Russia is not making that happen, ergo Russia is not superior to Ukraine.

It is two flabby countries battling one another -- Dumb versus Dumber. Ukraine has not blasted the Crimean Bridge, also called Kerch Strait Bridge, to smithereens because Ukraine is Dumb. A decade to prepare, yet Ukraine remains unable to destroy the bridge. The Ukrainians are almost as stupid as the Russians at warfare. Instead, Ukraine is breaking a few windows in Moscow, as if that is a good use for drones rather than utter waste and futility.

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, September 6, 2023 4:17 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I didn't notice bc it didn't happpen.

You're totally in la-la land, SECOND.


-----------
"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



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Wednesday, September 6, 2023 7:33 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:
I didn't notice bc it didn't happpen.

You're totally in la-la land, SECOND.
Your Russian buddies will be shot out of the sky and die screaming in a fire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIS-T

Germany to Ramp Up Production of IRIS-T System After Achieving 110 Hits in Russia-Ukraine War

September 6, 2023

After a spectacular combat performance displayed by the German IRIS-T air defense system in Ukraine, the system’s manufacturer, Diehl Defense, announced that it will dramatically increase its production.

The announcement was made by Diehl Defense’s Chief Program Officer Harald Buschek on September 5, who said the production was being ramped up to meet rising demand brought on by Russia’s war in Ukraine. He spoke to reporters at an air base in Todendorf, northern Germany.

Germany has already delivered two IRIS-T systems to Ukraine, where they are primarily used to protect Kyiv from Russian missile threats.

Berlin has promised to provide Kyiv with an additional six IRIS-T units, and it anticipates receiving the first of those six systems in October 2024 for its air force.

Bushek noted that Ukrainian air defense units had shot down more than 110 targets using the German IRIS-T air defense system since they were first deployed in October 2022.

Most of these targets, he noted, were Russian cruise missiles, especially the Kalib, with a near-impeccable kill rate of 100%, German publication Speigel reported.

“The Ukrainians are absolute professionals; they have a hit rate of 100 % in Kyiv.” The company’s top official also observed that at the beginning of the year, the system succeeded in repelling an attack on Kyiv by intercepting 13 Russian cruise missiles that Russia launched at the capital city simultaneously.

The official noted that the privately held company intends to build at least eight systems in 2025, up from three to four units this year. He continued by saying that the output of missiles would more than triple this year, double the following year, and reach 400 to 500 by 2024.

Buschek further told the reporters that a brand-new IRIS-T SLM system is awaiting shipment to Ukraine. This will be the third battery of the system delivered to Kyiv by Berlin, which has steadfastly provided military aid to the war-torn country since the beginning of the year.

Last month, Germany sent a fresh batch of military aid to Ukraine, which included two IRIS-T SLS air defense system launchers. The IRIS-T SLS (Surface Launched Short Range) is a short-range ground-based air defense system based on the IRIS-T air-to-air missile.

In addition, it was reported last month that Germany had acquired 200 IRIS-T SLS (surface-launched short-range) air defense missiles from Sweden to give to Ukraine. Diehl Defense is refurbishing Swedish missiles to replace IRIS-T SLM missiles fired by Ukrainian forces defending themselves from Russian airstrikes.

Moreover, the Norwegian Ministry of Defense said it would donate converted IRIS-T air-to-air missiles to Ukraine for use by its ground-based air defense (GBAD). The missiles, of which the type was not specified, can be launched from launchers that Sweden is providing.

Military experts believe this goes on to establish the potency of the system operating in Ukraine, working round the clock against Russian missiles and UAVs.

Only a few Western countries had earlier purchased this system before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, with the return of war to the European continent, several nations on NATO’s eastern flank, including Estonia and Latvia, are anticipated to sign contracts for the IRIS-T in the upcoming weeks.

IRIS-T’s Excellent Combat Performance In Ukraine

A typical single IRIS-T SLM system consists of three mobile launchers, a truck-mounted multi-function radar, and another truck modified into a command post vehicle.

The truck-mounted missile system is intended to take down combat aircraft, attack helicopters, drones, anti-radar missiles, cruise missiles, bombs, and drones. The multipurpose radar, for one, is tasked with tracking multiple targets at once.

Following Russia’s first large-scale missile strike on Ukrainian cities in October that rattled Kyiv and the West, Germany handed over the first IRIS-T air defense system to the embattled country. The first evidence of its deployment was recorded just days after its reported delivery, with visual evidence making rounds on social media.

In the middle of April this year, Germany delivered the second IRIS-T to Ukraine. Less than a month later, on May 3, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, head of the Ukrainian Air Force, said in a Telegram message that since October 2022, a division of the IRIS-T air defense systems had destroyed more than 60 hostile aerial objects over Ukraine.

A video showing the system in action was also subsequently shared by the commander. “Everyone had a great impression on the first day of using the system,” said another Ukrainian military officer, nicknamed ‘Jeweler,’ the deputy commander of an anti-aircraft missile unit. “First of all, because they shot all (targets) down,” he said.

Ukrainian operators have hailed it as a fantastic defense against Russia’s ongoing drone and missile attacks ever since it was used in combat for the first time. The Ukrainian military went so far as to say that the IRIS-T effectively downed every incoming target during the country’s first operational usage of the system in January, as reported by the EurAsian Times.

“The German system is modern, powerful, and effective. Even during its baptism by fire in October, it shot down all targets, mostly cruise missiles,” explained an IRIS-T operator.

The former German defense minister announced that Kyiv would get at least three air defense systems in 2023. IRIS-T manufacturer Deihl claimed that coupling it with the US-made Patriot PAC-3 missile defense system with a higher maximum altitude will maximize its effectiveness.

Last month, Russia claimed to have destroyed a Ukrainian IRIS-T system. However, it has been determined that the system was a decoy instead of an actual launcher.

https://www.eurasiantimes.com/roduction-of-iris-t-system-after-achievi
ng-110-hits-in-russia-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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Wednesday, September 6, 2023 10:55 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Gee, I sure hope the Russians don't take out the radar and command center with a hypersonic missile. Or a drone.

-----------
"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



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Thursday, September 7, 2023 6:34 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:
Gee, I sure hope the Russians don't take out the radar and command center with a hypersonic missile. Or a drone.
If Russia was competent, the war would have been over after a few weeks. For example, in the war between the USA and Saddam Hussein, the war lasted a few weeks and then Iraq's ruler had to go into hiding. Ukraine's ruler appears at international conferences, as does his wife. Russia is doing a very poor job in Ukraine compared to what the USA did to Iraq, where the US bombing could shut down Iraq.

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, September 7, 2023 7:01 AM

SECOND

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


Russia decries U.S. plan to send Ukraine depleted uranium rounds

The ammunition can not only pierce Russian tank armor but also ignite inside, burning Russians slowly, screaming as they die.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-sending-ukraine-ammo-punch-holes-ig
nite-russian-tanks-2023-9

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-sending-ukraine-depleted-uranium
-rounds-russia-war-rcna103812

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, September 7, 2023 8:29 AM

SECOND

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


Russian commander used military helicopters 'to airlift pet cat’ during Ukraine war

The former pilot said six military personnel were on board for the mission despite Russia experiencing a lack of pilots.

Maksim Kuzminov, a former Russian airman, claimed that the cat was airlifted in a military-grade helicopter for around one hour, while another flew alongside it to provide cover during the 114-mile journey, reported The Independent.

When asked for examples of any illogical uses of aviation during the war in Ukraine, in an interview with The New Voice of Ukraine, Kuzminov said, “Our commander needed to transport a cat which had some impressive pedigree. To do this, two Mi-8 and Mi-24 (helicopter) crews were assigned”.

“We burned a lot of fuel, resources. Furthermore, the crews aren’t always allowed to rest.”

The 28-year-old Kuzminov is now urging his former Russian colleagues to leave the Russian army and switch sides.

“The truth is, there are no Nazis or fascists,” he told the Ukrainian news outlet, to counter the message President Putin has used to justify the “special military operation” launched in February last year.

He said he got in touch with representatives of the Ukrainian military intelligence about the possibility of changing sides and he was offered safety as well as a financial reward.

Edited By: Manisha Pandey
Published On: Sep 7, 2023

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/russian-commander-used-military-
helicopters-airlift-pet-cat-during-ukraine-war-2432253-2023-09-07

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, September 7, 2023 12:13 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Gee, I sure hope the Russians don't take out the radar and command center with a hypersonic missile. Or a drone.
If Russia was competent, the war would have been over after a few weeks. For example, in the war between the USA and Saddam Hussein, the war lasted a few weeks and then Iraq's ruler had to go into hiding. Ukraine's ruler appears at international conferences, as does his wife. Russia is doing a very poor job in Ukraine compared to what the USA did to Iraq, where the US bombing could shut down Iraq.

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


Russia didn't WANT to go to total war and destroy Ukraine. THEY STILL DON'T.

In the beginning they were hoping to bluff/scare Zelensky into negotiating and it worked. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators initialed a peace deal in Turkey in March 2022, remember? But BoJo swooped in, told Zelensky what's what, threatened cutting Z out from under the west's umbrella and promised all the weapons Z might want (and, ahem, MONEY) and Z reneged on the negotiated agreement.

And like I said, Russia STILL doesn't want to destroy Ukraine. But they sure want to degrade Ukraine's and NATO's military assets. Which they're doing at a considerable clip.


Russia isn't waging an American-style combined arms/Nazi-style blitzkrieg war. You STILL haven't figured that out? Well, apparently neither have our generals.



-----------
"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



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Thursday, September 7, 2023 12:42 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 didn't WANT to go to total war and destroy Ukraine. THEY STILL DON'T.
The Kremlin has transformed the “special operation” into a “people’s war,” a shared task that should unite the nation. Anyone who is against the Kremlin—“national traitors,” in Putin’s words—must be fought against.

Previously, the model was one of “us” at the bottom of the social pyramid and “them” at the very top—in charge of the country and living well, with their yachts and palaces. Now that vertical construction has been made horizontal. “We” Russians are all together and we’re fighting “them”—the Ukrainians, NATO, the United States, the EU, and the collective West.

The new “we” are developing a collective goal which, just like Communism under the Soviets, is forever being pushed further into the distance, but can nevertheless be glimpsed on the horizon. The goal is victory over the West. The specific parameters of what such a victory would look like or how it may be achieved remain entirely unclear, but the rest of eternity can be spent moving toward that horizon.

https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89486

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, September 7, 2023 1:22 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Thanks to constant USA attempts at global hegemony, including trying to destroy Russia, angling for war with China, and sanctioning the hell out of a lotta nations, the world is dividng into two blocs, again.

And since the USA can't POSSIBLY by wrong and continues on its quest for total world dominance and the Great Reset, expect to see continued polarization as fewer and fewer nations are allowed to remain neutral.

And now, back to our story ...

-----------
"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



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Thursday, September 7, 2023 2:04 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:
Thanks to constant USA attempts at global hegemony, including trying to destroy Russia,
Russia has been thrown back not just forty years — to a time when behavioral patterns largely consisted of adapting to the decline of the Soviet system — but to the beginning of the Cold War, the struggle against “cosmopolitans” and any “kowtowing to the West”; to an epidemic of denunciations and new waves of repression.

Under Russia’s internal rules, a “good Russian” is someone who at the very least does not rock the boat. The state feeds this obedient mass with rituals of unity, a national history of uninterrupted victories, and an ideology of imperialism. Consequently, weariness of the “special military operation” is not expressed in calls for peace and more transparency in Russia, but in either more aggressive or more passive, incurable support for the authorities. The scale of this adaptability is such that Russian society is giving Putin carte blanche to continue both his war on the country’s borders and the repressive practices within it.

https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/89486

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, September 7, 2023 9:08 PM

SECOND

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


During a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that "those who have enabled [Vladimir] Putin's war of aggression should pay for it."

Blinken said: "For the first time we are transferring to Ukraine assets seized from sanctioned Russian oligarchs, which will now be used to support Ukrainian military veterans."

Reports suggest the amount seized so far is around $5.4 million. (If this number is correct, that is a pitifully small amount.) Representatives from the U.S., the U.K., and the EU held talks on Thursday about how to stop Russia from evading sanctions, according to reports.

In comments to reporters on Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow considered the blocking, seizure or withholding of funds linked to the Russian state abroad "as illegal acts."

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-blinken-kremlin-oligarchs-tran
sfer-1825258

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, September 7, 2023 10:40 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


That's stupid. The oligarchs that Blinken is "punishing" are those who've taken their money out of Russia, and in many cases followed their money out. They aren't Putin's friends. Often they're on the opposite side. It's the usual braindead neocon approach. I personally think they just want to wrest something from their effort that they can call a "victory" and then bag the whole thing.

USA NEOCONS READY TO DUMP UKRAINE IN FAVOR OF WAR WITH CHINA
PER SKY NEWS, VIA THE DURAN (48:00)



-----------
"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



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