Russia on brink of ... NOPE! Russia INVADES Ukraine!

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Leeea

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2020
3,599
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NATO could declare support and cooperation for Putin's stated campaign against Nazis, roll into UKR and wipe out every single Wagner force wherever they are found, then roll right back out declaring the de-Nazification campaign complete.
To be clear I also feel the Russian federation needs to be de-Nazified. We need to destroy the threat at the roots.
 

Indus

Diamond Member
May 11, 2002
9,752
6,368
136
The power outages will threaten Ukrainian military logistical supplies. Providing Russia offensive opportunities in new fronts.

Yeah it seems to be a battle of the bulge strategy as a prayer after hoping the electrical infrastructure is down and the ukrainians can't be resupplied.

Would be wise to keep reserve forces and artillery scattered nearby that're able to reinforce the troops when needed.

I'm pretty sure Ukraine and NATO have thought about this ahead of time.

It's just my gut feeling but I think if Ukraine can cut off the land bridge to Crimea and keep the Kerch bridge out of action it could end being a repeat of the liberation of Kherson with Russia being forced to simply give it up.

The Donbas is looking much more difficult as it is much easier for Russia to keep supplying its troops there. But they seem to be supplying newbie combat vets more than supplies so who knows.
 
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Nov 17, 2019
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Ummm, did we miss something here?

"
Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Hackers hit the European Parliament website with a "sophisticated" cyberattack on Wednesday, shortly after the body declared Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.


The cyberattack disrupted the website's service moments after the members took their vote. The Parliament cannot officially designate Russia as a terrorism sponsor, but with its vote urged the European Union to do so.

"The [European Parliament] is under a sophisticated cyberattack," President Roberta Metsola said in a statement on Twitter. "A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility. Our IT experts are pushing back against it and protecting our systems. This, after we proclaimed Russia as a state-sponsor of terrorism.""


 
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Nov 17, 2019
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From the embedded link above:

"
On Wednesday, Parliament adopted a resolution on the latest developments in Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine. MEPs highlight that the deliberate attacks and atrocities committed by Russian forces and their proxies against civilians in Ukraine, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and other serious violations of international and humanitarian law amount to acts of terror and constitute war crimes. In light of this, they recognise Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and as a state that “uses means of terrorism”.

EU legal framework needed
As the EU currently cannot officially designate states as sponsors of terrorism, Parliament calls on the EU and its member states to put in place the proper legal framework and consider adding Russia to such a list. This would trigger a number of significant restrictive measures against Moscow and have profound restrictive implications for EU relations with Russia.

In the meantime, MEPs call on the Council to include the Russian paramilitary organisation ‘the Wagner Group’, the 141st Special Motorized Regiment, also known as the “Kadyrovites”, and other Russian-funded armed groups, militias and proxies, on the EU’s terrorist list."

 
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cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,049
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Orban the Putin fluffer, US alt-right GQP icon, takes NATO hostage, postpones vote on Finland and Sweden in NATO.

Why?

Currently EU is debating withholding development and recovery funds cause democracy is sliding in the country.




These "strong-men" bitches need bullets. In the eyes.
 

tweaker2

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
14,477
6,900
136
This might be NSFW

But if you are pro-America this is an awesome video of what this war is actually doing to the Russians with drone warfare.

You have been warned! (not for weak hearted) !!!


Those mini bombs the drone is unleashing are like M26's!


Strong motivation for Russians about to be conscripted to take a crabwalk out of Russia or at least out of the reach of the press gangs rounding them up if only it could be broadcast out to them. I'm pretty sure it would suck the loyalty to Putin right out of thousands of them, and make up the minds out of many more of them that were thinking about hopping the fence away from being wastefully sent to their deaths.

After nine months of the war being fought and the disastrous results of the loss of troops, territory seized and materiel it's caused them, it's certain the cruel realities of the war has been spread throughout Russia despite Putin's efforts at controlling it. There must be quite a few Russians who can clearly recall their war with Afghanistan and see the similarities between then and now.
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,512
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Ummm, did we miss something here?

"
Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Hackers hit the European Parliament website with a "sophisticated" cyberattack on Wednesday, shortly after the body declared Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.


The cyberattack disrupted the website's service moments after the members took their vote. The Parliament cannot officially designate Russia as a terrorism sponsor, but with its vote urged the European Union to do so.

"The [European Parliament] is under a sophisticated cyberattack," President Roberta Metsola said in a statement on Twitter. "A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility. Our IT experts are pushing back against it and protecting our systems. This, after we proclaimed Russia as a state-sponsor of terrorism.""



One of the best ways to argue that you aren't terrorists, after an international body calls you terrorists, is to go ahead and do some terrorism.
 

ralfy

Senior member
Jul 22, 2013
485
53
91
I'm not sold on the idea that after the way Russia has gone about this war with the war crimes and deliberately targeting civilians that many Ukrainians, even those that formerly leaned toward Russia, would say that they would willingly accept becoming a Russian puppet state. I'm also not sold on the idea that any country that has actively persued democracy ( Ukraine shortly after the fall of the USSR ) should be sacrificed to appease Russia's insecurity.
Brzezinski was heinous, but Russia was already leaning away from the west and well into rebuilding itself on the mafia / kgb model imo, as the black market, corruption, and the internal intelligence apparatus were some of the strongest systems standing after the fall of the USSR. I also disagree that Russia had no intention of taking the entirety of Ukraine. There was an attempt after all to take the capital, but that was badly executed thankfully, that stupid 70km convoy was a shitshow of logistics, and the multiple assasination attempts on Zelensky that have failed indicate that Russia was not going to stop at Donbas.
The U.S. may have been playing games at some level, but Ukraine chose it's own road, and Russia chose to try to thwart them decades after giving up any reasonable claim over Ukraine. If Russia wants to beat its future to death out of irrational fear and nationalistic bluster, that is their own decision. The rationale of "poor Russia being bullied into a war" seems a little flimsy when their missiles are hitting civilian areas and infrastructure as winter begins and their media and military are threatening to use fucking nukes every second day. These are not the actions of a nation that has lofty intentions of helping the "oppressed" people of Ukraine.
And Trump thought Putin was a "genius" for doing this. Fuck Putin. Fuck Trump. Fuck the whole schwack of Putin fluffing wanna be authoritarian scumbag traitors to humanity. War is horrors piled upon horrors, but there is an old saying that goes something like "It's better to live one minute as a tiger than a lifetime as a worm." Perhaps it should be added that resistance to relegating your children and those you love to a life of being worms is also more reason to be the tiger if necessary.

Your first paragraph is essentially countered by the rest of your post, where many points only repeat what doesn't sell to you.

According to the sources I gathered, the problems started way back after WW2, and that proponents for containment of Russia, like Kennan, said early as the late 1990s that continuing that would lead to war. Here's the gist following points by Kennan, Mearsheimer, Sachs, Chomsky, and others:

NATO was formed to contain the Soviet Union. At the same time, the U.S. invented an arms race in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union, and it worked.

The Soviet Union fell apart. The West assured the former soviets that it would not advance one inch further in the name of peace.

NATO starts questioning its continued existence. Meanwhile, oligarchs take control of the former soviets and prop up politicians like Putin to work for them. Later, Putin and others turn on them.

Russia, as part of BRICS and 40 countries, becomes economically stronger thanks to the Triffin dilemma.

The U.S. is now threatened by that because stronger economies are trying to move away from the dollar, and it needs the opposite in order to continue its borrowing and spending binge which started with Reagan.

Reagan starts promoting neoconservatism and neoliberalism to maintain control of other countries. After the "evil empire" fell apart, then U.S. then imagined that the Russians want the return of a Soviet empire, and that China wants to create an empire of its own.

NATO thus became a buffer to be used to protect the U.S. The U.S. by then had the largest military budget in the world to maintain "freedom" and "democracy" worldwide but to actually protect U.S. interests. That includes over 700 military bases and installations worldwide, including around 400 to encircle China, and as part of over a century of warmongering:


which prompted one of its former Presidents to state that the country is the most warlike on the planet:


That warmongering was coupled with onerous foreign policies and low intensity conflict needed to keep countries weak and to prop up political leaders in favor of the U.S. That ranged from Saddam to Pinochet to the Shah of Iran.

For Ukraine, that meant NATO enlargement:


and color revolutions to remove political leaders who questioned the U.S. and set up those who favored them.

With Belarus and Ukraine left, Putin invades the latter, but occupies only those parts dominated by Russians, assuming that the West would negotiate and back off expansion.

The U.S. did not and has demanded that other countries go against Russia. Allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia disagreed, and even countries like Singapore and Malaysia maintain that they will remain neutral.

The U.S. starts sending large amounts in aid to Ukraine while more Americans complain that they're suffering economically. There's even news that places like the Netherlands are trying to resist pressure from the U.S. involving chip trade with countries like China.

Russia is now caught in a quagmire, and may be forced to send in more troops to ensure regime change. If it causes the dissolution of Ukraine, then it might lose support from China, as the latter would now see Russia as a threat that's growing stronger.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is deep in debt, and has to borrow more in order to pay for just part of the interest of previous debts. In short, the debt is mathematically impossible to pay, and it needs other countries to side with it and the dollar. Those countries have been answering back, preferring to continue trade not only with Russia and Ukraine but also with China.

Last point: why only Trump? According to Chomsky, U.S. Presidents (including the one mentioned above) by default promoted similar policies:


Some even engaged in decades of that before they became President:

 

ralfy

Senior member
Jul 22, 2013
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These arguments feel exactly like blaming a rape victim for what she was wearing.

Both Russia and Ukraine were struggling economically:


but Russia advanced because it followed the same nationalist line as China and others.

Ukraine tried the opposite after the color revolution by backing U.S. neoconservatism and neoliberalism, with the U.S. counting on that because it needed NATO enlargement to contain Russia:


and its economy has barely improved since. Even countries like Thailand are doing better.

Kennan predicted this back in the late 1990s, and he was right:


and that was the time when Clinton and Bush considered using NATO to act as a buffer against the "enemies" of the U.S.
 

ralfy

Senior member
Jul 22, 2013
485
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This interview is laugh out loud absurd:

"Before he violated Ukrainian sovereignty, he respected Ukrainian sovereignty, because he said he did?

I’m just telling you what he said in the July 12, 2021, article that he wrote, the famous article.

I just meant that if he’s saying that he respects Ukrainian sovereignty and then he invades Ukraine, it makes me wonder if we should believe him when he says he respects its sovereignty. I don’t know."

From


I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand. Nevertheless, what has happened with the passage of time is that we have moved forward to include Ukraine in the West to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. Of course, this includes more than just NATO expansion. NATO expansion is the heart of the strategy, but it includes E.U. expansion as well, and it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat.

...

If Ukraine becomes a pro-American liberal democracy, and a member of NATO, and a member of the E.U., the Russians will consider that categorically unacceptable. If there were no NATO expansion and no E.U. expansion, and Ukraine just became a liberal democracy and was friendly with the United States and the West more generally, it could probably get away with that. You want to understand that there is a three-prong strategy at play here: E.U. expansion, NATO expansion, and turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy.

The gist is that the U.S. is projecting, assuming that countries like Russia and China are also engaged in empire-building. This is a convenient narrative because it justifies incredible levels of U.S. military spending and aggression, e.g., over 700 military bases and installations worldwide, and engaging in decades of intervention, destabilization, etc., across multiple countries. It also justifies NATO enlargement, as the organization was set up to counter a Soviet Union that no longer exists.

With that enlargement:


only Ukraine remained.

Finally, there are actually two ideologies involved: neoconservatism (the U.S. must protect the world against the "enemies" of "freedom" and "democracy") coupled with exceptionalism (the U.S. is the only "good" country in the world, and others are either with it or are part of the "evil empire" or "with the terrorists"), and neolibealism (only liberal democracy and free markets will do, and other countries must be forced to become free). In reality, the purpose of the two ideologies is to ensure U.S. dominance globally. By keeping other countries weak through low intensity conflict, onerous foreign policies, financial aid with strings attached, etc., they remain in the orbit of U.S. influence. And by prying open their economies in the name of "freedom," then more powerful countries and corporations can exploit their resources and cheap labor.
 

ralfy

Senior member
Jul 22, 2013
485
53
91

According one German NATO advisor, Russians may look like Europeans but aren't. Culturally, they are all "about" violence and death. They have "no concept of a liberal, post-modern life." That's why their life expectancy rates are low.

The same might apply to many other countries that are part of BRICS:


and even emerging markets:


which ironically includes Ukraine.
 

Tsinni Dave

Senior member
Mar 1, 2022
559
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One of the Presidents that first called for NATO expansion, recently speaking about the invasion:


Apparently, he has not lost his sense of humor:

So Ukraine has no right to self determination and no right to defend itself because the west is bad? Ukraine is asking the west for help, not Russia. Do you suppose there is a legitimate reason for that?

Edit : Look at the first post on this page which sums up Russian negotiating tactics in all their glory.
 
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Young Grasshopper

Senior member
Nov 9, 2007
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So Ukraine has no right to self determination and no right to defend itself because the west is bad? Ukraine is asking the west for help, not Russia. Do you suppose there is a legitimate reason for that?

Edit : Look at the first post on this page which sums up Russian negotiating tactics in all their glory.

They can defend themselves all they want, as long as they pay for it. Why should our tax dollars be sent to them? With the amount of money we have sent them, we could have ended homelessness in every part of this country.

Besides, they got themselves into this mess by deciding to be puppets for the west. Let them deal with it.
 
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RnR_au

Golden Member
Jun 6, 2021
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Seems the wheels are slowly coming off the Russian internal services...

CIA is reportedly recruiting Russian military & state officials that are reaching the Intelligence services in masse and offering their services.
The military failure (for which the Army will be a scapegoat) and increasing economic disaster in Russia will incentivize many military officers & state officials to sell state secrets (to CIA, SBU, etc ) in exchange for money or safety guarantees. This situation is not very different from the systematic cooperation of ex-soviet citizens with the Western intelligence services after the fall of the USSR and disarray in Russia.
From https://wartranslated.com/day-274-november-24th-summary-of-arestovych-and-feygin-daily-broadcast/
 

Tsinni Dave

Senior member
Mar 1, 2022
559
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They can defend themselves all they want, as long as they pay for it. Why should our tax dollars be sent to them? With the amount of money we have sent them, we could have ended homelessness in every part of this country.

Besides, they got themselves into this mess by deciding to be puppets for the west. Let them deal with it.
Real neighbourly attitude there. A country, after being under Soviet rule could not have possibly saw a chance at democracy as a more compelling future than remaining the puppet of a crumbling authoritarian police state with shitty cars? The people of Ukraine, actual individual people voting, chose their direction overwhelmingly despite the risk, and you disparage them for choosing to defy what has been blatantly and repeatedly shown in the last eight years to be a cruel and brutal oligarchy led by a cruel and brutal man that has jailed, poisoned or killed his opposition to secure and consolidate his power? I suppose you should just roll over in the same circumstances, maybe become a collaborator and get some brownie points. Real bright future in that.
 

rommelrommel

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2002
4,370
3,077
146
They can defend themselves all they want, as long as they pay for it. Why should our tax dollars be sent to them? With the amount of money we have sent them, we could have ended homelessness in every part of this country.

Besides, they got themselves into this mess by deciding to be puppets for the west. Let them deal with it.

Lol, like you’ve ever indicated that you give a single fuck about the homeless.

It’s still somewhat inexplicable to me that so many Americans and a sizeable group of Canadians have grown to hate western liberal democracy so much that they prefer to cheerlead for a literal neo-fascist dictator. And at that, one that’s trying to spread discord and harm us in the west.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
Your first paragraph is essentially countered by the rest of your post, where many points only repeat what doesn't sell to you.

According to the sources I gathered, the problems started way back after WW2, and that proponents for containment of Russia, like Kennan, said early as the late 1990s that continuing that would lead to war. Here's the gist following points by Kennan, Mearsheimer, Sachs, Chomsky, and others:

NATO was formed to contain the Soviet Union. At the same time, the U.S. invented an arms race in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union, and it worked.

The Soviet Union fell apart. The West assured the former soviets that it would not advance one inch further in the name of peace.

NATO starts questioning its continued existence. Meanwhile, oligarchs take control of the former soviets and prop up politicians like Putin to work for them. Later, Putin and others turn on them.

Russia, as part of BRICS and 40 countries, becomes economically stronger thanks to the Triffin dilemma.

The U.S. is now threatened by that because stronger economies are trying to move away from the dollar, and it needs the opposite in order to continue its borrowing and spending binge which started with Reagan.

Reagan starts promoting neoconservatism and neoliberalism to maintain control of other countries. After the "evil empire" fell apart, then U.S. then imagined that the Russians want the return of a Soviet empire, and that China wants to create an empire of its own.

NATO thus became a buffer to be used to protect the U.S. The U.S. by then had the largest military budget in the world to maintain "freedom" and "democracy" worldwide but to actually protect U.S. interests. That includes over 700 military bases and installations worldwide, including around 400 to encircle China, and as part of over a century of warmongering:


which prompted one of its former Presidents to state that the country is the most warlike on the planet:


That warmongering was coupled with onerous foreign policies and low intensity conflict needed to keep countries weak and to prop up political leaders in favor of the U.S. That ranged from Saddam to Pinochet to the Shah of Iran.

For Ukraine, that meant NATO enlargement:


and color revolutions to remove political leaders who questioned the U.S. and set up those who favored them.

With Belarus and Ukraine left, Putin invades the latter, but occupies only those parts dominated by Russians, assuming that the West would negotiate and back off expansion.

The U.S. did not and has demanded that other countries go against Russia. Allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia disagreed, and even countries like Singapore and Malaysia maintain that they will remain neutral.

The U.S. starts sending large amounts in aid to Ukraine while more Americans complain that they're suffering economically. There's even news that places like the Netherlands are trying to resist pressure from the U.S. involving chip trade with countries like China.

Russia is now caught in a quagmire, and may be forced to send in more troops to ensure regime change. If it causes the dissolution of Ukraine, then it might lose support from China, as the latter would now see Russia as a threat that's growing stronger.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is deep in debt, and has to borrow more in order to pay for just part of the interest of previous debts. In short, the debt is mathematically impossible to pay, and it needs other countries to side with it and the dollar. Those countries have been answering back, preferring to continue trade not only with Russia and Ukraine but also with China.

Last point: why only Trump? According to Chomsky, U.S. Presidents (including the one mentioned above) by default promoted similar policies:


Some even engaged in decades of that before they became President:

This is remarkably insane and is not internally consistent. (The Shah came after the Soviet Union fell apart?!)

More than anything though this shows a basic misunderstanding of sovereign debt. The US is not at all concerned about our sovereign debt levels and most of it is owned by our own citizens anyway.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
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They can defend themselves all they want, as long as they pay for it. Why should our tax dollars be sent to them? With the amount of money we have sent them, we could have ended homelessness in every part of this country.
That is not even remotely true. You can find plenty of people on the internet who make this claim but none of them seem to be bothered by the fact that it is false.

Besides, they got themselves into this mess by deciding to be puppets for the west. Let them deal with it.
So then you’re saying Ukraine has no right to self determination.