Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Sunday, August 10, 2025 13:26
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Thursday, August 7, 2025 8:12 AM

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

Since January 2022, the EU has imported €297 billion worth of Russian goods, including oil, nickel, natural gas, fertilizers, iron, and steel.

This continued trade underscores Europe’s dependence on Russian energy and industrial exports, complicating efforts to enforce sanctions effectively.

Since January 2022, the United States has imported $24.51 billion of Russian goods.

https://www.reuters.com/world/three-years-into-war-us-and-europe-keep-
billions-trade-with-russia-2025-08-05/

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

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Thursday, August 7, 2025 8:12 AM

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

Behind the ads Ukrainian units make to compete with one another

Amid a nationwide shortage of soldiers and growing competition among brigades, Ukraine’s military units are turning to advertising agencies to help them stand out and boost recruitment.

By Artem Moskalenko | Aug 06, 2025

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/behind-the-ads-ukrainian-units-mak
e

Imagine looking at a billboard in the street and instead of seeing a sign for Coca-Cola or Adidas, you lock eyes with a Ukrainian soldier. He is urging you to join his brigade.

This isn’t some sci-fi vision taken out of a movie: it’s everyday life in Ukraine, where the challenge of military recruitment has moved far beyond the front lines.

Military ads are now found in the metro stations, in big billboards in the streets, and even show up on coffee mugs and shirts.

Alina Tkachenko, the brand leader at one of Ukraine’s most popular advertising agencies, is one of those helping ensure that these ads spread to even more cities.

“The full-scale war has added a lot of creativity to the Ukrainian military, including its advertising. Billboards and videos [television advertising] have appeared everywhere. This [military service] has become a part of the advertising market,” she said.

Ukraine is unique in the world in that its units compete with each other for talent. The government approved a decentralized recruitment process in the fall of 2024.

If young soldiers voluntarily sign up for a brigade, they won’t be conscripted into a needs-of-the-army role. This creates an incentive for would-be soldiers to shop around, and for brigades to compete for stronger reputations.

At a time when manpower shortages on the frontline have become a serious problem, each brigade has been finding ways to attract more soldiers.

It’s a deeply human problem that hints at what motivates people – what message would get people off the couch to risk their lives for their country?

See Billboards and Videos at https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/behind-the-ads-ukrainian-units-mak
e

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

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Thursday, August 7, 2025 8:25 AM

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

Ukraine Won’t Surrender

Tim Mak and Adrian Karatnycky on battlefield reality, stalled U.S. support, and why Ukraine won’t give up

By David Frum | August 6, 2025, 10:30 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/08/david-frum-show-u
kraine-tim-mak-adrian-karatnycky/683772/

I think that the fact that Europe is stepping up with cash and with collaboration on potentially on weapons production—Ukraine has, as I say, been developing its long-range missiles.

I’ve always believed that the only way to get Russia to negotiate is to hit the Russian power grid in places like Moscow and St. Petersburg, which together represent 35 to 40 percent of the Russian GDP. If you can knock these things out for 5 percent of the time, it’s a huge impact or, you know, bigger impact than sanctions on Russian growth, and it brings the war in a more dramatic way, and it is a legitimate war target because there are many missile- and military-production facilities in the Moscow and St. Petersburg areas. And I think that the reciprocity, the ability for Ukraine to respond, would probably reduce the Russian attacks on the civilian targets in Ukraine, which have really been scaled up in the last two months.

Frum: Tim, what’s your view of what happens if the United States is even somewhat successful in forcing some kind of unfavorable peace?

Mak: I want to challenge the underlying assumption. I don’t think that they’re going to be able to force a peace on Russia’s terms. I remember in the very first weeks of the war, I heard someone say that as long as there’s a 12-year-old kid in Ukraine with a plastic fork, there’s going to be resistance to Russia and Russian occupation. There is no appetite whatsoever in Ukraine for accepting a peace that would permit the takeover of additional territories simply through diplomacy. And that’s what, I think, in the near term, a diplomatic outcome would look like.

Ever since the Oval Office dustup between Zelensky and Trump, I think Ukrainians have increasingly, to Adrian’s point, adopted the view that they need to have a backup plan and that they need to be able to be more self-sufficient and less reliant, even psychically, on American support for morale or equipment or whatever.

And so I think over the last few months, those plans have been put in place. I don’t think you’ll see that Ukraine will accept just a dictated peace in which they have to give up huge amounts of sovereignty and territory and freedom of action in order to achieve a short-term peace—which, by the way, no Ukrainian believes, or very few Ukrainians believe, would be sustainable in the long term. They believe that this would just be the prelude to the next war, which is coming in a matter of a few years.

Frum: Is there any voice—Adrian, you’ve chronicled the transformation of Ukraine from a culture and a people into a state. Is there any voice in the Ukrainian state system that would be willing to play ball with the Trump-Witkoff vision of the Ukrainian future?

Karatnycky: No. I mean, I think there may be a residual 5 percent of people with a kind of Soviet mentality and maybe a few percent who feel comfortable being in Russia’s embrace. But I would say, the society is as consolidated as ever in Ukrainian history. The culture is as dynamic as ever. This is like the high point of Ukrainian unity, and I think that that’s actually a counterweight to the earlier part of our discussion.

The Ukrainian people are united in the purpose of defending their way of life, their culture, their—to an extent—language, their civilization, which they see as a more open one than what Russia offers. And this unity is not going to be broken by disputes about anti-corruption policy or even some inordinate concentration of power by the president. That they will stick together. They will fight. And I think eventually, they will resolve this in a way that defends the existence of a persistence of a sovereign state.

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

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Thursday, August 7, 2025 9:14 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

they monitor tv propaganda from Russians

Igor Korotchenko says Russia's strikes bring peace

Trump to meet Putin soon, the Kremlin says as a White House deadline looms on Ukraine?

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-poll-trump-sanctions-dea
dline-7cefb2df66f494f58a16b684a2c76687

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Friday, August 8, 2025 7:23 AM

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

Russia has yet to seize roughly 6,500 square kilometers of Donetsk Oblast, or about 25 percent of the region. Russian advances aimed at enveloping Pokrovsk have accelerated in recent weeks, but Russian forces have spent the last 18 months trying to seize an area of about 30 square kilometers.[19] Russian forces have been fighting to seize Chasiv Yar (pre-war population of 12,000) since April 2024, and it took Russian forces 26 months to advance 11 kilometers from western Bakhmut to western Chasiv Yar.[20] Russian forces in the Chasiv Yar and Toretsk directions are increasingly threatening the southern tip of Ukraine's fortress belt in Donetsk Oblast at Kostyantynivka.[21] Kostyantynivka is roughly 30 kilometers from Slovyansk, the northern tip of the fortress belt, and the cities in the fortress belt (Kostyantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, and Slovyansk) collectively had a pre-war population of roughly 373,000. Russian forces have not demonstrated the capacity to seize cities of this size since mid-2022, and ISW continues to assess that the seizure of the fortress belt will be a difficult, multiyear effort.[22]

Future Russian operations to seize the entirety of Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts will require significant river crossing operations that Russian forces have historically struggled to complete since 2022. Russian forces still have to seize roughly 7,200 square kilometers of Zaporizhia Oblast (about 26 percent of the region) and roughly 7,000 square kilometers in Kherson Oblast (about 26 percent of the region). Russian gains in the Zaporizhia direction in the past two years have mostly consisted of advances in areas that Ukrainian forces liberated during their Summer 2023 counteroffensive, and Russian forces have yet to seize Orikhiv (roughly 35 kilometers southeast of Zaporizhzhia City).

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-august-7-2025

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

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Friday, August 8, 2025 8:11 AM

SECOND

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

In the military, the war in Ukraine is over

With both armies exhausted and increasingly powerful drones stifling any offensive attempts, Putin's insistence on prolonging the invasion makes no military sense

By Alberto Rojas | Aug 8, 2025 - 06:16 ET

https://www.mundoamerica.com/news/2025/08/08/6895ce25e85ece9f0d8b4599.
html

If any term can define the current military situation in Ukraine, it is "kill zone" or death zone. It refers to the place where weapons of all calibers, drones, aerial bombs, or mines can kill you. Since the beginning of this invasion, the bloodiest conflict of the century so far, the death zones have only increased.

In the early months of the invasion, what determined the dimensions of these lethal zones was the artillery range of both armies, about 10 kilometers on either side of the front line. But drones have changed the war to a level that can only be compared to what the invention of gunpowder did in the 9th century in China.

Today, there are already drones capable of attacking enemy infantry, armored vehicles, and logistical lines from 40 kilometers away, multiplying the death zones in just over three years. What impact does this robotic presence in the sky have on the war? A significant one. Currently, thousands of quadcopters are flying over all positions, trenches, fortifications, gray areas, and supply lines on both sides of the front line. Moreover, above them fly even more powerful spy drones that, with their powerful eye, can see from a kilometer high if a soldier has shaved that morning. When their batteries run out, another drone takes off and replaces it, even at night, as they have night vision.

In other words, never have armies been so hyper-vigilant, never has the life of the infantry been so miserable, hidden underground even to relieve themselves for weeks without rotation, as leaving exposes them to mortal danger. Even wounded evacuations are done at night and at full speed.

In this context, breakthrough operations, even those carried out with armored vehicles, are detected before they even start and crushed by artillery and drones from a distance before they can fire a single shot. Current technology prevents armies from making significant advances in depth and defenders from collapsing. In other words, offensives in Ukraine have lost their military sense for any force other than the extension of a brutal and dehumanized dictatorship that no longer cares about its own casualties.

War never makes sense, but even less so in these conditions where Russia's operations focus more on terrorizing and punishing civilians in rear cities than on victories on the front. That is why today the key weapon in this effort is the Iranian-origin Shahed drone with a Chinese microchip: it is a slow and predictable device, but so cheap (around 22,000 euros) that it can be launched in swarms to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses. Furthermore, Russian production of this winged terror has increased from about 100 to 500 per day. Its sound, like that of a moped, is reminiscent of the terrible V-1 rockets that the Nazis launched over London in 1944.

Russia has been trying for over a year to surround four cities that only exist on paper: Pokrovsk, Konstantinivka, Siversk, and Kupiansk. In all cases, the operations follow the same pattern: assaults on motorcycles, golf carts, or on foot to try to take and occupy Ukrainian positions. Sometimes Russia needs weeks of waves to conquer a trench occupied by four guys in the middle of nowhere. Until they run out of ammunition and then have to abandon the position in a hurry until the next time. Like a spreading stain, Russia was in Avdivka at the beginning of 2024 and is now at the gates of Pokrovsk, 35 kilometers away. Its propaganda presents it as great victories, when in reality all it shows is its inability to win the war once and for all after almost four years of carnage.

Both armies are exhausted, although for different reasons. Zelenski has not wanted to mobilize those under 25, resulting in his army having an average age between 45 and 50 and enormous difficulties in recruiting. Russia has fewer problems in obtaining manpower but has to offer increasingly higher salaries, and the number of new contracts decreases every month. In 2024, there were about 50,000 monthly. Today, there are about 30,000.

Ukraine receives a continuous trickle of Western military equipment. For many analysts, Europe and the US could do much more in this effort, but the fact is that huge shipments of weapons and ammunition land every week at the border with Poland to then be distributed along the Ukrainian front. As long as this flow continues and the European Union continues to support the Ukrainian state, it will be difficult for the Ukrainian army to collapse. Furthermore, with drone supremacy on the battlefield, the war has become more affordable for Kiev. Most of these devices (60% quadcopters and 100% long-range) are already locally produced.

Russia, on the other hand, is depleting its Soviet reserves from the Cold War, which were huge but not eternal. However, it has the arsenals of North Korea and Iran, loyal allies that, combined with Chinese technology, can meet Russian needs to some extent. Another issue is the true state of the Russian economy, boosted by the war effort but at the same time burdened by the enormous expenditure that is depleting Russian national funds. Any other leader would have long considered stopping the war as a useless instrument. But we are talking about Putin, a resentful and obsessed Putin with the imperial past.

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

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Saturday, August 9, 2025 6:47 AM

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

Another typical day on the battlefield. The Ukrainians slaughter Russians, and the Russians say it didn't happen. Also: Join the Russian Army and receive a signing bonus equal to 5 years' pay because the Army is so safe that Putin doesn't have to bribe patriotic Russians with debts to become soldiers.

Ukrainian intelligence attacks Russian air defence brigade on Russian soil, source says at least dozen soldiers killed

By Valentyna Romanenko | Friday, 8 August 2025, 17:35

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/08/8/7525324/

Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) carried out a special operation in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai on Friday 8 August, resulting in at least a dozen Russian service members being wiped out.

Source: an Ukrainska Pravda source in intelligence

Details: The source said that DIU attacked a military unit belonging to the 90th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade in the settlement of Afipsky in the Krasnodar Krai on the morning of 8 August.

Two explosions were heard near the checkpoint of the military unit, resulting in the death of at least 12 service members and leaving dozens of soldiers injured and equipment destroyed, the source said.

Local media and channels reported two explosions in Afipsky, while local secret services blocked the area and imposed an "anti-terrorist operation" regime. Ambulances and emergency and special service vehicles gathered at the scene.

Meanwhile, to cover up the sabotage at the military unit, Russian media circulated claims that the explosions were caused by faulty gas-cylinder equipment in a vehicle. Furthermore, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is reportedly trying to erase mentions of the incident from mainstream and social media, the Ukrainska Pravda source added.

For reference: The 90th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, which was attacked in the special operation, is involved in Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

Background: On 7 August, the Ukrainian defence forces confirmed a successful strike on the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai.

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

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Saturday, August 9, 2025 7:54 AM

SECOND

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

Despicable: Very Effectively Done

Trump Hands Putin A Win-Win Scenario, Which Was Always The Plan

By Phillips P. OBrien | Aug 09, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/despicable-very-effectively-don
e

Can you respect evil when its exceptionally well done? Is it possible to recognize the skill and planning that goes into an extremely well-laid out, devious and, regrettably, effective trap? Is that possible even if those who are trapped are the good guys and those laying the trap are not?

(Answer Below)

I am asking these questions because we have and are still witnessing an extraordinarily effective example of a despicable action being plotted, activated and now unfolding in front of our very eyes. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have, with some skill, maneuvered Ukraine and the rest of Europe into a terrible position—one from which we will soon see Putin handed a win-win outcome from Trump.

The whole idea that Trump would ever sanction or be tough on Russia was a sham from the start. Trump never had any intention of doing anything to harm or even slightly weaken Putin—far from it. The American president has been entirely consistent and loyal to Putin, and has been working assiduously to get the Russian dictator the best possible deal. He has always wanted to see Ukrainian land transferred to Putin, to make sure Ukraine was kept out of NATO and had no US security guarantees, to have Putin exonerated from the war crime charge and, crucially to have economic sanctions on Russia almost entirely (or even entirely) relaxed.

All his seeming inconsistencies (which were not inconsistencies) were aimed at achieving such a deal for Putin. First, Trump tried to bully the Ukrainians generally and President Zelensky in particular into taking this “deal”. The humiliating meeting at the White House was the key moment in that strategy—though the Ukrainians resisted and Europeans were showing what must have been worrying signs of independence from the USA in reaction.

So Trump pivoted, skilfully it must be admitted, and acted like he never meant any of that, that he was eager now to get tough on Putin, that he really wanted to help Ukraine, and that the USA could be a reliable defense partner for Europe. This was all built on the supposed notion that he was appalled at the Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians—which should have been a tell. Sociopaths do not care about other people.

However, Trump’s “pivot” was taken seriously by far too many. We were told that crippling sanctions were coming on Russia, that Trump was going to apply brutal pressure on Putin, than weapons were going to start flowing in large quantities to Ukraine to help the Ukrainians turn the tide on the battlefield. Such narratives were spread far and wide, egged on by Trump himself who could drop a tweet on Truth social or make a side remark from the Oval Office and people would lose their minds.

In fact last week this sham reached its high points. We were assured that Trump had a new deadline (yesterday, Friday 8 August) which would trigger the most awesome sanctions on Russia. And guess what. On the evening of 7 August the Russians attacked Ukrainian civilians in Bucha and Odesa—the kind of attack that they have been doing for years—and Trump rewarded Putin with a summit meeting in Alaska.

Quote:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska. Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
6.53k ReTruths 28.5k Likes Aug 08, 2025, 11:03 PM

And stories started circulating that Trump was working with Putin to cement in the Russian’s territorial conquests, etc etc. https://archive.ph/YrFmr

It was a laugh in the face/spit in the eye to all of those who repeated the lie that he was now going to be tough on Putin.

What we will see emerge from Alaska will almost certainly be a catastrophe for Ukraine and Europe. Trump and Putin will cook up a brilliant deal for Russia. It will involve the ceding of a great deal of Ukraine’s legally recognized territory to Russia, no security guarantees of any value—certainly no NATO membership—for Ukraine, and the relaxation if not immediate end of all existing sanctions on Russia.

And Trump will apply massive pressure on European states and Ukraine to support this. He might even threaten to walk away from NATO if European states do not bow to “daddy’s” wishes. Remember, these are states led by some leaders who have prostrated themselves in front of Trump out of their terror that he might leave NATO.

And Ukraine will face the most terrible dilemma. Do they accept this humiliating and destructive deal? Or do they go it alone, unsure of the backing of European states?

And Putin will sit there with a win-win. Either he gets lots of Ukrainian territory, a permanently insecure Ukraine on his border that he can attack again after rebuilding his military, and the relaxation of sanctions, or, he can continue the war with the US moving on from Ukraine and Europe as is.

Trump and Putin have played pro-Ukraine supporters for fools, and sadly they have gotten what they always wanted.

Answer: No—you cannot respect evil well done. You must fear it and fight it—just never treat it as a joke or a subject of derision. Trump has been able to do so much damage because people sometimes treat him like a buffoon or a big joke. Even the TACO line is part of that (sadly). Trump has been relentless and clever in this regard, just in the service of Putin. No respect can ever be given—but also please stop making fun of it.

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

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Saturday, August 9, 2025 10:07 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

O'Brien, another looney tune.

The fact is, the USA has no more weapons to spare, especially given our commitment to Israel and Taiwan, and the EU was never a powerful military force. Trump recognizes reality. O'Brien and dildos with pens just like him keep flogging their fantasies online.

If Ukrainians want to do better than hold a grudge forever, they need to stop being our proxy (which never ends well for our proxies) and turn their attention to reconstructing their country and -especially- controlling the corruption that's sapping their economy abd degrading their living standards. It's a different kind of war, a lot more beneficial than the one that they're currently losing.

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

THGR claims I have no morels, and he's absolutely right.

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Saturday, August 9, 2025 1:45 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Fuck Ukraine.

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

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

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Saturday, August 9, 2025 3:57 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:
O'Brien, another looney tune.

The fact is, the USA has no more weapons to spare, especially given our commitment to Israel and Taiwan, and the EU was never a powerful military force. Trump recognizes reality. O'Brien and dildos with pens just like him keep flogging their fantasies online.

If Ukrainians want to do better than hold a grudge forever, they need to stop being our proxy (which never ends well for our proxies) and turn their attention to reconstructing their country and -especially- controlling the corruption that's sapping their economy abd degrading their living standards. It's a different kind of war, a lot more beneficial than the one that they're currently losing.

May Signym and 6ix suffer agony for years after being in a fire. Fire will purify their evil souls.

(I expect Trump will blatantly help Russia because Ukraine won’t surrender land to Putin. May there be a purifying fire in Trump's and Putin's future, too.)

Zelenskyy on "territory swap": We will not give our land to Russian occupier

By Olga Katsimon | Saturday, 9 August 2025, 09:08

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/08/9/7525378/

Ukraine will not make territorial concessions during discussions of a peace agreement.

Source: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's statement regarding the upcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin

Quote from Zelenskyy: "The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the Constitution of Ukraine. No one will deviate from this - and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier."

Details: Meanwhile, Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine is ready for real solutions that can bring peace.

Quote from Zelenskyy: "But all partners must understand what a dignified peace is. This war must be brought to an end - and Russia must end it, Russia started it and is dragging it out, ignoring all deadlines, and that is the problem, not something else."

Details: Zelenskyy emphasised that any agreements made without Ukraine’s involvement are "dead decisions" and will not bring peace. He underlined his readiness to work together with Trump and other international partners to achieve a peace that "will not collapse because of Moscow's desires".
Background:

• On 8 August, Trump said during a White House briefing that a peace deal on the Russia-Ukraine war should be expected to include "some swapping of territories".

• The meeting between Trump and Putin is scheduled to take place on 15 August in Alaska, with both sides confirming the date and location.

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

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Saturday, August 9, 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:
Fuck Ukraine.

Trump has betrayed Ukraine, making the world immeasurably more dangerous

No US president has done more to make the West weak again than the current incumbent. It will take decades to repair the damage

By Daniel Hannan | 09 August 2025 3:13pm BST
Daniel Hannan is a former member of the European Parliament and advisor to The Board Of Trade

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/09/trump-betrayed-ukraine-wor
ld-immeasurably-more-dangerous/

This is a straightforward defeat. A defeat, not just for Ukraine, but for the values which the Anglosphere and its allies have upheld since 1941, to the immense benefit of the human race. Aggression is being rewarded. Borders are being changed by force. A brittle dictatorship has defeated a Western alliance with a combined economy forty times larger than its own. The prestige of the democracies is suffering a Suez-level hit.

As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska – a venue surely proposed by the Kremlin, both to demonstrate that Putin is again welcome in the United States and to suggest that there is nothing terribly new about ceding territory – all the momentum is with the Russian leader.

From the moment he took office, Trump has been wheedling and conciliatory with Putin, aggressive and bullying with Volodymyr Zelensky. Who can say what animates him? Perhaps he can’t forgive Zelensky for his cameo role in l’affaire Hunter Biden; perhaps, as conspiracy theorists claim, Putin has kompromat on him; or perhaps it is simply Trump’s customary deference towards dictators.

Frankly, it doesn’t much matter. Whatever his motives, Trump has behaved exactly as a Russian asset would, not only vis-à-vis Ukraine, but also by making aggressive territorial claims against Denmark and threatening Canada with annexation. His tariff policies have caused as much disruption to Western economies as his sanctions have to Russia. Putin could not have wished for more.

We do not know how much has already been settled, and there are still details to be hammered out. But the broad outlines of the proposed ceasefire deal can be glimpsed in leaks to both American and Russian media.

Putin will hang on to most of what he has seized – not just the territories he occupied in 2014, but many of the lands he has conquered since 2022 and even, according to some briefings, those parts of Donetsk that are currently under Ukrainian control. Sanctions will be eased, and we might even see more economic collaboration between the US and Russia than before 2014. In any event, the US will stop supplying weapons to Ukraine.

These concessions constitute a colossal Russian victory, regardless of what is decided on Ukraine’s Nato aspirations, formal recognition of Russian sovereignty in Crimea or precisely where the lines are frozen.

To understand the scale of the West’s defeat, we need to remember why we were backing Ukraine in the first place. Not because we thought that Zelensky was brave or handsome or even particularly democratic. Not because we believed that Ukrainians were kinder or more amusing than their Russian cousins. Not even because, long before 2022, Russia had been buzzing our airspace and overseeing cyberattacks against our infrastructure and had, on two occasions, committed acts of war against us when it ordered its operatives to carry out lethal attacks on British soil (against Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and, unsuccessfully, against Sergei Skripal in 2018).

No, we are backing Ukraine because it is the wronged party. We are sending it weapons because it was attacked without provocation by a neighbour to whom it presented no threat. We are training its soldiers because, when Ukraine agreed to hand over its nuclear arsenal in 1994, it did so in exchange for an explicit promise that its independence would be respected within its existing borders – a promise guaranteed by Britain, the United States and (never forget) Russia.

The idea that countries should not help themselves to slices of territory is not some ancient and immutable principle. On the contrary, it dates in its current form from exactly 84 years ago, August 1941, when Churchill and Roosevelt met in Newfoundland and agreed to the Atlantic Charter, a set of rules that they wanted to shape the post-war world. Land should not be annexed by force, nor borders altered without the consent of local people. Aggression should not be rewarded. Raw materials should be accessible on world markets and sea-lanes kept open, so that there would be less incentive to invade a neighbour. Democracy and self-determination should be encouraged over autocracy.

When these ideals were proclaimed, the United States was still neutral. Four months later, after Pearl Harbor, the Atlantic Charter informed the war aims of the Allies. Its principles went on to shape the UN Charter and the Nato alliance. It is true that they were sometimes violated, for we live in an imperfect world. But they at least remained the aspiration. Until now.

It cannot be sufficiently stressed that our interest in Ukraine was to uphold the international order under which mankind had flourished since 1945. It was never about Zelensky, however gallant his initial response to the invasion.

Trumpians like to point to corruption and illiberalism in Ukraine as though they invalidate the premise of our assistance. But our 1994 guarantee was never conditional on who was in government, or what kind of government it was.

There is nothing new here. Poland was hardly a model democracy when Britain guaranteed its sovereignty in March 1939. Józef Pilsudski’s 1926 coup had created an autocratic regime which, while it stopped well short of the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany or the USSR, none the less harassed dissidents and censored media.

In much the same way, Ukraine today, while nowhere near Russian levels of despotism, is far from being a free country. This should not surprise us. As Roger Scruton used to say, the worst sin of communism was to destroy civil associations, making it hard to build the trust on which an open society must rest.

Over the past three weeks, Zelensky’s international credit has fallen almost as low as his domestic ratings. Crowds have been protesting against his decision to move against an anti-corruption body after it pointed to irregularities in some state contracts.

Few things are worse for a country’s morale than the sense that its leaders are enriching themselves, for corruption in wartime means funds that were supposed to go into artillery are disappearing into bank accounts in Cyprus.

I was unsurprised by the protests. I have watched over three years as Zelensky has weakened local government and purged critical mayors. A case might be made in wartime for cracking down on pro-Russian parties; but he cracked down almost as hard on the pro-Western parties.

Eighteen months ago, I was supposed to be sharing a platform in the US with the former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, but he was banned from attending. I wanted to make more of a fuss, but MPs from his party begged me not to, as they did not want to hurt Ukraine’s international image.

None of this should make the slightest difference to our policy. But I fear that it will, because support for Ukraine has been presented as a goodies-and-baddies issue rather than a question of defending territorial integrity and national sovereignty. We somehow seem to find those aims sterile, dull and inadequate.

Just as Tony Blair once claimed in a party conference speech that we had joined the Second World War to end Nazism (when in fact we joined to defend Poland), so we now imagine that we came to the aid of Ukraine because Zelensky is nicer than Putin.

It may in fact now be Zelensky who has the greater incentive to keep fighting, since his presidency will not survive peace on anything like the terms proposed. But, to repeat, that does not alter the fundamentals. We were backing and supplying Ukraine because the world order that was born after 1945 lifted our species to unprecedented heights of peace and prosperity.

When Putin gets to keep the better part of his spoils, and furious Ukrainians eject their regime, every tinpot dictator in the world will get the message. Nato, the most powerful alliance on the planet, would not protect one of its friends. The old order is over. The world of the Atlantic Charter has gone. Something altogether colder and darker is on its way.

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

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Saturday, August 9, 2025 7:16 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine.
Trump

Fuck Ukraine.

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

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Sunday, August 10, 2025 12:05 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
O'Brien, another looney tune.

The fact is, the USA has no more weapons to spare, especially given our commitment to Israel and Taiwan, and the EU was never a powerful military force. Trump recognizes reality. O'Brien and dildos with pens just like him keep flogging their fantasies online.

If Ukrainians want to do better than hold a grudge forever, they need to stop being our proxy (which never ends well for our proxies) and turn their attention to reconstructing their country and -especially- controlling the corruption that's sapping their economy abd degrading their living standards. It's a different kind of war, a lot more beneficial than the one that they're currently losing.
May Signym and 6ix suffer agony for years after being in a fire. Fire will purify their evil souls.

Wow, I lay down facts in a neutral voice and your knickers really get in a twist, don't they?

Steady there, old man. We don't know what's going to be agreed to, if anything.

And you can be sure American neocons, Eurocrats, and the Zelensky regime are going to do everything possible to sabotage whatdver steps towards peace might be taken.

I suspect that thru a combination of attacks, false flags, and a media hurricane, they'll ensure that you get the war that you so desperately want to continue.

Oh, BTW, if Daniel Hannan believes as he writes, he's another idiot you can skip reposting.

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

THGR claims I have no morels, and he's absolutely right.

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Sunday, August 10, 2025 6:00 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The fact is, the USA has no more weapons to spare, especially given our commitment to Israel and Taiwan, and the EU was never a powerful military force. Trump recognizes reality. O'Brien and dildos with pens just like him keep flogging their fantasies online.

Wow, I lay down facts in a neutral voice and your knickers really get in a twist, don't they?

Steady there, old man. We don't know what's going to be agreed to, if anything.

And you can be sure American neocons, Eurocrats, and the Zelensky regime are going to do everything possible to sabotage whatdver steps towards peace might be taken.

I suspect that thru a combination of attacks, false flags, and a media hurricane, they'll ensure that you get the war that you so desperately want to continue.

Oh, BTW, if Daniel Hannan believes as he writes, he's another idiot you can skip reposting.

Signym, not one goddamn word you wrote is true. You don't have any citations for your fake facts and you don't have any past successes to justify optimism about your judgment.

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

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Sunday, August 10, 2025 6:00 AM

SECOND

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

(I expect Trump will switch to blatantly helping Russia because Ukraine won’t surrender land to Putin.)

Zelenskyy on "territory swap": We will not give our land to Russian occupier

By Olga Katsimon | Saturday, 9 August 2025, 09:08

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/08/9/7525378/

Ukraine will not make territorial concessions during discussions of a peace agreement.

Source: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's statement regarding the upcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin

Quote from Zelenskyy: "The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the Constitution of Ukraine. No one will deviate from this - and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier."

Details: Meanwhile, Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine is ready for real solutions that can bring peace.

Quote from Zelenskyy: "But all partners must understand what a dignified peace is. This war must be brought to an end - and Russia must end it, Russia started it and is dragging it out, ignoring all deadlines, and that is the problem, not something else."

Details: Zelenskyy emphasised that any agreements made without Ukraine’s involvement are "dead decisions" and will not bring peace. He underlined his readiness to work together with Trump and other international partners to achieve a peace that "will not collapse because of Moscow's desires".
Background:

• On 8 August, Trump said during a White House briefing that a peace deal on the Russia-Ukraine war should be expected to include "some swapping of territories".

• The meeting between Trump and Putin is scheduled to take place on 15 August in Alaska, with both sides confirming the date and location.

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

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Sunday, August 10, 2025 6:04 AM

SECOND

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

Ukraine Drone Boss's Bloody New Goal: Kill or Maim 35,000 Russians a Month

Robert Brovdi has a plan

Aug 09, 2025

https://www.trenchart.us/p/ukraine-drone-bosss-bloody-new-goal

Ukraine’s drone chief has set a new goal for his crews—to kill more Russian troops every month than the Kremlin can recruit.

Robert Brovdi, the new head of the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces, told Ukrainian-American war correspondent David Kirichenko his drone teams “must aim to kill or wound as many Russian troops as are deployed in Ukraine each month—a number estimated at 35,000,” in Kirichenko’s words.

That’s … a lot of Russians. But Brovdi has a plan.

According to Ukrainian commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, 33,200 Russians were killed or wounded in July—up 800 over June.

But the Kremlin still manages to grow the roughly Russian army in Ukraine by 9,000 troops a month. There may now be 700,000 Russians in Ukraine, lending Russia a huge manpower advantage in many sectors. While Ukraine has a million people under arms, it must guard its entire border. That spreads those million troops very thinly.

Brovdi has gamified Ukrainian drone ops, rewarding units for confirmed hits by giving them better equipment. The unit Brovdi founded, the elite Birds of Magyar, logged 1,309 Russians killed or wounded in February, 1,848 in March, 1,804 in April and 2,221 in May.

There are dozens of drone companies, battalions, regiments and brigades in the USF and other Ukrainian military branches, together manned by thousands of operators. The USF’s drone units alone killed 2,548 Russians in June and wounded nearly 2,000 more, according to Syrskyi.

It might take a sixfold increase in drone kills to reach Brovdi’s goal. But the USF boss insisted it’s possible. “This can be achieved by creating a deep ‘kill zone’ between the front line and traditionally safer rear areas,” Kirichenko reported Brovdi saying.

Deep kill zone

At present, Ukraine’s first-person-view drones dominate the battlefield as far as nine miles from the line of contact. Efforts are underway to extend the drone kill zone to 25 miles. “The goal: deny Russian forces the ability to move undetected across the front,” Kirichenko wrote.

Drones that capture and repeat radio signals, thus increasing the range of the farthest FPVs, are critical to this extension. As the control system falls into place, analyst Andrew Perpetua anticipates the Ukrainian drone kill zone will stretch even farther.

“You have layers of drone superiority,” Perpetua projected. One layer at 62 miles, one layer at 31 miles, one at 25 miles, another at 12 miles and the closest at six miles.

Russia can counter with its own drones, of course. “The enemy is also not standing still—improving, enhancing the characteristics of its attack UAVs, changing tactics, increasingly using fiber-optics, artificial intelligence and machine vision for FPV and designing Geran drones with a turbojet engine,” Syrskyi said.

But Russian industry—cumbersome and often corrupt—struggles to scale and innovate at the same pace as Ukrainian industry. At the same time, Ukraine’s electronic warfare—that is, radio-jamming—is much more effective than Russia’s and often ground Russia’s wireless drones while Ukraine’s own drones fly more freely.

If Ukrainian forces can preserve their drone edge and deploy it aggressively, it might rob Russian forces of any freedom of action. “You push a critical number of drone pilots into each layer [of the drone wall], overwhelming Russian pilots and completely cutting off all logistics access,” Perpetua explained. “I mean, all artillery is cut off, all infantry cut off, out to 100 kilometers,” or 62 miles.

“As Ukraine refines its use of autonomous systems, Russia should prepare to suffer even greater losses,” Kirichenko warned. Whether those losses will ever exceed Russia’s recruitment remains to be seen.

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

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Sunday, August 10, 2025 1:26 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Fuck Ukraine.

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

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SIGNYM	08.10 00:05
second	08.10 06:00
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6ixStringJack	08.10 13:26