Real World Event Discussions

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again

POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Thursday, September 17, 2026 22:01
VIEWED: 571830
PAGE 109 of 112

THG

Saturday, July 25, 2026 1:37 AM (P)

I'm sure you agree, aye comrade?

T

When Crimea falls to Ukraine, Putin is going to have a huge problem | Ben Hodges

SIGNYM

Saturday, July 25, 2026 3:30 AM (P)

Got a timeline for that prediction, Ben?

Of course not!

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

SECOND

Saturday, July 25, 2026 4:10 AM (P)

How Cutting Off Crimea and Southern Ukraine Is Breaking Russia's Offensive Momentum

By Myroslav Liskovych, Kyiv | 24.07.2026 20:00

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/4147711-how-cutting-off-crimea-an
d-southern-ukraine-is-breaking-russias-offensive-momentum.html

How Cutting Off Crimea and Southern Ukraine Is Breaking Russia's Offensive Momentum

Destroyed Bridges, a Paralyzed Sea, Fuel Shortages, and Broken Supply Lines: At Last, It's Paying Off.

Analyzing the Situation on the Southern Front

The summer of 2026 on the southern theater of operations has been marked by the systematic attrition of Russian forces. In early June, Ukraine's Defense Forces launched a large-scale campaign officially dubbed "Logistics Lockdown." Rather than relying on costly frontal assaults against heavily fortified positions, the operation aims to methodically and surgically sever the Russian military's logistical lifelines—roads, bridges, railway junctions, and maritime supply routes across the Azov and Black seas.

By mid-July, the campaign had reached an unprecedented scale. During June alone, Ukrainian forces conducted precision strikes on 15 bridges—eight railway bridges and seven road bridges. The attacks spanned virtually the entire occupied south: from Ichky, Rozdolne, Vladyslavivka, and Voinka in Crimea to bridges over the Korsak River in Zaporizhzhia Oblast; from the Henichesk Strait and Chonhar crossings in Kherson Oblast to bridges over the Luhanchyk and Aidar rivers in the east. In July, additional targets included bridges in Donetsk Oblast near Huselnykove and Staromariivka, the railway bridge across the Syvash, and other critical infrastructure near Prymorsk.

Equally significant is the operation bearing the ironic—but devastating for the enemy—codename "MoLoCHKa" ("Moscow Will Fall Through Crimea"), launched on July 6. During its first 15 days alone, Ukrainian forces struck 183 vessels belonging to Russia's shadow fleet in the Azov and Black seas.

These efforts have been complemented by long-range strikes against Russian oil refineries, electronics manufacturing facilities, chemical plants, heavy weapons factories, ammunition depots, and other strategic military-industrial targets deep inside Russia. Taken together, they form a comprehensive campaign aimed at isolating and systematically degrading the enemy's ability to wage war.

How has this unprecedented blockade already reshaped the battlefield in southern Ukraine? Ukrinform examines the situation together with leading military experts.

THE DOMINO EFFECT: HOW ATTACKS ON LOGISTICS ARE PARALYZING THE FRONT

The campaign's most significant achievement on land has been the effective disruption of the M-14 highway—the principal logistical artery connecting Mariupol with the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts. For years, this route served as the backbone of Russian military logistics, sustaining occupation forces on the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson axes while also supplying occupied Crimea.

Its degraded transport capacity has triggered a cascade of tactical setbacks for Russian forces, undermining their ability to sustain offensive operations, rotate personnel, and reinforce frontline units.

According to military expert Dmytro Sniehyrov, the blockade has already translated into tangible territorial gains for Ukraine's Defense Forces. Ukrainian units launched a successful counteroffensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, pushing Russian troops back around Maliivka, Sichneve, Novoheorhiivka, and Zaporizke, and re-establishing fire control over more than 33 square kilometers of territory. In neighboring Kherson Oblast, Ukrainian forces continue to hold the commanding heights on the west bank of the Dnipro River, while any attempts by Russian troops to establish positions on the islands in the Dnipro Delta are swiftly neutralized by artillery and swarms of FPV drones.

Perhaps the clearest indicator of the success of the "Logistics Lockdown" campaign is the steady decl

THG

Saturday, July 25, 2026 5:06 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Got a timeline for that prediction, Ben?

Of course not!

-----------

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

The plan isn’t to storm the peninsula. It’s to make staying impossible. Even Russian officers now call Crimea a front-line region.

T

SECOND

Saturday, July 25, 2026 5:38 AM (P)

How volunteers with 3D printers make weapons for Ukraine

Jul 24, 2026

Last week, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy dismissed his tech-savvy defense minister. That sparked protests among supporters who credit him with helping transform Ukraine’s defense capabilities. Special correspondent Simon Ostrovsky and producer Katia Patin report on the technologies and policies that helped drive that transformation. A warning: this story includes graphic descriptions of war.

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

SECOND

Saturday, July 25, 2026 5:41 PM (P)

Russian tanks obliterated near Pankivka as new anti-drone system fails. The Russians’ new Arena-M systems shoots tiny projectiles at incoming enemy drones. But it didn’t save a Russian tank assault this week.

When the smoke and dust cleared, the Russians had lost at least 9 tanks.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/07/24/t-72b3a/

Without so-called "active defenses" that can shoot down incoming drones, "it is currently very easy to throw a tank battalion into [an] assault and lose it all without achieving anything," analyst Jakub Janovsky explained. The Arena-M is Russia's answer. It uses a Doppler radar to spot incoming rockets, missiles, and drones, and 12 launchers ringed around the turret fire tiny charges meant to shred the threat a few meters out.

Russian industry has been calling the Arena-M the first system in the world able to protect armor from FPV drones and loitering munitions. Israel's Rafael announced drone-interception upgrades to its Trophy system in January 2025.

What the shield actually did is contested, and the argument is worth following. One Russian armor specialist watching the video saw no reaction at all—countermeasures still sitting in their launchers, no attempt to engage. Observer Matt Drew, watching the same footage, read it the other way: a puff of smoke off the turret in the opening seconds, an explosion to the side, and several drone feeds that cut out before reaching the tank—which is what an interception looks like from the drone's camera. Only after the tanks were disabled and abandoned could the drones close in and linger, and it took bomber drones to finish the hulks. "Probably not the success the Russians were hoping for," Drew wrote, "but it definitely worked for a while."

A while is the problem. Twelve charges is a finite number and Ukrainian drone crews do not attack in twelves. A shield that intercepts the first drones and runs dry against the tenth turns a tank into a slower target, not a surviving one. And the latest push toward Kramatorsk failed.

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

SECOND

Saturday, July 25, 2026 5:50 PM (P)

Ukraine currently holds strategic initiative in war, says Austrian expert

25.07.2026 13:10

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/4147859-ukraine-currently-holds-s
trategic-initiative-in-war-says-austrian-expert.html

Following a harsh winter, Ukraine has gained the strategic initiative in the war, successfully thwarting a large-scale Russian summer offensive and inflicting significant damage on Russia through operational and strategic strikes.

This view was expressed in an interview with Ukrinform by Colonel of the Austrian Armed Forces, Head of the Institute for Basic Officer Training at the Theresian Military Academy, Markus Reisner. https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/4147697-markus-rajsner-avstrijskij
-vijskovij-ekspert.html

“In my opinion, Ukraine currently holds the strategic initiative. It emerged from a very difficult winter and was able to carry out preparatory measures in the spring to prevent the Russian summer offensive from unfolding,” Reisner noted.

According to him, Ukraine has so effectively thwarted the expected Russian summer offensive that Russian troops have been unable to make a large-scale advance. “Yes, they are carrying out isolated operations at the tactical level, but not in the form they had anticipated,” the expert noted.

Reisner also highlighted the effectiveness of Ukrainian strikes against Russian targets. “In my opinion, we are also seeing for the first time that Putin can no longer deny it: Ukrainian strikes at the operational and, above all, strategic levels are inflicting enormous damage,” he emphasized.

According to the Austrian military expert, the effectiveness of the parties’ actions in the war should be assessed on the basis of concrete results.

“If Putin convenes a crisis meeting and claims there are problems with fuel supplies, that is a measurable result. It demonstrates the success of Ukrainian forces at the operational-strategic level,” Reisner emphasized.

He characterizes the current period as the tenth phase of the war, the start of which in May was marked by massive Ukrainian strikes using drones and cruise missiles against Russia’s energy infrastructure.

“The front line has stalled. Although the Russians are attacking, they cannot make any real progress. The Ukrainians are defending themselves, but they also cannot recapture territory on any significant scale,” the expert noted.

According to Reisner’s assessment, a new phase of the war could be triggered either by further escalation on Russia’s part or by a significant impact from Ukrainian strikes.

“On the other hand, a new phase could also be initiated by Ukraine—for example, if its strikes at the strategic or operational level have such a tangible effect that they force Russia to the negotiating table to discuss a ceasefire. That, too, could usher in a new phase,” he emphasized.

As reported by Ukrinform, Christopher Coates, former Deputy Commander of NORAD and Commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command, believes that in the war with Russia, Ukraine has managed to gain a technical advantage and seize the initiative.

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

SECOND

Saturday, July 25, 2026 7:03 PM (P)

Markus Reisner, Austrian military expert

Ukraine now has the strategic initiative in the war

Google translation from Ukrainian | 07/25/2026 09:00

https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/4147697-markus-rajsner-avstrijskij
-vijskovij-ekspert.html

Russia's war against Ukraine, according to Austrian military expert Markus Reisner, has entered its tenth phase and, to use his boxing metaphor, the tenth round of a grueling duel. The larger and formally stronger Russian opponent is trying to "clinch" Ukraine, impose a traditional war of attrition on it, and use its advantage in resources. Ukraine succeeds when it keeps its distance, acts unconventionally, and strikes where the enemy does not expect them.

For now, according to Reisner, the strategic initiative belongs to Ukraine. It managed to survive a difficult winter and thwart the deployment of a large-scale Russian summer offensive, while simultaneously intensifying attacks on Russian logistics, energy infrastructure and strategic depth. At the same time, missile defense remains its main vulnerability, and the coming months before winter could be decisive.

In an interview with Ukrinform, the head of the Theresienstadt Military Academy's Officer Training Institute, Colonel of the Austrian Armed Forces Markus Reisner, commented on the current phase of the war and the struggle for strategic initiative, the role of drones and long-range strikes, the prospects of the Russian offensive, and the conditions under which Moscow may be forced to agree to a ceasefire.

WE ARE IN THE TENTH PHASE OF THIS WAR

- Colonel, you analyze the Russian war against Ukraine through the prism of successive phases. In your opinion, which phase are we in now and what is its defining feature?

For the first time, we saw very specific threats from Russia against Europe.

- In my opinion, we are now in the 10th phase of this war. Its beginning was marked primarily by massive and powerful Ukrainian drone and cruise missile strikes on Russia's energy infrastructure. It began in May of this year and continues to this day, in the summer.

This is also the phase in which we first saw very specific Russian threats to Europe – Russia is threatening European companies involved in the Ukrainian long-range drone program. Furthermore, right now – back in May – we saw the US attempt to mediate to achieve some kind of ceasefire. However, this attempt has not yet been successful.

The front itself is frozen. The Russians, although attacking, cannot really advance. The Ukrainians are defending, but also cannot retake territory on any significant scale.

Further escalation is taking place at the operational-strategic level. The air war is increasingly moving the conflict to the strategic level, while Ukraine is attempting to attack Russian frontline logistics at the operational level.

In this phase, we again saw very specific Russian threats. For example, the test of the Sarmat nuclear missile on May 12, large-scale nuclear exercises, and the third use of the Oreshnik medium-range missile – also in May – as a message to Europe.

It is also interesting how actively the so-called Tech-Bros – the heads of leading American technology companies – support Ukraine. Palantir plays an important role thanks to the MAVEN and PRISMA systems. MAVEN helps Ukraine, using target data, to launch pinpoint strikes on Russia, and PRISMA allows for the most effective use of limited air defense capabilities. To this we can add Elon Musk with Starlink.

For this phase, in my opinion, it is also indicative that on July 5, Peskov publicly called the "special operation" a war for the first time. In the well-known Russian gradation of escalation levels, this is, in my opinion, another step - from a local war towards a so-called regional war.

The final culmination, if I may say so, was the dismissal of the Ukrainian Minister of Defense . In my opinion, he was one of the main drivers of innovative ideas and their implementation at the operational-strategic level, in particular rega

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 26, 2026 1:00 AM (P)

Thanks for posting the latest propaganda, SECOND.

I know that Russia is succeeding militarily because the west is now going "all in" (as much as it dares) attacking Russian civilian targets.

Seems like we've given up on the front line and are shifting to terror attacks i.e. using violence to attempt swinging Russia's upcoming vote. A typical CIA approach.

-----------

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

SECOND

Sunday, July 26, 2026 2:49 AM (P)

What’s behind Maga influencer Laura Loomer’s about-face on Ukraine?

After a Kyiv visit, rightwing firebrand now supports Ukraine – but perhaps it’s just because Trump favors a winner

By James Risen | Sat 25 Jul 2026

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/25/laura-loomers-ukraine-
visit

Laura Loomer, the online Maga provocateur, has never worked in the White House or anywhere else in the government, but her sudden conversion to the Ukrainian cause this week is significant because her social media posts often have real policy implications in the second Trump administration.

The rightwing commentator has spent the last few days in Kyiv, where she announced a newfound sympathy for Ukraine in its long war with Russia, and admitted that she had previously fallen for Russian propaganda.

Loomer – who has previously echoed Kremlin talking points to her 2 million followers on social media – has enjoyed direct access to Trump since the 2024 presidential campaign. During the early months after Trump returned to office, Loomer used her online presence to push for ideological purges of government personnel, including many in the national security arena.

For a time, her power to break careers among foreign policy officials made her seem as if she were Trump’s de facto national security adviser.

It is unclear whether she still has that kind of pull inside the White House, but Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, certainly took her seriously when she arrived this week, holding a private meeting with her on Thursday.

Three days earlier, Loomer posted about experiencing her first air raid, as Russian missiles pounded the Ukrainian capital

“This is everyday for every Ukrainian,” she posting, adding she felt that she had been “an asshole for minimizing the struggle of Ukrainians for the last 5 years”.

“I often said I don’t care. Looking back, that wasn’t very nice of me to say. There are people in Ukraine who have to run to a bomb shelter everyday and some of us had the audacity to say Russia wasn’t wrong because we believed the lie that Ukraine is a country full of Nazi sympathizers. We have been so propagandized by Russia and we don’t even realize it.”

Before their meeting on Thursday, Zelenskyy’s office posted a statement saying: “It is really important that @LauraLoomer is in Ukraine and sees things with her own eyes as they are.”

Loomer’s change of heart is potentially important not only because she is close to Trump, but also because she has long served as a reliable barometer of Maga attitudes.

Loomer has long been disdainful of Ukraine, adopting what could only be described as a pro-Russian perspective. Many in Maga circles have for years held positive views of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, thanks to Russian propaganda that portrayed him as a bulwark against homosexuality and a defender of fundamentalist Christianity. They became convinced that the Russia-Ukraine war was a proxy fight between Russia’s fundamentalist Christianity and the EU’s western secularism.

Loomer’s shift comes at a critical moment for Ukraine, which recently lost one of its strongest supporters in Washington with the death this month of Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who had consistently pushed for increased sanctions on Russia to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

But Loomer’s change also coincides with what appears to be an important recent shift in Trump’s own views on Ukraine.

Trump returned to office openly hating Ukraine, at least in part because of the 2019 impeachment over his attempt to hold up aid to Ukraine in exchange for dirt on Joe Biden. Early in his second term, Trump humiliated Zelenskyy in an Oval Office meeting, cut off direct the supply of US weapons and forced Ukraine’s European allies to buy American weapons for Kyiv instead.

But Trump likes winners, and even without full support from Washington, Ukraine has been able to slow Russia’s advance. Kyiv has become a global leader in drone technology, and it has taken the war to Russia it

SECOND

Sunday, July 26, 2026 2:50 AM (P)

Laura Loomer

A sudden and mysterious shift on Ukraine.

By Jim Newell | July 25, 2026

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/07/donald-trump-iran-news-sen
ate-maine-south-carolina.html

The conspiratorial MAGA influencer (and thus close confidante of Trump) has changed. Like most of her ilk, she was exceptionally critical of Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky for years during the war, saying the country was full of “Nazi apologists” and calling Zelensky a “jihadi apologist.” This week, however, she visited Ukraine, interviewed Zelensky, and changed her tune on the conflict. She is now staunchly pro-Ukraine and observed, “I feel like such an asshole for minimizing the struggle of Ukrainians for the last 5 years,” explaining, “We have been so propagandized by Russia and we don’t even realize it.” (A lot of people realized that the right-wing influencers had been propagandized by Russia.)

This is all well and good. Hopefully it makes some difference in right-wing politics and, more importantly, Trump’s view of the conflict. But—now it’s our turn to play conspiracy theorist—it’s also terribly difficult to take her conversion at face value. How does someone who’s built her substantial MAGA following and income in part by checking the “Hate Ukraine” box suddenly get on a trip to Kyiv to interview all of its powerful people and announce that she had been wrong all along? We’re talking about a complete 180. Loomer, for what it’s worth, has denied that she was paid by the Ukrainian government for the trip.

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

SECOND

Sunday, July 26, 2026 3:27 AM (P)

Ukraine veteran drives protests that topple army chief and defend Fedorov

Author: Alex Stezhensky | July 25, 2026, 07:14 AM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/dmytro-koziatynskyi-on-ukraine-s-cardboar
d-maidan-protests-and-military-reform-50627186.html

In an interview with NV, Ukrainian IT specialist and veteran Dmytro Koziatynskyi explains what drove him to call Ukrainians into the streets this year and last, and how civilians who joined the military in 2022 are changing its Soviet-era ways.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a change in the leadership of Ukraine’s Armed Forces on July 21. Mykhailo Drapatyi replaced Oleksandr Syrskyi as commander in chief.

The replacement came amid protests across Ukraine, including outside the presidential office in Kyiv. A rally in the square near the Ivan Franko Theater began after Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov was dismissed. Protesters later added another demand — Syrskyi’s removal.

At his “farewell” news conference, Fedorov said disagreements with the then-commander in chief were one reason he had been pushed out. He cited other reasons as well, including his efforts to combat corruption at the Defense Ministry.

Koziatynskyi emerged as a key figure in the protests that led to the replacement of the top military commander of a country at war. He initially used social media to call Ukrainians to the Franko Theater for a rally in support of Fedorov. After Drapatyi was appointed, Koziatynskyi warned that unless Fedorov returned as defense minister, the protest would become an indefinite demonstration starting July 24.

Koziatynskyi played a similar role last year. When the authorities tried to strip key powers from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, or NABU, and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, or SAPO, he was the first to call people into the streets.

Koziatynskyi spoke to NV about his acute sense of justice, his IT education, his military service, Ukraine’s commanders in chief and Soviet-era practices in the military.

NV has edited the interview into a monologue.

The protests

My birthday is July 21, and for the second year in a row, I have celebrated it at a protest.

Maybe it comes down to my acute sense of justice. When I see something outrageous, I cannot keep quiet. That is why I called on people to take to the streets both this year and last.

When I posted a call for a protest in 2025, I did not expect so many people to come. I thought it would just be my social media bubble. But I was shocked when I saw how many protesters were heading to Franko Square carrying cardboard signs.

The public gave NABU and SAPO an enormous vote of confidence then, and in my view, they earned it. We have all heard about Operation Midas. It was one of the defining events of 2025.

The law designed to destroy NABU and SAPO was clearly intended to let the people behind the Dynasty cooperative and former presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak keep “running their schemes.” I hope we never see Yermak in Ukrainian politics again and that he is held accountable for the actions he is suspected of.

Ukraine has a great many active, committed people. I had feared that all the activists were serving in the military or had been mobilized, leaving no one on the home front to bring about change. But that turned out not to be true. I saw that it was possible to win public support and that people would take to the streets for the right causes.

I truly felt that our civil society was mature enough to engage in democratic dialogue with the authorities. Our protest was peaceful. Society established that dialogue without rioting or calls to overthrow the government. Everyone understands perfectly well that wartime is no time to demand a change in the country’s political leadership.

The very fact that protests are possible during wartime shows how strong our democracy is.

Last year, I spoke with the security services. That is their job. None of them knew who I was, and they were genuinely trying to determine whether I

SECOND

Sunday, July 26, 2026 4:30 PM (P)

Weekend Update #195

Phillips P. OBrien
Jul 26, 2026

This week the Ukrainian long-range attacks on Russian Wildberries warehouses and infrastructure (think a Russian version of Amazon) very much continued apace. https://meduza.io/feature/2026/07/24/nedelyu-nazad-vsu-nachali-bit-po-
skladam-wildberries-vspominaem-chto-proizoshlo-s-teh-por

This campaign causes some mixed emotions in me. If it distracts from the oil campaign, that is definitely not what I would say is an efficient use of Ukrainian resources. It seems that there have been only 5 strikes on refineries since the Wildberries campaign started. With oil prices back on the rise, I personally believe that efforts against the refineries remain top priority.

As for the benefits of the Wildberries campaign—I can see the argument that they will possess dual use components (though what percentage of their possessions are dual use is unknown and I would imagine small). I also understand the idea that it will disperse Russian air defense. So it can have some strategic advantages.

However, my guess is that this is really aimed at Putin’s political standing. It’s a way of undermining the basic “deal” of his regime with the Russian people—I will provide you goodies if you give me power. That bargain looks dicey if all your goodies are blowing up.

Such campaigns often do not work as expected, so this might be hopeful. Certainly, if it means that striking these warehouses distracts from the campaign against refineries, I find that an odd choice. However, it could be that the Ukrainians believe that Putin’s political standing is in trouble and this is a way to seriously undermine it.

More at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-195-the-worst-we
ek

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

SECOND

Monday, July 27, 2026 4:24 PM (P)

Nuclear Autumn

By Richard Lourie
Richard Lourie is the author of Sakharov: A Biography

July 26, 2026, 3:15 pm

https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/80918

Putin is under pressure from the vocal militarist right and the still silent majority now suffering from gas shortages, internet blockages, and airport closures. He will face an autumn of crisis if he does not deliver some major breakthrough by the end of summer. Jingoist bloggers and retired army colonels are already calling quite unselfconsciously for the use of tactical nuclear weapons to put a quick, victorious end to the war.

This may be little more than nuclear saber rattling, but Putin knows such a victory would win him the place in Russia’s history that he believes should be his – the Restorer of Empire – and he is also well aware that Harry Truman has not gone down as a figure reviled for Hiroshima.

If Putin used a tactical nuclear weapon, how would he go about it, and how would the West react? The questions are as obvious as their answers are opaque. Putin could select a city and then à la Israel give the residents sufficient time to flee. Very few people would be killed or injured and, intent having been demonstrated, the extortion could begin.

The city could also be chosen for its historic significance like Poltava (assuming the area in Russian possession) where Peter the Great defeated King Charles XII of Sweden which made Russia a European power for the first time and one to be feared.

But more likely the place would be chosen for other, more practical reasons: location, relative safety.

What would NATO and the US do militarily? Nothing. Trump has said he doesn’t care about Ukraine and has proved it with actions, while the Europeans are still insufficiently united and prepared to engage in hostilities with Russia.

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

SECOND

Monday, July 27, 2026 11:02 PM (P)

Putin is back with another unhinged history lesson: “Ukraine will lose western territories”

By Jens Asbjørn Bøgen | July 27, 2026

https://www.dagens.com/war/putins-back-with-another-unhinged-history-l
esson-ukraine-will-lose-western-territories

According to the Russian leader, the only guarantor for Ukraine’s territorial integrity is Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Russian Navy personnel on Sunday with a series of sweeping claims about the future of Eastern Europe.

Speaking to sailors, he insisted that Ukraine would eventually see its borders shrink dramatically.

“I am confident that sooner or later Ukraine will lose these western territories, lands that once belonged to Poland, Hungary and Romania. It may not happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. It may take one year, two years, 10 years or 15 years, but history will ultimately put everything back in its place,” Putin said, according to Russian state news agency TASS and Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda.

The Russian leader offered no concrete evidence to back up his claims. Instead, he presented a skewed version of regional history to justify the ongoing war.

He also claimed that Moscow had once been the sole defender of Ukrainian sovereignty. “There was only one guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It was Russia. But they decided it was necessary, possible and beneficial for them to declare Russia their enemy,” Putin said.

It should be noted that according to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the United States and the UK all pledged to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence.

What is he talking about?

From the 14th century through the 18th century, large parts of central and western Ukraine were ruled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Some western Ukrainian regions were part of the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian empires until the end of World War I in 1918.

Between the two world wars, parts of western Ukraine were integrated into Romania and Czechoslovakia.

During the 18th century, much of central, eastern and southern Ukraine was absorbed by the Russian Empire, and later became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic under the Soviet Union.

Ukraine’s current internationally recognized borders were established when the country gained independence in 1991.

Spiders in a jar

Throughout his address, the Russian leader attempted to portray Ukrainian officials as deeply divided and corrupt. He alleged that political figures in Kyiv were busy squandering international assistance while fighting amongst themselves behind closed doors.

He claimed Ukrainian leaders have “clashed and fallen out with each other like spiders in a jar, dividing up the money they have stolen from the Ukrainian people or are stealing from their Western sponsors.”

The Russian president further asserted that the conflict would ultimately end with a complete Russian victory. He repeated familiar Kremlin talking points, insisting that Moscow did not launch an unprovoked invasion but was forced to act by Western powers.

While Kyiv and its international allies view the invasion as an illegal war of aggression, Putin framed the campaign as an effort to restore historical balance. The speech marks yet another attempt by the Kremlin to undermine Ukraine’s legitimacy on the world stage.

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

SECOND

Monday, July 27, 2026 11:21 PM (P)

Jul 25, 2026

Calming & Motivational Video: 8 hours of uninterrupted 4K Ultra HD footage featuring the Wildberries warehouse fires. The music soothes your mind, while the visuals inspire.

We are confident this unique meditation will help you quiet negative thoughts and tune into a positive vibe. Let go of your worries and enjoy the hypnotic silhouettes of smoke rising into the sky.

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

THG

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 6:23 AM (P)

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

THGR, if the F-35 is so awesome, why does it need an upgrade?

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

Wow, Ok. Think computer and then see if you can understand that upgrades are newer more advanced technology. The jet was designed to do this. It continually improves.

T

And another thing I think you've missed comrade. The Russians are focusing on taking ground, be it a little at a time. The Ukrainians are not trying to take land; they are focused on killing a thousand Russians a day. Get it?

T

F35's are a great plane. Russias' top plane, the SU-57, not so much.

T

What does ANOTHER SU-57 CRASH mean for RUSSIA?

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 8:21 AM (P)

Russia is fine. Ukraine is toast. Child rapist Zelensky is a dead man walking.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 12:48 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THGR, if the F-35 is so awesome, why does it need an upgrade?

THGR:
Wow, Ok. Think computer and then see if you can understand that upgrades are newer more advanced technology. The jet was designed to do this. It continually improves.

I notice you left out my reply.

Quote:
THGR:
And another thing I think you've missed comrade. The Russians are focusing on taking ground, be it a little at a time. The Ukrainians are not trying to take land; they are focused on killing a thousand Russians a day. Get it?

You left out my reply to that, too.

Quote:
THGR:
F35's are a great plane. Russias' top plane, the SU-57, not so much. ,

It's not even sure that it was an Su-57.

-----------

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

SECOND

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 5:00 PM (P)

Putin is preparing for three more years of war, The Moscow Times reports

By Daryna Vialko | Mon, July 27, 2026 - 22:57

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/putin-is-preparing-for-three-more-year
s-of-1785182071.html

On July 27, Russia declared its military budget a top priority again amidst a traditional shortfall of funds, The Moscow Times reports. https://ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/07/27/putin-poruchil-gotovit-byudzh
et-kprodolzheniyu-voini-2-a201942

Putin prepares a "war budget"

Military spending will remain the top priority as Russia drafts its budget for the next three years, Putin said.

The Russian leader also accused the West of fueling a "Russophobic campaign" and setting "world records" in imposing sanctions. He claimed that no one would ever succeed in "breaking the Russian people."

Putin added that Russia's state institutions are ready to defend the country and, together with society, are capable of delivering a "decisive response to any hostile actions."

Alongside "strengthening the country's defense" as the main budget priority for 2027–2029, the Kremlin leader also promised to finally address key social priorities.

Funds are running short

According to the outlet, Russia's 2026 budget originally allocated 12.9 trillion rubles for "national defense."

In reality, however, military spending is expected to exceed that amount by 4–5 trillion rubles.

According to Bloomberg estimates, to cover all war-related expenses, Russia's Finance Ministry is preparing cuts to civilian spending to fund the war and planning to raise an additional 2–3 trillion rubles through borrowing.

Actual federal spending on the war against Ukraine reached 5.9 trillion rubles in the first quarter alone, according to Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Compared with the same period last year, spending on the military and weapons production increased by 29.9%. Compared with the first quarter of 2024, it rose by 68.7%; compared with 2023, by 129%; and compared with the first quarter of 2022, it has increased 4.6-fold.

According to the report, the war against Ukraine has already cost Russian taxpayers 53.079 trillion rubles, or approximately $746.6 billion.

The outlet notes that this amount is equivalent to 28 years of Russia's current healthcare spending or 30 years of education spending.

Social programs remain unfunded

The growing emphasis on defense and security has forced the Russian government to take a "selective approach" to financing other sectors, said Emil Ablaev, a leading analyst at the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting.

According to Ablaev, last year, budget revenues fell 3 trillion rubles short of targets, and the crisis has deepened this year.

Russia's Finance Ministry raised VAT to 22%, but the budget deficit had already reached nearly 6 trillion rubles by the end of the first half of the year.

By the end of the year, the gap in Russia's federal budget could widen to as much as 7 trillion rubles, the expert says.

Earlier, Putin signed another decree expanding the size of Russia's armed forces. The Russian Armed Forces will increase by 27,000 personnel starting August 1.

Russian officials have also claimed there is no need to announce a new mobilization because the country has enough "volunteers" to continue the war against Ukraine.

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

SECOND

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 5:09 PM (P)

The Putinization of the American Military

When poseurs and yes-men run a war

By Paul Krugman
Jul 28, 2026

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-putinization-of-the-american

Donald Trump’s Iran debacle is by no means the first war the United States has lost in modern times. In Vietnam and in Afghanistan, America was similarly defeated by enemies that were nominally less advanced yet implacable. The humiliating images of the last helicopter taking off from Saigon, and the chaos of the mad scramble to board the last plane departing in Kabul, are reminders of the folly of forever wars that are bound to lose the support of the American people.

But the loss to Iran is different: it is the closest we have come to outright military defeat. U.S. forces pulled out of Saigon and Kabul, not because they had been beaten in battle, but because the domestic political cost of propping up client regimes became too great.

Granted, U.S. forces haven’t suffered any conventional defeats at Iranian hands either.

But all indications are that the main reason the Trump administration is again calling off major operations against Iran is that America is running critically short of ammunition.

So Trump isn’t backing down because his war of choice is extremely unpopular, although it is. Nor is he backing down because the economic costs of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are too great, or because the fiscal cost of the war is skyrocketing, while the country faces enormous deficits and rising long-term interest rates. Trump says he doesn’t care about any of that. And in a way I believe him — because even a fully reopened Strait won’t recoup his standing with voters fast enough to salvage the midterm elections for Republicans.

No, most reports, like this one from the Wall Street Journal, say that Trump is backing down because military professionals have finally managed to convince him that U.S. stocks of advanced munitions are so severely depleted that the current rate of use will soon leave America critically weakened. Moreover, replenishing those stocks will take years once the shooting ceases.

For example, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the US has expended more than half of the Patriot missiles it had before the war, and that it will take until 2029 to replace them:

The administration’s response to such reports, exemplified by recent remarks by Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the United Nations, is that

· Munitions aren’t depleted

· Anyone leaking the fact that they are depleted should go to jail

· It’s Joe Biden’s fault

Given the nature of Trump-speak, Waltz’s statement is in effect an admission that the U.S. military is now in deep trouble.

How could this happen? How could the best-equipped, most sophisticated military in the world have allowed itself to be humiliated by a third-rate power?

First of all, Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump began with an astonishingly stupid theory of war: the belief that performative masculinity is how you win. Hegseth literally believes that the secret of military might in an age of AI-enabled drones that can travel hundreds of miles is more testosterone.

Now, the idea that being manly and anti-woke makes an army strong was the reason that many on the American right admired Vladimir Putin before he invaded Ukraine. You might think that 1.4 million Russian casualties — 450,000 of them dead — and the spectacle of burning Russian oil refineries and factories would have disabused them of this notion. But no.

And the fixed belief that “lethality” is how you win surely led to basic inability to anticipate the blindingly obvious: that we have a limited supply of sophisticated weapons and that the Iranians w

SECOND

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 5:35 PM (P)

Putin is trying to shift responsibility for war away from himself

July 28, 2026 12:35

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/4148683-putin-trying-to-shift-res
ponsibility-for-war-away-from-himself-isw.html

Vladimir Putin is trying to militarize Russian society and to shift the responsibility for the war in Ukraine onto the Russian State Duma deputies and the Russian population.

That is according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Ukrinform reports.

Analysts drew attention to Putin's speech on Navy Day on July 26, in which he heavily emphasized the importance of Russia's national unity around the war effort in Ukraine. He claimed that Russia needs to "imbue the consciousness" of its civil society with the importance of the war and to preserve this sense of national unity even after the war ends.

Putin also said that Russian volunteers are eager to help the Russian military and "are worried that Russian forces will no longer need their help in peacetime." According to analysts, this is an attempt to portray the Russian population as willing to continue the war and bear the necessary sacrifices to achieve victory in Ukraine.

During a meeting with State Duma lawmakers on July 27, Putin spoke about the unity of the Russian authorities around the war effort. In particular, he highlighted the Duma's collective vote on laws concerning the "integration" of the occupied territories of Ukraine's Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

"Putin likely highlighted the role of Duma deputies and ordinary citizens in Russia's military effort in an effort to deflect personal responsibility for the continuing costly war and to portray them as fully supportive of Putin's decisions ahead of the Duma elections in September 2026," ISW analysts said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier that after the State Duma elections, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin plans to launch a mobilization campaign and expects to conscript between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

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

SECOND

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 6:41 PM (P)

How Ukrainian Paratroopers Spoiled A Russian Tank Offensive
The terrain helped

Jul 27, 2026

https://www.trenchart.us/p/how-ukrainian-paratroopers-spoiled

The Russian army’s 90th Tank Division and a pair of supporting combined arms armies spent months planning a powerful mechanized assault toward Kramatorsk, one of just two big free cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

It’s not for no reason that the attack apparently failed on July 22. A clutch of Ukrainian air assault brigades meticulously spoiled the attack in a complex operation beginning in April. Counterattacking through gaps in Russian defenses around the village of Komar, 60 miles southwest of Kramatorsk, the paratroopers pinned down half of the 90th Tank Division’s forces.

So when the division attacked in July, it attacked weakly. Ukrainian drones made quick work of the advancing T-72B3A tanks and other vehicles.

Mapper and analyst Clément Molin reverse-engineered the Ukrainian operation from the scant evidence that appeared online through a surprisingly thick veil of information security. Molin’s post is worth a close read at: https://x.com/clement_molin/status/2081776514949857694

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

THG

Wednesday, July 29, 2026 6:03 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
THGR, if the F-35 is so awesome, why does it need an upgrade?

THGR:
Wow, Ok. Think computer and then see if you can understand that upgrades are newer more advanced technology. The jet was designed to do this. It continually improves.

I notice you left out my reply.

Quote:
THGR:
And another thing I think you've missed comrade. The Russians are focusing on taking ground, be it a little at a time. The Ukrainians are not trying to take land; they are focused on killing a thousand Russians a day. Get it?

You left out my reply to that, too.

Quote:
THGR:
F35's are a great plane. Russias' top plane, the SU-57, not so much. ,

It's not even sure that it was an Su-57.

Here you go.

T

EXPOSED: Russian soldiers only live for 20 minutes on the frontline

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 29, 2026 10:29 AM (P)

OMG, do believe EVERY idiot on the internet??

That's better than “the refinery next to the Kremlin“!

-----------

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

SECOND

Wednesday, July 29, 2026 4:30 PM (P)

When righteous calls to end the war become warmongering

By Andrew Chakhoyan | July 28, 2026 7:10 PM

Andrew Chakhoyan is an academic director at the University of Amsterdam and a former U.S. government official at the Millennium Challenge Corporation. A Ukrainian-American, he studied at the Harvard Kennedy School and Donetsk State Technical University.

https://kyivindependent.com/when-righteous-calls-to-end-the-war-become
-warmongering/

Russia's war on Ukraine has yet to end because Russia keeps waging it.

It is shocking, though regrettably unsurprising, that in the fifth summer since the 2022 escalation by the aggressor, and 12 years since Russia first invaded Ukraine, pundits, scholars, and unscrupulous politicians still offer "solutions" to resolve a "conflict," pointing up and calling it down while ignoring basic facts and laundering the Kremlin's lies in plain sight.

To offer blood, sweat, and tears would be decidedly out of fashion and no way to make friends these days, so why not call for "diplomacy," always a safe choice? Is not talking better than killing?

This rhetorical misdirection invites agreement with a claim no one disputes while quietly smuggling in insidious manipulations.

Moscow plants false premises in seemingly innocuous language, and these enter public debate through either careless repetition or deliberate amplification. Russia's invasion becomes a "war in Ukraine." Moscow's neo-imperial bid for a sphere of influence, where neighbors are to be murdered until they give up sovereignty, becomes "security interests." Ukraine's refusal to be massacred morphs into an obstacle to peace. A few carefully chosen narrative threads can make Russian occupation, torture chambers, and mass graves sound humane, and self-defense appear reckless.

Two recent examples stand out.

A Russian oligarch, Andrey Melnichenko, whose ammonia plants feed the aggressor's military-industrial complex – a supply chain culminating with Russian missiles hitting Ukrainian homes – is presented to us by The Economist as an "industrialist." A calculated choice for everyone knows that an oligarch in today's Russia is a billionaire who is allowed to keep his fortune at Vladimir Putin's pleasure.

Melnichenko's guest essay is full of "fresh" ideas; The Economist bills it as an act of courage to speak up. But engage with the four scenarios he lays out: humiliation, Chinese vassalage, fragmentation, and permanent siege, and you will have tacitly legitimized the premise-setting fraud. To contest Melnichenko's asinine take on sovereignty comes at the cost of giving credence to the big lies on which the whole argument rests. https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2026/07/09/why-a-broken-russia
-is-bad-for-the-world

Moscow's war of choice, an attempt to recolonize Ukraine, is surreptitiously repainted as a struggle between "the West" and Russia. Neither Ukraine's suffering, as the only country spilling blood in defense of freedom, nor the agency of the Ukrainians, embodied in the valor of the bravest nation on Earth, resisting its destruction, gets a mention. In fact, both are dismissed in absentia.

The proxy-war sleight of hand is nearly invisible, yet it undergirds the Melnichenko "info op," with The Economist cast as a patsy.

The tired fabrication "Russia under siege" is deployed to justify the unjustifiable. In 1942, Joseph Goebbels addressed a crowd in Berlin beneath a giant banner that read, "Never forget that England forced the war on us." In an eerie echo of that logic, Putin, and now Melnichenko, blame Russia's war of choice on NATO.

Negotiations are among the instruments through which Moscow delays accountability, disguises aggression, and seeks to legitimize gains achieved through violence.

The second example comes from the pages of the FT, where Samuel Charap, an American scholar who studies Russia but appears to understand nothing

SECOND

Wednesday, July 29, 2026 4:32 PM (P)

24 hours under glide bombs in Dobropillia

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

SECOND

Wednesday, July 29, 2026 7:10 PM (P)

Russia's war is getting cheaper for Russia, which extends its ability to sustain that destruction for years.

2026 has been the most brutal year for Ukraine yet. Based on Ukrainian General Staff daily reports, long-range drone strikes against Ukraine are up 160% on last year. The use of tactical and operational drones—surveillance, reconnaissance and strike—is up a staggering 756%. First-person-view drone launches have risen 304% as Russia expands its "human safari" strikes on civilians. Guided glide bombs are up 214% as their range and destructive scale grow.

From a Ukrainian perspective, the attrition war is unsustainable. If the present trajectory holds, the country's future existence is in question.

Russia was losing the war it planned to fight—and potentially is winning the one it is fighting instead. Ukraine forced Russia to abandon maneuver warfare. Having chosen attrition, Russia is now forcing Ukraine to adapt in turn. That is why Ukraine is bringing the war to Russia and its population.

More about Russia beating Ukraine by Hans Petter Midttun | 29/07/2026 at

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/07/29/russia-and-ukraine-justify-thei
r-strikes-the-same-way-only-one-justification-holds-up/

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

SECOND

Thursday, July 30, 2026 2:44 AM (P)

U.S., French intelligence lets Ukraine map drone routes into Russia — report

Editor: Eric Malinovsky | July 29, 2026, 01:49 PM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/u-s-french-intel-helps-kyiv-plan-drone-st
rikes-ft-50628322.html

In recent months, Ukraine has refined its targeting of Russian infrastructure, favoring precise strikes on critical components that are hardest to replace, the Financial Times reported on July 29.

“Ukrainian military planners, drone operators and energy specialists say Kyiv’s goal is no longer simply to start fires at refineries or destroy storage tanks, but to keep plants offline for longer and make each strike more costly for Moscow,” the FT wrote.

According to the report, intelligence provided by the United States and France is instrumental in routing swarms of strike drones through gaps in Russian air defenses.

“Ukrainian officials said intelligence provided by the U.S. and France had helped map Russian air-defence deployments and identify routes that allowed drones to evade them and reach targets deep inside Russia,” the article said.

Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, said the campaign also depends on “systematically elimination” of Russian air defenses, radars and electronic-warfare systems to open corridors for drones. Once those corridors exist, he said, selecting targets becomes “a matter of pure mathematics,” weighing production volumes, domestic consumption, export flows, and shipping points.

Andrii Zahorodniuk, a former defense minister who now heads the Center for Defense Strategies, told the FT the European part of Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory are now within reach. “Eighty million people — roughly two-thirds of Russia’s population — live in the European part of the country, in a strike zone that is no longer considered and will not be considered a safe rear,” he said.

Zahorodniuk said U.S. and French intelligence also improved target selection by helping Ukrainian long-range drone units “learn where to strike.” Ukrainian planners have mapped Russia’s energy network to identify critical nodes whose destruction would disable far larger parts of the system, and to target equipment that would be hardest to replace.

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

SECOND

Thursday, July 30, 2026 3:59 AM (P)

With God as Putin's right-hand man, why has the war not already finished?

Lavrov says Putin’s rise was ‘divine intervention’

By Eric Malinovsky | July 29, 2026, 12:42 PM

https://english.nv.ua/nation/lavrov-says-putin-s-rise-was-divine-inter
vention-50628320.html

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the transfer of power from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin in 2000 was “evidence of extraordinary divine intervention,” calling it a historic turning point for Russia.

Lavrov made the remark in an interview with state propaganda agency TASS on July 29, saying that in the 1990s “everything was on the brink” because of “separatist sentiment.” He said Yeltsin “found the courage” to hand power over early and that he gave it to “the one person who at that moment alone could preserve Russia.”

“That is a historic turn; it means that Russia is, after all, marked by God. When it gets really difficult, we get help from above,” the minister stated.

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

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 30, 2026 2:55 PM (P)

10,830+ posts, and 97% are dreck.

-----------

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

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, July 30, 2026 3:01 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
10,830+ posts, and 97% are dreck.

-----------

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

Yeah...

I've always thought my "Fuck Ukraine" posts were the only ones that mattered in any of these Russia threads to nowhere.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SECOND

Thursday, July 30, 2026 3:47 PM (P)

President Zelensky needs to change the way he talks to Ukrainians

By Kateryna Denisova | July 29, 2026 9:33 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/president-zelensky-needs-to-change-the-way
-he-talks-to-ukrainians/

President Volodymyr Zelensky rarely misses a daily address. Nearly every evening, he sits behind the desk in his office, a wall of military chevrons behind him, and delivers a video monologue to the nation through his social media channels.

What he rarely offers, however, is a dialogue with the Ukrainian people and answers to the most pressing questions.

Zelensky has proved to be an effective communicator on the international stage, but domestic politics has long been his weak point. The president has consistently shied away from addressing politically costly yet urgent issues, including government reshuffles, corruption scandals, and difficult but necessary reforms.

On many sensitive issues, he leaves others to shoulder the responsibility.

Late last year, he shifted responsibility for addressing and dealing with the consequences of a major corruption scandal onto the newly appointed Prime Minister, Yuliia Svyrydenko. The scandal came to hunt Zelensky earlier this year when new revelations tied to his close allies became public.

Zelensky has yet to publicly address the allegations.

Mobilization, perhaps Zelensky's greatest political challenge, is another issue the president hasn't addressed. The president has commented on pay raises for soldiers, yet declined to talk about the politically contentious topic of military draft and rotation.

He has avoided taking a public stance on attacks against draft officers, and after the recent confrontation in Lviv, offered only a WhatsApp voice message to journalists, calling it "a very bad situation."

That reluctance to explain politically sensitive decisions is mirrored in Zelensky's approach to the press.

Don't get me wrong. Zelensky regularly gives interviews to foreign media, bloggers, and prominent public figures. But over the past five years, he has given too few interviews to Ukraine's independent media — I remember a couple to a public broadcaster and one to a radio station.

All this creates the impression of transparency and dialogue without actual substance. In a democracy, leaders are judged not by how often they speak, but by their willingness to answer uncomfortable questions. By that standard, President Zelensky has room for improvement.

From the first days of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukrainians accepted an unwritten bargain: domestic political disputes should wait until the war was over.

The President's Office, however, appears to have mistaken that wartime consensus for a blank check.

The result is a system in which major political decisions are announced rather than explained. Lawmakers, despite their constitutional role in proposing a candidate for the prime minister's job, learn of the president's choice for this role through social media.

Officials find out they have been appointed or dismissed from a Telegram post.

In a democracy, leaders are judged not by how often they speak, but by their willingness to answer uncomfortable questions.

Zelensky entered office in 2019, saying that he could communicate directly with Ukrainians, bypassing journalists. Although he engaged with the media, including through hours-long press conferences over burgers and coffee, uncomfortable questions about corruption or his close allies have always been met with irritation or dismissive jokes.

Many of those questions have come to haunt him during the full-time war.

Nothing exposed the consequences of unchecked power more clearly than last year's corruption investigation into Zelensky's inner circle. A few months before the corruption probe was made public by law enforcement, Zelensky had signed the law that effectively stripped Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies of their independence, only reversing course after nationwide protests and pressure from Western

SECOND

Thursday, July 30, 2026 6:16 PM (P)

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 29, 2026

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-july-29-2026/

Russia’s superior aviation capabilities are allowing Russia to use glide bomb strikes to enable infantry advances in and near Kostyantynivka. Russian forces are widely using glide bomb strikes against Kostyantynivka and other cities in Ukraine’s Fortress Belt in Donetsk Oblast to turn the cities into rubble, physically destroy Ukrainian strongpoints and ground control stations, and allow Russian infiltrators to enter and eventually seize and consolidate positions.[1] The commander of a Ukrainian drone unit reported that Russian guided glide bomb strikes against Kostyantynivka are the main form of Russian successes in the area and are imposing major challenges for Ukrainian forces.[2] Russian forces debuted the tactic of using glide bomb strikes at scale to destroy Ukrainian positions to enable ground force advances with the February 2024 seizure of Avdiivka and subsequently used such strikes to support offensives against other settlements, such as Vuhledar in October 2024, Kurakhove in December 2024, and Toretsk in August 2025.[3] Russian forces continue to rely on their aviation overmatch into 2026, even as Russian infantry tactics have switched from larger-scale infantry attacks and mechanized assaults to mostly small group infiltrations. Russian forces have also been leveraging glide bomb strikes in their battlefield air interdiction (BAI) campaign in 2025 and 2026, particularly against Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in the tactical and operational rear.[4] (BAI refers to the use of airpower to strike targets in the near rear behind the frontline to impact battlefield operations in the near term.)

Efforts to degrade Russian aviation capabilities likely will deprive Russian forces of an important tactical advantage and help further reduce the tempo of Russian advances. Russia’s reliance on glide bomb strikes to facilitate ground advances is a vulnerability Ukraine and its Western partners can exploit. Ukraine has already significantly degraded Russia’s ground-based air defense network in sectors of the theater through a sustained suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses campaign (SEAD / DEAD) since late 2025.[5] Ukraine continues working to degrade Russian combat aviation, including with F-16 and Gripen fighter jets and other anti-air means, and continued Western support for these Ukrainian efforts can significantly reduce Russia’s aviation advantage.[6] A degradation of Russia’s aviation capabilities will deprive Russian forces of key means that the Russian military relies on for brute force tactical advances, and thus likely slow Russian advances on the ground, hindering Russia’s ability to destroy Ukrainian key fortified positions, leverage rubble to conceal infantry, and interdict Ukrainian logistics.

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

SIGNYM

Friday, July 31, 2026 6:38 AM (P)

Do you want to know how I know this source is bull puckies?

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 29, 2026

https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive
-campaign-assessment-july-29-2026/

Russia’s superior aviation capabilities are allowing Russia to use glide bomb strikes to enable infantry advances in ... Kostyantynivka.

Konstantinovka has been under Russian control for at least a month.

Like I said: dreck.

-----------

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

SECOND

Friday, July 31, 2026 8:36 PM (P)

Putin likes his worst option in Ukraine

By Carl Bildt | July 30, 2026 8:51 PM

Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to 2014 and prime minister from 1991 to 1994. He is Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

https://kyivindependent.com/putin-likes-his-worst-option-in-ukraine/

If Russian President Vladimir Putin were to make a clear-headed assessment of the state of his war with Ukraine, he would seek a ceasefire. But his head apparently is not clear, because all signs point to him pursuing some kind of escalation.

If he does indeed embark on such a course, he will make the situation worse for everyone, but primarily for himself.

Since his August 2025 meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Anchorage, Putin has been seeking to persuade the United States to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into a deal that would leave Russia in control of the areas it has already stolen — a little less than 20% of Ukraine's territory — as well as handing over the sliver of the Donetsk Oblast that Ukraine still holds.

It is worth remembering that prior to the Anchorage meeting, Trump had the support of both Ukraine and the Europeans in seeking an immediate ceasefire. But after talking to Putin, he suddenly abandoned his pursuit of a ceasefire and instead accepted Putin's demand for Donetsk.

The Europeans naturally rushed to shield Zelensky from the pressure that Putin and Trump would try to apply on him, and political talks to end the fighting stalled. It was Trump —suckered once again by Putin — who prolonged the war.

Putin believes that striking civilian population centers and critical infrastructure can force Ukraine into submission.

The area in question lacks any economic importance, but it does matter for Ukraine's defense, and it carries symbolic weight for Putin, who changed the Russian constitution in 2022 to claim Donetsk as part of Russia.

The idea that Ukraine would hand over its position is therefore a non-starter. Over the last year and a half, Russia's military has suffered a gradual loss of capabilities, reflected in the declining quality of Russian troops, while Ukraine's battlefield-technology capabilities have improved markedly.

As a result, the front line has become a "death zone" that barely moves.

Of course, Putin still seems to believe that his forces can get full control of Donetsk, and his generals still fear the consequences of telling him that it cannot be done. But the odds are decidedly against him.

Equally, Putin believes that striking civilian population centers and critical infrastructure can force Ukraine into submission. But while he's undoubtedly inflicting great pain, aerial bombing alone has never won a war, and that won't change in Ukraine.

Over the past few months, Ukraine has expanded its own medium- and long-range drone strikes in Russia, where it has disabled a significant share of refinery capacity and triggered a politically painful fuel crisis across Russia. Ukraine will only continue to intensify these strikes.

But the real game changer may be Ukraine's effort to sever the supply chains linking Crimea to Russia.

The Ukrainians have been unremittingly striking freight trucks traveling through the occupied land corridor in eastern Ukraine, the bridge and ferries that cross the Kerch Strait, and ships attempting to deliver supplies via the Sea of Azov.

This campaign has already complicated matters for the Kremlin, and it could prove politically catastrophic if Russian control over Crimea becomes seriously contested. At that point, even freezing the conflict at the existing "death zone" might no longer be an option.

Other than Putin, hardly anyone in Russia is likely to care deeply about the sliver of Donetsk that is now blocking the political process. But many — rightly or wrongly — do care about Crimea. Indeed, it was Putin's land grab of the peninsula in March 2014 that boosted his popularity and set the stage for his full-scale invasion in 20

SECOND

Friday, July 31, 2026 8:37 PM (P)

Analysis: New Commander-in-Chief Drapatyi faces a manpower mess of Syrskyi's making

By Francis Farrell | July 30, 2026 10:46 AM

https://kyivindependent.com/analysis-new-commander-in-chief-drapatyi-f
aces-a-manpower-mess-of-syrskyis-creation/

"The transformation of the defense forces cannot end with a change of minister, team, or department head.

It must continue until fair and understandable rules become the norm for everyone who serves the state."

The words of Mykhailo Drapatyi, posted on Facebook just days before he was named Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, foreshadowed the challenges he would soon face.

Two and a half years after he took over the job from popular general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Oleksandr Syrskyi's tenure as head of Ukraine's military is over.

Mass protests triggered by President Volodymyr Zelensky's firing of young, reform-minded Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov soon shifted their focus to Syrskyi, seen as the antithesis of Fedorov's modernizing, data-driven strategy that had started to show results in the war effort.

Replacing Syrskyi is 43-year-old Drapatyi, who for years has been elevated as a general with a reputation for being everything Syrskyi wasn't: progressive, forward-thinking, and with a dedication to truth and responsibility.

Despite the positive shift for Ukraine in the balance of power in the war — especially on the narrative front — Drapatyi has inherited a military beset by problems with its command culture, resource allocation, and, above all, manpower.

With Russia increasingly projected to double down on its war of attrition with some form of mass mobilization, deep strikes and asymmetrical warfare may not be enough to force Vladimir Putin to the table.

More than ever, Ukraine's military, with Drapatyi at the head, will need to face its systemic issues if it is to survive what could be years of more brutal positional warfare against a numerically superior opponent.

Taking control

On the one hand, Drapatyi is lucky to assume the job of commander-in-chief at a time when the front line is largely stable.

Rapid advances across the southern front line this time last year, combined with a quickly worsening situation around the nearly surrounded city of Pokrovsk, meant that Ukraine's already overstretched military was stuck in a long-familiar bind.

Units were broken up and spread all across the front line under command structures that didn't take ownership of them, in an effort to fight fires across a line of defense riddled with weak spots.

Now, the southern front line has not only stabilized — Ukrainian forces are mounting slow, methodical counterattacks.

The toughest situation remains in Donetsk Oblast, where, although Russian forces failed to push far beyond Pokrovsk, the battle for the great fortress belt has begun in earnest after Russian forces overran most of Kostiantynivka earlier in the summer.

Here, although the situation remains more or less under control and there are no immediate operational threats, Drapatyi will be faced with the challenge of untangling and reorganizing a force that has reached its current state largely because of Syrskyi's leadership.

The situation in Kostiantynivka is a clear example of the unfinished and unsatisfactory state of the transition to a corps-based command system that Kyiv announced in February 2025.

Some of the newly formed corps, made up of around five brigades each, have become unified and formidable fighting units because they were built around an already strong brigade like Azov or Khartiia, or placed under a competent command, such as that of the Air Assault Forces.

But most other army corps remain disjointed and often dysfunctional entities, bringing together a handful of exhausted brigades and attached units while often lacking the resources to set up effective corps-level assault, artillery, and drone units that corps like Azov have been able to establish.

When one throws into the mix large assault units lik

SECOND

Saturday, August 1, 2026 3:13 AM (P)

Zelenskyy reveals Ukraine's and Russia's wartime losses

By Kateryna Danishevska | Fri, July 31, 2026 - 13:15

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/zelenskyy-reveals-ukraine-s-and-russia
-s-1785492263.html

Russian military losses in the war are significantly higher than those of Ukraine's Defense Forces. Even so, the exact figures remain unknown, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6402490895112

An American journalist asked the head of state whether he knew the approximate losses suffered by the Russian forces during more than four years of the full-scale war.

"So, their losses 1.6 million, and about 700,000 killed. About," Zelenskyy replied.

The journalist then asked whether the President of Ukraine could disclose the losses of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.

According to Zelenskyy, that is very difficult to do.

"And then compared to Ukraine? Compared to Ukraine, it's really very difficult to say. Sorry, be honest, I don't want to be very open about it because Russians will understand what's going on with our army. So we have about 50,000 soldiers killed, and we had about 400,000 wounded," the Ukrainian leader explained.

In effect, Zelenskyy confirmed that Russia's military death toll is approximately 14 times higher than Ukraine's.

He also noted that there are a very large number of people listed as missing.

Recently, Zelenskyy also announced that the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is preparing many systemic changes on the front line.

Meanwhile, it has emerged why Trump abruptly changed his attitude toward the Ukrainian leader and who played a role in influencing that shift. https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/why-trump-suddenly-changed-his-tone-on
-zelenskyy-1785228825.html

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

SIGNYM

Saturday, August 1, 2026 7:34 AM (P)

Quote:
According to Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Ukraine lost roughly 500,000 servicemen throughout 2025 and upwards of 1.5 million total killed and wounded since the war's full-scale escalation.

I trust Russia's figures more than Zelensky's bc Zelensky is a big fat liar, like Trump.

-----------

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

SECOND

Saturday, August 1, 2026 4:15 PM (P)

Ukrainian drones now account for about 95% of the losses inflicted on Russian forces along the front, far surpassing the effectiveness of snipers, howitzers, tanks, and other conventional weapons combined.

“I am absolutely convinced that robots and drones should be doing the fighting wherever possible,” said former Ukrainian defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov in an interview published on July 31.

Much more at https://english.nv.ua/nation/robotics-will-inevitably-reshape-warfare-
fedorov-says-50628966.html

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

SECOND

Sunday, August 2, 2026 5:13 PM (P)

Ukraine’s drone force hit 53,755 Russian targets in July. Only 0.5% were deep strikes everyone talks about

Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces struck 53,755 targets in July, with 95% of strikes in the tactical zone near the front, Commander Madiar says.

By Olena Mukhina | Aug 01, 2026

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/08/01/ukraines-drone-force-hit-53755-
russian-targets-in-july-only-0-5-were-deep-strikes-everyone-talks-about/

Ukraine's drone force is killing most of its targets close to the front, not in the deep strikes that make headlines. In July, fighters of the Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) struck 53,755 unique Russian targets, including 11,609 Russian personnel, SBS commander Major Robert "Madiar" Brovdi said on 1 August.

The force killed a Russian soldier roughly every four minutes all month.

"We destroyed 374 occupiers every day, a full assault complement of an enemy battalion every 24 hours, or one enemy every four minutes," Madiar said, per his own count of the month's work.

The operations that make news are the smallest part of the total. Madiar noted that while the SBS is best known for deep strikes on Russian oil infrastructure (51 targets), the shadow fleet (206 targets), power nodes (166 targets), air defenses (35 targets), the blockade of Crimea (2,008 targets), and logistics centers (13 targets), the largest share of strikes falls on the line of contact.

Almost all the work is at the front

Some 95.1% of the targets hit were in the tactical depth, an average of 3.73 kilometers from the line of contact, Madiar continued.

Another 4.4%, or 2,415 targets, were struck at operational depth of Crimea and other occupied territories,

and only about 0.5% of strikes were deep strikes at strategic range.

The tactical drone war is where attrition happens

The numbers reframe what Ukraine's drone force mainly does. The refinery fires and shadow-fleet strikes shape the war strategically, but the daily grind of 374 killed occupiers a day is the drone-driven attrition holding the front, one FPV or bomber drone at a time.

This is a single-source count from the SBS commander that EP cannot independently verify, and it covers only claimed strikes, not confirmed kills.

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

SECOND

Sunday, August 2, 2026 5:29 PM (P)

Weekend Update #196

Phillips P. OBrien

Aug 02, 2026

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-196-the-week-whe
n

One of the reasons understanding missile technology is so important now is that Russia, with the help of the USA, can now attack Ukraine with ballistic missiles and the Ukrainians are practically defenseless to stop them once they are launched. It is a tragedy, but it is no accident. This has happened partly because the US, led by President Trump, has deliberately starved Ukraine of Patriot anti-air missiles, while at the same time deceiving Ukraine that there was a possibility that the US might change position. Sadly for the Ukrainian government, it maintained enough hope in the Trump administration, and this week that hope came back to bite the Ukrainians—hard.

The Week When Hope Killed, Literally

I already have a pretty good idea of one of my big mistakes of the year, which will figure in my annual column of screw-ups. That was when I wrote, in April, that the Ukrainian government now understood that the US was not on their side and was strategically moving on.

I believe now that I significantly misread Ukrainian perceptions. Actually, the Ukrainian government’s hope in the USA was not extinguished at all, and in the last few weeks it had come roaring back with a vengeance.

Maybe it was desperation, maybe it was strategic miscalculation, maybe it was just human optimism, but once again the Ukrainian government was basing its strategic future (or at least one of them) on the hope of getting support from the USA.

I do not blame the Ukrainians for having hope in Trump. However, I really wish they would stop. They waste so much time planning and scheming about how to win Trump over to their side—when what they are doing is losing time planning for real-world scenarios. At the same time, any hope given to Europeans is destructive, as it puts off the changes that need to happen in Europe and lessens the immediacy of their efforts to aid Ukraine.

However, I am most angry at the sloppy, delusional, and frankly moronic western press and analytical community that refuses to admit what Trump is and is doing. Maybe they are afraid to speak the truth because the truth reveals them to be accomplices in Trump’s actions.

Much more at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-196-the-week-whe
n

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

SECOND

Monday, August 3, 2026 5:26 PM (P)

Ukraine May Have Broken the Biggest FP-5 Flamingo Production Bottleneck

By Vlad Litnarovych | Aug 03, 2026 13:07

https://united24media.com/defense-tech/ukraine-may-have-broken-the-big
gest-fp-5-flamingo-production-bottleneck-21284

Ukraine appears to be fitting some FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles with British-made turbojet engines. This change could ease a major production bottleneck and potentially extend the weapon’s already significant range, Defense Express reported on August 3.

Russian specialists reportedly identified the change while examining wreckage from Ukrainian cruise missiles. Earlier FP-5 versions used the Soviet-designed AI-25TL engine, while fragments from newer missiles appear to point to an unidentified British powerplant.
https://defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/rashisti_pomitili_scho_na_fp_5_
flamingo_vstanovljujut_novi_dviguni_pro_jakij_same_jdetsja_ta_scho_tse_daje-23832.html

Defense Express noted that the engine is central to the Flamingo’s unusually ambitious performance. The missile is designed to carry a one-ton warhead more than 3,000 kilometers, or roughly 1,860 miles.

For comparison, a Tomahawk typically carries a warhead of about 450 kilograms and has a reported range of roughly 1,600 kilometers.

Delivering that much explosive weight over such a distance requires a full-size turbojet rather than the smaller engines commonly found in lower-cost long-range drones.

The known Flamingo configuration used an AI-25TL producing 16.9 kilonewtons of thrust and weighing approximately 350 kilograms. The same engine was originally developed for the L-39 training aircraft.

Defense Express had previously identified the limited supply of AI-25 engines as one of the FP-5 program’s main weaknesses. The number of available engines could directly limit how many missiles Fire Point could produce.

The Flamingo’s designers appear to have anticipated that problem. Its engine is mounted above the fuselage rather than deeply integrated inside the missile body, making it possible to install alternative powerplants without extensively redesigning the entire airframe.

Several Western non-afterburning turbojet engines offer roughly the required 17-kilonewton thrust while weighing between 300 and 400 kilograms. Many are also smaller and more fuel-efficient than the AI-25TL.

The exact British engine reportedly found on the newer Flamingo has not been publicly identified. Defense Express suggested Russian analysts may either have failed to determine the model or may be withholding the information.

To illustrate the potential benefits, the outlet examined the US-made Honeywell TFE731 family as an example of a comparable Western engine—not as confirmation that it is being used on the FP-5.

Depending on the version, the TFE731 produces between 15.6 and 19.1 kilonewtons of thrust and weighs approximately 337 to 386 kilograms.

It is also roughly one meter shorter and 15 centimeters narrower than the AI-25TL—about 30% shorter and 17% slimmer.

More than 9,000 TFE731 engines have been produced for business jets, meaning sourcing engines of this class in industrial quantities would be far more realistic than relying solely on a shrinking stock of Soviet powerplants.

Western engines could also deliver better fuel efficiency. Defense Express estimated that a model comparable to the TFE731-3 could consume up to 15% less fuel under similar flight conditions.

Applied directly to the Flamingo’s stated 3,000-kilometer range, that efficiency gain could theoretically add approximately 450 kilometers, or nearly 280 miles.

Earlier, the price of the Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo missile became known. Ukraine’s domestically developed Flamingo long-range cruise missile costs just under $600,000 per unit, making it roughly six times cheaper than the US-made Tomahawk, while already being used in long-range strikes against military targets inside Russia.

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

SECOND

Monday, August 3, 2026 8:01 PM (P)

[Where are the super-patriotic Russians? Don't they know that the war will be won soon? If they don't join immediately, the war will end without their help, and they will forever regret missing this once in a lifetime opportunity to serve Mother Russia.]

Putin’s Desperate Plot to Fix His Humiliating Troop Crisis Exposed

The strongman has a new plan for Russians who don’t want to join the war effort.

By Leigh Kimmins | Aug. 3 2026 7:09AM EDT

https://www.thedailybeast.com/putins-desperate-plot-to-fix-his-humilia
ting-troop-crisis-exposed/

Vladimir Putin’s army recruitment drive has taken a dark turn, according to watchdogs.

Russian losses on the front line have been intensifying, with an estimated 30,000-40,000 troops dying every month. The tide of the Ukraine war appeared to turn in May, with Ukraine’s Defense Forces carrying out more offensive and counterattacking actions than Russian troops during a 24-hour period.

Russian forces suffered 42,860 casualties in July alone, the highest monthly toll reported so far this year, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.

As a result, Russian men have been even more reluctant to join the military. A panicked Putin has overseen a plan to force them to go. “Authorities have switched to a method of violence, when they catch men and send them off,” Artyom Klyga, a lawyer for the victims, told The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/the-kremlin-is-bullying-more-russians
-into-fighting-in-ukraine-3d1af6d7

Authorities are using dirty tricks to get military-aged men to sign up. One method is detaining people on the streets, taking them to recruitment offices, and strong-arming them into signing up. Watchdogs and witnesses said some men are even beaten until they agree.

“Just as many people have to somehow be brought into service, and the fewer there are who are ready to sign a contract, the more pressure they have to use,” Grigory Sverdlin, the founder of the antiwar nongovernmental organization Get Lost, told the Journal.

Authorities had already tried throwing money at the recruitment problem, offering large windfalls to men willing to go to the front. But Ukraine’s rally, as well as dark tales of abuse within the Russian ranks, has dissuaded potential fighters.

In some places, law-enforcement officials are working with recruitment officers to entrap their victims, insiders told the Journal.

Vladislav Leonidov, from the southwestern region of Penza, said he witnessed one such trap. He was at a police station when he saw a man he knew who had gone missing.

The man was scooped up by cops and told they needed to check his details at the office. When he got there, he was met by military recruiters who beat him then ferried him away to a recruitment office, Leonidov told the Journal.

He was able to intervene during the man’s medical exam and get him released, he told the newspaper. “If we had come two hours later, he would have already been taken away,” Leonidov said. “They move very quickly.”

Locals in Penza have revolted against the recruitment drive. “They beat you, they forced you!” a woman is seen shouting in one video of a forced recruitment exercise that went viral on social media. However, the Penza branch of the Interior Ministry denied anything fishy was taking place.

It also threatened “legal consequences” against “those spreading false information.”

“They haven’t forbidden me from continuing, but they’ve made it clear it’s in my best interests not to,” blogger Stanislav Morozov, who made a documentary about the forced conscription, told the Journal of an investigation into him by the Federal Security Service.

He claimed that officers have another grim technique to get more sign-ups. They threaten to arrest people and plant drugs on them if they refuse to put pen to paper, he said.

Another campaign has been spotted around Penza and other regions. Posters have been scattered around residential buildings offering residents around $1,300 to “bring a friend” to registration centers.

Experts sugges

THG

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 1:52 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

OMG, do believe EVERY idiot on the internet??

That's better than “the refinery next to the Kremlin“!

Here you go comrade.

T

Leaked From Russia: 20 Videos Expose the Real Economy (No Propaganda)

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 2:20 AM (P)

Use your Big Boy words, Ted.

Nobody's watching your bullshit videos.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SECOND

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 2:24 AM (P)

[New reason why neither old fool Biden nor child-rapist Trump should have been President]

Inside Ukraine's 2-year effort to secure Patriot missile production

By Tim Zadorozhnyy | August 3, 2026 8:35 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/exclusive-how-washingtons-no-left-ukraine-
defenseless-against-russias-ballistic-missiles/

As former U.S. President Joe Biden's administration entered its final months, Ukrainian negotiators feared that Donald Trump's return to the White House could reshape Washington's support for Kyiv. Rather than waiting to see what would happen, they tried to build a long-term safety net.

One of the proposals was to allow Ukraine to produce Patriot interceptor missiles under license, either domestically or jointly with European partners.

Patriot interceptors are the only weapons capable of reliably destroying Russian ballistic missiles. Ukrainian officials believed relying entirely on future American deliveries carried obvious risks.

Senior negotiators pitched the proposal directly to then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and then-National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

What Ukrainian officials received in response was a simple "no."

"No explanations — they didn't tell us anything," the Ukrainian official said.

The Kyiv Independent contacted both Austin and Sullivan, but received no response so far.

. . . if the previous U.S. administration had approved the proposal, Ukraine could already be producing the interceptors needed to defend its cities from Russia's escalating ballistic missile attacks.

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

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 2:27 AM (P)

You're a child rapist, Shit Golem.

What now?

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

THG

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 3:22 AM (P)

Oh no comrade signym. Say it ain't so.

T

RUSSIANS FLEE CRIMEA: OFFICIALS EVACUATE FAMILIES Vlog 1490: War in Ukraine

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 3:27 AM (P)

Not one single person gives a shit, Ted Bundy Clone.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SECOND

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 3:45 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Not one single person gives a shit, Ted Bundy Clone.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

Russian independent media outlet Mediazona, in collaboration with the BBC Russian service, has confirmed the identities of 236,066 Russian military personnel killed in Ukraine. The date of death is known in 218,400 cases.

Since the media outlets' last update in mid-July, the names of 2,867 Russian soldiers have been added to the list of deaths.

The journalists note that the actual figures are likely significantly higher, but only 236,066 deaths can be verified. Putin claims only 5,937 died, and never updates that number, because the actual number of deaths is a highly classified secret. https://www.npr.org/2023/07/14/1187847548/how-many-russians-have-died-
in-ukraine-new-data-estimates-soldier-casualties

On July 31, President Volodymyr Zelensky disclosed estimates revealing that Russian forces had suffered approximately 700,000 killed. Zelensky added that around 50,000 Ukrainian service members had been killed.

https://kyivindependent.com/over-236-000-russian-soldiers-killed-in-uk
raine-identified-by-media-investigation/

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

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 3:50 AM (P)

Yeah. We know dude. You get hard when Russians die.

This is porn to you.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

THG

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 3:54 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
According to Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Ukraine lost roughly 500,000 servicemen throughout 2025 and upwards of 1.5 million total killed and wounded since the war's full-scale escalation.

I trust Russia's figures more than Zelensky's bc Zelensky is a big fat liar, like Trump.

-----------

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

But you trust me, right comrade?

T

PHASE 3 UNLEASHED: Ukraine's Endgame to Retake Crimea Just Began

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 3:59 AM (P)

Why would anybody trust you?

Not only are you an evil little chronically virtue signalling snake without any family or friends, but you couldn't even be a con-man and get somebody to trust you because you're way too fucking stupid to ever do that.

No. Whoever you are asking that question to. They don't trust you.

Congratulations.

You did that.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SECOND

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 6:33 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Yeah. We know dude. You get hard when Russians die.

This is porn to you.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

The idea that vengeance against evil makes you just as bad as the evil you're taking up arms against feels very much like something the bad guys would make up and spread across popular culture to make sure we don't shove their head in a guillotine, just saying. https://imgur.com/gallery/bootlicker-approved-NcvbTDq

In my personal opinion, it was absolutely good to kill millions and millions and millions of Nazis, Confederates, and Japanese Imperialists. Killing millions of Trumptards would also be a very positive thing. But silly Libtards believe that words can change evil people into slightly less evil. I have never seen a Trumptard or a Putin-approving Russian get anything other than worse as they get older until they die. Maybe somewhere that has happened, but there is no proof.

6ix, take note that in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, to Revelation, the last book, evil people get slaughtered by God, who never wastes even one word on persuading evil people to change into better people. If God with infinite time and power has no patience with evil, why should ordinary people?

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

6IXSTRINGJACK

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 7:31 AM (P)

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

Yeah. We know dude. You get hard when Russians die.

This is porn to you.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
The idea that vengeance against evil makes you just as bad as the evil you're taking up arms against feels very much like something the bad guys would make up and spread across popular culture to make sure we don't shove their head in a guillotine, just saying. https://imgur.com/gallery/bootlicker-approved-NcvbTDq

In my personal opinion, it was absolutely good to kill millions and millions and millions of Nazis, Confederates, and Japanese Imperialists. Killing millions of Trumptards would also be a very positive thing. But silly Libtards believe that words can change evil people into slightly less evil. I have never seen a Trumptard or a Putin-approving Russian get anything other than worse as they get older until they die. Maybe somewhere that has happened, but there is no proof.

6ix, take note that in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, to Revelation, the last book, evil people get slaughtered by God, who never wastes even one word on persuading evil people to change into better people. If God with infinite time and power has no patience with evil, why should ordinary people?

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

I don't believe most of the people you think are evil are evil. You have proven yourself over the years to be a terrible judge of character, especially that of your own.

I don't want to see you dead.

I just don't want to hear anything from you ever again.

You have nothing to bring to any table.

Your mere existence is a blight onto anyone you come into contact with, be it in real life or online.

You don't need to be that way. You choose to be that way.

You've allowed them to turn you into Shit Golem.

I hope you get the help you need, but I also do not abide your bullshit.

You are the evil.

Whether witting or not, makes no matter. You are not welcome in this house.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SECOND

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 4:20 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I don't believe most of the people you think are evil are evil. You have proven yourself over the years to be a terrible judge of character, especially that of your own.

Nobody in the Confederacy was thinking before or after the Civil War that slavery was evil, except for the slaves. In the aftermath of the War, the former slaveowners, convinced of their absolute righteousness, set up a labor system that was even cheaper to operate and more profitable than slavery. Evil people NEVER, I mean NEVER, see themselves as evil.

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

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 8:06 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The idea that vengeance against evil makes you just as bad as the evil you're taking up arms against feels very much like something the bad guys would make up and spread across popular culture to make sure we don't shove their head in a guillotine, just saying.

In my personal opinion, it was absolutely good to kill millions and millions and millions of Nazis, Confederates, Japanese Imperialists.... blacks, illegals, Muslims, whites ....

Who made YOU God, SECOND, to judge and condemn "millions and millions" of people?

And SIX, when you post about killing all Muslims, doesn't that put you in the same league as SECOND and WISHY?

IMHO there's only one reason to kill: immediate self defense or defense of others. Defining whole groups of people as "evil" is evil. And stupid. And the only thing worse than a stupid evil person is a stupid evil person with power.

Quote:
posted by SECOND

Nobody in the Confederacy was thinking before or after the Civil War that slavery was evil,

Which demonstrates, SECOND, that you could be making the same mistake. And by posting this as if you're free of this error, it also shows that you're utterly incapable of self reflection.

Like I said: stupid.

-----------

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

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 4, 2026 8:20 PM (P)

THGR, did it ever occur to you to look for actual FACTS on the ground to either validate or refute the blah blah blah that that you fill your head with?

-----------

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

THG

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 12:58 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

THGR, did it ever occur to you to look for actual FACTS on the ground to either validate or refute the blah blah blah that that you fill your head with?

I live in reality comrade. No sure you do.

T

Ukrainian FURTHEST drone strikes swarm and obliterate Moscow supply hubs | Battle Plans Exposed

SECOND

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 1:29 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Who made YOU God, SECOND, to judge and condemn "millions and millions" of people?

IMHO there's only one reason to kill: immediate self defense or defense of others. Defining whole groups of people as "evil" is evil. And stupid. And the only thing worse than a stupid evil person is a stupid evil person with power.

Which demonstrates, SECOND, that you could be making the same mistake. And by posting this as if you're free of this error, it also shows that you're utterly incapable of self reflection.

Does a Ukrainian drone operator ask permission before killing a Russian? Never, and that is NOT PLAYING GOD. Does the Ukrainian ask the Russian for permission before killing the Russian? No, and that is also NOT PLAYING GOD. The Ukrainian war is NOT a TV police procedural nor a Marvel comic book movie where killing is justified for "only one reason: immediate self defense or defense of others."

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

SECOND

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 1:31 AM (P)

By Peeter Helme | August 04, 2026

For most of the war, a circle of generals decided which companies got paid to arm Ukraine. They named the suppliers, they named the models, and the money followed the list.

Then the defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov took that power away and made the companies compete on price and on how their weapons performed at the front. Three weeks ago, the minister was fired. Now, the people who did well under the old list are pushing to get it back.

What makes this more than a lobbying fight is that its two loudest voices agree on almost nothing else: Fedorov, who says he believes the overhaul cost him his job, and an anti-corruption watchdog who owes him no favors. Both say the reform may not outlast him.

What rides on it is real money, and Ukraine has little to spare. It now pours almost all its own revenue into defense, while the West covers nearly the entire civilian budget, roughly $50 billion in 2026. Every dollar lost to a rigged contract is one that never reaches a front already too short of soldiers to absorb the waste.

Much more at https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/08/04/ukraine-weapons-reform-fedorov/

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

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 1:36 AM (P)

OMG, you STILL don't get it!

Do you still believe that someone spouting into a camera is providing FACTS?

Dood, I could get in front of a camera and spin a convincing yarn about ... a killer outbreak, a swarm of invading bugs, whatever.... and show flashes of irrelevant pictures and you'd never know that it was completely fabricated.

YOUR filter for whether something is true or not is whether it aligns with what you want. That's a piss poor way of learning the truth.

FACTS, dood.

-----------

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

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 1:42 AM (P)

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

Who made YOU God, SECOND, to judge and condemn "millions and millions" of people?

IMHO there's only one reason to kill: immediate self defense or defense of others. Defining whole groups of people as "evil" is evil. And stupid. And the only thing worse than a stupid evil person is a stupid evil person with power.

Which demonstrates, SECOND, that you could be making the same mistake. And by posting this as if you're free of this error, it also shows that you're utterly incapable of self reflection.
Does a Ukrainian drone operator ask permission before killing a Russian? Never, and that is NOT PLAYING GOD. Does the Ukrainian ask the Russian for permission before killing the Russian? No, and that is also NOT PLAYING GOD. The Ukrainian war is NOT a TV police procedural nor a Marvel comic book movie where killing is justified for "only one reason: immediate self defense or defense of others."

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

Are you at war with "Trumptards"? More importantly, are "Trumptards" at war with YOU?

No.

Face it, dood. You just like the idea of killing people.

-----------

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

THG

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 1:53 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

THGR, did it ever occur to you to look for actual FACTS on the ground to either validate or refute the blah blah blah that that you fill your head with?

There is more reality on Russia included in the video comrade.

T

THG

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 1:57 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

OMG, you STILL don't get it!

Do you still believe that someone spouting into a camera is providing FACTS?

Dood, I could get in front of a camera and spin a convincing yarn about ... a killer outbreak, a swarm of invading bugs, whatever.... and show flashes of irrelevant pictures and you'd never know that it was completely fabricated.

YOUR filter for whether something is true or not is whether it aligns with what you want. That's a piss poor way of learning the truth.

FACTS, dood.

You can't admit to facts. I get that. Nonetheless, I'm going to post them, and time will show all you've done by defending all things Russia is bury you head in the sand. And the people speaking into microphones that I listen to are honestly trying to report accurately. Not so much with you aye comrade?

T

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 2:03 AM (P)

THGR, you're posting NARRATIVE.

Here's another narrative.

Quote:
Disastrous End to Zelensky's 40-Day Operation Exposes a Dwindling Ukraine
Simplicius
Aug 03, 2026

Today is the final day of Zelensky’s 40-day Special Military Operation, and it has come with ominous undertones. The carefully-constructed facade of success that was meant to drive the orchestrated PR campaign has been violently torn away to reveal a frail Ukraine trembling on its last hind legs.

Russia’s recent attack on Kiev revealed a catastrophic situation as Ukraine no longer has any Patriots to stop Russian ballistic missile attacks. The interception rate admitted-to by Kiev was as follows:

1/27 ballistic missiles of the 9M723 OTRK “Iskander-M” / KN-23;

0/2 anti-radar missiles Kh-31P;

0/4 anti-ship cruise and hypersonic cruise missiles 3M55 “Onyx” / 3M22 “Zircon”;

In total, 83.2% of UAVs have been neutralized.

Top Ukrainian analyst channels now predict that Russia will soon go up from producing 70 ballistic missiles per month to over 150. This will leave Ukrainian infrastructure devastated as no current hope even exists for solving the Patriot problem, and no other available system besides the Patriot can engage Russian Iskanders.

Zelensky and his people know this, which is why now at the tail end of his failed 40-day operation he has begun begging Russia for a new ceasefire:

MORE AT https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/disastrous-end-to-zelenskys-40-day

-----------

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

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 2:06 AM (P)

Here's another

-----------

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

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 2:08 AM (P)

Here's another, usually with the most info:

-----------

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

6IXSTRINGJACK

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 2:28 AM (P)

Ted Bundy Clone is the most useful of useful idiots.

The dumber they are, the more useful they become.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 9:17 AM (P)

Maybe read the thoughts of an American visiting Russia?

https://open.substack.com/pub/gordonhahn/p/thoughts-on-russia-through-
the-prism

-----------

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

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 12:49 PM (P)

From a former CIA analyst

Quote:

The West is Winning the Information War While Russia Prevails on the Battlefield

https://sonar21.com/the-west-is-winning-the-information-war-while-russ
ia-prevails-on-the-battlefield/

-----------

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

SECOND

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 4:24 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
From a former CIA analyst

Quote:

The West is Winning the Information War While Russia Prevails on the Battlefield

https://sonar21.com/the-west-is-winning-the-information-war-while-russ
ia-prevails-on-the-battlefield/

-----------

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

Also, Russia is winning with God, who divinely intervened to give Russia all the Atom Bombs it needs to ensure that God's Will Be Done On Earth As It Is In Heaven:

Physicists and Clergy: Why the World Must Hold the Russian Orthodox Church Accountable

How Moscow's "Religion" Sacralizes "Nuclear Orthodoxy"

By Max Meltzer | Aug 5, 2026 09:10

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-factcheck/4151114-physicists-and-cler
gy-why-the-world-must-hold-the-russian-orthodox-church-accountable.html

The European Union's latest sanctions package against Russia was the first to be adopted since Hungary's elections. Although Viktor Orbán is no longer in office, the package proved considerably less stringent than originally planned. Among its most notable omissions was Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill (Vladimir Gundyayev), who once again escaped sanctions.

The EU first attempted to sanction Kirill in 2022, but the effort was blocked by Orbán. This time, however, the role once played by the former Hungarian prime minister was assumed by Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, who threatened to veto the entire package if sanctions against Kirill were included. His argument was that politics should not interfere with religion.

The Russian Orthodox Church's August Nuclear Chronicle

Yet on the very first day of August, Kirill enthusiastically described the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb as "an act of God's grace." Once again, he stressed that the bomb had been developed in Sarov—formerly Arzamas-16, one of the principal centers of the Soviet nuclear project—on the very site where Saint Seraphim of Sarov had once prayed.

According to Gundyayev, the atomic bomb saved the Soviet Union "from catastrophic destruction that could have left neither the country nor its people." He claimed this had happened, in part, "through the prayers of our venerable and God-bearing Father Seraphim of Sarov, whose holiness helped ensure that our people and our nation continue to exist."

This was hardly the first time Kirill had advanced such claims. In 2023, he likewise argued that Soviet scientists had developed the atomic bomb "according to God's providence." A year later, he urged Russians not to fear either nuclear weapons or even the prospect of the end of the world.

Also on August 1, pro-Kremlin "Orthodox oligarch" Konstantin Malofeyev published an image depicting a bearded man—presumably Seraphim of Sarov—engulfed in flames.

"God's providence for Russia, the Third Rome, is truly wondrous. It is no coincidence that Seraphim of Sarov, whose name in Hebrew means 'fiery' or 'burning,' became the Heavenly Patron of Russia's nuclear shield, together with the Great Martyr Barbara, the patron saint of our Strategic Missile Forces—forces so vital to securing Russia's victory as quickly as possible."

That was the caption accompanying Malofeyev's post.

Meanwhile, Russia's nuclear rhetoric has steadily escalated. What began as threats to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the United States, and Europe has evolved into proposals to deploy them not only in Russia's so-called "new regions"—such as Robotyne in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region—but even within Russia's internationally recognized territory, including Siberia.

All of this has unfolded with the tacit blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has long participated in ceremonies consecrating Russia's nuclear missiles. And that is precisely the problem.

SECOND

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 4:37 PM (P)

Russia Labels Dead Troops "Missing" to Conceal Battlefield Losses

By Roman Kohanets | Aug 04, 2026 23:31

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/russia-labels-dead-troops-mis
sing-to-conceal-battlefield-losses-21359

Russia's 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, known for its participation in the Butcha massacre, now deployed near Huliaipole in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, is systematically recording its killed soldiers as missing in action while intimidating their families into silence, according to the partisan movement ATESH

The claims were published on the movement's Telegram channel on August 4. https://t.me/atesh_ua/10952

ATESH stated that thousands of servicemen in the brigade, a formation designated military unit 51460, have been logged as missing. The movement alleged that its commander, Dmitry Shabaev, routinely ignores the appeals, inquiries, and protests of wives and mothers trying to learn the fate of their relatives.

Reclassifying the dead as missing is used to distort the true scale of the unit's losses, the group claimed.

Families who press for answers are threatened directly, ATESH added, with security and counterintelligence officers warning them of criminal cases for "discrediting" the army and the loss of all payments should they keep searching.

The movement summarized the message conveyed to relatives as a blunt threat: "If you keep searching, we will imprison you."

As a recent example, ATESH pointed to a Ukrainian strike on May 30, 2026, against the Primorskyi Posad training ground in the temporarily occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region, a site used by the brigade.

The movement claimed the strike killed at least 31 of the unit's personnel, 13 of whom the headquarters promptly logged as missing rather than dead.

According to ATESH, Shabaev took command in 2025 and has already burned through the full complements of several of his combat battalions. The Kremlin, it alleged, deliberately relies on hardline commanders of his kind.

The brigade also carries a documented past: early in the full-scale war, it operated in the Bucha district of Kyiv region, where it became one of the main formations named in war crimes investigations.

The movement noted that it continues to compile data on commanders it holds responsible for hiding losses and pressuring servicemen's relatives.

The concealment of Russian military losses has become a recurring pattern across the war. In one recent case, Ukraine recovered the remains of 501 people that Moscow claimed were Ukrainian soldiers, part of a practice widely seen as a way for Russia to obscure its own dead and avoid paying compensation to their families.

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

SECOND

Wednesday, August 5, 2026 7:53 PM (P)

The Kremlin Is Bullying More Russians Into Fighting in Ukraine

Measures increasingly include beatings and manipulation, fueling expectations of a second forced mobilization

By Thomas Grove and Daria Matviichuk | Aug. 2, 2026 10:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/the-kremlin-is-bullying-more-russians
-into-fighting-in-ukraine-3d1af6d7

Russia is strong-arming more fighting-age men into military service to boost the flagging ranks of its army as voluntary recruitment stalls and Moscow’s initiative on the front line in Ukraine falters.
In Russia’s smaller towns and cities, some military recruiters have resorted to detaining men on the street, outside their places of work or under the pretext of routine document checks, say lawyers, rights activists and eyewitnesses. Once in a military recruitment office, men might be threatened or beaten until they sign up, they say.

The pressure campaign carries echoes of the partial mobilization that President Vladimir Putin instituted in fall 2022 when Russia’s front-line positions were buckling amid a lack of manpower. It also has caused speculation among Russian analysts and the political class about whether it preludes another draft.

Russian authorities have offered life-changing sums of money—often more than an entire year’s salary—to those ready to fight. Recruitment, however, has become more difficult after tales of abuse inside the Russian military and Ukraine’s lethal capabilities, which have shortened the average soldier’s lifespan on the front to minutes, days or weeks.

“Authorities have switched to a method of violence, when they catch men and send them off,” said Artyom Klyga, a lawyer who tries to help those forced into service.

The tactics are a counterpoint to the forced enlistment Kyiv has carried out because of its own manpower shortage.

While Russia’s recruitment is still officially voluntary, law-enforcement officials are at times working with military recruiters to set a trap for the men and use violence or threats of arrest if they don’t yield to the pressure, the people say.

In the southwestern region of Penza, resident Vladislav Leonidov said he found an acquaintance at a military recruitment office after the man went missing for several hours in May. The man was called into the police station on the pretext of checking his personal data. When he arrived, two military recruiters carried him off to the recruitment office where he was beaten, Leonidov said. He intervened and forced the man’s release.

“If we had come two hours later, he would have already been taken away,” he said.
Raids in Penza by law-enforcement officials or recruiters have caught the attention of locals who have posted videos protesting the practice. One video outside a recruitment office shows men in civilian clothes sitting inside a military van barricaded by crying women.

“They beat you, they forced you!” one of the women says between tears.

Authorities have played down the incidents and threatened a crackdown on those circulating videos of them.

The head of Penza’s recruitment office, Andrey Surkov, told a government briefing that raids were targeting those avoiding service. The Penza branch of the Interior Ministry has denied that raids are sending men to the front, and has threatened legal consequences for those who post or publicize them.

“These video publications have no relation to sending people to the zone of the Special Military Operation,” a ministry statement said, using the official euphemism for the war in Ukraine.

Blogger Stanislav Morozov, who has worked to bring attention to the issue in a documentary, said he is the subject of an investigation by Russia’s feared Federal Security Service. “They haven’t forbidden me from continuing, but they’ve made it clear it’s in my best interests not to.”

Of the dozens of relatives he has spoken to, he said, most agreed to sign a contract when law-enforcement officials threatened to plant drugs on them and arrest them on the spot.

Part of the pressure stems from regional programs in

SIGNYM

Thursday, August 6, 2026 2:05 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNY

Quote:
The West is Winning the Information War While Russia Prevails on the Battlefield

https://sonar21.com/the-west-is-winning-the-information-war-while-russ
ia-prevails-on-the-battlefield/

-----------

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

Posted by SECOND

Also, Russia is winning

You got the important part right, SECOND.

-----------

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

SIGNYM

Thursday, August 6, 2026 2:28 AM (P)

Quote:
Ukraine Shot Down Zero Missiles In Huge Russian Overnight Salvo That Killed At Least 21

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-shot-down-zero-missiles
-huge-russian-overnight-salvo-killed-least-21

That's what Kiev gets for attacking Russian beach goers.

FAFO.

-----------

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

SECOND

Thursday, August 6, 2026 3:15 AM (P)

Putin’s Human Safari Is the Dystopian Future of War

A grim new normal dawns in Ukraine.

By Anne Applebaum | August 5, 2026, 10:45 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/ukraine-russia-war-drones/68
8183/

Yuri is a 52-year-old Ukrainian who runs a market stall in Kherson, not far from the front line. Yesterday, he was sorting through vegetables when he heard the loud, distinctive buzz of a Russian drone. As he later told the journalist Zarina Zabrisky, he had nothing more than a couple of garlic bulbs in his hands, and no weapons. “Not even a phone.” He gestured at his tomatoes and peppers, so that the drone operator, whoever and wherever he might be, could see that he wasn’t a soldier.

The drone kept following him. Police footage shows it chasing Yuri around his truck. He hides under the umbrella that covers the stand, runs from one side to the other, gestures at the vegetables. Then the drone dives beside him and explodes. Miraculously, Yuri survived, with just cuts and a concussion. Zabrisky interviewed him in the hospital, where he was lucid, and surprisingly sane.

Sane might be the key word here, because the experience of being chased by a murderous kamikaze drone, a flying machine that behaves as if it were alive, is not one that humans are equipped to understand. Premodern fanatics used to hallucinate flying devils. But few modern civilians have been chased by mechanized flying objects. Unless they live in or around Kherson.

Today, many were shocked by yet another video of the drone “safari” Russians are carrying out against civilians in Kherson. A Russian drone deliberately hunted down a man selling vegetables and detonated right next to him. The Russians even admitted to the crime, showing zero… https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2084608193645146204
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy (@ZelenskyyUa) August 4, 2026

Since 2024, Russian drones have been conducting human safaris in Kherson and other parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, tracking Ukrainian civilians with the aim of killing them. When I reported in the city in 2023, no one went near the Dnipro River, because the Russians were on the other side. Rapidly changing technology has now put the whole city and surrounding countryside within range of Vladimir Putin’s forces.

A United Nations inquiry last year documented hundreds of drone attacks on individuals across eastern Ukraine that targeted people walking on sidewalks, working in gardens, driving ambulances, commuting to work. Sometimes drones hang over burning buildings, waiting for fire brigades to appear so that firemen can be murdered too. The motive can only be terror, and perhaps revenge. Russian troops occupied Kherson at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022; Ukrainian forces took the city back seven months later following what remains the most significant counter-offensive of the war.

Many people, myself included, have written about the incredible achievements of the Ukrainian drone industry. In Kyiv, I’ve visited warehouses where hundreds of different drones and robots, each with specialized properties, are on display. They can defend Ukrainians and surveil and attack enemies. They can deliver food and weapons. They can crawl along the ground and rescue people stranded in no-man’s-land. They can make intelligent decisions autonomously.

Drones with capabilities like the ones that hit Yuri originally offered a humanitarian advantage, allowing their operators to avoid civilian casualties. Because they have cameras, the remote operator can see whether the target is really a soldier or military object, and call off the drone if it is not. But as with all technologies, the purpose can be radically altered by the users. Instead of avoiding civilians, Russian operators can now target them, as if playing a video game.

They will not be the last drone operators to do so. Although not all Pentagon procurement officers (or indeed Pentagon leaders) know it yet, nobody is prepared, technically or psychologically, for a new era of intelligent, deadly machines. Warf

SECOND

Thursday, August 6, 2026 5:18 AM (P)

Russians captured more territory in July than Ukraine's defence forces liberated

By Kateryna Tyshchenko — 2 August, 21:58

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/08/02/8046947/

Russian forces occupied more Ukrainian territory in July than Ukraine's defence forces managed to liberate, with the net increase in occupied territory amounting to 36 sq km.

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

July 2026 Monthly Russian Casualty Overview

https://kyivindependent.com/russia-records-highest-monthly-losses-of-2
026/

• Total losses: 42,860 personnel (killed, wounded, captured, or missing).

• Trend: This is the highest monthly total recorded for 2026, crossing the 40,000 threshold for the first time in the year.

• Previous high: June 2026 saw approximately 39,290 personnel losses.

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

SECOND

Thursday, August 6, 2026 7:16 AM (P)

Putin’s Neighbors Are Preparing for Total War: Europe Take Note

By Juliette Bretan | Aug 03, 2026 at 08:23 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-russia-europe-nato-war-12276230

At the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, all members committed to a 5 percent defense spending target to protect against threats to the bloc, and to make sure the Allies were sharing the burden. Of the nations close to this target, it is those on or near the border with Russia—Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and Latvia especially—who are leading the charge.

Spending, however, only tells part of the story. These nations' war-readiness is about budgets, but also whether the entire state is able to resist attack. States which offer NATO a new model of defense are not necessarily those spending the most, but those that have spent decades assuming they might be next.

Despite, or perhaps because of their size, and proximity to Vladimir Putin's Russia, this total war defense is what Eastern European countries have been building. These are the states ready for conflict.

Estimates from 2025 place Poland’s defense spending at 4.3 percent of its GDP, Lithuania at 4 percent, Latvia at 3.7 percent, Estonia at 3.4 percent, and then Denmark at 3.3 percent. Barring Poland, these are relatively small countries—Estonia on the Baltic has a population of only 1.34 million.

Their plans, as well as years of resistance to Russia, in contrast to Western apathy, offer a far broader understanding of defense, and are putting the rest of Europe to shame.

This is partly because the Baltics and Poland learned harsh lessons from history.

These states stand out in terms of defense because of their suffering under past Russian invasions. All three Baltic states and Poland were occupied by the Soviet Union; the Baltics in 1940, Poland in 1939.

The Baltic states endured Soviet occupation until 1991. This was brutal and repressive, with deportations, exile, and the Russification of society.

After 1945, Poland was coerced into the Soviet-led communist bloc until 1989.

Eastern Europe understands the costs of imperial Russian politics, and realized early that the threat from Russia had not disappeared.

They also realized it might have changed in form. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and national independence in 1991, these nations sensed their vulnerability to Russia.

In 2007, for example, Estonia was hit with a large-scale cyberattack at a time when the country disagreed with Russia over the controversial Bronze Soldier of Tallinn war memorial commemorating Soviet soldiers. After Estonia relocated the memorial, a series of cyberattacks—from Russian IP addresses—devastated Estonian governmental websites, media sites, and banking sites.

The Baltics and Poland also saw more militaristic Russian repression elsewhere, including in Georgia in 2008, and Crimea in 2014, as part of a pattern of historical Russian aggression.

For Western Europe, though, the Russian threat had been apparently eliminated. With the end of the Cold War, Russia was seen as a new trade partner and energy supplier: Germany received 52 percent of its gas from Russia in 2021, the year before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

There were also hopes in the West that the end of tensions would precipitate an optimism and peace in Europe—with the concomitant effect of military capabilities reducing, as the West played down any threat.

Germany’s troops fell from 585,000 in 1990 to 177,000 in 2016, while the UK’s army has fallen by 30 percent since 2000 to 2024. Many European states also ended conscription. Meanwhile, the focus of security turned to NATO and the U.S.

The Baltic states and Poland never accepted those assumptions. Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the Baltics in 2004, and started modernizing their armies and reinvesting in defense after Russian aggression elsewhere. Latvia and Lithuania reinstated conscription in the 2010s and 2020s; recently Lithuania reported a record number of

SECOND

Thursday, August 6, 2026 3:24 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin’s Neighbors Are Preparing for Total War: Europe Take Note

By Juliette Bretan | Aug 03, 2026 at 08:23 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/putin-russia-europe-nato-war-12276230

The Nuclear Stigma Has Held for Eighty Years: A Single Tactical Nuke in the Ukraine War Could End It

The case against tactical nuclear use is not only humanitarian. If such weapons are shown to accomplish what the largest conventional munitions cannot, every state facing a hardened or buried adversary inherits the same argument. The demonstration effect would be immediate and general, and no diplomatic instrument currently exists to contain it.

By Michael Rubin | Aug 5, 2026

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/the-nuclear-stigma-has-held-for-ei
ghty-years-a-single-tactical-nuke-in-the-ukraine-war-could-end-it/

From the very first minutes of his invasion, Putin sought to raise the specter of nuclear weapons in order to deter those who would oppose Russia.

“They must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history,” Putin declared in his television address announcing the Ukraine invasion. Three days later, Putin ordered a “special service regimen” for Russia’s nuclear forces.

As Ukraine pushed Russian forces back, Putin again threatened to use “all weapon systems available to us,” underlining his statement with the declaration, “This is not a bluff.”

As the war entered its third year, Putin warned that any NATO dispatch of troops to Ukraine would trigger a “destruction of civilization.” On November 19, 2024, Putin signed a new nuclear doctrine into law. Any conventional attack into Russian or Belarusian territory could trigger a nuclear response. In May 2026, as Ukraine struck deeper into Russian territory, reaching even Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia conducted nuclear readiness exercises. The danger now increases as Putin faces embarrassment at home.

He cannot deny the war or trap Russians in an information bubble when they see drone attacks striking at the heart of Russian cities. The war will end when Putin dies, as any successor can blame him for Russia’s loss and try to start anew, but so long as Putin remains alive, a tactical nuclear weapon in Kyiv or along the front is a real possibility.

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

SECOND

Thursday, August 6, 2026 3:33 PM (P)

Russia Is Losing the War. The Numbers Prove It

Pundits call it a “Russia’s advance.” The numbers call it systemic collapse: 39,500 casualties for 30 km² of rubble.

By Jason Jay Smart | August 6, 2026

https://www.kyivpost.com/videos/81788

Russia is gaining ground in Ukraine while losing the soldiers, money, industrial capacity, and political leverage needed to win. During June 2026, Moscow captured roughly 30 km² (12 mi²) at the cost of approximately 39,500 casualties and nearly $19 billion in war spending and strike-related losses. John Mearsheimer predicts an “ugly Russian victory,” but map movement cannot erase Putin’s failure to force Ukraine into submission. . . .

Russia is sacrificing the foundations of national power for territory that delivered none of Putin’s central objectives. . . .

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

SECOND

Thursday, August 6, 2026 6:36 PM (P)

US company’s AI lets Ukraine’s cheap kamikaze drones track targets on their own

By Jeremy Hsu – Aug 3, 2026 5:11 PM

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/ukraines-drones-get-ai-upgrades-for
-kamikaze-strikes-future-swarm-attacks/

. . . Such swarm capability provided by Auterion’s Nemyx system means that drones can autonomously work together to prioritize higher-value targets and adjust on the fly as targets are destroyed, so multiple drones aren’t wasted on the same target, Meier explained. That can all happen without any human input after the operator first directs the drone swarm toward a given objective.

“It basically means that you can point one of our swarms at an objective, and you can either decide to point all the munitions at a single target point, or you can actually spread them out from the get-go, and they will reprioritize,” Meier told Ars. “If you kick the swarm into strike mode, the whole thing strikes. If you let it abort, the whole thing aborts.”

The autonomous drone capabilities provided by Auterion’s strike kits also simplify the piloting skill required of human operators—regardless of whether they are piloting a single drone or commanding a swarm. That could help Ukraine’s military deploy more drones using a limited number of drone operators, and could prove even more invaluable for the United States or other countries that don’t yet have large numbers of trained drone operators.

“We found that we can train people within—I’m not kidding—60 seconds to operate this drone and even to operate the swarm, because you just move up and down to steer them in the right direction towards the target,” Meier said. “And when you are close enough to acquire the target, you just select it on the screen.”

The prospect of deploying fully autonomous drones on the battlefield may seem to be creeping closer. But Meier emphasized that Auterion believes in keeping a human in the target selection process.

“I am not sure if our adversaries eventually will allow us that, because they might enter into a way of warfare where we have to send autonomous systems against autonomous systems and let them make split-second decisions,” Meier said. “But until we are at that point, we as a company, and I personally believe, it’s really good if a human operator makes a life-or-death decision.”

Ukraine’s battlefield innovation system

Having visited Ukraine eight times to talk with the country’s top political and military leaders while working alongside Ukrainian drone manufacturers, Meier praised Ukraine for developing a system that enables a rapid cycle of innovation and improvement informed by battlefield experience.

“The Ukrainian forces are relatively accepting of initial battlefield failure,” Meier told Ars. “A lot of the Ukrainian firms didn’t show up with a perfectly working product—they showed up with something that was better than nothing, and then iterated through a lot of failures towards a point where it works every single time.” . . .

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

SECOND

Friday, August 7, 2026 2:10 AM (P)

The downfall of Ukraine’s ex-ambassador to US, explained

By Oleg Sukhov, Tim Zadorozhnyy | August 6, 2026 10:39 PM

https://kyivindependent.com/the-downfall-of-ukraines-ex-ambassador-to-
us-eu-integration-chief-explained/

Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine's former ambassador to the U.S. and deputy prime minister for European integration, was widely regarded as an effective manager.

But her involvement in several corruption investigations cast a shadow over her career and likely contributed to her dismissal as ambassador on Aug. 3.

On Aug. 5, authorities charged Stefanishyna with illicit enrichment totaling Hr 13.9 million ($310,000) and filing false asset declarations. She denies the allegations.

For critics of President Volodymyr Zelensky, the timing of the case has reinforced broader concerns about how his administration handles senior officials accused of corruption.

Opposition lawmaker Yaroslav Yurchyshyn argued that Stefanishyna remained in high office despite longstanding allegations because loyalty, rather than integrity, is the president's overriding criterion for key appointments.

"The main issue is the Zelensky team's reluctance to bring in people from outside his inner circle," Yurchyshyn told the Kyiv Independent. "Loyalty takes precedence over common-sense logic."

He argued that the authorities also believe they can bring anti-corruption institutions under control and shield Zelensky's close allies from prosecution.

The Kyiv Independent has requested comments from Stefanishyna and the President's Office and will publish their responses once they are received.

Yanukovych era

Stefanishyna, 40, has degrees in international law, English translation, and finance.

She has been involved in European integration since she worked at the Justice Ministry under pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko in the late 2000s.

When Yushchenko was voted out in favor of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, she kept her seat, being later promoted to deputy head and then head of the Justice Ministry's department for international law and European integration.

Yanukovych was ousted by the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.

Olena Lukash, justice minister from 2013 to 2014, and Stefanishyna were charged in 2019 with embezzlement allegedly carried out during Yanukovych's presidency.

Lukash and Stefanishyna allegedly embezzled Hr 2.52 million ($315,000 at the 2013 exchange rate) in government funds intended for bringing Ukrainian law in line with European legislation, according to the investigators.

Stefanishyna allegedly played a crucial role in the embezzlement scheme since she was responsible for signing the documents, a source familiar with the investigation told the Kyiv Independent.

In 2023, the case was sent to the High Anti-Corruption Court.

However, the trial has been delayed by the defense, and there are concerns that it may be closed due to the statute of limitations, Roman Verbovskyi, a lawyer at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, told the Kyiv Independent.

"In the positions she held (under Yanukovych), Stefanishyna was more of an implementer than a decision-maker," opposition lawmaker Yurchyshyn said in turn.

"But the real question is whether concerns should already have been raised when she joined Zelensky's team, given that she had already been charged in the Lukash case. Should that have given the authorities a sign?"

European integration portfolio

From 2017 to 2019, Stefanishyna also worked as the head of the government office responsible for European integration.

In the 2019 parliamentary election, Stefanishyna unsuccessfully ran on the list of then-Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman's party.

Later, Stefanishyna served as deputy prime minister for European integration from 2020 to 2025 and as justice minister from 2024 to 2025.

Stefanishyna was likely put in charge of European integration because she already had vast experience in the area, a

6IXSTRINGJACK

Friday, August 7, 2026 6:10 AM (P)

#Rootin4Putin

Fuck Ukraine.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SECOND

Friday, August 7, 2026 11:34 PM (P)

Moscow’s latest church rhetoric: blessing nuclear weapons as “God’s grace”

The Russian church has traveled far from the faith it claims to represent.

By Olena Mukhina | August 6, 2026

https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/08/06/finnish-archbishop-is-shocked-b
y-moscows-latest-church-rhetoric-blessing-nuclear-weapons-as-gods-grace/

An Orthodox archbishop has publicly broken with the Moscow Patriarchate over its blessing of nuclear weapons. The head of the Finnish Orthodox Church, Archbishop Elia, said he is shocked that Russian Patriarch Kirill uses Christian rhetoric to bless nuclear weapons and justify their use, the Finnish broadcaster Yle reported.

The rebuke comes from within Orthodoxy against a patriarch who has sacralized Russia's war. Kirill is considered a close ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and the Russian Orthodox Church under his leadership openly supports Russia's aggression against Ukraine, calling it a "holy war," per the Institute for the Study of War.

On Saturday, Kirill called Russian nuclear weapons a manifestation of "God's grace" and linked the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb to the prayers of Saint Serafim of Sarov, saying during the divine liturgy that the bomb was created "by God's grace and mercy."

The archbishop says there is no "Orthodox nuclear weapon"

Elia rejected the theology outright. In Orthodox liturgy, the church always prays for peace in the whole world, not for the victory of one country's weapons, he said, and there is no such thing as an "Orthodox nuclear weapon."

The archbishop drew a clear line about the church's role.

"The task of the church is not to bless weapons of mass destruction," Elia said in a statement published on the Finnish Orthodox Church's website.

Invoking a saint of love and humility angers him most

What most disturbed Elia was the act of tying a beloved saint to a nuclear blessing. He was especially angered that the name of Serafim of Sarov was linked to blessing nuclear weapons, calling the association a profound distortion.

Elia contrasted the saint with the patriarch. Serafim "was a man of love, forgiveness, and humility, and essentially embodied everything diametrically opposed to the current patriarch," he said. Serafim of Sarov is one of the most revered saints among Orthodox believers in Russia and beyond, including in Finland.

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

SECOND

Saturday, August 8, 2026 3:39 AM (P)

Most Ukrainians expect a long war, but 61% are ready to endure as long as needed

Only 21% of Ukrainians expect the war to end by the end of this year

By Kateryna Danishevska | Fri, August 07, 2026 - 13:23

More at https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/most-ukrainians-expect-long-war-but-61
-are-1786098015.html

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

SECOND

Saturday, August 8, 2026 4:38 PM (P)

The War Nobody’s Watching: Russia Is Losing, and America Has Changed the Channel

Russia is still bleeding men and machines into Ukraine, the West is still paying to keep Kyiv in the fight, and the only thing that has truly collapsed is America’s attention span.

By Eric Buer & Alex Vohr | August 7, 2026

https://sofrep.com/news/the-war-nobodys-watching-russia-is-losing-and-
america-has-changed-the-channel/

Four and a half years into Vladimir Putin’s war of expansion, the numbers coming out of Ukraine’s General Staff tell a story that almost no one in the United States is being told anymore. As of late July, Ukrainian military authorities estimate Russia has lost more than 1.44 million soldiers killed or wounded, over 12,200 tanks, more than 25,000 armored fighting vehicles, upward of 47,000 artillery systems, roughly 1,970 multiple-launch rocket systems, and 439 fixed-wing aircraft alongside 354 helicopters. A toll so large it exceeds the combined size of most European armies, twice over. These figures come from Kyiv, not Moscow, and should be read with that in mind since the Kremlin has never published comparable numbers of its own, and independent verification of exact totals is nearly impossible in an active war. But even discounted for wartime propaganda on both sides, the scale and the trend line are not in serious dispute among Western defense analysts. This is one of the most catastrophically expensive wars of attrition any modern state has fought for so little strategic return.

Four and a half years. One provincial capital, Kherson, briefly taken and then lost. A slow, grinding crawl through the Donbas, measured in individual villages and hundreds of meters, at a cost in Russian dead that a Soviet-era general staff would have found unthinkable. Vladimir Putin did not set out in February 2022 to trade a generation of Russian conscripts for a few hundred square miles of shattered farmland. He set out to erase a country; its government, its army, its claim to sovereign existence.

Four and a half years, and he has failed at that on every measure that matters, and every honest account of the war, including his own military’s battlefield performance, shows it. Russia’s air force has been so degraded and so wary of Ukrainian air defenses that it fights largely from standoff range. Its navy has been driven from most of the western Black Sea by a country with no navy of its own to speak of. Its vaunted armored formations have been reduced, again and again, to improvised infantry assaults and motorcycle-and-golf-cart tactics that have become grim internet punchlines but are, in truth, the signature of an army that has burned through its mechanized inventory faster than its defense-industrial base can replace it.

The support hasn’t stopped – it’s just stopped being news

Here is the part of the story that gets buried. The West has not walked away. NATO allies pledged roughly €70 billion (about $80 billion) in military assistance to Ukraine for 2026 and pledged to match it again in 2027. That is a level of sustained commitment that has no real precedent in a proxy conflict of this length. The PURL mechanism, the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, which lets allies buy American-made weapons directly for Ukraine, has moved billions of dollars in air defense interceptors, artillery ammunition, and precision munitions into Ukrainian hands this year alone, with contributions already running into the billions of euros within months of the program’s creation. Germany, the UK, and other allies have layered on additional bilateral packages on top of that.

This includes Patriot batteries and licensing arrangements to let Ukraine build its own systems, tens of thousands of first-person-view and long-range strike drones, extended-range ammunition, and joint production deals that will let Ukrainian-designed weapons roll off German assembly lines. The Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the “Ramstein” format that now brings together more than fifty countries, still meets, still coordinates, still moves steel and

SECOND

Saturday, August 8, 2026 4:44 PM (P)

The August Coup by Robert Service review – the drink-soaked collapse of the Soviet Union

This brilliant account of attempts by the old guard to take back control captures the ludicrousness of it all beautifully

By John Simpson | Mon 3 Aug 2026 02.00 EDT

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/aug/03/the-august-coup-by-robert-servic
e-review-the-drink-soaked-collapse-of-the-soviet-union

Marxist-Leninist rule in Russia lasted 74 years, and in August 1991 it effectively collapsed in just three days: clear evidence of how hollowed out it had become. In the period that followed, Russia tried parliamentary democracy and unalloyed capitalism, then sank back into autocracy. Now it’s struggling under a wholly unnecessary war against its neighbour and former possession, Ukraine.

Why did the system of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev vanish so fast, without a fight? Because that’s how regimes fall in Russia: look at tsarism in 1917. (It almost happened again in June 2023, when the warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s men marched on Moscow largely unopposed; Vladimir Putin might have gone the way of Nicholas II had he not made some pretty wholesale promises to Prigozhin, then allegedly blown him up two months later.) . . .

. . . Yeltsin suffered from the same weaknesses as many of the plotters. In the lobby of the White House I begged to be allowed to go up to his office and interview him, but was told he was too busy speaking to world leaders and organising the opposition. Later, the former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze arrived to see him. When he came out of the building an hour afterwards, he announced that Yeltsin had told him he would defend Russia’s freedom to the last drop of blood in his body. Stirring stuff. Three years later I reminisced with Shevardnadze about it all. He laughed. “When I got into Yeltsin’s office, he was lying unconscious on the floor with a couple of empty vodka bottles beside him.” But what about him fighting to his last drop of blood? “What do you think would have happened if I’d come out and told you I couldn’t speak to Yeltsin because he was dead drunk?”

Such was the chaos and absurdity surrounding the death of the Soviet Union. . . .

Book Review of Robert Service - The August Coup - The Destruction of the Soviet Union and the Making of New Russia 1985-1991 (2026)

Download the book for free from https://z-lib.gl/s/Robert%20Service%20The%20August%20Coup

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

SECOND

Saturday, August 8, 2026 10:52 PM (P)

Aug 8, 2026
What is life like for Ukrainians in Donbas as invading Russian forces inch closer? In this report, the Kyiv Independent's Francis Farrell and Olena Zashko travel across Donetsk Oblast to document life in the remaining areas of Ukrainian-controlled Donbas.

From Sloviansk and Kramatorsk to Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka, they meet civilians, soldiers, factory workers, and volunteers determined to hold onto their homes, despite constant Russian glide bombs and FPV drone attacks as the front line grows closer.

For more than a decade, Russia's war has revolved around Vladimir Putin’s fixation on Donbas. Now, as Russian forces push deeper into Donetsk Oblast, the remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities are entering what may be the final chapter of their existence.

00:00 Intro
00:36 Why Donbas matters
03:02 The fortress belt
03:39 Life under drones
05:29 Kramatorsk flag under attack
07:53 The geography of war
09:07 Support independent journalism in Ukraine
09:53 A wedding before leaving
10:47 A factory forced west
16:09 Cities disappearing
19:06 Gas station attack
21:38 The road to Druzhkivka
25:40 Why people stay
27:54 Russia's real target
29:30 A beach under bombs
33:33 The last chapter
35:49 Outro

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

SECOND

Sunday, August 9, 2026 6:04 AM (P)

Ukraine's grain exports may fall 53% as Russia targets ports, Bloomberg reports

This threatens the country's largest source of export revenue.

By Vladyslava Kovalenko | Sat, August 08, 2026 – 13:20

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/ukraine-s-grain-exports-may-fall-53-as
-russia-1786184319.html

Ukraine's agricultural exports this season could fall by more than half after Russian attacks disrupted operations at Black Sea ports, according to Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-07/ukraine-grain-expor
ts-to-slump-after-russian-strikes-on-odesa

According to Ukraine's Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, the country could export around 29.6 million tons of agricultural products in the 2026-27 marketing year, 54% less than the previous estimate of 64.4 million tons.

Meanwhile, wheat exports could decline by 53% to 8.3 million tons compared with the previous forecast.

Ukraine is one of the world's largest grain suppliers, while the agricultural sector generated more than half of the country's export revenue last year.

Russian attacks on the Port of Odesa, which normally handles around 90% of grain shipments, are disrupting these flows, while alternative routes along the Danube are limited by drought, which has caused water levels in the river to fall to record lows.

The new harvest is filling storage facilities and affecting domestic prices. Around 59 million tons of grain storage capacity in Ukraine could be completely filled by early November, while the storage deficit is expected to reach around 11 million tons by the end of autumn.

It should be recalled that earlier we reported that Ukraine's direct losses from lost export revenue will exceed $2 billion. This concerns the second half of 2026.

Recently, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that the country could resume exports despite the blockade of the maritime corridor.

It was also revealed why Russia is carrying out massive attacks on Ukrainian ports now: https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/why-russia-massively-targeting-ukraine
-s-1785409252.html

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

SIGNYM

Sunday, August 9, 2026 6:57 AM (P)

That's what Ukraine gets for attacking RUSSIAN grain ships.

FAFO.

-----------

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

SIGNYM

Sunday, August 9, 2026 6:58 AM (P)

-----------

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

SECOND

Sunday, August 9, 2026 3:54 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
That's what Ukraine gets for attacking RUSSIAN grain ships.

FAFO.

FAFO is an internet acronym that stands for "F* around and find out**" (or politely, "fool around and find out"). But that is NOT what happened, Signym. Trump happened. He stopped sending Patriot missiles. Once those were finally all used, which just recently happened, Russia could bombard with ballistic missiles the port's grain loading machinery.

Weekend Update #197: Anatomy Of A Con

Ukraine Has Not Gone From Winning To Losing

By Phillips P. OBrien
Aug 09, 2026

Donald Trump has known from the moment that he became president again that Ukraine was desperate for Patriot missiles. Indeed, he knew it so well that he used that information to both boast about his own power and also to abuse the Ukrainians as supplicants. Remember, he loves things that make him seem powerful, and knowing that the Ukrainians were desperate for Patriot interceptors as the Russians were bombarding their cities and people, is exactly the kind of thing that turns him on.

How can I say that? Well, he went to great lengths to tell the world—not in a way that somehow politically helped him, but just because he could. Lets start with examples from very early into his second term:

Examples of Trump Knowing How Desperately Ukraine Needs Patriots

14 April 2025 — Oval Office

Just before Trump was down to meet with El Salvadoran president Bukele, he was asked whether he had spoken to Zelensky about his offer to purchase more Patriot batteries, Trump replied:

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s always looking to purchase missiles. You know? He’s against—listen, when you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war, right?”

He continued on to insult Ukraine by saying that you don’t start a war against somebody twenty times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles—implying that Ukraine decided to start the war.

Much more at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-197-anatomy-of-a
-con

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

SECOND

Sunday, August 9, 2026 4:07 PM (P)

Putin Can’t Bomb or Drone Ukraine Into Submission

Kyiv city recorded 73 percent support for freezing the war along the current line — the highest of any region, against 53 to 59 percent elsewhere. It also recorded the highest rejection of a Donbas handover, at 69 percent. The city under sustained ballistic missile attack most wants the shooting to stop and least wants to pay for it with territory.

By Alexander J. Motyl | August 8, 2026

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2026/08/putin-cant-bomb-or-drone-ukraine-i
nto-submission/

The last thing Russia’s embattled ‘president’ Putin needs is more bad news. The war is going badly, the economy is tanking, antiwar sentiment is on the rise, and Muscovites and Saint-Petersburgers may soon have to be drafted into the ranks of the living dead. Only Vladimir Putin’s genocidal designs are progressing satisfactorily, as Russian missiles kill Ukrainian civilians every day.

Now, along comes the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology’s latest poll on Ukrainian attitudes toward war and peace.

Details follow below, but the bottom line is that Ukrainians remain unfazed by Putin’s savage bombardments and are committed to keep on fighting.

If Putin and his criminal cabal were hoping to demoralize Ukrainians and force them to surrender, they were sorely mistaken.

As the KIIS executive director put it:

“Our survey took place in a rather controversial period…. However, given the totality of circumstances, we see that Ukrainians still retain optimism and the intention to continue resisting the enemy. Although the Russian campaign of air strikes (especially with ballistic missiles) causes pain and suffering to Ukrainians, it does not break our will. Ukrainians understand that Russia and Russians are an existential threat, so the fight must continue.”

Here are some of the poll’s key findings:

-“The absolute majority of respondents – 77% – share the view that although Russia is advancing, it is [doing so] slowly and with heavy losses, and Ukraine is able to continue effective resistance.”

– “60% of respondents consider it categorically unacceptable to transfer the entire Donbas under Russian control in exchange for security guarantees…. Compared to April, fewer Ukrainians express readiness to approve this scenario.”

-A “majority rejects the proposal to withdraw Ukrainian troops in exchange for security guarantees…. Despite the merciless campaign of bombing Kyiv city with ballistic missiles and other means, the readiness of the city’s residents to approve the proposal has even decreased – from 34% to 26%. On the other hand, the number of those who are categorically against it has increased from 62% to 69%.”

-Regarding “’freezing’ the war on the current front line in exchange for security guarantees in the form of significant funding and weapons supplies, 59% are ready to approve it (although also mostly reluctantly). Categorically against this scenario – 31%.”

-“Only 21% of Ukrainians expect the war to end at least by the end of this year. And only 15% expect the war to end at least in the first half of 2027. Instead, 45% expect the war to end either in the second half of 2027 or later.”

To repeat, despite (or because of Putin’s genocidal war, Ukrainians are determined to fight for as long as it takes. They’re willing to compromise, but they’re unwilling to commit suicide by accepting Putin’s (and quite possibly Donald Trump’s) terms. After all, if the choice is fighting or being killed, it’s hardly surprising that Ukrainians choose to fight.

Ukrainian determination to survive Putin is bad enough for him. Making matters worse is a recent podcast by one of Russia’s best exiled commentators, Michael Naki. Erudite and astonishingly well informed, Naki is resolutely opposed to Putin’s war and is unafraid to ask tough questions, such as the heading of an August 5 program, “What stands in the way of Putin’s being killed?”

Naki discusses three scenarios—an elite coup, a mass uprising, and a foreign assassination—and concludes they’re all unlikely. What makes

SECOND

Monday, August 10, 2026 1:35 AM (P)

Mutual Delusion

By Anatol Lieven

07 August 2026

Hardliners on both sides in the Ukraine war are pursuing a chimaera in the hope of a miracle. Moscow appears to believe that in the near future, the Ukrainian defences that have held the Russian advance to a bloody crawl for years will miraculously collapse, or that the European money and arms that have enabled those defences will suddenly vanish. A large part of the Western commentariat (and some, though by no means all Ukrainian security experts) appear beholden to a symmetrical fantasy.

. . .

In the later decades of the Cold War, despite Western fears of Soviet aggression, the risk of escalation leading to nuclear catastrophe produced a serious will to détente among Western establishments. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became clear that Soviet aggressiveness had been vastly exaggerated in the West. Today, the risk of escalation is much greater, but that lesson has not been learned, and the will to détente seems to have disappeared. It needs to be recovered, before it is too late.

More at https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/mutual-delusion

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

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, August 10, 2026 4:08 AM (P)

Fuck Ukraine.

Nobody gives a shit.

And now people are actively rooting against them.

Because they're actively rooting against YOU.

Everybody hates you, Shit Golem.

If you care about Ukraine, then shut the fuck up.

Nobody wants fucking losers like you and Ted Bundy Clone as allies.

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

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

SECOND

Monday, August 10, 2026 4:04 PM (P)

Despite sanctions and war, one Russian industry is booming

By Lauge Risom Koch | August 9, 2026

https://www.dagens.com/war/despite-sanctions-and-war-one-russian-indus
try-is-booming

The average cost of a coffin in Russia has surged by 105% since the invasion of Ukraine, driving rapid expansion in the domestic funeral industry.

The average price of a coffin in Russia has more than doubled since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This massive increase in funeral costs coincides with heavily mounting military casualties on the frontlines. The broader funeral services sector has also seen rapid expansion and surging inflation over the past four years.

Rising costs of funeral supplies

The cost of manufacturing and purchasing coffins began climbing during the very first months of the war. By June 2026, the average price of a standard coffin reached roughly 9,167 rubles, which is approximately $112. According to reporting by United24 Media, this represents a staggering 105% increase from the pre-war average of 4,469 rubles in February 2022.

The price spikes closely followed major military developments, such as the initial invasion and the subsequent announcement of partial mobilization. Following the mobilization order in September 2022, coffin prices jumped by roughly 33% in just five months. By February 2023, families were already paying significantly more to bury their deceased relatives.

Official data shows that these costs continued to rise steadily throughout the duration of the conflict. The state statistics system, Rosstat, reported that coffin prices increased by 11.6% in 2024 and another 9.3% in 2025. This inflationary trend persisted into the current year, with prices climbing an additional 7% during the first half of 2026.

Surging grave digging expenses

The financial burden of burying the dead extends well beyond the purchase of a casket. The service fees associated with digging graves have also experienced dramatic inflationary pressure since the war began. Before the invasion, families paid an average of 7,849 rubles for grave digging services, but those costs quickly skyrocketed.

As the conflict progressed, these labor costs increased substantially each year. The average price rose to 8,862 rubles in January 2023, and then surpassed 10,000 rubles by early 2024. By the end of 2025, the average price for grave digging reached 12,576 rubles, marking a 60% increase from pre-war levels.

As noted by United24 Media, the state statistics agency ultimately changed how it tracks these specific expenses. Beginning in 2026, Rosstat actually removed grave digging from its consumer inflation basket. Consequently, the government has officially stopped publishing the average national price for this essential funeral service.

Expansion of the funeral industry

As casualty numbers continue to climb, the broader funeral services sector in Russia is experiencing unprecedented financial growth. The total financial turnover of the industry reached 128 billion rubles in 2025. This massive figure represents a more than 50% increase compared to the revenue levels recorded in 2021 before the invasion.

This boom in demand has prompted a record number of new businesses to enter the morbid market. During 2025 alone, over 1,500 new funeral service companies opened their doors across the country. In the first six months of 2026, nearly a thousand more agencies entered the market, marking the highest first-half growth figure in five years.

The dramatic rise in burial costs and funeral services comes as Moscow sustains severe personnel losses. According to estimates highlighted by United24 Media, Russian forces have suffered approximately 1.6 million military casualties since the full-scale conflict began. This staggering toll reportedly includes approximately 700,000 troops killed in action.

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

SECOND

Monday, August 10, 2026 4:15 PM (P)

Russia Has Spent $625,000,000,000 to Take 12 Percent of Ukraine. That Is $21,500,000 a Square Mile with 1,400,000 Battlefield Casualties

Russia’s military spending from 1 January 2022 through 31 March 2026 came to 53.1 trillion rubles — roughly $625 billion using year-by-year conversion. Net territorial gain over the same period is between 28,191 and 29,051 square miles, about 12 percent of Ukraine. That works out to about $21.5 million in military spending for every square mile taken.

By Harry J. Kazianis | August 9, 2026

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2026/08/russia-has-spent-625000000000-to-t
ake-12-percent-of-ukraine-that-is-21500000-a-square-mile-with-1400000-battlefield-casualties/

The best public accounting puts Russia’s military spending at 53.148 trillion rubles from January 1, 2022, through March 31, 2026. Rounded to a usable headline number, Moscow’s wartime military bill stands at 53.1 trillion rubles, or roughly $625 billion, using year-by-year dollar conversions rather than a single exchange rate for the entire period. The ruble sum is the hard figure, as close as I can get to it right now, but clearly is not absolute, but meant to show you, the reader, the scale of Russian spending. The dollar total is an approximation. And the reality is clear: Putin has very little to show for it, lost the war based on many different goals he himself set, and looks like China’s junior partner.

The Ukraine War Math Is Tough for Russia

The arithmetic starts with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s annual estimates: 7.457 trillion rubles in 2022, 9.435 trillion in 2023, 14.393 trillion in 2024, and 15.964 trillion in 2025. Economist Janis Kluge calculated another 5.9 trillion rubles in the first quarter of 2026 from Russian Finance Ministry data. Add those five figures, and the result is 53.148 trillion rubles. No estimate is included for April through August 2026.

This is not a Kremlin invoice labeled “the Ukraine war.” The total includes nuclear forces, military salaries, bases, procurement, and other defense functions, as well as the 54 days of 2022 before the full-scale invasion. It also misses some regional enlistment bonuses and other war-related spending outside the federal military accounts. SIPRI estimates that direct operations in Ukraine consumed about 4.5 percent of Russian GDP in 2024 and 5.1 percent in 2025, compared with total military burdens of 7.2 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively. The war drove most of the bill, not every ruble.

The Ukraine War Failure

What did Russia obtain? Nothing compared to what it spent; that’s for sure.

A Russia Matters review of DeepState and Institute for the Study of War data placed Moscow’s net gain since February 24, 2022, between 28,191 and 29,051 square miles, equal to about 12 percent of Ukraine.

Including Crimea and the parts of Donbas held before 2022, Russia controls roughly 19-20 percent.

Dividing $625 billion by the higher net-gain estimate produces a crude ratio of $21.5 million in military spending for each square mile gained.

To me, considering the loss of lives to gain such territory, this is nothing short of a disaster. More on the human cost in a second.

Russia Paid 1.4 Million Casualties for 12 Percent of Ukraine

The human bill is larger than the map suggests.

A July 2026 Center for Strategic and International Studies estimate put Russian battlefield casualties at 1.4 million, including killed, wounded, and missing personnel, from February 2022 through June 2026.

Between 400,000 and 450,000 were fatalities. CSIS estimated monthly losses of 30,000 to 34,000 in 2026, against recruitment of roughly 27,000, a shortfall in Moscow’s effort to keep feeding the front without another national mobilization.

Russia also lost at least 23,959 pieces of military equipment, according to the Oryx visual database as counted by Russia Matters, on August 4.

The total included 14,143 tanks and other armored vehicles, 380 aircraft, and 29 naval vessels. Oryx requires photographic or video evidence, so the

THG

Tuesday, August 11, 2026 1:13 AM (P)

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

OMG, you STILL don't get it!

Do you still believe that someone spouting into a camera is providing FACTS?

Dood, I could get in front of a camera and spin a convincing yarn about ... a killer outbreak, a swarm of invading bugs, whatever.... and show flashes of irrelevant pictures and you'd never know that it was completely fabricated.

YOUR filter for whether something is true or not is whether it aligns with what you want. That's a piss poor way of learning the truth.

FACTS, dood.

I’m grateful for your posts because they will be around when your reality comes crashing down.

T

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