India And China Finally Voicing Concerns Over Russia’s Actions In Ukraine

https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladi...sias-actions-in-ukraine/?sh=55bc9f083c7a

TOPLINE

India and China raised concerns about the impact of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine—emphasizing the violation of international law and territorial integrity—at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday, rare signs of dissent from the two countries that were likely prompted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s implicit threat to use nuclear weapons.

KEY FACTS

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said “there can be no justification for violation of human rights or of international law,” pointing to reports of mass killings in Ukrainian territories that were previously under Russian control.

In an apparent criticism of Putin’s veiled threats, Jaishankar said the “nuclear issue is a particular anxiety” and flagged the issue of global food and fuel shortages triggered by the invasion.

Jaishankar also reiterated India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent exchange with Putin where he said “today’s era is not of war,” urging the Russian leader to peacefully end the conflict.

Ahead of a Russian orchestrated referendum to annex Ukraine’s territory, China’s Foreign Minister [censored] Yi said Beijing believes that the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected” adding “the principles of the U.N. Charter should be observed.”

After a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping earlier this month, Putin admitted Xi had raised “questions and concerns” about the situation in Ukraine.

The foreign minister of Brazil and South Africa—which are members of the BRICS alliance also featuring Russia, India and China—also condemned the “ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine” and emphasized the need to maintain the “territorial integrity of states.”

CRUCIAL QUOTE

Recognizing the apparent shift in opinion towards Russia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Security Council: “We hear a lot about the divisions among countries at the United Nations. But recently, what is striking is the remarkable unity among member-states when it comes to Russia’s war on Ukraine…Even a number of nations that maintain close ties with Moscow have said publicly that they have serious questions and concerns about President Putin’s ongoing invasion.”

KEY BACKGROUND

Both India and China have attempted to remain neutral amid the ongoing conflict and have shied away from publicly criticizing Russia. Ahead of the invasion, China said it had a “no limits” partnership with Russia and even agreed it had legitimate concerns about the expansion of NATO in eastern Europe. Since the start of the conflict, Chinese officials have criticized Western sanctions against Russia but it has not provided any military support to Moscow. India has tried to avoid criticizing Russia—its largest supplier of weapons—even as it has developed close ties with the United States amid a brewing regional rivalry with China. As western nations have moved to cut back or sanction Russian energy, India and China have continued to import cheap oil from Russia. Both countries have also refused to participate in the G7’s effort to put a cap on Russian oil prices. However, Russian efforts to annex large swathes of Ukrainian territory and Putin’s threat of using nuclear weapons might have been a bridge too far for both China and India—who are nuclear-armed and have multiple territorial disputes with other nations.

look guys i've been trying to tell yall this for awhile now: India and China wasn't gonna do anything, especially not India. and not just india, but other countries were buying up cheap russian oil. i told you guys if i was the leader of india or some african countries, i would've bought it too!! That was not gonna have an impact on my relations with the US or the EU, because that's not my fight. that doesn't mean they condoned the actions of Russia, but ukraine has nothing to their energy and development needs inside their borders. yea, they can buy oil, but india wasn't about to send troops to help with russia. and buy the way, india is tight with the US. they ain't boys with Russia like that. they're not gonna risk their relationship with the US over Putin, that's nonsense.

China was ALREADY dealing with big problems in their economy because of COVID and the effects it had on the global economy before Russia invaded Ukraine. invading taiwan isn't worth the risk of being economically blackballed by their TWO MOST IMPORTANT trade partners: the EU and US. yall really thought china was gonna risk screwing that up over taiwan? especially knowing that there would be a DIRECT military response from both the US and NATO over that?

have yall looked at a map? seriously, some of you guys really need to go on google maps and look at china. look at where the capital is located. look at where North Korea and South Korea is located, as well as japan.

now look at where Taiwan is located. China is literally surrounded by the US allies and US military personnel stationed there. they do not possess the ability to defend their country from all those fronts from a BUNCH of different countries. and THATS JUST THE EASTERN side of china. this is why you conservatives and right wingers get clowned. this is why ALLIES and military alliances matters. our country doesn't HAVE to do crap by ourselves. we don't have to go it alone. that's why you have homeboys. thats why it will always be economic battle between china and the US, not military. they would get their asses beat. but more importantly, there's NO REASON to go to war in the first place, because China is already dealing with HUGE demographic issues stemming from that disastrous One Child policy.

yall are seeing real time what happens when you try to fight a modern war using WW2/cold war tactics. the battlefield is cyber and urban, and has been for the last decade. thank god our WOKE military understands that, as we're always updating and evolving our military strategy and technology. but obama told yall that way back in 2012 in a debate. Russia is exactly what you conservatives want the US military to be: all dudes, forced/fake patriotism, all about the size of the military and quantity of tanks and planes, and the inability to adapt and evolve, stuck in the old ways.

thank god our military isnt like conservatives want it to be. cause we'd be taking L's just like Russia is right now.

Russia gives citizenship to ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden

https://apnews.com/article/edward-snowden-russian-citizenship-441ab3c037b91145d17f2de2237f834d

of all the countries he fled to...

Putin is probably doing that to send him to Ukraine as a citizen conscript.

SWISH, don't forget Turkey- they are also calling for Putin to get out of Ukraine and return ALL Ukrainian land- including the Crimean, which was taken by Russia years earlier. I'm very concerned Putin will use tactical nukes. We used the damn things first, so I'm not sure we have the moral high ground, but JMHO, he's dying and wants what he wants- I don't see him backing down. Our best hope is an insider gets the coconuts to kill him.....very difficult.

Maybe he's the ultimate double-agent. Maybe he's the one that has now been feeding Russian intelligence to Ukraine. All part of the long game.

This is getting wayyyyy too far ahead of myself, but I can't help but wonder, if this mobilization goes south and Russia circles the drain again after implementing it, and the Putin regime looks like it's on the verge of collapse, it makes you wonder what steps China will take to prospective regime change.

I also agree with you that China is much more hesitant on Taiwan now after seeing the Ukraine fallout. However, had it been a cake-walk for Russia, as Putin initially predicted, I think that would have "sped up the plan" for China.

This "war" is another in the long lines of "You want Trump? This is how you get Trump".Archer.Png

A ridiculous money washing scheme for a country that virtually no American cares about.

and it really HAS to be an insider. this cant be a foreign sponsored assassination, cause then he gets martyred and all hell will truly break loose.

and honestly im really surprised with Turkey in a positive way. good to know there's some sort of lines that can't be crossed.

Erdogan still makes me nervous. I feel like it's more about opportunism with him than idealism. If Russia starts retaking the offensive again at some point, I could see him changing his tune again.

i can agree with that with regards to china, even though i still hesitate to think they would've invade taiwan if it ended up being a cake walk for Russia. for example, would china invade taiwan if Russia rolled through ukraine, but the way in which the west unified and responded to Russia with the sanctions still happened? i dont think so.

now if Russia rolled through, and there WASN'T a unified Western response regardless of the outcome, then yea i think china would set the invasion plans into motion.

but overall, what sort of actions do you think china would take if things continue the way they are? you think china would try to annex some russian territory amidst the chaos? go further than that maybe? i really wonder what they would do, because if we think about it....other than some ticked off EU and americans, what sort of pushback would china really receive? probably not much.

its definitely opportunism when dealing with Erdogan. however, Turkey's economy is already a wreck, they've already pulled a Rand Paul by trying to act defiant but then ultimately rolling over and allowing Sweden and Finland into NATO, and however pathetic it may be, the country easily gets distracted by beefing with Greece, Syria, and Kurds for <insert reason> So its gonna have to be something like Russia pulling a 180 and completely manhandling ukraine in order for Erdogan to flip.

05, i'm actually more concerned with the situation developing between Serbia, the EU, and Russia. i really dont know much about that specific region and history, but it seems to be a growing issue.

I was actually speaking more to your scenario where Putin rolled in AND the west was splintered. At that point, I think China might have really started exploring their strategic plans near term.

As far as Russia, I honestly haven't a clue what China would do. If they annexed Russian territory, that would potentially put them at immediately loggerheads with whoever the new regime is, and I think they really need that relationship. The script has flipped now to where Russia is the little brother, but China still relies on them for a lot (gas, aircraft engines, etc.).

That's interesting on Turkey. I didn't realize their economy was reeling right now.

I'm watching Serbia as well. At least they came out today and said they would not recognize the referendums. Victories taken where you get them I guess.

Americans used to care about supporting democracies from having their sovereignty taken over through acts of war. Some of us still do. Not so much some others it appears. Ukraine is on the doorstep of NATO allies. It seems you would rather stand by and wait for an all out war with Russia as a viable alternative.

China invading and conquering Russia was something I started asking friends about a few months ago they ripped through so much equipment and soldiers.

It's a possibility and I don't think anyone would want to help Russia either. Which, would be a huge problem for the rest of the world.


Ultimately, I think the world would need to decide if it was worth it to allow China to be that large and powerful.

That won't happen.

the world already decided on that issue, specifically the West. China is already OP economically, and they don't actually need to invade Russia to keep that going. that would just be icing on the cake. why?

China rolled up into Africa with that capitalism and trade deals that the US was SUPPOSED to be known for, and we did absolutely nothing to compete against them. they sent roads and bridges, we continued sending bombs and bullets.

and the countries in africa that China is already economically tied to have far more natural resources than Russia does. far more DIVERSITY of resources than Russia does. and surprise surprise, russia isn't the only country with oil.

but hey thats what happens when everything about politics is so american and eurocentric. people forget that theres a lot more places and people around the world that exist than just the US and EU.

China didn't forget though....

I've been wondering about their investments into some of those areas. What is their ROI like? I always saw it as an "emerging markets" thing. There is the potential for a lot of reward, but also a lot of risk. When we invested in Europe after WW2, we were investing in places with previously known allegiance and economic strength. The problem with Africa is that it has already been set way far back by the European colonizers to begin with, and whose drawn borders aren't exactly the most sensible and natural boundaries. That all being said, I know very little as far as how it's worked out for Chinese investments.

right but you still have to start somewhere, right? before getting directly into the numbers, from a political perspective, wouldn't the US have a far better chance of success in Africa than european nations BECAUSE of the colonial era? lets say that instead of spending the money for 20 years in the middle east (assuming that the same number was going to be spent SOMEWHERE overseas), we had spent that money developing certain countries in...lets say West Africa.

do you think our economy would be better or worse today? do you think the geopolitical landscape would be more favorable to the US or worse?

so getting to the numbers, i like reading up on the development (or lack thereof) of african countries, and this is an article from back in 2019 about the relations between some trade partners in africa and china:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadesh...-really-up-to-in-africa/?sh=3404a6385930

this article does a very good job explaining the significance, pros and cons, and future challenges both parties are engaged in. but this part is most important to our discussion:


China needs what Africa has for long-term economic and political stability. Over a third of China's oil comes from Africa, as does 20% of the country’s cotton. Africa has roughly half of the world’s stock of manganese, an essential ingredient for steel production, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on its own possesses half of the planet’s cobalt. Africa also has significant amounts of coltan, which is needed for electronics, as well as half of the world’s known supply of carbonatites, a rock formation that’s the primary source of rare earths.

_______

more than a third of China's oil is imported from Africa. i can only imagine how easily they can raise that number if needed, without having to threaten or sanction a country to do it either. most of our electronics comes from China and Taiwan, which also happens to be the countries that import the rare earth minerals from Africa the most.

remember the semiconductor crisis we're still not all the way out of? do we suffer less damage in this situation if we we had big trade deals that granted us access to said minerals?

what if we had sent our manufacturing industry to Africa instead of China? i wonder what our situation would be economically...

remember, 05. no matter what the situation is, you gotta start somewhere. the difference between China and the US is that they started and followed through; we didn't. whats even more frustrating is that there's still plenty of real estate in Africa to due so really big deals, but ya know...it's africa. for me 05, we in america always like to say "its the economy, stupid",but when it comes to africa, building up their economy somehow wouldn't work.

by the way, some of those african countries have more political stability because of a growing economy, due to the fact that china showed some follow through. there's a lot of articles on the issue, ill post these:


https://www.orfonline.org/research/china-in-africa/
https://qz.com/africa/2123474/china-africa-trade-reached-an-all-time-high-in-2021/
https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/01/chinese-economic-engagement-in-africa/

those definitely have more detailed numbers and growth charts. and you are right, right now Africa is still an emerging market. but isnt that the beauty of it, just from a pure capitalist perspective? get in now while its cheap? yesterday's price is not todays price.

thats all im saying. i know you arent, but in general, nobody can claim that the opportunities aren't just sitting there.

just from my perspective, i really do wonder if all the money we lost spending it in the middle east on a bunch of people who want nothing to do with us, how much PROFIT would we have made with that same investment in a region of continent where they want to be LIKE us?

we spent all that money in the middle east on people who hate americans, but ignored spending money on african countries who love us.

and watch how we spend more money to predictably build Ukraine back up, and how little we spend in a booming emerging market. ya know, countries who actually provide economic value to us, unlike ukraine.

I think one has to consider that China went from a third world county to a global economic powerhouse in a matter of five decades. If anyone knows how to develop economic success in nations far behind the curve it's China.

right but they didn't do that by themselves. China started investing into Africa way back in the 1940's and 50's. its just more recently has those investments into africa dramatically increased. China also needed a country to basically hand them a manufacturing base. our country said "we got you bro".

china did a great job building up, and thats all good.

but we're freaking the US. we raise capital and big investments in our sleep. we can absolutely demolish china when it comes to economic development in emerging markets.

so thats the thing, pit. China did that because they had to. We WON'T even though we can, simply because we dont feel like it. its frustrating.

China is only a threat because WE, the American people, built their economy by buying cheap Chinese-made trinkets and sparkles for 50 years. We literally showered China with trillions. Now they are the boogeyman to the people they fleeced. China is not going to end the golden goose situation they have going with the west and EU over Russia or anything else if they can help it... Not yet anyway.

Swish, I get where you're coming from "some". I'm retired military- JMHO, we've invested in Middle East for decades due to nukes present. Historically real bad things have come out of Middle East- your comments on we are the USA- yah, we are, you're more hopeful then this old fart= homeless EVERYWHERE, Portland, Seattle, LA, San Fran, Orlando, Tampa, Atlanta- not even mentioning the illegal alien issue we have in southwest US.....yet, we the USA.....I'm upset we're protecting a democracy with BILLIONS and BILLIONS- with a seemingly unending price tag....let's print more money and fix all the worlds problems.

African wars with thousands of deaths have not gotten the worlds attention because the world is racist AND there is no real power there. JMHO. Wish we spent more money on us and development vs war.

I honestly think Ukraine is worth the investment regardless of the costs, simply because it has exposed Putin. You can't put a price tag on that.

Thanks for providing that, and I don't want to detract from the thread any further. I didn't mean to make a comparison of spending on our wars vs that investment opportunity, because i think the answer there is obvious. Doing it for the sake of receiving natural resources makes sense, though, pragmatically.

I think they're trying, but not really succeeding on that front, at least yet. They have talked for a while about pivoting from an exporting economy to a consumer economy similar to the US' construct, but that hasn't gone well for them, yet. I think the issue they have there is that their Government needs to understand that they can't be so involved, which is really a non-starter for them. They pretty much have the opposite problem we have. Our Government is controlled by the corporations and China is trying to exert too much control in the opposite direction.

I agree with this. There has been a lot of asymmetrical success in their favor. When you don't even consider the human rights and self-determination aspects of the war, and look at it myopically from a pragmatic lens, the amount of damage currently being done to our second largest (some might argue first) adversary, who is objectively a huge PiTA, is worth it. I look at it through both lenses.

'The entire World is at stake': Trump pitches himself to head up negotiations between Ukraine and Russia

Donald Trump proposed himself as the solution to the war in Ukraine after apparent explosions damaged the Nord Stream pipelines.

European leaders say the leaks are likely the result of sabotage, which Trump has blamed on the U.S. and Russia has blamed on Ukraine, and the former president offered to lead negotiations to wind down the Kremlin's invasion of its neighbor -- whose president he was impeached for trying to extort.

"Everyone is talking about the big hurricane barreling into Florida, as they should be," Trump posted early Wednesday morning, "but perhaps a far more important event in the longer term was the announcement that the Nord Stream I & II Pipelines out of Russia (which I brought to the World’s attention as President when I explained how crippling reliance on it could be for Germany and other parts of Europe. Everybody laughed at the time, but they are not laughing anymore!) has been SABOTAGED. This could lead to major escalation, or War!"

"U.S. 'Leadership' should remain 'cool, calm, and dry' on the SABOTAGE of the Nord Stream Pipelines," Trump added. "This is a big event that should not entail a big solution, at least not yet. The Russia/Ukraine catastrophe should NEVER have happened, and would definitely not have happened if I were President. Do not make matters worse with the pipeline blowup. Be strategic, be smart (brilliant!), get a negotiated deal done NOW. Both sides need and want it. The entire World is at stake. I will head up group???"



The pipelines have been at the center of geopolitical tensions in recent months as Russia cut gas supplies to Europe in suspected retaliation against Western sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine.

While the pipelines, which are operated by a consortium majority-owned by Russian gas giant Gazprom, are not currently in operation, they both still contain gas but the environmental impact appeared limited so far.

One of the leaks on Nord Stream 1 occurred in the Danish economic zone and the other in the Swedish economic zone, while the Nord Stream 2 leak was in the Danish economic zone.

A leak was first reported on Nord Stream 2 on Monday.

"Authorities have now been informed that there have been another two leaks on Nord Stream 1, which likewise is not in operation but contains gas," Danish climate and energy minister Dan Jorgensen told AFP in a statement on Tuesday.

"It is too early to say anything about the causes of the incidents," the Danish Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities said in a statement.

Denmark's energy agency has, however, called for "higher levels of preparedness in the electricity and gas sector" in the country, Jorgensen said.

Russia said it was "extremely concerned" about the situation.

Asked by reporters whether it could be an act of sabotage, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that at the moment "it is impossible to exclude any options".

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...DF?cvid=a567de18a659446ee1f477e933c683df

donny’s solution would be to hand Ukraine over to his buddy Putin.
No thanks don. You can sit this one out. And the next one. And the next. And the next. Matter of fact, just sit your fat arse aside until you’re in a box in the ground.

I do understand what you're saying but we were not alone. China had itself cut off from any trade with the outside world. They totally shifted that strategy. Without reinventing their entire economic system they would still be a third world country.

bro i agree with you. my point is that we dont possess that degree of difficulty. we can just DO it. there's nothing we have to do as americans to transform anything to make this happen. we can EASILY go to other countries - specifically in africa - and negotiate trade deals and make it rain.

but when it comes to african countries, we just don't WANT to. we dont FEEL like doing it. despite the fact that they're the biggest emerging market in the world. despite the fact that they have a ridiculous abundance of rare earth minerals and other resources that we need to sustain our economy with EASE.

but i bet if ukraine or some EE country had those things, we'd already have the materials moving before the ink dried.

Pit, it looks like there's about to be a nasty refugee crisis coming out of Russia soon.

we NEED bodies in this country because we are running completely inefficiently as an economy due to a lack of bodies.

look at how we treat the refugees and migrants coming from latin/south america. now answer this: if the country decided to bring in russian migrants/refugees, you think the country gonna give the same level of pushback with them that they do migrants from the south? or will the same conservatives welcome them with open arms?

thats always the issue with America. it's not whether or not we can, its about whether or not we FEEL like it.

Are you referring to the people who are fleeing Russia right now because of the mobilization? Honest question, because I hadn't heard that yet.

I actually think we agree far more than we disagree. We used to have leaders with foresight and forward thinkers in charge of this nation. The last ones I can think of were Ike and JFK. Now it's all centered around political infighting and a full time emphasis on gamesmanship. It doesn't bode well for the future.

I think Russians will be welcome into this country with open arms. I mean just look at their complexion.

yep. you havent seen the pics and videos of these russian males fleeing the country right now due to the mobilization? my comments are based on Vlad continuing the crap, which means the amount of russians fleeing the country will only increase.

i would LOVE to be wrong and the opposite happens, but men like Vlad aren't the kind of leaders to admit they are wrong and change the course; they just double down on the horrible decision making.

Yeah, the satellite images are bonkers. Flights were like $16K to get out of Moscow. I read they were even trying to draft men as they were leaving the country.

"Ahhh, Ivan, yes we have your conscription notice right here, coincidentally."

yep. but then over here:

U.S. says ex-Army major and his wife tried to leak military health data to Russia

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-charges-ex-army-major-160134707.html

Can't be involved in bringing those S-hole countries into modern economies on the back of White Christian Nationalist America. We already created issues in China and India, while already doing similar things with Pakistan, some Ex-Soviet States, and a handful of Asian island countries. American dollars raised them from 3rd world to top economies. American dollars for trinkets and sparkles. /purple-rant

Hang them.

Matthew Chance is awesome. That was a good summary. If Ukraine can pull off another watershed offensive like it did a few weeks ago, that will be devastating for Russia. He’s crying wolf over nukes so much that at some point, he’ll either really have to do it, or he’ll lose all credibility.

Using nukes for him is a no-win situation, for anyone, especially him. That would force China and India’s hands in condemning him. It would force even more galvanization from the west to support Ukraine. I also think he would begin to lose a lot of domestic support at home because, even despite media control, I think he would cement his status as a mad man.

He’s between a rock and a hard place though, because, like they said in the video, his conventional forces are failing. One more Ukrainian watershed offensive moment and all eyes are on Putin for what he does next.

I know they still technically considered one, but man I gotta question the level in which Russia is considered a superpower.

Cause um…..

Probably only cause they have in numbers lots of nukes.
Don't know how many of them are functional. Been hearing reports that the silos are flooded out and they haven't been doing much maintenance to their weapon systems and the oligarchs have been funneling off a lot of the defense money for their own use

The nukes bro. Take those nukes away and they are a laughing stock.

The US and Russia control 90% of the world's nukes. Russia has about 500 more than the US.

for sure.

cause in the spirit of what it means to be a superpower....yikes. Russia is a trainwreck in every aspect of the term. economy is trash, primarily a one commodity country, few allies that are a threat to anyone - scratch that - who WANT to be a threat to anyone, i mean i can keep it going forever.

thats why i laugh at people who try to trash our military as "woke", as if our military hasn't been woke since the founding of the country. we're seeing a anti-woke military in action in 4K UHD, and it aint looking too good. probably should've got woke and bought a drone or something.

Putina: classic schoolyard bully.

They run the playground, until they eff with that quiet kid at the back of the class.

Quiet Kid says nothing, then quickly loosens teeth in front of the entire school. "Ooooooh!" the crowd says, as red wet becomes visible around Bully's mouth.
Now, Bully needs to step up.

But he can't- because years of intimidating people with hollow bluster (without needing the juice to back it) has made him soft. He once was seen as big and strong. Now, he's small, short- and soft.

And the quiet kid doesn't stop after one shot on the playground.

He starts laying down the punches, as the other kids look on. One by one, those kids in the schoolyard begin to see Bully for exactly who/what he is. Not only does Quiet Kid commence to administering The Beat-down, he also starts talkin' s# while he's layin' the punches

______________


The other Schoolyard Bully needs to keep his own game running- so Putina's not getting the backup he needs from the Xi crew. He even asks Li'l Bro Kim to front him up some hardware. Yes- Li'l Kim. Both txt back: "Hey, bro- I always respected your game up 'til now, but- sux 2BU, I guess-"

Ouch.

Putina was known far and wide for his "Little Short Man Power Play"... he'd make other state dignitaries wait for his arrival- sometimes, for as much as an hour- for important summits/meetings. Now, even "Bros" are forcing "Shorts# Putina" to wait:



It seems that among the ranks of Authoritarians, it's an 'Every man for himself' scenario.
Wow. What a revelation.

__________________

I called this within the first 3 weeks of Vlad's campaign: this will be the worldwide event that changes Russia... and as such, changes everything.

Putina is done.
And- I love how Tucker & Crew are still trying to double-down in support of Russia- the last place where colorless skin and pale blue eyes still run s# with an iron fist.

LMAO.

you nailed it.

and i cant help but bring this up: we had people ON THIS BOARD and across the country seriously arguing to let the bully do whatever he wanted. the bully should be ALLOWED to beat up the quiet kid. how dare the other kids defend the quiet kid when he stands up for himself.

because the unfortunate reality is that we have a lot of people in this country who like bullies. thankfully Clem, the majority - however slim it may be - defended the quiet kid.

people think fear is the most powerful tool to use. Fear is powerful, but limited in its uses. Hope is the most powerful tool to use. and look what happens when hope fights fear.

I’ve been thinking about it recently, and the more I think about it, the more I’m coming to believe they have been a paper Tiger for quite some time. I mean, like the last 100 years. Think about this:

-Had to bow out of WW1 because they couldn’t take care of stuff at home. Signed a pretty terrible treaty. One of the biggest reasons they crumbled at home is because Germany sent ONE GUY back to Russia (Lenin), who then signed the treaty with Germany.

-WW2. Getting their butts beat until Hitler got greedy and wanted to take Stalingrad for no good reason other than it had Stalin’s name in it. Thank goodness he did though. Russian counteroffensive came back through an already-decimated Eastern Europe. Kudos. However, they did it at the expense of 20 million or so military related deaths (I think 11-12 million were actual troops). Doesn’t exactly demonstrate a great success rate or know-how on the battlefield.

-Cuban missile crisis. Asked to put up or shut up and they shut up.

-Afghanistan invasion.

-Post-Soviet collapse.

-First Chechen War.

I mean, yeah, they would later beat up on small places like Chechnya and Georgia under Putin, but then he gets right back into it with what should be a cake walk in Ukraine and gets his butt handed to him.

They’ve looked pretty powerful on paper for a long time, but they really haven’t been able to actually show it.

people forget that Russia was allied with the Nazis right up until Hitler tried to pull a fast one. its why Poland is always telling the world "hey guys, yea what happened to the jews was messed up, but they weren't the only ones being targeted."

so while it ended up working out, i hesitate to give Russia any credit for doing a 180 when it was due to backstabbing, not ideological differences.

hell, what does the world look like in a scenario where the italian military wasn't a colossal trainwreck and Hitler didn't betray Stalin? yikes.

its crazy to say, but in reality, Germany's biggest mistake in WW1 and 2 was relying on other countries to be competent during the war campaigns. the italian military was taking L, after L, after L, after L, after L.

so yea, i agree with you that Russia was probably a paper tiger the entire time. but they had the benefit of the US being an ocean lengths away and european countries being completely trashed after WW2.

it's like us average height guys (5'9-11) bragging that we're big in Japan.

I'm fascinated by the intercepted phone calls from the Russian soldiers to their family and friends. They see the idiocy of this war, as well as the complete mismanagement and corruption. I really don't think their morale could be any lower. It's hard to imagine what it would be like, knowing that a drone could silently drop a grenade on you at any time.....or continuously seeing your fellow soldiers being burned, dismembered and killed.

The Urkranians are doing a good job making sure that these Russian soldiers recieve videos of the death and destruction of their comrades via Telegram. I took a look at some of these accounts and the blood and gore is absolutely horrifying. There are literally thousands of videos and photos of charred, mangled and severely injured Russian military personnel. I don't think I'll ever go back to those pages.

Putin had them fooled at the beginning, but even the lowest ranking ground troops know he is full of BS and is just sending them there to be slaughtered. You should see the equipment these newly mobilized Russians are being provided with.

I had no idea about any of that! That has to play mind tricks on Russian troops. And while I haven't seen the equipment the latest mobilized troops have been provided with, I have seen some of the military equipment earlier deployed troops left behind. It wasn't pretty.

yea man its insane and tragic. and you gotta admire the ukrainians. they are out here fighting for their survival, and yet they are STILL going out of their way to try and convince russian troops that they aren't enemies and that this invasion isn't worth the lives being lost. you can't teach that level of compassion bro. you just can't.

Like I said: Quiet Kid steady talkin' s# while he kicks that azz.
Demoralizing in the extreme.

Well, I mean, I’m 6’3” so I wouldn’t know

That’s a good point. The Nazi-Soviet pact put Russia on the same footing. Had Hitler set his sights on overcoming Britain and not trying to bail out the Italians…and not getting greedy early, the Russians could have been in severe trouble. He takes out Moscow and he has himself a direct connection to the Pacific and his boys in Japan.

Luckily, people like Hitler and Putin can’t help themselves and their impulses.

Same here. It reminds me that, despite all our flaws, one leg up we have in our society - at least as it currently stands - is the free-flow of information. These dudes were fed false propaganda for who knows how long, then they roll up into a war zone and are confronted with reality. Then they try to speak the truth back to their own and get told to STFU. It must suck for them.

I’d have to go back and find the source, but I saw an article where the Russians are taking body armor off of Ukrainian corpses when possible because it’s superior to their own.

Last I checked, we weren’t providing Ukrainians with body armor. Most of their weapons were Russian/Soviet based…which makes me wonder WTH the Russians are using.

Mobilized and contract soldiers involved in mass brawl in Moscow region

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mobilized-contract-soldiers-involved-mass-182000109.html

lmfao, this is like a few weeks ago when drunken russian troops got into a shootout with other russian soldiers.

OH MY..!

What happened..?

Trump blames US for 'almost forcing' Putin to invade Ukraine, says 'dumb' rhetoric taunted Russia

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-blames-us-almost-forcing-095031733.html


man the fanboys are out in full force over Putin lately. never imagined it come from a former POTUS though. damn son

I'm not surprised it came from trump. I am surprised trump was potus.

Yup, I am not suprised trump said this at all. He would have given putin half of Europe and when russia went after a NATO country, trump would have not given any of our support.

Remember, this playbook of russia and other issues like the Saudi's and the oil are very much going to come back into focus as the mid terms come and leading into '24 if the repubs take back the house and senate and could really change if trump gets or maga lite get anywhere near the White House.

I’ve said for a long time…his rapport with Russia and Putin is among the most alarming of his traits, mostly because it doesn’t get the attention it should.

There are a lot of other people falling in line behind Russia on the right and it honestly blows my effing mind. Trump, Carlson to name a few. Our very own Ohio Senatorial candidate also wants to end aid for Ukraine.

Yeah, paying a fraction of the cost that would be incurred when Russia moves forward and attacks a NATO nation doesn't make sense to them. But then again there's this......

Trump reportedly said he wanted to pull the US from NATO multiple times last year

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/15/trump-privately-said-he-wanted-to-pull-us-from-nato-report.html

Trump Discussed Pulling U.S. From NATO, Aides Say Amid New Concerns Over Russia

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-president-trump.html

That's what happens when you put idiots in power who have learned nothing from history.

They support Russian aggression as another way to end democracy and usher in totalitarian fascism. Of course, they won't admit it.

Musk threatens to stop funding Starlink internet Ukraine relies on in war

KYIV, Ukraine - Elon Musk said Friday that his space company could not keep funding the Starlink satellite service that has kept Ukraine and its military online during the war, and he suggested he was pulling free internet after a Ukrainian ambassador insulted him on Twitter.

A Starlink cutoff would cripple the Ukrainian military's main mode of communication and potentially hamstring its defenses by giving a major advantage to Russia, which has sought to jam signals and phone service in the eastern and southern combat zones.

The world's richest man by Bloomberg estimates, Musk tweeted from the United States that his company, SpaceX, does not want reimbursement for its past expenses in helping Ukraine. But, he tweeted, it "also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely and send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable."

He also taunted Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, who had some choice words for Musk last week after the Tesla chief executive tweeted a proposal to end the war in Ukraine that would favor Russia.

"F--- off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk," Melnyk said at the time.

"We're just following his recommendation," Musk tweeted early Friday. The ambassador declined to comment on Friday, while his press representative told The Washington Post his previous comment had been a specific response to Musk's tweet about peace negotiations.

Starlink, a unit of Musk's SpaceX company, uses terminals equipped with antennas that are usually mounted on roofs to access the internet via satellite in rural or disconnected areas.

Ukrainian forces have used it to live-stream drone feeds, correct artillery fire and contact home since Musk began sending terminals earlier in the war as Ukraine faced the threat of internet outages from Russian strikes and cyberattacks. One Ukrainian commander said Friday that "fighting without Starlink service at the front line is like fighting without a gun."

Ukraine has received thousands of antennas from Musk's companies and European allies. The system has proved "very effective," the country's minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, told The Post in a March interview.

From tweets on Taiwan to the rap star Ye, Musk's remarks have raised alarm about what he could do with Twitter if he comes to own the platform.

The latest scrutiny came this month when Musk declared his proposal, a four-point plan that could help the Kremlin lock in territorial gains and included Ukraine forgoing aspirations to reclaim Crimea, which Russia controls since annexing the peninsula in 2014.

In a jab at the billionaire's Twitter peacemaking attempt, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted a poll asking his followers which Elon Musk they preferred: "One who supports Ukraine" or "One who supports Russia."

Before the peacemaking foray that set off an online firestorm, and the tweets in question, SpaceX had already warned the U.S. Defense Department that it could no longer afford funding the Starlink system in Ukraine in a letter dated Sept. 8, CNN first reported Thursday.

The report said the letter asked the Pentagon to cover a new request from Ukraine and costs for the rest of the year, acknowledging that others, including Kyiv's allies, had also helped fund the terminals sent so far.

A senior U.S. defense official confirmed late Thursday that Musk had privately urged the Pentagon to pay up. The official said there was no comparable system with such widespread applicability. The bill is likely to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the next year, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The official described it as a scenario in which Musk "dangles hope over the heads of millions, then sticks the DoD with the bill for a system no one asked for but now so many depend on."

"Elon's gonna Elon," the official added.

Another senior defense official, Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Friday that the Defense Department "continues to work with industry to explore solutions for Ukraine's armed forces."

"We do not have anything else to add at this time," he said in a statement.

Musk said Friday that the Starlink operation in Ukraine has cost SpaceX $80 million and that it would reach $100 million by end of year, including the expense of providing terminals, maintaining satellites and ground stations and other costs. "We've also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder," he wrote.

The Ukrainian military has become dependent on Starlink to quickly share information with senior commanders. Roman Kovalenko, a company commander in the 72nd Mechanized Brigade fighting on the front line in the eastern Donetsk region, said units use radio less now because they're not as dependable.

"I honestly have no idea how the communication between us will look like here without any Starlink service," he said.

The satellite internet is especially helpful for the Ukrainian military's expanded use of drones. With a stable connection, air reconnaissance units can watch their drone feed, allowing artillery forces to identify targets and correct their fire in real time. Before that, Kovalenko said, infantry soldiers in trenches had to locate the artillery strikes themselves, which was less effective and put them in danger.

"I'd say the effectiveness of our work without Starlink would drop something like 60 percent or more," Kovalenko said. "And we would have to use more ammunition, which we are now saving."

He and others said they had experienced some outages near the front line in recent weeks, but one soldier in an air reconnaissance unit called them "insignificant." Another drone unit in the southern Kherson region was able to work only a short distance into recently reclaimed territory before its Starlink stopped working.

A 25-year-old junior sergeant who uses the call sign Vognyk said Ukraine's military and volunteers would pay for the service themselves if necessary. "In my opinion, this is his right, his property," he said of Musk. "We can thank him for the number of Starlinks he provided to Ukraine."

After Ukrainian troops recaptured the city of Izyum in the northeastern Kharkiv region in recent weeks, residents crowded around a Starlink system that was brought so they could get some connection until the mobile network was restored there.

In his brigade, Kovalenko said, soldiers often visit his position to use his Starlink to connect to the internet and send their families a quick message that they're alive and well.

"I hope even if the situation would not be resolved officially, our volunteers would fundraise the money needed to pay for this service," he said. "We need Starlink badly."

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/eu...link-internet-ukraine-needs-7691955.html

Biden should confiscate control of Elon's Starlink service due to the national security and or the war powers act. Maybe he wouldn't act like such a douche. Talk about a guy letting his success go to his head. Went from being an uber-intelligent geek who cared about the future for all to just another whiny ass 1%er.

'We want respect': Putin's authority tested in Central Asia

https://www.yahoo.com/news/want-respect-putins-authority-tested-075443340.html

so i've been trying to educate myself more on geopolitical issues in central/east asia. the more i learn, the more i double down on my belief that the US doesn't have real businessmen anymore.

one thing i will always admit when it comes to Dems is that we lack experience in the business sector. yes, i rather have true statesmen and public servants, but that's a luxury in a different universe. in this universe, diplomacy and capitalism go hand and hand.

the problem is that the republican party keeps claiming to have the business 'sense', but never seem to display it when in power.

if i'm the US, I'm upping the diplomatic effort in Georgia, and trying to flip Armenia in order get a peace deal between them and Azerbaijan. Russia wouldn't be able to do anything because they are already completely wrecked on the western front. all Iran would do is be mad.

Iran is completely wrecked on the woman’s front. Evil dictators .. pfft … like most mass shooters, kill a bunch a folks for attention and power. Then when it all goes bad they shoot themselves.

We would have to be at war to do that and the other question is "Why?".
Starlink has clearly shown that they would like to continue to support the operation, but, would prefer to not be 100% responsible for paying to support the system.
The USG has invested over $50B into this war already with plenty of funding going to traditional defense contractors that have plenty of comms systems that were developed with government assistance. So why are things getting hung up over $100M for a Comms system that is far superior to anything that the traditional contractor can offer?

Of course, the answer is obviously that the "foreign aid" money was only ever allowed to be spent on certain things that the lobbyists and beltway insiders wanted.

So, if having a comms solution is important, then all that the DoD or Ukraine needs to do is spend a small fraction of that money to pay for the upkeep and service. We don't need the POTUS to start stealing companies from their owners every time that the government cannot get something for free.

breakdown of military engagements in the last 2 months.

Thanks man, that was awesome. I hope they can find a way to sever that supply artery in Zaporizhzhia now that the Crimean bridge is busted.

We should take out the Belarus dictator and install Trump as the new president.

Take them both out. Then move on to the rest of the fascist garbage.

Sadly I think Lukaschenko is less Pro-Putin than Trump is.

QFT. However, that should extend to at least half the reDtard party leadership.

Russian mothers are turning deadbeat fathers over to Putin's military draft: 'My ex-husband died as a person a long time ago'

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-mothers-turning-deadbeat-fathers-043622768.html

now this is pettiness in its peak form.

That's why i want trump to be in charge there. i want trump to be so far up Putin's ass, Putin then annexes and declares Belarus is now part of Russia. he then uses that as a justification to conscript men in the region into the military.

it will cause mass riots and a possible coup inside the Kremlin. CIA needs to hop on that asap.

Thanks for sharing those. I have no idea what that caucus was thinking with that letter. It was ignorant, at best.

It also shows a potential riff, which Putin would seize upon, and we already have enough issues with the Republicans (McCarthy, Vance, etc.) falling prey to that, let alone with people like Tucker Carlson openly sticking up for Putin on national television (both ours and Russia's, incidentally).

russian refugee crisis

Marjorie Taylor Greene: ‘Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine’

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/...J9uxjLN7tPLm1Af1T0AM0AkoeIMpxqAG2orQIrzk

And she isn't alone.

That's hideous. What's odd to me is the near-perfect arm locking pro-Putinism seen on the far right from various places. It really makes me wonder what's going on behind the scenes.

I think it goes back to their "America first" slogan and beliefs. I'm not sure if they never took American history or just forgot it. Isolationism has never played out well and both of the previous world wars make that starkly evident. I guess they would rather spend trillions after another world war breaks out than spend billions now to prevent one. Defending democracy no longer seems that high on their priority list. Maybe it won't be until Putin takes over Europe before they give a damn. Who really knows?

Well, the funny thing is they don't want to spend the money, yet look at our national debt under our last administration. nO WasTeFUl SpEnDiNG!!!!!!

The other thing is - and I'm speculating that you probably agree with me - that the "America first" slogan is just a ruse on their part. That's the thread I'm trying to pull on. It seems pretty clear to me that their self interest, furthered by misinformation and power grabs leads me to believe there is something far more nefarious going on through some sort of back channel, revenue stream, etc. I just can't otherwise make sense out of why things like the following happened:

1. Trump never - to my recollection - publicly countered Putin. In fact he did the opposite, very publicly, when it came to him putting down our intelligence in favor of Putin. If you look at his history of Tweets regarding Putin, he is very complimentary. Never bashed him. Never ran contrary to him.

2. Tucker Carlson. The guy's program has appeared on Russian state television several times now. He put a lot of effort in defending Putin against allegations for the destruction of the Nordstream pipeline sabotage.

3. I'll just say a catch-all for everyone from your comment to MTG, to Vance, to McCarthy and a host of others who are more than content to let Putin have Ukraine. Hell, even McConnell contrasted with them. That goes to show you that the fringe is at it once again.

My specific example of what is causing this reaction from their side is obviousy speculation, but I don't know what the hell else would spur this type of behavior. It stinks to high heaven.

Probably a good thing. We can't afford it.

Bro, when this whole thing started, you were talking about real life Red Dawn, and now you’re saying we can’t afford it???

Actually, what I said was... we needed to stay out of it. Also, i said that if we moved tons of troops to Europe it would expose us to invasion on the west coast. Which... would give China an opportunity to invade.

Meanwhile, what I said about Iran is coming true.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cn...s/iran-russia-nuclear-program/index.html

Also, North/South Korea are getting pretty testy atm.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cn...rea-warplanes-friday-intl-hnk/index.html

India is still playing both sides of the fence and being rewarded for it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/oilpri...s-Indias-Top-Crude-Oil-Supplier.amp.html

Trump tax cuts ... 1.4 Trillion over ten years.
Ukraine ... 18 Billion.

I think the cost to stand up to an aggressor and support allies is well spent

Couldn't agree more. Biden spent 3 Trillion in his first year and wants to spend trillions more.

We've raised our debt ceiling to 31.5 trillion. All the money on the planet, every red cent, equals 40 trillion. We spend over 1T each year in interest payments.

OBVIOUSLY it's all Monopoly money... spend, spend, away. 18 billion? That's like a kid asking me for $5 for a happy meal.

100%. It’s actually helping out in all kinds of various ways, too. The asymmetry of what we’re spending vs the immense damage cause to a very despotic adversary whose absolute goal is to damage our country makes it well worth it.

Second, “staying out of it” when these types of things happen he historically not gone very well.

Third, this is the best type of testing we can get for our weaponry. This isn’t a trial run game against computerized algorithms. This is the real deal. We’ve learned SO much about our capabilities vs our “near-peer” or at least who should have been a near peer. This is beyond a proxy war. A proxy way is when two countries have a proxy to use their weapons and fight for their cause. In this case, we have a proxy, but Russia is a direct combatant. Oh, and by the way, that far inferior proxy we have is kicking their butts using our stuff. This already has and will have a major impact on foreign military sales.

Fourth, there is major value in gaining a partner in a Slavic, former Soviet country so close to Russia. Like Swish mentioned, our “staying out of things” has led to a lot of lost opportunities where others have filled the vacuums. It doesn’t and shouldn’t always be military related, but in this case it is.

Fifth, oh yeah, there’s some pretty egregious human rights abuses happening in a democratic country that simply wants to exist.

Bro, you definitely mentioned Red Dawn. I remember because it took me back when I read it. I searched but got the 404.

Although I agree with you both, I don’t want to make it a which side is worse at spending money and raising the debt, because the ultimate answer at the end of the day is “Yes.”

I think it’s fair to say, though, that at the end of the day, along the lines of what you’re saying, if we could remotely rein in our spending, this would be nothing. In fact, if we could just hold our own defense contractors from raking our DoD over the coals in profit margins, we’d save WAY more than $18 billion.

My qualm on the spending front dovetails with my comments about the extreme right and their favoritism of Russia. They’re trying to make this a “we can’t afford it!” issue when it’s really not one. I’m sure they’d love to waste far, far more than that amount on many other things far more meaningless.

Like I said, people didn't learn anything from WW2 about what "staying out of it" leads to. Instead some would even try to use "look what Biden has spent" as part of a defense for it.

^ Fixed the thread above with the Red Dawn quote. Thread was locked and wouldn't let me quote, I did it manually and initially had the names backwards.

This is accurate and I stand behind this comment.

We could end up in a Red Dawn situation with China if we had shifted enough tons of troops to the east coast and across Europe to defend Ukraine. I think China would have definitely seized that opportunity.

People I speak with on the right want to stay out of it because
it's not our war / let Europe deal with Europe's problems / we are not the world's police / we have enough of our own problems / we just left Iraq and that was a mess.

I'm actually shocked Dems/Libs/Socialists would want the USA to get involved because we will have to spend significantly more money against the GDP on the military and less on social services.

There is absolutely no plausible way that would have happened. None. How do you think China would pull that off? I mean, this blows my mind. Russia is having a hell of a time invading their next door neighbor and China isn’t even convinced it could successfully invade Taiwan at this point without massive costs. We literally have them surrounded with close allies. So how do you think they would invade the United States? Swish, am I going crazy here?

I’ve already gone into the cost/benefit analysis in Ukraine. It’s definitely worth the investment. It’s a sinking ship for Russia…unless of course the far right takes over.

And just for some other comparisons or red flag on where else $18 Billion is truly pissed away.... Pork barrel spending will top that this year.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...ste-Releases-2022-Congressional-Pig-Book

Wasteful spending in one area of government doesn't in itself mean more wasteful is justified. But the value of what we're doing in Ukraine is easily justifiable compared to those other areas of waste.

1. This is literally how Japan and the United States got involved in WW2. If you were alive back then... I bet you would have said the same thing.
2. Well, I said it "could" happen "if" we shifted our forces to Europe & the east coast Europe to help support troops and supplies going to Ukraine. Which, would give China an opportunity as a big chunk of our troops & military resources are in Europe. *Also, this was several months ago before Russia suffered some pretty heavy losses.*

I must have missed your cost/benefit analysis. Can you share it again?

China has no forward basis in the pacific in which to launch such an attack. That would would make for a long supply line and make sustaining an invasion force almost impossible.

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine...n-how-the-us-and-chinese-navies-stack-up

In 2019, China had a 335-ship fleet, about 55 percent larger than in 2005, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report titled, “China’s Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress.”

“In recent years, they’ve been outbuilding everybody.”

To put it in perspective, during a recent four-year period the naval vessels that Chinese shipyards produced were roughly equivalent in tonnage to the entire U.K. Royal Navy or the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, according to Childs.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has 293 ships in its battle force, just two more than it had 15 years ago.


https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/25/asia/china-navy-aircraft-carrier-analysis-intl-hnk-ml-dst/index.html

Type 055 destroyer
Launched in 2017, these 13,000-ton stealth guided-missile destroyers are considered by many to be the most powerful surface combatants in the world.

The Type 055, big enough to be considered a cruiser by NATO standards, is equipped with 112 vertical launch tubes that can used to fire everything from anti-ship missiles to long-range land-attack missiles.

“This ship in particular has a sophisticated design, stealth features, radars, and a large missile inventory. It is larger and more powerful than most US, Japanese, and South Korean destroyers,” RAND Corp. senior analyst Timothy Heath told CNN in 2018, when Beijing launched two of the warships in a single day – a testament to China’s impressive shipbuilding capabilities.

Type 039 submarine
These Yuan-class submarines are almost silent diesel-electric-powered boats with capabilities that could prove tough for US military planners to deal with.

Beijing has built 17 of the Type 39A/B subs, with plans to increase that total to 25 in the next three years, according to the US Defense Department’s 2021 report to Congress on China’s military power.

“China’s biggest ferry shipbuilder stated publicly in 2015 that one of its largest roll-on/roll-off ferries was built for dual military and civilian purposes, and one of China’s largest ferry operators has been similarly described as having a dual civil-military development philosophy,” Thomas Shugart, a former US Navy submarine commander now a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, wrote in a 2021 essay for War on the Rocks.

He added that civilian ferry companies operating in the Yellow and South China Seas have already been organized into PLA auxiliary units.

Crunching the numbers, said Shugart, was staggering. He estimated that using civilian ships would give China an extra 1.1 million displacement tonnes. That figure is more than three times the displacement tonnage of all of China’s amphibious assault ships put together. And if China tapped Hong Kong’s roll-on/roll-off vehicle carriers it could gain an extra 370,000 tonnes of sealift, according to Shugart.


“China has now launched three carriers and brought two into full operational status during a period where the US Navy has struggled to bring one new unit to full operational status,” he said.

Schuster was referring to the USS Gerald Ford, a supercarrier that has been plagued by problems since its commissioning in 2017 (by which time it was already three years late).

The supercarrier is yet to make its first operational deployment, though that is expected this fall.

Meanwhile, China forges ahead.

“They are building their navy at a faster rate than the US and all of its allies,” Schuster said.

China having ships doesn't refute my point. To invade, you need to land troops, those troops need supplies. Those supplies would come from China, which is half a world a way. There is a reason we island hopped in WW2 instead of sending our navy straight to Tokyo. The Pacific ocean is big. Without a forward base, China would not be able to maintain an invasion force.

Oh my good lord dude. Sorry, I just can’t on this one.

If people don't insist on social spending, there would never be any social spending. <- This is the true issue. Social spending helps the working class, so the powers that be will do anything to stigmatize social spending. And those same arguments will be used to end Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

SBD is still running with tired talking points. i told you guys before to open a map and look where china is.

im going to tell the board AGAIN to open a map and look where china is.

nevermind the amount of allies we have...scratch that, TAIWAN has in the region. We are not the only country that will defend Taiwan if they're invaded. We have a whole military base in a chain of islands connected to Okinawa that literally has a bunch of naval and air support. China wouldn't even be able to get their ships out of the east and south china sea. Japan is gonna help defend, SK is gonna help defend, the phillipines is gonna help defend, australia is gonna help defend.

for the love of god, people, open a damn map and look where Taiwan is. you are talking about china engaging in what would be the LARGEST amphibious assault attempt in human history. then ON TOP OF THAT, in order for it to be even worth the cost, China would have to show a MASSIVE amount of restraint because the most important infrastructure that China needs would get wiped out almost instantly. they can't even use the big boy equipment because you can't occupy and claim a territory that no longer exist. most of the people, infrastructure, etc exist on the coast, which means everything that makes Taiwan valuable to China in the first place is smack in the middle of the war zone they'd have to create in order to occupy the island. that's even IF they would make it close to shore in the first place, cause ya know, Taiwanese military, their allies and all that.

i didn't mention the counter strike that would OBVIOUSLY happen in response to the invasion, as well as the X factor which is this:

what makes anybody think India is gonna chill in this scenario? they have plenty of reason to roll up into China from the southwestern region. China would have to focus most of its forces specifically on the invasion into Taiwan, meaning they don't stand a chance of defending from a counter attack. that's far TOO much land to defend, and that's just from the EAST.

guys, the logistical restrictions alone would doom China. oh yea, and they're an inexperienced fighting force.

but i bet SBD gonna talk about them war games again, though. im sure China is killing everybody playing Civilization on the laptop. they got that on lock.

and OMG, ethnic mongols would SO make a play if china did something that stupid like invade Taiwan.

I don't always agree with you; but you are a wise, wise man.

When you look at it for the shell game that it is; you also have an awful lot of people busting their buns to make up for a shortfall that is of no fault of their own. I should pay for social spending while our corps laugh all the way too the bank? How 'bout taxing the rich and corps enough so that there's not and ever-increasing, ridiculous, 31T debt ceiling? Busted my ass my whole life for "above average", paid tens of thousands in taxes every year. Responsible for hundreds of thousands each year added to the tax base; as a business owner, treated like the bad guy, when I was always going to be the last dude to get paid.

We have a serious problem in this country with how we pit people against each other that are waaaay below the level of responsibility; but at the end of the day, my money becomes more and more worthless for every person that cries about their stupid decision to spend 300k on a useless college education.

Tell me how I'm out of line...

if there was a recent time frame that China could've succeeded in invading and occupying Taiwan, that window was the very moment Russia invaded Ukraine. If those invasions happened at the same time, unfortunately i think a nuke would've already been dropped. but in general, we don't get a united western alliance like we have now because that's just too many parts too spread out globally to respond to.

but months ago i laid out the reason why china wasn't gonna get involved with Putin's nonsense, and THAT was the opportunity to strike from a pure military perspective. but we have to remember that the military perspective only matters when it comes to active engagement. the decision to USE military force revolves around money, resources, bodies, more money, and historical beefs that shouldn't even matter but still do 'cause human beings are gonna human. and because of all that, China isn't - and hasnt - rolled up into Taiwan.

even from a pure military perspective dealing with territory, i dunno if China would be able to justify the invasion effort. the amount of sea and land territory gained wouldn't come close to matching the short AND long term financial losses from all the other consequences of a decision like that.

and i cannot stress this enough: it's not just taiwan and the US they have to fight. and China will be doing this solo dolo, because their best and strongest ally isn't exactly in position to help out at the moment. China doesn't support the invasion into ukraine, and then was shown just how weak russia really is.

FATE, could you imagine what a disaster that would be if you invade with an ally like Russia? That would be similar to the same disastrous military decision Hitler made trusting Mussolini and the italian Army to get ANYTHING accomplished.

You're preaching to the choir, but every time anyone wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and corps, idiots start yelling communism/socialism until it doesn't pass or GOPers overturn it. Did you really think your argument would be an issue with me? And in a truly free and social society, everyone should pay their share regardless if every penny helps you or not. One prime example I can think of where little folks got screwed over was this pandemic-era business loan. Multi-billion dollar companies swallowed up the first round and bought back shares with the money. But bad actors like Trumps and MGT got theirs too. MGT got over a million bucks while calling people who were in dire straights because the country was shut down "takers". She worked hard to end unemployment in red states early and to make sure the money bonanza was for the rich only. WTH did MGT ever do that was worth a million bucks in free money? Tell me that. If we want to fix America, that kind of corruption has to go first.

And without social spending, we will never be able to fix the income and wealth disparity in this country, meaning it will only get worse. All this inflation is mostly price gouging because the working class took a stand for higher pay and because people got a little ahead during lockdowns and we can't have working people in the position of being able to make real decisions about their finances. Nope, that called for fearmongering about shortages of goods and labor. But it was really just a big ass money grab. It's all meant to put the average guy back on that paycheck-to-paycheck treadmill. A working-class adult hamster wheel is a better analogy. Working our asses off and getting nowhere fast is exactly how they want us. That's why m minimum wage is so low. If you have to fall back on any kind of social program, it will never be enough to live on. So keeping half or more of the country in survival mode turns out to be good for business if/when you are profiteering. Imagine having more money than 99% of the people in the country and still being greedy enough to say you NEED more. This is where we are at.

Damn, Swish...





"human beings are gonna human."

^^^sig material^^^

In case you missed it, we have been screaming that the corporations and billionaires haven't been paying their fair share for a very long time. Everything has been done to try and change that. As it pertains to the middle class and small businesses it's always been supported by many of us that they be protected and not be overburdened while the rich get special treatment. As OCD said, you're preaching to the choir.

As we can see in this thread, some wish to rest their opinions on what they are spoon fed rather than actually assess the situation and look at it from a global standpoint. Joining a global effort to provide weapons for someone else to fight a mutual enemy is the most cost efficient and least deadly way to approach it and weaken that enemy. Of course then again trump kissed Putin's ass so much maybe they no longer consider Russia an enemy? Some people just won't be happy until we let Russia attack our NATO partners and we have troops coming home in body bags. You know, that way they create heroes and wave the flag more. Murica!

I think everyone's point is missing the point that I am speculating based on action and reaction. I said "if, could, maybe" etc and that might be one of many reasons why our military leaders and politicians have little interest in helping Ukraine.

Ya'll are acting like I said it's happening tomorrow and my reasons are the only reasons. smh

We haven't shifted any troops.
We haven't given much support except for mostly old/refurbished equipment.
We probably won't put boots on the ground in Ukraine. (regardless of the political party)

This is somewhat concerning
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63488547

Russian commanders discussed using nuclear arms in Ukraine, says US


Senior Russian military leaders discussed last month how and when they might use nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, two US officials have told CBS News.

Vladimir Putin was not involved in the talks, they told the BBC's US partner.

The White House said it had grown "increasingly concerned" about the potential use of nuclear weapons over the last few months.

But it stressed the US saw no sign of Russia preparing for such use.


https://www.wired.co.uk/article/russia-propaganda-ukraine-dirty-bomb

Russia Is Ramping Up Nuclear War Propaganda
Kremlin-backed media is spreading rumors of a Ukrainian “dirty bomb” attack to rouse support for extreme retaliation.

nah nah nah, you were posting the whole time as if you knew all of that was gonna go down. you wouldn't stop talking about war games and Russian-Chinese relations, AND you were acting as if we the steps the US and EU took wasn't gonna be effective. your speculations were based on inaccuracies that i corrected you over months ago.

and Putin isn't gonna drop a nuke. One thing these Tyrants and wannabe-tyrants have in common is their drive for self-preservation. Putin knows if he drops a nuke, he automatically loses. we are SUPPOSED to take every threat seriously, but in real world discussions, most people knew Putin was bluffing. how you gonna nuke a country you're trying to occupy? he doesn't just need ukraine to replenish the declining russian population, but he needs the land itself to remain useful, especially with the gas reserves located in ukraine. when you're a one commodity country like Russia and are literally obsessed over it, nuking your next door neighbor would be like firing a sawed-off shotgun at a mouse that you spotted in the kitchen. yea, you defeated your enemy, but you also destroyed a chunk of your own house that YOU have to pay for.

Go back and read all of my comments... I said "if, could, maybe" etc.

If I was that scared, I would have moved to Broadus, Montana.

nah you probably would've moved to Russia like the jan 6 dude and Snowden.

He’s right, man. Between the Red Dawn stuff and the fact you speculated about China even possibly invading Russia, you can’t take it all back now. Own it. It’s crazy, but at least respectably own it.

More than 400 Russian reservists died after their commanders ran away during a Ukrainian artillery bombardment, Russian soldier says

https://www.yahoo.com/news/more-400-russian-reservists-died-080317971.html

but obviously Russian military is still better than our military cause they aren't, lol, woke.

JMHO, our national interests have always been- fight wars on other countries land- we be blessed with Atlantic and Pacific/ no real treat militarily on our earthly hemisphere. I'm like other Americans who question spending trillions on other countries- we've tried twice recently to build nations like our own- Afgan and Iraq- yet those cultures endured and we lost trillions. I'm for helping Ukr, but limitedly- the EU must do more than their share. All our defense contractor are happy, but spending on war sure takes away from infrastructure we DESPERATELY need to update. Peace.

Militarily, we have no threats. Period. Sure they could come, but they will leave defeated or we all blow up. But hopefully, we've learned how hard people will defend their land (shout out to Ukraine) and we will stay on the side of democracy going forward. Last thing the world needs is some GOPer fascist ass POTUS letting/helping Putin turn his situation around.

Yeah, most felt that way in the USA, then we had Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and Jan 6th. All quiet on the Western front. Until it’s not.

Agree. Plus, this is very distinguishable from Iraq and Afghanistan. VERY distinguishable.

This is where I am. I'm not in favor of much of what our nation has done in the middle east. Installing governments and the reasoning for the war in Iraq was something I couldn't support.

But this is an entirely different animal. In this case Russia invaded an established democracy that is on the very doorstep of our NATO allies. Trying to compare the two is like comparing daylight to darkness.

lol yo russia says they wanna negotiate now.

j/c...

Ruh roh. If confirmed this could raise the stakes immensely.

Oh boy...

Two deaths reported in Polish border town, as a wave of Russian missiles hit Ukraine

Projectiles have reportedly killed two people after hitting a farm in Poland near the border with Ukraine on Tuesday, according to Polish media.

It is unclear where the projectiles came from, but they landed in the NATO member’s territory roughly the same time as Russia launched its biggest wave of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in more than a month.

Polish media showed an image of a deep impact and upturned farm vehicle at the site, near the town of Przewodow.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has convened the Committee of the Council of Ministers for National Security and Defense Affairs, a government spokesman said.
Latvia and Estonia respond

A Polish official told CNN that nothing was confirmed yet and the investigation into the incident was continuing.

However, the Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks tweeted his “condolences to our Polish brothers in arms. Criminal Russian regime fired missiles which target not only Ukrainian civilians but also landed on NATO territory in Poland. Latvia fully stands with Polish friends and condemns this crime.”

There’s been no confirmation from Polish authorities that Russian missiles landed on Polish territory.

Another NATO member, Estonia, described the reports as “most concerning.”

The Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented on Twitter: “Latest news from Poland is most concerning. We are consulting closely with Poland and other Allies.

“Estonia is ready to defend every inch of NATO territory,” the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented on Twitter. “We’re in full solidarity with our close ally Poland.”

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a group of 30 North American and European nations. According to NATO, its purpose “is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.”

The alliance was created in 1949 in response to the start of the Cold War. Its original purpose was to protect the West from the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Since the end of the Cold War, many former Soviet nations have joined NATO, much to the annoyance of Putin.

The best-known aspect of the alliance is Article 5 of the treaty, which, if invoked, means “an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies.”

Article 5 has only ever been invoked once, in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

However, the alliance can take collective defense measures without invoking Article 5 – and has done this in the light of the Russian attack on Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has long complained that NATO has, over time, expanded its borders by admitting Eastern European countries that were once part of the Soviet Union – meaning Russia now shares a land border with the world’s largest military alliance, thus reducing his geopolitical power in what was once Moscow’s sphere of influence.

As recently as February, he was demanding that NATO scaled back to the borders of 1997, before the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the latter two of which border Russia, joined the alliance.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/europe/poland-missile-rocket-nato-przewodow-ukraine-intl/index.html

Something to be watched. I suppose the first steps are to identify the missile and try to confirm where it came from.

We need to make sure the Russians fired the missile.

No matter, I wouldn't want to see a larger escalation.

at least I know why WW3 is trending on twitter...

Poland has confirmed the missile was “Russian made”

I'd bet NATO doesn't do anything though.

Nato isn't getting into this was on the ground over this. But Putin will be put on notice and warned.

poland told everyone it didn't originate from russia.

no NATO response. never make decisions in a reactionary mindset. or you'll end up looking like the russian military under putin.

Had two retired military officers I know well post on Facebook....Nato hit by Russians, now what....one stated we should strike Russia....WOW, what idiots. Paul Harvey, the rest of the story.....Ukraine tried to shot down stuff and killed some Poles....sad, two folks in wrong place. Yet, old buddies want start WWIII over two deaths....WHAT...Chicago kills more than two a night and they're at PEACE....darn, the world is screwed up.

Zelensky is saying it did not come from Ukraine

which means we're not going to WW3 cause nobody wants to claim it.

If it was American made, the USA will be demanded to claim it. Just saying.

Unfortunately there is a certain portion of our people who think war is always the answer even when we're not sure of what happened. Such was the case with the Iraq war. Countless people killed for no good reason. Thank God cooler heads were in charge this time around.

Because it cracked me up.

Wonder how Putin is going to react to Ukrainians sending drones against Russian airfield in Russia. Understand totally Ukrainian response, but who knows what NUT running Russia will do. AND, Uk are working on long range drone- any target in Russia could or should be open-Russia bombing/striking everything. I'd target oil storage tanks. Ain't war wonderful.

I think it was past time they took the war to Russia. Sitting back being the victim while you are continually attacked without a response to inflict harm on your enemy has never won a war.

Will any of Russia's allies even show up if Ukraine did try to push inside? Putin ticked off a lot of people in the central asia by not honoring their military agreements recently.

They’re all busy putting down their own domestic citizen protesters. Gotta love feudal monarchies in a modern era, right?

Didn't they already take out a fuel depo just across the border into Russia? Some of this might be Putin establishing a case to escalate to nukes. But Ukraine should take this fight to Putin. Hell, they could rout half or ALL of Russia the way they fight.

I doubt that. Sure they are tenacious fighters but the number of their forces are quite small in the grand scheme of things. The most sure way of defeating yourself is to run a limited number of forces thin over a large area. Ukraine lacks the number of forces for a full scale ground attack against Russia.

They've taken out like 100K+ Russians already. Just saying, and I don't think even the Ru7ssian military would put up much of a fight. Most of those people are sick AF of Putin if the reports of anti-Putin activism are true.

I think you're trusting some very slanted journalism or taking some freedoms with it. Are there Russians who are sick of this war? Certainly. Are there some protests about the war? Certainly. But I don't think it rises to the level you think it does. And then you must remember that at this point in time Ukraine hasn't invaded Russia. When you are seen as forces invading their country rather than the victims, peoples attitude will suddenly change.

No one in America cares about the Russia and Ukraine war.

That’s what Russian bots think comrade. Better bunker down over there. Keep your head down. The Ukrainians are coming for you.

If you are suggesting that you are no one I won't argue with you.

Pentagon preparing plan to send Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine

Washington — Pentagon officials are in the final stages of preparing a plan to send a Patriot air defense missile system to Ukraine to counter Russian aerial assaults, U.S. officials told CBS News.

The plan has not yet been approved by either the Pentagon or the White House, but that could come as early as this week. CNN was the first to report on plans to send a Patriot system to Ukraine. 

The U.S. "is poised to" provide at least one Patriot missile battery to Ukraine once the plan is approved, according to one of the officials. 

The Patriot system is highly mobile, and uses ground-based radar to locate and track aerial threats that can then be shot down with a surface-to-air missile. Initially designed to take out aircraft, upgrades over the years have made the system effective at intercepting ballistic and cruise missiles.

The Ukrainians are expected to need six to eight weeks of training in Europe to begin operating the system, and a full 10 months to reach full operating capability. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the U.S. to provide Patriot air defense systems as Russia continues to launch missile strikes at targets, including energy infrastructure, across Ukraine.

As the war has unfolded, the U.S. and allies have started providing Ukraine with Western air defense equipment in place of the Soviet-made weapons Ukrainians already knew how to use. In recent months, the U.S. has committed National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems and missiles for older HAWK air defense systems. 

"As Ukraine continues to fight, air defense capabilities are becoming critical for their future success. An integrated system, an integrated air defense system, an integrated air and missile defense system, is what is necessary as Ukraine repels Russian aerial attacks," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told reporters during a press briefing in November. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-patriot-missiles-pentagon-russia-missile-defense/

This will open your eyes. It should be required to watch for GOPers.



And China. I usually don't pay attention to things like his, but there is a lot of truth in what he's saying, so I hope like hell he's wrong.

England uses other peoples armies to fight their wars.
This is about chapter 4000

You might want to ask Great Britain about that statement... It's not true at all.... Not even a little.

Your statement is true. We, America, have the foreign policy to fight never in our country- say engaged in world and fight on other people's land. WW1,2, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afgan all come to mind. The poster who said no Americans care about war- stupid statement, plenty of defense contractors and their employees LOVE the Ukrainian war.

A lot of vets care.

I'm sure they do....I'm one. I don't have the answer. BUT, I'm concerned about ANY shooting war. Russia has the means to end all fighting rather rapidly with use of tactical nukes- who can GUARANTEE they won't be used. How desperate is Putin and what will the Russian government, armed forces, and general population do in future? We keep sending weapons of all types to a democratic nation. Have you visited many AMERICAN major cities recently. I've been to Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, and those on east coast- the homelessness, the rotten infrastructure - and the current fix is just print more money and give weapons away- plus, we get to pay for the billions we are giving away so we'll keep our own readiness- I don't know if we are making the right decisions for us AND our grandkids.

Well the Ukraine and the rest of the free world should just surrender to Putin. smh.

New conflicts, in particular Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the flare-ups between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, compounded ongoing conflicts and armed struggles in Ethiopia, Myanmar, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, amongst others.Jan 12, 2023 -- other than Ukraine, which other of these current wars are we funding with billions of dollars from our taxes. You're good with our taxes, homeless, infrastructure, climate control/change, education system, mental health---lets make sure we honor the borders of all countries- how's our border.

No, it's not an either and or situation. Supporting Ukraine doesn't mean you're fine with homeless, infrastructure, climate control/change, education system and mental health. Using history as a guide we have seen what allowing our enemies to run rough shod over our allied nations results in. That's the very reason NATO was formed in the first place. It built an alliance of nations to have strength together. We witnessed what happened when each nation worked independently of one another when Hitler almost completely destroyed Europe. They formed an alliance with Japan which resulted in the attack of Pearl Harbor and WW2. Sitting back and doing nothing while watching history repeat itself doesn't seem like a viable option to me. The cost to help defend Ukraine is a fraction of what what it would cost in both $$$ and lives should we do nothing.

I'm very skeptical about supporting war. I was one who supported the decision to go to war in Afghanistan but not the decision to go to war with Iraq. Every place else you mentioned does not concern or put the enemy at the door of our NATO partners. That's the difference to me.

This conflict is just mind boggling. These Russian soldiers are just getting annihilated, wave after wave. The leadership is totally corrupt and incompetent There are thousands of videos on Telegram showing the carnage. I guess Putin is just hoping to win a war of attrition, and the general Russian public is too afraid to stand up to him while they watch their young men being led to the slaughter.

I think a big part of the reason many Russian people aren't standing up as you call it, is because Russia controls the narrative in their country. One thing I think we should all be able to learn from history is that if a government controls the message being sent to the people without opposition, people can be convinced of almost anything. Hell, when people only listen to one side of the news in general we see that can and does happen much less having the government only give them one side.

The biggest part why the Russian people aren’t standing up against him is cowardice, plain and simple. The Russian people will be hated forever in the free world. A country full of cowards. They freely send their children into hell to die in vain for Putin. The masses could put him down but they refuse. They know what freedom is. And know it takes huge sacrifices to obtain it. Cowards!

That's your impression. That doesn't make it fact. I don't hate the Russian people. I don't consider them cowards either. You sound like this is centuries ago. No civilian population can simply overthrow a government with the military weaponry the size of Russia's. Smaller, lesser nations with smaller forces and a smaller military, sometimes. It's like Americans who think their guns will make it possible to overthrow the government. Unless you can get the military to fight with you and against the government, you stand no chance. This isn't back in the days of musket verses musket or just cannons anymore.

The modern weaponry today's military possesses makes any uprising by the people futile unless the military is working with them.

I still reserve the right to consider them all cowards, which includes Russian military leaders who won’t turn on him.

I certainly agree with you in terms of people in power who may be able to sway the military into deposing Putin. And you certainly have every right to consider them all cowards if that's you position. I was simply pointing out that there's more than way to view this and why I view it differently than you do..

Lots of "smart Russians" got on planes, trains, autos?, and LEFT before becoming cannon fodder. My biggest concern about the Russian/ Ukraine War is NUKES. As we've seen daily, the Russians are not going to win- unless they decide to use nukes- use a few, will Ukrainians want more of their country turned to wasteland. Who knows what the West response would be? WW3- JMHO, we would not use nukes on Russia if "ONLY" tac nukes used. How is Ukraine VITAL to US security? Not part of NATO- Russians took Crimea essentially bloodlessly. We complained but did nothing. I don't want my tax dollars used endlessly to support a Euroasia war.

That's what they said about WW2.

Yep. Until Japan hit US in Hawaii. And then they got the first taste of the Nukes.

Slovakia, after Poland, agrees to give Ukraine Soviet jets

PRAGUE (AP) — Slovakia’s government on Friday approved a plan to give Ukraine its fleet of 13 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, becoming the second NATO member country to heed the Ukrainian government’s pleas for warplanes to help defend against Russia’s invasion.

Prime Minister Eduard Heger said during a news conference announcing the decision that his government was “on the right side of history.” Earlier, Heger tweeted that military aid was key to ensuring Ukraine can defend itself and all of Europe against Russia.

Poland announced Thursday that it would give Ukraine around a dozen MiG-29s, starting with four expected to be delivered in the coming days. Both Poland and Slovakia had indicated previously they were ready to grant Ukraine’s requests for military aircraft, but only as part of a wider international coalition.

Heger said his government’s move “is closely coordinated with the Polish side, Ukraine and other allies.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the promised planes were another example of NATO members “raising the level of their direct involvement in the conflict.”

“The equipment deliveries naturally won’t have any impact on the outcome of the special military operation, but it may bring more misfortune to Ukraine and Ukrainian people,” Peskov said during a conference call with reporters.

Slovakia will receive 200 million euros ($213 million) from the European Union as compensation and unspecified arms from the United States worth 700 million euros ($745 million) in exchange for giving its MiG-29 fleet to Ukraine, Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly asked Western countries for fighter jets, but NATO allies held off, citing concern about escalating the alliance’s role in the war.

In response to Poland’s announcement on Thursday, the White House said Warsaw’s move would have no bearing on President Joe Biden, who has resisted calls to provide U.S. F-16s to Ukraine, and that it was up to other nations to explain their own positions.

Michał Baranowski, managing director of Warsaw-based GMF East, part of the German Marshall Fund think tank, said changing conditions now permit such a move since the initial reluctance to respond to Ukraine’s request.

“Many red lines have been crossed since that discussion last year,” Baranowski told The Associated Press by phone. Sending MiGs now “is not the same difficult political sale that it was last year.”

Ukraine will be able to use the MiGs immediately without needing any training.

Zelenskyy appealed directly to Heger for aircraft at an EU summit in Brussels last month.

Slovakia grounded its MiGs in the summer due to a lack of spare parts and expertise to help maintain them after Russian technicians returned home. In the absence of its own aircraft, fellow NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic stepped in to monitor Slovak air space.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine had several dozen MiG-29s it inherited in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, but it’s unclear how many remain in service after more than a year of fighting.

The Slovak government that made the decision to sign a bilateral deal with Ukraine for the jets has only limited powers after a December no-confidence vote brought down the coalition government that was formed after the country’s 2020 election.

The next election is set for September, when the opposition stands a good chance of winning. Its leaders include populist former Prime Minister Robert Fico, who opposes military support for Ukraine and EU sanctions on Russia and has said Slovakia’s government has no mandate to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine.

Opposition parties including Fico’s Smer-Social Democracy party rejected the government’s decision Friday, threatening to sue.

Slovakia signed a deal to buy 14 U.S. F-16 Block 70/72 fighter jets, but delivery was pushed back two years to early 2024.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-u...EDS6_5kd1Yhdq46gSMg3DwVxP9rOFzDK2PKcwJ8o

ICC issues arrest warrant for Putin. Interesting.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64992727

That will stop Putin from vacationing in the topics, maybe.

Putin's health is failing, he will be dead or incapacitated in a year. That is my prediction.

I sure hope so. The guy is dangerous since he has control of their nuclear arsenal.

We better care. We are marching in to a world war.

We are certainly at risk of that ballpeen. Which is why you hear so many voices expressing reservations about how far we are going in this conflict. Of course anyone who says we are at risk of getting more involved in this war is accused of being a Putin fan. Not a very smart line but one I hear often.

I cannot help but think that if , before Russia invaded we had taken Ukraine membership in nato off the table this all might have been avoided and thousands of lives saved. I wonder if there would be a response now by Russia to that offer.

Remember the Afgan war. We helped a faction that wanted to fight the Russians (funny how the theme continues)

Kinda what we are doing now only we are doing it openly.. That effort led to the fall of the Russian empire. This one, if done right should lead to his demise.

I'm not ready to be chicken little and tell everyone that the sky is falling. Think of this as the long game... We've gotta stay engaged.

Any time you can get a proxy to weaken an adversary without risking the lives of your own military personnel it's a plus. Allowing them to march across Ukraine to being right on the doorstep of our NATO allies would be a grave mistake and heighten tensions far more than helping supply Ukraine. It's easy to look at Ukraine is an isolated picture in and of itself. But that calls for you to ignore the consequences of what not acting would produce.

While I am certain the people of Ukraine find those kinds of geopolitical machinations fascinating, I think they would really have liked the past year to be one of peace instead of having thousands of their fellow citizens killed and cities obliterated. The idea of the people of the Ukraine suffering immeasurable damage and death so we can “weaken an adversary” sounds rather callous to me.

What we needed but did not have was strong leadership in the west that would have demanded withdrawal of any offer of nato membership for the Ukraine and demanded assurances from Putin of staying out of Ukraine. I have heard a number of “experts” say that having Ukraine a nato member on their border was not something Putin would accept. I just think this war was avoidable.

I think it's important to remember, Ukraine didn't start this. But, we find ourselves in a position to weaken an adversary so why not do just that.

I guess you think the previous regime would have handled it that way. But I disagree. My guess is that the previous admin would have said,, Hey Vlad,, here's some tanks and planes.. take over what ever you want.

To this day, you still have plenty on the right willing to kiss the hind quarter of Putin. Not sure why other than they seem to like a leader that takes control of everything and allows for virtually no personal freedoms.

I know a lot of right leaning people, and I have not found this to be true. Maybe your experience is different.

In the end my description was correct. It may sound callus but it is what it is. In your scenario it would have been NATO catering to Putin. And according to you it seems you think "assurances from Putin" actually mean something. Putin had already invaded Crimea back in 2014. His intention to take over Ukraine had already been made clear almost a decade ago.

Public figures like MTG and Desantis and Bobert and Gietz and Trump all stand up for Putin. Go on facebook and look around. Also if you are against us throwing full support behind Ukraine like our NATO Allies are doing, then you are not having the best intents for America. (that last part is just my opinion, but I'm sticking to it.)

Those aren't real people, those are policritters trying to get fat off the public good. Most you just can't account for what they say.

How can you call a woman like MTG not a real person?

she is the polar opposite of AOC. But, they are the same person.

Isn’t it just ducky how people like you, in your warm, comfortable home, with a refrigerator full of food, can tell the Ukrainian people to just suck it up buttercup, we need you to weaken our adversary. I am sure they are happy to “take one for the gipper”. This death and destruction was avoidable but too many people in the establishment elite have the same attitude you do. Sorry Ukrainians.

Ukraine is defending it's country from Russia who is attacking them. Their only other choice would be to turn their nation over to Putin. I'm not telling them to do anything. Like I said, Russia attacked Ukraine when it invaded Crimea back in 2014. Putin's intent was quite clear from then on.

Ukraine is defending itself. The fact that we benefit from that is a bi-product. This was not avoidable. You've been reading too much fiction again.

Russia made it clear that nato membership on that border was untenable and they could not tolerate it yet the west continue to float nato membership for Ukraine. I guarandamntee you our military experts knew this was going to result in an invasion yet the west continued. Ukraine has never (as far as I know) been a nato member so we could have just withdrawn the idea and no invasion would have occurred. I know, I know, horror of horrors, our adversary would not have been weakened. But golly gee, a lot of Ukrainians would be alive and their cities still standing. I think I know how the Ukrainians people would have voted.

Paraphrasing Frederick lenz, the best war is the war never fought. And that could have been this war.

Outside the American communist party there aren’t 100 Americans who support or look favorably on Putin and it is just plain dumb to suggest otherwise!

Did that happen before or after they invaded Crimea in 2014? You seem like you're doing nothing but making excuses for Putin. So the rest of the world including the U.S. should just bow to Putin's threats every time he makes them? Great going comrade.

We already know how they voted. There is no ambiguity here.
The folks on Snake Island told the Russian flagship Moskva:

"Russian warship, go f* yourself."


I'll stand behind brave patriots who wish to keep their sovereign country over a despot who thought he could bully himself into a cheap win in less than 2 weeks. Your mileage may vary, but you'd be on the wrong side of this debate.

The Ukrainian people choose this course of action instead of capitulating to that little Kremlin toadstool. In your zeal to win talking points, you forgot about Occam's razor.





.02

I remember this was the line trotted out by the Alt Right Media soon after the invasion.... Along with the notion that if Trump was in power Putin would not have dared to invade!!!

Funny i know, but thats what they tried to say.

Not only are they real, but they are the face of the Republican party. I know that many republicans are embarrased by them.. I get that. But if they are, then they need to stand up an be just as loud against them. These folks that I named are ruining what was a great party. Good values. Now, because of these and about 35% of the party, the rest of them have got a stain on them... Deserved or not, they are stained. You can down play it or distance yourself all you want, but until you rid yourselves of these you will remain a stain on the underwear of America.

Agree. The likes of " MTG and Desantis and Bobert and Gietz and Trump" are WHY I'm a former Republican. You can't have rotten leadership and expect good results. Chop the head off and get real people like Liz C running the party and watch it grow and win again.

Oh hogwash!! Many American military commentators said it repeatedly. Spokesmen for the russki govt made it clear as well. Almost every knowledgeable commentator knew Putin was not going to stand by and let nato stand on that border. That is just plain fact and saying it is not excusing Putin, it is acknowledging truth.

So if taking nato for Ukraine off the table would have prevented this invasion why are you opposed to that being done. Never mind. I get it . What’s a little Ukrainian sacrifice compare to weakening our enemy.

I like Liz Chaney. As with any politician, I don't agree with all her stances on things.. But overall, I believe her. I believe she tells the truth... There are others that I care for also. So certainly, not all republicans are nuts. But these so called MAGA republicans certainly are out of their minds.

By the way, Trump is the reason I'm no longer a republican. I gotta admit, I was more middle of the road anyway.

It is pretty lonely in the middle... especially during primary season.

Many republicans of the 60’s and 70’s are now Dems because of the extreme right wing policies of today.

And people are leaving AT&T for Verizon, well, according to Verizon.

Maybe you need some help with the timeline here. Ukraine didn't apply for membership in NATO until AFTER Putin had already annexed Crimea in which Ukraine had been attacked and after they were already fighting them in the east. Not before.

Ukraine applies for Nato membership after Russia annexes territory

Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismisses Moscow ceremony as a farce and rules out negotiations with Putin

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...embership-after-russia-annexes-territory

Russia had already attacked Ukraine. They had already taken over territory and claimed that territory as their own. They did that before Ukraine had ever applied to be a NATO member. As I said, if you're willing to buy into Russian propaganda as the excuse as to why Putin launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine, all one needs to do is look at the timeline.

Kremlin drone attack: Russia accuses Ukraine of trying to assassinate Putin

Russia has accused Ukraine of trying to assassinate President Vladimir Putin by using drones to target his residence in the Kremlin in central Moscow.

The presidential office said defences downed two drones overnight. Mr Putin's spokesman said the Russian leader had not been in the complex at the time.

Unverified footage on social media appeared to show an object flying over the Kremlin before a small explosion.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky denied his country was behind it.

"We don't attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities," he said, speaking on a visit to Finland.

Meanwhile a Ukrainian presidential adviser told the BBC the reported incident indicated Russia could be "preparing a large-scale terrorist provocation" in Ukraine.

The two countries frequently trade accusations and denials since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Russia said the two drones targeting the Kremlin - a large government complex in central Moscow - were disabled using electronic radar assets.

One video on social media showed smoke rising over the fortified complex, and in another a small explosion was visible above the Kremlin Senate building, while two men appeared to clamber up the dome.

In a statement, the Russian presidency said: "Last night, the Kyiv regime attempted to carry out a strike on the Kremlin residence of the President of the Russian Federation with unmanned aerial vehicles."

It said it regarded this "as a planned terrorist act and an assassination attempt on the president", and Russia "reserves the right to take retaliatory measures wherever and whenever is deemed necessary".

Mr Putin has very high personal protection and the BBC's Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg says it is astonishing to think that drones could have got anywhere near the Kremlin.

The Russian leader was unhurt and his schedule would continue as normal, his office said. He was working in Novo Ogaryovo outside Moscow on Wednesday.

Fragments of the drones had fallen on the Kremlin site but no-one had been hurt and there was no damage to buildings, the presidency said.

It also noted the incident had come shortly before Russia's 9 May Victory Day parade, which foreign dignitaries were expected to attend.

The parade would go ahead as planned, Russian news agencies quoted the Kremlin as saying.

"What happened in Moscow is obviously designed to escalate the situation before 9 May," said Ukrainian presidential spokesman Serhiy Nikiforov.

Meanwhile Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak said the incident could help Russia justify attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine and could also indicate "guerrilla activities of local resistance forces" inside Russia.

"Something is happening in RF [Russian Federation], but definitely without Ukraine's drones over the Kremlin," Mr Podolyak said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he could not validate Russia's accusation that Ukraine had tried to kill Mr Putin, but said he would take anything the Russian presidency said with a "very large shaker of salt".

Mick Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defense and CIA officer, told the BBC that if reports of the incident were accurate it was "unlikely" to be an assassination attempt as Ukraine tracks President Putin's movements closely and he was not in Moscow at the time.

"This may have been to show the Russian people that they can be hit anywhere and that the war they started in Ukraine may eventually come home to Russia, even the capital," he said.

Alternatively, if the reports were not accurate, "Russia may be fabricating this to use as a pretext to target President Zelensky. Something they have tried to in the past", Mr Mulroy said.

Moscow's mayor on Wednesday announced a ban on unauthorised drone flights over the city. Drone flights would require a special government permit, Sergei Sobyanin said.

Several Russian cities had already announced they would scale back this year's Victory Day celebrations.

Russian authorities have cited security reasons and attacks from pro-Ukrainian forces for the changes. Explosions and fires have occurred in Russia in recent weeks.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65471904

That may be true, but I know a lot of people who were Democrats and are leaving the party because the party left them in favor of those who take and are more concerned w/their individual rights rather than the good of society.

I don't like either party, but one of them would be wise to find a candidate and policies that align w/the majority of hard-working, responsible, moral folks and ditch those who align themselves w/extremist groups on both sides. That might not be looked at favorably by the media who represents either side, but I still believe that most folks are good, honest people and don't align themselves w/the whacko crap that we are subjected to every freaking day.

Don't know if this was a staged attack, opposition forces inside russia or if Ukraine tried to get putin. President Zelensky said that it was not them. Russia says that putin wasn't staying at the Kremlin-could be true, could be false.

Russia now says everything is on the table, including a nuke attack.

If I were going to sleep in Kviv next couple of nights, I might be keeping an ear out for air raid sirens.

Whose morals?

So….somebody explain to me why Belarus should still be a thing. I get that Russia gets to park their nukes there….but other than a parking lot, what does that country actually do?

They interfere with the rest of the world on Putin’s behalf. It’s like a state run by MGT to support Trump. Bootlickers.

Maybe you remember how the Native Americans reacted to the oppression of, and the white mans wars in North America. They’d would wait and take the side of the English or French or whoever was winning at the time and support that side. looked what happened to them. So yeah Belarus shouldn’t be a thing in the future.

It looks like Wagner group is staging a coup inside Russia. Just developing.
Very fluid situation

Where are you seeing this?

Chad Scott and Aaron Parnas Tik tok
Twitter-search telegram. Russia civil war is trending but there is a bunch of wasted crap
Also Wagner on twitter

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-06-23-23/index.html

ABC News
Wagner mercenary chief calls for armed rebellion against Russian military leadership
1.2k
0:07 2:37


PATRICK REEVELL
Fri, June 23, 2023 at 7:20 PM EDT·6 min read


The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group appears to be threatening an armed rebellion against Russia's military leadership, after accusing it of deliberately shelling his forces on Friday.

Wagner's founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in an audio message on Friday claimed his forces would now punish Russia's defense minister and chief of general staff, telling other units to stand down and not offer resistance.

"There are 25,000 of us and we are coming to sort things out. ... Those who want to join us, it's time to finish with this mess," Prigozhin said.

Prigozhin also accused defense minister Sergey Shoigu of "cowardly fleeing" from Rostov in southern Russia and ordering an attack on Wagner forces.

Prigozhin published a shaky video on Friday that showed a shattered group of trees and a burning trench, claiming it was a Wagner camp shelled by Russian troops and alleging many Wagner troops were killed.

Russia's defense ministry has already denounced the video, calling it an "information provocation."

A Kremlin spokesperson said Russian President Vladimir Putin is aware of the video.

"President Putin has been informed of all the events around Prigozhin. Necessary measures are being taken," the spokesperson said.

Russia's FSB has issued a statement accusing Prigohzin of calling for "the start of an armed civil conflict" in Russia.

The FSB called on Wagner fighters not to follow Prigozhin's orders and to assist in his arrest.

Prigozhin has denied this is a "military coup" calling it a "march for justice."

"They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word 'justice,' and we will return it," Prigozhin said in the video. "Therefore, those who destroyed our guys today, and tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished."

White House National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge, released a statement that said the counsel is "monitoring the situation and will be consulting with allies and partners on these developments."

Gen. Sergey Surovikin, a senior Russian general who has been linked with Prigozhin, gave a video address calling on Wagner fighters to stop their rebellion and turn back.

Surovikin was appointed the top commander of Russia's 'special military operation' in Ukraine between last September and January. He was removed in January and replaced by Russia's chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov, whom Prigozhin is trying to topple.

This comes hours after Prigozhin launched an extraordinary verbal attack on Russia's military leadership, and saying the invasion of Ukraine was based on lies.

Wagner chief says Russian invasion based on lies

The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said the Kremlin's justifications for its invasion of Ukraine are based on lies, in another extraordinary attack on the country's military and political leadership.

Prigozhin, a key ally of Putin, in a video posted Friday, contradicted the public explanations for the war, including the central claim made by Putin that the 2022 invasion was necessary to prevent an attack from Ukraine.

Since launching the war, Putin has painted it as a defensive operation to protect Russia. He's claimed it was needed to stop imminent large-scale attacks from Ukraine on largely Russian-speaking eastern regions in Donbas that Russia has occupied since 2014.

But in his video address, Prigozhin, whose fighters have played a leading role in the war, said that was not true and there had been no imminent risk of attack from Ukraine.

"The ministry of defense now is trying to deceive society, the president, and tell a story there was insane aggression from Ukraine and that they intended to attack us with the whole NATO bloc," Prigozhin said.

"The Special Military Operation that began on Feb. 24 was started for completely different reasons," he said.

Prigozhin has been in a public feud with Russia's defense ministry and its head Sergey Shoigu for months, blaming them for Russia's disastrous prosecution of the war. As Russia has faced deepening setbacks in Ukraine, he has become an unexpected, prominent critic of Russia's leadership, using social media to post almost daily video updates excoriating it as incompetent, but stopping short of directly criticizing Putin.

Prigozhin also said in Friday's video that the two goals Putin announced at the start of the war— the "demilitarization" and "de-Nazification" of Ukraine—were "pretty stories."

Instead, he blamed Shoigu, the defense ministry and a "clan of oligarchs" for starting the war. He accused Shoigu of seeking glory and wanting "to rob" Ukraine and divide up its assets.

Prigozhin's attacks are extraordinary in Russia, where public criticism of the authorities risks harsh punishment. Since the war began last year, criticism of the military leadership has become a criminal offense.

That has led to speculation among experts about why Prigozhin is enjoying such license. Some observers have suggested Prigozhin might be speaking with the tacit approval of the Kremlin, which may be looking to shift blame for the war from Putin by scapegoating other figures such as Shoigu.

Prigozhin did not directly attack Putin in the video, instead claiming the president was being deceived by his generals and other figures around him. In reality though, Putin—not Shoigu—has taken the lead in making the claims around Donbas and de-Nazification the central justifications of the war, reciting them in his speech declaring his "Special Military Operation."

The implicit picture Prigozhin gave of Putin as weak and out of touch was also remarkable, implying he was manipulated by a clan of wealthy businessmen around him and lied to by his military. The war, as described by Prigozhin, was not about protecting Russia or resisting NATO expansion, but instead greed.

"The war was needed by oligarchs," Prigozhin said. "It was needed by that clan that today practically rule Russia." He added Russia's "sacred war" had "turned into a racket."

Prigozhin lambasted Russia's military leadership for the huge casualties its troops have suffered. He accused Shoigu of hollowing out the armed forces under Putin through corruption and cronyism, crippling its ability to fight effectively and then catastrophically botching the invasion after believing it would be an easy victory.

"There is a total absence of management," Prigozhin said, calling Shoigu a "weak grandfather."

"Someone should answer for the lives of those soldiers," Prigozhin said in Friday's video.

Prigozhin this week has accused the defense ministry of once again presenting a falsely upbeat picture of how Russia is fending off Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive in southern Ukraine. Russia's military has claimed to have largely stymied the counteroffensive and inflicted heavy losses on Ukraine.

Putin himself has trumpeted those alleged successes, repeating claims Ukraine has suffered heavy losses of Western equipment.

But Prigozhin has said in Russia's position is far more difficult, as Ukraine presses attacks at two points on the Zaporizhzhia front in the south, and Moscow is at risk of another significant defeat.

"On the ground now, today, the Russian army is retreating on the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions," Prigozhin said in Friday's video. He added that Ukrainian forces were advancing "deeper and deeper and deeper into our defenses" around Bakhmut, which his Wagner forces helped capture weeks ago.

"The leadership of the ministry of defense is thoroughly deceiving the president, and the president is receiving reports that don't correspond with reality in any way," Prigozhin said.

"Two agendas are forming—one on the ground, the other on the president's table," he said.


https://www.yahoo.com/gma/russian-mercenary-chief-appears-threaten-203300794.html

Hey, this might actually kickoff. It sounds legit on Wagner Group’s leader’s part. Popcorn time.

just hope it’s not some kind of trap for Ukraine.

From the reading I have done it doesn't sound like the Wagner group is the savior type. Hard to tell if this is a good thing or not. The evil you know if you know what I mean.

I called this back in the early days.

Top Military Brass or Oligarchs would take him down/out.

Every regime that has ever been built upon this model fails in exactly the same way:
One man, alone- fighting off the rabid dogs he raised and trasined.

Except it isn’t the top brass or the Oligarchs. It’s a guy who is under indictment from us who is attacking and blaming the brass and Oligarchs. He is claiming to be on Purim’s side, that the brass is lying to Putin.

What is his endgame? I don’t think anyone really knows. I did read that it was the CIA who convinced him to do this and is giving him real time intel. If true, that might bode well for us. I want Putin gone. I hope we don’t get something worse in this mercenary.

That's only true in the sense that AOC is as far left as MTG is far Right.

Beyond that they are noting alike.

When AOC speaks out, she uses facts as a basis for her argument.

MTG is all about conspiracy. Never about FACTS

Lolz.

Let me guess. The Russian military is getting tired of dying for nothing.

Agree..!

...and Russian mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin is tired of watching the soldiers of his Wagner Group being sacrificed under the leadership/control of Putin.

I'm not sure what the 'current' DEFCON LEVEL is...

...but it would not surprise me if the defcon level has been raised simply because there is a question concerning WHO IN RUSSIA has control of the nuclear button ...OR...could control of the nuclear button in Russia be in question..?

... WE DON'T KNOW..?...

...THAT IS A PROBLEM FOR ALL OF RUSSIA'S ENEMIES..!... THE RUSSIAN NUCLEAR THREAT!

Are you saying the Jewsih laser thingy is NOT true ??? Or Frazzledrip - or any of the other Qanon stuff?

Yeah - LOLZ to you. You're clearly crazy.

Just to keep up with the trendy Meme thingy going on....

European leaders convene emergency meetings in response to events in Russia

https://thehill.com/policy/internat...meetings-in-response-to-chaos-in-russia/

Russia runs on deception and corruption. And the screws have really been tightened on the oligarchs. The oligarchs are tired of having their yachts seized, their bank accounts frozen. All they want to do is go to Monaco and play with models, and they can't.

Other things I am seeing around the interweb-

* Wagner had no issue taking the Southern Military Command Center in Rostov-

* Putin has ordered the march stopped-just before he hopped on a plane out of Moscow. There has been a couple air strikes on Wagner forces as they move. Wagner also has said that they have shot down a couple helicopters.

* There are defections from Russian soldiers to the Wagner group or Russian soldiers just leaving their post-

*-Russia is parking construction vehicles in the street to barricade the advance of troops north-They pushed them off the road and kept moving with no other resistance.

* I just saw a twitter post that there are people in the street coming up to Wagner soldiers in Rostov with food and bottled water. I am sure there are many Russian citizens that are totally pissed at putin for this war and taking their husbands, brothers and sons and lead them to slaughter

Putin’s war is crumbling upon itself. Ukraine should take back the Crimea peninsula while Putin is distracted with insurrection in the fatherland.

Absolutely.
But I still worry about what the caged rat will do when cornered

"JEWISH"

Yevgeny Prigozhin just said that when this is over, there will be a new president of Russia. Interesting, definitely don't know if that is a good thing

Belarus president Lukashenko has fled to Turkey-
And it seems true that putin has fled Moscow.

Are we witnessing the end of Russia under the control of Putin and the Russian nuclear threat..?

It's likely too early to tell if Putin will be deposed. Whoever replaces him will still have the nuclear arsenal at their disposal.

Use the Jewish space lasers!!!

The worst possible thing Ukraine could have done, and did, was announce their spring counter offensive months in advance. Talk about letting your enemy see your hand. This battle between Putin and Prigozhin is a blessing Ukraine should be able to capitalize on. The timing of it as it unfolds seems rather odd. Is it some coincidence that this has occurred right in the middle of the Ukraine counter offensive? Russia has had enough trouble fighting its war with Ukraine without this conflict within their own ranks. Hopefully Ukraine can find a way to capitalize from it.

Twitter is just crazy-hard to tell if stuff is real or from another region or another day

There are a couple live streams/creators on tik tok that are pretty good-lots of updates

Bekah
chad scott or cpsscott
aaron parnas

Bekah is doing a live stream right now of about 5 or 6 places-one is from Voronezh-google search says that the Russian military has bombed a Wagner munitions or fuel supply.

Also, from Aaron about a half hour ago-
Wagner is about 5 hours away from Moscow-I heard from other channels that on the road from Rostov to Moscow-police were giving Wagner group an escort. And in the Libettes region of Russia, they army switched sides to Wagner

European Union has activated its crisis response center.
Poland has placed its troops on high alert.
Latvia is not allowing any Russians to cross its border.
reports of prisoner riots in Russia.

Also from places on the interweb-

China has said that they are watching this very closely-And then they noted that Vladivostok in the eastern part of Russia is "historically" Chinese territory. what does that mean?
Supposedly Wagner group has been lying about the ammo shortage so that they could accumulate ammo for this moment.

Iran on telegram channel said that they will "help" prevent the fall of putin if it gets out of hand-

Putin asked their version of NATO-called CSTO for help and was told no

Fill up your car-oil is probably going up short term

Ukraine is already re-capturing areas in Bakhmut because the Russians have pulled out-Very quiet with very little russian resistance

I agree. The only reason I shoot Ukraine some bail is because their trying a counteroffensive from a hard defensive position, knowing that they they don’t want to actually fight these battles and kill their neighbor.

But still stupid strategy nonetheless.

And yea, Wagner group pretty much bailed them out. I dunno if the counteroffensive would’ve failed, but at best it was a stalemate. This coup changed things dramatically.

I didn’t think the coup was serious until Putin hopped on TV freaking FURIOUS and call them traitors. Not gonna lie, that put a big ass smile on my face.

So, Putin not only couldn’t take Ukraine who was fighting with US hand me downs, but made NATO stronger by adding Finland in, and soon Sweden. Probably gonna have Ukraine join as well, with possibly Moldova being a dark horse.

Thanks, I guess.

Yea almost no resistance as well. I think Biden giving them another weapons package was either right place right time, or well-planned.

Either way, the pro Putin, anti-west losers in this country will be coming up with all kinds of whatabout and such for why their lord and savior keeps taking L after L

We can hope. And we can hope that the next leader isn't as crazy or hell bent on disrupting the rest of the free world .... but not assuming or suggesting any such thing will happen.

I mean…..we can literally walk in from Finland, Lithuania, and/or Ukraine.

If there was a way you can throw in Oil as one of the reasons to roll up in a country, this would be it.

My thing is power vacuums. No matter or dumb or smart a plan to invade might be, the only way it’s beneficial is if the power vacuum problem is quickly addressed.

No puppets. No asking. Straight change/reform of the <insert country> constitution and government. Take full command of the gas and oil secto as THE way to pay off war reparations due to Russian aggression.

And all China can do is watch us do it and be mad. That’s it. Cause they just saw what happened when a country wants to go it alone with that rugged individualism BS. China can and will not counter with a military engagement because they are alone and surrounded.

Yes, on some colonizer stuff.

I don't think "we" will play any part of it other than from a military equipment standpoint. If we didn't supply boots on the ground when Russia invaded Ukraine, I highly doubt we would do it now to take back Crimea. And I certainly hope we don't.

Now there is a call for the people to overthrow the Lukashenko regime in Belarus

Depends on the condition of Putin at the time. Is he still in charge? Exiled? Captured?

If he’s exiled or captured, nato forces need to have boots on ground securing only infrastructure sites. Not marching through the cities or anything stupid like that.

I still haven’t heard a single reason as to why this country should exist. Redraw the borders. Gerrymander that crap.

Supposed deal brokered by pres of Belarus and Wagner has accepted and they very well may be turning around from their march towards Moscow

Wagner head says group standing down after claims of deal

Prigozhin says his forces "are turning our columns around," amid claims of deal brokered by Lukashenko

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin published a new audio recording Saturday claiming he was turning his forces around from a march toward Moscow.

“We turning our columns around and going back in the other direction toward our field camps, in accordance with the plan,” he said in a message on Telegram.

The announcement comes as the Belarusian government claimed President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Wagner boss to halt the march of his forces on Moscow.

"This morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin briefed his Belarusian counterpart on the situation in southern Russia with the private military company Wagner," the statement said. "The heads of state agreed on joint actions.

"As a follow-up to the agreements, the President of Belarus, having being additionally informed on the situation through his own channels, and in agreement with the President of Russia, held talks with the head of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin," the statement continued. "Yevgeny Prigozhin accepted the proposal of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko to stop the movement of armed persons of the Wagner company on the territory of Russia and take further steps to de-escalate tensions."

CNN has reached to Prigozhin's office for comment.

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-06-24-23/index.html

This makes Putin look weak.

"Hey, Vlad- remember that time when you ran and hid from Prigozhin and Zalenskyy didn't run and hide from you? Remember when you thought you'd be in Kyiv in less than a month? Yeah, we do."

May not be done yet. After the truce, Putin said that Prigozhin is a traitor and he will come after him. Now, I just saw that Prigzohin says there was never a deal made. It also looks like the forward Wagner troops closest to Moscow have not moved for a while, like a few hours.

Where are you seeing this?

j/c:

There is something else going on here. I'm not sure what, but this whole situation is suspect on face value and we all know it.

Yeah, this is really fishy. Coup leader has to know he is good as dead if he gives up.

Yes, this is extremely fishy-somebody is being set up.

I have been outside working in the yard for the last few hours. I will check and see what else is up.

Here is the quote from Prigozhin.

"I did not accept any proposals from the President of Belarus Lukashenka. Negotiations where held but were unsuccessful. Everything that is said in the media is a blatant lie."

as for the troop movement. I did see that they posted that they were leaving Rostov on Don-
A member of the Ukraine military I think on Telegram says that the were monitoring Wagner troop movement on satellite and they were still outside of Moscow.

j/c

Daily news is fluid. Make of this what you will.



Russia says Wagner Group's leader will move to Belarus after his rebellious march challenged Putin

The greatest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his more than two decades in power fizzled out relatively peacefully Saturday after the rebellious mercenary commander who ordered his troops to march on Moscow abruptly reached a deal with the Kremlin to go into exile and sounded the retreat.

The dramatic if brief revolt shifted the landscape for the Kremlin and the 16-month-old war in Ukraine and prompted Russia to pull soldiers back from the battlefield to defend the capital, a stunning recognition of the threat posed by Wagner Group soldiers under the command of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Under the deal announced by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Prigozhin will go to neighboring Belarus and charges of mounting an armed rebellion will be dropped. The government said it also would not prosecute fighters who took part, while those who did not join in were to be offered contracts by the Defense Ministry.

Putin had vowed earlier to punish those behind the armed uprising led by his onetime protege, whose forces seized a key military facility in southern Russia before advancing on the capital. In a televised speech to the nation, he called the rebellion a “betrayal” and “treason.”

In allowing Prigozhin and his forces to go free, Peskov said, Putin’s “highest goal” was “to avoid bloodshed and internal confrontation with unpredictable results.”

Moscow had braced for the arrival of the Wagner forces by erecting checkpoints with armored vehicles and troops on the city’s southern edge. Red Square was shut down, and the mayor urged motorists to stay off some roads.

About 3,000 Chechen soldiers were pulled from fighting in Ukraine and rushed there early Saturday, state television in Chechnya reported, signaling the Kremlin’s desperation as the Wagner troops advanced to, according to Prigozhin, just 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Moscow.

But after the deal was struck, Prigozhin announced that he had decided to retreat to avoid “shedding Russian blood.” His troops were ordered back to their field camps in Ukraine, where they have been fighting alongside Russian regular soldiers.

Prigozhin has demanded the ouster of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, long the target of his withering criticism for his conduct of the war in Ukraine. On Friday, he accused forces under Shoigu's command of attacking Wagner camps and killing “a huge number of our comrades.”

Prigozhin did not say whether the Kremlin had responded to his demand. Peskov said the issue could not have been discussed during the negotiations, which were conducted by the president of Belarus, and is the “exclusive prerogative of the commander in chief.”

If Putin were to agree to Shoigu’s ouster, it could be politically damaging for the president after he branded Prigozhin a backstabbing traitor.

Early Saturday, Prigozhin’s private army appeared to control the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, a city 660 miles (over 1,000 kilometers) south of Moscow, which runs Russian operations in Ukraine, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said.

A nighttime video from the city posted on Russian messaging app channels showed people cheering Wagner troops as they left Rostov-on-Don. Prigozhin was seen riding in one of the vehicles, and people greeted him and some ran to shake his hand as he lowered the window. The regional governor later said that all of the troops had left the city.

Wagner troops and equipment also were in Lipetsk province, about 360 kilometers (225 miles) south of Moscow.

Authorities declared a “counterterrorist regime” in Moscow and its surrounding region, enhancing security and restricting some movement. On the southern outskirts, troops erected checkpoints, arranged sandbags and set up machine guns. Crews dug up sections of highways to slow the march.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin declared Monday a non-working day for most residents as part of the heightened security, a measure that remained in effect even after the retreat.

The dramatic developments came exactly 16 months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s largest conflict since World War II, which has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and reduced cities to rubble.

Ukrainians hoped the Russian infighting would create opportunities for their army to take back territory seized by Russian forces.

Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that even with a deal, Putin’s position has probably been weakened and “these events will have been of great comfort to the Ukrainian government and the military.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Saturday, shortly before Prigozhin announced his retreat, that the march exposed weakness in the Kremlin and “showed all Russian bandits, mercenaries, oligarchs” that it is easy to capture Russian cities “and, probably, arsenals.”

Switching into Russian in his daily video address, Zelenskyy said “the man from the Kremlin” was “very afraid.” He repeated his calls for the West to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets and ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles.

Prigozhin had vowed earlier that his fighters, whom he said number some 25,000, would not surrender because “we do not want the country to live on in corruption, deceit and bureaucracy.”

“Regarding the betrayal of the motherland, the president was deeply mistaken. We are patriots of our homeland,” he said in an audio message on his Telegram channel.

He posted video of himself at the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and claimed his forces had taken control of the airfield and other military facilities in the city without any deaths or even “a single gunshot.”

Russian media, however, reported that several helicopters and a military communications plane were downed by Wagner troops. The Kremlin referred a question about the losses to the Defense Ministry, which has not commented.

The short-lived rebellion came as Russia is “fighting the toughest battle for its future,” Putin said, with the West piling sanctions on Moscow and arming Ukraine.

“The entire military, economic and information machine of the West is waged against us,” Putin said.

State-controlled TV networks led their newscasts with Putin’s statement and reported the tense situation in Rostov-on-Don. Broadcasters also carried statements from top Russian officials and lawmakers voicing support for Putin, condemning Prigozhin and urging him to back down.

Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, who in the past has sided with Prigozhin in his criticisms of Russia’s military, also expressed support for Putin’s “every word.”

“The mutiny needs to be suppressed,” Kadyrov said.

Wagner troops have played a crucial role in the Ukraine war, capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut, an area where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place. But Prigozhin has increasingly criticized the military brass, accusing it of incompetence and of starving his troops of munitions.

In announcing the rebellion, Prigozhin accused Russian forces of attacking the Wagner camps in Ukraine with rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery. He alleged that Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff, ordered the attacks following a meeting with Shoigu in which they decided to destroy the military contractor.

The Defense Ministry denied attacking the camps.

The 62-year-old Prigozhin, a former convict, has longstanding ties to Putin and won lucrative Kremlin catering contracts that earned him the nickname “Putin’s chef.”

He gained attention in the U.S. when he and a dozen other Russian nationals were charged with operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord ahead of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory. Wagner has sent military contractors to Libya, Syria, several African countries and eventually Ukraine.

The rebellion appeared likely to further hinder Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, as Kyiv’s forces probed Russian defenses in the initial stages of a counteroffensive.

Orysia Lutsevych, the head of the Ukraine Forum at the Chatham House think tank in London, said the infighting could create confusion and potential division among Russian military forces.

“Russian troops in Ukraine may well now be operating in a vacuum, without clear military instructions, and doubts about whom to obey and follow,″ Lutsevych said. “This creates a unique and unprecedented military opportunity for the Ukrainian army.”

___

Associated Press writer Danica Kirka in London contributed.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-mercenary-chief-called-rebellion-051225518.html

Aye did you see Putin’s press conference addressing the Wagner group?

Lmfao, my guy look extra ticked off. He was calling them all sorts of traitors and acts of betrayal.

I love it.

If Putin couldn’t hold Prigozhin at bay in the fatherland, how does he think Belarus will? Pgigozhin wants his own country to dictate.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ses-war-Wagner-kills-39-pilots-crew.html

Business as usual, Mr President? Vladimir Putin breaks his silence in 'pre-recorded' interview about 'stepping up efforts' in Ukraine after Prigozhin's failed coup 'inflicted worst daily air force losses of the war with 39 pilots and crew killed by Wagner'
He faces expectation to replace top war commanders or face new insurrection
Coup leader Prigozhin agreed to be based across the border in Belarus - for now
For the latest news and updates on the failed coup follow our live blog
By WILL STEWART and MIRIAM KUEPPER and NATASHA ANDERSON

PUBLISHED: 08:21 EDT, 25 June 2023 | UPDATED: 12:08 EDT, 25 June 2023

e-mail
361
shares

Vladimir Putin has broken his silence about 'stepping up efforts' in Ukraine in pre-recorded interview that aired after he suffered his worst daily air force losses of the war.

The Russian president, on state television today, said he was 'confident' in his forces where he alleged are 'in a position to implement all the plans and tasks ahead of us'.

Putin claimed his optimism applied to Moscow's 'defence', 'special military operation', and the 'economy as a whole and its individual areas'. He also added that a meeting of the country's Security Council will still take place next week as planned.

His speech aired today after it was claimed that Wagner mercenary fighters killed 39 pilots and crew by downing strike helicopters and a military plane during Prigozhin's rebellion.

Putin is also believed to be facing the humbling expectation to replace his top two war commanders - close ally defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the army staff general Valery Gerasmivov - or face new insurrection.

Coup leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, once a Putin loyalist, has agreed to be based across the border in Belarus - for now. Out of jail, and free to run his large mercenary army, he still poses an acute threat to the 70-year-old Russian president.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, on state television today, said he was 'confident' in his forces where he alleged are 'in a position to implement all the plans and tasks ahead of us'



The Wagner group claims to have shot down three Russian helicopters since its coup began



Putin is believed to have suffered grievous losses as he sought to halt the Wagner 'march of justice' against his corrupt regime towards Moscow as the Wagner Group reportedly killed pilots and crew members during their attempted 'military coup'.

The Wagner group claimed to have shot down multiple Russian helicopters during its assault. Shocking footage shows huge black plumes of smoke rising into the air on a field after what is claimed to be a helicopter was targeted and burst into flames.

Russian forces appeared to confirm three of their attack helicopters had been shot down by Wagner.

Putin has not publicly commented on the deal that was struck to apparently de-escalate the crisis.

State television released excerpts today of an interview in which he said he was giving top priority to the conflict in Ukraine and was in constant contact with the defence ministry.

However the interview appeared to have been recorded before the mutiny and he made no reference to Saturday's events.

State television also said Putin would attend a meeting of Russia's Security Council this coming week, without elaborating.

Western leaders had expressed concern over the turmoil in Russia, which has the world's largest nuclear arsenal.

Putin is also facing the humbling expectation to replace his top two war commanders - close ally defence minister Sergei Shoigu (right) and chief of the army staff general Valery Gerasmivov - or face new insurrection


A desperate quick fix deal saw Prigozhin's Wagner heavily armed force halt their march on Moscow in return for a deal that drops all treason charges against him and his men (pictured: Wagner fighters in Rostov-on-Don yesterday)

The Russians are reportedly seeking to cover-up the losses of up to 39 pilots and crew in a few hours.

They allegedly included some of Russia's leading air force crew members with one account saying 20-plus combat pilots were killed.

Putin is believed to have lost six helicopters - including three Mi-8 MTPRs specialising in electronic warfare - as well as a sophisticated Il-22 plane used to conduct battle plans at high altitude.

READ MORE: Humiliated Prigozhin is sent into exile in Belarus after aborting his Wagner mercenaries' march to Moscow at 11th hour - but his men are treated like heroes as they withdraw


A desperate quick fix deal saw Prigozhin's Wagner heavily armed force halt their march on Moscow in return for a deal that drops all treason charges against him and his men.

It avoided a potential Russian v Russian bloodbath at the gates of Moscow.

Yet Putin has never seemed so weak in almost a quarter of a century at the helm of Russia as president or premier.

Russia analysts said that the 70-year-old - who has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999 - was wounded in the battle.

Garry Kasparov, the chess champion who has become one of the foremost leaders of the Russian democratic opposition, said Putin had been 'humiliated' by Prigozhin.

'The game ended with Putin's worst humiliation - a run for his life from Moscow when Prigozhin's army was hundreds of miles away,' he told CNN.

Kasparov added: 'Many of Putin's top officials ran for cover. A dictator relies on his aura of invincibility.'

Sergey Sanovich, Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, who specializes in disinformation and autocracies, said Putin had never looked so weak.

He said needing Belarus's dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, to negotiate with Prigozhin on his behalf was a sign of how enfeebled he was.

'Prigozhin makes a daring move and gets away with it, potentially with additional gains to come,' said Sanovich.

'Lukashenko saves the day. Putin reduced to a bystander, complaining on TV and letting his top generals be humiliated.

'Never in a quarter century Putin looked so ineffectual and hapless.'

The Russians are today reportedly seeking to cover-up the losses of up to 39 pilots and crew in a few hours (pictured: Il-22)
They allegedly included some of Russia's leading air force crew members with one account saying 20-plus combat pilots were killed

Putin allegedly lost six helicopters - including three Mi-8 MTPRs specialising in electronic warfare - as well as a sophisticated Il-22 plane used to conduct battle plans at high altitude, it is believed

Out of jail, and free to run his large mercenary army, Prigozhin (left)still poses an acute threat to the 70-year-old Russian president (right)

Sanovich's view on the involvement of Lukashenko was shared by Michael McFaul, Barack Obama's advisor on Russia from 2009-11, who then became the U.S. ambassador to Moscow.

McFaul tweeted: 'Putin could not control a mercenary force that he created & run by his buddy. He had to rely on Lukashenko of all people to cut a deal with a guy he called just hours ago a traitor.

'These are signs of real weakness, not strength. What has weakened Putin's grip on power? His disastrous war in Ukraine.

'The longer the war continues, the weaker Putin's regime becomes. Those that want to avoid Russian state collapse (i.e. Xi) should be pushing Putin to end his war.'

READ MORE: What next for Putin? Kremlin 'faces deeply unstable situation' after Wagner rebellion 'exposed regime's weakness' - as Chechen leader slams 'arrogance' of Prigozhin who 'acted out of anger over failed business deals'

Among Putin's losses is apparently a Ilyushin-22, which appears to have been shot down by a Pantsir missile system secretly supplied to Wagner by Russia's own forces.

At first the aircraft was identified as an Il-18 turboprop plane, and it likely used such markings - but was in fact an Il-22 used for secretive command and control missions in wartime.

Ten crew were on board, according to Russian Channel One correspondent Irina Kuksenkova.

It is likely a 'high ranking general' and other top brass were on board, revealed former Soviet military tactician and politician Viktor Alksnis, now an analyst known as the Black Colonel.

But he indicated the death toll was almost certainly higher, amid reports that the Russian state media has been ordered to obscure the true figure.

'I assume that the total number of cabin crew and task force on board the Il-22 ranged from 15 to 20 people. They all died,' he posted.

Putin also lost a regular Mi-8, a Ka-52 strike helicopter and an Mi-35.

'As a result of the destruction of five helicopters and one aircraft by the Wagner rebels between 34 to 39 people were killed,' estimated Alksnis.

Some 19 of these were in the five downed helicopters, he made clear.

More damage was done in a day than the Ukrainians have managed in the war.

'It should be noted that our Aerospace Forces did not suffer such losses even in the most difficult days of the special military operation in Ukraine,' said the Black Colonel.

All the losses were caused by Russia's Wagner forces shooting down Russia's regular forces - yet under the terms of the patched-up peace deal no-one will be prosecuted. The bloody fiasco can only benefit Ukraine.


Among Putin's losses is apparently a Ilyushin-22, which appears to have been shot down by a Pantsir missile system secretly supplied to Wagner by Russia's own forces. At first the aircraft was identified as an Il-18 turboprop plane, and it likely used such markings - but was in fact an Il-22 used for secretive command and control missions in wartime


All the losses were caused by Russia's Wagner forces (some pictured in Rostov-on-Don yesterday) shooting down Russia's regular forces - yet under the terms of the patched-up peace deal no-one will be prosecuted

It became clear today that he had suffered grievous losses as he sought to halt the Wagner 'march of justice' against his corrupt regime towards Moscow

e hasty peace deal between Putin and Prigozhin - brokered by Belarus tyrant Alexander Lukashenko - the billionaire Wagner chief will pay compensation of almost half a million pounds to the families of the slain Russian airmen


By today, no details of the dead air crew were revealed and Moscow was apparently engaged in a campaign to keep their names secret (pictured: Red Square in Moscow, which was closed due to security reasons yesterday)

pictured) suffered his worst daily air force losses in the war as rebel Wagner fighters repeatedly hit his strike helicopters and a high-flying military plane suspected to be carrying a top general

As part of the hasty peace deal between Putin and Prigozhin - brokered by Belarus tyrant Alexander Lukashenko - the billionaire Wagner chief will pay compensation of almost half a million pounds to the families of the slain Russian airmen.

As recriminations sounded today, Telegram channel Fighterbomber - with almost 400,000 followers - demanded: 'Which idiot with big stars on his shoulder straps ordered a transfer of the Pantsir air defence system to an illegal armed group [Wagner], a gang…? Will this idiot go to a military tribunal?'

Putin and his top commanders 'gave birth to this monster [Prigozhin] and now they are trying to fight it'.

By today, no details of the dead air crew were revealed and Moscow was apparently engaged in a campaign to keep their names secret.

Hours after saying the coup leaders including Prigozhin would suffer 'inevitable punishment' he revealed that no-one would suffer sanctions over the insurrection.

'There was a higher goal: to avoid bloodshed, to avoid internal confrontation, to avoid clashes with unpredictable results,' said his spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Highways used by tens of thousands of Wagner troops marching on Moscow yesterday remained closed today.

j/c:

Man, that coup attempt was but quick! "Here today, gone later today."

Maybe, maybe not.

If the coup continues...

There are thousands of nuclear weapons in play.

Those NUKES are the major concern for the US and Europe...

Might be best that Prigozhin's coup attempt failed...and Putin allowed Prigozhin to exit the scene. No telling what Prigo and his Wagner group might do if they could get control of Russia's/Putin's nukes.

Prigo is going to need a great escape plan if he expects to survive Putin's "hit squads"...Prigo might not want to book any rooms higher than the "ground floor"...

Controlling the Russian nukes is the main concern of the United States.

Everything I've read about this Prigozhin guy indicates he may be worse than Putin.. If that's even possible. Is this one of those "better the devil you know" kinda things?

RFK Jr. blasts Biden for sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, a year after Psaki said it could 'be a war crime'
'What happened to his conscience,' Kennedy questioned

Kyle Morris By Kyle Morris | Fox News

Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. has called on President Biden to "stop the ceaseless escalation" between the United States and Russia after he gave his administration the green light to send controversial weapons known as cluster munitions to Ukraine.

"Last year, WH Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the use of cluster bombs a 'war crime.' Now President Biden plans to send them to Ukraine. Stop the ceaseless escalation! It is time for peace," Kennedy wrote in a tweet.

"Biden was opposed to cluster bombs in 1982 as well, when he opposed their sale to Israel," Kennedy, who entered the White House race in April, added in a separate tweet. "What happened to his conscience?"


'TERRIBLE MISTAKE': TOP DEMOCRAT BLASTS BIDEN DECISION TO SEND UKRAINE CONTROVERSIAL CLUSTER BOMBS


Kennedy's remarks come after the Biden administration announced this week that its latest aid package to Ukraine would include cluster munitions, which are bombs that release smaller explosives across a wide area when detonated. Cluster-type bombs have been banned by more than 100 countries, because they are known to kill or maim civilians. In many cases, dud submunitions fall to the ground without exploding but unexpectedly detonate later, even years after they were dropped.

Both Russia and Ukraine have used cluster munitions since Moscow first launched its attack in February 2022. White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan acknowledged on Friday that cluster munitions do pose a risk to civilians but said the danger to their lives would be higher if Kyiv did not have enough weapons to fight off Russia's troops. The "dud rate" for munitions the Pentagon is sending to Ukraine is below 3%.


Joe Biden, Robert Kennedy split
Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. called Saturday for President Biden to "stop the ceaseless escalation" between the United States and Russia. (Sean Rayford, Jamie McCarthy via Getty Images)
In February 2022, while fielding questions from the press, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki asserted that Russian use of cluster bombs could amount to a "war crime."

"There are reports of illegal cluster bombs and vacuum bombs being used by the Russians. If that’s true, what is the next step of this administration? And is there a red line for how much violence will be tolerated against civilians in this manner that’s illegal and potentially a war crime," one reporter asked.

"It is – it would be. I don’t have any confirmation of that. We have seen the reports. If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime," Psaki responded at the time.


WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 29: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks at a daily press conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 29, 2022 in Washington, DC. During the briefing Psaki took questions on the war in Ukraine and gas prices. (Photo by Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in February 2022 that Russia's use of cluster bombs in its war with Ukraine could amount to a "war crime." (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
In a Washington Post report published Friday, the outlet recalled Biden's "complicated history" on the issue of cluster munitions and highlighted how Biden has flip-flopped on the issue over time as it relates to Israel's use of the weapons.

Biden's decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine also garnered concern from some Democrats in the House, including Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.

"The decision by the Biden administration to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine is unnecessary and a terrible mistake," McCollum, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a statement. "The legacy of cluster bombs is misery, death, and expensive cleanup generations after their use. The U.S. pays tens of millions of dollars annually to remove cluster munitions in Laos from the Vietnam era as these remnants of war continue to kill and maim civilians."


"As a strong supporter of the Biden administration’s policy in Ukraine, I must state in the strongest possible terms my absolute opposition to the U.S. transferring cluster munitions," she added. "These weapons should be eliminated from our stockpiles, not dumped in Ukraine."

Biden shaking hands with Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, and U.S. President Joe Biden shake hands during a meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 20, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Lee, another Democrat who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, said she was "alarmed" that Biden was "considering sending cluster bombs to Ukraine."


"Cluster bombs work by scattering tiny ‘bomblets’ over a wide area. Many of these bomblets don’t explode – but remain a threat to civilians for decades," Lee said on Twitter.

"The Ukrainian people are engaged in a just struggle for their rights, freedom and humanity. The US and Ukraine don’t need to stoop to Putin’s level," she added in another tweet.

Kennedy is considered a longshot in his race against incumbent Biden, who has overwhelming support from the Democratic Party. In many polls, however, Kennedy garners double-digit support among likely Democratic voters.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rf...aine-year-psaki-said-could-war-crime.amp

Not sure if sending weapons banned by over a hundred nations is a good idea.

Agreed.

I'm not a fan of this choice.
We have other (better) options for supporting Ukraine.

Russia has been using them all along. Tough tatas Mr Putin . What’s good for the goose is good for…..you.

Wasn't it a war crime last year because civilians were killed?

Putin is ruthless, Ukraine should be too. I hope they bomb the Kremlin with them.

I think that will end up being the critical factor that determines all of this. If Ukraine uses these cluster bombs along the front line out of towns and cities that would cause civilian casualties it will be very helpful in areas where Russian soldiers are dug in. What Russia did was use these cluster bombs in towns and cities causing a lot of civilian casualties. How Ukraine deploys these cluster bombs is more important than the fact they have them to use. Only time will tell on that one.

NATO delivers gut punch to Putin

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nato-delivers-gut-punch-putin-093000103.html

The NATO summit this week delivered yet another blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with allies standing as united as ever against his war in Ukraine while announcing efforts to expand the alliance and boost defense spending.

The most punishing setback for Putin came on the eve of the summit, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hashed out a deal to admit Sweden into NATO after more than a year of resistance.

Erdoğan’s reversal not only puts the gears in place to expand the borders of the western security alliance — it also signals the Turkish leader is moving closer to the west and away from Putin.

“He’s no longer interested in being dependent on Putin economically and strategically,” said Asli Aydıntaşbaş, a visiting fellow at Brookings Institution with the Turkey Project. “I think Russians are upset. I think the Kremlin is very upset.”

It also helped repair Turkey’s strained relations with its NATO allies and gave President Biden a major win heading into the high-profile summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

At the end of the summit, Biden declared that NATO was ”more united than ever in its history.”

“We will not waver,” Biden affirmed in the Wednesday speech. “Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken. We will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes.”

Erdoğan’s Sweden approval also came just days after he freed Ukrainian fighters from the Azov regiment, a move that deeply angered the Kremlin because the prisoners of war were supposed to remain in Turkey until the end of the war.

Aydıntaşbaş said the prisoner release is an even bigger blow than the Sweden deal, the latter of which was likely anticipated. She assessed the Turkish leader has now sensed Putin has become weak — especially after the Wagner revolt — and is drifting closer to Biden.

“I wouldn’t call this a reset, but it lays the groundwork for a reset between the West and Turkey and that would be a big deal,” she added. “Because at the end of the day, Turkey is NATO’s second largest army and its drift away from the West has been a big issue.”

Aydıntaşbaş, however, acknowledged Erdoğan often makes deals for transactional benefits, and since he does not view the Ukraine war as a binary issue, he is likely to continue to play both sides.

Erdoğan only backed Sweden after he extracted concessions from the West, including enhanced counterterrorism operations, more arms sales and Swedish support for Turkey’s European Union membership hopes. Erdoğan may also have won a deal to purchase long-awaited F-16 jets from Washington to modernize his air force, as the U.S. announced the paused sale was moving forward a day after the Sweden agreement.

At the summit, Western allies also agreed to boost defense spending levels, a commitment that, if adhered to, would strengthen the alliance and its support for Ukraine. Members are now pledging to spend a minimum of 2 percent of gross domestic product on military resources and security.

NATO has for years tried to get the commitment to stick, to no avail. But Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said 11 allies have now reached or exceeded the target, while overall spending by Canada and Europe increased by 8.3 percent this past year.

“This is the biggest increase in decades,” Stoltenberg said. “And we expect this number will rise substantially next year.”

Putin secured a minor victory in the dashing of Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, with GOP presidential contender and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley saying that Biden “made Putin’s day” by refusing to commit to Kyiv’s future NATO membership.

But the U.S. and Ukraine sought to minimize the damage at the end of the summit.

NATO decided against fast-tracking Kyiv into the alliance or setting a clear timeline for membership, a move Ukraine says will only embolden Russia and allow Moscow to use inclusion into the alliance as a bargaining chip in peace talks.

But the alliance still took steps toward admitting Ukraine, removing a procedural hurdle, establishing a NATO-Ukraine council and affirming that Kyiv is closer than ever to membership.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had expressed disappointment in the membership process just a day earlier, said he held a “powerful” meeting with Biden Wednesday.

“The meeting was at least twice as long as planned, and it was as meaningful as it needed to be,” Zelensky tweeted. “If the protocol had not stopped the meeting, we would have talked even longer.”

NATO allies this week also announced big steps toward supporting Ukraine in the long run, putting a damper on Moscow’s hopes of weakening Western support for the war.

A coalition of 11 NATO countries set a date for F-16 training in August for Ukrainian pilots; France confirmed the shipment of much-needed long-range missiles for Ukraine; and the Group of Seven (G7) economic and political bloc announced a long-term security commitment for Kyiv.

Russia has tried to downplay the news coming out of the summit. Moscow’s Foreign Intelligence Service chief told state-run media outlet TASS that the summit did not bring “any surprise to Russia.”

But Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Russia’s attempts to weaken the narrative have largely failed.

“From a Russian propaganda perspective, it makes sense to downplay this as much as possible,” she said. “But the facts just speak against Russia, especially the long-term commitment of G7 members to deter Russia and to erode the optimism in the Kremlin [hoping] everyone in Europe gets tired.”

The Vilnius summit showed allies are standing by Ukraine, even as there are concerns about a lagging counteroffensive launched in early June and the prospect of a longer war, Fix said.

“At the beginning of this year, the messaging was all about Ukraine [and] what it means for this one counteroffensive this year,” she continued. “And I think that was recognized as a bit of a trap.”

This is “sort of an attempt to make clear that the commitment is not only until the end of this year, but the commitment will also extend to the next year.”

Russian defence ministry says Wagner handing over weapons

Move comes two weeks after private army group launched an unprecedented, but ultimately short-lived, mutiny.

The Wagner mercenary group is completing the handover of its military hardware and weapons to the regular armed forces, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defence, two weeks after a short-lived mutiny that saw its columns advance on Moscow.

The ministry announced on Wednesday it had received more than 2,000 pieces of military hardware, including tanks, mobile rocket launchers and anti-aircraft systems.

It said it had been given “more than 2,500 tonnes of various types of ammunition and about 20,000 small arms”. Much of the equipment, it said, had not been used in combat before.

The disarming of Wagner reflects efforts by the Russian authorities to defuse the threat posed by the private army and its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, although uncertainty remains about his fate.

Under the terms of the deal that ended the rebellion he was supposed to go into exile in Belarus, but Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said last week that Wagner soldiers remained in their camps and Prigozhin was in Russia.

The Kremlin said on Monday that Prigozhin and 34 of his top officers met President Vladimir Putin on June 29, five days after the rebellion. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wagner’s commanders pledged loyalty to Putin and that they were ready “to continue to fight for the Motherland”.

Putin has said that Wagner troops were required either to sign contracts with the defence ministry, move to Belarus or retire from service.

The defence ministry, which released photos of the equipment in undisclosed locations, said the Wagner weapons had been transferred to rear positions where the equipment can be maintained or repaired.

The armed group, which played a key role in the Ukraine offensive, sought to topple Russia’s military leadership during the rebellion, which was over in less than 24 hours.

At the time, Putin condemned the revolt as an act of treason and threatened severe punishment for those who took part, but the criminal case against Prigozhin was dropped hours later as part of the deal. At the same time, the Wagner chief apparently could still face prosecution for financial wrongdoing or other charges.

The rebellion represented the biggest threat to Putin in his more than two decades in power, even though Prigozhin, long seen as close to Putin, insisted the uprising was not aimed at the president but at Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the military’s General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov.

Both men remain at their posts.

At the same time, uncertainty surrounds the fate of General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, who reportedly had ties to Prigozhin.

Andrei Kartapolov, a retired general who heads the defence affairs committee in the lower house of the Russian parliament, said on Wednesday that Surovikin was “resting” and “not currently available”, but declined to elaborate.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/13/russian-defence-ministry-says-wagner-handing-over-weapons

I can't help but believe that Putin is ticked off beyond all measure.

Yo- this is the exact opposite of what Vlad wanted all along.

He wanted a return to Russia's past "glory," a weakening/dismantling of NATO, and a stronger position regarding US relations.
And he was positioned to get it all while Yamface45 was POTUS. 45 had us on the brink of pulling out of NATO, b*ing about members not paying their fair share. Dude sided with Putin over his own intelligence community in Helsinki. Yes, the table was set. Putin licking those chops.

Then came the 'stolen' election of 2020.

Now, Dark Brandon putting fat boots to those plans with a quickness.
Erdoğan just helped the green light for Sweden to join, member states are upping their cash commitments, Ukraine is getting closer to membership, and NATO is stronger and more unified than ever before.


Now, his 3-day offensive has surpassed 500 days, his military has been decimated and exposed for the corrupt paper tiger it's always been, and his country has lost standing on the international stage. Most importantly, he now look weak. Vulnerable. After years of shirtless horseback riding, weak-wristed hockey goals against world-class goalies and tank parades through Red Square trying to portray him as a strongman, he now looks small, frail, ineffectual.

Bro- I called this within the first month of that Ukraine miscalculation: someone gonna take him out before Russia loses everything. That, or one other possibility: voluntary exile to a tropical island with a fat wallet and obscurity for the rest of his life. We really are watching History unfold here. A despot is in decline, and the wolves he empowered are circling.

I'd rather be me than he.

.02

Still strong enough to push the button. He will need to be taken out by his own people soon.


https://fortune.com/2023/07/11/the-...ssia-funding-putins-war-sonnenfeld-tian/


Meanwhile nobody is boycotting these companies for being the greedy capitalist pigs supporting Putin’s war….. ‘The Feckless 400’: These companies are still doing business in Russia.

at this point... I really wish Russia would just win the war with Ukraine and get it over with or fall back and concede.

It's rather odd which one you chose to list first.

Not sure why?

Russia is the one who started the war, not Ukraine.

Therefore; Russia must win or fall back and concede.

Nah let them drag this out. Already added Finland to NATO, and Sweden is about to join. Türkiye done finally wised up and chose a side, and there’s a chance Ukraine gets added to NATO or a Israel style Military alliance with the the US.

I’m actually glad Purp and I didn’t run up on a yacht owned by Russians and steal it. That could’ve been the thing that motivated the Russians to win

Putin loves to see people suffer. Especially Russians.

While not directly concerning the war in Ukraine it may be another sign of communist aggression coming in the near future...............

Russia’s Wagner mercenaries launch joint training with Belarusian military near Poland’s border

MOSCOW (AP) — Mercenaries from Russian military company Wagner launched joint drills with the Belarusian military on Thursday, almost a month after their short-lived rebellion against Moscow. Poland built up troops on its border with Belarus in response to the war games.

The maneuvers followed a pledge by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to help protect Belarus from a potential incursion and to bolster its military. The Belarusian Defense Ministry said the weeklong drills would take place at a firing range near Brest, a city on the Polish border.

A video released Wednesday appeared to show Prigozhin for the first time since he led last month’s mutiny. The recording shows him telling his troops that before deploying to Africa, they would spend some time in Belarus providing training to help “make the Belarusian army the second strongest army in the world.”

Before the abortive rebellion led by Prigozhin, Wagner mercenaries fought alongside Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. They also were sent to Syria and several African countries since Prigozhin created the private army in 2014.

The U.K. government on Thursday imposed asset freezes and travel bans on 13 Wagner mercenaries over alleged attacks on civilians and other human rights abuses in Africa. Britain previously sanctioned Prigozhin and several other Wagner commanders over the group’s role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

During the revolt that began on June 23 and ended the next day, Prigozhin’s mercenaries captured the military headquarters in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and then drove as close as 200 kilometers (125 miles) to Moscow.

The Wagner chief called the mutiny a “march of justice” to oust Russia’s top military leaders. The mercenaries faced little resistance, and downed at least six military helicopters and a command post aircraft, killing at least 10 airmen.

The revolt posed the most serious threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 23-year rule, eroding his authority and exposing the government’s weakness.

Prigozhin ordered his troops back to their camps after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko brokered a deal to end the rebellion in exchange for amnesty and permission to relocate to Belarus for Prigozhin and his fighters.

Belaruski Hajun, a Belarusian activist group that monitors troops movements in Belarus, said that nine convoys with more than 2,000 Wagner mercenaries already have rolled into the country. A Wagner commander said in a statement posted on a messaging app channel linked to the company that about 10,000 Wagner troops are set to deploy to Belarus.

Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was forced to leave Belarus after challenging Lukashenko in a 2020 election that the opposition and the West denounced as fraudulent, said that Wagner’s deployment would destabilize the country and threaten its neighbors.

“The arrival of Wagner will add to instability, and no one will feel safe with these war criminals roaming the country,” she said.

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said Thursday that he ordered some of his country’s troops moved from the west to Biala Podlaska, around 45 kilometers (28 miles) west from Brest, and to Kolno, further north.

“We must bear in mind that bringing a few thousand of Wagner’s forces into Belarus poses a threat to our country, hence my decision to move some military units from Poland’s west to Poland’s east,” Blaszczak said on state Radio 1. “Their task is to train and to deter an aggressor. It is to show Russia that Poland’s border should not be crossed, that it would not pay off to attack Poland.”

https://apnews.com/article/russia-w...ka2LfLxSD4NTNej3MYERMYrUcBXEfKmBSCG6vElY

Putin’s Next Target: U.S. Support for Ukraine, Officials Say
Julian E. Barnes
Mon, October 2, 2023 at 10:31 AM PDT·5 min read
768

Marines of the Ukrainian Armed Forces during training exercises in Donetsk Region, Ukraine on Aug. 28, 2023. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)
WASHINGTON — Russia’s strategy to win the war in Ukraine is to outlast the West.

But how does President Vladimir Putin plan to do that?

U.S. officials said they are convinced that Putin intends to try to end U.S. and European support for Ukraine by using his spy agencies to push propaganda supporting pro-Russian political parties and by stoking conspiracy theories with new technologies.

Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times

The Russia disinformation aims to increase support for candidates opposing Ukraine aid with the ultimate goal of stopping international military assistance to Ukraine.

- ADVERTISEMENT -

Russia has been frustrated that the United States and Europe have largely remained united on continued military and economic support for Ukraine, U.S. officials said.

That military aid has kept Ukraine in the fight, put Russia’s original goals of taking Kyiv, the capital, and Odesa out of reach and even halted its more modest objective to control all of the Donbas region, in eastern Ukraine.

But Putin believes he can influence American politics to weaken support for Ukraine and potentially restore his battlefield advantage, U.S. officials said.

Putin, the officials said, appears to be closely watching U.S. political debates over Ukraine assistance. Republican opposition to sending more money to Ukraine forced congressional leaders to pass a stopgap spending bill Saturday that did not include additional aid for the country.

Moscow is also likely to try to boost pro-Russian candidates in Europe, seeing potential fertile ground with recent results. A pro-Russian candidate won Slovakia’s parliamentary elections Sunday. In addition to national elections, Russia could seek to influence the European parliamentary vote next year, officials said.

Russia has long used its intelligence services to influence democratic politics around the world.

U.S. intelligence assessments in 2017 and 2021 concluded that Russia had tried to influence elections in favor of Donald Trump. In 2016, Russia hacked and leaked Democratic National Committee emails that hurt Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign and pushed divisive messages on social media. In 2020, Russia sought to spread information denigrating Joe Biden — but many Republicans in Congress argued Russia’s goal was to intensify political fights, not to support Trump.

For the 2024 presidential election, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the stakes for Putin are even higher.

Biden has sent billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine and pledged that the United States and its allies would support the country for “as long as it takes.” Trump, far ahead in the polls for the Republican nomination, has said supporting Ukraine is not a vital U.S. interest.

Russia, according to U.S. officials, is constantly running information operations aimed at denigrating NATO and U.S. policies and is likely to ramp up efforts in the months to come. The U.S. officials spoke on the condition their names not be reported so they could discuss sensitive intelligence.

The ultimate goal of Russia would be to help undermine candidates who support Ukraine and to change U.S. policy. Some U.S. officials doubt Russia would be able to do that.

But even if Moscow cannot influence the final election result, Russians may believe they can stir up enough debate over Ukraine aid that a future Congress could find it more difficult to pass additional support, U.S. officials said.

Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official, says artificial intelligence and other new technologies will change how Russia conducts influence campaigns. Russia is also likely to conduct influence laundering efforts, sending messages to the American public through allies inside nominally independent organizations, according to a recent declassified analysis.

“Russia will not give up on disinformation campaigns,” Sanner said. “But we don’t know what it is going to look like. We should assume the Russians are getting smarter.”

It is easy to overstate Russia’s ability to influence U.S. politics. Some American officials and social media executives have questioned how effective Russia’s troll farms and influence operations were in 2016, as opposed to hack and dump operations targeting Clinton’s emails.

And the media landscape has shifted dramatically since then. U.S. and European consumers are more skeptical of what they see on social media. Russian state television, a source of Kremlin narratives, has been pushed off Google’s YouTube. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has bolstered its search for disinformation and de-emphasized news on its platforms.

But for every development making life harder for Russia’s online trolls, there are trends pushing in the opposite direction. The X platform, formerly known as Twitter, has dismantled teams that were hunting for election interference efforts. And the most influential platform among young people is now TikTok, a Chinese company. China has been stepping up its own influence operations, modeled after Moscow’s operations.

U.S. intelligence agencies have warned that several countries are seeking to influence American politics. In 2020, intelligence agencies outlined an Iranian scheme to influence voting in Florida. Cuba also conducted low-level intelligence operations, and Venezuela had the intent, but not the capabilities, to influence the vote.

But Russia is better than any other country at combining state media, private troll farms and intelligence service operations to attack in the digital space, U.S. officials said.

And it has continued to refine its efforts. Many of the disinformation experts who once worked for the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm active in American elections in 2016 and 2018, have migrated to new firms or joined Russian military intelligence. And the internet, one U.S. official said, is the one place Russia will never run out of ammunition.

Shifting the debate in Europe and America is so important to Putin that if those influence operations fail to gain traction, Russia could decide to escalate.

U.S. officials say that escalation could include additional financial support for pro-Russian political parties in Europe or even covert operations in Europe aimed at weakening support for the war in Ukraine.

As a result, underestimating Russia’s ability to conduct influence operations would be a mistake, U.S. officials said.

Russian disinformation that falsely claimed America had bioweapons labs in Ukraine continues to reverberate around the world, for example.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-next-target-u-support-173151349.html

I'm afraid too many have already taken the bait...both in terms of our politicians and in terms of the populace.

Russia used the accusations to justify its invasion of Ukraine and has repeatedly requested United Nations’ investigations of its false claims. But far-right groups, including QAnon, have picked up, expanded and amplified the Russian bioweapons accusations.

In a world divided by polarized politics, conspiracy theories and disinformation have proved more resilient than ever.

It's appalling how many people have no understanding that abandoning Ukraine is supporting Putin.

It's "appalling" how many people act like "support" is an infinite, costless supply. Okay... that's probably a little harsh. In theory, what you say makes sense. The way we've been going about it, not so much to me. There are plenty of petty dictators doing Putin-like things all over the world. Supplying arms honestly only makes conflicts worse.

I dunno, I kind of see it like Iraq. Instead of dumping more money into it, maybe it's time to look at diplomatic solutions. That region of the world doesn't really need more weapons. More weapons don't seem to deter Putin. Just gonna end up with more death and waste of human life. Plus, we're probably making a breeding ground of future extremists with an abundance of military hardware for them to get their hands on.

Need to figure out how to get rid of Putin rather than grinding up soldiers that don't want to be there.

Diplomatic resolution with Putin? What you are not saying out loud would be giving him parts of Ukraine including legitimizing his unprovoked takeover of Crimea. Because that would be the only resolution he would accept.

I'm actually rather surprised you're trying to equate this to Iraq. Iraq is a war we chose to start based on intel of which there were even conflicting reports of among some of our allies. From both the circumstances surrounding these two situations, to the logistical and geographic locations of these two situations I see nothing that draws any sort of comparison. History should have taught us all a lesson. When you allow a dictator to take over other nations unchecked, they don't stop. At the present time we can help defend Ukraine with help from other nations funding it at a fraction of the cost we may very well incur later. And without so much as the loss of one American troop.

It's actually quite a bargain.

The comparison is that as both wars drag on the reasons wore thin and it ended up just a lot of killing for killing's sake, and corporations making profits at the expense of human lives. A large number of the soldiers on the ground don't/didn't want to be either place.

Who said anything about giving him parts of Ukraine? I certainly didn't.

I also didn't say Putin was the one to engage in the diplomacy. It's not just his opponents that can mysteriously fall out of windows. If we could provide planning and support to a moderate faction within Russia, who knows. Unfortunately, no corporations in the US profit from that approach, so our government is likely to take an approach that won't actually lead to its alleged goals but will rather make somebody here money. And it will likely do so at the expense of taxpayers here and average citizens and soldiers there.

I think you are conflating the costs of helping someone wage a war with the cost of waging war on someone. Maybe we see a part of this differently, I don't see supporting a counterinsurgency faction within Russia to assassinate Putin as being a diplomatic solution although I'm quite fond of the idea.

Any diplomatic deal that would cause Putin to withdraw from Ukraine would involve conceding part of Ukraine to Putin.


I know you didn't say that. As a matter of fact I said exactly that in the post you were replying to.


I'm not sure how you equate helping a democracy from being taken over by one of our greatest enemies as "a lot of killing for killing's sake". They are defending their nation against an invasion of a foreign enemy. I'm not a pro war type of person unless I feel it's a total necessity. I'm not for sending our troops to foreign soil to die in most circumstances. I was a person who supported the war in Afghanistan while opposing the war in Iraq. I was a person who believed trying to fight two wars on two separate fronts with an all volunteer armed forces which had reduced numbers compared to times during the draft was a recipe for disaster and there was no need for a war with Iraq.

I believe in what Eisenhower said about the military industrial complex. The only place I think we actually differ here is that I think we will have to face Putin at some point. Doing it via this proxy war is a bargain in comparison to what the cost would be otherwise. It's a pay me now or pay me later situation. And the price tag now is a huge bargain to what the price tag would be later. I'm not for willfully putting Putin in the position of power and strength. History has shown that will only embolden him to go further.

That's exactly why I say abandoning Ukraine is supporting Putin.

I'm of the opinion making more weapons is bad. If they are lying around, people will eventually use them. I think it ties in to our gun problems here. If they are everywhere, someone is going to use them. (Unfortunately, taking them away from only one side would also likely have catastrophic results) Why lay the groundwork for future conflict?

I do think we agree a fair bit.

I just think providing weapons to Ukraine isn't really facing Putin. In some ways, it's almost doing Putin's dirty work for him. Putin is keeping those loyal to him close and sending those that might oppose him to the front.

Much like many American corporations, Putin doesn't really care how many people die as long as he can keep feeding his ego and/or coffers.

I don't see how refusing to hand him Ukraine is helping him do his dirty work.

In principal I agree with the premise that making more weapons is bad. Sadly we can't get China, Russia and places like North Korea to go along with that concept. So without the continuing support of manufacturing weapons we will eventually make ourselves weak and vulnerable. Sadly I believe the lust for power is so ingrained in the human DNA or as some call it, human nature, that this will most likely never change. It's been a part of mankind's history since history has been recorded.

We need to figure out how to disincentivize the ones with the lust and greed rather than punishing the ones they use to slake it.

expanding: When the actions you take to counter "lust and greed" feed into someone else's lust and greed, it perpetuates the problem.

No we’re not making future extremists, we’re preserving a democracy allied to our own. But hey, whatever lies you have to tell yourself to be good little GOPer I guess, just like Benito…

Throughout mankind's history nobody has been able to figure out a way to accomplish that. I'm all for hearing ideas on how to do that but not very optimistic that it's an idea based in a realistic possibility.

Oh for God's sake.

While Government sanctioned assassination is troublesome, killing one person can't be worse than killing hundreds upon thousands. What process reaching that decision should go through, I'm not sure. Maybe have all NATO countries hold a special vote?

When someone is taking out their competition, I don't think we should continue to consider them a duly elected leader. And invading other sovereign countries should similarly remove protections.

I can understand why some leaders don't want to set a precedent.

on the other hand, there are some lines individuals (particularly those in power) shouldn't be able to cross without personal repercussions. Act like a terrorist, get hunted down like one.

Bleh, probably gonna end up on a watchlist somewhere. I'd prefer if "we" killed as few people as possible. Unfortunately, some people seem hellbent on killing others.

You may wish to look and see that when you posted that in regards to Putin I didn't oppose the idea, I simply stated I didn't consider that option a "diplomatic solution" per say.

I'm not arguing with you. Just thinking "out loud" at this point.

Diplomatic was the first word that came to mind as opposing all out war. I was looking at it as "diplomatically" getting someone else to pull the trigger. Though perhaps getting a diplomatic consensus to taking such a course of action is a better approach.

Probably just gonna have to go the black op route, so China/North Korea don't feel obligated to respond or lose face.

Yeah, I was thinking a strategical solution sounded a little more accurate. I think we both see it as a reasonable solution with only a slight change is verbiage being the difference.

Like it or not we are fighting a proxy war right now. We have 2 choices , fund it and support it to the point that Russia is weakened and withdraws or wash our hands and hope the Ukraine people get assistance from others.

There are more than 2 choices. We've been discussing some.

Binary paradigms towards proxy wars are a big reason they keep happening. There are all kinds of articles and scholarship on the downsides of proxy wars. The best proxy war is the one you avoid. The same can be said for war in general.

I'm curious if the US is intentionally trying to drag this out. While it's well within our govt's ability to slow walk military aid due to incompetence and red tape, I can't help but wonder if there's ulterior motives. About a year ago we had a hard line in the ground in terms of sending tanks and planes. Fast forward to today and they have Abrams and sound like they're going to get F-16s. I wonder if the US is trying to get Putin tossed by his own people by dragging out this war. The cost is great, but nowhere near what Russia is spending (equipment, lives, emigration and economic impact).

I'm convinced that a strong and stable Europe becomes much more likely when Russia either A) gets its head screwed on straight or B) is essentially crippled.

I think the military industrial complex is pulling its strings where it has its hooks set in Washington. There's been a rather coordinated media campaign to make "intervention" through military equipment not only palatable to the American people but to be seen as imperative. I wouldn't be surprised if the Russian intelligence services are secretly chortling as this is giving them easier access to reverse engineering foreign technology.

Unfortunately, if its option B, with all the weapons that will be over there, I doubt it's a peaceful entity that steps into the void.

For option A, it would seem to require a new head entirely.

Iraq and Ukraine are apples and oranges. I think that I would agree with you that perhaps there has to be more transparent auditing procedures and anti-corruption, and actually there is, but it doesn't get publicized as much as "We ArE WaSTinG MonEY!" I do agree it could perhaps still go further. I also think we can offset money spent on Ukraine by reducing defense pork $.

As far as the tactics though, Putin is not a petty dictator. He already has meddled in election and plans on doing the same now to break us away from Ukraine. His level of dictatorship is far beyond "petty." Despite the repeated L's he has taken, he still does maintain a first world military.

It is also not us expending paramount resources and American lives to invade a place that we have no business invading. We already spend an enormous portion of our defense budget specifically garnered to countering Russia. Diverting that into upholding Ukraine accomplishes this goal. It economically also leverages us to other countries because they are seeing a B team beat the hell out of an A team with our weapons. They are thinking twice about buying Russian now and the line for our platforms, like the F-16 is now out the door.

When you are a soldier on the ground, war is pretty much war. The "reasons" don't seem very important when the bullets are flying.


I'd rather just not spend the money buying other people weapons. We need to cut back spending, not just rearrange it. I've presented what I see as better options. We are literally wasting resources. Weapons are made to destroy things. Plus there's the whole they're not going to give the weapons back if/when the war is over, and it's hard to predict where they will be used next. Also, one might consider that "upping the stakes" hardware-wise increases the chances of Putin going nuclear.


I wasn't so much calling Putin a petty dictator as saying there are others all over the globe with the implication intended to be should we fund the opposition to all of them? It's also unclear to me what tactics have to do with the rest of what you wrote.


Is it accomplishing a goal? Or is it extending a deadlock that isn't accomplishing anything other than lining arms manufacturers' pockets and leaving lots of corpses and ruined infrastructure?

I'm against the proliferation of war machines. I don't care if it's "us" selling them. It's individuals that don't need more money that would be collecting the windfall. The "US economy" doing well and the average American doing well economically aren't correlated that closely.

I can think of few worse uses of resources than making things that destroy other resources so you have to use more resources to replace them on a planet with limited resources.

Your first remark is way off, from my perspective. Perhaps it is the paradigm. I am looking at it from a US perspective whereas perhaps you are looking at it from a global perspective?

I think we just flat disagree on your second point. I think we need to cut spending, too, but I think we need to continue to spend in areas that are necessary. I also think we have a net increase in spending if Russia expands its borders, unless we want to flat out lose our standing in Europe. That's just a reality. I think perhaps you are shooting for an ideal world where weapons don't need to be made, and I am existing in what I see as the real world. Appeasement and backing down/away has never done well with ambitious dictators like Putin, and the costs in the end are more severe.

Putin's standing as "more than a petty dictator" - we'll call it - does imply the need for more action vs the petty dictators you mention. Tactically speaking, he has the resources and has shown before that he is willing to interfere with the very fabric of our democracy to achieve that goal. More than that, many politicians in our country, including an ex-President, along with widely-viewed media pundits have exemplified very concerning behavior when it comes to their behavior concerning Putin. He also only respects force. That has become a widely accepted notion. I think his ambitions in taking over Ukraine, destabilizing Europe, and his willingness to interfere with our democracy merit more than enough for us to act against him at the level we are doing in Ukraine.

I will go ahead and come out and say it. When it comes to "arms manufacturers" I hate them - at least their business people - more than anyone else on this board. Full stop. I think they are corrupt, conniving, greedy jerks. I do not think it is extending a deadlock. In fact, I think our inaction is extending a deadlock. I see it as us defending a burgeoning country's right of self-determination against an established and dangerous adversary. For that, unfortunately, we need weaponry.

I was thinking more human perspective than global, but aye.

I'm not sure where people are getting appeasement from.

It takes 1 bullet/needle/sudden drop to get rid of Putin. You don't need a fleet of fighter-bombers. I'm a firm believer in trying simple solutions before escalating to billion dollar ones.

I wish that were a viable solution but I don’t think it is with his security. Otherwise I’d love to see that. There are few people in this world who I hope to drop dead ASAP. He is one of them.

Forgot to add - appeasement goes to the concession route. Not pointing the finger at you, but you have looks like Tucker Carlson who wanted to interview him to get his perspective, and you have people like Orban and the new guy in Slovakia. You also have Trump talking about negotiating and conceding things like Ukrainian territory. That’s appeasement.

He's more likely to die if you try to kill him than if you're dropping bombs in Ukraine or near the border. Putin isn't there-- they're mainly just soldiers that wanted to serve their countries that are being used as cannon fodder.

For me the best course of reasoning is to blame the man who started it all rather than those who are trying to help protect a nation from an invading force.

Russia has about 100 million more people in it than Ukraine. Putin seems perfectly willing to use as many of them as it takes. I don't care how much equipment you give someone, eventually the numbers tell. The Spartans are no more. Why use an expensive strategy that seems destined to fail? Putin hasn't even used his best troops and equipment yet. He's wearing down the defenders with soldiers he doesn't mind losing and old equipment that should have been melted down for scrap (and essentially is being.) He clearly doesn't value human life.

Yes, attempts on Putin's life may fail. Yet, the scale of life risked in those attempts is much lower than what we're "casually" helping to see dead every day in the Ukraine. It only takes one chance to succeed.

If it's a choice between hundreds dying everyday for the indefinite future with those deaths having no real effect on Putin versus a few people potentially dying to actually address the root of the problem, I know which one seems like a better approach to me.

It's the same old story. Rich men rule the world while they keep the poor busy fighting each other.

The US needs to do everything they can to take Putin down without starting ww3. Same way we need to rid ourselves of Trump, without starting a civil war. Otherwise, this all just continues with new faces and little change for the good.

Instead of doing everything or throwing money at every problem, we need to actually diagnose the problems. Unfortunately, all too often it seems that it is those doing the diagnosing that are causing the problems or making them worse.

The only viable alternative at this point in time, besides extrapolating other seemingly unrealistic scenarios, is either to hand over Ukraine to Russia or not. We can all sit here and say, "Yeah but if they". But that's not the current reality.

Not backing Putin down from invading democracies would be a fatal flaw. Any idiot should be able to see that. Sure, caving might actually give him a face saving out for now, but he’d just go again as soon as he regroups and resupplies. Meanwhile, we turn our back on yet another ally and another democracy… smh, I can’t believe it’s even a debate.

And for those decrying the spending on a foreign war… Better off fighting Putin in Ukraine than in the streets of America, or all across Europe like Hitler. You can’t let a threat like Putin go unchecked. And you damn sure shouldn’t give him any kind of win.

I'm curious to see what your plan to take him out would be.

You need to put the bullets where the bad guys are, not where they send their patsies.

That's quite a generalized statement. How are we going to "put the bullets" in the Kremlin when Putin is there, where Putin is and make sure the job gets done? This isn't a suburban house in Pakistan kind of thing. Even that wasn't easy.

I don't have the military intelligence to formulate a specific plan. We should have people that do, though. If not for things like this, what do we even have the CIA and military operational specialists for?

I'd be trying to recruit assets from amongst the disenfranchised in Moscow. Get them Russian hardware. Provide them with intelligence on potential vulnerabilities in Putin's security. Maybe try to recruit someone Putin might trust enough to be able to lure him into the open. Maybe try to suborn a cook or secretary. There are a practically limitless amount of possibilities. Hard to know what might work without human intelligence/eyes on the ground.

It was intended for OCD, not as a plan.

Is Putin always in the Kremlin, though? He's not, but getting him out would be part of most plans.

Rather than start a new thread to address this I'll post it here which it seems to fit into at least to some extent. It's the total lack of ability to believe the U.S. will ever keep their word and be a long term ally.

We can go back much further than this but I'll just use a few examples from the not to distant past.

The deal we made to allow inspectors to look for WMD in Iraq. We actually pushed this deal in the U.N. forcing the hand of other countries to agree to this in order to see if Iraq actually had mass stockpiles of WMD. Hans Blix ran this search and made it plain he was given full and unfettered access to everywhere he wanted to inspect. None of that made any difference. The inspectors were told to withdraw from Iraq because we were attacking.

The same thing happened with the inspectors in Iran when it was decided to pull out from those inspections to help prevent Iran develop a nuclear weapon.

There are things such as The Trans-Pacific Partnership, The Paris Agreement, UNESCO, NAFTA, which BTW had existed for 25 years though presidents of both parties being in power, United Nations Human Rights Council and I won't even get into why that was done.

There are many, many more. But what we have shown the world is that we can't be counted on. That any deal made with America may only be good through the next election cycle if even that long. If you want a long term ally that will stay true to their deal, don't count on America. That's a very disturbing message to send to the rest of the globe.

I don't think Putin trusts anyone. The guy has someone gather his poop behind him after he takes a dump because he doesn't even want that being analyzed. Maybe we could recruit the poop guy???

I'm kidding of course, but it just goes to the point that it really is not an easy to deliver concept in any sense. Far from it. That can't be emphasized enough. The CIA and various intelligence agencies have a huge purview about them outside of assassinating foreign figures.

I like how some people really think we’re in an ammo crisis.

We have the ability to resupply at the snap of a finger.

How desperate is Putin that has to broker new diplomatic relations with freaking North Korea in order to import enough munitions to continue fighting?

I’m also loving the constant scare tactics right wingers employ with this BRICS nonsense.

South Africa, nice diversity hire there.

I've seen so much misinformation surrounding this topic that I don't even know where to begin. It's like whack-a-mole. Perhaps it's just that I'm closer to it than a lot of people are, but it astounds me.

Of course, its not easy. But not easy is a long ways from impossible. How easy or hard something is to do has little to do with the merit of that thing. Yes, there could be a high possibility of failure, and you'd have to very carefully try to mitigate that. But, an approach that will certainly end in thousands of deaths is a failure before it even starts.

I almost feel like I'm having an argument with the ghost of Stalin. "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic." Each of those people that you seem perfectly content to help kill or let die is a person. How little value some people seem to put on human lives continues to astound me. "Not my group, not my problem. Go kill each other over there. Here let me buy you some guns"-- How quintessentially "American." "We know an entire generation of your young men has been effectively wiped out, Ukraine, but here are some more weapons. Go stop Russia so we don't have to." (I got a little hyperbolic myself)

Spending millions is easy for our government. Unfortunately, actually solving problems is hard.

Who knows? Maybe the political posturing and $200M a day is cover for black ops going on behind the scenes. Incompetence and exploitation seems more likely, but I've got to remember that I don't know what I don't know.

And no one wants to associate with the poop guy. I'm kinda thinking honey pot might be the play. Then again as former Russian intelligence, Putin probably knows all about those.

I can't say I appreciate the comparison to Stalin. As I said before, I think not supporting Ukraine actually increases the amount of bloodshed and lets things drag out.

I think my overarching point in this is that what you are seeking is for all intents and purposes, impossible.

What you are proposing as it pertains to Ukraine won't lower the death count. It will only insure that those deaths will be suffered mainly by Ukranians who were invaded by Russia. It only insures that it will be Russia doing most of the killing and that the results will only increase the size of Putin's empire and embolden him to continue further.

I'm all for supporting Ukraine. I'd just like to do it in a way that doesn't feel like sitting on the sidelines watching their entire population get wiped out. Sending "aid" feels a bit too much like buying tickets. Buying a fancy stadium and sending high tech gear wouldn't help a football team decimated by injury. Why do you expect a similar approach to help a country that is literally getting decimated period?

Nothing is impossible. There are just degrees of difficulty.

And when the degree of difficulty would take longer to overcome than Ukraine can go it alone against Russia, the downfall of Ukraine to Putin would be the result.

This is easy for Putin or any other world dictator. All you have to do is wait America out. America's word is only as good as the next election cycle. It's only good until your cause in which they promised their long term support becomes a political battle between the two parties. At that point America will disappear like a thief in the night and desert you. America is not a dependable ally.

I'm not saying to pull support. I'm saying to figure out how to actually end the war. Sending equipment won't matter if Ukraine "can't field a team." Things are headed in that direction.

This is a horrific comparison. We may just be at an impasse because I can't logically marry up anything you're saying with how the situation actually is. Sending advanced weaponry is not like buying a ticket. If anything, we have everything to send them which could make them "win the football game," but we seem to be dragging it out or only sending enough to prolong the conflict.

If your strategy is to take out Putin to end the war, then we might as well shoot for lasting peace in the Middle East while we're at it.

What we do know is that Putin refuses to enter into any talks that would require him to withdraw from any of the territory he has gained in Crimea and Ukraine. As long as he controls the populace in Russia he has no motivation to change his stance. That too would only embolden Putin to continue down this same path in the future.

As I said before, he knows all he has to do is wait America out and the political landscape will cause the tide to turn and America will eventually abandon Ukraine. We are already beginning to watch a movement in that direction.

Putin know this.

It's more a metaphor than a comparison. It's trying to simplify an idea related to a complicated situation into something easier to understand. What do you think the situation actually is? What percentage of 18-30 year old males do you think are still alive in Ukraine? Having old ladies or children try to fly jets isn't going to work. Having 100 million less people put Ukraine at a disadvantage realistically "impossible" to overcome regardless of equipment.

Yes, We might as well shoot for peace in the Middle East, too. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you don't try to change things, they're not ever going to change. Total definition of insanity. Lets keep sending weapons and then wonder why people keep killing each other. Stop sending weapons, and put down the people that won't put the weapons down (preferably declare criminal and arrest, but sometimes criminals don't leave a choice.) Obviously we can't just stop at this point, but if we had "put Putin and those like him in his regime down," we wouldn't be here. If we can get rid of him, maybe we can stop the vicious cycle. Maybe not. But let's not even try because it won't be easy. smh.

Providing/making more weapons in the name of peace is a such a logical fallacy and/or counterproductive approach. Yes, its been a policy. No, it hasn't really worked. Its just trickled down and led to violent cultures and/or a proliferation of extremist groups that see violence as an answer.

I think we're on completely different wavelengths. I don't see this conversation becoming any more productive.

Indeed. Though, if productivity was a requirement for conversations, this would be a rather empty forum.

I won't argue with you there, although I won't call you Stalin.

I didn't call you Stalin. You just seemed to see the number of people that have died and will die in Ukraine as statistics more than the tragedy that they are, and that brought the quote to mind. The war seems abstract to you, I guess. Seeing wartorn bodies on TV is one thing, experiencing the sights, smells, and sounds in person another.

Now you're just jabbing and lying and/or making really stupid assumptions.

Let me just say I have done more to help the Ukrainians than you have. I am very confident in saying that. Like I said in a response to Swish before, I am closer to the effort than most. We've had a lot of people serve on here too, who have been in war zones, and they almost all unanimously support equipping Ukraine. You are the only person I know who thinks a mission to try and assassinate Putin is an achievable goal or even a pragmatic idea vs arming the Ukrainians. The fact is they see it fit to fight fiercely to defend their homeland against an unjustified, hegemonic invader who has thrown human rights out the window because they are a P5 member and strong enough to block any sort of rebuke, and they have a powerful partner. That takes away the whole "petty dictator" point as well.

Nothing about this war is abstract. Nothing at all. I would argue the people who don't arm the Ukrainians see it that way.

It seems that your tactic in these discussions is to perhaps act in obtuse ways for the purpose of seeming intelligent - my impression - but I cannot find one practical or thoughtful approach to what you think a solution is.

Feel free to have the last word. I'm done.

I don't know about all that. Not wanting people to die in a needless war is noble.

But everything after that (which is the meat of the debate) is, at the very least, incredibly short-sighted. Failing to arm Ukraine to adequately defend its sovereign borders (those same borders that act as a buffer between NATO and Russia) amounts to appeasement. Not being able to connect those dots or failing to grasp the impact kinda short-circuits any meaningful discussion.

I find it interesting that aid for Ukraine is one of the VERY few hot-button issues that's getting bipartisan support (read a headline the other day that McConnell and Schumer are working on pushing that despite the chaos in the House)... the struggle stems from our favorite fringe group.

You keep acting like I'm saying it's an either provide equipment or go for Putin situation. I'm saying we need to do both. Providing equipment isn't enough.

I'd prefer to try to shorten the war by any means necessary, rather than solely continue an approach that seems like it will only extend the war until all the Ukrainians are dead. Yes, we have to help the Ukrainians fight and not abandon them. I'd prefer to find a way to do it better and resolve the situation faster.

I don't get what is so hard to understand about that.

I may have injected too much of my perspective into your perspective and vice versa. I'm somewhat seeing how rather than not caring perhaps you are coming from a more emotionally involved personal perspective. You feel like you are personally doing something to help the situation (you are) and I'm trying to take that away from you (I'm not.) Doing what you are doing is good, I'm just not sure it's enough.

I see it kind of like this. If we were able to magically go back in time and give every Spartan an M16, the Persians still would probably have overrun them due to their overwhelming numbers. Yes, the Spartans may have held out longer and killed more Persians, but ultimately they would still have lost (with the net change only being more dead Persians, plus M16s lying around waiting to be used.) Now if Xerxes had been assassinated in addition to providing weapons, the Spartans may have held out while the Persians tore themselves apart with in fighting. Xerxes actually was assassinated by one of his bodyguards about a decade after Thermopylae. And the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire became more outwardly peaceful (internal assassinations kept happening) before itself being conquered by Alexander "the Great."

I would just inject that the overall tone of your message did not come across the way your latest, further explanation has since has accomplished. I believe you clarifying it helps clear up a lot of that.

And I will just say that I believe that possibly even more productive than actually "taking Putin out", winning over the people of Russia may be the best way to help things. I would find it more likely than not that America has been trying to accomplish that. However, before that could actually be accomplished I think the time frame of such an event would come far too late to be relative to what's going on in Ukraine.

I don't think the people of Russia need to be won over. I think most of the common people would gladly be rid of Putin already. They just need to be empowered to be able to actually do something other than protest in the streets and get arrested. To me, what they need is covert training and tactical support.

Let's put aside which one of those strategies would be the best approach for a minute. Big picture where I think the largest difference in opinion lies is in the time frame such a thing could be accomplished. In the grander scheme of things, over the long term I think you have a great point. To some extent I think we both do. But that is a long range plan. It may certainly help prevent future wars and are both avenues I would gladly endorse.

But as things stand today I don't think the time line to accomplish such a thing would happen with the expediency required to impact the war in Ukraine.

We agree. I actually look at supplying Ukraine from a professional perspective, which has admittedly bled into a personal perspective as well, given everything I've seen.

I don't think it's enough either, and the holdout from some countries, including Hungary and now Slovakia is hindering the progress, as is the very far right on our side, and drawing the war out. I think from a political perspective, I do really wonder what we're not seeing that's affecting that behavior. They operate under the guise of fiscal conservativism, but the gushing that you see about Putin that comes from the lot of them (Trump, Carlson, some of the MAGA caucus) combined with the disparaging remarks they make about Ukraine's leader really makes me wonder what in the hell is going on that we're not seeing.

If there were a practical, timely way to take Putin out, I'd be all for it. I just pragmatically speaking don't know how to accomplish that in a timely manner.

You brought up a lot of questions people should be seriously asking themselves.

I don't know how to accomplish it either. It just feels like its something that we better start investing in looking at rather seriously. If things only continue as they are going, the long-term prognosis and likely ultimate result of the conflict are not looking good. The longer it drags on, the more the numbers are likely to tell. Plus, the longer things go on the worse the psychological scars and damage are going to be, during and also after. Those are already likely going to linger long after the fighting is over. Having a (deserving) scapegoat and seeing Putin go down, might have an ameliorative effect.

An alternative is adding NATO troops on the ground, but I don't think that anyone has the stomach for that and its hard to tell if someone might come in on the other side. The internal dissent route seems the "safest" option for avoiding World War III. I don't think even Putin is crazy enough to nuke his own country. Figuring out how to help that internal uprising come about is a tough nut to crack.

It’s really disturbing. Most of my immediate family are borderline MAGA. When the war started, they were vehemently with Ukraine. Some even wanted to send in troops. Now they are vehemently opposed after seeing Tucker and listening to the gaslighting and misinformation. Luckily I’ve been able to push back on that with facts surrounding various weapon systems and transactional agreements but it’s been an uphill battle.

I mean Russian state media played coverage of Tucker Carlson.

Let me say that again. Russian state media played coverage of Tucker Carlson.

The purpose of an authoritarian state is to control the narrative through the media and only allow one voice. Opposition is jailed aka Navalny.

They know they have crap, but at least they are not in jail. Good luck with that covert training and tactical support.

. IMO that makes Tucker and a large percentage of Goper America that believe his crap, all communists.

And then people wonder why some of us think that hard liner trumpian politicians actually support Russia. And their followers can't or won't even pretend to consider it despite the evidence that's in front of them.

Ummmm, Russia isn't even a communist country any more, if it ever was. Economically speaking, it's a weird mutant freak hybrid of a nonmonetized command economy and a monetized market economy. As far as government, it is technically a "multi-party representative democracy."

I agree with Tucker and his message being crap, but not sure what anything has to do with communism. The Cold War was a fair bit of time ago, and even then the whole making communism a bad word seems rather overzealous in retrospect. Like most things, it's not the systems themselves that are bad, it's what people are doing with them.

edit: I get that there is still a "communist" party. But the country doesn't really operate as actual communism. Most sitting politicians in Russia are actually from the United Russia party.

edit2: The United Russia party's ideology is largely Statism, Russian Conservatism, and Russian Nationalism. I can see how some of that would appeal to White Nationalists here. --ICK! It's probably more that than anything to do with "Communism."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rep-lauren-boebert-signaling-fight-210836906.html

Looks like the mower starter is saying the next speaker MUST not support aid for Ukraine. Again…why????

Many are in jail, and those that aren't still don't want their young men sent off to fight a war they don't want to fight. If the choice is fight in Ukraine for something you don't believe in or fight in Moscow for something you do, I know which one I would choose if it was remotely an option. We need to figure out how to make it an option.

Step One: devise a way for Russia's citizens to get information from the rest of the world, instead of only hearing state-sponsored messaging. If the Russian people actually knew what the rest of us see, there might be no need for a Step Two; they'd rise up and end Putin's reign for themselves.

A couple years back, I predicted two potential ends for Vlad: political assassination, or populist uprising. I made that prediction based on history: those are basically the only ways any society has ridded themselves of despots. I would prefer door #2, because when these things happen, the new broom sweeps clean. Along with Putin, his cronies get removed, as well. In the case of door #1, the crony who takes him out has been ensconced in a system that placed him in proximity to the seat of power- no way would that person mess with the system that got him there. For the world, it would be 'more of the same' from Russia... just with someone not named Vladimir Putin.

It's got to happen of the people, by the people, and for the people.


.02

Time to go back to having cargo planes dropping pamphlets?

I don't know. I think the difference in armaments between civilians and governments makes widespread populist uprisings unlikely. I think you kind of need to split the difference and have a "populist assassination," then hope the cronies wipe each other out vying for power in the vacuum (as they haven't consolidated power as typically accompanies an inside assassination.)

Maybe just send modified T-Shirt guns to the fronts loaded with information intended to inspire Russian units to rise up on their commanders and head back to Moscow. Perhaps focusing on enlisted soldiers as the "populist uprising" could level the armament playing field. Hmmmmm. Just spit balling. Maybe something along those lines could be refined better.

Anybody who thinks the Russian people can be won over are living in an alternative universe.

Maybe. After seeing the "insanity, stupidity, and intolerance" shown by many Americans here, expecting there might be rational people there isn't a given. Yet, I have seen footage of protests in Russia.

We don't have to win them over to us. We just have to give the right ones the tools they need to effect the change they already want.

I haven't actually seem evidence the majority of Russians want the change you propose they do. As we have seen here in our own country people get programmed by the things they are spoon fed. And I'm not speaking about either side but both of them. The only thing they have seen or been taught is what Putin and and his state run media has been telling them for decades. Why would anyone believe they want such a change when all they have been taught is that Putin is great and anything from the outside that would teach them any differently has been blocked?

You haven't been seeing evidence because as you say the government controls the media. Back in early 2022 there were a fair number anti-war protests publicized. They were shown in places like on ABC News. Unfortunately, the government arrested a lot of those protestors (over 20k, I've seen reported) and close to 1,000,000 people have emigrated out of Russia since the war started. Those against the war have had to become more discreet for fear of arrest and/or other reprisals. It's not safe for foreign journalists anymore, either.

Another way of looking at it: have you ever heard of a repressive regime that didn't have people that were subjected to the oppression that were against that government?

Have you spent much time out of the country? Do you know much Russian history? Russia has had quite a few uprisings.

One can draw conclusions either way. Estimates are that over 143 million people live in Russia. So while I appreciate the side of this you're trying to propose, I don't think it means what you think it means.

But what are you basing your thinking on?

143 million is another one of those numbers that doesn't mean a whole lot on its own.

I'm basing my thinking on personal experience in foreign countries and countless historical examples, along with information culled from modern media sources.

People don't automatically believe the propaganda they are inundated with. Some do. Not all of them. When they're seeing people arrested and their families are dying, the number tends to go down.

When you're trying to use the number 1 million to make a point, showing the total population is 143 times that many people it is most certainly relevant whether you wish to admit that or not. There is no way for you to know what "the majority of Russians think" other than thinking those who you have drawn your information from don't have a stake in the game or they have some first hand knowledge of internal Russian polls of their people that share such information. And I haven't seen any indication those even exist.

I drew my conclusion based on the 1 million people you quoted. There are 143 times that many people in Russia and I for one do not believe you have any idea how the majority of those other over 143 million are thinking based on what you've heard and media sources.

Obviously a cowardly outlook considering the actions of the people of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

...what are you trying to say here?

JC
It is foolish to support taking Putin out. Maybe it's ok to think about it, but there really isn't a way to do that. A Seal team isn't going to be able to take the guy out.

I myself am getting weary of Ukraine. We have depleted much of our reserve ammo, and when this is all over I suppose we will be on the hook to repair the country.

I am not saying we should abandon Ukraine, but if it comes down to dropping our support or getting in to WWIII, that's an easy choice for me. This is looking like WWI trench warfare. Lot's of fighting with very little movement and not a lot of hope anything is going to change anytime soon.

We have not depeted any of our reserve ammo. None. Honestly, my mind is blown as to where this comes from. Honest to goodness there’s so much more I could say that I don’t on this topic and I shouldn’t but I have no idea where in the hell notions like this come from. We have so much stuff it’s insane how much stuff we have. Most of the stuff we have was invented to take places like Russia out and now that it’s ACTUALLY DOING THAT people are like “We should be prudent and save up.” Holy moly…

And we STILL have a ton of it.

Seriously, I know where I’m getting my information from. Where are you guys getting your information from? Makes my head spin…

From the same sources who believe Putin when he says he’s trying to ‘de-nazify’ Ukraine, and that NATO are the, lol, real aggressors.

The President said so...the reserves are critically low.




Not sure why I can't post vids anymore. It is easily referenced.

There is no way we can allow Russia to take any of Ukraine. No way. Putin must be stopped. By any means available.

Taking him out isn't something we should do. But stop him cold, yeah, that's what we need to help Ukraine do.

Do we need to replenish out weapons reserves, yeah we do. But to think we can only do one thing as a time is silly.

Putin is a Hitler wanna be. I can't for life of me see where it's a good thing to support him.

Remember, most of the country didn’t want to get involved in WW2, and I suspect that has something to do with the % of people who have no problem with dictators, or even empathize with their beliefs.

Thanks for posting. Let me take that apart. That guy put quite the spin on everything and he’s horrifically wrong.

One, I think Biden was misspeaking and blundered up as he is prone to do. He kept reiterating that Ukraine was low and then slipped to the point of saying that we are low. I think that he meant “we” as Ukraine in that clip. You can’t rip on him for talking about a railroad across the Pacific and then take seriously a claim that we are low on cluster munitions in the same vein.

Secondly, he is talking specifically on the topic of cluster munitions but this guy extrapolates it out to “artillery” which I believe was intentionally misleading. In either event, we are not low on either.

Third, he somehow spins this into Russia is winning. Let me just ask you, if the original plan was to takeover Kyiv in three days and it turns into losing ground in four small territories, half of which were already pro-Russian, while also having to clean house on your top brass from a near coup, who would you say is winning? That’s a rather dumbed down version, but also factual. The other thing is that Kyiv could be doing so much more if they had more. Again, this guy is spinning that into “they’re losing because they’re running out so Russia is winning” when that’s not the truth. Kyiv needs more to completely kick Russia out, but keep in mind they achieved full culmination of Russia’s initial offensive on their own.

I’d be very curious to see who is paying the guy in that commentary. I will just say it’s so factually false the premises and misinformation getting thrown around. Again, I want to know what’s behind the scenes of guys like this and Carlson. Something really ain’t right.

There were actually not small numbers of Nazi sympathizers over here in the 1930’s. Swastikas and all. Charles Lindbergh even criticized the Jews for dragging us into “an unnecessary war.”

Really makes me start to draw parallels.

Can you expand on why you think we shouldn't take Putin out? The two bolded sections seem contradictory.

If anyone on here would know about this it would be you. To actually believe that America is running low on weapons, people would also have to believe that we as a nation never had enough of a stockpile of weapons and aren't manufacturing enough weapons to take on a nation like Russia in an emergency. If there's one thing America is good at, it's building a war machine. We spent trillions in the middle east over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now suddenly they believe that 120 billion in weapons has destroyed our supplies?

Tangent: this is the kind of stuff that I have absolutely no answer for.

Russia usually kill off their leaders who fail miserably. Putin needs to fail miserably.

On the other hand, we do seem to "give" the stuff away to any and everyone at every opportunity. Hard to stockpile while consistently depleting said stockpile. Not impossible, but I don't think the question is that outlandish. Especially when the country's President doesn't seem to know. Most people aren't in the military logistics chain. How many Billions of dollars worth of stuff have we already sent? Is 120B accurate? I feel like I've seen much higher numbers. Whatever the number is, It's a big enough number that most people have no idea what that actually looks like. The average civilian doesn't have access to an inventory. They just get a bunch of unfathomable numbers that people rarely take the time to explain to them.

You'd be amazed at the amount of stuff the "government"/military throws away. Storage of items has an associated cost. Just because we spent trillions a couple decades ago doesn't mean that everything it was spent on still exists/is available. A lot of it gets sold as surplus to the highest bidder. Throw in military "downsizing" and the idea that that might cause more to be surplus wouldn't be entirely illogical.

Are we paying for the aid and paying to replace it in the "stockpile" it came from?

It has not been that straightforward. And it has been very poorly explained.

Just saying.

I'm just worried that if he does fail miserably, his method of suicide might be nuclear.

Come on man, you aren't an idiot. Don't say goofy stuff like that. With respect, I think you need a azimuth check.

I think the people can. They embrace Western culture. The hard line leftists don't allow the people to say a whole lot.

The "hard line leftists" haven't been in power for awhile. They're all about Russian imperialism and ethnocentrism (by any means necessary--they're fine with capitalism if it benefits them) now.

Bet your father and grandfather would have stood up to the fascists and communists even IF it meant fighting WW3. I’m at the point I don’t give a damn, they ALL need to be put in check.

There's one last wrinkle to your argument here... how much of the stuff we were giving away was going to get tossed in the trash anyway? Their bread and butter tank systems are super-duper old Soviet-era systems. The Abrams we sent them... weren't they old revisions that weren't going to be upgraded to our current standard? Please correct me if I'm wrong... but I thought that was the case. The F-16 is on the back-end of its service life for the US military. Not sure where the HIMARS launcher is... but the point I'm trying to make is that we are pulling from the back-end of our equipment, not the front. Early on, we were also sending some of our better equipment to our NATO allies in order for them to send their old stuff to Ukraine.

Which opens another question, how much are we really "supporting Ukraine" if we're really giving them the "junk" we wanted rid of anyways?

The messaging on Ukraine has been kind of lousy--vague and/or contradictory. Probably doesn't help that the face of our country frequently says things that leave one wondering if he's still all there upstairs.

What did he say that is not accurate? Are you trying to claim that after most of Europe had already been invaded by Hitler that America didn't know what he was? Yet people didn't support getting involved until they joined with Japan and Pearl Harbor was attacked. You may not like the way he worded it but it's accurate as it can be.

So let me get this straight. So when you thought they were giving them our best weaponry you thought we were depleting our own stockpiles. You thought that was bad. Now that someone claims it is our more outdated weaponry you question if they're really supporting Ukraine.

You're pretty good at these damned if you do, damned if you don't scenarios. I mean it's nothing more than the contrarian angle no matter which way things go but you have it down pat.

It has nothing to do with being OK with dictators.

So you sit on your hands while watching a dictator trying to take over the world but you're not okay with it? I was brought up that actions speak louder than words and the words you're posting does not add up to the actions our nation took at the time. And then of course a lot of people were listening to Charles Lindbergh and his ilk at the time. Did you forget how many Nazi's there were in America at that time?

American Nazism and Madison Square Garden

Before World War II, the German-American Bund was one of the most successful pro-Nazi organizations in the United States. On February 20, 1939, American Nazis gathered at Madison Square Garden for a mass rally for “true Americanism.”

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-nazism-and-madison-square-garden

Rewriting history and selectively leaving the inconvenient parts out has been and still is quite popular. But that won't change any of it.

Some folks need to review a few Youtube videos- check out Nazis in Madison Square Garden pre-WW2, check out Isolationist videos of same era- America has been diverse forever. Most US citizens didn't want to get involved with WW2 even after Hitler invaded. Today, I understand why we support Ukraine- I just hate the national treasure we've poured into Afgan, Iraq, etc.- when does the funding end with our own homeless, borders and infrastructure issues. I don't have an answer.

I don't think I said we were sending them junk. Our military is known for spending big to stay on the bleeding edge of technology. We are constantly producing and updating and sometimes large chunks of equipment become outdated.

Ukraine and Russia were/are slapping defunct turrets on top of tractors and having to tow around their weapons systems.

You did say things we were going to "toss in the trash" and I just kept rolling with it. You were probably keeping in line with what I posted earlier. When I was in, some people in the military got rid of/scrapped a bunch of perfectly fine stuff so they could buy new to justify future budget allocations.

I'm not so much saying, "the old equipment is worthless" as saying, "we could be sending better equipment." I'm not even saying we should be sending better equipment, just noting that its something else to consider as "we" try to figure out how to best resolve the situation over there.

I think what he was getting at was that we were sending combat-ready block levels that are somewhat outdated in terms of the modernization spectrum vs cutting edge and that's understandable for several reasons. One of which, the modernized versions have not been tested as thoroughly as the combat-ready blocks. As far as storage and stockpiles and whatnot, I know for a fact - as close as you can get without actually viewing the stockpiles first person - admittedly - that we have plenty of ammunition stockpiled.

One of the other things too is that our combat methodology had advanced in a manner anticipating the next phase of warfare, unlike the attrition style that is being fought there, so by that practice, a lot more of the traditional warfare items that we had became much more expendable in terms of a needs/capacity type thing. The way they are fighting over there we had viewed as yesterday's war.

Great post and insight. It's not a matter of 'junk' or obsolete, it's a matter of expendable in terms of the changing landscape of how we fight.

Doesn't Russia's performance (only being able to fight "yesterday's war") kind of challenge how we are trying to modernize our military? Do we really have the advantage we think we do when (if push comes to shove) we're going to be fighting trench warfare anyway?

Thanks man. Yeah, it was probably an oversimplification on my part, but that's essentially it. It also affects our storage level needs.

The war has also really affected our strategic thinking as well in terms of asymmetric value. By that I mean, if you have a tank that costs $10M that can easily be taken out by a missile that costs $50-$70K, then you have an issue on your hands. Do the tanks really get their money's worth at that point? The Russians are finding that out the hard way right now.

We had gone beyond that approach, even starting in Gulf 1. The name of our game is that you take over the skies first and foremost and then have your planes and cruise missiles pave the way for your ground forces. Russia really botched up during the initial invasion and tried to be Zhukov 2.0 in their invasion and never took over the skies, and really became thwarted by that asymmetry I just mentioned.

Good question. I can't say for sure since you're getting outside of my wheel house of expertise. Someone who actually saw combat may know better than me. What I can say is that I can't imagine us ever fighting a scenario like Russia is fighting. It really doesn't come down to capability as much as it boils down to strategy and tactics. To that end:

1) Why Russia came in like they wanted to be Erwin Rommel in 2022 is beyond me. They rolled across the border with tanks vs having their Su-57s take out aerial defenses and establishing air superiority and later air supremacy. By the time they did activate their air strikes, the Ukrainians had already moved stuff around and keep doing so. Russia seems hesitant to even send their advanced aircraft into combat for fear of it getting shot down. Contrast that with our strategy in our recent warfare and it's almost the exact opposite. Everyone remembers when the Iraqis were waiting for us with the world's fourth largest army in Gulf 1, and we said, nah, we're rolling out our F-117's instead, and followed that up with A-10s when we knew they could fly without being harmed. It was devastating asymmetry in our favor at that point.

2) Maybe it's a trickle-down of a dictatorship, but Russia also doesn't give a whole lot of autonomy to their NCOs and their frontline commands. They also didn't establish good comms. That's when you started hearing about the generals needing to go to the front and then getting sniped. They essentially had to get in that trench setup from the get-go because they didn't know what they were supposed to do and had to survive somehow in their current positions when they realized the Ukrainians weren't just going to let them walk into Kyiv.

3) Their modernization is way behind ours. I think that was most shocking to me. For a long time we had heard reports about what their modernized capabilities were and it appeared to be grossly inflated. Now, you can see what our "somewhat modernized" combat-ready equipment does to theirs, even when it's being operated by noobs.

It's the proverbial playing chess vs playing checkers. For a long time, we thought they were playing chess when they were just playing checkers with chess pieces. They still have their fallback scare tactic - which still appears to be effective to some degree - of the nuclear element, but it's pretty big egg on their face to be bogged down in trench warfare with a proximate neighbor, a position I hope we would never see ourselves involved in.

to add to this, Russia is fighting an old school war because they have no choice. they have modern weapons for a traditional conflict. but as i've stated before, banging out in the middle of nowhere is a lot different than trying not to level everything in site due to attempts at occupation. on ukraine's side, playing defense is a lot different than playing offense, as far as the mentality goes. especially considering that on both sides of the conflict, we're talking about militaries now filled with inexperienced soldiers. Russia is trying to get more modern weapons for urban combat, and the evidence is right there looking at Iran sending them drones and such. Trench warfare is something that only affective if your enemy is stuck on the ground. advanced warfare only works if you're going against the enemy you've been training to fight. Russia's military isn't built for urban combat and and quick maneuvers. it's designed to be in a slug fest, which is why their offensive execution was a disaster, but their defensive positions are extremely hard for Ukrainian forces to break through.

again, we have drones for that. nevermind F-35's and all the other toys we have. drone strikes are more precise than constant shelling. the war of attrition only matters if your enemy is also at a disadvantage and has to use similar tactics. There is no disadvantage between the US and NATO vs Russia.

we also have to remember that the technology is only as good as the soldier's creativity in using them. despite not having a Navy, Ukraine was able to attack a major Russian Navy Base in the black sea, and force their most advanced ships to another port. that comes with using surface to air missiles in an unconventional way, as well as other tricks i'm not aware of obviously.

and that's all dependent on us engaging in the SAME battlefield that currently exist. why would we do that?

everybody needs to open a map and locate where our new NATO members are in relation to Russia. i'd have serious concerns about who's training NATO troops if we got into a conflict with Russia and managed to screw that up.

We still have people who deny the that Trump and Hitler are basically the same guy.

Mmmm yes Russia is still a communist country. Take a lesson in communism. Geez