Ukraine – Russia … not more of the last thread

[Trell]

I think Sweden needs to re-think their attitude of "If Russia attacks, we'll let the rest of the World handle it. We're too busy being neutral.".

At some point, people need to decide how they stand on this kind of thing and IMO, neutrality is a fragile concept.

The Social Democrats has just now decided to apply for NATO membership and this means there is a large majority for it in the Parliament. An application is expected to come very soon.

 

[highfigh]

The Social Democrats has just now decided to apply for NATO membership and this means there is a large majority for it in the Parliament. An application is expected to come very soon.

We used to have detente with USSR/Russia and now, everyone is walking on eggshells, trying to avoid pissing off puddinhead.

So much for diplomacy.

 

[Trell]

We used to have detente with USSR/Russia and now, everyone is walking on eggshells, trying to avoid pissing off puddinhead.

So much for diplomacy.

Sweden and Finland joining NATO is not what I would call "avoiding pissing off puddinhead".

 

[haraldo]

We used to have detente with USSR/Russia and now, everyone is walking on eggshells, trying to avoid pissing off puddinhead.

So much for diplomacy.

I think it boils down to cowardness, people are afraid of putler.... the only way to stop him is to answer back to him without hesitation...

 

[Mr._Clark]

This NYT article states that the Russian losses at the Donets river has caused pro Russina bloggers to question the Russian military:

>>>The destruction wreaked on a Russian battalion as it tried to cross a river in northeastern Ukraine last week is emerging as among the deadliest engagements of the war, with estimates based on publicly available evidence now suggesting that well over 400 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded.

And as the scale of what happened comes into sharper focus, the disaster appears to be breaking through the Kremlin’s tightly controlled information bubble.

Perhaps most striking, the Russian battlefield failure is resonating with a stable of pro-Russian war bloggers — some of whom are embedded with troops on the front line — who have reliably posted to the social network Telegram with claims of Russian success and Ukrainian cowardice.<<<

Growing evidence of a military disaster on the Donets pierces a pro-Russian bubble. (Published 2022)

As the news of the losses at the river crossing started to spread, some Russian bloggers did not hold back in their criticism of what they said was incompetent leadership.

www.nytimes.com

This unconfirmed twitter posts states that American M777 artillery was used in the attack:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1525649916961464320

 

[haraldo]

This NYT article states that the Russian losses at the Donets river has caused pro Russina bloggers to question the Russian military:

>>>The destruction wreaked on a Russian battalion as it tried to cross a river in northeastern Ukraine last week is emerging as among the deadliest engagements of the war, with estimates based on publicly available evidence now suggesting that well over 400 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded.

And as the scale of what happened comes into sharper focus, the disaster appears to be breaking through the Kremlin’s tightly controlled information bubble.

Perhaps most striking, the Russian battlefield failure is resonating with a stable of pro-Russian war bloggers — some of whom are embedded with troops on the front line — who have reliably posted to the social network Telegram with claims of Russian success and Ukrainian cowardice.<<<

Growing evidence of a military disaster on the Donets pierces a pro-Russian bubble. (Published 2022)

As the news of the losses at the river crossing started to spread, some Russian bloggers did not hold back in their criticism of what they said was incompetent leadership.

www.nytimes.com

This unconfirmed twitter posts states that American M777 artillery was used in the attack:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1525649916961464320

This is encouraging news.... I am falling back to the analysis by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, previous #2 in line in russia, and sent to jail 10 years by putler.....

Mikhail Khodorkovsky believe in only two possible outcomes
1. russia is sent back to the 1800s ....
2. revolution and putler is being removed by force ....

Maybe it looks like number 2 above is getting closer, well, impossible to judge

 

[highfigh]

Sweden and Finland joining NATO is not what I would call "avoiding pissing off puddinhead".

I was referring to the rest, who are already NATO members and if they make a move, Putin might launch nukes.

 

[highfigh]

I think it boils down to cowardness, people are afraid of putler.... the only way to stop him is to answer back to him without hesitation...

I think he needs to be taken out by people who blend into the landscape until it's time to go to work.

 

[highfigh]

This NYT article states that the Russian losses at the Donets river has caused pro Russina bloggers to question the Russian military:

>>>The destruction wreaked on a Russian battalion as it tried to cross a river in northeastern Ukraine last week is emerging as among the deadliest engagements of the war, with estimates based on publicly available evidence now suggesting that well over 400 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded.

And as the scale of what happened comes into sharper focus, the disaster appears to be breaking through the Kremlin’s tightly controlled information bubble.

This unconfirmed twitter posts states that American M777 artillery was used in the attack:

I watched a video about the Ukrainians using M777 and later, watched US troops operating one- some of the Ukrainians need to get up to speed on how to set them up and use them. The first video showed the whole thing jerk backward with the barrel lifting and the tires leaving the ground and my first thought was that the barrel didn't slide back to absorb the shock and once I saw the second video, found that was correct. Also, the US soldiers only needed about half of the time to load, fire and load. The other videos of Ukrainians operating these showed the barrel sliding back.

 

[Trell]

The Swedish government has today made the formal decision to apply for membership of NATO and the application will be delivered to NATO at latest on Wednesday. Possibly they will synch this with the Finnish application.

 

[haraldo]

The Swedish government has today made the formal decision to apply for membership of NATO and the application will be delivered to NATO at latest on Wednesday. Possibly they will synch this with the Finnish application.

Swedish and Finish are our good friends

 

[highfigh]

The Swedish government has today made the formal decision to apply for membership of NATO and the application will be delivered to NATO at latest on Wednesday. Possibly they will synch this with the Finnish application.

Good. Now, we just have to see what the idiot does about it- will he continue to claim that it's an attack on Russia, or will he back down?

Lavroff said this is a hybrid war between the US ad Russia. He can call it whatever he wants, but the fact is, Russia shouldn't have invaded and they didn't need to.

 

[haraldo]

Good. Now, we just have to see what the idiot does about it- will he continue to claim that it's an attack on Russia, or will he back down?

Lavroff said this is a hybrid war between the US ad Russia. He can call it whatever he wants, but the fact is, Russia shouldn't have invaded and they didn't need to.

Lavrov doesn’t even believe himself what he is saying

 

[highfigh]

Lavrov doesn’t even believe himself what he is saying

Then, he should STFU.

 

[haraldo]

Then, he should STFU.

I think then he would be killed or sent to maximum security prison

 

[Trell]

Turkey blocking Swedish and Finnish NATO membership, at least for now.

Erdogan says Swedish, Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Turkey

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Ankara to convince it to approve their NATO bid.

www.reuters.com

 

[mtrycrafts]

Lavrov doesn’t even believe himself what he is saying

How do we know this?

 

[Mr._Clark]

How do we know this?

I don't think it's possible to prove with 100% certainty what Lavrov is thinking (assuming he is capable of forming thoughts), but he would have to be one of the dumbest people on the planet to believe a lot of what he himself says.

Here's an example from 2016:

>>>“If you’re talking about the Budapest Memorandum, we have not violated it,” he told a journalist. “It contains only one obligation — not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.” . . . Keep in mind that Lavrov wasn’t just Russia’s ambassador to the UN back in 1994; he actually signed the original Budapest Memorandum. He hasn’t been foreign minister for 12 years because he’s an idiot. He was lying, he knew he was lying and he knew everyone knew he was lying — and he didn’t care.

In the words of American diplomat Steven Pifer, who helped negotiate the Budapest Memorandum, “what does it say about the mendacity of Russian diplomacy and its contempt for international opinion when the foreign minister says something that can be proven wrong with less than 30 seconds of Google fact-checking?”

The answer: it says that, when it comes to the Kremlin, we’re dealing with a way of lying we’re not used to seeing. It’s a black-knight-from-Monty-Python-esque style of lying that makes dealing with Putin and company on issues like Ukraine and Syria such a nightmare.<<<

Michael Colborne: Russia's bald-faced lies

Lavrov was lying, he knew he was lying and he knew everyone knew he was lying — and he didn’t care.

nationalpost.com

Here's a more recent Lavrov whopper from March 10, 2022, after Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022:

“We are not planning to attack other countries. We didn’t attack Ukraine in the first place”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claims Russia ‘didn’t attack Ukraine’

Speaking in Turkey after peace talks with Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba failed, Lavrov repeated his previous assertions that Russian forces never invaded its neighbor.

nypost.com

I suppose it's theoretically possible that Lavrov is so spectacularly dumb that he believes what he's saying, but it is beyond my imagination.

 

[haraldo]

Kidnapped by invaders, taken to Belarus, and returned to his family: "military" adventures of the cat Max from Bucha.

A month of occupation, abductions, and a new belarusian passport: how a cat from Bucha reunited with his owners after 80 days.

One of the stories of the “russian piece”, which, fortunately, ended happily, came in handy for a domestic cat, a red giant Maine Coon named Max, his owner Olena Kukuruzka told.

Because of the occupation of Bucha, Olena and her little son left for the Czech Republic. A month ago, she received a call from Viber in belarus.

“Your contacts were on the sign, we didn’t know whether to call or not, how you would react to the belarusians after everything that was happening,” said the girl on the other end of the line, throwing off a photo of Max and his collar with medallion.

It turned out that Max was kidnapped by the invaders. The cat traveled more than 300 kilometers from home and ended up with local residents near Gomel.

After that, the volunteers made Max a new veterinary passport, a chip, and handed the cat over to his family in the Czech Republic through Poland.

 

[shadyJ]

I don't think it's possible to prove with 100% certainty what Lavrov is thinking (assuming he is capable of forming thoughts), but he would have to be one of the dumbest people on the planet to believe a lot of what he himself says.

Here's an example from 2016:

>>>“If you’re talking about the Budapest Memorandum, we have not violated it,” he told a journalist. “It contains only one obligation — not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.” . . . Keep in mind that Lavrov wasn’t just Russia’s ambassador to the UN back in 1994; he actually signed the original Budapest Memorandum. He hasn’t been foreign minister for 12 years because he’s an idiot. He was lying, he knew he was lying and he knew everyone knew he was lying — and he didn’t care.

In the words of American diplomat Steven Pifer, who helped negotiate the Budapest Memorandum, “what does it say about the mendacity of Russian diplomacy and its contempt for international opinion when the foreign minister says something that can be proven wrong with less than 30 seconds of Google fact-checking?”

The answer: it says that, when it comes to the Kremlin, we’re dealing with a way of lying we’re not used to seeing. It’s a black-knight-from-Monty-Python-esque style of lying that makes dealing with Putin and company on issues like Ukraine and Syria such a nightmare.<<<

Michael Colborne: Russia's bald-faced lies

Lavrov was lying, he knew he was lying and he knew everyone knew he was lying — and he didn’t care.

nationalpost.com

Here's a more recent Lavrov whopper from March 10, 2022, after Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, 2022:

“We are not planning to attack other countries. We didn’t attack Ukraine in the first place”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claims Russia ‘didn’t attack Ukraine’

Speaking in Turkey after peace talks with Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba failed, Lavrov repeated his previous assertions that Russian forces never invaded its neighbor.

nypost.com

I suppose it's theoretically possible that Lavrov is so spectacularly dumb that he believes what he's saying, but it is beyond my imagination.

There is a purpose to blatant lies like this. It gives cover for people to take self-serving actions. Of course, no one could rationally believe such a thing, but the lie is said, and while those who oppose it take the opportunity to breathlessly explain why it isn't so, the people who lied are busy at whatever act the lie serves to justify, regardless of how plausible the lie is. It is also a code for like-minded individuals, and it serves as a taunt for those who would deny or argue the lie. The sheer absurdity of these kinds of lies expresses contempt for the victims of the lies- and there are always victims, because no one says these kind of things unless they justifying some act that comes at the expense of some group of people. It isn't just code for like-minded people, it is also a means to exercise power over them. To paraphrase Hannah Arendt, it functions as a means of dominating followers, who would have to cast aside all their integrity to repeat outrageous falsehoods and would then be bound to the liars by complicity. I would say that once this level of blatant lying is reached, that of openly repudiating a self-evident fact, there can be no point in arguing or trying to settle the matter in a civil or sociable way; the matter can only be resolved through brute force.