Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

Don't bother. Ted is doesn't even understand that Headlines are attached to Articles.

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

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:29 PM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

You aggerate lies with some facts comrade. And I have no intention of going down one of your rabbit holes to prove it; again. And the larger point is you still push Putin's agenda. I'm sure Putin would pat you on the head for being loyal. Nonetheless, you won't live there.

T

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:31 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I just can't believe someone is that stupid, and insists on staying that stupid.
I understand SECOND, he's a malevolent personality and just want an excuse to hate.
But THGR seems like a genuinely moral person who wants people and government to do the right thing.

:shakes head:

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

You aggerate lies with some facts comrade. And I have no intention of going down one of your rabbit holes to prove it; again. And the larger point is you still push Putin's agenda.

You don't ever prove anything, idiot.

You get your ass handed to you several times on a daily basis, and then you run away from threads where you started shit when your little bitch ass is put in its place again.

You're always wrong about everything, and you never learn any lessons.

Keep doing what you're doing.

And deny that you're a Democrat all you want, but YOU are one of the reasons that everybody hates Democrats.

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

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:33 PM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Don't bother. Ted is doesn't even understand that Headlines are attached to Articles.

Fix your sentence scholar.

T

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:36 PM

Either get back on your meds, or get off of them.

I'll destroy you all night if you want to stick around, cocksucker.

I'm sure you've got better things to do. Don't you loser?

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

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:37 PM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

You aggerate lies with some facts comrade. And I have no intention of going down one of your rabbit holes to prove it; again. And the larger point is you still push Putin's agenda.

You don't ever prove anything, idiot.

You get your ass handed to you several times on a daily basis, and then you run away from threads where you started shit when your little bitch ass is put in its place again.

You're always wrong about everything, and you never learn any lessons.

Keep doing what you're doing.

And deny that you're a Democrat all you want, but YOU are one of the reasons that everybody hates Democrats.

I know I gave you a 4 or 5 sentence response and you still cut it. So sad comrade Gilligan.

T

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Fix your sentence scholar.

My sentence is fine. Your sentence is missing the comma after sentence.

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

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
I know I gave you a 4 or 5 sentence response and you still cut it. So sad comrade.

Who the fuck are you kidding, cocksucker?

You are illiterate and completely incapable of writing 4 or 5 sentences.

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

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:40 PM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Fix your sentence scholar.

My sentence is fine. Your sentence is missing the comma after sentence.

"Ted is doesn't even understand that Headlines are attached to Articles."

Nope no comma needed. And your sentence is fucked up.

T

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I just can't believe someone is that stupid, and insists on staying that stupid.
I understand SECOND, he's a malevolent personality and just want an excuse to hate.
But THGR seems like a genuinely moral person who wants people and government to do the right thing.

:shakes head:

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

I don't think he's a moral person. I used to think that he might be, but it's become quite apparent that he's just a dopamine addict who was addicted to saying all the right things for years while the Legacy Media gave him an "atta boy" for being a mindless bullhorn for their messaging.

Look at how vile he's become in the last month or two, even attacking Brenda several times.

They took away his drugs.

Hopefully he can heal himself now that his drug supply was cut off and he doesn't just kill himself.

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

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Fix your sentence scholar.

My sentence is fine. Your sentence is missing the comma after sentence.

"Ted is doesn't even understand that Headlines are attached to Articles."

Nope no comma needed. And your sentence is fucked up.

T

Yes. The comma is needed. No. My sentence was fine.

You are an idiot.

Go to bed, little boy. I grow weary of your faggotry and fuckery.

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

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:44 PM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

You guys are so funny...

T

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:45 PM

You ain't getting the last word here.

Shut the fuck up and go to bed.

It's lights out for Dipshit Ted.

I'm sure you'll have plenty of fake news to repost tomorrow along with some new Flag Football court case wins that will be appealed and tossed in the fuckin' bin, just like they all are and just like I told you they all would be.

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

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 9:52 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
You aggerate lies with some facts comrade. And I have no intention of going down one of your rabbit holes to prove it; again. And the larger point is you still push Putin's agenda. I'm sure Putin would pat you on the head for being loyal. Nonetheless, you won't live there.

I aggregate facts with facts, dummy.

Number of dead civilians, UN. Number of missiles and drones CSIS. Go figure. Literally.

You don't want to go this "rabbit hole" (which really isn't that deep, but too deep for you, apparently!) bc you know I'm right and you're wrong.

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 10:13 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
THGR:
Nope no comma needed. And your sentence is fucked up.

A missing comma is the difference between

"Let's eat, grandma!" i.e. urging grandma to the table and
"Let's eat grandma!" i.e. eating grandma for dinner.

A copy editor showed me that. It's still funny!

But you're right about SIX'S sentence.

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

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

Tuesday, September 9, 2025 10:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

But you're right about SIX'S sentence.

Oh... so he is.

Good for you, Theodore.

We're over 9 months into 2025 and you finally got a win against me.

Quote:
THGR:
Nope no comma needed. And your sentence is fucked up.

You're missing a period after Nope though, buddy. And obviously the capitalization for "No" after you put that period where it belongs.

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

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 6:25 AM

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

NATO States Have Failed

They have not prepared and do not understand their national interests

By Phillips P. OBrien | Sep 10, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/nato-states-have-failed

We are witnessing the constant failure of NATO states to accurately assess their security concerns and national interests. Last night’s “training wheel” attack by the Russians on Poland (and that is what it was) shows how the states of the alliance have not bothered to prepare properly for not only future war—but the war that is staring them right now in the face. Moreover, their constant weakness to this point has emboldened Russian to flagrantly violate NATO airspace while reinforcing the idea that NATO states have no idea how to look after their own security. They cannot even call an attack, an attack.

A “Training Wheel” Attack

First off—the Russian attack was, in terms of what Ukraine experiences on a nightly basis, child’s play. If you look at the map of the attacks on Ukraine last night, you will see in the far left corner, the very small number of Russian systems that made their way to Poland. I have put a red box around them.

The exact number of Russian UAVs used in the attack on Poland might creep into the low double digits. At first there were reports that the attack was made up of only 8 or 9 systems, though the Ukrainians are now saying that it could have reached up to 14.

As Ukraine is regularly subjected to attacks with more than 400, 500 even 600 Russian systems, what Poland experienced was the equivalent of between 2% and 3% of a Russian nightly attack these days. Moreover, Russian attacks on Ukraine are composed of a dangerous mix of UAVs, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, the attack on Poland was just Shahed type UAVs. And not just that, NATO had much greater warning than Ukraine. These systems were fired from Russia and had to travel over Ukraine (and partly Belarus) to reach Poland in the first place. They should have been identified as possible threats much earlier and defense preparations put in place with plenty of time.

It should have been child’s play for NATO.

In Ukrainian terms this was what would be termed a quiet night that would probably not even have made the news.

NATO’s Response Was Woeful

NATO states seem to have no idea of reality. Donald Tusk, normally measured in his analysis, described the Russian UAV attack on Poland as “huge” last night.

Much more at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/nato-states-have-failed

Conclusion

So we are witnessing institutional and national failure in front of our very eyes. NATO states, even front line ones, have clearly not prepared for war of the type that is happening now. They do not have the capabilities to deal with what Ukraine has to contend with on a nightly basis—and yet NATO resources are massively greater than Ukraine can ever hope to have.

Moreover, NATO and NATO states still do not have the ability to call a spade a spade. For all their huffing and puffing, they will not designate a Russian attack, an attack.

And finally, they have not understood the true strategic peril they are in. What last night showed was how the security of NATO states is hugely reliant on the independence and power of Ukraine. They needed Ukraine as a massive early warning buffer to even mount this weak effort. If the Russians were able to launch 600 systems directly at NATO, the result in most NATO states would be carnage.

The Ukrainians must be looking at NATO and shaking their heads in disbelief.

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 8:21 AM

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

President Vladimir Putin is worried about how large numbers of soldiers returning from the war in Ukraine could disrupt society.

Authorities in Moscow hope to avoid unrest like after the Soviet war in Afghanistan, when returning veterans helped fuel organized crime in the 1990s, one source told Reuters. Another source insisted that Russia’s political system and law enforcement agencies are “stronger” today than they were in 1989, when the Afghan war ended shortly before the Soviet collapse.

However, once back in civilian life, many veterans will unlikely be able to match the high salaries they earned at the front, raising the risk of discontent, one of the Kremlin sources said.

Since 2022, recruiters have boosted sign-on bonuses and drawn heavily from Russia’s prisons.

Between 120,000 and 180,000 convicts have been sent to fight, according to prison service data. Most of those now returning are convicts, severely wounded soldiers or men unfit for combat.

Putin has said around 700,000 Russian troops remain in Ukraine.

In 2023, Russia’s Defense Ministry changed rules that had allowed convicts to return from the war after six months of service, arguing they should not get better terms than volunteers. Still, a chief concern for the future is that prisoners turned soldiers, once they return to civilian life, will go on to commit crimes.

The exiled news outlet Vyorstka reported earlier this year that Russian soldiers had killed nearly 400 people after coming home since the war began.

Amid those reports, lawmakers are urging the government to expand training for therapists to treat combat-related PTSD.

Russia’s Defense Ministry estimates that one in five war veterans suffers from PTSD, according to Sardana Avksentyeva, the deputy leader of the center-right New People party. Meanwhile, estimates suggest that Russia has fewer than one therapist for every 7,000 adults, and even fewer with experience treating combat trauma.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/09/09/kremlin-uneasy-about-return-
of-ukraine-war-veterans-reuters-a90471

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 9:11 AM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
President Vladimir Putin is worried about how large numbers of soldiers returning from the war in Ukraine could disrupt society.

Authorities in Moscow hope to avoid unrest like after the Soviet war in Afghanistan, when returning veterans helped fuel organized crime in the 1990s, one source told Reuters. Another source insisted that Russia’s political system and law enforcement agencies are “stronger” today than they were in 1989, when the Afghan war ended shortly before the Soviet collapse.

However, once back in civilian life, many veterans will unlikely be able to match the high salaries they earned at the front, raising the risk of discontent, one of the Kremlin sources said.

Since 2022, recruiters have boosted sign-on bonuses and drawn heavily from Russia’s prisons.

Between 120,000 and 180,000 convicts have been sent to fight, according to prison service data. Most of those now returning are convicts, severely wounded soldiers or men unfit for combat.

Putin has said around 700,000 Russian troops remain in Ukraine.

In 2023, Russia’s Defense Ministry changed rules that had allowed convicts to return from the war after six months of service, arguing they should not get better terms than volunteers. Still, a chief concern for the future is that prisoners turned soldiers, once they return to civilian life, will go on to commit crimes.

The exiled news outlet Vyorstka reported earlier this year that Russian soldiers had killed nearly 400 people after coming home since the war began.

Amid those reports, lawmakers are urging the government to expand training for therapists to treat combat-related PTSD.

Russia’s Defense Ministry estimates that one in five war veterans suffers from PTSD, according to Sardana Avksentyeva, the deputy leader of the center-right New People party. Meanwhile, estimates suggest that Russia has fewer than one therapist for every 7,000 adults, and even fewer with experience treating combat trauma.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/09/09/kremlin-uneasy-about-return-
of-ukraine-war-veterans-reuters-a90471

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

Putin has broken Russia. He has broken every part of her for decades to come. Industry, agriculture, male population, you name it. It’s so bad he couldn’t end the war if he wanted. The moment the fighting stops Russia collapses.

It would have collapsed already but for Trump. Mr. tough guy has been smacked down by Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, shit every other world leader that matters. What a pussy. What a loser. What a moron.

T

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 9:11 AM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

And does comrade signym really think Putin is going to conquer anything?

T

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 11:48 AM

Fuck Ukraine. Nobody cares.

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

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 11:55 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine. Nobody cares.

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

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

Russia attacked Poland last night. We are going to find out whether Trump will uphold the NATO treaty which says if one country is attacked by Russia, all NATO members will counterattack.

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 12:00 PM

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

Russia Is Losing the War—Just Not to Ukraine

A war meant to catalyze national revival has instead become a case study in national self-harm.

By Jeremy Shapiro | September 10, 2025, 9 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/09/russia-ukrai
ne-public-putin/684146/

Vladimir Putin, we’ve been told since the start of the war in Ukraine, has goals that extend well beyond territory: He seeks to upend the post–Cold War international order, to reconstruct the Soviet sphere of influence, and to allow Russia to reassume its rightful position as a world power equal to the United States. Bilateral summits, such as the recent one between Donald Trump and Putin in Anchorage, offer a symbolic recognition of that aspiration—as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov highlighted not so subtly by showing up in Alaska wearing a CCCP (U.S.S.R.) sweatshirt.

But summits and sweatshirts won’t make Russia a superpower. Only a credible show of strength can do that. The war in Ukraine was meant to supply this, but it has instead become a slow-motion demonstration of Russia’s decline—less a catalyst of national revival than a case study in national self-harm.

Moscow has devoted considerable resources, manpower, and political will to its invasion of the country next door. In purely military terms, it has managed not to lose and may even be eking its way toward some sort of attritional victory in the Donbas. But even if it consolidates its territorial gains and keeps Ukraine out of NATO, Russia will have won only a pyrrhic victory, mortgaging its future for the sake of a few bombed-out square kilometers. In other words, Russia is effectively losing the war in Ukraine—not to Ukraine, but to everyone else.

In virtually any likely end-of-war scenario, Ukraine will remain a hostile, Western-armed neighbor—a permanent sucking wound on Russia’s western flank. Europe will continue to embargo Russian goods and build its energy future without Russia’s Gazprom. The Russian army, having shown itself moderately adaptable to modern warfare, will nonetheless be gutted of equipment, bereft of its best cadres, and reliant on foreign suppliers. To reconstitute it will take years and many billions of dollars. By then, Russia’s supposed mastery of modern drone warfare will probably be obsolete.

While Russia obsesses over Ukraine, its erstwhile friends and clients are quietly slipping away. In Africa, Wagner’s heirs struggle to hold their franchises together, and China and the Gulf states are buying up influence, drawing from far deeper pockets. In the Middle East, Moscow’s old claim to be an indispensable broker appears totally vacuous.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Syria. Moscow once celebrated its involvement in that country’s civil war as part of a “Russian resurgence” that would restore the country to the ranks of great powers, showing that it could project influence and outmaneuver Washington in the Middle East. Now Syria has become a symbol of overstretch. The Bashar al-Assad regime, whose survival Putin once touted as existential for Russia, disappeared with barely a murmur from Moscow, leaving Turkey, Israel, the Gulf States, and the United States to carve up influence in the land it once ruled.

The South Caucasus were once Moscow’s backyard playground: Azerbaijan and Armenia long depended on Russia for security guarantees, arms supplies, and mediation of their conflicts. Russia’s implicit promise to Armenia was that its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization and its deep ties with the Russian military (as well as the Russian peacekeepers deployed on the disputed territory) would ensure protection against Azerbaijani aggression. But in 2020 and again 2023, Azerbaijan routed Armenia in the territory contested between the two states, showing how little weight Russian promises carried. Now the United States is negotiating peace between the two countries—something unimaginable even four years ago.

The one place Russia has effectively influenced is Europe, where NATO has expanded to include Finland and Sweden, and states have increased their military spending, courtesy of Russian belligerence. Putin appears to have engineered a strange geopolitical bargain: Moscow sacrifices its demographically scarce young men in the Donbas so that Europeans will finally buy air defenses.

At home, Russia’s wartime economy looks like a parody of Soviet stagnation, exactly what Putin warned against in the early years of his presidency. Factories churn out shells and missiles even as the rest of the world invests in artificial intelligence, green technology, and microchips. The Kremlin has succeeded in building a fortress economy, but one that is fortified against the future more than against the enemy. This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic for Russia’s prospects: a petrostate doubling down on oil and artillery in the middle of a technological revolution. The Kremlin says it’s waging a war of destiny; in reality, it’s missing the 21st century.

The clearest proof that Russia is not winning lies in Beijing. Russia is running down its stocks of precision missiles, and without access to Western components, it has grown ever more dependent on imports from China to sustain its military machine. Each missile in turns costs millions of dollars (for example, approximately $1 million to $2 million for a Kalibr cruise missile) and increases Russia’s need for fossil-fuel exports and capital. China is now Russia’s largest oil customer, accounting for nearly 40 percent of Russian fossil-fuel-export revenue in 2025 so far (at discounted rates), and has also become its main source of foreign credit; Western finance has dried up because of the sanctions.

Far from making Russia a superpower, Russia’s war against Ukraine has relegated it from would-be empire to China’s disgruntled junior partner. For Xi Jinping, this war is a gift. It is diverting Western resources and bleeding Russia, all at bargain prices. For Putin, it’s a trap.

Both Russia’s defenders and its enemies suggest that a successful campaign in Ukraine will somehow produce a stronger, reinvigorated Russia capable of posing an immediate threat to Europe and beyond. But what exactly would Moscow have “won”? An angry, revanchist neighbor; a more unified, hostile Europe; a ruined economy; a gutted army; reduced international influence; and a boss in Beijing. That is not victory but self-inflicted decline.

This is perhaps why the Kremlin seems so uninterested in ending the war. A compromise peace would not expose a defeat on the battlefield but rather something far worse: the absence of any larger strategy. As one economist put it, “The Russian regime has no incentive to end the war and deal with that kind of economic reality. So it cannot afford to win the war, nor can it afford to lose.”

In sacrificing its global influence for the chance to spend the past year pulverizing the previously unheard-of city of Pokrovsk in the Donbas, Russia has proved not its resilience but its near irrelevance. Russia has not rediscovered its imperial destiny. It has discovered only that it can still destroy—and that destruction is just about all that its foreign policy has to offer.

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 12:00 PM

Fuck Ukraine. Nobody cares.

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

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 12:10 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Ukraine. Nobody cares.

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

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

Trump cares a tiny amount:

'Here we go': Trump reacts after Russian drones shot down over Poland

"What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones?" Trump said.

By Michelle Stoddart, Morgan Winsor, and Tomek Rolski | September 10, 2025, 10:47 AM

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/polish-foreign-minister-putin-laughs-t
rumps-peace-efforts/story?id=125440375

Last week, Trump pledged to help Poland protect itself during a bilateral meeting with President Nawrocki at the White House.

"We're with Poland all the way," Trump said at the time.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski had strong words for Trump during a news conference on Wednesday, telling reporters Russian President Vladimir Putin "laughs" at Trump's peace efforts.

"Putin laughs at President Trump's peace efforts," Sikorski said. "Since Alaska, he has only intensified the war. I hope that [Trump] backs his words with action."

In response to the overnight incursion, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, posted a short message on X: "We stand by our NATO Allies in the face of these airspace violations and will defend every inch of NATO territory."

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

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 6:07 PM

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

Russia’s Reckless Provocation

Whether by accident or malice, the Russians are risking a wider war in Europe.

By Tom Nichols | September 10, 2025, 4:42 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/russia-reckless-prov
ocation/684163/

Overnight, NATO fired shots against multiple Russian weapons that violated the alliance’s airspace. According to Polish authorities, at least 19 Russian drones crossed into Poland last night, prompting a response from Polish and Dutch jets backed by support units from Germany and Italy. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told his Parliament it was “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two.” (He added, hopefully, that he had “no reason to believe we’re on the brink of war.”)

When the first reports arrived last night about a handful of drones crossing into Poland, the incursion looked like a possible Russian error, a small number of off-course units from a massive salvo of more than 400 drones sent against Ukraine. The air over Ukraine is full of hazards, and Ukrainian and Russian electronic warfare can send unmanned vehicles spiraling away from their intended targets. For the first time, however, some of these drones crossed into Poland from Belarus; Minsk says these were errant units affected by jamming and that Belarus itself shot some of them down (but without saying who owned them). However, at least one senior Polish general believes that the drone attack was a joint Russian-Belarusan operation.

A few drones, or even six or seven, are one thing. Nineteen spread across much of eastern Poland is a different matter entirely. As Ian Fleming’s notorious villain Goldfinger said to James Bond after repeatedly finding 007 meddling in his affairs: “Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

It’s too early to reach a definitive conclusion on Russian motives last night. Whether by accident or malice, the Russians are risking a wider war in Europe. The only path to reducing such a threat is for Moscow to call off its campaign of butchery in Ukraine, and only the Americans can bring enough diplomatic, financial, and military power to bear to convince the Kremlin that it can never win this war.

Unfortunately, the Americans are AWOL. Whatever Donald Trump said to Vladimir Putin in Alaska clearly didn’t matter. (More likely, to judge from events since the Anchorage embarrassment, Putin did the talking, warned Trump to get out of his way, and then boarded his plane, leaving Trump with egg on his face and a lot of steak and halibut that no one ate.) Since then, the American defense establishment has been busy: The White House and the Pentagon have been fixated on insulting Tom Hanks, blowing up a Venezuelan speedboat, and helping Secretary of Whatever Pete Hegseth change the signs on his office.

While Washington bumbles about, however, America’s allies are facing genuine danger from Russia’s weapons, and they are reaching worrisome conclusions. The Poles see last night’s drone incursion as an intentional attack. The Germans see it as a major provocation, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte today warned Russia: “Stop violating Allied airspace. And know that we stand ready, that we are vigilant, and that we will defend every inch of NATO territory.” The Poles may be right that this violation of their territory was intentional, though if it was an accident, it would only show that the Russians have become even more reckless, and that the Kremlin simply doesn’t care if its military operations trigger a conflagration. Obviously, Russia is not raising the curtain on World War III with fewer than two dozen drones. But the willful violation of Polish airspace suggests that Putin is testing NATO, and probing the steadiness of the West’s nerves—and America’s resolve—as he escalates his attacks on Ukraine.

The Russians, for their part, have already issued a classic non-denial denial. A Russian diplomat in Warsaw said that Poland had offered no proof that the drones belonged to Moscow—a creative explanation, to say the least, and one undermined by a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry that “targets for destruction in Poland were not planned.” (“Not planned,” of course, does not mean “we didn’t do it.”) The Russians said they are “ready to hold consultations with the Polish Ministry of Defence on this issue,” which also makes little sense if the drones didn’t belong to them.

Today, Poland exercised its rights under Article 4 of the NATO treaty, which allows any member of the alliance to call a meeting “whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.” That’s a major step: It means that 32 countries, representing the most powerful military organization on Earth, including three nuclear-armed nations, were summoned to discuss what happened last night. (It is, however, a far less drastic move than invoking Article 5, which would require a unanimous finding from NATO that one of their members, and therefore all of its members, has been attacked.)

Hypothetically, the United States of America is the leader of this alliance. Here is the latest statement from President Trump on last night’s events:

“What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”

“Here we go?” Here we go where? A president who understands his responsibilities as the leader of the free world would normally, at such a moment of crisis, confer with the leaders of other nations, convene his advisers, and issue a statement that reaffirms America’s willingness to defend its allies. Instead, Trump sent out a post on his Truth Social site that sounded like that of a flailing stand-up comic: Russia violates Poland’s airspace? What’s up with THAT, folks? So far, the White House has said only that Trump will consult today with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, which is the least he can do almost a full day after the first time in its history that NATO engaged hostile targets over the alliance’s own territory.

Many Americans seem to have forgotten that a major war is raging in Europe—the largest since the great struggle between the Allies and the Axis powers. Last night, that war came closer to America and its allies. The president and his coterie may think this is a game, or just another problem that Trump can solve by talking to people on the phone. But this is a deadly serious business, far beyond the capabilities of former talk-show hosts or a gaggle of oddball conspiracy theorists. Russia’s dictator is courting disaster, and the safety of Europe—and the world—is at stake. When will the United States and its president finally stand up to Putin?

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

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 5:39 AM

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

Russian officials denied that the drones came from Russia and attempted to deflect blame onto Ukraine.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed on September 10 that Russia did not target anything “for destruction” on Polish territory in their overnight strike series and that the maximum flight range of the drones that Russian forces launched overnight against Ukraine was 700 kilometers and therefore could not have violated Polish airspace.[16] The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) claimed that the Russian MoD’s claims “debunk” Polish “myths,” which the Russian MFA claimed aim to further escalate the war in Ukraine.[17]

A Ukrainian source reported, however, that Russia may have equipped the drones with auxiliary fuel tanks that could have extended their range beyond 700 kilometers and that Russia may have modified these drones to be different than the ones Russia uses against Ukraine, casting doubts on the Russian MoD’s claim about the drone ranges.[18]

Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to the drone incursion into Poland and claimed that the EU and NATO accuse Russia of provocations every day without evidence.[19]

The Polish MFA summoned the Russian Chargé d’affaires to Poland Andrey Ordash in response to the airspace violation.[20] Ordash claimed to journalists after the meeting that the drones came from the direction of Ukraine, that Russia has not received any evidence that the drones were of Russian origin, and that Russia does not anticipate Poland being able to present any such evidence. Ordash claimed that Poland constantly blames Russia for emergencies in Poland.

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-september-10-2025/

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

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 9:35 AM

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

War Is In the Eye Of the Beholder

The State of the European Union speech took place while the Russian drone incursion into Poland was still unfolding. And that's pretty much the state of the EU, Minna Ålander writes.

By Minna Ålander | Sep 11

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/war-is-in-the-eye-of-the-behold
er

Hello Everyone,

While Russia escalates drone attacks into NATO territory, the US sits on its hands. Luckily, European NATO members handled the latest incursions just like the forward deployed forces are meant to. I hope that next time, we shoot every drone down and not just those that pose an “immediate threat”, without pausing to wonder whether they strayed intentionally or not. Safeguarding your territory from stray drones is not an escalation, whereas sending more than 20 of them into Polish air space is. It’s also long overdue to start shooting down whatever is flying in Western Ukrainian airspace and can constitute a threat to NATO territory. With the US on board or not.

Yours,
Minna

War Is In the Eye Of the Beholder

On 10 September 2025, the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the European Union (SOTEU) speech took place in a dramatic context. The night had just seen more than 20 Russian drones flying into Polish air space and Poland shooting down the drones that posed a direct threat, with Dutch allies on NATO deployment in Poland helping out. Poland also requested Article 4 consultations, NATO's formal mechanism short of a military response for member states whose security is threatened. Basically just a formalised consultation – Poland had been consulting with allies all night anyways.

Against this background, almost everything was somehow relevant for the wider question of Europe’s ability to defend itself in this year’s SOTEU speech. The challenges Europe is faced with are not limited to the number of tanks or fighter jets (or drones) European armies have at their disposal, but encompasses everything from digital sovereignty to trade. In many of these areas, Europe’s dependence on the United States – or China – has proven dangerous, if not even fatal. And Ursula von der Leyen set the bar high: she did not speak of “strategic autonomy” anymore, but of Europe’s “independence” moment.

The speech was good and worth reading – or watching in order not to miss some spicy reactions from the plenary https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/media/video/I-276884 (when von der Leyen addressed efforts to combat disinformation, the president of the European Parliament had to call some MEPs into order). Of the many interesting things von der Leyen said regarding European security and defence, the sentence “Europe will defend every inch of its territory” was perhaps the most remarkable one – because it copies NATO’s 2022 pledge to “defend every inch of Allied territory”. Europe alone, and especially the EU as an institution, has no structures in place today to actually provide collective defence outside of NATO. But that may well be the future. For what it’s worth, the challenge that nobody in Europe has been willing to say out loud is now out there.

So far, however, it is painfully clear that the EU has no means to respond to aggression. That Russia targeted specifically EU leadership and institutions two weeks ago, with the two missiles that only missed the EU delegation headquarters in Kyiv by some 50 metres and the GPS interference of Ursula von der Leyen’s plane upon landing in Bulgaria, was indicative that Russia was picking on the easiest victim. Targeting EU leadership – at least short of assassination – would not immediately trigger even NATO consultations, and the EU itself probably cannot trigger its own mutual assistance clause (Art. 42.7 TEU).

Ukraine keeps featuring high up on Europe’s security agenda. That Poland and NATO allies shot down some of the drones using highly sophisticated and expensive fighter jets, further underlines the urgency of the announced new initiatives to boost Europe’s catchup with drone technology – such as the Eastern Flank Watch including a drone wall, the Qualitative Military Edge for investment in Ukraine’s military capabilites, and the drone alliance with Ukraine (initial funding €6 bn).

Incursions into NATO air space by stray drones or missiles have been a fairly frequent occurrence throughout Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine. But both this latest attack and the NATO response to it mark a new development: Russia crossed the threshold of unintentionality and NATO countries shot down Russian drones for the first time. What follows largely depends on whether Russia will repeat the test. But this could be interpreted as an act of war – if one so chose (and that will not be the preferred choice in Europe). In any case, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk stated that the incident brought Poland closest to open conflict since the Second World War.

Russia initially vaguely denied any intention to attack Poland and later demanded evidence that the drones were in fact Russian. Belarus, in turn, claimed that the drones went astray due to electronic jamming. But Polish and other NATO countries' ministers and experts say that the incursions were no accident. The number of drones directed into Poland is points to a deliberate test, another indicator is that most of the drones were either intelligence and surveillance drones or decoys.

Be it as it may, the Russian drone incursions into Polish air space call for long overdue measures: shooting down stray drones and missiles whenever they pop up in NATO air space. As I wrote last week, already the near-hit of the EU delegation and the GPS incident would have warranted a European air defence deployment at least to Kyiv to secure Europeans operating there. In addition to diplomatic representations, European defence industry sites and joint ventures in Ukraine could be considered for air defence deployments. Waiting for a ceasefire that clearly is not happening anytime soon is disingenuous, and European citizens can see through their leaders’ empty posturing.

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

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 9:52 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Can I bring clarity to the hysteria? The drones that entered Polish airspace were cheap decoy drones. No warheads, no explosives. As an "attack", it left much to be desired.

IDK why those drones crossed the border, but it seems to have more downside than upside. Creating a potential casus belli (cause for war) over decoy drones? That's the kind of provocation Ukrainians or the "coalition of the willing" would LOVE, bc it might re-engage Trump in NATO and Ukraine. Donald Tusk, Polish PM, was all ready to jump on the war bandwagon before an investigation.

Whatever info might have been gained on Poland's air defenses hardly seems worth it, and I doubt there even were any Russian surveillance aircraft near enough to monitor anyway.

Maybe it was just a bunch of misprogrammed drones, or drones brought off course by jamming. Or maybe they really were launched by Kiev, bc one drone supposedly made its way 300 km into Poland ... far beyond the range of any drone launched from Russia. Or maybe that last bit never happened. There's a lot of squawking and feathers flying.

Still trying to understand what happened.

PS; von der Leyen"s plane was never jammed. No other planes in the area reported similar problems.

AFA the EU reaching for "independence" ... without a source of cheap, reliable energy in its home territory, any attempt at "independence" could be an exercise in economic wrist-slitting.

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

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 10:15 AM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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

The quote refers to a specific situation and the possible perceptions around it, rather than reflecting Kissinger’s general view of friendship with the United States.

Your incessant need to bash America comrade is why you misrepresent what Kissinger meant. Naturally, because you are a Russian troll. A true American wouldn’t do that. You already know this because SECOND explained it to you long ago, comrade. It's only one of the many reasons why you are known as comrade around here.

too funny...

T

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 10:33 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

AFA the EU reaching for "independence" ... without a source of cheap, reliable energy in its home territory, any attempt at "independence" could be an exercise in economic wrist-slitting.

For Europe, the cost of purchasing fossil fuel is NOT the entire cost. There is damage being done to Europe that makes "cheap, reliable energy" from Russia's fossil fuels actually very expensive. Perhaps expensive enough to kill a large portion of Europeans:

Scientists say they can now calculate the trillions in climate damage caused by fossil fuel giants

https://www.euronews.com/green/2025/04/24/scientists-say-they-can-now-
calculate-the-trillions-in-climate-damage-caused-by-fossil-fue

The cost to "reverse" climate change isn't a single number, but estimates for achieving net-zero emissions and transitioning to a low-carbon economy range from hundreds of billions to over $275 trillion over the next few decades, depending on the study, with some reports estimating the cost of inaction could reach $38 trillion annually by 2050. The wide variation is due to differing methodologies, the scale of "reversal" (e.g., net-zero vs. returning to pre-industrial temperatures), and disagreements on the best strategies.

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

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 3:03 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Whatever.

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

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 3:32 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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

THGR:
The quote refers to a specific situation and the possible perceptions around it, rather than reflecting Kissinger’s general view of friendship with the United States.

Your incessant need to bash America comrade is why you misrepresent what Kissinger meant. Naturally, because you are a Russian troll. A true American wouldn’t do that. You already know this because SECOND explained it to you long ago, comrade. It's only one of the many reasons why you are known as comrade around here.

I quote it because it's become entirely too prophetic. How many "friends" and proxies have we ditched or killed along the way, aside from Diem and Thieu in Vietnam?

Saddam Hussein - he was our proxy in our fight against Iran. We even gave him chem weapons technology and ground truth on its use, and then had him killed bc of it

Manuel Noreiga - he was our CIA guy in Panama until we decided he was unreliable and invaded and had him deposed.

Kurds in Syria, our proxy against Assad

Ashraf Ghani, our proxy against the Taliban. He was lucky: he got to flee with suitcases full of cash.

bin Laden, one of our proxies in Afghanistan, who fought the Soviets alongside the "mujahideen" (who later became the Taliban).

And our current proxy Zelensky. He will escape with his skin and lots of cash. Probably.

Too funny indeed.

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

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 3:46 PM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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

THGR:
The quote refers to a specific situation and the possible perceptions around it, rather than reflecting Kissinger’s general view of friendship with the United States.

Your incessant need to bash America comrade is why you misrepresent what Kissinger meant. Naturally, because you are a Russian troll. A true American wouldn’t do that. You already know this because SECOND explained it to you long ago, comrade. It's only one of the many reasons why you are known as comrade around here.

I quote it because it's become entirely too prophetic. How many "friends" and proxies have we ditched or killed along the way, aside from Diem and Thieu in Vietnam?

Saddam Hussein - he was our proxy in our fight against Iran. We even gave him chem weapons technology and ground truth on its use, and then had him killed bc of it

Manuel Noreiga - he was our CIA guy in Panama until we decided he was unreliable and invaded and had him deposed.

Kurds in Syria, our proxy against Assad

Ashraf Ghani, our proxy against the Taliban. He was lucky: he got to flee with suitcases full of cash.

bin Laden, one of our proxies in Afghanistan, who fought the Soviets alongside the "mujahideen" (who later became the Taliban).

And our current proxy Zelensky. He will escape with his skin and lots of cash. Probably.

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

Like I said. It's because you're a Russian troll. You have a need to bash America. This list I've posted ends in 1994-1996. Help me out. Can you think of any other wars Russia has started with its neighbors? You know, like the one they started with Ukraine. The one Russia started in 2022 that is currently being fought. Any others you can think of comrade?

too funny...

T

Paul's Assassination: Russia 1801
First Russo-Persian War 1804-13
War of the Third Coalition 1805-7
Russo-Turkish War 1806-12
Second Russo-Swedish War 1808-09
Napoleon's Invasion of Russia 1812
Hundred Days' War 1815
Greek War of Independence 1821-29
Decembrists' Uprising: Russia 1825
Second Russo-Persian War 1825-28
First Murid War 1830-32
Polish November Revolt 1830-31
Second Murid War 1834
Third Murid War 1837-59
Russian Expedition to Khiva 1839
Walachian Revolution 1848
Russian Conquest of the Syr 1849-54
Russo-Kokandian War 1853
Crimean War 1853-56
Kokandian Invasion 1860
Polish January Insurrection 1863-64
Russo-Kokandian War 1864-65
Russian Conquest: Tashkent 1865
Bukharan-Kokandian War 1865
Russo-Bukharan War 1865-66
Russo-Bukharan War 1866
Russo-Bukharan War 1867
Bukharan Rebellion 1868
Russo-Bukharan War 1868
Bukharan Rebellion 1870
Russian Occupation of Ili 1871
Kokandian Revolution 1873-75
Russo-Khivan War 1873
Kokandian Holy War on Russia 1875
Kokandian Rebellion 1875-76
Russo-Turkish War 1877-78
Anglo-Russian Crisis 1877-8
People's Will Terrorism in Russia 1879-98
Russian Siege of Geok Tepe 1879-81
Russian Conquest of Merv 1884-85
Russo-Afghan War of 1885
Boxer Rebellion in China 1900-01
Jewish Pogroms: Russia 1903
Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905
Russian Revolution 1905
The Black Hundreds: Russia 1906-11
The Bosnian Crisis 1908-9
Russo-Persian War 1911
World War I 1914-18
Basmachi Rebellion in Russia/USSR 1916-31
February Revolution in Russia 1917
July Days in Russia 1917
Kornilov Revolt in Russia 1917

Bolshevik Revolution in Russia 1917
Estonian War of Independence 1918-20
Latvian War of Independence 1918-20
Russian Civil War 1918-20
Finish-Soviet Border Dispute 1919-20
Russo-Polish War 1919-20
"Red" Invasion of Persia 1920
"White" Occupation of Mongolia 1920
Kronstadt Rebellion in the USSR 1921
"Red" Invasion of Mongolia 1921
Stalin's "Revolution From Above" 1928-32
Sino-Soviet Railway War 1929
The Great Terror in the USSR 1934-38
Spanish Civil War 1936-39
Changkufeng Hill War 1938
Khalkin Gol War 1939
The Winter War 1939-40
The Katyn Massacre 1940
World War II 1941-45
Latvian Partisan War 1944-49
Lithuanian Partisan War 1944-52
Kurdish Mahabad Republic 1945-46
Berlin Blockade 1948-9
East German Uprising 1953
Hungarian Revolutionary War 1956
Stanleyville Secession: Congo 1960-1
Soviet Plot: Albania 1960
The U-2 Incident 1960
Berlin Wall Crisis 1961
Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
Prague Spring 1968
Sino-Soviet Border Clash 1969
Lithuanian Students Revolt 1972
Soviet Occupation: Afghanistan 1979-88
Shooting Down of KAL007: 1983
Collapse of the Berlin Wall 1989-90
Osh Riots: Kyrgyzstan 1990
South Ossetian Rebellion 1990-92
August Coup: USSR 1991
Soviet Intervention: Latvia 1991
Moldovan Civil War 1991-92
Georgian Civil War 1991
Abkhazian Rebellion 1992-93
Dushanbe Demonstration 1992
Tajikistani Civil War 1992-4
Georgian Civil War 1993-94
Russian Communist Revolt 1993
Chechen Revolt: Russia 1994-6

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

Thursday, September 11, 2025 5:28 PM

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

Ukraine's Newest Heavy Brigade Rides in Captured Russian Tanks

The Ukrainians are putting 200 ex-Russian T-72B3s to good use

Sep 11, 2025

https://www.trenchart.us/p/ukraines-newest-heavy-brigade-rides

The Ukrainian ground forces—the army, marines, air assault forces, assault forces, national guard and territorials—are reorganizing their roughly 130 combat brigades into 18 new corps, each with seven or eight brigades and tens of thousands of troops under a single command.

It’s a welcome development for a military that, up until now, has struggled to coordinate its brigades.

As a bonus, each corps is getting a new kind of brigade—a heavy mechanized brigade stuffed with infantry fighting vehicles and tanks: 62 of each, on paper.

But there’s a shortage of good tanks in the Ukrainian inventory. A shortage that, ironically, Russia is helping to solve. The newest heavy mechanized brigade, a former territorial unit, is about to ride into battle in captured Russian T-72B3 tanks.

Thanks, Russia!

After three years of hard fighting against a larger and heavier Russian force, the Ukrainians discovered that their best mechanized brigades—each with scores of IFVs but only a few tanks—lacked heavy firepower.

But their tanks brigades, overloaded with more than 100 tanks, were too big and inflexible for a battlefield where, yes, tanks are important—but infantry, artillery and drones are even more important.

The 18 heavy mechanized brigades are balanced for infantry-led, tank-supported operations. Since late last year, the ground forces have been steadily converting all five army tank brigades plus an assortment of mechanized and territorial brigades into heavy mechanized brigades. Eighteen in all—so that each corps will have one.

The reshuffling of tanks within the new corps structure revealed a shortage, especially within the handful of lightly equipped territorial brigades that are reorganizing into heavy mechanized brigades.

“The recent reformation of several territorial defense brigades into heavy mechanized brigades has raised many questions,” noted Militaryland, which tracks changes in the Ukrainian force structure. “One of the most pressing was how the light brigades would acquire the manpower and equipment needed for two tank battalions and two mechanized battalions—the standard structure of a heavy mechanized brigade.”

It was always possible the Ukrainian general staff would give the new territorial heavy mech brigades one of the leftover tank battalions stranded by the reorganization of the five army tank brigades. But it turned out the tank brigades were short on tanks—and couldn’t spare any as they became heavy mech brigades.

A “majority of these brigades did not have enough equipment to field even two fully manned battalions, with the third battalion existing only on paper,” Militaryland reported.

Ukrainian tank losses are worse than they appear. Kyiv had around 1,000 active tanks on the eve of the wider war in February 2022. Over the next 43 months, its forces lost around a thousand tanks—but also gained around a thousand tanks as donations from Ukraine’s allies.

That should leave Ukrainian formations with as many tanks as they had before the wider war. But wear and tear has sidelined hundreds of otherwise intact tanks. To make up for the shortfall, at least one new territorial heavy mech brigade, the 127th, “borrowed” tanks from Russia.

Among the 4,000 or so tanks Russia has lost so far in the wider war are hundreds that Ukrainian forces captured intact from retreating Russian regiments. Among these prizes are nearly 200 T-72B3s — 47-ton, three-person tanks with 125-millimeter main gains and modern armor, optics and fire controls.

Not all of the 200 captured T-72B3s are in working order. But enough are functional to equip one of the 127th Heavy Mechanized Brigade’s two tank battalions. It would make sense for the brigade to also equip its second tank battalion with identical ex-Russian tanks. That commonality would simplify training and logistics.

While it’s true tanks are highly vulnerable to the tiny explosive drones that are everywhere all the time over the 700-mile front line in Ukraine, they’re still useful—especially in sectors where the tankers enjoy protection from air defenses and electronic warfare.

Indeed, Ukrainian brigades tend to assign sections of tanks to quick-reaction duty in areas where there are too few Ukrainian infantry. When Russian sabotage groups slip through the porous front line and break into the Ukrainian rear, the Ukrainians speed a couple of tanks to the breakthrough—and blast the lightly armed Russian infiltrators at close range.

The next time that happens in the 127th Heavy Mechanized Brigade’s sector in northern Ukraine, the Russians could find themselves staring down the barrels of … ex-Russian tanks.

Thanks for reading Trench Art! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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

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

Friday, September 12, 2025 7:54 AM

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

The Swedish Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on September 11 that Sweden announced its twentieth military aid package to Ukraine, which allocates roughly 9.2 billion Krona (SEK) ($987 million) for battlefield needs.[22]

The Swedish MoD procured 18 Archer guns and artillery ammunition as well as long-range drones, worth roughly 3.6 billion SEK ($386 million);

marine equipment, including coastal radar systems, rope ferries equipped with grenade launchers, diving chambers, and crane trucks, worth 2.1 billion SEK ($225 million);

air defense (AD) equipment, including ammunition, equipment and sensors for air base operations, sensors to detect drones and robots, and sensors and control systems for the already-donated Swedish Tridon system, worth 3.5 billion SEK ($367 million)

and other investments in civil defense and services via the Swedish National Defense Research Institute and the Swedish National Defense University.

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-september-11-2025/

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

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

Friday, September 12, 2025 8:00 AM

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

The Russian Independent Fuel Union, an association of gas station owners, stated in an interview with Russian state newspaper Izvestiya on September 10 that over 10 Russian federal subjects are experiencing fuel shortages, including Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, and Rostov oblasts, Far Eastern regions, and occupied Crimea and that fuel shortages are also reaching central regions such as Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.[19]

Russian State Duma Anti-Monopoly Committee Expert Council member Dmitry Tortev told Izvestiya that local fuel shortages are becoming widespread in Russia. Russian Independent Fuel Union representatives stated that many gas stations have not received refinery deliveries for several weeks, forcing some gas stations to shut down.

Russian officials downplayed the impact of Ukraine’s strike campaign, attributing the fuel shortages to peak vacation season and agricultural demands in August and September 2025.[20]

ISW continues to assess that Ukraine’s strike campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure is impacting Russia’s domestic gasoline market, exacerbating shortages, and causing price spikes that will likely push inflation upwards and create further macroeconomic instability in Russia.[21] It is noteworthy that Russian state media is more openly discussing gasoline shortages, as it suggests that the issue is beginning to permeate into more mainstream Russian society.

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-september-11-2025/

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

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

Friday, September 12, 2025 7:38 PM

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

UK and Germany bankroll Kyiv blitz on Putin’s oil

Thanks to allied financing, Ukraine may soon have enough long-range missiles and drones to match Russia’s own bombardment campaign.

September 11, 2025

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/09/11/ukraine-deep-strikes/

Germany will spend an additional $350 million on long-range munitions for Ukraine.

“Over the next 12 months, the UK will fund thousands of long-range kamikaze strike drones to be manufactured in Britain and delivered to Ukraine,” British Defense Minister John Healy said.
https://www-ukrinform-ua.translate.goog/amp/rubric-ato/4034632-britani
a-nadast-ukraini-tisaci-dronivkamikadze-gili.html

“Ukraine is increasingly taking the war to Russia now,” American-Ukrainian war correspondent David Kirichenko wrote in a new essay for The Atlantic Council.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-is-facing-a-f
uel-crisis-as-ukraine-escalates-attacks-on-russian-refineries/

Ukrainian drones throttled Russia’s refinery output by a staggering 24%.
https://x.com/evgen1232007/status/1965345126550831159

The aims of Russia and Ukraine’s respective deep-strike campaigns couldn’t be more different. Russia’s goal is to inflict terror on civilians. Ukraine’s goal is to inflict military and economic damage.

Ukraine’s air defense problem is hard but simple. Ukrainian air defenses must contend with nearly daily raids involving potentially hundreds of drones and missiles, but they can concentrate around the biggest cities that are the Russians’ main targets.

By contrast, Russia’s air defense problem is hard and complex. “The Kremlin simply does not have enough air defense systems to protect thousands of potential military and energy targets spread across 11 time zones,” Kirichenko wrote.

Ukrainian strike planners already have a lot of options. And these options are only growing as more foreign financing flows into the expanding Ukrainian munitions industry.

It’s possible, as 2025 grinds toward 2026, that Ukrainian strikes on Russia will inflict more lasting damage than Russian strikes inflict on Ukraine. After all, civilian morale is a renewable resource. An oil refinery, by contrast, is a difficult thing to fix once it burns to the ground.

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

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

Friday, September 12, 2025 7:54 PM

What do you guys think about this idea...? http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=67081

Russia is currently experiencing significant gas shortages, primarily due to Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries, leading to long queues at gas stations and rising fuel prices.

Current Situation

Russia is grappling with a fuel crisis as multiple regions report gas shortages and rationing. This situation has been exacerbated by persistent Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil facilities, which have targeted key refineries and disrupted production. Reports indicate that some drivers are waiting for hours to fill up their tanks, with queues stretching for kilometers at gas stations.

Newsweek

Causes of the Shortages
Ukrainian Drone Attacks: Since early August 2025, Ukraine has intensified its drone campaign against Russian oil refineries, successfully damaging several key facilities. This has resulted in a significant reduction in refining capacity, with some refineries forced to shut down completely.
2
Rising Fuel Prices: The attacks have not only led to shortages but have also caused fuel prices to soar. For instance, the price of AI-92 gasoline has increased by nearly 38% since the beginning of the year, reflecting the growing scarcity of fuel.
1
Impact on Daily Life: The fuel crisis is affecting ordinary Russians, forcing them to spend more on petrol and endure long waits at gas stations. The situation has prompted state-controlled media to downplay the crisis, attributing shortages to "scheduled maintenance" rather than the ongoing conflict.

Broader Implications

The ongoing fuel crisis highlights the vulnerabilities in Russia's energy sector, particularly as it continues to face Western sanctions and the repercussions of the war in Ukraine. The ability of Ukraine to disrupt Russian oil production significantly impacts the Kremlin's funding for its military efforts, making this a critical issue in the context of the ongoing conflict.

https://www.express.co.uk ›

You can't conquer a country if you can't even drive across it.

T

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

Saturday, September 13, 2025 7:36 AM

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

EU to speed up phase out of Russian energy amid US pressure

The proposal aims to ban new contracts as of January 2026, short-term contracts by June 2026 and long-term contracts by the end of 2027. For landlocked countries tied to long-term contracts, an extension until the end of 2027 is foreseen. Member states like Austria, Hungary and Slovakia are opposing the ban due to their energy dependency on Moscow.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/09/11/eu-to-speed-up-phase-out
-of-russian-energy-amid-us-pressure

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

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

Sunday, September 14, 2025 7:11 AM

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

Weekend Update #150: Range, Range, Range
Also: Russia Attacks Poland; The USA Unilaterally Ends Some Sanctions

Phillips P. OBrien
Sep 14, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-150-range-range-
range

Hi All,

Well, here we are at weekend update 150. I never could have imagined that when these updates were moved to Substack in November 2022 that I would still be writing them 150 weeks later. Its a sign of my errors in one way, I always believed that eventually Ukraine’s supporters in the USA and Europe would understand that defeating Putin’s Russia is very much in their own interest and would have aided Ukraine to do that (which they have had ample opportunity to do that). They clearly do not.

One of the key things that I thought/hoped (mistakenly as it turns out) that they would do is provide Ukraine with a real range advantage that would allow the Ukrainians to launch both attacks against Russian command and control and military logistics—so that the Ukrainians would not have to batter their heads against the wall by directly attacking Russian fortifications.

When it was shown that these hopes were mistaken, I wrote one of my first midweek Substacks, in March 2023, on the need to give Ukraine greater ranged capacity. The war was already bogging down at the front line and it was becoming increasingly difficult to mass vehicles. It was therefore imperative that Ukraine was given the ranged capacity to engage Russia at depth.

Though it was only over a year ago—many analysts were raving about the ability of the Russian army to supposedly move quickly, to overwhelm the Ukrainians with their mechanized forces and swiftly seize Eastern Ukraine. Since then Russian abilities to advance have grown smaller and smaller. Indeed for the last six months, the Russians have had to switch tactics to infantry heavy assaults, using groups of soldiers using foot-power to move forward, to take small bit after small bit of the front line. They seem to be unable to build up the mechanized forces near the front to do anything like a breakthrough and exploitation.

If the war has shown the enormous impact that giving Ukraine a small range and accuracy advantage can have, imagine how much more effective the Ukrainians could be if they had a larger one. That, however, seems something that the United States and major NATO powers seem unwilling to give it. Instead, much of the increases in military aid that has been offered to Ukraine over the last few months is shorter range systems, from Leopard tanks, to Bradley Fighting vehicles and even more self-propelled artillery. In other words, weapons that will be most likely to be used in a direct assault in Russian forces, and not weapons that will be effective in severing Russian communications.

Of course, the USA and major European states did not want Ukraine to have such an advantage, and so slow-walked ranged capacity to the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians, however, decided that if they were not going to be helped to fight the war they needed to fight, that they would develop the capacity for themselves. Its taken years, but more and more they are showing that they have a plan to engage the Russians at range in strategically effective ways. Its a question now if they can develop enough effective systems and deploy them in mass—for they showed this week that their thinking is far more sophisticated than that of most of their NATO supporters.

Also, the Russians attacked Poland this week, and NATO’s response shows how the alliance is helping the Russians more than people realize. And finally, in a shockingly under-reported story, the US started unilaterally lifting sanctions on Putin (through Belarus) while throwing up roadblocks on any more sanctions on Russia. Trump is maneuvering with some skill to assist the Russian war effort now.

John Cole, US deputy special representative for Ukraine, shaking hands with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a meeting in Minsk.
The USA Lifted Some Sanctions That Were Hurting Russia This Week—Though You Might Have Missed It.

Range, Range Range

Instead of jumping into the latest Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s energy system (the most important of which happened last night) I thought it would be more interesting to start with this attack on Russian command and control (C2) which occurred in Donetsk (here is a detailed story). This was not an attack on strategic depth like Russian oil production in Russia itself, but it was a ranged attack to cause a temporary debilitating effect on Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/09/12/frontline-report-domestic-missi
les-give-ukraine-the-edge-russian-generals-eliminated-before-major-assault-begins/

As I’m sure most of you know, for more than 13 months (amazingly) the Russians have been trying to take the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Most western analysts said it was bound to fall either sometime between last September and November, and when it did fall it would be a major strategic blow by Russia against Ukraine.

Of course they were wrong on all counts. What we have seen is the Russians constantly build up new forces and throw them at Pokrovsk, making their small and bloody advances, but not take the town. The Ukrainians have engaged different tactics to disrupt these build ups, and last week they employed one of their most effective.

Using good intelligence, they tracked down a concentration of Russian C2 in Donetsk as part of the continual Russian build up. The Ukrainians then used homegrown systems to launch a coordinated attack on the concentration, killing many Russian officers and having a significant, if short term, impact on the Russian ability to organize their forces.

This kind of attack is very important, not just for Ukrainian defense, but also for the time if/when they want to go back on the offensive. As I’ve said repeatedly, I would avoid any offensive action until Russian military capabilities have been seriously degraded through strategic airpower and logistics attacks. That could take a long while. But at some point, the Ukrainians might want to take the initiative again.

If they are to do that, at the start the operation they are going to want to cripple Russian C2 as part of the opening blows. Neutralizing C2 will keep the Russians from reacting quickly, giving the offensive forces time to shape the battlefield in the way they want. So seeing these attacks shows just how the Ukrainians are thinking—and its confirmation of their strategic and tactical sophistication.

Of course there were not just these C2 attacks this week, there were, especially yesterday, reports that the Ukrainian strategic air campaign was ongoing. The most important happened in just the last few hours. There were reports that the large Bashneft-Novoil refinery in Ufa was hit, and that fires had broken out. This refinery is approximately 1400 kilometres from the front line—so a whole different kettle of fish from the attacks on Donetsk. Just before this, reports came in that the Ukrainians had attacked Russia’s largest oil terminal, just outside of St Petersburg. This is the Primorsk facility, which is quite close to the Finnish border—thousands of kilometres from Ufa. Here is a map for comparison (note the closest map town to Primorsk is Viborg, a few kilometres away, so I put a box near there.

Now, we do not have any damage estimates yet and reliable ones will not come in for a while. My guess is that both facilities will be reparable in the short term, so the Ukrainians are going to have to come back repeatedly to hit them. But the good thing is that it shows that the campaign against Russian energy is continuing. Its now been six weeks since it started, and new targets are being added to the list.

Btw, the Primorsk attack shows some very important strategic thinking. Even if Russia can pump and refine oil, if it cant ship it out to customers its of little value (even a net negative for a while as it will need to be stored). So destroying distribution is in many ways as good, if not better, than destroying production.

So, the war is being more and more determined by ranged fires—and with the land war actually changing more slowly (another week of the smallest of alterations) keep your focus here for a while.

Much more at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-150-range-range-
range

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

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

Monday, September 15, 2025 7:49 AM

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

The Kremlin is facing a massive budget deficit and may increase consumer taxes to compensate for the deficit rather than decreasing funding for its war machine, passing the economic costs off as a sacrifice that the Russian population must accept to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. Several Russian government sources told Russian opposition outlet The Bell on September 11 that the Russian government is considering increasingthe Value-Added Tax (VAT), a federal tax imposed on most Russian goods and services domestically, from 20 to 22 percent in the near future due to large federal budget deficits.[36] The Russian government could generate an additional one trillion rubles annually (roughly $11.9 billion), or 0.5 percent of Russia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), by increasing the VAT to 22 percent. This tax increase would functionally remove money from the Russian population as businesses pass most tax increases onto consumers by raising the costs of goods and services. The Russian Ministry of Finance reported on September 9 that the Russian federal budget deficit for January to August 2025 amounted to 4.2 trillion rubles (roughly $50 billion), well exceeding its planned 3.8 trillion-ruble (roughly $45 billion) deficit for all of 2025.[37] Russian President Vladimir Putin previously claimed that Russia’s military budget is currently 6.3 percent of its GDP, or 13.5 trillion rubles (roughly $160 billion), much of which is likely contributing to the Russian federal budget deficit.[38] This 6.3 percent of GDP notably does not include Russia’s investments in its defense industrial base (DIB) production. The Kremlin, on the contrary, offered Russian small drone producers a zero VAT rate in late July 2025.[39]

Increasing the VAT could reverse any progress the Russian Central Bank may have made against inflation while also failing to address any of the issues that will likely arise from prematurely lowering the key interest rate. A Kremlin source claimed to Reuters in late August 2025 that increasing the VAT is the only way for the Russian government to address the federal budget deficit.[40] The Russian government last increased the VAT in 2019 from 18 to 20 percent, which the Russian Central Bank reported caused inflation to rise by 0.55 to 0.7 percentage points.[41] The Russian Central Bank has been combatinginflation for the last year and has lowered its key interest rate from 21 percent to 18 percent gradually since June 2025, likely a reaction to the opinion that the Russian Central Bank’s counter-inflationary measures were succeeding.[42] An increase in VAT will likely cause inflation to rise while simultaneously lowering cash flow in the Russian economy, weakening consumer purchasing power, and further stagnating Russian economic growth.[43] Putin has unintentionally created an economic situation from which Russia will struggle to escape by adopting policies aimed at increasing Russian society’s reliance on military spending by heavily investing in Russia’s DIB, all while Russian society faces labor and gasoline shortages, broader demographic issues, and declining savings.

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-september-14-2025/

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

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

Monday, September 15, 2025 9:24 AM