REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: CAPTAINCRUNCH
UPDATED: Saturday, April 27, 2024 19:51
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 96649
PAGE 106 of 127

Friday, November 24, 2023 6:52 AM

SECOND

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


Four signals telling Vladimir Putin to wind up Ukraine war | November 24, 2023 10:57:24 IST

https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/vantage-four-signals-telling-vladimi
r-putin-to-wind-up-ukraine-war-13425352.html

There are indications that he might be reconsidering his position.

During the G20 meeting, Putin’s statements hinted at a potential shift in his approach to the conflict. He acknowledged the tragic consequences of military actions and emphasised the need to halt the ongoing tragedy. Notably, Putin refrained from using the term “special military operation” and explicitly referred to the situation as a “war”. This linguistic choice raises questions about a possible softening of his stance.

As Putin faces the complexities of the war in Ukraine, several factors weigh on his decision-making. The 1) military landscape, 2) international support, 3) economic challenges and 4) domestic sentiment collectively shape a delicate situation. With an upcoming election and the possibility of public unrest, Putin may find himself at a crossroads, contemplating a shift toward peace to navigate the intricate web of geopolitical and domestic pressures.

The question of whether President Putin genuinely seeks an end to the war in Ukraine remains elusive. While various indicators suggest a potential shift in his position, the intricacies of geopolitics and internal challenges make predictions uncertain. As the global community closely monitors developments, the dynamics of the conflict continue to evolve, leaving room for speculation about Putin’s true intentions and the eventual resolution of the crisis.

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

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

Friday, November 24, 2023 6:54 AM

THG


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

US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby reported on November 21 that Iran is supplying Russia with glide bombs and that Iran may be preparing to transfer short-range ballistic missiles to Russia....


Oh, boo hoo. Big fucking deal.

We, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, UK, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Sweden, and Finland are supplying Ukraine with missiles, rockets, tanks and other armored vehicles, mines, shells including cluster munitions, etc We even "borrowed" shells from S KOREA and ISRAEL, and pretty much went across the world begging for shells.

What's your point

SIGNYM




No one likes Russia. How's that?

T

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

Friday, November 24, 2023 7:03 AM

SECOND

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


The Russians have funny ideas about what makes a good soldier:

November 23, 2023

Denis Gorin, a resident of Russia’s Sakhalin region who was sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges of murder and cannibalism in 2018, has reportedly been released to fight in the war in Ukraine, the Telegram channel Sakhalin Against the War wrote on Wednesday.

According to a neighbor of Gorin who spoke to the RFE/RL affiliate Sibir.Realii, Gorin is currently in a hospital in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk with a moderate injury. “But I don’t think he’ll be free for long. His victims’ relatives all remember him,” the neighbor added.

In 2003, Gorin was convicted of premeditated murder and “subsequently desecrating the corpse of his victim.” He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but released on parole in 2010 for good behavior. That same year, according to court records, Gorin murdered an acquaintance before deciding to “remember the old days” by consuming pieces of his victim. Then, in 2012, Gorin and his brother stabbed a man 29 times outside of a store. Six years later, Gorin was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the stabbing. Documents from his trial indicate that he ate the flesh of that victim as well.

https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/11/23/russian-man-serving-22-year-priso
n-sentence-for-murder-and-cannibalism-reportedly-released-to-fight-in-war-against-ukraine

Russian Murderer and Cannibal Released to Fight in Ukraine – Reports
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/23/russian-murderer-and-canniba
l-released-to-fight-in-ukraine-reports-a83199

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

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

Friday, November 24, 2023 8:52 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby reported on November 21 that Iran is supplying Russia with glide bombs and that Iran may be preparing to transfer short-range ballistic missiles to Russia....


Oh, boo hoo. Big fucking deal.

We, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, UK, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Sweden, and Finland are supplying Ukraine with missiles, rockets, tanks and other armored vehicles, mines, shells including cluster munitions, etc We even "borrowed" shells from S KOREA and ISRAEL, and pretty much went across the world begging for shells.

What's your point

SIGNYM




No one likes Russia. How's that?

T



I'm completely fine with Russia.

Ask Second why he hates Jews so much, Ted.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Friday, November 24, 2023 9:42 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm completely fine with Russia.

Ask Second why he hates Jews so much, Ted.
6ixStringJack, to accuse someone of trashy behavior they are not guilty of is a typical Trumptard gambit, which is one of a hundred reasons why your kind of angry poor white trash is despicable.

Funny how the Russians do the same, endlessly making false accusations, constantly insisting their lies are "truth" and actual Truths are all lies. Even funnier, Trump lies all the time and accuses his accusers of being the real liars. I see why 6ix can write: "I'm completely fine with Russia." Trumptards are completely fine with liars.

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

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

Friday, November 24, 2023 12:32 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by second:
US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby reported on November 21 that Iran is supplying Russia with glide bombs and that Iran may be preparing to transfer short-range ballistic missiles to Russia....

SIGNY: Oh, boo hoo. Big fucking deal.
We, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Romania, UK, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Sweden, and Finland are supplying Ukraine with missiles, rockets, tanks and other armored vehicles, mines, shells including cluster munitions, etc We even "borrowed" shells from S KOREA and ISRAEL, and pretty much went across the world begging for shells.
What's your point

THUGR: No one likes Russia. How's that?


Well, apparently Iran likes Russia. So does China, Brazil, India, Saui Arabia, Egypt, Syria ... in fact, most of the Mideast, most of the continent of Africa ... all together, 3-4 billion people.
That's a lot more than "nobody", THUGR.

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Friday, November 24, 2023 12:35 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm completely fine with Russia.

Ask Second why he hates Jews so much, Ted.[/b

SEVOND: 6ixStringJack, to accuse someone of trashy behavior they are not guilty of is a typical Trumptard gambit,


BWAHAHAHA!
Well then, YOU must be a TRUMPTARD!

Un-fucking-believable!



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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Friday, November 24, 2023 1:03 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm completely fine with Russia.

Ask Second why he hates Jews so much, Ted.[/b

SEVOND: 6ixStringJack, to accuse someone of trashy behavior they are not guilty of is a typical Trumptard gambit,


BWAHAHAHA!
Well then, YOU must be a TRUMPTARD!

Un-fucking-believable!







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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Saturday, November 25, 2023 2:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Two new weapons Russia deployed in the past month:

Kamikaze drones with night- vision capability. Good for neutralizing night time troop movement. Russians first used it on the banks of the Dnieper about a week ago to interdict the boats that Ukraine was using at night to land and supply troops on the east (Russian) bank of the Dneiper near Krynky. At first this was thought to be a limited-use local adaptation but was recently also used further north on the frontline.

RBK 500 guided cluster bomb. Instead of dozens of bomblets, this bomb has only 15, but propelled at high speed and with higher explosive warheads. It's not an anti-personnel cluster bomb (they say) but meant to take out tanks and other armored vehicles, fortifications and I've seen it used on treelines.

Weaponry is a grisly technology. But it looks like Russians are getting better and better at killing their enemy.

*****

Meanwhile, the future of Ukraine.

Kiev has seen a parade of high- ranking western officials in the past week or so: CIA Director Burns, Def Sec Austin, and Germany's Def Minister Pistorius.

What Burns talked about, we don't know. Austin reaffirned support but also announced the smallest aid package ever - $100 million, and probably talked about other things we don't know either, since it doesn't make sense to pay an unexpected vist to Kiev just to drip aid on them.

As far as Pistorius is concerned

Quote:
Visiting German Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius announced a fresh military support package for Ukraine worth 1.3 billion euros.

“This package includes four further IRIS-T SLM systems, 155mm shells, and anti-tank mines,” Pistorius said during a joint press conference with Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov.

In 2024-2025, Germany will provide a total of 160,000 rounds of ammunition to Ukraine, Pistorius said, also pledging to support Kiev with air defence means.

MORE AT https://www.orissapost.com/germany-announces-fresh-military-aid-for-uk
raine/amp/

But the promised weapons, while expensive, won't help Ukraine much. The artillery shells in particular are way below Ukraine's usage. In additon, Germany's highest court ruled that the accounting trick used by the current government to shore up its finances, including aid to Ukraine and replenishment of Germany's own military stockpiles, is ILLEGAL. Does that leave German aid in limbo too?

There appear to be two schools of western thought on "What to do with Ukraine?"

One school of thought, exemplified by Richard Haas and probably Burns and Austin, seems to be giving Zelenskiy the bad news about foreign aid, and encouraging him to negotiate a cease fire with Russia. The other school of thought, exemplified by "Jungle Joseph" Borrell, Ursula van der Crazy, current and former NATO chiefs, seems to be "Give Ukraine everything we've got" and full speed ahead.

Zelenskiy is supposedly the decider. But, he know that negotiating for a cease- fire would be political suicide bc a) Russia would never accept a ceasefire and b) the more gung- ho elements in Ukraine (i.e. Nazis) are calling for 100% mobilization right now.

So Zelenskiy's hand will probaby forced for full mobilization and another "counteroffensive " some time in spring(?). If Ukraine holds together that long.

*****

53rd and 110th Ukrainian Brigades are self- evacuating from Adiivka. 54th Brigade refuses to advance. 32nd Brigade is pulled from the front line for reconstitution.

Ukrainian television interviewed Arakhamia, who was the head of Ukraine's negotiation delegation in March 2022. They asked him what Russia wanted and he said, neutrality for Ukraine and other small things. When asked why it wasn't signed he blamed Boris Johnson for coming to Kiev and telling Zelenskiy to keep fighting.

13:20 Military Summary Channel

http://www.orissapost.com/germany-announces-fresh-military-aid-for-ukr
aine/amp/

Apparently this is making a big splash in Ukraine and the EU in general.

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Sunday, November 26, 2023 7:05 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Ukrainian television interviewed Arakhamia, who was the head of Ukraine's negotiation delegation in March 2022. They asked him what Russia wanted and he said, neutrality for Ukraine and other small things. When asked why it wasn't signed he blamed Boris Johnson for coming to Kiev and telling Zelenskiy to keep fighting.
To assume a cease-fire would hold, or that Russia would ever stop trying to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty, misunderstands Moscow’s objectives and, with it, Russia’s way of war. Although U.S. and European analysts may think about warfare in terms of relative wins and losses on the battlefield, for Moscow, conflict is a much more flexible term. It is a spectrum of activity that includes many tools of state power — including religion, disinformation campaigns, energy supplies, assassinations, and grain exports — along with standard tools like artillery barrages.

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

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

Sunday, November 26, 2023 7:06 AM

SECOND

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


The Russian Way of War

By Bob Seely | November 24, 2023
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russian-way-war

Putin began to move closer to voina — traditional war — by sending unmarked Russian troops into eastern Ukraine and Crimea. But this operation was still irregular, relying heavily on paramilitary groups and intelligence operatives. It had echoes of 1990s conflicts that Russian operatives had curated in Moldova and Georgia, if on a larger and more professional scale. In fact, the operational plan for Ukraine broadly followed a template written in 2013 by Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of the general staff, which, in turn, closely resembled earlier KGB templates on staging coups.

The curated uprising succeeded completely in Crimea and partially in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russian operatives, organized crime groups, and local thugs established two “people’s republics” that were ostensibly independent but were actually controlled by Moscow. Yet elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, including in cities such as Kharkiv and Dnipro, the coups failed. In the southern port city of Odessa, Russia’s efforts literally went up in flames: the 40-person core of Moscow’s cell was burned alive in a trade union building.

But despite its failure to engineer the political collapse of Ukraine, even this modest success enabled Russia to create a managed conflict — blocking any potential Ukrainian moves toward EU or NATO membership. Moscow then tried to parlay this partial gain into a wider political victory. So as the Kremlin pocketed Crimea, it dangled Donetsk and Luhansk as leverage in negotiations. The provinces could rejoin Ukraine, Moscow said, but only under conditions that would force Kyiv to effectively accept pro-Russian paramilitary forces and political parties on its soil. The resulting arrangement would have locked Ukraine into an ever-tighter relationship with Russia, slowly strangling the country’s genuine independence.

Kyiv saw through this gambit, and the peace talks flopped. By 2020, it was clear that Putin’s strategy was failing. Russia and Ukraine were still negotiating over the east, but Kyiv was simultaneously deepening its Western relationships. Russia remained in de facto control of the seized territory, but it had destroyed its “soft” power and degraded its international influence in the process. In his drive to subjugate Ukraine, Putin had created exactly the united Ukrainian identity he wanted to squelch. As one Kyiv resident told me, “We have such an expression: thanks to Putin, Yanukovych, for creating the Ukrainian nation.”

Despite the defeats, Putin remained obsessed with controlling Ukraine. And so, having exhausted his nonmilitary and paramilitary options, he ordered a major invasion of the country in February 2022. The third stage of the conflict began: outright voina.

Putin’s primary goal — swiftly suppressing Kyiv’s government — was akin to Soviet actions in Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968, where Moscow sent in troops and tanks to suppress opposition and reassert its rule. But unlike in those two states, Russia’s military performed poorly. Indeed, Putin’s shambolic but brutal invasion was the very opposite of the integrated plans Russian doctrine endorses.

Much more at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/russian-way-war

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

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

Sunday, November 26, 2023 8:01 AM

SECOND

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


Manpower becomes Ukraine’s latest challenge as it digs in for a long war

Kyiv seeks to persuade younger recruits with better endurance and higher skills to join up. Kyiv faces the challenge of how to maintain a flow of recruits into the armed forces without stirring social unrest

By Roman Olearchyk in Kyiv | November 25 2023
https://www.ft.com/content/25711074-5e1a-494a-9d7c-ccb535f671d5

Of the four men who lined up at an army recruitment centre in Kyiv one morning this month, only one was there voluntarily.

Oleksandr, a 34-year-old used-car dealer, said he could no longer watch from the sidelines after five acquaintances were killed in Europe’s biggest war since 1945. He built up a financial cushion for his wife and newborn child before deciding to fight. “It’s time,” he said.

The others had received mobilisation notices. Two said medical conditions had previously prevented them from serving: one cited brain damage from a freak accident, the other metal plates in his spine. The fourth — Yevhen, a 42-year-old sales manager with no military experience — said: “I’m not going to hide, but I honestly don’t know what I can contribute.”

The meagre queue was a far cry from the thousands of volunteers who lined up at recruitment centres following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

It underscored the challenge facing Ukraine, with a population of less than 40mn, nearly two years into a war against an enemy with more than three times the number of people: how to maintain a flow of recruits into the armed forces without stirring social unrest and how to build capacity to enable Kyiv to regain the battlefield initiative.

General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s top military commander, told The Economist earlier this month that to break the “stalemate” — a term that earned him a rebuke from the government — he needed not just new capabilities in artillery, mine clearance and electronic warfare but “to build up our reserves”.

“However, our capacity to train reserves on our own territory is also limited,” Zaluzhnyi wrote separately in an opinion article. “We cannot easily spare soldiers who are deployed to the front, [and] Russia can strike training centres. And there are gaps in our legislation that allow citizens to evade their responsibilities.”

Selective conscription has continued since February 2022 but has lost steam as the grim reality of a long, gruelling war sets in. According to a BBC investigation, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian men evaded call-up notices either by slipping out of the country in defiance of an exit ban or fraudulently acquiring permission to leave. In August, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired all the country’s regional army recruitment chiefs over the issuance of medical exemptions in return for bribes.

Ukrainian officials and western analysts say it is not just a question of numbers but of fitness, capability and skills. The average age of Ukrainians at the front and those trained by western allies has been 30-40, rather than more usual 18-24, said Jack Watling, senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a UK think-tank.

The issue was not troop quantity but the “quality and capacity to command operations at scale”, he said.

Mobilisation early last year disproportionately pulled in older men with military experience, but younger men with more endurance and skills were now needed, he added.

“Ukraine needs infantry in top physical shape,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The physical requirements for the infantry are demanding and have increased as this conflict has settled into small-scale infantry engagement fought on foot in trench systems.”

Ukraine keeps its troop and casualty numbers secret. Experts and local officials have suggested it had 1mn men and women under arms last year, including territorial defence, secret services and border guards — double the pre-February 2022 number. US officials estimate that about 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and up to 120,000 injured, compared with about 200,000 Russian dead. Kyiv has put Russia’s death toll at more than 300,000.

To help fill the ranks, Ukrainian officials have set up roadside checkpoints to seek men evading the draft. If they are deemed fit, they are whisked off to draft offices. Online videos of recruitment officers picking men off the streets and forcing them into minivans have gone viral.

Zaluzhnyi said efforts were under way to set up a unified register of draftees. He also revealed a “combat internship” concept, which involves “placing newly mobilised and trained personnel in experienced frontline units to prepare them”.

Konrad Muzyka, director of Rochan Consulting, a Poland-based group that tracks the war, said that given Ukraine had less manpower than Russia, better training and better troops would allow it to sustain the fight for longer.

“Ukraine can’t adopt the Russian way of war, which focuses on attrition, as Moscow will be able to outspend Kyiv in almost every aspect, from military production to being able to sustain higher losses,” he said.

In the latest bid to reboot the process and attract younger, more motivated and better-educated recruits, Ukraine’s defence ministry has said volunteers would not necessarily serve in the trenches but in a role of their choice that matched their skills.

One aim is to lure more IT professionals for units operating drones and other high-tech weaponry. Three people with just such a specialism told the Financial Times they would consider the offer if they could ensure they would have roles as drone operators or use their expertise in cyber warfare or similar roles.

The Azov regiment, one of Ukraine’s best fighting forces, has placed advertisements on the work.ua recruitment site for infantry, drone operators, engineers, medics, drivers, cooks and welders.

Natalia Kalmykova, deputy defence minister, this week signed agreements with thelobbyx.com, a recruitment platform that has been used by the army, to assist soldiers in relocating to roles better fitted to their skills.

“The project will allow a person to choose a specific unit in a specific position where his/her civilian experience will be most useful,” Kalmykova said in a statement. Similar agreements with other recruitment companies are being drawn up.

Soldiers who spend a full month on the front lines are being paid more than $3,000 a month — a high salary in Ukraine, where average pay is less than $500 a month, and much more than the $650 paid for troops in support roles in the rear.

Kalmykova told Ukrainian TV earlier this month that forced conscription would continue but be phased out when “enough” soldiers had joined up voluntarily.

Vitaly Markiv, a frontline commanding officer, said: “We need to move away from the Soviet system of forced conscription where people are driven into roles where they can’t realise their potential.”

He added: “We should put emphasis not on quantity, but on quality and brains in what is like the battle of David vs Goliath.”

Additional reporting by Christopher Miller in Kyiv

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

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

Sunday, November 26, 2023 8:16 AM

SECOND

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


Does the US Actually Want Ukraine to Defeat Russia?

Nov 26, 2023 at 3:00 AM EST

A common refrain since February 2022 is that the U.S. is giving Ukraine enough military aid to survive, but not enough to win. In this telling, Washington, D.C. fears that a strategic Kremlin defeat in Ukraine could prompt chaos within Russian borders, perhaps the unseating of President Vladimir Putin, and a vicious regional struggle to fill a power vacuum littered with weapons of mass destruction. Anarchy would pose many new problems for the White House.

"The Ukrainians do see continued hesitancy and this mindset of worrying about escalation, not provoking the Russians in some sort of way," Daniel Vajdich — president of Yorktown Solutions and one of Ukraine's most prominent lobbyists in Washington, D.C. — told Newsweek.

"On the implementation side, there's a whole lot of continued caution that raises real questions in Kyiv about whether there is a desire for the Ukrainians to truly defeat the Russians. And the conclusion is 'no'."

"The Ukrainians believe that despite all the assistance, despite the fact that the administration is doing so much, there is still so much caution because there is not a desire for the Ukrainians to decisively defeat the Russians, thinking that this would really lead to internal turmoil and collapse in Russia."

Vajdich said this sentiment is strong in Kyiv. "It is an empirical fact that a lot of the assistance has not gotten to the Ukrainians as quickly as it could have," he said. "There are supply chain issues, there's no doubt about that. But there's also a portion of this assistance, both qualitatively and quantitatively, that could have gotten to the Ukrainians a lot earlier."

"It had a decisive impact in terms of the situation on the ground...the spring offensive this year would have been a spring offensive and not a July offensive, which made all the difference. It allowed the Russians to literally entrench themselves and fortify their defenses."

Kyiv has had to fight hard for every new NATO weapons system. The first American-made main battle tanks had arrived in Ukraine as of October, more than 18 months since Russian armored columns rolled across Ukrainian frontiers. Kyiv is still pushing for the longest-range version of the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System — known as the ATACMS, and U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets will not be expected to arrive until early 2024.

More at https://www.newsweek.com/us-want-ukraine-defeat-russia-putin-biden-zel
ensky-peace-talks-1846772


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

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

Sunday, November 26, 2023 2:19 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Does the US Actually Want Ukraine to Defeat Russia?

Nov 26, 2023 at 3:00 AM EST

A common refrain since February 2022 is that the U.S. is giving Ukraine enough military aid to survive, but not enough to win. In this telling, Washington, D.C. fears that a strategic Kremlin defeat in Ukraine could prompt chaos within Russian borders, perhaps the unseating of President Vladimir Putin, and a vicious regional struggle to fill a power vacuum littered with weapons of mass destruction. Anarchy would pose many new problems for the White House.


Oh, bull!

SINCE FEB 2022 WE'VE BEEN TOLD THAT UKRAINE WAS WINNING! ALWAYS WINNING! OR COULD WIN, WITH ENOUGH WEAPONS!
You can't rewrite history THAT blatantly, SECOND.


The problem is, TBTB seriously "misunderestimated" Russia since 2014. And you're evidence of that bc you repeated every trope, every lie about defective Russia/ Russians. Just review your posts.


TPTB really thought that if they couldn't beat the Russkies militarily their "sanctions from hell" would FOR SURE do the trick. Bc Russia was just a gas station masquerading as a country.

Then they thought they had an ace in the hole with Prigozhin.

And then they really thought ... yes, really thought! ... that if the Russian army saw those magnificent Leopards and ATACMS and Storm Shadows coming at them they'd throw down their weapons and run.

And now you're just repeating the butt hurt story that we didn't really lose bc we weren't really trying. (Shades of Vietnam!)

Hate to tell you this, but we were really trying. And we lost, dood.
This is the THIRD* time you misunderestimated a people.
Try not to make that mistake again!



*N Vietnamese, Russians, and ...? If you ask, I'll tell you the third.



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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Sunday, November 26, 2023 8:48 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh, bull!

SINCE FEB 2022 WE'VE BEEN TOLD THAT UKRAINE WAS WINNING! ALWAYS WINNING! OR COULD WIN, WITH ENOUGH WEAPONS!
You can't rewrite history THAT blatantly, SECOND.


The problem is, TBTB seriously "misunderestimated" Russia since 2014. And you're evidence of that bc you repeated every trope, every lie about defective Russia/ Russians. Just review your posts.
Only the Russians, the Chinese, and the North Koreans have failures this huge in their history (Google "what is the biggest famine in history" https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+biggest+famine+in+history ):

Five million Russians died during the Great Famine of 1921. Without Herbert Hoover, it would have been more. Side question: Why do bad things happen to stupid people? Hint: the stupidest don't know they are stupid. Instead, they know for sure they are the smartest.

Official website: https://to.pbs.org/3tKSle1

The little-known story of the American effort to relieve starvation in the new Soviet Russia in 1921, The Great Famine is a documentary about the worst natural disaster in Europe since the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. Five million Russians died. Half a world away, Americans responded with a massive two-year relief campaign, championed by Herbert Hoover, director of the American Relief Administration known as the ARA.

In July of 1921, Herbert Hoover, received a plea for international aid by Russian novelist Maxim Gorky. "Gloomy days have come for the country of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Mendeleyev," Gorky warned. He made a similar request to other Western nations, but it was Hoover who responded immediately with a promise of support.

The first American relief ships arrived in Petrograd in September 1921, as the embers of the 1917 Russian revolution still smoldered. American relief workers were among the first outsiders to break through Russia's isolation and to witness and record the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution. They would be tested by a railroad system in disarray, a forbidding climate, a ruthless government suspicious of their motives, and the enormous scale of death and starvation.

The initial plan called for feeding one million children by delivering bread, rice, grits, sugar, corn and milk to the most hard hit regions. Almost immediately, Hoover encountered formidable obstacles. Vladimir Lenin's new communist government was skeptical of American aid and sabotaged the relief effort by planting spies in local American Relief Administration offices. When trains stuck on the tracks prevented food from being transported, Russian officials were uncooperative, resulting in delays that contributed to an estimated 50,000 deaths. New estimates in the fall of 1921 revealed that at least 16 million Russians would be impacted by the famine. Hoover's initial plan to feed just the children would not be sufficient.

That winter, cannibalism became widespread across Russia as the people continued to starve. In the U.S., Hoover managed to double the project's funding, arguing that by providing food famine relief, Americans could demonstrate the strength, kindness and efficiency of American society to a Communist culture.

After a spring thaw, hundreds of American relief workers — nicknamed "Hoover's boys" — were finally able to deliver food. In August 1922, a full five months after the initial shipments of corn were sent to Russia, American Relief Administration officials were still feeding almost 11 million Soviet citizens each day in 19,000 kitchens. By the end of the famine that fall, five million Russians had starved to death, but the toll would have been significantly higher without Hoover's unprecedented humanitarian commitment.

Known as "the Great Humanitarian" for his relief work during and after World War I, Hoover is said to have saved more lives than any person in history.

"Lenin's government never recognized America's humanitarian motives," says producer Austin Hoyt. "The Soviets always saw the relief workers as exploiters and spies." The Cheka, Lenin's secret police, kept a watchful eye on the Americans and especially on the 120,000 Russians the ARA hired to do the work. White Russians and aristocrats, the losers in Russia's brutal civil war, were hired because they were educated. The Bolsheviks feared the ARA was training them as counter-revolutionaries. The tensions the Americans experienced in the early 1920s would come to dominate U.S. Soviet relations for much of the century.

Based on The Big Show in Bololand by Bertrand M. Patenaude, The Great Famine tells a riveting story of American engagement with a distant and desperate people -- an engagement hailed for its efficiency, grit, and generosity — within the larger story of the Russian Revolution and the roots of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry that would dominate the second half of the 20th century.

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

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

Sunday, November 26, 2023 9:22 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


OK Comrade.

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=65817

Say hi to your alter-ego Reaverfan for us.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 3:11 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Oh, bull!

SINCE FEB 2022 WE'VE BEEN TOLD THAT UKRAINE WAS WINNING! ALWAYS WINNING! OR COULD WIN, WITH ENOUGH WEAPONS!
You can't rewrite history THAT blatantly, SECOND.


The problem is, TBTB seriously "misunderestimated" Russia since 2014. And you're evidence of that bc you repeated every trope, every lie about defective Russia/ Russians. Just review your posts.


SECOND:
Quote:
Five million Russians died during the Great Famine of 1921. Without Herbert Hoover, it would have been more.
Side question: Why do bad things happen to stupid people? Hint: the stupidest don't know they are stupid. Instead, they know for sure they are the smartest.


blah blah blah...

NEWS FLASH! Russians NOT starving this year!!



Sad to say, tho, an estimated 500,000 to a million Ukrainians were killed fighting a war for us.

Now THAT'S stupid!

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Monday, November 27, 2023 8:19 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

NEWS FLASH! Russians NOT starving this year!!



Sad to say, tho, an estimated 500,000 to a million Ukrainians were killed fighting a war for us.

Now THAT'S stupid!
Russia did starve people this year by stopping the flow of grain as Russia did to recalcitrant citizens in the past. Nothing makes political opponents quit faster than starving them. Russia never forgot that fact and never stopped doing it, including turning off gas and electricity.

Signym, why stop at 1 million? You could estimate 1.5 million dead. No, make that 1.65 million dead/wounded for the appearance of "accuracy" and "precision". Make it any old number you want, Signym. There is nothing stopping you!

'I Can't Believe Them': Young Russian Conscript's Father Suspects Son May Have Been Beaten To Death For Refusing To Fight In Ukraine (The Father can't say he is absolutely sure or else he will go to jail for besmirching the Russian Army's reputation. Russia is very legalistic about its Army.)

RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty | November 26, 2023 20:37 GMT

More at https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-conscript-lazhyev-beaten-death-ukraine-
war/32700547.html

Andrei was repeatedly asked to sign a contract with the Defense Ministry despite his reluctance. By law in Russia, which has compulsory two-year military service, conscripts cannot be deployed to fight outside the country. That means that, in theory, those drafted into the military cannot be sent into combat in Ukraine. But there is loophole. Draftees can sign a contract with the Defense Ministry that would allow them to fight in Ukraine.

Widespread rumors that some draftees are physically coerced to sign up for combat service leads Nikolai to suspect his son was beaten in an attempt to get him to sign the contract.

When Andrei contacted him on September 21 to say he was in a field hospital, Nikolai said, his son said he was being pressured heavily to sign the contract.

"Every day. Contract, contract, contract," Nikolai recalled his son saying. "I told him: just don't sign. He didn't sign."

However, Nikolai said, "there is information that they were allegedly forced to sign contracts by beating them. And I cannot rule this out."

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 8:24 AM

SECOND

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


General James L. Jones: West 'Too Cautious About Giving Ukraine Weapons That Could Strike Into Russia'

By Vazha Tavberidze | November 26, 2023 13:06 GMT

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-james-jones-interview-long-rang
e-weapons/32700251.html

RFE/RL: Many noticed that the ATACMS given to Ukraine are of older production with a shorter range than their modern equivalents? Will there be more, better, longer-range ones?

Jones: It goes back to a fear in [NATO] capitals that if you give the Ukrainians the weapons that can strike into Russia, they will do that and it might cause a wider war. I don't think that's correct, to be honest with you. My first war was in Vietnam, and I was always frustrated by the fact that we couldn't pursue the enemy into Laos or Cambodia or go north of the DMZ [demilitarized zone], and there were so many restrictions on us that we did have the impression that we're fighting with one hand tied behind our back. And I think that's a risky strategy that normally contributes to defeat of the side that has so many impositions on it. The fear, obviously, is that Vladimir Putin would escalate to a nuclear conflict, and everybody's concerned about that. But I do think that the important thing is to give the Ukrainians the panoply of weapons that they need and to certainly prevent Russia from advancing any further into Ukraine.

RFE/RL: So, should we expect more, better, longer range ATACMS? And what's that dependent upon?

Jones: I think the military advice here is that they want to give them longer ranges. I'm not sure where the political leadership is on that. But if you're going to fight a war, you need to fight a war to win it. And you need to have the equipment that you need to prevail. Otherwise, you're working toward a stalemate, and that's not very good for anybody.

RFE/RL: Let's look at this from General Zaluzhniy's perspective. You are a general, you have to conduct a counteroffensive, and you are asked by your partners on whom you are heavily dependent in your war efforts to go into it without air support. How does it feel?

Jones: Not good. You know, in my days in Vietnam, we always had adequate air power, whether [it was] gunships or Phantom jets. The North Vietnamese that we fought against did not have that, and they paid a heavy price militarily, regardless of how it worked out politically. And I think that Ukraine understands that without air power, the manpower bill goes up exponentially. So, you have to be very careful, because for Ukraine manpower is really important. And they can't afford the Putin doctrine, which is just throw men at the problem; he doesn't care.

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 8:53 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


What part about FUCK UKRAINE do you not understand?

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK (April 23, 2022):
Nobody cares.


Nothing has changed.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 9:50 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
What part about FUCK UKRAINE do you not understand?

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK (April 23, 2022):
Nobody cares.


Nothing has changed.
6ix doesn't respond bravely or rationally to life's major challenges, just the minor ones. The results are that his house is cold in winter because 6ix can't afford to heat or insulate sufficiently since he doesn't have the money.

It is not rational nor brave to let Russia do what it pleases to Europe, but what exactly are Russia's goals that need a rational response? Look to Russia's recent past of invading countries and then holding them prisoner, at least until the Soviet Union collapsed due to incompetence at running an empire. Now Russia is reanimating that glorious yet dead past because Putin thinks he is vastly more competent than recent Russian leaders. Putin compares himself favorably to Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, long-dead empire builders. Russia now threatens to nuke anybody that might stop the Russian Empire from reinflating itself. They never drop the nukes but the many threats, several every month, prove present-day Russia is a country with evil goals. Russia's historic past also proves that Russian goals are evil. It is not rational nor brave to let Russia achieve its murky goals of reliving past greatness because that past is filled with tens of millions of corpses that got in the way of Russia's Empire. There will be millions more as Russia continues toward its goal unless stopped abruptly in Ukraine when Russia is rudely awakened from its dreams of a renewed Empire.

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 10:28 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
What part about FUCK UKRAINE do you not understand?

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK (April 23, 2022):
Nobody cares.


Nothing has changed.
6ix doesn't respond bravely or rationally to life's major challenges, just the minor ones. The results are that his house is cold in winter because 6ix can't afford to heat or insulate sufficiently since he doesn't have the money.


I haven't worked since July of 2019 and I'm okay, but thanks for worrying.

Have fun at work today, honey.

I'll have a nap for you.



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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 11:48 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

NEWS FLASH! Russians NOT starving this year!!



Sad to say, tho, an estimated 500,000 to a million Ukrainians were killed fighting a war for us.

Now THAT'S stupid!

SECOND: Russia did starve people this year by stopping the flow of grain a

... blah blah blah

NEWSFLASH! Russian grain exports at record high!

https://www.reuters.com/article/russia-grains-export-idUSKBN2YJ13A/

You keep "misunderestimating" Russia, just as you did N Vietnam. (And a there's a third people you've grossly misunderestimated. Want to know who?)
Failure to learn. Coddling your errors with lies and more lies.

Now THAT'S stupid.




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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Monday, November 27, 2023 1:31 PM

SECOND

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


The West’s False Choice in Ukraine
The crossroads is not between war and compromise but between victory and defeat.

By Nona Mikhelidze, a senior fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, and Nathalie Tocci, the director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali. | Nov 27, 2023, 3:46 AM

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/27/ukraine-russia-war-west-negotiati
ons-stalemate-weapons-aid/

Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, recently painted a somber picture of Russia’s war against Ukraine: A positional war teetering on the precipice of a stalemate, slowly tilting in Russia’s favor. Against this backdrop, talk of war fatigue is gaining momentum in Western capitals and the media, with growing calls for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

A year ago, Zaluzhny had underscored the need for specific weapons to achieve a breakthrough in the next Ukrainian counteroffensive. His prerequisites included air defense systems, fighter aircraft, main battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, howitzers, and long-range missiles to strike Russian facilities and supply lines well beyond the 50-mile range of previously delivered systems. “I know that I can beat this enemy,” Zaluzhny told the Economist then. “But I need resources!” But Western support, in both types and quantities of weapons, fell significantly short of his appeals.

Western reluctance to promptly furnish Ukraine with the required military equipment in sufficient numbers — exacerbated by ongoing shortages in artillery ammunition — inadvertently afforded Russia the time to strengthen its frontline through extensive construction of fortifications, trenches, and minefields. Notably, the United States held back on the delivery of Advanced Tactical Missile Systems until very recently, while German reluctance to provide Ukraine with Taurus missiles added another layer of hesitation. The results are evident on the ground: Whereas we cannot know whether greater and faster delivery of weapons would have led to a Ukrainian military breakthrough, we do know that, without it, the result of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the land war has been marginal at best. In the Black Sea, on the other hand, Kyiv has achieved significant recent success.

Doubling down on the narrative that it has thwarted Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Russia has launched attacks in several sectors of the front, including near the city of Avdiivka and town of Vuhledar. While they are exacting a significant toll on Russian lives and military resources — October was the bloodiest month for Russia since February 2022 — Russian advances are paying off. The strategic value of Russia’s small territorial wins is questionable, but the benefits in the informational realm are clear: They give many observers the impression that the military initiative is back in Moscow’s hands. Alongside the lackluster Ukrainian counteroffensive, the fear that the tables are turning in Russia’s favor is adding to the war fatigue among Western nations and eliciting calls for negotiations.

The West has indeed reached the limits of its current strategy. In practice, if not in words, this strategy has centered on ensuring Ukraine’s survival without enabling it to achieve a decisive victory. Ukraine’s Western supporters are now at a crossroads.


Some believe that there are only two routes ahead: either the perpetuation of war — with the risk that it tilts in Russia’s favor — or negotiations that lead to some form of territorial compromise. Yet reality in Ukraine — and, above all, in Russia — suggests that the negotiation option is not available. Ukrainians believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions reach beyond the annexation of a few regions and instead extend to the genocidal subjugation and erasure of their country and identity. For Ukrainians, the stakes extend beyond affirming an abstract principle of territorial integrity; their concern is about the lives of their compatriots living under Russian occupation. Framing negotiations around a land-for-peace compromise is untenable for Ukrainians.

Those in the West who believe in negotiations might retort that whether Kyiv desires to negotiate is irrelevant — without Western support, it will have no other choice. But as is often the case in Western discussions about Ukraine, this tends to ignore the other side of the equation: Russia. Those advocating for negotiations assume that Putin will acknowledge that he cannot achieve an outright victory and settle for the territorial gains he has made so far. However, the idea that Putin will genuinely embrace negotiations and seek an end to the war overlooks the strategic role the war itself has gained in sustaining his grip on power, especially as his narrative of the war has evolved over the last two years. The reconfiguration of the war in Russian propaganda, from a preventive attack against supposed Ukrainian Nazis to a patriotic war to defend the Russian homeland against attack by the collective West, means that the show must go on.

Putin’s need for a large-scale war arose between 2018 and 2020, when the political momentum from the annexation of Crimea dwindled and Russia grappled with a myriad of domestic challenges. The 2018 pension reforms sparked street protests and a sharp decline in Putin’s approval ratings. The years 2019 and 2020 were marked by widespread anti-government protests in Moscow and the Khabarovsk Krai region. The political and social environment, already tense, was further strained by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic repercussions. The poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his subsequent imprisonment, coupled with restrictions on civil liberties through legislation that curtailed supposed foreign agents and undesired organizations, added to the tension. It is in this tumultuous period that Putin released his infamous article on the national unity of Russians and Ukrainians, which proved to be the ideological and argumentative prelude to war. Bringing the war to an end now would mean having to address not only a host of festering issues, but also fresh problems arising domestically from Western sanctions and Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin has nothing to gain from any of this.

The choice facing the West is not between war and compromise but between defeat and victory. The trajectory the West is on — maintaining current levels of support or perhaps scaling them back while pushing for negotiations — raises the chances of defeat. Putin is banking on this: At the heart of his theory of victory lies his conviction that Russia’s staying power in the war is greater than the West’s (and, by extension, Ukraine’s). Unlike the West’s muddled hope for compromise, Putin’s strategy has a clear logic.

At the current crossroads, Ukraine’s Western supporters should ask themselves: What are the costs of a step change to enable Ukraine’s victory relative to the costs of maintaining the status quo or scaling back support leading to Ukraine’s defeat? Such a defeat, to be clear, would not be limited to Ukraine. A victorious Russia would not limit itself to occupying the five annexed regions and, through them, politically influencing or controlling Kyiv. While some may think that a militarily and economically degraded Russia no longer poses an existential threat to Poland or the Baltic states, a victorious Russia would certainly pose such threat to Moldova. No one can know what could happen next — or after a vindicated Russia rearms. No reasonable European country can afford to take that bet, and no reasonable U.S. administration should take that bet either.

Of course, ensuring Ukraine’s victory comes with costs, too. The economic cost of sustaining Ukraine to victory — involving not only weapons but also many other forms of aid — is significant, especially in the context of other challenges faced by the West in the Middle East and elsewhere. A victorious Ukraine emerging from years of war would pose significant challenges, and its integration in Euro-Atlantic structures would not be smooth. But surely the West would much rather deal with these problems than the much more existential ones that would result from Ukraine’s defeat.

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 2:11 PM

SECOND

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


‘Accidental Czar’: A Creative Take on the Putin Biography

In Weiss/Brown’s near-psychoanalytic account, Putin acts out of deep insecurities brought on by an inferiority complex coupled with a Napoleon complex; a suspicious, even paranoid nature; and a fraught xenophobia—especially of the West—inherited from his ancestors. In a sense, Putin encapsulates, in a diminutive package, the worst of Russian culture as imagined by thinkers at home and abroad.

And yet, we have no choice but to deal with him. As Weiss writes in his foreword,

“We need to understand his motivations, along with the heavy burden of history that helped shape them. We need to see the parts of a man who is in many ways ordinary, even if the problems he has created are often extraordinary.” Hence chapters with titles like “Superspy,” “Into the Abyss,” “O Happy Man!” and “Feet of Clay,” as well as the chilling story of how Putin’s future mother was almost dumped in a mass grave during the WWII-era Leningrad siege and was rescued at the last moment by his injured future father, who had just returned from combat. Putin was born seven years later; on such slender threads do the fates of nations hang.

One of the more fun parts of the book deals with Putin’s fixation—shared with many of his generation—on the impossibly heroic Stierlitz (Vyacheslav Tikhonov) from the Soviet TV serial “Seventeen Moments of Spring” (1973). Putin modeling himself on the imaginary spy seems banal and pathetic, a feeling enhanced by Brown’s splash (a page made up of only one large image) of the young Putin daydreaming of himself in his idol’s role: the gigantic figure, some 95% of the page, overwhelms the tiny Volodya at the bottom: a cutting portrait of misidentification if I ever saw one. The large image works precisely because the book, as noted, mostly uses multi-panel pages made up of smaller pictures, which makes the occasional deviation from the pattern stand out. In any case, Putin’s inflated sense of self is soon punctured by Maj. Gen. Oleg Kalugin, deputy head of the Leningrad KGB Office, who drily reports, “He was a nobody.”

There have already been a number of fine Putin biographies, most notably Clifford Gaddy’s and Fiona Hill’s “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” (2015), Masha Gessen’s “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin” (2013) and more recently Philip Short’s “Putin” (2022). It is not the remit of “Accidental Czar” to add anything new in terms of content, but rather to make its subject accessible to a different, wider readership. In this sense it succeeds, though those interested in much better comics works about contemporary Russia are directed to Victoria Lomasko’s “Other Russias” (2017) and Igort’s “The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks” (2016).

https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/accidental-czar-creative-take-p
utin-biography

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 2:11 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The West’s False Choice in Ukraine
The crossroads is not between war and compromise but between victory and defeat.

By Nona Mikhelidze, a senior fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, and Nathalie Tocci, the director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali. |
Nov 27, 2023, 3:46 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/27/ukraine-russia-war-west-negotiati
ons-stalemate-weapons-aid/



Oh, anyone in Ukraine and the west thinks they have a choice, whether it's victory or compromise v defeat?

HAHAHAHA!!!

Hate to tell you this, but neither victory nor compromise are in the cards. It's gonna be utter, devastating defeat all the way, no matter what weapons the west supplies. Including nukes.

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Monday, November 27, 2023 2:25 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hate to tell you this, but neither victory nor compromise are in the cards. It's gonna be utter, devastating defeat all the way, no matter what weapons the west supplies. Including nukes.
You are not psychologically prepared for reality, are you? Your Russian future is going to be as disorienting and upsetting as discovering your "parents" are not your biological parents after their deaths or having all your children die before you, perhaps in a fire or a car crash. These things happen.

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 2:38 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

Hate to tell you this, but neither victory nor compromise are in the cards. It's gonna be utter, devastating defeat all the way, no matter what weapons the west supplies. Including nukes.
You are not psychologically prepared for reality, are you? Your Russian future is going to be as disorienting and upsetting as discovering your "parents" are not your biological parents after their deaths or having all your children die before you, perhaps in a fire or a car crash. These things happen.

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



You are a total piece of shit.

You don't deserve to breathe the same Oxygen that Sigs does.

Please die of old age.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 2:53 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hate to tell you this, but neither victory nor compromise are in the cards. It's gonna be utter, devastating defeat all the way, no matter what weapons the west supplies. Including nukes.

SECOND: You are not psychologically prepared for reality, are you? Your Russian future is going to be as disorienting and upsetting as discovering your "parents" are not your biological parents after their deaths or having all your children die before you, perhaps in a fire or a car crash. These things happen.

Planning on setting house fires, are you?
If you don't deny it, I'll take that as a threat.

The person not prepared for reality is you. You've been weird ever since you started posting, and you've only gotten weirder since reality started diverging more and more from whatever narrative is stuffed up your belfry.


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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Monday, November 27, 2023 6:08 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hate to tell you this, but neither victory nor compromise are in the cards. It's gonna be utter, devastating defeat all the way, no matter what weapons the west supplies. Including nukes.

SECOND: You are not psychologically prepared for reality, are you? Your Russian future is going to be as disorienting and upsetting as discovering your "parents" are not your biological parents after their deaths or having all your children die before you, perhaps in a fire or a car crash. These things happen.

Planning on setting house fires, are you?
If you don't deny it, I'll take that as a threat.

The person not prepared for reality is you. You've been weird ever since you started posting, and you've only gotten weirder since reality started diverging more and more from whatever narrative is stuffed up in your belfry.
I am on the side of Ukraine, the Democrats, and the University of Texas at Austin football team. 6ix and Signym have taken opposing positions.

I want Ukraine, Democrats, and UT to win. But if they lose, I won't. If 6ix and Signym die in a fire, it won't perturb me. By the way, UT has 11 wins and 1 loss (to Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl)
https://texassports.com/sports/football/schedule/2023

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 6:20 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hate to tell you this, but neither victory nor compromise are in the cards. It's gonna be utter, devastating defeat all the way, no matter what weapons the west supplies. Including nukes.

SECOND: You are not psychologically prepared for reality, are you? Your Russian future is going to be as disorienting and upsetting as discovering your "parents" are not your biological parents after their deaths or having all your children die before you, perhaps in a fire or a car crash. These things happen.

Planning on setting house fires, are you?
If you don't deny it, I'll take that as a threat.

The person not prepared for reality is you. You've been weird ever since you started posting, and you've only gotten weirder since reality started diverging more and more from whatever narrative is stuffed up in your belfry.
I am on the side of Ukraine, the Democrats, and the University of Texas at Austin football team. 6ix and Signym have taken opposing positions.

I want Ukraine, Democrats, and UT to win. But if they lose, I won't. If 6ix and Signym die in a fire, it won't perturb me. By the way, UT has 11 wins and 1 loss (to Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl)
https://texassports.com/sports/football/schedule/2023

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



You're on the side of domestic communists, domestic terrorists and the party of fascism.

Fuck sportsball.

And fuck you.



Meanwhile, I'll do just fine no matter who wins. Just like I always do.

And stop setting houses on fire. That's not cool man.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 6:32 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Hate to tell you this, but neither victory nor compromise are in the cards. It's gonna be utter, devastating defeat all the way, no matter what weapons the west supplies. Including nukes.

SECOND: You are not psychologically prepared for reality, are you? Your Russian future is going to be as disorienting and upsetting as discovering your "parents" are not your biological parents after their deaths or having all your children die before you, perhaps in a fire or a car crash. These things happen.

SIGNY: Planning on setting house fires, are you?
If you don't deny it, I'll take that as a threat.

The person not prepared for reality is you. You've been weird ever since you started posting, and you've only gotten weirder since reality started diverging more and more from whatever narrative is stuffed up in your belfry.

SECOND: I am on the side of Ukraine, the Democrats, and the University of Texas at Austin football team. 6ix and Signym have taken opposing positions.

I want Ukraine, Democrats, and UT to win. But if they lose, I won't. If 6ix and Signym die in a fire, it won't perturb me. By the way, UT has 11 wins and 1 loss (to Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl)
https://texassports.com/sports/football/schedule/2023

SECOND, chickenshit. How to threaten people without being tagged. Well, you've been tagged anyway.


And you still can't face reality, can you?
Your head gonna explode when Russia wins?


BTW, I noticed that you're not FOR America.
Why not?

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Monday, November 27, 2023 7:05 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND, chickenshit. How to threaten people without being tagged. Well, you've been tagged anyway.


And you still can't face reality, can you?
Your head gonna explode when Russia wins?


BTW, I noticed that you're not FOR America.
Why not?
Am I worried that Russia will invade the USA? No, but Russian TV said Russia would, today: Russian TV Mulls US States as Next Targets for Invasion

By Isabel van Brugen | Nov 27, 2023
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-tv-us-states-alaska-california-
invasion-1847179

Kremlin propagandists mulled three U.S. states as targets for a potential Russian invasion during a segment that aired on state TV.

Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most well-known figures in Kremlin-backed media, and Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of state-controlled media organization RT, made the remarks on a show that airs on Russia-1. An excerpt was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs.

State TV propagandists routinely float the idea of either striking or seizing the territory of NATO members. The pair suggested Russia could invade the U.S. states of Alaska, California or Hawaii.

1) Alaska was once part of Russia. In 1867 it was sold to the U.S. for $7.2 million after then-U.S. President Andrew Johnson signed the Alaska Treaty.

2) In the early 19th century Russia established the outpost of Fort Ross in what is now Sonoma County, California, with Russian colonists living there between 1812 and 1841.

3) Russia founded three short-lived forts on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in 1817.

In January, a Siberian shaman predicted that Alaska and California would become part of Russia in 2023. "The United States of America and their people, of course, it's a pity," Russia's deputy head shaman Artur Tsybikov said in a video shared by Gerashchenko. "America may soon be divided into several parts, and several states will declare sovereignty. Most likely, Alaska and California will return to the Russian Federation," he said.

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 7:06 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Shut the fuck up, idiot.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 7:33 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut the fuck up, idiot.
Unfortunately, I know thousands of Trumptards in Texas. Their lives are truly messed up, but none of them are aware they ruined themselves or that it is all their own fault, not the Democrats' fault. With Trumptards and Russians, I have never seen angrier losers more convinced they were rightful winners who got cheated out of their winnings. Maybe they are "special needs" children?

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

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

Monday, November 27, 2023 10:18 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


THIS IS WHAT WAS SAID;

Quote:
During a discussion about why Russia would want to seize Portugal, Solovyov quipped that Lisbon has never been Russian, and Simonyan added that Alaska was, at one point.

"And California was. But why do we need Lisbon?" another co-host asked.

Despite the this assertion, California was never part of Russia, although in the early 19th century Russia established the outpost of Fort Ross in what is now Sonoma County, California, with Russian colonists living there between 1812 and 1841.

"You don't need it, but I like it very much," responded Solovyov.

"I prefer California, too," said Simonyan.

"Why such a strange choice? Why the either/or?" asked Solvyov.

Simonyan responded: "You have to start somewhere. I'd even choose Hawaii over California. I've never been there."


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-tv-mulls-us-states-as-nex
t-targets-for-invasion/ar-AA1kBKrU

THEY WERE JOKING.



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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Monday, November 27, 2023 10:19 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut the fuck up, idiot.
Unfortunately, I know thousands of Trumptards in Texas. Their lives are truly messed up, but none of them are aware they ruined themselves or that it is all their own fault, not the Democrats' fault. With Trumptards and Russians, I have never seen angrier losers more convinced they were rightful winners who got cheated out of their winnings. Maybe they are "special needs" children?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
You're angry all the time, dood.

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 12:43 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut the fuck up, idiot.
Unfortunately, I know thousands of Trumptards in Texas. Their lives are truly messed up, but none of them are aware they ruined themselves or that it is all their own fault, not the Democrats' fault. With Trumptards and Russians, I have never seen angrier losers more convinced they were rightful winners who got cheated out of their winnings. Maybe they are "special needs" children?

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


You're a miserable little prick.

You suck the joy right out of any room that you walk into.

Everybody you know online hates you.

Everybody you know in real life hates you.

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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 6:17 AM

SECOND

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


Putin Ally Wants to Make NATO Member Part of Russia
Nov 27, 2023 at 9:25 AM EST

An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin recently floated the idea of making a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) part of Russia amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

During a recent airing of Russia 1, a state-run TV show in Moscow, host Vladimir Solovyov spoke about Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, and said "there's a reason" why the country should be apart of Moscow. Solovyov's translated comments were posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday morning by Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs.

Portugal was one of the founding members of NATO as many Western countries have continued to warn Moscow against engaging with the military bloc's allies amid its conflict with Ukraine when Putin invaded the Eastern European country in February 2022.

"You don't need it but I like it very much," Solovyov said when he was questioned by his co-hosts and guests about why Russia would want Portugal. "You have to start somewhere, I'd even choose Hawaii. I'm not a military man, but, I reason the way I was taught by outstanding Soviet military commanders, you have to go for natural obstacles."

Solovyov added that "the Portuguese would live just fine as part of the Russian empire."

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-ally-wants-make-nato-member-part-russia
-1847123

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

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

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 6:17 AM

SECOND

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


Russia’s attempt to artificially create a migrant crisis at the Finnish border appears to be failing due to Finnish authorities’ swift response. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo stated on November 27 that the Finnish government will close the last border crossing with Russia “if necessary” and reported that the Finnish government is ready to take unspecified additional measures in response to Russia’s artificially generated migrant crisis.[20] Finland previously closed three checkpoints on the Finnish-Russian border on November 23, leaving only its northernmost border crossing open.[21] Several other Finnish government officials also signaled their support for closing the entire border with Russia.[22] A Russian insider source claimed that Russian Presidential Administration First Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko instructed Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) Head Vladimir Kolokoltsev to gather migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and other regions to send them to the Finnish border.[23] The insider source complained that Finnish border authorities stopped most migrants from crossing into Finland and that Russian authorities must now settle the migrants in Russia.[24]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-27-2023

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

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

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 10:14 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russia’s attempt to artificially create a migrant crisis at the Finnish border appears to be failing due to Finnish authorities’ swift response. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo stated on November 27 that the Finnish government will close the last border crossing with Russia “if necessary” and reported that the Finnish government is ready to take unspecified additional measures in response to Russia’s artificially generated migrant crisis.[20] Finland previously closed three checkpoints on the Finnish-Russian border on November 23, leaving only its northernmost border crossing open.[21] Several other Finnish government officials also signaled their support for closing the entire border with Russia.[22] A Russian insider source claimed that Russian Presidential Administration First Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko instructed Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) Head Vladimir Kolokoltsev to gather migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and other regions to send them to the Finnish border.[23] The insider source complained that Finnish border authorities stopped most migrants from crossing into Finland and that Russian authorities must now settle the migrants in Russia.[24]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-27-2023

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


Good for the Finns.

Stopping Putin from doing to them what Democrats do to their own People every day.



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

Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.

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

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 1:39 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
What an evil selfish prick Putin is. Does anyone but him benefit from this? And now? After 2 years of covid crap? Kill thousands and crash the world economy so he can redraw a MAP?!?? What fcking dinosaur. I look forward to watching this blow up in his face.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/world/europe/putin-speech-russia-uk
raine.html

Word by Word and Between the Lines: A Close Look at Putin’s Speech

]


Are you still breathing?

T

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

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 2:48 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
What an evil selfish prick Putin is. Does anyone but him benefit from this? And now? After 2 years of covid crap? Kill thousands and crash the world economy so he can redraw a MAP?!?? What fcking dinosaur. I look forward to watching this blow up in his face.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/world/europe/putin-speech-russia-uk
raine.html

THUGR: Are you still breathing?


Sorry dood.
But even if "G" comes back, no matter how persuasively he spins the topic and shores up your hope, he was WRONG.
"This" is not going to blow up in Putin's face.
What it IS doing is blowing up in the EU's face, massively. Not only were the Ukrainians brain dead to fight our war for us, the EU was collectively brain dead to go along with it.

What you should be asking yourself is: "How did I get it so wrong?"

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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 7:56 PM

SECOND

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


Don’t Forget the People Russia Weaponizes in Finland Border Crisis

Nov 28, 2023
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/28/dont-forget-the-people-russi
a-weaponizes-in-finland-border-crisis-a83243

After a weeks-long trickle, the number of people trying to enter Finland and Estonia illegally suddenly spiked this month, prompting Finland to close its eastern border entirely. Blame has been placed squarely on one country’s shoulders: Russia.

Last week, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur described a “fully state-orchestrated” operation by Moscow, which he said was weaponizing immigration. Latvia’s Defense Minister, Andris Spruds, took it a step further, accusing President Vladimir Putin of acting as the “puppet master” behind it all.

The reasons why Moscow is doing this are clear. Amid soaring tensions with the West over Ukraine, it is delivering on its threat of retaliation against Finland for joining NATO, while Estonia is in the firing line for its staunch support of Kyiv. This looming instability on the EU’s eastern frontier will likely be felt in capitals across the continent, as well as in the European Parliament.

Russia’s strategy is to both overwhelm and destabilize its “unfriendly” neighbors. Pushing refugees and other vulnerable people to their borders heaps pressure on Finland and Estonia’s border forces, immigration systems and social services, straining their resources. Importantly, it could inflame social tensions. In Finland, where surging nativist sentiment has turned far-right politicians into power players in government, an influx of undocumented people from the Middle East and Africa could deepen polarization and political division — something Moscow would be eager to exploit.

This is not the first time Russia has resorted to such a harmful and unethical tactic. In 2016, Finnish officials accused Russian authorities of transporting 1,000 people to a border crossing in the Arctic, even providing hotel accommodation along the way. The event was widely considered Russia’s first, and most successful, hybrid attack of this kind on an EU member state to date — though Finnish politicians balked at calling it that at the time. Of course, despite its denials, Moscow is entirely to blame for this crisis. As it is impossible to enter Russia’s border zone without permission from the authorities, it is clearly no accident that hundreds of people have arrived at Finland’s doorstep on brand-new bicycles.

Such tactics speak volumes about how Russia’s leadership views people who already face discrimination and racist violence inside the country. Indeed, it shows their callous disregard for human life and well-being in general and readiness to treat people as pawns in a geopolitical game, though the bloodshed in Ukraine already made this clear.

Many people are duped into coming by smugglers promising quick and easy entry into the EU. Others are blinded by desperation, or simply unaware of what they are getting themselves into.

In what has been called “Europe’s forgotten migration crisis,” Belarus has been pushing people into Poland and Lithuania since 2020. Lithuanian authorities claim that Minsk sends people during the harsh winter months barefoot or without jackets to ramp up the pressure. Several have lost limbs to frostbite or died trying to cross into the EU.

And these are just the cases we know about. NGOs in Lithuania warn the cold, swampy border area is littered with the bodies of missing migrants. Their loved ones back home may never know what happened to them. There is now a risk these tragedies will be repeated.

More at https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/28/dont-forget-the-people-russi
a-weaponizes-in-finland-border-crisis-a83243

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

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

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 9:33 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


More bullshit from SECOND.

You too, SECOND. YOU should be asking yourself "How did I get it so WRONG???"



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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Wednesday, November 29, 2023 6:54 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More bullshit from SECOND.

You too, SECOND. YOU should be asking yourself "How did I get it so WRONG???"

More bullshit from Putin:

Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated a two-part conception of Russian identity in a speech on November 28: a “Russian nation” – claimed to include Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians – at the center of Russian identity; and a wider “Russian world” including other non-East Slavic ethnicities in both modern Russia and the former territory of the Soviet Union and Russian Empire.

Putin made a lengthy speech on Russian identity at the World Russian People’s Council on November 28. Putin reiterated his previous false claims that the “Russian nation” and people are composed of ethnic Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians who were artificially and violently divided via policy miscalculations during and after the fall of the Soviet Union, arguing Russia (the state) should unify this “Russian nation.”[1] Three versions of the same speech
1) Full strength Russian http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/72863
2) Official translation http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/72863
3) Google's translation https://kremlin-ru.translate.goog/events/president/news/72863?_x_tr_sc
h=http&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true

Putin defined the concept of the Russkiy Mir as a union of people who feel a spiritual connection to the “Motherland,” consider themselves to be native Russian speakers, and are carriers of Russian history and culture regardless of their national or religious affiliation. Putin, however, pointed out that there cannot be Russia (as a state) or the Russkiy Mir without ethnic Russians and implied that current Russian citizens and “all other peoples who have lived and are living in [Russia]” make up Russia.

Putin geographically defined the Russkiy Mir as the Ancient Rus’ (Kyivan Rus), the Kingdom of Muscovy, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the contemporary Russian Federation, indicating that the Kremlin’s concept likely also includes “Russian compatriots” in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Putin also expanded his definition of “Western Russophobia” to include claimed aggression against other ethnicities such as Tatars, Chechens, Yakuts, and Buryats, in addition to ethnic Russians. Putin also called on Russian federal subjects to strengthen and protect Russia’s cultural and religious diversity. Putin previously outlined similar definitions of “ethnically Russian people” in his “Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” essay in July 2021.[2] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

Putin’s November 28 speech draws a clear distinction between Putin’s vision of the Russian nation as a “triune people” composed of Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians, while other regional identities in Russia make up Russia as a country and shared “Russian world.”

Putin’s articulation of a Russian nation (including Ukrainians and dominated by Moscow) reiterates longstanding Kremlin justifications for its invasion of Ukraine and aggression toward its neighbors, and Putin’s claim that “western Russophobia” affects all the ethnicities in the Russian state is likely intended to rally support among Russian citizens who are not ethnically Russian for Putin’s war.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-28-2023

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

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

Wednesday, November 29, 2023 12:59 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Say, aren't you the one that constantly misrepresents (i.e. lies about) what others say?

Didn't your repost an article huffing and puffing about Russians "invading three American states" when it was clear THEY WERE JOKING?

Aren't you the one who keeps claiming that Putin "threatens" us with nukes when he's only repeating standard policy of DEFENSIVE use?

I'm sure if I read this speech this will be another one of your reposted lies.

Your credibility was lost a long time ago bc of your habit of reliably posting lies. You might want to post the truth once in a while and at least keep us guessing!


BTW, you are filled with hate, greed, arrogance, violence, cowardice, and lies.
I dunno, SECOND. What should we do with evil people, according to you?


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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Wednesday, November 29, 2023 10:21 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


According to Dima (Military Summary Channel) the Ukrainian defenses are collapsing in Kherson (at Krynky), Zaparozhiy (Rabotyno), Donetsk (near Bakhmut and Avdiivka) and in the north (near Kupiansk).

Russia may uncork some big arrow offenses this winter where Ukrainian military is especially weak, and Ukraine may not even get a chance at the mass mobilization that they were planning.

Meanwhile, Zelenskiy and Zaluzhny are fighting each other for political survival, and somebody poisoned Budanov's wife.

And that's not counting Zaluzhny:schief of staff who was killed by a live grenade birthday giftand the generals who're getting sacked.


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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Thursday, November 30, 2023 3:09 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Say, aren't you the one that constantly misrepresents (i.e. lies about) what others say?

Didn't your repost an article huffing and puffing about Russians "invading three American states" when it was clear THEY WERE JOKING?

Aren't you the one who keeps claiming that Putin "threatens" us with nukes when he's only repeating standard policy of DEFENSIVE use?

I'm sure if I read this speech this will be another one of your reposted lies.

Your credibility was lost a long time ago bc of your habit of reliably posting lies. You might want to post the truth once in a while and at least keep us guessing!


BTW, you are filled with hate, greed, arrogance, violence, cowardice, and lies.
I dunno, SECOND. What should we do with evil people, according to you?



Well, I read the speech and, as usual, SECOND posts a lotta crap.

It was
Quote:
the plenary session of the World Russian People’s Council.
which is why the focus was on Russian identity.
Notable parts of the speech

Quote:
... they [the western globalists] say that Russia is a “prison of nations” and that Russians are a “nation of slaves.” We have heard this many times throughout the centuries. Now we have also heard that Russia apparently needs to be “decolonised.” But what do they really want? They want to dismember and plunder Russia. If they cannot do it by force, they sow discord.


"They" (globalists) do that here too. They sow discord and try to break national identity, including America's national identity.


Quote:
A free nation that understands its responsibility before current and future generations is the only source of power, sovereign power, which is called upon to serve all people, rather than someone’s private, corporate, class, or even foreign interests.

...

Justice means primarily decent living conditions, modern facilities for culture, healthcare and sports in all regions of the country. This means a qualified and well-paid job and high public prestige for workers, engineers, teachers, doctors, artists, cultural figures, entrepreneurs, every responsible specialist and master. Justice means equal, broad opportunities for study, for a start in life and self-fulfilment for youth.


There's a lot about sovereignty - something we would do well to promote- and much about supporting families and encouraging families to have children. Next year is the Year of the Family in Russia.

I don't know what SECOND is blathering on about. The speech and his post don't seem to have anything to do with each other.



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

Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM



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

Thursday, November 30, 2023 5:56 AM

SECOND

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


The NATO–Ukraine Council (NUC) met at the foreign minister-level for the first time on November 29 and discussed steps to increase weapons and ammunition production. NATO reported that it is developing a roadmap for full Ukrainian interoperability with NATO and reaffirmed its support for Ukraine’s democratic and security sector reforms “on its path toward future membership in NATO.”[27] Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that the NUC discussed increasing the production of weapons and ammunition and noted on the sidelines of the NUC that the European Union (EU) has provided Ukraine with 300,000 artillery shells of the promised 1 million.[28]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-29-2023


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

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

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE
THG 04.27 19:51

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
Sat, April 27, 2024 19:51 - 6307 posts
I'm surprised there's not an inflation thread yet
Sat, April 27, 2024 19:36 - 744 posts
Russian losses in Ukraine
Sat, April 27, 2024 19:28 - 1015 posts
Russian War Crimes In Ukraine
Sat, April 27, 2024 19:27 - 15 posts
"Feminism" really means more Femtacular than you at EVERYTHING.
Sat, April 27, 2024 19:25 - 66 posts
Cry Baby Trump
Sat, April 27, 2024 19:21 - 79 posts
Welcome Back
Sat, April 27, 2024 19:20 - 2 posts
Putin the boot in ass
Sat, April 27, 2024 18:53 - 85 posts
Another Putin Disaster
Sat, April 27, 2024 18:34 - 1513 posts
In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
Sat, April 27, 2024 18:28 - 3571 posts
Elections; 2024
Sat, April 27, 2024 18:10 - 2312 posts
Punishing Russia With Sanctions
Sat, April 27, 2024 18:09 - 505 posts
 VIEW MORE TOPICS 

FFF.NET SOCIAL