Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

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

Putin claimed on January 16 that Latvia and other Baltic states are “throwing [ethnic] Russian people” out of their countries and that this situation “directly affects [Russia’s] security.”[10] Previous changes to Latvia’s immigration law stipulated that Russian citizens’ permanent residence permits would become invalid in September 2023 and that Russian citizens would need to follow the general procedure for obtaining EU permanent residence status in Latvia, including passing a Latvian language exam, by November 30, 2023.[11] The Latvian Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs stated in December 2023 that Latvia would deport about 1,200 Russian citizens who failed to apply for a new residence permit by the deadline.[12] Putin has long employed an expansive definition of Russia’s sovereignty and trivialized the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, and Russia has long claimed that it has the right to protect its “compatriots abroad,” including ethnic Russians and Russian speakers beyond Russia’s borders.[13] ISW has not observed any indication that a Russian attack against the Baltics is imminent or likely, but Putin may be setting information conditions for future aggressive Russian actions abroad under the pretext of protecting its “compatriots.” Putin recently threatened Finland in mid-December 2023 and reiterated a world view illustrating that he continues to pursue demanded changes to the NATO alliance that would amount to dismantling it.[14]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-16-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 8:57 AM

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

Putin openly spoke about what Russia conquered in Ukraine instead of his usual rhetoric about 'liberation' or 'denazification'. Was it deliberate or a slip of the tongue? Time will tell.

"As for this negotiation process, it is an attempt to encourage us to abandon our conquests from the past year and a half," Putin told the heads of municipalities from throughout the country in comments posted on the Kremlin website. "This is impossible. Everyone understands that this is impossible, these ruling circles in Ukraine, understand this, and the Western elites understand this," he said.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-putin-war-1861364

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 11:13 AM

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

Medvedev states Russia will never leave Ukraine

By Iryna Balachuk — Wednesday, 17 January 2024, 13:57

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/01/17/7437637/

Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, has said that Russia will always be at war against Ukraine – a reason for an attack will be found in 10 or 50 years as well.

Source: Medvedev on Telegram https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/437

Quote: "The existence of Ukraine is deadly for Ukrainians. And I'm not just talking about the current state, the Banderite political regime. I am talking about any, absolutely any form of Ukraine.

Why? The existence of an independent state on the historical Russian territories will now be a constant pretext for the resumption of combat actions."

Details: Medvedev calls Ukraine a "cancerous neoplasm" and an "artificial country", stating that Russia will never consider its government legitimate.

Quote: "The likelihood of a new clash will remain indefinitely. Almost always. Moreover, there is a 100% chance of a new conflict, no matter what security papers the West signs with the puppet regime in Kyiv. It will not be stopped by Ukraine's association with the EU or even by this artificial country's accession to NATO. This may happen in 10 or 50 years."

Details: He also believes that Ukrainians, "no matter how much they wish death to the Russians now" and "no matter how much they hate the Russian leadership", will one day choose to live in a "great common state" rather than fight and die forever.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 11:23 AM

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

Dmitry Medvedev (Short version of his message: Better Red Than Dead)

Why Ukraine is dangerous for its inhabitants

The existence of Ukraine is mortally dangerous for Ukrainians. And I don’t mean only the current state, Bandera’s political regime. I'm talking about any, absolutely any Ukraine.

Why?
The presence of an independent state on historical Russian territories will now be a constant reason for the resumption of hostilities. Late. No matter who is at the helm of the cancerous growth under the name of Ukraine, this will not add legitimacy to his rule and the legal viability of the “country” itself. And, therefore, the likelihood of a new fight will persist indefinitely. Almost always. Moreover, there is a 100% probability of a new conflict, no matter what security papers the West signs with the puppet Kyiv regime. Neither Ukraine’s association with the EU, nor even the entry of this artificial country into NATO will prevent it. This could happen in ten or fifty years.

That is why the existence of Ukraine is fatal for Ukrainians. They are practical people at the end of the day. No matter how they now wish the Russians to die. No matter how much they hate the Russian leadership. No matter how much they strive to join the mythical European Union and NATO. Choosing between eternal war and inevitable death and life, the vast majority of Ukrainians (well, perhaps with the exception of a minimal number of frostbitten nationalists) will ultimately choose life. They will understand that life in a large common state, which they do not like very much now, is better than death. Their deaths and the deaths of their loved ones. And the sooner Ukrainians realize this, the better.

https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/437

Jan 17 at 01:32

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 11:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm sure Second and Ted could do it.
Have we left the war completely?

I've never been a part of it since the beginning.

It's a shame that you don't want to continue what might only be the 3rd actual conversation we've ever had and you'd rather cheerlead a war, but it's not surprising.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 11:47 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm sure Second and Ted could do it.
Have we left the war completely?

I've never been a part of it since the beginning.

It's a shame that you don't want to continue what might only be the 3rd actual conversation we've ever had and you'd rather cheerlead a war, but it's not surprising.

I have seen all the house remodeling I want to see and heard all the conversations about paint colors and countertops I want to hear. Unless you have some interesting photos of replacing old with new natural gas piping for your house? That would fascinate me. Does Indiana allow flexible stainless steel covered with plastic gas piping?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 12:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm sure Second and Ted could do it.
Have we left the war completely?

I've never been a part of it since the beginning.

It's a shame that you don't want to continue what might only be the 3rd actual conversation we've ever had and you'd rather cheerlead a war, but it's not surprising.
I have seen all the house remodeling I want to see and heard all the conversations about paint colors and countertops I want to hear. Unless you have some interesting photos of replacing old with new natural gas piping for your house? That would fascinate me. Does Indiana allow flexible stainless steel covered with plastic gas piping?

I've never looked into that seeing as how it's the one part of my crappy ancient heat system that seems to be in working order.

But it would appear that they do: https://up.codes/viewer/indiana/irc-2018/chapter/24/fuel-gas#24

I probably won't get to it this year, but my plan is to add a heat pump, and possibly two of them, in my basement to supplement the working furnace, rather than try to put another furnace on a slab in the crawlspace where it's apparent it had been pulled out at least once, if not several times by previous owners after flooding.

The heat pump(s) wouldn't have helped me out at all over the last 5 days with all the sub-zero temps, but my furnace does a reasonable job keeping the house warm even down in the basement and crawlspace where all the pipes are that haven't froze and burst, but with a heat pump or two down there it would keep the entire house at a reasonable temperature at an affordable price probably 85% of any given winter when the temps outside didn't drop too low for them to work properly. And with them being on the upper half of the wall above grade, they wouldn't be prone to any flood damage.

At one point I considered the possibility of having a generac installed, but my plan now is to install a 30 Amp plug outlet on the outside of my house where I can plug in my generator when the power goes out, after installing a load generator interlock switch on my breaker box.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-Homeline-150-225-Amp-Indoor-Load-
Center-Generator-Interlock-Kit-HOMCGK2C/202767243

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to bust out some of the wall around the breaker box to get this done, but I'm not going to let that stop me from painting that nearly-finished room down there in the meantime. I can always touch that paint up after fixing it up, and paint is cheap.

Right now I have a solution in place where I can keep the sump pump running if the power goes out, but with only one $100 extension cord rolled up and mounted just inside the crawl space, it requires me to throw the cord out the window closest to the garage, no matter the weather outside which is likely to be bad during a power outage (with a wet and filthy cord coming back inside when the power comes back on), and the only thing I'm powering with my generator is the sump well.

With that switch in place, there's still no way that I could power even half my house with my current generator, but I have a map of my circuts through the house and I could keep a couple of them energized so I could also keep my fridge with the insulin running, as well as maybe a few lights and the TV/Computer. I wouldn't have to keep a window cracked for the plug out the window anymore either.

Hopefully I get that done this spring.

I'm also going to run more electric down in the crawl and put in a 2nd well and pump. I want to be able to control the power to each pump with a switch outside of the crawlspace, with the existing pump that is already going into the sewer and the other pump dumping out above grade and taken away from the foundation, and both of them eventually with battery backups installed.

We haven't had a weather event now for nearly 4 years that gave me any cause of concern, although I have had to get the generator running for the pump 3 times. If I had that all in place, I wouldn't have even needed to do anything with my generator those 3 times and the battery backups would have done the job I needed since the outages were only a few hours each. I probably would have fired up the generator out of sheer boredom though, because they all happened late at night in the dark, and I was really left with nothing to do to pass the time while I was waiting for the power to return since I'm not likely to sleep much while my power is out.

My eventual goal here is to be able to get the place set up so that even if I wasn't home when the power was out it should run itself for at least a few hours until I got home to take care of business. I never want to be up all night mopping up water into buckets or crab walking with a 3 gallon bucket from my sump well to my basement toilet for hours again. I'm getting to old for that shit.

Yeah... I'm not big on the gas. That's not to say that I don't love having natural gas service, but short of putting a new flex line on my stove when I redid the kitchen and taking my neighbor to the hardware store to get the correct cap for his line when we removed his stove right before they got their kitchen remodeled, I don't have any experience with it.

I'm much more comfortable working with electricity and I'm quite capable with it. My garage is awesome now that I've added all that additional light and outlets in there, all hard-piped and way above code in these parts. Same with my porch, the porch attic and the attached shed. And I even installed 2 outdoor outlets in the porch and the garage that are protected with GFCI, so it's nice being able to do things like weed wack and power wash without having to have my front or back doors open for the extension cords anymore. I even put switches from the inside on the outdoor outlets so nobody can even use them unless I turned the power on first.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 12:59 PM

Here's a video on what I plan to do with the generator, the 30 Amp power box and the interlock kit...

I'm going to move these last two posts to the Garden where they probably belong.

If you ever get board of always arguing and want to talk to other human beings like a human being yourself, you've always got an invite.

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 1:06 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Thanks for the video. We should do that for our house so it's nice to get some info. I hope to see this in the RAIN thread.

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"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, January 17, 2024 1:21 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I never want to be up all night mopping up water into buckets or crab walking with a 3 gallon bucket from my sump well to my basement toilet for hours again. I'm getting to old for that shit.

The Texas Gulf Coast does not have basements to flood. We have hurricanes flooding the whole house. Without a basement, most water pipes are run in the vented attic, which freezes in winter. Kind of unfortunate when the attic pipe to your toilets has frozen. Even if the water is left dripping in the bathroom sink, that won't keep the toilet's water supply from freezing. What is the solution, assuming you plan for winter, not just summer? An un-vented attic that stays about the same temperature as the living areas. The water pipes won't freeze, but you have to insulate the roof to keep the attic from getting hot in summer and cold in winter.

For natural gas do-it-yourselfers:
1/2 in. x 25 ft. CSST MPT/FPT Connection Kit (1) 1/2 in. MPT Male Adapter (1) 1/2 in. FPT Female Adapter (1) CSST Pipe
https://www.homedepot.com/p/HOME-FLEX-1-2-in-x-25-ft-CSST-MPT-FPT-Conn
ection-Kit-1-1-2-in-MPT-Male-Adapter-1-1-2-in-FPT-Female-Adapter-1-CSST-Pipe-11-436435525-005/312430454

https://www.homedepot.com/p/HOME-FLEX-1-2-in-x-1-2-in-x-4-1-2-in-CSST-
FIPT-Stainless-Steel-Manifold-11-050504/203073904

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, January 17, 2024 2:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Thanks for the video. We should do that for our house so it's nice to get some info. I hope to see this in the RAIN thread.

SIGNYM

Russia hit by largest civil protest since its Ukraine invasion began

Russia has been hit by its biggest civil protest since Putin invaded Ukraine - with 10,000 taking to the streets and violent clashes breaking out over the jailing of an anti-war activist. Riot police and demonstrators were involved in battles and a number of 'wounded' were reported at the protest in the small town of Baymak, Bashkortostan, a rural region of Russia near the Ural mountains. The protest was sparked following the jailing of a prominent anti-war activist, who was sentenced to four years in prison for 'inciting hatred.'

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-hit-by-largest-civil-prote
st-since-its-ukraine-invasion-began/ss-AA1n7SMe?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=af751efc48a14127b5b5ddc4aa593af8&ei=90

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Wednesday, January 17, 2024 3:51 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Given America's goldfish-sized memory (6 seconds) and general disinterest in foreign affairs, nobody noticed the sudden shift in narrative?

In 2022 it was "Ukraine in winning! Always winning!" and last year it was "The Greatest Counteroffensive" and analyses thereof.

This year, it's "Russia is going to take over the world!!!"

*****

Now, AFAIK Russia has no interest in invading France, Canada, the UK, or whichever nation plans on signing a "bilateral" security agreement with Ukraine. Russia also has no interest in "destroying NATO" altho they said they want to roll NATO back to its 1991 borders.

Since TBTB NEVER gin up a "crisis" without an ulterior plan (eg. "climate crisis" to reduce standard of living for non-elites, "Covid crisis" to take medical control of people's lives, 9-11 to shred the Constitution with the so-called "Patriot Act") what could THIS "crisis" be aimed at?

Well, a couple of possibilities:

KEEP THE MONEY FLOWING TO THE ELITES. If hope of victory isn't enuf the empty people's pockets, fear of attack should do the trick. I saw that at Davos. Plans were being made for Ukraine to issue "reparations bonds" using RUSSIAN Central Bank reserves as collateral, and would only pay off if Ukraine wins. First of all, that's as legal as me taking out a loan using my neighbor's house as collateral. Secondly, there's a huge risk those bonds won't pay off, so financial institutions won't touch them. That leaves governments as buyers, using ... what else? ... taxpayer money. Yermak, Zelenskiy's probable boss, has already been negotiatin with Black Rock and Chase. Chase, we have been told, has agreed to handle the money.

KEEP UKRAINE AND RUSSIA FIGHTING. Those bonds are real incentive for neither party to negotiate. A fight to the death.

CONTROL THE PEOPLE. As Europe goes "all in" on the war, dissent will be punished, lawfare will be waged against dissenting candidates, more will be censored, parties may be outlawed. There is even the possibility of martial law.

It's a win-win for the elites. I'm sure there will be other ways for TPTB to take advantage.

-----------
"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, January 18, 2024 8:16 AM

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

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 17, 2024

The Russian military command continues to convict Russian officers in cases associated with Ukrainian strikes as part of a likely effort to improve discipline across the Russian military.

1) Moscow’s Second Western District Military Court sentenced the former head of Rosgvardia’s maritime department, Colonel Sergei Volkov, to six years in prison on January 16 for allegedly supplying low-quality radar systems to protect the Kerch Strait Bridge in occupied Crimea and a gas pipeline from Krasnodar Krai to occupied Crimea from Ukrainian drone strikes.[51] The court found Volkov guilty of “abuse of office with grave consequences” for his participation in a 400 million ruble ($4.5 million) corruption scheme involving the acquisition of two radar systems that Volkov reportedly knew could not properly defend against Ukrainian drones.[52]

2) The Second Western District Military Court convicted two Russian air defense officers on December 6, 2023, for negligence in failing to prevent a Ukrainian strike on Russian territory.[53]

3) Russian authorities also previously detained the commander of the 1st Special Purpose Air and Missile Defense Army on corruption and bribery charges, likely for failing to prevent drone strikes against Moscow City in July and August 2023.[54]

4) The Russian military command likely intends to set a precedent across the Russian military concerning possible punishment for failures to defend against Ukrainian strikes — particularly strikes against high-value targets — regardless of whether the cases explicitly allege that these officers violated Russian rules of combat duty or tangentially associate the officers’ dereliction of duties with corruption schemes.[55]

The Russian command likely hopes that these precedents will improve discipline writ large among Russian forces in Ukraine, although ISW has not observed such an effect.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-17-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Thursday, January 18, 2024 8:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Thanks for the video. We should do that for our house so it's nice to get some info. I hope to see this in the RAIN thread.

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

Yeah. If you've got the time and the money and you and/or your husband aren't afraid of electricity, a Transfer Switch is actually an even better way to go. But without paying somebody else to install it for you, the price is going to be baseline around $500 and could get quite a bit more expensive than that.

With a transfer switch, you're essentially hooking up a 2nd, smaller breaker box, and tying the electricity in through that.

The interlock switch that I'm going to install is just to make sure that you can't have the connection to the main open while you open up the connection for your generator to power the home, which could kill somebody working on power lines if they think they're working on a dead line but it's energized by your generator.

The same principal is used in the Transfer Switch, but because you throw a 2nd breaker box in the mix it's a better solution for people who don't own a very expensive generator that would be capable of keeping the entire house running. You basically pick which circuits you want to be run on the generator during a power outage ahead of time and you're all set when the power goes out.

What I'll have to do with that interlock kit is remember to turn off all of my breakers in my house manually except for the ones that I've deemed essential along with shutting off the main. I don't mind the extra step, and I have plans to paint the tips of the breakers that are essential when I get to that point so it's easy to do in the heat of the moment.

Now, living in California, you're probably going to want to have the A/C on during the power outage too. That's great and all, but A/C units have HARD starts that could damage your equipment if you're running it on a generator.

In that case, you should also look into installing an AC Soft Start box as well...

EDIT: It appears that the video won't play through fff.net, but it plays directly on YT. So you can quote this post and get the link and watch it at your leisure.

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Thursday, January 18, 2024 9:11 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Since TBTB NEVER gin up a "crisis" without an ulterior plan (eg. "climate crisis" to reduce standard of living for non-elites . . .

So now you are a climate change denier? You know somebody who is like that:

09/14/2020 - Climate clash hits 2020 race as California burns
Joe Biden linked the blazes to climate change, while President Donald Trump dismissed the science that shows rising global temperatures make natural disasters worse.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/biden-trump-california-fires-
climate-change-414753

01/16/2024 - No more going wobbly in the climate fight
For all his bombast, the former president’s agencies hesitated to rewrite federal climate reports or install loyalists atop key science agencies. Some of his allies expect that to change.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/12/trump-second-term-climate-sci
ence-2024-00132289

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Thursday, January 18, 2024 3:18 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Since TBTB NEVER gin up a "crisis" without an ulterior plan (eg. "climate crisis" to reduce standard of living for non-elites . . .

SECOND: So now you are a climate change denier? You know somebody who is like that: blah ... blah ... blah...

Off topic much?

Yanno, you misrepresent me like you misrepresent Russia.

Climate change is real.
GFC of 2008 was real.
Covid is real.
9-11 was real.
Saddam WMD and 9-11? Not so much!
Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan? Not so much either!
Gaddafi "massacring his own people"? Assad and "chemical weapons"? Pfffft!

Russia taking over Europe???? A fiction.

What I'm saying, and have been saying over many posts: TPTB will use ANY "crisis" - REAL, imagined, or exaggerated - to further THEIR OWN GOALS, NOT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Who was it that said "Never let a good crisis go to waste?"

I hope I have been pellucidly clear.
Please don't misrepresent me again.

-----------
"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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Friday, January 19, 2024 8:39 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Off topic much?

Yanno, you misrepresent me like you misrepresent Russia.

Russia taking over Europe???? A fiction.

What I'm saying, and have been saying over many posts: TPTB will use ANY "crisis" - REAL, imagined, or exaggerated - to further THEIR OWN GOALS, NOT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Who was it that said "Never let a good crisis go to waste?"

I hope I have been pellucidly clear.
Please don't misrepresent me again.

Russians have killed around 100,000,000 people and then stole their land. It so many dead that even the Russians cannot wrap their minds around the slaughter. They do NOT want to think about how they got to this point where they are murdering Ukrainians, and stealing their land, but claiming it is the West's fault. Even the highest levels of the Russian government are avoiding thinking about that 100,000,000 number. They mentally reset the number to zero just before making speeches because otherwise they could not go on the way they do:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated that Russia’s maximalist objectives in Ukraine remain unchanged and that Russia is not interested in negotiations with Ukraine or the West. Lavrov stated at a press conference on January 18 that Russia “will achieve the goals of its ‘special military operation’ consistently and persistently.”[1] The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) readout of this speech included a link to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 24, 2022 speech in which Putin outlined Russia’s goals of “demilitarizing” and “denazifying” Ukraine and his demand that NATO commit not to admit new members – goals which are tantamount to full Ukrainian and Western surrender.[2] Lavrov reiterated that these goals are unchanged, claiming that “serious” talks about the “realistic” conditions for ending the war “presuppose [Ukraine’s] renunciation of Nazi ideology, Nazi rhetoric, racism towards everything Russian, and entry into NATO.”[3] Lavrov attempted to justify these conditions as necessary for preserving the Ukrainian people’s independence and identity, despite the fact that ISW has routinely documented how Russian forces and occupation officials have been engaging in large-scale and deliberate ethnic cleansing campaigns and efforts to eliminate the Ukrainian language, culture, history, and ethnicity in areas that Russian forces occupy.[4] Lavrov also denied Ukraine’s agency as a sovereign state, claiming that “it is not Ukraine that will decide when to stop and start talking [with Russia] seriously” about the end of the conflict, but that it is the West that will make this decision. Lavrov dismissed a question about recent media publications about the possibility of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, stating that “rumors are just that - rumors.” Lavrov claimed that the West – not Russia – is to blame for the absence of negotiations and threateningly stated that “those [in the West] who refuse [to negotiate] must understand that the longer they wait, the harder it will be to negotiate” and that “there is no hope that Russia will be ’defeated.’” Lavrov made similar statements on December 15, 2023, suggesting that the Kremlin believes that the longer the war continues, the more territory Russia will be able to occupy, and that the course of the war will increasingly weaken Ukraine’s negotiating position.[5]

Lavrov also claimed that support of the war has unified the Russian people and strengthened Russian identity. Lavrov claimed that the war contributed to the “cleansing of people who do not feel involved in” ethnic Russian history and culture and the history and culture of the Russian state.[6] Lavrov claimed that some of these people left Russia at the beginning of the war, but that an “overwhelming part of [Russian] society came together in an unprecedented way.” Lavrov's statements are meant to frame Russian society as unified around the war, despite heavy Kremlin efforts to crack down on any dissent and disproportionately amplify factions who support the war. Lavrov’s statements also indicate that the Kremlin continues to lack a unified position about the return to Russia of those citizens who previously left, as some Kremlin officials, including Putin, have celebrated the trend of Russians returning from abroad, whereas others have publicly threatened them.[7]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-18-2024

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

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Friday, January 19, 2024 9:57 AM

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

The War in Ukraine Now Has Its First Draft

By Elliot Ackerman | January 18, 2024, 7:48 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/01/war-ukraine-now-has-
its-first-draft/677163/

The One Element Keeping Ukraine From Total Defeat

A new book recounts the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the ground up.

The tired truism that journalism is history’s first draft does not quite apply to covering war—or not usually, in any case. In those battles that I’ve fought in and those that I’ve reported on, as soon as the gunfire ebbs and soldiers start passing out the post-firefight cigarette or candy bar—or whatever corporeal ritual they’re engaging in to remind themselves that they’re still alive—invariably, they begin to tell stories. They huddle in small groups urgently talking about what just happened, trying to bring order to the violence and chaos they’ve experienced. One guy will talk about entering a house on the left. The other guy will remind him that they entered on the right. They’ll argue about where another friend was shot. The story will begin to congeal when everyone agrees that this is what happened—a first draft, which then, in the hands of a journalist, becomes a second one.

Ever since Homer decided to sort the heroes from the villains at the gates of Troy, the stakes in a war story are always exceptionally high. The seeds of the next war tend to be sown by the stories we tell about the most recent one—whether that’s the German “stab in the back” theory at the end of the First World War, or, more recently, Russian claims that Ukraine is a “fake nation” that exists only because of the lost Cold War.

If history becomes the final battlefield on which a war is waged, Yaroslav Trofimov’s Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence might be the opening salvo in the struggle to define what has happened in Ukraine over the past two years, even as the war continues. Trofimov, who is Ukrainian-born and the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, crisscrossed the country in the first year after Russia’s invasion, gathering the stories of those who experienced the brunt of Vladimir Putin’s army and who are enduring the war of attrition that has followed. The anecdotes in this book—the civilian massacre in Bucha, the meat grinder of Bakhmut—possess the type of frenetic intensity that reminded me of those post-firefight stories.

Except Trofimov isn’t in these stories, though he easily could’ve been, as many war correspondents with far less personal investment in the conflicts they’ve covered readily introduce the personal pronoun into their writing. Instead, he allows the events to unfold under his watchful eye. The result is a kind of cinema verité on the page, an account of the war that’s as close as one can get to that first draft of history as it’s spoken by those who experienced the events. The reader gets a crystal-clear vision of the war’s first year that also reveals the secret weapon that allowed the Ukrainian people and their army to surprise the world—a weapon that tragically has lost much of its power in a war that has more recently descended into a deadly and relentless slog.

Trofimov’s story starts before the invasion. He recounts how much of the outside world had decided that Ukraine was lost before the fighting had even begun. Conventional wisdom among Ukraine’s allies was that the country stood little chance against Putin’s military juggernaut. But in the second week of February 2022, days before the invasion, Trofimov found that many of Ukraine’s military commanders hadn’t bought into this defeatist narrative.

On a visit Trofimov took to Chernihiv, on Ukraine’s northern border with Russia, Serhiy Kryvonos, a retired major general and a veteran of the war in the Donbas, was telling a different story. He scoffed at the idea of Russian military primacy. “We beat them before, and we will beat them now. Look at Afghanistan: the Taliban had nothing to fight with, but they ended up forcing the United States to withdraw. What is most important is not the military hardware, but the motivated, trained people. No army in the world could ever overcome a motivated people.”

Weeks would pass before many commentators could believe that Ukrainian resistance had, in fact, stopped the Russian army. Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, recalled, “There was an absolute bewilderment on the part of our partners. They didn’t comprehend what was going on.” The visual manifestation of this in the American media were the breathless dispatches in the war’s early days about the massive, 20-plus-mile-long convoy of Russian military equipment headed toward Kyiv. Surely, there was no way that Ukraine’s ad hoc resistance could repel such an advance. However, the longer that Russian convoy sat on the road, the more apparent it became that this wasn’t a blitzkrieg thrust at the heart of Ukraine but a Russian traffic jam born of the mismanagement of supply lines.

Our Enemies Will Vanish takes its title from a line in the Ukrainian national anthem (“Our enemies will vanish, like dew in the sun”), and interwoven throughout this military and political narrative of the war’s first year are stories of enemies vanishing—like the Russian columns at the gates of Kyiv—but also of enemies suddenly appearing.

Although the Russian invasion has become a story of Ukrainian resistance, Trofimov’s chronological account—broken into 11 parts with thematic titles like “Dignity, Destruction, Attrition”—doesn’t shy away from telling the stories of collaboration in cities such as Kherson, where Russian agents recruited former Ukrainian officials to serve as their proxies. A lieutenant in the Ukrainian army characterized these collaborators as “lovers of the Russian world who wanted to live in it,” as if Russia weren’t a place but a state of mind, a narrative universe one lives inside of as a palliative.

Putin understands the power of stories. For Russians, the war in Ukraine has become whatever Putin says it is, whether “a special military operation,” a project of “de-Nazification,” or even an “anti-colonial struggle.” The latter is how Putin absurdly characterized the war in a speech he gave to mark the annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, a moment Trofimov characterized as “the biggest land grab of the century.” For Ukrainians, there has been an equal and urgent parsing of history and language that has attended this war. Trofimov notes:

Putin and Zelensky share the same first name, that of Kyiv’s Grand Prince Volodymyr, or Vladimir in Russian, who had brought Christianity to the Rus. My own parents named me after Volodymyr’s son, Grand Prince of Rus Yaroslav the Wise … To many Ukrainians, Moscow, an uninhabited swamp when princes Volodymyr and Yaroslav were alive, had misappropriated their history—and with it, the right to the very name Russia. After the war began in 2022, tens of thousands of Ukrainians even signed a formal request for Zelensky to rename Russia as Muscovy.

Arguing over place names and the spellings of Volodymyr versus Vladimir may seem like a semantic game amid Europe’s largest land war in three generations, but the imposition of a Russophone existence is the reason Ukrainians are fighting and dying, so that their capital will remain Kyiv as opposed to Kiev. The quickest way to change a story is to change the names. Putin knows this. So does Trofimov, whose book filled with the old names stands as a rebuke to erasure.

Ironically, as conscientious as Putin was in shaping a false narrative that legitimized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he fell victim to a different false narrative, one fed to him by his own generals about the competency of his military. Not only was the Russian military beset by corruption, in which officers reported false readiness numbers to their superiors, but it was also saddled with an antiquated Soviet command philosophy that relied on centralized decision making and discouraged initiative from battlefield commanders. This proved disastrous for Russia. After the 2014 Russian invasion, Ukrainians had embraced a NATO-centric method of warfare that relied on “mission command,” an operational philosophy that empowered subordinate commanders to execute their missions as they saw fit after understanding the intentions of their higher commanders. Mission command allowed the decentralized Ukrainians to outmaneuver the Russians in the early days of the war, inflicting heavy casualties on them.

“Running an army this way requires a high degree of trust,” Trofimov writes, “something that comes more naturally in a democracy. It was the secret to Ukraine’s resilience.” The two militaries’ differing command philosophies take on outsize importance in the war’s first year, embodying the broader conflict between Russian authoritarianism and Ukrainian democracy. Andriy Zagorodnyuk, who headed these reforms at Ukraine’s ministry of defense noted, “This is what saved Ukraine at the outset of the war. When the offensives began on many operational directions, one of the goals of the Russians was to overwhelm Ukraine by the quantity of engagements. If the approach had remained centralized, Ukraine wouldn’t have been able to manage it.”

In the spring of 2022, the nature of the war began to shift, from one of maneuver to one of attrition. Ukrainian resistance forced Putin to abandon his push on Kyiv, and the focus of the war shifted east to the Donbas, where the Russians dug in. Putin’s military, with its numerical advantage and centralized command structure, was well suited to this style of fighting. The Russians didn’t need to make quick decisions but simply had to feed the meat grinder, as Trofimov characterizes these battles.

In places such as Bakhmut, towns that were of little strategic importance, large-scale fire fights took place for no other reason than for Russia to bleed Ukraine and vice versa. A Ukrainian soldier summarized the dynamic in Bakhmut as “The Russians are emptying their prisons and sending their worst to die here, while we are losing some of our best. It’s not at all a fair trade.” Also, as Trofimov points out, “Russia’s bigger size meant that even with lopsided casualties, Moscow was still winning the attrition war over the long run.”

Throughout the first year of the war, Ukraine made continuous requests for weapons from the United States and NATO. Reading Trofimov’s accounting of these requests, it’s clear that Ukraine’s allies, while publicly praising Ukrainian valor, took infuriating half measures when asked to fulfill President Zelensky’s requests for military aid. Not even spectacular Ukrainian success and gross Russian incompetence could dispel a belief among Western leaders that Ukraine was, ultimately, weak, while Russia was strong. Trofimov notes that in May 2022, after Ukraine had repelled the Russians from the gates of Kyiv, an adviser to Zelensky published a wish list of weapons systems: “1,000 howitzers, 300 multiple-launch rocket systems, and 500 tanks. Western officials dismissed the request as outlandish” while continuing to publicly pledge their support.

Early in the war, U.S. and NATO hesitation was largely rooted in a belief that the Ukrainians couldn’t win. Once it became clear that Ukraine was effectively resisting Russia’s invasion, the source of that hesitation shifted to Western fears about Putin. The Biden administration and other NATO leaders continued to believe Putin’s nuclear threats. Trofimov writes that decisions about military aid began to adhere to “a perverse logic: no help forthcoming when Ukraine had momentum, but a move to step in when the situation became critical and the Ukrainian military faced collapse.” Ukraine’s foreign minister, speaking to Trofimov, said, “We need to completely change the optics. Instead of waiting for a crisis in order for them to make a decision, they need to make a decision now in order to avoid a crisis.”

What is clear in Trofimov’s account of the war’s first year is that Ukraine didn’t simply need weapons and aid after its initial successes on the battlefield; what it needed was weapons and aid fast. By 2023, more than a year after the initial requests were made, Trofimov describes the Ukrainian reaction after the country at last received more than 200 tanks, nearly 900 fighting vehicles, and 150 artillery pieces. “In Kyiv, satisfaction with this breakthrough was tinged with sadness. These numbers weren’t too far from what the Ukrainians had asked for in May, a request rejected at the time as unrealistic. If these weapons had been supplied in August, when Russia’s military was stretched thin, they could have ensured a strategic Ukrainian victory and possibly ended the war.”

Today, the end of the war is nowhere in sight, and, as Trofimov notes at the close of this book, “a long, grueling fight” lies ahead. That fight will, of course, be fought on the battlefield. But it will also be waged in the story about Ukraine, in the first and second drafts of history that are right now being written. Trofimov has collected a chorus of voices that add up to the truest first draft I have yet to read of the first chaotic year. Like those soldiers breathlessly recounting the just-fought battle, he’s helped us make sense of one of the grimmest wars of our time.

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

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Friday, January 19, 2024 2:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Off topic much?

Yanno, you misrepresent me like you misrepresent Russia.

Russia taking over Europe???? A fiction.

What I'm saying, and have been saying over many posts: TPTB will use ANY "crisis" - REAL, imagined, or exaggerated - to further THEIR OWN GOALS, NOT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Who was it that said "Never let a good crisis go to waste?"

I hope I have been pellucidly clear.
Please don't misrepresent me again.

SECOND: Russians have killed around 100,000,000 people and then stole their land.

Man, this number just goes up every time you post, doesn't it?

Care to know how Russians wound up in the far East (according to Chinese history?)
As fur trappers and traders.

Fur was a luxury item in Imperial China. There was an active trade between what is now Siberia and northern China.

-----------
"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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Friday, January 19, 2024 2:57 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The War in Ukraine Now Has Its First Draft

By Elliot Ackerman | January 18, 2024, 7:48 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/01/war-ukraine-now-has-
its-first-draft/677163/

The One Element Keeping Ukraine From Total Defeat

If history becomes the final battlefield on which a war is waged, Yaroslav Trofimov’s Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence might be the opening salvo in the struggle to define what has happened in Ukraine over the past two years, even as the war continues. Trofimov, who is Ukrainian-born and the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of The Wall Street Journal, crisscrossed the country

Only on one side of the line. How about talking to the residents of Donetsk City, who'd been shelled for years by Ukraine? Or Russian speakers who left bc of repression? Talking to the million or more refugees who fled to the EU, or Russia?

Hardly an objective account.

-----------
"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, January 20, 2024 8:40 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Only on one side of the line. How about talking to the residents of Donetsk City, who'd been shelled for years by Ukraine? Or Russian speakers who left bc of repression? Talking to the million or more refugees who fled to the EU, or Russia?

Hardly an objective account.

Objectivity can function only when Russians are objects, not someone to empathize with or hear their screams as they die. Plug your ears, Signym, to maintain your high level of true objectivity.

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, January 20, 2024 8:41 AM

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

The Russian information operation aimed at painting defensive NATO actions in response to real Russian aggression on NATO’s eastern flank as provocative seeks to deflect from recent aggressive Russian rhetoric and behavior towards NATO.

Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, recently threatened Finland and the wider NATO alliance.[11]

Putin identified the West as Russia’s “enemy” and implied that Russia is fighting in Ukraine in order to defeat the West.[12]

Kremlin officials and Kremlin-affiliated actors have also repeatedly attempted to set information conditions for future aggressive action against NATO member states and their neighbors.[13]

Russian electronic warfare (EW) exercises in Kaliningrad may have caused unprecedently high levels of GPS jamming across northern and central Poland and the southern Baltic region on December 25-27, 2023 and January 10 and 16, 2024.[14]

ISW continues to assess that Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 not to defend Russia against a nonexistent threat from NATO but rather to weaken and ultimately destroy NATO – a goal he still pursues.[15]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-19-2024

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, January 20, 2024 10:37 AM

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

The Broken Bargain of Russian Womanhood

Why they won’t rebel against the war that kills their men.

By Anastasia Edel | January 20, 2024, 6:00 AM

Russian women have, shockingly, embraced the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine despite the heavy toll it exerts on their men.

Though Russia doesn’t disclose casualties, they are mounting. Scores of new graves housing the remains of “heroes” are popping up across the country as the labor ministry requests certificates for families of the deceased by the hundreds of thousands. While the state heaps praise on these men in death, in life it seems to view them as disposable. Russian officials have made this abundantly clear, repetitive to the point of cliché: “Women will give birth to more.”

Despite standing to lose so much, the wives, mothers, sisters, and girlfriends of Russian soldiers have largely nodded along with the Kremlin’s moribund determination to grind down their men. They weep at makeshift memorials to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late chief of the paramilitary Wagner Group. They show little gender allegiance to the women of their former sister republic. Some are actually proud of their “defenders,” egging them on to rape Ukrainian women should they get the chance. In packed concert halls across the country, girls sing along ecstatically to “Ya Russky” (“I am Russian”), the country’s new patriotic anthem. Their faces soften the song’s promises to “fight to the end” and “spite the whole world.” That seems to be the point.

Russian womanhood, routinely held up in the country’s lore as a paragon of strength, patience, and sacrifice, is now functionally a cover-up for the crimes of Russia’s men. Two of Russia’s most notorious propagandists, Margarita Simonyan of Russia Today and Olga Skabeyeva of the Russia-1 television channel, are women, as is Maria Zakharova, the boorish spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Beneath them lurk less prominent figures with important platforms. There’s Putin’s Brigades, a motley crew of activist grandmothers who have abandoned their communal yard benches to rally the masses for President Vladimir Putin and his war. They call on U.S. President Joe Biden to stop “NATO’s war against Russia” and on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to surrender. The Project in Red Dresses, which is supported by an organization run by one of Putin’s relatives, mobilizes women across Russian towns. Draped in red, they waltz through public spaces, seeking to both boost women’s confidence and unite Russians around their leader.

Women support the war effort in other ways, too. Back in my hometown, my mother’s acquaintances are knitting camouflaging nets for Russian troops and teaching children how to make trench candles to send to the battlefield. Schoolteachers—the majority of whom are women—are now responsible for children’s patriotic upbringing. In the state-mandated weekly class “Conversations about important things,” teachers disseminate Kremlin-approved talking points and rally support for the war among children as young as kindergarteners—lining them in Z-formations, organizing visits and weapons demonstrations from “defenders of the motherland,” and even engaging children to help produce those weapons. Teachers who disagree with the war or try to get out of this duty are denounced—often by other women—and subsequently fired or forced to quit.

Women haven’t always been so compliant with the state’s agenda. In 1917, they famously took to the streets to protest food shortages and the monarchy, sparking the strike that eventually triggered the Russian Revolution. More recently, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia was instrumental in pressuring then-President Boris Yeltsin to end his war on Chechnya in 1996.

Nearly two years of Russian carnage in Ukraine, however, have produced mostly acts of individual heroism. For instance, Channel One Russia employee Marina Ovsyannikova made an on-air appeal to viewers not to believe the state’s lies about the war. The artist Sasha Skochilenko swapped supermarket labels with messages about Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. These acts did not go unpunished: The former has since fled the country, while the latter was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Subversive performance art, once a tool of female dissent, is no more. After serving prison terms for their anti-Putin anthems, members of the feminist band Pussy Riot are now in exile, raising money to support the Ukrainian military. These days, the mere suspicion of “radical feminism” can land one in prison. Playwright Svetlana Petriychuk and theater director Yevgenia Berkovich, the duo behind an award-winning play about Russian women who married Islamic State fighters, were accused of “justifying terrorism” and were jailed in May 2023.

Women are now more likely to spend their energy on procuring fake medical certificates to excuse their sons and husbands from war than on resistance of any kind. Those who privately disagree with the war—their number is anyone’s guess—keep the sentiment to themselves. But their personal hesitations have sparked nothing remotely political, let alone a challenge to Putin’s willingness to wage war.

It is hard to say how much of the population’s 70 percent approval rate for the war is driven by fear, propaganda, or ignorance, but one thing is clear: Since the start of the invasion, the already-malfunctioning Russian moral compass has broken irrevocably. Designated to reproduce life, women now must participate in Putin’s show of death.

Seeing their men off to some kind of calamity has long been considered part of the bargain of Russian womanhood. The movies of my adolescence, which coincided with the last decade of the Soviet Union, featured countless examples of men marching off to fight our enemies—World War II, World War I, the civil war, the Napoleonic wars, the Mongol invasion, the Viking raids. In literature class, I memorized the monologues of wounded heroes; during choir lessons, I sang sad ballads with titles like “Goodbye, Boys,” begging soldiers sent to war “to come back alive.” This proposition wasn’t theoretical: My male classmates faced a real prospect of being drafted into the Soviet-Afghan War upon graduation. After that war, there were others; even during the post-totalitarian 1990s, war was never absent from the public’s mind. Someone, somewhere, was always waiting for “our boys”—the absolving way in which Russia routinely refers to its soldiers—to return.

While the boys were hailed as heroes, the options available for girls and women were less inspired. In a patriarchal society, like Russia and the Soviet Union before it, there are few acceptable female archetypes during times of war. Motherhood is one. In the Soviet era, it was epitomized in Mother Heroine, an honorary title awarded to women who bore and raised 10 or more children. Introduced under Joseph Stalin in 1944 to address the massive population loss during World War II, Mother Heroine codified the Soviet woman’s primary duty as the producer of manpower, a resource to be used at the state’s discretion.

After providing children for the state, the Soviet woman’s task was then to galvanize them into fighting for it. At the site of the Battle of Stalingrad, there is a colossal statue of a woman brandishing a sword, titled The Motherland Calls. At 279 feet, she is the tallest woman in the world, perpetually summoning her countrymen to battle. The Motherland Warrior, as we might call her, reminds citizens that their motherland is under threat and then assures them of the righteousness of any war fought in its defense.

Women under war were also encouraged to share its burden on the battlefield. In Soviet books and movies about World War II, women were often comrades-in-arms. Female sharpshooters killed Nazi officers, blew up German trains, and suffered Gestapo torture without shedding a tear. Though she fought alongside men, the Comrade-in-Arms still carried the emotional responsibilities of womanhood: She cared for the wounded and inspired them to commit more acts of heroism, just like their Mother Heroines did from the home front.

Between wars, women were equal partners in delivering on the state’s agenda, whether harvesting fields on collective farms or laying the bricks of the great construction projects of communism. In the iconic Moscow statue, Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, a man and woman put this partnership on display, holding up a hammer and sickle triumphantly as they labor together toward the building of the socialist state. This gender equality, however, was less the product of idealism than economic necessity: Soviet leaders had to conscript every resource available to compensate for the flaws of their planned economy.

These archetypes, defined and promoted by the state, were meant to carve out and assign value to women’s roles in Soviet society. The reality behind them, however, was far less glorious.

The equal partner’s experience, for instance, did not feel very equal. Though women were emancipated by the revolution and encouraged to labor alongside men, their contributions were not rewarded with political power. Only four women ever breached the ranks of the Politburo, the highest communist body of political power; their prospects at the local level were similarly bleak. Beyond poster cases like sending a woman to space, an average Soviet woman’s celebrated equality mostly amounted to the double burden of work and household duties.

Nor could those state-imposed archetypes override the informal but pervasive attitude that women were the “weak sex”; this sealed their inferior position in society. From childhood, girls were groomed to compete for men by looking pretty, excelling at housework, and guarding their fertility (“Don’t sit on cold surfaces—you’ll freeze your ovaries!” our mothers, schoolteachers, and concerned strangers instructed.). In the lighter Soviet movies, even imaginary women who held positions in high society pined for marriage and children. Female intelligence was viewed as a handicap. A smart woman was a woman who didn’t know her place, a criticism that dogged Mikhail Gorbachev’s obviously smart wife, Raisa Gorbacheva, throughout his political career. In marriage, patience and self-sacrifice were considered the highest virtues, as demonstrated by the wives of the Decembrists, the 19th-century aristocratic women who voluntarily followed their husbands to Siberian exile in the aftermath of the failed uprising.

In the provincial town where I grew up, little respect existed between genders. In divorce, which was common, men’s infidelities, drinking, and beatings were often sheltered under the legal euphemism of “irreconcilable differences.” In the street, catcalling women and grabbing their bodies were the norm. Three of my close friends had their first sexual encounter in the form of rape. All three assaulters were boys we knew: our boys. My friends never reported the crime, unwilling to add societal condemnation to the despair they suffered in private. There were only so many ways to be a woman in the Soviet Union, and a victim was not one of them.

Perestroika, the period of liberalization started by Gorbachev in the mid-1980s, brought real rather than proclaimed agency to Soviet women. Shaken by the unfolding collapse of the socialist economy, most women had to concentrate on pulling their families out of financial ruin and had little time to spare for politics. But not all. Though they were still exceptions in the male-dominated political scene, several female trailblazers rose up during this time. Political dissident Valeria Novodvorskaya, who lived through decades of arrests and forced psychiatric treatments for protesting the Soviet regime, created the country’s first non-communist party, Democratic Union, effectively breaking the one-party state system. Galina Starovoytova, a democratic politician and advocate of ethnic minorities’ right to independence, became one of the most recognizable faces of the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era, as did journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who rose to the top of the largely male profession with her human rights activism and fearless coverage of the Chechen wars.

The 1990s, a decade of relative freedom ushered in by perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, proved insufficient to revert Russia’s bend toward patriarchy. Gender equality is an expression of freedom, and Putin liked control. It didn’t help that both Starovoytova and Politkovskaya were assassinated, or that Novodvorskaya, among the first to ring the alarm on Putin, was repeatedly labeled “dem-shiza,” or “democratic schizophrenic.”

As Putin gradually retooled the country into an autocracy, he hijacked the ever-present fear of war lingering in a nation that had seen its men mowed down by the millions and painted it not only as inevitable but honorable. In his endless military spectacles, women in period combat nurse costumes marched alongside Topol missiles, walking reincarnations of Soviet-era war film stereotypes. Their cheery presence lent an air of legitimacy to the state’s escalating violence.

Putin wrapped sexism in dated chivalry rituals, like flowers “for the beautiful sex” (as women are often referred to in Russia) sprung on female politicians. Crude sexual jokes and rape talk, previously taboo in public discourse, were now gamely dispensed by Russia’s man in charge, met with laughter and applause in return. The international community may have been aghast in 2022 when Putin quoted an obscene Soviet-era punk rock lyric about raping a sleeping woman to explain his demands for Ukraine: “Whether you like it or not, bear with it, my beauty.” But in Russia, this phrase is familiar, quoted by men and women. In a society built on violence, revolutionary or otherwise, a woman always loses.

There is no obvious end in sight to this regression. The war in Ukraine has hastened the post-perestroika narrowing of paths available to Russian women, and their value is once again defined by their compliance with the war effort.

Today, even mothers and wives demanding the return of their sons mobilized to fight in Ukraine often start by avowing their support for Putin’s war; many simply insist on replacing their men, who paid their dues, with others. The promise of the equal partner is also fading: In wartime, putting their careers first is not a viable option for most women. The longer the war goes on, the less funding will be available to health care and education, sectors that traditionally employ women, as money is redirected to industries that more tangibly support the war effort. The GDP boost from increased military spending will be offset by Western economic sanctions, so women planning business careers may have to reconsider how they spend their time.

As abortion restrictions expand, there are now few legal offramps available from the path of motherhood, and aspiring career women will instead have to make do with the task of raising and educating future soldiers—an occupation they are encouraged to start shortly after completing their secondary education.

The resurgent Russian Orthodox Church, Putin’s main ally in turning Russia into a conservative bulwark, has expanded its mother-forward offerings to help women bear with this reality. New rituals and holidays were introduced to celebrate “traditional family” and “traditional values,” code words for LGBTQ denialism, and the woman’s role as the “keeper of the hearth.” In squares and plazas across Russian towns, Vladimir Lenin’s statues have begun sharing public space with those of previously unknown saints designated as the patrons of family and marriage.

The Mother Heroine, Motherland Warrior, and Comrade-in-Arms are alive and well in Putin’s Russia. Joining the ranks of these surprisingly durable Soviet archetypes is the soldier’s wife-in-waiting. She supports the war from the rear, infuses children with pride, and doesn’t ask questions if her man is reported dead or missing. This last attribute, not asking questions, seems to be the defining feature of acceptable Russian women today.

What, then, is the Russian woman’s reward for her compliance? The short answer is: not much. Russian oligarchs, the country’s proxy for economic power, are almost exclusively men. Women make up roughly 18.3 percent of the Russian parliament. In terms of pay equality, women earn about 70 percent of what men do in similar jobs. Culturally, misogyny and sexism flourish. Russian comedy shows often portray women as too dumb to tell the steering wheel from the shifting gear.

A deadlier plague is domestic violence, a problem recycled from Soviet times and the times before them. One-fifth of all Russian women have been physically abused by their partners. Every year, some 14,000 women are killed by it—that’s nine times more than in the United States, which has twice the population. The actual number is likely much higher, since many women are afraid to report incidents of violence against them. In 2017, with the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian Duma decriminalized domestic violence that doesn’t require a hospital stay. It is as if the state itself has embraced the worn Russian saying, “If he beats you, it means he loves you.” Given the toughness of this love, it’s possible that for some women, seeing their abusers off to war becomes a path to liberation.

It’s certainly a path to economic improvement. The $2,535 monthly starting wage offered to those enlisting to serve in Ukraine is nearly 14 times higher than the median salary in Russia’s economically depressed regions, which deliver a disproportionally large number of recruits. If they die in combat, oh well. Better to go out a hero than, as one Russian priest said, the usual “choking on their vomit.” The families of fallen soldiers can also receive lucrative “coffin money” payments for their troubles, a rare glimmer of economic opportunity for working- and lower-class Russians. In July 2022, Russia-1 aired a story advertising the riches of enlisting to fight: The family of one deceased soldier sorrowfully recounted how they bought a previously unaffordable Lada car with the payout for the death of their son who dreamed about having a white car—“just like this one”—then drove it to his grave.

For many women, the price of resistance may be higher than they’re willing to pay. But if they continue to go along with all this, they’ll be doing so under increasingly dangerous conditions. Already-rampant domestic violence will only get worse as the war goes on and civilian men are maimed by battle and replaced back home with traumatized veterans and pardoned convicts. In the past year or so, returning “heroes” have raped teenage girls and burned their sisters alive. One convict-turned-Wagnerite stabbed to death an 85-year-old woman after terrorizing others with an ax and pitchfork in truly Dostoyevskian fashion.

For crimes against women, however, there are few punishments so long as they are committed by those willing to sacrifice for the Kremlin. A lieutenant colonel from Kuzbass was detained for the murder of an 18-year-old girl nearly two months after Putin made him a “Hero of Russia.” Following the arrest, he was defended by his superiors for having “brought invaluable benefit to the motherland in the fight against the Ukronazis.” Another man was pardoned from an 11-year prison term for murdering his girlfriend and putting her corpse through a meat grinder, after enlisting to serve in Ukraine.

A nation can be judged by how it treats its women and its girls, to paraphrase former U.S. President Barack Obama. Russia’s abuse of women, plastered over at different points of its history by the rhetoric of equal rights and traditionalism, underwrites the brutality of its war on Ukraine. If men can pillage and plunder their own, nothing stops them from exercising that right in a foreign land with a gun and a hero’s medal. Having abdicated their collective responsibility to call their men to answer, Russian women find themselves in an increasingly dehumanized society, where support for the war is not a guarantee against becoming its victims.

Anastasia Edel is a Russian-born American writer and social historian. She is the author of Russia: Putin’s Playground (2016), a concise guide to Russian history, politics, and culture.
Download for free from https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Anastasia+Edel

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, January 21, 2024 8:16 AM

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

Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin threatened Denmark, a founding member of NATO, on January 20 in response to a recent US-Danish agreement allowing US forces access to military bases in Denmark. Barbin claimed during an interview with Russian news outlet RIA Novosti that the December 2023 US-Danish agreement “creates new challenges” for Russia’s security in the Baltic Sea region and stated that Russia will determine the “necessary responses" to such actions.[6] The US and Denmark signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement on December 21, 2023, allowing the US to permanently station forces and equipment at military bases in Denmark.[7] Barbin called the agreement a “deliberate course towards further degradation of the military-political situation in the region under the slogans of containing and intimidating Russia.”[8] A prominent Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger previously claimed that Finland is becoming a “second Ukraine” in response to a similar US-Finnish agreement.[9] Russian officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, have recently threatened Finland, and the Kremlin’s threats against a founding member of NATO that shares no borders with Russia is a notable challenge to the wider alliance.[10] Russian threats made towards a founding member of NATO also undermine Russia’s longstanding information operation that its aggressive actions are in response to NATO expansion.[11]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-20-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, January 21, 2024 3:18 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing 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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Sunday, January 21, 2024 3:32 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Russia closes the Bering Sea to British fisheries. Britain calls it an "attack" on their fishing vessels.

-----------
"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, January 21, 2024 9:22 PM

THINGS AREN'T LOOKING GOOD

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Sunday, January 21, 2024 11:40 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

This is what LOSERS do

Quote:
At least 25 killed in Ukrainian strikes on Russian-controlled Donetsk, officials say

By Darya Tarasova, Teele Rebane, Radina Gigova, Victoria Butenko, Josh Pennington, Andrew Carey and Maria Kostenko, CNN

Updated 9:29 PM EST, Sun January 21, 2024
People remove debris at a food market following, what local Russian-installed authorities say, was a Ukrainian military strike in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russia controlled Ukraine, January 21, 2024.

CNN —

At least 25 people were killed and 20 were injured, including two children, in Ukrainian shelling near a market in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, officials say.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement published that a market and shops in the city’s Kirovsky district were targeted with multiple launch rocket systems, with the shelling reportedly coming from the direction of Avdiivka.

MORE AT https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/21/europe/ukraine-strikes-russian-cont
rolled-donetsk-intl/index.html

Losing militarily, so they strike at civilians.
Sheesh.

-----------
"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, January 22, 2024 7:29 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is what LOSERS do

At least 25 killed in Ukrainian strikes on Russian-controlled Donetsk, officials say

Losing militarily, so they strike at civilians.
Sheesh.

I am assuming you completely forgot that the USA firebombed civilians in Tokyo and Dresden during WWII. After peace treaties were signed, the War on Germany and Japan was over for the US, but not for Russia, which killed a further two million German civilians in retribution.

Russia kills two million civilians after WWII
https://www.google.com/search?q=Russia+kills+two+million+civilians+aft
er+WWII

Signym, you ought to read Expulsion of Germans after World War II and the forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II#Expuls
ion_of_Germans_after_World_War_II_and_the_forced_labor_of_Germans_in_the_Soviet_Union

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, January 22, 2024 7:31 AM

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

Russia is likely intensifying relations with North Korea as part of an effort to procure more artillery ammunition from abroad amid Russian munition shortages. The North Korean Foreign Ministry stated on January 20 that Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his willingness to visit North Korea “at an early date” (presumably in 2024) during his recent meeting with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui in Moscow.[15] Putin last visited North Korea in 2000, and his renewed interest in deepening Russian–North Korean relations is likely part of increasing Russian efforts to procure munitions from abroad.[16] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Head Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov stated in a January 21 interview that North Korea provided a “significant amount of artillery ammunition,” which allowed Russia to “breathe a little.”[17] Budanov suggested that Russian forces would likely experience operationally significant artillery ammunition shortages without North Korean–provided ammunition.[18] Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Deputy Chief Major General Vadym Skibitskyi stated that North Korea delivered one million rounds of artillery ammunition to Russia from September to November 2023 and that the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) can produce in total two million rounds of 122mm and 152mm shells annually, which resulted in a deficit of 500,000 shells in 2023 and will likely result in a similar deficit in 2024.[19]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-21-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, January 22, 2024 8:12 AM

Shut the fuck up idiot.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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Monday, January 22, 2024 8:40 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut the fuck up idiot.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

Putin's Decree Triggers Ominous Alaska Calls
Jan 22, 2024 at 6:50 AM EST

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a new decree relating to Moscow's historic real estate holdings abroad, a move interpreted by ultranationalist bloggers as a foundation for future revanchism against Russia's neighbors—and even the U.S.

The decree, signed by the president late last week, allocates funds for the search, registration, and legal protection of Russian property abroad, including property in the former territories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

This would include Alaska, swathes of eastern and central Europe, large chunks of central Asia, and parts of Scandinavia.

Russia's Foreign Ministry and its presidential administration's Foreign Property Management Enterprise are directed to carry out the work, ordered to find, register, and protect "property" in question.

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-decree-triggers-ominous-alaska-calls-te
rritory-empire-soviet-union-1862689

6ixStringJack, I have a long history, going all the way back to the 1960s, of thinking that angry poor white trash are foolish, dishonest, undisciplined, lazy, ignorant, drunken, unhealthy tax-cheaters who richly deserve their many misfortunes. In the latest few years they have self-identified as Trump supporters. In short, they are Trumptards.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, January 22, 2024 8:43 AM

You have a long history of being an idiot with a big mouth.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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Monday, January 22, 2024 9:02 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You have a long history of being an idiot with a big mouth.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

Just in case somebody other than 6ix and myself are reading this, 6ixStringJack had most of teeth pulled because he did not go to the dentist. He was a drunk. He has no job. He lives on $7,000 per year. The government pays for his healthcare, in particular, his diabetes. He wishes there was a guaranteed basic income for people like himself. And he is around 45 years old and a big supporter of Donald Trump, who 6ix believes will solve his many, many problems caused by his (hopefully temporary) lack of good character. 6ix does not have the excuse that he is (for the moment) failing because he was born stupid since he has shown himself to be highly articulate, more so than even Trump.

I hope that 6ixStringJack turns his life around. That would be an amazing pleasant story but it is getting a little late in life for him to realize he is on the wrong path.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, January 22, 2024 9:23 AM

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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Monday, January 22, 2024 11:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

This is what LOSERS do

SIGNYM

Comrade, someone just told me Russia invaded Ukraine again. I told them no way; Russia couldn't possibly be that stupid.

T

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Monday, January 22, 2024 4:20 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You have a long history of being an idiot with a big mouth.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
Just in case somebody other than 6ix and myself are reading this, 6ixStringJack had most of teeth pulled because he did not go to the dentist. He was a drunk. He has no job. He lives on $7,000 per year. The government pays for his healthcare, in particular, his diabetes. He wishes there was a guaranteed basic income for people like himself. And he is around 45 years old and a big supporter of Donald Trump, who 6ix believes will solve his many, many problems caused by his (hopefully temporary) lack of good character. 6ix does not have the excuse that he is (for the moment) failing because he was born stupid since he has shown himself to be highly articulate, more so than even Trump.

I hope that 6ixStringJack turns his life around. That would be an amazing pleasant story but it is getting a little late in life for him to realize he is on the wrong path.

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

Every time you resort to personal insults means you have no intelligent answer.

-----------
"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, January 22, 2024 5:55 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Every time you resort to personal insults means you have no intelligent answer.

This is not a debating society where there is a judge to decide who wins the debate. And it is not a war where there is a well-aimed bullet to decide who lost. It is more like a school for the retarded where the students think they're smarter than their therapists. At the wages therapists are paid, the retards might be right.

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, January 22, 2024 5:58 PM

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

Russia and Ukraine Agree on Trump

Jan 22, 2024 at 1:21 PM EST

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-agree-trump-1862891

Russia and Ukraine have reached a rare point of agreement during the 23-month-long war: neither side believes that former President Donald Trump could bring an end to the conflict.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine would have never happened under his presidency and has promised to bring the war to an end within "24 hours" if reelected in November. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has invited Trump to Kyiv on two different occasions to deliver on his promise, although the Ukrainian leader has publicly doubted the former president's ability to find a peaceful end.

While speaking to reporters on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow agrees they have "no understanding of how" Trump could end the war, adding that they have had no contact with the former president about such negotiations.

Trump was first invited by Zelensky to visit Ukraine in November 2023. At the time, the former president said that the invitation was "inappropriate".

Zelensky reiterated his invitation during an interview on the British broadcast Channel 4 News that aired last Friday, telling the former president, "If you can stop the war during 24 hours, I think it will be enough to come."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, January 22, 2024 6:41 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

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

Every time you resort to personal insults means you have no intelligent answer.
This is not a debating society where there is a judge to decide who wins the debate. And it is not a war where there is a well-aimed bullet to decide who lost. It is more like a school for the retarded where the students think they're smarter than their therapists. At the wages therapists are paid, the retards might be right.

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

Personal insults = no intelligent answers.

-----------
"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, January 23, 2024 8:48 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Personal insults = no intelligent answers.

Signym, you have never explained why Russians are impoverished compared to the EU. It is because they are living their lives wrong. Signym, you have never even tried explaining why Russians had to kill 100,000,000 Russians, not Germans, to achieve what little they have. Instead, you claim it either didn't happen or doesn't matter since the time of mass murder has passed. The Russians are living wrong and have been for centuries. 6ixStringJack is living wrong in the same way as Russians. 6ix could move around a great land, using his wittiness to prosper. Instead, he lives in relative poverty compared to the EU while he writes long columns about the failures of Disney as proof Trump will win in 2024. 6ix is wasting life, as are the Russians.

6ixStringJack's "The 2023 Disney Failure Thread"
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=36&tid=65637&p=1

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, January 23, 2024 8:52 AM

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

Russian officials and information space actors are attempting to further rhetorically justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by misrepresenting a decree that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed on January 22 concerning discrimination against ethnic Ukrainians in Russia. Zelensky’s decree does not establish any territorial demands upon Russia, as select Russian ultranationalists falsely claimed.[28]

Russian officials purposefully misrepresented the decree to further justify Russia’s full-scale invasion and made further genocidal appeals to the destruction of Ukrainian statehood and ethnic identity. Kursk Oblast Governor Roman Starovoyt called the decree a blatant distortion of history and argued that it shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin was correct to invade Ukraine.[29] Starovoyt’s response suggests that Russian officials and actors may continue to misrepresent the decree as an ex post facto casus belli to falsely assert that Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was defensive in nature. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev responded to the decree and reiterated longstanding Kremlin rhetoric that aims to erase Ukrainian ethnic identity by asserting that ethnic Ukrainians are ethnically Russian.[30] Medvedev also stated that “Malorossiya” (Little Russia) is part of Russia — a pseudo-historical Kremlin talking point that Russian officials routinely invoke to deny Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty.[31] The Kremlin has repeatedly used the concept of “compatriots abroad,” which includes ethnic Russian and Russian speakers of other ethnicities, to justify the war in Ukraine and aggression in other neighboring states, and Russian officials and ultranationalists may be primed to view legitimate appeals to protecting compatriots abroad as similar pretexts for aggressive actions.[32]

Russia has historically had a policy to Russify ethnic minorities living within Russian territory, and Zelensky’s decree coincides with wider Russian animus towards non-ethnic Russians within Russia that extends far beyond ethnic Ukrainian communities.[33] The Russian ultranationalist community continues to seize on incidents involving migrants and non-ethnic Russians to express growing hostility towards diaspora communities and non-ethnic Russian minorities within Russia.[34] Russian officials and ultranationalists may attempt to frame states’ legitimate concerns about growing Russian domestic animus towards their diaspora communities and Russia's history of discriminatory policies as anti-Russian and inherently escalatory.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-january-22-2024

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Tuesday, January 23, 2024 1:18 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, EVEN SNOPES SAYS YOU'RE LYING.

Quote:
Did Putin Declare the 1867 Sale of Alaska to the US 'Illegal' in January 2024?

Claim:
In January 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the 1867 sale of Alaska to the United States was "illegal."

Rating:
False

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/putin-alaska-illegal/

-----------
"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, January 23, 2024 2:38 PM

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

Did Russia illegally invade Ukraine? No, because Russia already owns Ukraine. Just ask pettifogging Putin. If Russia invades Alaska, the same old argument will come out to justify it as perfectly legal. If the UN takes up the question of legality, Russia will block the vote because it has an absolute veto at the UN.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Tuesday, January 23, 2024 2:42 PM

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

The Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys Do As Little As They Think They Can Decently Get Away With

Ukraine war ‘a battle of ammo’ says NATO as it agrees "huge" arms deal (It is NOT huge)

Alliance seeks to bulk up Ukraine’s dwindling arsenal as Russia ramps up attacks.

Published On 23 Jan 2024

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/23/nato-head-warns-war-in-ukrain
e-a-battle-of

NATO has signed a large ammunition deal that it says would help it supply Ukraine with desperately needed stocks.

The military alliance announced on Tuesday that it has signed a deal worth 1.1 billion euros ($1.2bn) to buy artillery shells. The move comes amid intensified exchanges of fire between Russia and Ukraine since the end of last year, which have depleted the latter’s weapons stockpiles.

NATO greenlit the purchase of 220,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition, the most widely sought-after artillery shell, noting that bulk buying for member states should ensure lower prices. Sources said the ammunition would be supplied by French arms maker Nexter and Germany’s Junghans.

Price per shell is US$5,455. Is the high price because of fast delivery? Nope. NATO noted that the shells bought under the new deal will not arrive for two to three years. At the rate Ukraine is firing shells (4,000 to 7,000 per day) 220,000 shells will last between 31 days and 55 days.

“This is important to defend our own territory, to build up our own stocks, but also to continue to support Ukraine,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

“The war in Ukraine has become a battle of ammunition,” he told reporters. “We cannot allow President [Vladimir] Putin to win in Ukraine … That would be a tragedy for the Ukrainians and dangerous for all of us.”

As progress on the front line has stalled in recent months, Russia and Ukraine have doubled down on exchanges of fire using artillery, missiles and drones.

However, Russia’s arms industry far outweighs Ukraine’s and Kyiv is struggling to secure both financing and weapons supplies from its Western allies needed to continue competing with Moscow’s firepower.

According to European Union estimates, Ukraine was firing approximately 4,000 to 7,000 artillery shells each day last summer, while Russia was launching more than 20,000 shells daily in its neighbour’s territory.

Although the European Union fell short of its pledge to supply one million artillery rounds in 2023, officials have said that they expect the European defence industry to raise production by the end of this year.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday was the latest foreign leader to visit the country, announcing a loan to buy larger weapons and commitments on joint manufacturing.

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, January 23, 2024 3:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Did Russia illegally invade Ukraine? No, because Russia already owns Ukraine. Just ask pettifogging Putin. If Russia invades Alaska, the same old argument will come out to justify it as perfectly legal. If the UN takes up the question of legality, Russia will block the vote because it has an absolute veto at the UN.

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

SECOND, EVEN SNOPES SAYS YOU'RE LYING.

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"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, January 23, 2024 4:29 PM

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Tuesday, January 23, 2024 5:58 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND, EVEN SNOPES SAYS YOU'RE LYING.

Newsweek has not retracted the story. https://www.newsweek.com/putin-decree-triggers-ominous-alaska-calls-te
rritory-empire-soviet-union-1862689

Your best next move, Signym, is to write that Russia has not formally declared war on "Alaska", but then Russia has not formally declared war on "Ukraine", either. What the EU wishes to call a "War" is simply a special military operation in the part of Russia called "Ukraine" by the EU, but there was never a country called "Ukraine" per Putin. It is an imaginary country to Putin, the same as the world of Firefly.

Putin could turn his imaginary "Ukraine" into a funnier joke by making exaggerated air quotes when he says the word "Ukraine". The "Ukrainians" are "Little Russians" who want to join their family with their Big Russian Brothers' family and nothing more.

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, January 23, 2024 6:19 PM