REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Sunday, May 4, 2025 05:39
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PAGE 165 of 166

Sunday, April 27, 2025 3:14 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


About USAID:

Next to my avatar is "I believe in solving problems, not sharing them."

So when it comes to things like poverty, famine, mass migration, refugee flows, rampant disease, and brutal governance, I have to look at WHY these things occur.


Mass refugee flows from wartorn places like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya etc... well, I think we can chalk that up to American military "intervention" on behalf of Israel and/or the petrodollar literally destroying those nations, in the name of "freedom".

When it comes to brutal governance, again, we can look to the USA supporting the "mujahideen", al Qaeda, and the contras and death squads in Indonesia and S America, etc. in the name of "democracy"

When it comes to destabilized nations, the USA is there, fostering color revolutions in Georgia and the former Yugoslavia and Belarus and central Asia and Thailand etc

Especially when it comes to poverty, and flows of "economic refugees", we can look to the USA sucking the wealth out of nations, overturning reform-minded governments like Mossadegh in Iran (1952), literally every nation in South and Central America except Costa Rica (Chile, Nicaragua, the "banana republics") etc. in the name of "anti Communism".

This continues today everywhere, in places you don't even think about like SE Asia and the Philippines (anti-Chinese geopolitics) and central Asia and the Caucasus (anti Russian geopolitics) the mideast and north Africa, the Caribbean and central and south America, where we attempt to stamp out any reform for our (globalist) banking and geopolitical interests.

And USAID, NED, and their multitude of dependent "NGOS" are there, urging this along, in conjunction with the CIA and State Department.

I'm not saying that the USA is the source of ALL of the world's ills.

There are natural catastrophes and illnesses and general lack of development and independently corrupt governments. And Europe is the prime exploiter of Africa.

But as the world's biggest military and financial power for decades and decades, we are responsible for much of the poverty and injustice.

YOU CAN'T TAKE AWAY WITH TEN HANDS AND GIVE BACK WITH ONE. USAID'S "good works" are the "cover story" for its nefarious activities. If you want to help, start by not hurting


Also in "winds of change"

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

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Sunday, April 27, 2025 3:15 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Bump for new page

Before Trump was even elected, I wondered how he would react when butting up against Russia's demand for "near abroad" security.

Russia's aims in Ukraine (neutrality, demilitarization, de-Nazification, the protection of Russian speaking people)
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-tells-russians-war-ukraine-
will-go-unless-kyiv-does-deal-2023-12-14
/
and the reasons for them (near-abroad security) have been known since Feb 2022.

Trump thinks that these are just bargaining positions. They're not.

Putin and Trump work completely differently. Trump is a wheeler dealer, and he depends on what he thinks is good press and quick victories. But what works in real estate deals and with small nations won't work with peers. You can't tap dance your way to success... sometimes it's just a long, hard slog. And sometimes you have to admit something just can't be done.

Putin and the Russian Security Council decide on how to achieve what they believe are Russia's best interest and can't be bribed or bullied away from that.

I hope Trump doesn't get sucked into further involvement in Ukraine because Ukraine has "Vietnam" and "Afghanistan" written all over it. Maybe Trump will announce another sanctions package and let money and weapons support trickle down to zero.


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Monday, April 28, 2025 7:32 AM

SECOND

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


Russia Does Not Want A Ceasefire?
Phillips P. OBrien
Apr 27, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-130-concessions-
that


Looking at the state of the war, Russia arguably needs a ceasefire as much if not more than Ukraine. We are not watching some victorious Russian military in action. We are watching a force that is degrading in front of our eyes—with advances going from small to non-existent. In the last two months, the Russian military has hardly advanced at all. Here is today’s Deep State Map—with scale. https://deepstatemap.live/en#9/48.0789965/38.3999634

Here is the exact same map exactly 8 weeks ago (March 2)

The differences between them are ridiculously small. Yet Russia’s new offensive began more than a month ago and Russian losses have been extremely high.

The truth of the matter is that the Russian military is stuck in a quagmire. Its running out of vehicles, using up its soldiers, and is showing little for it. This is a military that needs a ceasefire.





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

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Monday, April 28, 2025 3:03 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Ukrainian Army Commander Openly Threatens Zelensky: Will 'Regret' Ceding Territory


Chay Bowes
@BowesChay
A Ukrainian Army brigade commander openly threatens Zelensky on a Ukrainain TV show.
He warns him not to negotiate with Russia, not to concede territory, or he will "Regret it"
Open threats to the commander in chief from his own troops, Ukraine is a lawless basket case.
8:42 PM · Apr 27, 2025

https://x.com/BowesChay/status/1916699490905460883?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

There was an interesting comment how the growth of the pro-Nazi Azovs grew from from a militia to an entire army corps, just like the Waffen SS grew from 8 of Hitler's bodyguards into a quarter million direct members and a million affiliates

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_SS_personnel


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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Monday, April 28, 2025 5:23 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

You've been fed propaganda nonsense about Ukraine and the invented Russian menace. These are the lies you've been told

In my trade I have long grown used to the way governments lie and get others to lie for them.

It is what they do.

But I have seldom seen such a cloud of lies as we face now. Hardly anyone in this country knows the truth about Ukraine.

There has been nothing like it since we were all lied to about the Iraq invasion, with bilge about fictional ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. The liars were caught out.

And they learned from it. They learned to lie more skillfully.

Meanwhile, many of those in our society who knew how to challenge such lies died off or retired and were not replaced.

We have never had a debate about the Ukraine crisis which started from the beginning. Did anyone in power ever tell you truthfully how, when or why this war began? No. Did anyone in power explain why Britain, crime blighted, decrepit, rubbish-strewn, rat-infested, broke Britain, had to get involved in it? Never.

You have just been fed propaganda rubbish about ‘democracy’, freedom and an invented Russian menace. Here are some of the lies you have repeatedly been told.

The war, they say, was not provoked.

Seldom in history has a war been more provoked.


Russians, nice ones like the liberal, democratic politician Yegor Gaidar, and nasty ones like the bloody despot Vladimir Putin, begged the West to stop trundling its military alliance, Nato, eastwards towards Russia.

ALL Russians, including the great anti-Communist author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, had been shocked and angered when Nato in 1999 abruptly gave up its defensive posture and launched attacks on Yugoslavia – which had not attacked a Nato member.

These protests reached their peak in February 2007, when Putin made a dramatic speech in Munich. He said Nato expansion was ‘a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. We have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?’

Look, if someone as gaunt as Putin spoke to you like that in a pub late in the evening, you’d take it as a warning that he was seriously riled. And unless you wanted a fight, you’d back off. But we didn’t back off.

In April 2008, Bush said that Ukraine should be placed on the path towards joining Nato. Even the Guardian, the Liberal Warmonger’s Gazette, conceded that this was ‘likely to infuriate the Kremlin’. And so it did. I suspect we were on the path to war from that moment.

I am always accused, when I say that, of making excuses for Putin. I am not.

I think he was stupid as well as wrong to be provoked. Wise men ignore provocations. But to claim he was not provoked is just to lie.

Another lie we are repeatedly told is that Russia attacked Georgia later in 2008. But anyone can find, on the web, a 2009 Reuters news agency story headlined ‘Georgia started war with Russia: EU-backed report’.



Oh, I remember being piled on by anti-Russian dupes here ... which was just about everyone who refused to follow EVIDENCE ... when I insisted that Georgia fired missiles first.

More at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14650407/PETER-HITCHENS-pro
paganda-nonsense-Ukraine-invented-Russian-menace-lies-truth.html


Or https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/they-lied-us-about-iraqs-wmds-t
heyve-taken-it-another-level-ukraine-hitchens




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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Tuesday, April 29, 2025 5:49 AM

SECOND

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


Czech Defense Minister Jana Cernochová announced on April 27 that the Czech Ammunition Initiative will have delivered another 400,000 rounds of large-caliber artillery ammunition to Ukraine by April 30.[35] Cernochová also announced that the initiative secured funding for further artillery deliveries to Ukraine through Fall 2025. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský stated that Canada, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands previously provided funds to the initiative. Lipavský reported that Czechia aims to supply Ukraine with 125,000 rounds of ammunition per month in 2025, but will deliver as much ammunition as possible.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-28-2025


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

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Tuesday, April 29, 2025 5:52 AM

SECOND

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


Future Aggression Against NATO

Russia is reportedly expanding its military infrastructure along its border with Finland and stockpiling new tanks, likely in preparation for future aggression against NATO. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on April 27, citing Western military and intelligence officials, that Russia is expanding military bases near Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, and upgrading railway lines and other infrastructure along Russia's western border with NATO.[31] WSJ reported that the Kremlin plans to create a new army headquarters near Petrozavodsk in the next several years and that Russia is integrating roadways and railways in the Moscow Military District (MMD) with infrastructure in Belarus. Sources stated that Russia intends to form new divisions on the basis of existing brigades in the Leningrad Military District (LMD) in the coming years and that Russia is constructing new barracks and training grounds and upgrading warehouses and railways near Petrozavodsk to accommodate the future influx of personnel.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-28-2025


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

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Tuesday, April 29, 2025 2:11 PM

THG



Its obvious Putin's propaganda matches right up with signym. Listen comrade, it's not and never has been NATO encroaching on Russia. What it is and always has been, is countries breaking away from the Soviet Union, IE Russia, and seeking protection from the Russians with NATO. Big difference than NATO encroaching on Russia. Get your facts right stupid.

T


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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 8:07 AM

SECOND

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


Kremlin officials within Putin's inner circle continue to threaten NATO as Putin himself refrains from doing so — likely as part of Kremlin efforts to justify future Russian aggression against NATO to the Russian population. Medvedev claimed that the West is attempting to use a principle of "peace through force" to harm Russia, but that Russia's only possible response to this principle is "peace through fear."[17] Medvedev claimed that other approaches do not work but that "fear still works." Medvedev claimed that the leaders in the European Union (EU) are "Russophobic" and that Russia's relations with Europe have "passed the point of no return."[18] Medvedev attempted to argue that allegations that Russia is trying to attack Europe are "nonsense."[19] Patrushev claimed that parts of Europe, including France and Germany, are "flirting with the Nazis" and "deploying the military machine against Russia."[20] Patrushev claimed that the United Kingdom (UK), the EU, and NATO leaders are threatening Russia and criticized NATO for holding large-scale exercises on its eastern flank, claiming that these exercises are practicing offensive actions against Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on April 29 at the "Great Heritage — Common Future" forum dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and claimed that Russia must prevent the revival of Nazism and the spread of destructive ideologies, including Russophobia and national or religious intolerance.[21] Putin's statements paralleled those of Medvedev and Patrushev, but were more tempered as Putin did not criticize or threaten Europe. Kremlin officials, including those within Putin's inner circle, have recently threatened European states, including NATO member states, and are setting conditions to justify potential future Russian aggression against Europe.[22]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-29-2025


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

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 8:19 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by THG:

Its obvious Putin's propaganda matches right up with signym. Listen comrade, it's not and never has been NATO encroaching on Russia. What it is and always has been, is countries breaking away from the Soviet Union, IE Russia, and seeking protection from the Russians with NATO. Big difference than NATO encroaching on Russia. Get your facts right stupid.

T


Signym has obscenities marked on her forehead, but denies that the symbols are there:

https://imgur.com/gallery/no-i-don-t-have-on-forehead-you-must-be-lyin
g-Ts9HCTP


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

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 1:51 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Signym has obscenities marked on her forehead, but denies that the symbols are there:


According to you, I'm poor, have plastic hands, my car has blown up, I have no friends, I'm evil, and I have symbols marked on my forehead.

I'm getting worried about you, SECOND. You're working yourself up with your very active fantasy life about me. Why don't you pick on me about something real, like my health problems?

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 1:54 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by THG:

Its obvious Putin's propaganda matches right up with signym. Listen comrade, it's not and never has been NATO encroaching on Russia. What it is and always has been, is countries breaking away from the Soviet Union, IE Russia, and seeking protection from the Russians with NATO. Big difference than NATO encroaching on Russia. Get your facts right stupid.

T


Signym has obscenities marked on her forehead, but denies that the symbols are there:

https://imgur.com/gallery/no-i-don-t-have-on-forehead-you-must-be-lyin
g-Ts9HCTP


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

Yup! And there have been no color revolutions and attempted color revolutions (Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus), no bombing (Yugoslavia), and no screwing around in eastern European elections (Serbia, Romania, Hungary) either!


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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 2:46 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Are all Democrats as pathetic as Ted and Second, or are they just the exception to the rule?

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 3:44 PM

THG


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by THG:

Its obvious Putin's propaganda matches right up with signym. Listen comrade, it's not and never has been NATO encroaching on Russia. What it is and always has been, is countries breaking away from the Soviet Union, IE Russia, and seeking protection from the Russians with NATO. Big difference than NATO encroaching on Russia. Get your facts right stupid.

T


Signym has obscenities marked on her forehead, but denies that the symbols are there:

https://imgur.com/gallery/no-i-don-t-have-on-forehead-you-must-be-lyin
g-Ts9HCTP


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





Yup, I followed the link; perfect. A dead giveaway for what MAGA and Russian propagandists do, is what they say others are doing. Example, "Ukraine invaded Russia" says Trump.



T


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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 3:54 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yup! And there have been no color revolutions and attempted color revolutions (Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus), no bombing (Yugoslavia), and no screwing around in eastern European elections (Serbia, Romania, Hungary) either!

“No, I don’t have a dick on my forehead, you must be lying” - March 21 2022

https://imgur.com/gallery/no-i-don-t-have-on-forehead-you-must-be-lyin
g-Ts9HCTP


Translation of the Russian political satire:

Off camera woman: Hello, could you tell me your thoughts on the fact that all Russian citizens have had dicks drawn on their forehead? What do you think about this?

Woman with dick on forehead: Oh, well, I don't really know much about the topic. I'm not a urologist, I'm a regular person. I don't know what someone drew on someone else.

Off camera: You don't need to be a urologist to understand you have a dick on your forehead. Just look in the mirror.

Woman with dick on forehead: But it's illegal now to look in mirrors, and as for what people say...you know, people say one thing and the TV says another. Who knows what is true?

Off camera: Why not ask one of your relatives? I'm looking at you and I'm telling you you have a dick on your forehead. Why would I lie?

Woman with dick on her forehead: I don't know. These days, there are so many fakes, so much provocation. We can't know where the truth lies.

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

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 4:02 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Are all Democrats as pathetic as Ted and Second, or are they just the exception to the rule?

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 4:04 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yup! And there have been no color revolutions and attempted color revolutions (Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus), no bombing (Yugoslavia), and no screwing around in eastern European elections (Serbia, Romania, Hungary) either!

“No, I don’t have a dick on my forehead, you must be lying” - March 21 2022

https://imgur.com/gallery/no-i-don-t-have-on-forehead-you-must-be-lyin
g-Ts9HCTP


Translation of the Russian political satire:

Off camera woman: Hello, could you tell me your thoughts on the fact that all Russian citizens have had dicks drawn on their forehead? What do you think about this?

Woman with dick on forehead: Oh, well, I don't really know much about the topic. I'm not a urologist, I'm a regular person. I don't know what someone drew on someone else.

Off camera: You don't need to be a urologist to understand you have a dick on your forehead. Just look in the mirror.

Woman with dick on forehead: But it's illegal now to look in mirrors, and as for what people say...you know, people say one thing and the TV says another. Who knows what is true?

Off camera: Why not ask one of your relatives? I'm looking at you and I'm telling you you have a dick on your forehead. Why would I lie?

Woman with dick on her forehead: I don't know. These days, there are so many fakes, so much provocation. We can't know where the truth lies.

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



Don't throw stones, dummy.

You fucking goofballs can't define what a woman is in 2025, and it's one of the many, many, many reasons why the Democratic Party died in 2024.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 4:20 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Huh, a Russian satire criticizing Russian media.

Does that mean they have freedom of speech in Russia?

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 4:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

50 Years On, Washington Has Learned Nothing From Defeat In Vietnam
Wednesday, Apr 30, 2025 - 12:25 PM

Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via The Libertarian Institute,

Today, April 30, 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the final, definitive defeat of the U.S. military crusade in Vietnam. The images of U.S. helicopters desperately flying American diplomats and Washington’s high-level South Vietnamese collaborators from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon effectively captured not only the chaotic environment, but also the extent of Washington’s overall policy debacle. The outcome of the war was a humiliating defeat for the United States in every respect. Vietnam’s reunification under a communist government was now an indisputable reality. Indeed, the United States finally succumbed to the pressure to establish diplomatic relations with that government in 1995.

Washington’s failed effort over more than two decades to prevent that outcome was extremely expensive financially to the United States, with more than $141 billion expended. Measured in terms of 2025 dollars, that amount would be approximately $838 billion. Even worse was the terrible cost in blood. The war took the lives of more than 58,000 American soldiers and caused an estimated 3.8 million casualties, both civilian and military, in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.


Widespread disillusionment about Washington’s armed crusade in Southeast Asia was evident in the United States, and for a few years, the disastrous experience seemed to inoculate the American public against supporting any similar adventures. When Ronald Reagan’s administration flirted with providing military backing for corrupt client regimes in Central America, there was noticeable pushback, especially from Democrats in Congress. “No more Vietnams” became a popular mantra throughout the country.

However, a closer look at public attitudes, especially the views of political elites in both parties, would have suggested that the change in Washington’s overall foreign policy orientation was less substantial than it seemed at first glance. There was little resistance to pro-war adventurism elsewhere in the world, as long as U.S. military personnel were not directly at risk. For example, Washington’s policy of using Islamist rebels in Afghanistan to harass Soviet occupation forces received extensive bipartisan support.

Even direct U.S. military involvement received little push back, as long as an American victory was quick and decisive. That point was confirmed when U.S. forces invaded Grenada in 1983 and promptly ousted a pro-communist regime that had recently seized power. The Reagan administration’s meddling in Lebanon’s civil war, though, showed that there remained an extensive public and elite aversion to American casualties. The loss of 241 Marines in the bombing of the U.S. barracks outside Beirut immediately caused the administration to move the remaining troops to ships off shore, and that step was just a prelude to the departure of all U.S. forces from Lebanon.

Although the bruising experience in Vietnam had apparently induced a somewhat greater level of caution—at least temporarily—among Washington’s political and policy elites with respect to a few specific cases, it had not caused any reconsideration of the foundational assumptions of U.S. foreign policy. In particular, the “1930s model” still dominated elite perceptions about world affairs and America’s proper role in the international system: American opinion leaders were still obsessed with preventing the rise of “another Hitler.” Closely related assumptions were that “appeasement” never works, “aggression” had to be stopped in its tracks as soon as signs of it appeared, and that complex, murky geopolitical struggles could be portrayed as stark conflicts between good and evil. Despite the negative consequences of the Vietnam War, those attitudes remained intact.

The continuing ability of such propaganda to sway public opinion in favor of war became apparent during the Persian Gulf crisis in 1990-1991. The simplistic “good versus evil” narrative was especially tenacious. George H.W. Bush’s administration, with the active assistance of a hawkish news media, succeeded in convincing the American public that not only was Iraq’s Saddam Hussein a monstrously evil ruler, but also that he posed a threat to world order comparable to Hitler’s.

It was a preposterous notion for multiple reasons. First, Washington had viewed Saddam as a valuable client throughout Iraq’s multi-year war of aggression against Iran’s revolutionary government. The Iraqi leader got into trouble with Washington only when he failed to win the fight against Tehran and then had the temerity to seize Kuwait (a longstanding Iraqi territorial claim) without Washington’s permission. Bush administration officials and their media allies exaggerated Iraq’s military capabilities and invented inflammatory atrocity stories to justify a war against Iraq waged by a U.S.-dominated international coalition.

The surprisingly easy victory by coalition forces largely erased the lessons of caution remaining from the Vietnam experience. Administration officials and other members of Washington’s pro-war elite gloated that America had finally overcome the “Vietnam Syndrome.” When the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 left the United States as the sole remaining global power, that development eliminated the last restraint on U.S. military adventurism.

The painful lessons of the defeat in Vietnam have been largely forgotten, and the current generation of U.S. policymakers is at least as reckless as any of its predecessors. The prevailing approach to international conflicts has a dreary, formulaic aspect: exaggerate the severity of the threat to both international peace and America’s security; portray Washington’s adversary as the epitome of evil; and portray any beleaguered U.S. client as both an innocent victim and a proponent of freedom and democracy. Washington’s dishonest propaganda regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine—both corrupt autocracies—is almost a caricature of that strategy.

The litany of Washington’s military interventions and proxy wars since Vietnam—Afghanistan, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan (again), Libya, Syria, Yemen, and most dangerous of all, Ukraine—all convey the extent to which U.S. policy elites and much of the U.S. public have remained impervious to the deeper meaning of the Vietnam debacle. As one cynical observer said to me, “The only enduring lesson from the Vietnam War appears to be ‘don’t go to war in a country called Vietnam.’” Such a pervasive failure of policymakers and the American people to learn more substantial lessons may be that horrible conflict’s most tragic and lasting legacy.



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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 5:18 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Don't throw stones, dummy.

You fucking goofballs can't define what a woman is in 2025, and it's one of the many, many, many reasons why the Democratic Party died in 2024.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

This will be for the thousands time, but Trumptards never understand: All the Trumptards I know are burdened by tragedy. I will whisper its nature: you are defective in body and mind.

Russians live with the same tragedy, partially the result of alcohol and partially because most non-defective Russians fled Russia, taking their genes out of the gene pool.

Despite vastly outnumbering and out-gunning the Ukrainians, the Russians' inherent handicaps have made conquering the Ukrainians excruciatingly difficult and slow. So too is it difficult and slow for Trumptards striving for prosperity in America and pretty much for the same reasons as Russians in Ukraine struggle and die.

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

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 5:20 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Don't throw stones, dummy.

You fucking goofballs can't define what a woman is in 2025, and it's one of the many, many, many reasons why the Democratic Party died in 2024.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

This will be for the thousands time, but Trumptards never understand: All the Trumptards I know are burdened by tragedy. I will whisper its nature: you are defective in body and mind.



And as I've told you a thousand times before, nobody gives one single shit about your judgements.

Why don't you tell us who you'd like to assassinate today, Second?

We love watching you lose your mind and I honestly can't wait until the day that you finally do something really stupid IRL and you're locked away for good in a padded cell where you belong. Be sure to write to us if they give you the opportunity and let us know how hard it is to type with your nose.



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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 6:08 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

And as I've told you a thousand times before, nobody gives one single shit about your judgements.

Why don't you tell us who you'd like to assassinate today, Second?

We love watching you lose your mind and I honestly can't wait until the day that you finally do something really stupid IRL and you're locked away for good in a padded cell where you belong. Be sure to write to us if they give you the opportunity and let us know how hard it is to type with your nose.

I understand why Russians are poor compared to Europeans because I have seen why Trumptards are poor compared to other people. It is not because Europeans were destined to be high achievers, but because Russians and Trumptards are conspicuously defective.

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

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 6:08 PM

SECOND

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


Ukrainians Declare Victory in Battle of Pokrovsk

By Ellie Cook | Apr 30, 2025 at 3:56 PM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-victory-pokrovsk-donetsk-russia-20659
51


In a later statement on Wednesday, Ukraine's top soldier, General Oleksandr Syrsky, said Russia had "significantly increased" attacks close to Pokrovsk in a bid to reach the Dnipropetrovsk region, despite announcing a unilateral ceasefire due to come into force in May.

"The Russian command daily throws new units into battle, drives its soldiers to their deaths, reports on illusory successes and victories," Syrsky said.

The Kremlin declared a ceasefire on Monday to observe the 80th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War. This is the term used by Russia to describe its participation in World War II after it joined the Allies in 1941, and the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. Moscow has consistently claimed its invasion of Ukraine aimed to "de-Nazify" the country, a pretext widely rejected.

Russia will not conduct any military operations between midnight on May 8 and midnight on May 11, the Kremlin said, adding that "Russia believes that the Ukrainian side should follow this example." The announcement was greeted with skepticism by Ukraine.

The Russian government said on Wednesday: "As a result of active offensive actions, units of the West military group liberated the settlement of Novoye in the Donetsk People's Republic."

Syrsky said on Wednesday: "Despite loud statements about readiness for a ceasefire for the May holidays, the occupiers have significantly increased the intensity of hostilities, focusing their main efforts on the Pokrovsk direction."

What Happens Next

It is not clear yet if and how the failure to capture Pokrovsk will affect Russia's alleged plans for a new summer offensive, where Moscow allegedly hopes to deploy troops on motorcycles to counter Ukraine's drones.

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

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 6:47 PM

SECOND

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


Zelensky’s War Message Sends Shivers Through Russia: Ukraine Planning to Bomb Victory Day Parade?

Zelensky’s latest remarks have sparked alarm in Moscow, as he hinted that Russia’s iconic May 9 Victory Day parade may be in the crosshairs. While calling for a longer ceasefire, Zelensky suggested that Russia should worry more about the ongoing war than celebrations.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zelensky-s-war-message-sends-shiv
ers-through-russia-ukraine-planning-to-bomb-victory-day-parade/vi-AA1DWcSR


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

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 7:12 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


He will be dead soon.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025 7:15 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

And as I've told you a thousand times before, nobody gives one single shit about your judgements.

Why don't you tell us who you'd like to assassinate today, Second?

We love watching you lose your mind and I honestly can't wait until the day that you finally do something really stupid IRL and you're locked away for good in a padded cell where you belong. Be sure to write to us if they give you the opportunity and let us know how hard it is to type with your nose.

I understand why Russians are poor compared to Europeans because I have seen why Trumptards are poor compared to other people. It is not because Europeans were destined to be high achievers, but because Russians and Trumptards are conspicuously defective.

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



You've never provided a single shred of evidence that you have more money than you need to pay rent next month.

You could easily show us all today by sending Haken a couple hundred bucks for keeping this site up, but you won't do that. You steal every movie, book and comic book you can get your hands on when you're not outright plagiarizing other people's work.

Nobody believes anything you say about yourself, and this is one of the many reasons why nobody cares about any of your judgements.

Another reason is that you show us all the time exactly who you really are by the way you carry yourself and the things you write.

I can judge you entirely based off of your chronic awful actions you put on display here all the time. All you spew here everyday is broad generalizations of a fictional monolith of people you've constructed in your tiny brain cavity over the years, and you apply that to anybody who doesn't kiss your ass and agree with everything you say.

Your mental problems are not my problem.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 6:06 AM

SECOND

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


Ukrainian sources continue to report on cases of Russian commanders ordering their subordinates to execute Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in violation of international law. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) reported on April 30 that the deputy commander of the Russian 1st Motorized Rifle Battalion of the 394th Motorized Rifle Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division, 5th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Eastern Military District [EMD]) and company commander of the "Storm" Detachment in the 394th Motorized Rifle Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division) ordered their subordinates to execute a Ukrainian POW and then desecrate his body near Staromayorske (south of Velyka Novosilka) in June 2024.[43] ISW has observed and reported on numerous instances of Russian servicemembers executing Ukrainian POWs along the frontline in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast and continues to assess that this is a systemic trend in the Russian military and that Russian commanders are either complicit in or directly enabling their subordinates to conduct such atrocities.[44]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-april-30-2025


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

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 6:07 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

You've never provided a single shred of evidence that you have more money than you need to pay rent next month.

You could easily show us all today by sending Haken a couple hundred bucks for keeping this site up, but you won't do that. You steal every movie, book and comic book you can get your hands on when you're not outright plagiarizing other people's work.

Nobody believes anything you say about yourself, and this is one of the many reasons why nobody cares about any of your judgements.

Another reason is that you show us all the time exactly who you really are by the way you carry yourself and the things you write.

I can judge you entirely based off of your chronic awful actions you put on display here all the time. All you spew here everyday is broad generalizations of a fictional monolith of people you've constructed in your tiny brain cavity over the years, and you apply that to anybody who doesn't kiss your ass and agree with everything you say.

Your mental problems are not my problem.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

“The unifying principle” of Trumpism, wrote Ben Tarnoff in February, “is the abdication of adulthood’s defining obligation: to take responsibility for oneself and others.”

More Babies!

Trump and his set act carefree in the face of catastrophe—and they give their supporters permission to do the same.

By Ben Tarnoff | February 7, 2025

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/02/07/more-babies-trump/

The week I became a father, two things happened. Fires engulfed the Amazon, and a man who made his living as a columnist for the largest newspaper in the country complained to a university provost that a professor had called him a bedbug on the Internet. This was the world into which I welcomed my first child: a place where people with power behaved like children while the planet burned.

Five and a half years later, our civilizational outlook has not improved. It is not just the fires, floods, zoonotic diseases, and other insignia of ecological emergency. It is also the discomfiting spectacle of a leadership class so extravagantly unfit for the task at hand. Incompetent rulers are nothing new. They are one of human history’s main themes. What feels more specific to our time is the extent to which our leaders have responded to a moment of severe and proliferating crisis by regressing into a childlike state, and encouraging their followers to do the same.

In 1933, the year that Hitler took power in Germany, the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich proposed that fascism begins at home, in the domestic sphere. The first authoritarian state is the family, he argued, ruled by the father. Here children learn the submission to authority—and the identification with it—that makes a good fascist subject. The idea proved influential for later thinkers trying to map the psychology of authoritarianism, and it has an obvious kernel of truth. In our own extremely desublimated era, one doesn’t have to look very far for verification: “It’s like Daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off,” a ruddy Mel Gibson gushed the other day on Fox News about Trump’s visit to Los Angeles, during which he had scolded Karen Bass, the city’s mayor and a Black woman, at a press conference.

But Trump is poorly cast for the part of patriarch. While he glowers in his official portraits, his political style is more silly than stern. He babbles. He is a creature of impulse and instinct, fickle and dysregulated. His humor is that of the schoolyard; his train of thought is, at minimum, haphazard. If you have ever heard a toddler tell a story, it sounds like Trump: digressive, bizarre, filled with tonal shifts, often hilarious. His inner circle exudes a similarly infantile affect. Elon Musk is nothing if not a smirking preadolescent. J.D. Vance looks uncannily like a baby, which is presumably why he decided to grow a beard, with the result that he now looks like a bearded baby. “Let me say very simply,” he told an audience of antiabortion fanatics in his first speech as vice president: “I want more babies in the United States of America!”

It is stressful to be young. The world is confusing, the process of fitting oneself into it long and painful. But these difficulties are offset by certain pleasures, chief among them the relative absence of responsibility. If children misbehave they can be punished, but in moral and legal terms they are not accountable for their actions to the same degree as adults are. When people feel nostalgic for their childhoods, even when they had bad childhoods, this is what they miss: to be carefree.

The desire to be carefree is integral to the psychic allure of Trumpism. It is pleasurable to disinter one’s deepest resentments, to worship power, to go berserk with rage, to be floridly conspiratorial, to know nothing, to hallucinate Marxists under the bed, to picture the people you hate in tears and in chains. But the unifying principle, the rind that envelops and coheres these delights, is the abdication of adulthood’s defining obligation: to take responsibility for oneself and others. It is precisely this responsibility that Trump and his set refuse. They are carefree in the face of catastrophe. And they give their supporters permission to take the same flight from responsibility—indeed, their political appeal depends on it. They want more babies in the United States of America.

*

Reactionary infantilism is not original to Trump. He is not, after all, an especially original figure. His specific genius lies in taking long-festering inflammations within the Republican mind and aggravating the swelling to the point of rupture. Back in 2012 the editors of n+1 identified “the personality type and cultural style of the contemporary right-wing commentator” as “Big Baby.” Rush Limbaugh was the first Big Baby, followed by Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Bill O’Reilly. Trump sits easily in this lineage. Big Baby, the editors explained, was not merely “juvenile, impish, and wounded,” but a devoted hater of women. One of his favorite enemies was the Nanny State, the government imagined as a woman:

Contemporary Big Baby conservatism relies on the conceit that there is someone who wants to legislate against trivial and immature pleasures, who doesn’t want you to have fun?—?a giant Nanny (with Nancy Pelosi’s face) who regulates for regulation’s sake. Again, as with real babies, it’s only the rule standing between Me and cookie that seems real?—?not the rationale, nor the collective good that could come of mutual restraint. The future can’t be kept in view. Cookie is too big!

Trump inherits and intensifies this legacy. Meanwhile, the acceleration of environmental breakdown has simultaneously made the escape from adulthood more appealing and given Big Baby new limits to transgress. Lockdowns, vaccinations, electric vehicle “mandates”: Mommy has never been so mean. Fortunately, the joy of defying her grows in proportion. Usually my kids will wait until I’m in the room before they eat some forbidden nub of chocolate.

No picture of Trumpism would be complete without the Democratic Party bumbling about in the background, and here too the logic of Big Baby finds a foothold. The counterpart to the feral puerility of American conservatism is a senescent American liberalism whose grandees are well into their second childhood. Watching Biden’s smooth, uncomprehending face at the debate, as Trump snickered Bart Simpsonishly beside him, we came into possession of a perfect emblem of Democratic babyhood.

It cannot be banished by banishing Biden, as it is a more general condition. The party is run by sundowning seniors who refuse to cede the driver’s seat even though they pose a danger to themselves and others: recall Dianne Feinstein berating a room full of literal children for politely asking her to do something about climate change. But liberal infantilism is not solely a product of physical decline; it afflicts functionaries of all ages. Think of the attendees of the 2024 Democratic National Convention plugging their ears like grade-schoolers as protesters read aloud the names of children killed in Gaza. These are the symptoms of another party in flight from responsibility, but having far less fun along the way. The Democrats have staked so much on being the adults in the room, but they are actually something much worse: those hated children who think they are adults. At recess, they would be bullied.

*

Nobody went to jail for the Iraq War or the 2007–2008 financial crisis. In a time of mass criminalization, when children can be tried as adults, the worst adults are never punished. Creating a culture of elite impunity has been a bipartisan affair, and it has bred the cynicism on which Trumpism feeds. Equally bipartisan is the state’s decades-long divestiture from the obligation of caring for its citizens, a process that the scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “organized abandonment.”

Earlier generations of social movements were able to force the creation of institutions that, however imperfectly, bore a degree of responsibility for our collective wellbeing. The story of the last half-century is the corrosion of those institutions, with prisons, private equity, and other toxins oozing through the cracks. It is a sign of how antisocial our society has become that the basic values one learns in kindergarten—to share, to be kind, to tell the truth, to reciprocate and cooperate—are so vilified in our political life. More than once I have had the thought that I am raising my children for a world that does not exist.

Responsibility is not a concept we typically associate with the political left. But it was one of Grace Lee Boggs’s favorite words. The philosopher and activist, together with her husband James Boggs, believed that revolutionaries must take responsibility for creating a new society in which people take responsibility for one another. Protest is good, and often required, but the Boggses believed that it carried a risk. When we protest injustice, we put the onus of restitution elsewhere. A revolution, they believed, is less about making demands on those in power than building new power from below. This is a daunting but exhilarating prospect: millions of people acting as architects of a social order that endows them with the freedom to cultivate their broadest selves, a commonwealth of the grown. When Big Baby sleeps, these are its nightmares.

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

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 6:12 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


You have never thought about anybody but yourself 24/7/365 for your entire life.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 7:44 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
He will be dead soon.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

Russia threatens NATO nations with revenge nuclear strikes as Putin expands military bases along Finnish border

By Ronny Reyes | April 29, 2025, 5:27 p.m. ET

https://nypost.com/2025/04/29/world-news/russia-threatens-nato-nations
-with-revenge-nuclear-strikes-as-putin-expands-military-bases-along-finnish-border
/

Russia’s former president claimed NATO’s newest members are potential targets for revenge strikes using nuclear weapons in the event of war — as the Kremlin expands its military bases along the Finnish border.

Sweden and Finland could be in the Kremlin’s crosshairs for joining Western military alliance NATO following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev suggested, according to the TASS state news agency.

“They are part of a bloc hostile to us, which means they have automatically become targets for our armed forces, including potential retaliatory strikes and even a nuclear component, or preventive measures within the framework of military doctrine,” Medvedev, who was in office from 2008 to 2012, said.

“They have simply ended up in the crosshairs of our armed forces. Has life become better for them? No! These are political games,” he said.

Stockholm and Helsinki have long warned residents to be ready for war over fears that the two nations would be the next targets of Russia’s invasion ambitions should Ukraine fall.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have now expanded their bases along the Finnish border, including in the city of Petrozavodsk just 100 miles from the border, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The bases are meant to serve as a new army headquarters for tens of thousands of troops over the next several years, all for the singular purpose of facing off against NATO, Western military and intelligence officials warned.

“When the troops are back [from Ukraine], they will be looking over the border at a country they consider an adversary,” Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies think tank in Moscow, told the WSJ.

“The logic of the last decade shows we’re expecting some conflict with NATO,” he warned.

The fears are further exacerbated by Putin’s call to expand Russia’s military ranks to as many as 1.5 million troops, up from around 1 million before the Ukraine invasion.

Moscow has also upped its military spending this year to more than 6% of its GDP, nearly three times as much as what European nations spend on average.

Yet, many of the new weapons and armored vehicles have yet to be deployed in Ukraine, with experts suggesting Russia is saving the arms for future troops along the borders.

With Moscow’s military might growing faster than Western intelligence previously predicted, some NATO member nations closest to Russia have begun fortifying their borders and preparing for the worst.

Notably, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have all withdrawn from the international treaty banning anti-personnel mines, suggesting the nations are bracing for a possible ground invasion.

Denmark’s top intelligence agency also warned earlier this year that Russia would be fully capable of launching war in Europe within the next five years if it believes NATO is too weak to defend itself.

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

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 7:53 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You have never thought about anybody but yourself 24/7/365 for your entire life.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

Is Putin secretly one of the world’s richest men? Experts estimate a $200 billion net worth

By Mahnoor Khan and Jane Thier | November 23, 2024 at 5:01 AM EST

https://fortune.com/article/russian-president-vladimir-putin-net-worth
-worlds-richest-people
/

On paper, Russian President Vladimir Putin seems like a humble statesman with a modest income.

The Kremlin claims that Putin earns an annual salary of $140,000. His publicly disclosed assets include an 800-square foot apartment, a trailer, and three cars.

But according to some experts, he may be the wealthiest man in the world with assets totaling up to $200 billion.

While that is a ridiculous amount of money for anyone to have, this figure may not be so far-fetched for Putin. Here’s why:

Luxury watch collection

Putin is often seen sporting high-end luxury watches that are retailed for multiple times his supposed annual income.

He has been pictured wearing Patek Philippe’s Perpetual Calendar watch worth $60,000 and allegedly owns a $500,000 A. Lange & Sohne Toubograph, as well as other fancy designs.
$1.4 Billion Black Sea mansion

Putin is rumored to be the owner of a beautiful 190,000 square-foot mansion sitting atop a cliff that overlooks the Black Sea. This coastal property is reputed as the largest private residence in the country and serves as his private palace endearingly called “Putin’s Country Cottage”.

The estate is Putin’s playland, boasting frescoed ceilings, a marble swimming pool lined with statues of Greek gods, a 27,000 square-foot guest house, spas with traditional hammams, a musical parlor, dressing rooms for all his staff, an amphitheater, a state-of-the-art ice hockey rink, a Vegas-style casino, a nightclub equipped with stripper poles, a barroom showcasing more than $100,000 of wine and spirits, an underground tasting room overlooking the water, and much more.

Most of the mansion is reportedly decorated by an exclusive luxury Italian brand called Citterio Atena including Louis XIV style sofas, $500,000 in dining room furniture, and a $54,000 bar table. It even has decked-out bathrooms with fancy $850 Italian toilet brushes and $1,250 toilet paper holders.

On top of all the extravagant furnishings, an annual $2 million is spent just to maintain the property’s landscaping by a 40-person staff.

The Black Sea Mansion was designed by Italian architect Lanfranco Cirillo and cost $1.4 billion to construct. According to a Reuters investigation, the money for this extravagant project was supposedly laundered through the country’s 1.3-trillion-ruble national project called “Health” in which the state bought expensive medical equipment from a company owned by Putin’s friends Shamalov and Gorelov at a much higher rate than the market price. Records show that the two men sent around $56 million to Swiss bank accounts of a Belize company. Then the Belize account transferred approximately $48 million to an account controlled by Medea Investment- a company controlled by Cirillo himself. Moscow Times reports that Shamalov, Gorelov, and Cirillo denied all allegations.

The Kremlin denies Putin’s ownership of the palace saying it belongs to a wealthy businessman. But Russian analysts call it a blatant lie, saying that no businessman can have properties guarded by the FSB (Russia’s federal security service) with a no-fly zone over it.
Aircraft, helicopters, and cars

Apart from the Black Sea Mansion and 19 other houses and 700 cars, Putin supposedly has a collection of 58 aircraft and helicopters including a $716 million dollar plane called “The Flying Kremlin” that has a toilet made of gold. Not surprising considering his taste for grandiose, neoclassical architecture.

And to keep his options open by land, air, or sea, he also has a $100-million-dollar megayacht designed by a nuclear submarine maker from the Russian navy.

$200 Billion Dollar Blackmail

The $200 billion figure was estimated by financier Bill Browder who, in a testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017, said that Putin amassed most of his wealth after a Moscow court jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003 for fraud and tax evasion:

“After Khodorkovsky’s conviction, the other oligarchs went to Putin and asked him what they needed to do to avoid sitting in the same cage as Khodorkovsky. From what followed, it appeared that Putin’s answer was, “50%” He wasn’t saying 50% for the Russian government or the presidential administration of Russia, but 50% for Vladimir Putin personally.”

On top of all this, the famous Panama Papers revealed a network of secret offshore deals and loans worth $2 billion pointing to Putin in 2016.

But of course, Vladimir denies all these allegations, only admitting to a different form of riches:

“I am the wealthiest man, not just in Europe but in the whole world: I collect emotions. I am wealthy in that the people of Russia have twice entrusted me with the leadership of a great nation such as Russia. I believe that is my greatest wealth.”

And despite all the paper trails and testimonies stacked against him, the Russian president continues his charade of being a dutiful bureaucrat with a simple, middle-class lifestyle.

Putin's palace. The story of the world's biggest bribe
Alexei Navalny created this video. Putin murdered him.



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

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 9:56 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Russia’s former president claimed NATO’s newest members are potential targets for revenge strikes using nuclear weapons in the event of war — as the Kremlin expands its military bases along the Finnish border.
OMG!! NATO members are at risk if NATO attacks Russia!
Whooda thunk?!?


Not, apparently, Sweden or Finland.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Thursday, May 1, 2025 10:03 AM

THG


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:


Russia’s former president claimed NATO’s newest members are potential targets for revenge strikes using nuclear weapons in the event of war — as the Kremlin expands its military bases along the Finnish border.

OMG!! NATO members are at risk if NATO attacks Russia!
Whooda thunk?!?


Not, apparently, Sweden or Finland.







T

Trump team's turmoil sparks urgent call for a new Nato | General Sir Richard Shirreff



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Thursday, May 1, 2025 10:14 AM

THG


Trump has lifted the pause on US military aid to Ukraine comrade. Putin has overplayed his hand. And I'm sure Trump seeing he was down -21 pts. in the polls when it came his not helping Ukraine, may have had a hand in changing his mind.

tick tock

T


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Thursday, May 1, 2025 12:02 PM

SECOND

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


The tables have turned, and Putin’s Russia is now in dire trouble

Trump’s minerals deal remains painful for Kyiv, but it has dashed the Kremlin’s military hopes

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | 01 May 2025 3:24pm BST

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/01/tables-have-suddenly-t
urned-putin-russia-dire-trouble
/

. . .

Russia is not close to conquering the four oblasts so presumptuously annexed. “The movements on the map are tiny, and have nothing of strategic value. Ukraine is big enough to trade space for time,” said a Western military expert on the ground.

“The Ukrainians can’t take back lost territory, but they’re not going to get rolled over either. This has come down to a war of economic attrition. It’s what’s happening in the Russian rear that decides this.”

Trump may change his mind again. The mineral deal does not give Ukraine a bankable security guarantee. Europe is fractious and weary.

But the balance of probability is that Vladimir Putin will now fail to turn Ukraine into a castrated vassal state along the lines of Belarus.

He may keep the land he already holds and win legal recognition of Crimea, at least from Washington. But if the far-Right ultranationalist hawks in Russia compel him to hold out for total victory, he may not even keep that.

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

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 2:15 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Is Putin secretly one of the world’s richest men? Experts estimate a $200 billion net worth

By Mahnoor Khan and Jane Thier | November 23, 2024 at 5:01 AM EST

https://fortune.com/article/russian-president-vladimir-putin-net-worth
-worlds-richest-people
/

On paper, Russian President Vladimir Putin seems like a humble statesman with a modest income.

The Kremlin claims that Putin earns an annual salary of $140,000. His publicly disclosed assets include an 800-square foot apartment, a trailer, and three cars.

But according tosome experts, he may be the wealthiest man in the world with assets totaling up to $200 billion.

While that is a ridiculous amount of money for anyone to have, this figure may not be so far-fetched for Putin. Here’s why:

Luxury watch collection

Putin is often seen sporting high-end luxury watches [plural] that are retailed for multiple times his supposed annual income.

[But] He has been pictured wearing [only one] Patek Philippe’s Perpetual Calendar watch worth $60,000 and allegedly owns a $500,000 A. Lange & Sohne Toubograph, as well as other fancy designs.



So, what does "allegedly" mean? It means that someone said he owns this high end watch.

Quote:

$1.4 Billion Black Sea mansion

Putin is rumored to be the owner of a beautiful 190,000 square-foot mansion sitting atop a cliff that overlooks the Black Sea. This coastal property is reputed as the largest private residence in the country and serves as his private palace endearingly called

by who? The same person who said that Putin owns a never-seen watch?
Quote:

“Putin’s Country Cottage”.

The estate is

Notice how they went from alleging to fact? Has Putin ever stayed there? Or even been seen there?
Quote:

Putin’s playland...blah blah blah
And then we get snowed with "reported" details of the property that are meant to make the article seem more credible. Any pictures of the interior?

Quote:

The Black Sea Mansion was designed by Italian architect Lanfranco Cirillo and cost $1.4 billion to construct. According to a Reuters investigation, the money for this extravagant project was supposedly laundered through the country’s 1.3-trillion-ruble national project called “Health”

The Kremlin denies Putin’s ownership of the palace saying it belongs to a wealthy businessman. But Russian analysts call it a blatant lie, saying that no businessman can have properties guarded by the FSB (Russia’s federal security service) with a no-fly zone over it.

More allegations? Or actual fact?

Quote:

Aircraft, helicopters, and car

Apart from the

alleged
Quote:

Black Sea Mansion and
alleged
Quote:

19 other houses and
alleged
Quote:

700 cars, Putin supposedly has a collection of 58 aircraft and helicopters including a $716 million dollar plane called “The Flying Kremlin” that has a toilet made of gold. Not surprising considering his taste for grandiose, neoclassical architecture.

And to keep his options open by land, air, or sea, he also has a

alleged
Quote:

$100-million-dollar megayacht designed by a nuclear submarine maker from the Russian navy.

$200 Billion Dollar Blackmail

The $200 billion figure was estimated by financier Bill Browder who,

has a serious beef with Putin, since Putin interrupted Browder's extraction of Russia's wealth thru Magnitsky
Quote:

in a testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017, said that Putin amassed most of his wealth after a Moscow court jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2003 for fraud and tax evasion:

“After Khodorkovsky’s conviction, the other oligarchs went to Putin and asked him what they needed to do to avoid sitting in the same cage as Khodorkovsky. From what followed, it appeared that Putin’s answer was, “50%” He wasn’t saying 50% for the Russian government or the presidential administration of Russia, but 50% for Vladimir Putin personally.”

uh huh. So how did Russia ... not Putin... come to nationalize 51% of Russian nautral assets and infrastructure?

Quote:

On top of all this, the famous Panama Papers revealed a network of secret offshore deals and loans worth $2 billion pointing to in 2016. Putin
Im sure people followed up on this. If there was any credible thread leading back to Putin, it would be in this article. But the timing is wrong. The gap between the time Khordakovsky was jailed and the Mossack Fonseca accounts were created is too long.

Quote:

But of course, Vladimir denies all these allegations, only admitting to a different form of riches:

“I am the wealthiest man, not just in Europe but in the whole world: I collect emotions. I am wealthy in that the people of Russia have twice entrusted me with the leadership of a great nation such as Russia. I believe that is my greatest wealth.”

And despite all the paper trails

But I read of no "paper trails", just a lot of fluff and rumor
Quote:

and testimonies
And 51 security officials stood shoulder to shoulder and said that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinfo. I don't believe potentially politically-motivated testimony. In cases like this, only solid evidence will do
Quote:

stacked against him, the Russian president continues his charade of being a dutiful bureaucrat with a simple, middle-class lifestyle.


Can you say "character assassination "?

Sure you can.

This article is caveated so often it should be listed under "fiction".

Everything it claims should be held in abeyance until actual evidence comes forth.

But believers gonna believe.



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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Thursday, May 1, 2025 6:41 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Everything it claims should be held in abeyance until actual evidence comes forth.

But believers gonna believe.

Signym, debunk this if you can:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/01/tables-have-suddenly-t
urned-putin-russia-dire-trouble
/

The tables have turned: it is suddenly Vladimir Putin who is in trouble, trying to hold together an exhausted war economy as the price of Urals crude crashes to $56 a barrel – from $77 in mid-January – and as the global economic downturn tips the whole commodity complex into a cascading bear market. The spot price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Asia has fallen 30pc over two months.

Russia’s “hot Keynesian” war machine is now in the same state of exhaustion as the imperial German war machine in 1917. Germany had been able to preserve something close to a normal civilian economy over the early years of the First World War but the Allied blockade, chronic shortages, lack of manpower and money eventually forced the military to take over the whole productive apparatus. That too failed, and ultimately incubated Weimar hyperinflation.

Russia has depleted the liquid and usable reserves of its rainy-day fund. Military spending almost certainly exceeds 10pc of GDP in one way or another and it is being funded off-books by coercing the banks into lending some $250bn to defence contractors, storing up a crisis for the banking system.

Is that what Anton Siluanov, Russia’s finance minister, was referring to this week when he advised Russians to read Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls and Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, the first about fraudulent finance, the second about crippling debts? He has already introduced a string of new taxes this year. He is now drawing up fresh emergency measures.

The trade-off between guns and butter can be postponed no longer. Serious austerity is coming for the first time since Putin launched his fateful misadventure.

Russia is no longer the proverbial “petrol station masquerading as a country” but it still relies on raw material exports to fund a quarter of the budget. Oil exports fund the war. Kirill Bakhtin, from BCS, says tighter US and UK sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet – Biden’s parting shot – have pushed the discount on Urals crude to around $15.

That lowers the de facto market value of Russian crude exports to $45. Another big drop from here, which may well happen as Saudi Arabia keeps adding barrels to an oversupplied market, would make it extremely hard for Russia to keep prosecuting the war beyond the summer.

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

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 6:51 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


At the end of the day, nobody gives a shit. They never did, just like I said years ago when this thread was created.

In the meantime, we're going to rape their land now to get the money back that Joe Biden* pissed away tenfold. Ukraine just sold their future like Mayor Daley did to Chicago's future when he sold the parking meter revenue for the next 100 years for $2 Billion which he spent before he left office.

And if things even get half as bad as your Media is telling you they are, Zelensky is going to find out really fucking quick just how many of you disingenuous pricks don't really give a shit about anybody but yourselves and that you never cared about Ukraine either, and that the only reason you pretended to care in the first place was because it made you feel a completely unearned sense of moral superiority over people you disagree with.

Sweet dreams.



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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Thursday, May 1, 2025 10:36 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Everything it claims should be held in abeyance until actual evidence comes forth.

But believers gonna believe.

Signym, debunk this if you can:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/01/tables-have-suddenly-t
urned-putin-russia-dire-trouble
/

Russia’s “hot Keynesian” war machine is now in the same state of exhaustion as the imperial German war machine in 1917.

Here's another model: the USA during WWII.

In the economic doldrums since 1929, cranking up the war machine and pouring money into it, drafting able-bodied men into the military caused the economy to go white hot. Who did the USA depend on, economically and financially?

Nobody.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Friday, May 2, 2025 5:18 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Everything it claims should be held in abeyance until actual evidence comes forth.

But believers gonna believe.

Signym, debunk this if you can:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/01/tables-have-suddenly-t
urned-putin-russia-dire-trouble
/

Russia’s “hot Keynesian” war machine is now in the same state of exhaustion as the imperial German war machine in 1917.

Here's another model: the USA during WWII.

In the economic doldrums since 1929, cranking up the war machine and pouring money into it, drafting able-bodied men into the military caused the economy to go white hot. Who did the USA depend on, economically and financially?

Nobody.

If you want dueling models: the Soviet Union during WWII. Tens of millions of Russians died to kill only millions of Germans. Russians aren't efficient at war. How many Americans died? Approximately 407,316. Russia doesn't know within error bands of millions how many Russians died.

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

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Friday, May 2, 2025 5:19 AM

SECOND

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


At The Current Rate, It Would Take Russia Centuries And Tens Of Millions Of Casualties To Capture Ukraine

By David Axe | May 01, 2025, 05:18pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/05/01/at-the-current-rate-i
t-would-take-russia-centuries-and-tens-of-millions-of-casualties-to-capture-ukraine
/

Russian forces managed to capture around 68 square miles of Ukraine in April. But it cost them 4,800 vehicles and more than 36,600 dead and wounded troops. At the current rates of advance and loss, the Russians would capture the rest of Ukraine in the year 2256 at the cost of 101 million casualties. The current population of Russia is 144 million.

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

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Friday, May 2, 2025 12:41 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Everything it claims should be held in abeyance until actual evidence comes forth.

But believers gonna believe.

Signym, debunk this if you can:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/01/tables-have-suddenly-t
urned-putin-russia-dire-trouble
/

Russia’s “hot Keynesian” war machine is now in the same state of exhaustion as the imperial German war machine in 1917.

Here's another model: the USA during WWII.

In the economic doldrums since 1929, cranking up the war machine and pouring money into it, drafting able-bodied men into the military caused the economy to go white hot. Who did the USA depend on, economically and financially?

Nobody.

If you want dueling models: the Soviet Union during WWII. Tens of millions of Russians died to kill only millions of Germans. Russians aren't efficient at war.



I see you haven't caught up to 2025 yet.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Friday, May 2, 2025 1:38 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Did Trump just end the Ukraine war?

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Friday, May 2, 2025 2:04 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Did Trump just end the Ukraine war?

No.

A Nothingburger Of Hope

With Some Potential Problems For Ukraine

By Phillips P. Obrien | May 02, 2025

Hello Everyone,

At this point I should probably headline this Substack—Abandon Hope All Ye That Enter Here! I’m amazed that so many of you can put up with the regular doses of cold water and skepticism that I dump on those trying to find silver linings in Trump’s interactions with Ukraine. Well brace yourself, you are about to get another. The much heralded minerals deal between Ukraine and the USA gives Ukraine nothing concrete and actually holds out some dangerous hostages to fortune. What it does represent is the literal end of any new US aid for Ukraine with no sign that more is actually coming. Its a dangerous thing to report otherwise—though that is not stopping people from doing so.

Almost immediately after the agreement was signed on the evening of Wednesday April 30, people lost their heads saying that it was “historic”, or that it represented some pivot by Trump towards Ukraine. There was even the appearance of that dreaded word “hope”. Now, supposedly, Ukraine could look forward to its future with hope, one which would see the US aid once again start pouring into the country to make sure that the US investment (actually non-existent) in Ukraine maintained viable.

Signing the Mineral Deal—the Hype Seems Overblown

In reality, this deal provides almost no basis for hope, has some worrying signs for Ukraine and has more of a possibility of making things worse than better. Moreover, the $50 million in US military aid for Ukraine, which people are saying was part of the deal, almost certainly was not. (This aid was approved at least 24 hours before the deal was signed—not after which the media is reporting. More on that below).

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

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Friday, May 2, 2025 4:22 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Europe is drilling for World War III
NATO is conducting exercises for "a broad offensive from Vilnius to Odessa" at "a scale unseen in decades."
Alex Krainer
Apr 30, 2025

[Originally published at I-System TrendCompass] Russia’s military victory over Ukraine has been a near-certainty for months now. Ukraine’s total defeat is only a matter of time, but as that time approaches, European powers have been increasingly determined not to let the war die and are now actively preparing to take it up where Ukraine stumbles. Our liberal democracies are as precious as they are fragile and every precaution must be taken to defend them from the Asiatic hordes gathering in the east.

While our valiant bankers are arranging to allocate trillions of euros of our children’s and grandchildren’s wealth for defense spending, our militaries are diligently exercising and preparing for war, hidden from ordinary Europeans who aren’t exactly enthused about World War 3. But the Russians have noticed: presidential aide and former National Security Adviser Nikolai Patrushev recently stated that, for a second consecutive year, NATO has been

“conducting exercises at our borders at a scale unseen in decades. … They are training for conducting a broad offensive from Vilnius to Odessa, seizing Kaliningrad region, imposing a naval blockade in the Baltic and the Black Seas and executing preventive strikes on the staging locations of Russian nuclear deterrence forces.”

If Mr. Patrushev is correct, it would appear that London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels are actively preparing for war against Russia. But his statement that the exercises are “at a scale unseen in decades,” needs to be put in context.

NATO’s provocations far predate Ukraine war

NATO has been involved in increasingly aggressive military maneuvers at Russia’s doorstep for many years now,
especially after the 2014 Euromaidan coup in Kiev. During that time, NATO forces have been conducting as many as 40 major military exercises per year along Russia’s borders.

Movement of their military assets evolved from purely reconnaissance hardware to battle ready ships and aircraft equipped with precision munitions and cruise missiles which would frequently approach Russian territory to as close as 15 km (9.3 miles). On these occasions, they often activated their missiles in repeated mock attacks on Russian targets. In September 2020,


BEFORE Russia invaded Ukraine
Quote:

chief of operations of Russia’s high command, General Sergey Rudskoi stated that NATO was staging between 33 and 40 such flight approaches per week using fighter jets from Sweden, Germany, Ukraine and Italy.

This suggests that the exercises Mr. Patrushev referred to aren’t Europe’s reaction to Russia’s aggressiveness but a continuation of policy that far predates the Ukraine war.
In June 2021, still more than six months before Ukraine war, NATO’s then Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg boasted that,

“Perhaps the most important thing we have done is that for the first time in NATO’s history, we have combat-ready troops in the eastern part of the Alliance. New battle groups are deployed to the Baltic countries and Poland, we have tripled the size of the NATO readiness force.”

In a 2016

Long before 2022
Quote:

radio-interview with John Bachelor, late professor Stephen Cohen noted that,

“NATO has decided to quadruple its military forces on Russia’s borders or near Russia’s borders… The last time there was this kind of Western hostile military force on Russia’s borders was when Nazis invaded Russia in 1941. There has never been anything like this. During the 40-year Cold War there was this vast buffer zone that ran from the Soviet borders all the way to Berlin. There were no NATO or American troops there. This is a very radical departure on the part of the [Obama] administration. … Russia is not threatening any country on its border.

$75 trillion worth of democracy and freedom

Professor Cohen was right. Russia really wasn’t threatening any of its neighbors, and no Russian leader has either explicitly or implicitly expressed any territorial pretentions against any European nation. The deranged claims that once they are done with Ukraine, the Russians will continue on to Poland, the Baltic states, Finland and then, who knows, perhaps Paris and London, are based on nothing but European leaders reckless fear mongering, aimed at justifying NATO’s continuing preparations for war.

The ultimate reason isn’t the belief that Russia will launch a medieval invasion of Europe and deprive us of our democracy and freedom, but the certain knowledge that Russia is sitting on an estimated $75 trillion of our freedom and democracy. Those precious resources are utterly wasted on the unworthy Russians. Here’s what the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher once said (video at this link):

“If you were to make a table of countries in proportion to the natural resources they have, the top one would almost certainly be Russia. She has everything. Oil, gas, diamonds, platinum, gold, silver, all the industrial metals, marvelous standing timber, a wonderfully rich soil. But countries are not rich in proportion to their natural resources. Countries are rich whose governments have policies which encourage essential creativity, initiative and enterprise of man and recognize his desire to do better for his family.”

We can’t allow for Russia’s wealth to be wasted on Russians...



MORE AT https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/europe-is-drilling-for-world-war

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Friday, May 2, 2025 5:46 PM

SECOND

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


Russia Is Making Explosive Drones Out Of Toy Hoverboards
Hoverboards are stable on rough terrain

By David Axe | May 02, 2025, 05:24pm EDT

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/05/02/russia-is-making-expl
osive-drones-out-of-toy-hoverboards
/

It suddenly makes sense why Russian troops in Ukraine were observed with a substantial number of toy hoverboards. A video montage that circulated online on Friday depicts the explosive ground robots—a pair of the two-wheeled hoverboards attached to an anti-tank mine—blowing up purported Ukrainian fortifications presumably somewhere along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 39-month wider war on Ukraine.

Last summer, the Dva Mayora volunteer organization in Russia developed the hoverboard unmanned ground vehicles and began distributing copies to Russian units. Half a year later in February, Russians were seen loading a bunch of the $100 hoverboards into a truck somewhere at or near the front. It’s possible they’d received them as donations from supporters back home—or stolen them from Ukrainian homes in the occupied zone.

Regardless, it should be apparent now that most of the hoverboards along the front line aren’t for riding—they’re for making one-way explosive drones.

Flying robots already dominate the battleground in Ukraine. The hundreds of thousands of tiny first-person-view drones Russian and Ukrainian forces deploy every month account for the majority of battlefield casualties—70 percent, according to The New York Times.

By comparison, ground robots are less ubiquitous, and for obvious reasons. It’s easier for a remote-controlled vehicle to fly unobstructed through the air than it is to crawl over rough terrain.

Thanks to their internal gyroscopes, hoverboards are extremely stable compared to traditional wheeled vehicles. A hoverboard UGV can speed across the front-line terrain faster than other ground robots. And the low cost of the toys mean the mine-laden ‘bots are expendable. No need for a regiment to save them for only the most valuable targets.

That the Russians appear to be using their hoverboards to build exploding robots doesn’t mean they won’t eventually ride them into battle. It’s worth noting the growing prevalence of surplus civilian electric scooters in the inventories of Russian regiments. After losing 17,000 armored vehicles and other heavy equipment in Ukraine, the Kremlin is growing truly desperate for battlefield transportation—and has sent troops on assaults on e-scooters, Lada compact cars, aging GAZ-69 trucks and at least one bus.

If and when toy hoverboards become more valuable as assault vehicles than drone components, they too might join the war-scooters and compact cars. At least as an assault vehicle, a hoverboard stands some chance of surviving a battle. As an explosive drone, a hoverboard heads out exactly once.

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

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Saturday, May 3, 2025 7:33 AM

SECOND

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


Russia's torture of Viktoriia Roshchyna shocks world, but dozens of Ukrainian journalists still in captivity

By Daria Shulzhenko | Updated: May 1, 2025 1:21 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-shocked-by-torture-of-captive-jour
nalist-as-over-30-remain-in-russian-hands
/

It took several DNA tests to confirm the identity of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who was killed in Russian captivity in the fall of 2024.

Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while on a reporting trip in Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow only acknowledged her detention the following year.

Ukraine was devastated by the news of her death, which was followed by a five-month delay in the return of her body by Russia.

On April 24, however, lawmaker Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, who chairs the parliamentary committee on freedom of speech, said that her body had been returned in late February, but the news was withheld due to uncertainty over her identity.

"Given the signs of torture and the condition of the body, Roshchyna's family requested not just one but several DNA tests. As far as I know, the tests were conducted both in Ukraine and abroad to conclude with certainty that it was indeed Viktoriia," Yurchyshyn wrote on Telegram.

"Russians killed the 27-year-old journalist after unlawfully detaining and torturing her for an extended period," he said.

An investigation by the Forbidden Stories journalism network, published on April 29, showed that her body was returned missing some internal organs, potentially to obscure signs of suffocation or strangulation.

After launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has increased its assault on press freedom, deliberately targeting Ukrainian journalists with attacks and abducting media workers in occupied territories in an attempt to control the narrative.

Throughout the full-scale invasion, journalists have played a crucial role in spotlighting Russia’s brutal war, documenting its war crimes and their aftermath.

As of April 24, Russia has committed 833 crimes against journalists and the media in Ukraine, according to the Institute of Mass Information (IMI). One hundred two media workers have been killed, including both those on assignment and those who had joined Ukraine's Armed Forces.

At least 30 Ukrainian journalists remain in Russian captivity as of April, IMI reported, with little known about their health conditions or whereabouts. Multiple reports have revealed that Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) are tortured and killed while in Russian captivity.

"Russia does this deliberately. It eliminates and silences journalists," says Kateryna Diachuk, head of the Freedom of Speech Monitoring Department at IMI.
Torture and fabricated cases

When Russia occupies a new settlement, one of its first actions is targeting individuals who could resist the occupation, including journalists.

"Russian troops have lists of journalists, activists, and war veterans, and they look for people on those lists when occupying a territory," Diachuk says.

Ukrainian journalist and poet Oleksandr Hunko, who was briefly detained in occupied Nova Kakhovka in April 2022, says that FSB (Russian Federal Security Service) officers asked him about other local journalists during interrogations.

To hold journalists in captivity, Russia fabricates cases against them, often accusing them of extremism, espionage, and sabotage.

Dmytro Khyliuk, a journalist with the UNIAN news agency, was kidnapped alongside his father from their home in Kyiv Oblast in March 2022, while the area was under Russian occupation.

While Khyliuk's father was later released, Russia accused the journalist of communicating with the Ukrainian military and put him in a penal colony in Russia’s Vladimir Oblast.

According to a recent report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), citing a man who spent a year in the same prison cell as Khyliuk, the journalist is being subjected to torture and humiliation, with his current weight reportedly "no more than 45 kilograms."

A Ukrainian journalist, Viktoriia Roshchyna, was captured by Moscow while reporting from occupied eastern Ukraine in 2023 and died in Russian captivity in 2024. (Nataliya Gumenyuk / X)

Another Ukrainian journalist, Iryna Danylovych, was abducted in occupied Crimea. She was sentenced to seven years in prison for "illegal possession of explosives" and transferred to a penal colony in Russia.

Recent reports also indicate that her health has declined while in captivity: According to the Crimean Tatar Resource Center NGO, 45-year-old Danylovych "lost hearing in her left ear." In addition, "the left side of her body is numb following a micro-stroke, and she constantly complains of heart issues and headaches."

Russian troops also target retired journalists and the relatives of media workers, just like the family of Iryna and Oleksandr Levchenko from the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

According to the Media Initiative for Human Rights, 62-year-old Iryna is a retired journalist. She and her husband were kidnapped in their hometown of Melitopol in May 2023, with few details known about them since then.

"Russians do not give access to journalists in captivity," Diachuk says.

Details about Roshchyna's captivity remained largely unknown, too. According to the Media Initiative for Human Rights, Roshchyna had been held in at least two notorious Russian prisons: the penal colony No.77 in Berdiansk in occupied Ukraine and the detention center No.2 in Russia's Taganrog. Both facilities are known for the use of torture against prisoners.

She was tortured with electric shocks while in Russian captivity, Ukrainian investigative journalism outlet Slidstvo.Info reported in early March, citing an unnamed witness in the Taganrog detention center.

There were also cuts on Roshchyna's arms after interrogations, the witness said. The journalist lost weight and weighed up to 30 kilograms, according to the witness. The cause of her death is yet to be established.

Roshchyna reportedly died on Sept. 19, marking the first known death of a Ukrainian journalist in Russian captivity.

Protestors demand the release of Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, who has been in Russian captivity since March 2022, in Kyiv in March 2025. (Nataliia Moseichuk/Facebook)

"Vika was a young, 27-year-old woman. And what did Russia do to her that she died just one year later?" Diachuk says.

As civilians, Ukrainian journalists are trapped in legal limbo, as international law prohibits the capture and exchange of civilians for prisoners of war, with only two of them liberated since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to IMI: Nariman Dzhelyal, a Crimean Tatar journalist and politician, as well as Maksym Butkevych, Ukrainian journalist and human rights activist.

"Ukrainians in Russian captivity are like insects frozen in amber. Time has stopped for them, but it's important for all of them to know that everything possible is being done to secure their release," Butkevych said during a meeting with Zelensky days after his release from captivity on Oct. 18.

Russia began targeting Ukrainian journalists long before the full-scale invasion. First reports of media workers being kidnapped, attacked, or detained emerged shortly after the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in 2014.

According to Oksana Romaniuk, the head of IMI, over 100 journalists, both Ukrainian and foreign, have been detained by Russia since 2014.

"But those detentions were not as long as the current ones," says Diachuk.

But some of the journalists detained between 2014 and 2021 still remain in captivity. Most of them are Crimean Tatars – the indigenous people of occupied Crimea.

Among them are journalists and activists Oleksii Bessarabov and Dmytro Shtyblikov who were detained in occupied Crimea and both accused of espionage in 2016. As a result of a fabricated trial, the two were sentenced to 14 years behind bars, according to IMI.

"What Russia is doing is undoubtedly a crime. I would say it is a crime of genocide, as we see the filtering of citizens based on specific criteria," says Romaniuk, as quoted by IMI.

"Journalists document Russia's crimes. They capture historical moments. And disseminating this truthful information to the world is not beneficial for Russia because it does not want to show that it is committing crimes," says Diachuk.

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

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Saturday, May 3, 2025 7:38 AM

SECOND

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


Ukraine must 'accelerate creation of ballistic systems,' Zelensky says

by Lucy Pakhnyuk May 2, 2025 11:46 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-must-accelerate-creation-of-ballis
tic-systems-zelensky-says
/

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine needs to "accelerate the creation of Ukrainian ballistic systems as much as possible," according to his evening address published on May 2.

Zelensky made the statement following his meeting with the Commander-in-Chief, where he was briefed on military supplies, staffing, and Ukraine’s missile program, including domestic development and production.

"Our long-range capabilities are a clear and effective guarantee of Ukraine’s security," Zelensky said.

Long-range missiles have been a critical component of Ukraine's defense against Russia's full-scale invasion. However, since the start of the invasion, Western partners have been reluctant and slow to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles out of a fear of escalation.

Kyiv first started receiving U.S. long-range missiles, specifically the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), in the fall of 2023 – more than a year after Russia launched its invasion. At the time, Ukraine was only permitted to deploy these missiles against targets in occupied Ukrainian territory.

Former U.S. President Joe Biden eased restrictions on Ukraine's use of ATACMS in November 2024, allowing Kyiv to launch them against military targets in Russia.

Ukraine has also received the British Storm Shadow and the French SCALP missiles. However, earlier this year, Ukraine reportedly ran out of its supply of ATACMS.

While Ukraine's drone production industry has been successful – providing more than 95% of drones used on the front line – the missile development program has been slower, with some notable exceptions. Last year, Ukraine successfully tested its first domestically-made ballistic missile and produced 100 missiles.

The combination of Western reluctance and restrictions, as well as limited supply of long-range missiles, has underscored Ukraine's need to develop its own domestic missile program.

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

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Saturday, May 3, 2025 8:23 AM

SECOND

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


Russia Is in Demographic Free Fall. Putin Isn’t Helping.

The Russian president is enacting one of the world’s most extreme natalism programs—and one of the weirdest.

By Anna Nemtsova | April 29, 2025

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/04/russia-putin
-demography-children/682637
/

Russia was in demographic decline long before the war in Ukraine. Now it’s in free fall.

Since 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russians have died or suffered critical injuries in Ukraine. The result: According to one demographer, Russians may have had fewer children from January to March 2025 than in any three-month period over the past 200 years. As of 2023, the country’s fertility rate—1.4 births per woman—lies well below replacement level and amounts to a roughly 20 percent drop compared with 2015. In some regions, births fell that much in just 12 months. Last year, deaths outpaced births by more than half a million.

This crisis has led to one of the world’s most extreme natalism campaigns—and one of the weirdest. President Vladimir Putin has commanded his government to “stimulate” Russian women to have at least three children, and to make sure they get pregnant when they’re young. To that end, the Ministry of Education has been discussing ways to create “conditions for romantic relations” in schools. Last month, Moscow’s Department of Health displayed giant pink banners around the city asking women, How’s it going? Still haven’t given birth?

If this is supposed to make them want to procreate, it doesn’t seem to be working—at least not for Larisa, a 21-year-old university student who was incredulous when she saw the sign on her way to campus. Even though her parents cover the cost of her car and apartment, she told me, “I have enough money to pay just for my food. Forget three babies.” Indeed, the Kremlin’s own polling has shown that almost 40 percent of Russian women of childbearing age say they won’t have kids in the next five years because of financial concerns.

Most of Larisa’s friends are like her: women in their early 20s who came to Moscow to study and start their career. That’s precisely the path that Russian leaders are trying to discourage. Irina Filatova, a member of Parliament, recently warned that young women’s ideas about “self-development” are a threat to Russia’s “traditional family values.” But if they insist on going to college, then at least they should find a husband there, so they “can give birth at age 18 or 19,” another female legislator suggested last year.

To assuage concerns about the cost of having kids, authorities in the Oryol region recently began offering pregnant students $1,200. Daria Yakovleva, a women’s-rights activist, told me that such programs may lead girls to think of childbearing as a ticket to economic security, even though having children in Russia often entrenches poverty. Svetlana Gannushkina witnesses these financial burdens firsthand. A human-rights advocate who served on Russia’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Gannushkina helps low-income families that are unable to provide for their children. She doesn’t see government handouts as a solution. “Paying girls money for pregnancies is a strange approach,” Gannushkina told me. “Authorities should be forcing men to feel responsible, first of all, but so far, all we hear is demands for women—what women should not do or should do.”

One of Gannushkina’s clients, Takhmina, is pregnant with her eighth child, and her husband makes less than $800 a month. Gannushkina told me that the state was supposed to send them financial aid but has withheld it since a right-wing mob attacked Takhmina’s family online because they’re ethnically Tajik. Evidently, Gannushkina said, “she is not the kind of pregnant woman they want.”


The Russian government is trying not only to encourage pregnancies but also to make terminating them as hard as possible. Politicians have restricted access to abortion, and regulators are clamping down on the distribution of abortion pills such as mifepristone.

None of these interventions addresses an underlying reason Russian women say they don’t want children—the country’s “negative political situation,” a pollster’s euphemism for authoritarianism and war.

Russia’s leaders rarely acknowledge the toll this “situation” takes on citizens. Many women are depressed, lonely, and afraid. Every day, the war makes more of them widows. For others, the source of fear is the country’s pervasive problem with domestic violence, which the government partially decriminalized in 2017. Earlier this month, one particularly shocking case garnered national attention. A Russian mother named Ksenia Dushanova alleged that her boyfriend attacked her while she was asleep, gouging out one of her eyes with a car key, breaking her arm, and slashing her face. She posted images of her injuries on Instagram and wrote that her assailant had apparently been released from custody when he’d agreed to fight in the war.

The Russian activist Alena Popova leads a group that documents domestic violence across the country, with a focus on abuses committed by service members coming back from the front. Last year, she told me, more than 2,500 Russians contacted her team asking for help. The group also tracks the violence and mistreatment that many pregnant women experience in hospitals. One patient who received an abortion in the city of Surgut told local media that her doctors provided no pain relief and told her, when she cried out, to “shut up and not perform as in a circus.”

As part of its campaign to deter abortions, the state enlists doctors to create “positive attitudes toward having children” during pre-abortion consultations. Local governments report how many minds they change; last week, the region containing Surgut said that last year its doctors had persuaded 1,249 women who’d considered terminating their pregnancy to give birth. In a concerning sign for the government, the tally was lower than last year’s.

Putin’s biggest problem, though, won’t be solved by convincing women to carry their pregnancy to term. He’s created a society that Russians no longer want to bring children into. Getting them to reconsider will take more than government checks and pink banners.

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

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Saturday, May 3, 2025 7:13 PM

SECOND

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


Could Ukraine have stopped Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014?

by Kateryna Hodunova | May 2, 2025 8:41 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/could-ukraine-have-defended-crimea-in-2014/

Amid reports that a U.S. peace proposal might include recognizing Moscow's illegal annexation of Crimea, President Donald Trump denied Ukraine was being pressured to accept the move — while also asserting Ukraine had given up the peninsula in 2014 "without firing a shot."

"Nobody is asking (President Volodymyr) Zelensky to recognize Crimea as Russian territory, but if he wants Crimea, why didn't they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on April 23.

The claim that Ukraine simply handed over Crimea when Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in February 2014 ignores years of Moscow's military buildup in the region and the volatile political crisis occurring in Ukraine at the time that left Kyiv ill-equipped to mount a defense.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea coincided with the Euromaidan Revolution, widely considered the single most consequential political event in Ukraine's independent history that ended with the ousting of then pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.

After Yanukovych ordered his security forces to open fire on protestors, killing around 100 people, he fled the country to Russia on Feb. 21, 2014. In the power vacuum left by his departure, Moscow moved to take over Crimea.

The Kremlin had been amassing troops in Crimea for years thanks to agreements that had allowed it to station its Black Sea Fleet on the peninsula. This military presence enabled Moscow to take swift control over Crimea in less than a month.

Russian special forces without insignia seized the building of the Supreme Council and the Crimean Ministers Council overnight on Feb. 27, 2014. A few weeks later, Russian soldiers took control of airports, Ukrainian military units, and the navy. While the takeover was largely without armed resistance, Ukrainian troops stationed at the Balbek Air Base did put up a fight against Russian troops.

A total of 103 cadets, 2,239 soldiers and sailors, and 1,649 officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces held out for almost a month in a complete Russian encirclement in Crimea, then-acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov wrote recently on his personal website on April 14 in response to claims that the Ukrainian soldiers stationed in Crimea had not been commanded to defend their positions.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and the U.K. — signatories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which pledged to uphold Ukraine's territorial integrity in exchange for Kyiv surrendering its nuclear arsenal — did not come to Ukraine's defense. The agreement has been widely criticized for its vague political guarantees rather than firm commitments to protect Ukraine in the case of armed aggression.

“They explained that they didn't want to irritate Vladimir Putin or provoke a full-scale war in the heart of Europe. Ukraine wasn't given a single bullet,” Turchynov recalled.

Russia's long-term plan

Russia began taking its first steps toward its future occupation of Crimea long before 2014, helped along by the government of Yanukovych.

The Kharkiv agreements, signed by Yanukovych and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on April 21, 2010, extended Russia's lease to station its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol until 2042. The agreements signed that year also lifted any restrictions on Russian troops' movements around the peninsula, "creating all the necessary prerequisites for occupation," Turchynov wrote.

The increase in the Russian fleet's presence, whose troops and military equipment exceeded that of Ukraine's in Crimea, was supposed to be in exchange for cheaper Russian gas for Ukraine by applying a discount in the form of canceling customs duties. The deal, however, threatened Ukraine's sovereignty.

"This was a threat, because at any time, this group (of forces) could have launched wider-scale actions against our country," Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in 2021.

Between 2010 and 2014, Russia began covertly bringing in modernized or refurbished equipment into Crimea to strengthen its military forces, according to Ukrainian intelligence (HUR). The agency also recorded incidents when Russia seized Ukrainian navigation equipment in 2011 and 2012.

Russian troops were also actively forming new brigades on the Crimean peninsula. At the same time, the Ukrainian army had been experiencing long-lasting funding cuts. An ongoing reform of the army resulted in the disbanding of the 32nd Army Corps and the withdrawal of the 3rd Separate Special Forces Regiment, both of which were stationed in Crimea.

Under the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko from 2005-2010, the issue of the Ukrainian military's combat capability and potential NATO membership was regularly raised. These discussions came to a standstill under Yanukovych.

Toward the end of his presidential term, Yushchenko said in 2009 that the Ukrainian army had become a "victim of political intrigue," hinting that disagreements within the government had led to the impoverishment of the military.

The situation around the peninsula heated up even more in late 2013. On the eve of the Olympic Games in Sochi, a city on the Black Sea coast, Russia announced the need to conduct additional security measures in the water to ensure safety during the sporting event.

"Using this legend, the Russian military practiced blocking maritime waters, as well as the airspace, and conducted various reconnaissance operations. They used reconnaissance and long-range radar detection aircraft. They also conducted aggressive reconnaissance activities against Ukraine," Skibitskyi told RFE/RL.

In late February 2014, Russian airborne troops from regions including Tula, Ryazan, and Kubinka were reportedly put on high alert and began movement toward the Black Sea coast.

Ukraine had little capability to respond at that point.

Losing precious time

The Kremlin began its occupation of Crimea while Kyiv was in chaos after Yanukovych fled to Rostov-on-Don following the EuroMaidan. Instead of organizing the defense of Crimea, pro-Russian associates of the former president were also busy fleeing Ukraine.

"The entire policy of Yanukovych started to fall into place: it weakened the Ukrainian state, paving the way for both the forthcoming annexation of Crimea and the attempt to separate the eastern and southern oblasts from the rest of the country," a report by the Warsaw Institute published in 2018 read. Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine's eastern regions with the use of proxies after it annexed Crimea, and attempted to sow instability in the south.

After an interim government was set up in Kyiv, a secret meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council was held on Feb. 28, 2014, almost a week after Russian forces began their operation on the peninsula.

The participants decided to put the Ukrainian Armed Forces on full combat alert, appeal to the Budapest Memorandum guarantor countries, strengthen the defense of critical infrastructure, and create an operational headquarters for responding to the situation in Crimea.

The decisions did little to drive Russia off the peninsula.

Ukrainian admiral Denys Berezovskyi took over the Ukrainian Navy on March 1, 2014. The next day, he refused to comply with the Ukrainian authorities' orders, issuing one himself to subordinate units in Crimea military personnel to hand over their weapons to the warehouses and return military equipment to storage facilities.

According to a transcript of the Feb. 28, 2014 NSDC meeting, then-Defense Minister Ihor Teniukh claimed that Ukraine had 15,000 soldiers on the peninsula at the end of February 2014.

Turchynov later said that since the beginning of the occupation, 70% of Ukrainian soldiers betrayed their military oath, bringing their number down to 4,000. However, according to Teniukh, only up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers were combat ready.

Pro-Russian men armed with clubs gather outside the Crimea regional parliament building after parliamentarians voted on an illegal referendum on Crimea's autonomy earlier in the day, in Simferopol, Ukraine, on Feb. 27, 2014. (Sean Gallup / Getty Images)

During his presidency, Yanukovych's party, the Party of Regions, in cooperation with Russian intelligence services kept close watch over Crimea, even preparing the ground for the upcoming invasion, according to the Warsaw Institute. In particular, Ukrainian military units, police, and Security Service officers were infiltrated and captured by Moscow agents, the Warsaw Institute.

"Political disorientation, low morale, poor financial and logistical support, as well as the systematic work of Russian agents in the leadership of the security forces led to mass desertion and defection to the aggressor of most Ukrainian soldiers and officers stationed in occupied Crimea," Turchynov said.

"Viktor Yanukovych surrendered Crimea deliberately. There was no pressure on him from the Russian Federation."

"Most of the remnants of our military units, surrounded and scattered across the peninsula, were not even able to fulfill orders and basic requirements of military regulations, ensuring the defense of their positions with weapons," Turchynov added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych (L) attend a Russian-Ukrainian summit in Moscow, Russia, on Dec. 17, 2013. (Sasha Mordovets / Getty Images)

Following the forcible seizure of Crimea, the Russian government held a referendum on the status of peninsula without international observers and with armed Russian soldiers present at polling locations. Russia soon after declared Crimea a part of Russia, cementing its illegal annexation on March 21, 2014. Most countries do not recognize the results of the referendum.

"Viktor Yanukovych surrendered Crimea deliberately. There was no pressure on him from the Russian Federation," Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the former head of Ukraine's Security Service, said during Yanukovych's trial in absentia in 2018.

The surrender of Crimea to Russia had been planned since 2010, when fugitive President Yanukovych came to office, he added.

On March 24, 2014, Turchynov signed a decree enacting a decision of the NSDC to relocate military units and law enforcement agencies from Crimea to other regions of Ukraine.

Within less than a month, Russia had moved to invade and partially occupy parts of eastern Ukraine.

The origins of the 2014 war in Donbas

There is a reason why Ukrainians insist the world refers to Russia’s assault against Ukraine in 2022 as a “full-scale” invasion. Russia’s war against Ukraine did not begin on Feb. 24, 2022, but in 2014, with both the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine’s eastern region.

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

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