Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[ixcuincle]

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by visionary

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, FootballZombie said:

Its almost to the point where I'm insulted at how dumb this was. It would have been far easier and effective to pull fake dude names out of the ether. It actually takes more work and effort to fudge this in such a manner.

 

I'm not even mad at the attempt. The execution of it has me embarrassed for whoever did it.

 

Volume is the key.  Not quality.

 

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation

 

(Even look at PizzaGate.  Would anybody have looked at that and said this is something that people are going to believe.)

[visionary]

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[Larry]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

Volume is the key.  Not quality.

 

I understand the Russians call it "The firehose of falsehood".  

 

I often wonder if Russia advised Trump in the technique.  

 

[88Comrade2000]

That Putin rally looked packed. Saw a clip of it. Trump had to be mouthwatering.  He will want rallys like that.

[Larry]

Just now, 88Comrade2000 said:

That Putin rally looked packed. Saw a clip of it. Trump had to be mouthwatering.  He will want rallys like that.

 

"Why couldn't we bus in government employees who we threaten to kill if they don't show up?"  

[CousinsCowgirl84]

45 minutes ago, visionary said:

 

 

 

 

Well, he didn’t get assassinated…

 

https://www.forexlive.com/news/transmission-of-putins-speech-cuts-out-but-attendee-videos-dont-show-any-drama-20220318/

[Riggo-toni]

 

[Switchgear]

A long (and really good) article about why Putin is doing what he is doing:

 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/12/putins-thousand-year-war/

 

Some excerpts

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All this history is key to understanding Putin’s delusional view that Ukraine is not, and can never be, a separate country and “never had a tradition of genuine statehood.” Putin made this plain in a Feb. 21 speech, three days before the invasion, and in a 6,800-word essay from July 2021 titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” In that essay, he reached back more than 10 centuries to explain why he was convinced that “Russians and Ukrainians were one people—a single whole.” He claimed it was important to understand that Russians and Ukrainians, along with Belarusians, “are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe.” Putin wrote: “The spiritual choice made by St. Vladimir … still largely determines our affinity today.”

 

Some scholars believe this obsession with long-ago history is why Putin, who during his two decades in power was often thought to be a wily and restrained tactician, made the biggest miscalculation of his career in invading Ukraine. In doing so, he united, in one reckless move, the Ukrainians and the Europeans as well as the rest of the world against him. “He didn’t realize that even most of the Russian-language speakers in eastern Ukraine see themselves now as Ukrainian—that over the past 30 years, the Ukrainians had formed their own country. He didn’t realize that their sense of identity had changed,” said Peter Eltsov, a professor at National Defense University and author of the new book The Long Telegram 2.0: A Neo-Kennanite Approach to Russia. “He also killed all the progress he was making in dividing Europe. Even Finland and Sweden, which had been neutral, are now talking about joining NATO. He achieved the 100 percent opposite result of what he wanted.”

 

Quote

Putin’s historical focus is also meant to convey his deeply entrenched belief that Russia is a distinct civilization that has little in common with the West. This is a key element of “Eurasianism,” a Russian imperial ideology that is more than 100 years old but today has been directed at what Putin and his supporters see as the “philistinism” of the West and the corruption of its democracies, said Kelly O’Neill, a historian of Russia at Harvard University. She suggested that Putin’s reluctance to fully integrate modern Russia into the global economy—beyond selling it a lot of oil and gas—is based on the Eurasianist belief that Russia and its dominions are “distinct economies that belong to this beautiful imperial whole. It’s a defensive mechanism. If you integrate, then you become more vulnerable. Their view is, ‘We’re fortress Russia. We don’t need anyone else.’”

 

This attitude also has profound roots in Russian history, especially the Russian belief that Orthodox Christianity is superior to the West’s liberalized Christianity, which Putin and other conservative Russians view as corrupted by Enlightenment ideas. In the early 19th century, the Russian answer to the French Revolution’s Enlightenment creed, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité (Freedom, Equality, Fraternity), was “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality”—which Sergey Uvarov, minister of public education to Tsar Nicholas I, formulated as the conceptual foundation of the Russian Empire.

Quote

Graham and other Russia experts said it is a mistake to view Putin merely as an angry former KGB apparatchik upset at the fall of the Soviet Union and NATO’s encroachment after the Cold War, as he is often portrayed by Western commentators. Putin, himself, made this clear in his Feb. 21 speech, when he disavowed the Soviet legacy, inveighing against the mistakes made by former leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin to grant Ukraine even partial autonomy. On the contrary, Putin and other Russian nationalists today see Marxism-Leninism as just another regrettable Western import.

 

Putin is rather a messianic Russian nationalist and Eurasianist whose constant invocation of history going back to Kievan Rus, however specious, is the best explanation for his view that Ukraine must be part of Russia’s sphere of influence, experts say. In his essay last July, Putin even suggested that the formation of a separate, democratic Ukrainian nation “is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.”

 

There's a lot more, I'm trying not to quote too much of the article. Their finishing statement is that if Russian leadership tried to embrace democracy, Russia would likely cease to exist. So this anti-Western mindset is a survival mechanism for them.

 

No excuses for what they're doing, just trying to understand the mindset that leads to this craziness.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Switchgear

[FrFan]

 

[FrFan]

 

[China]

Far-Right 'Boogaloo Boy' Flees Ukraine After Realising He’d Actually Have To Fight Russians

 

A member of the American far-right group known as the 'Boogaloo Boys' fled Ukraine when he was faced with the reality of having to fight Russian armed forces.

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy first made the appeal for foreign volunteers last month, calling on people who considered themselves to be 'friends of peace and democracy' to sign up and thwart Putin's warmongering.

 

However, some of the people who have volunteered to go to Ukraine and fight the Russians are getting more than they bargained for, and have fled the country.

 

 

The Daily Mail reports that one such example is 28-year-old Henry Hoeft, also known as Henry Locke, a former US Army infantryman associated with the American far-right group the 'Boogaloo Boys'.

 

Hoeft spoke of his experiences in Ukraine, claiming he and two others fled the country in an ambulance by pretending to be humanitarian aid workers after his base was attacked and his unit was ordered to go to Kyiv to help repel the Russian invaders.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Russia Suffering Shortages, Struggling to Sustain Troops: Pentagon

 

Three weeks into Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces appear to be suffering from shortages, and commanders are struggling to sustain their troops in combat, a Pentagon official said Thursday.

 

Russian advances largely remain stalled, making minimal progress in terms of ground movement as Ukrainian forces continue to put up determined resistance, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters in an update, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

 

Putin's forces are "basically frozen around the country on multiple lines of axes, struggling to fuel themselves and to feed their troops and to supply them with arms and ammunition," the person said.

 

The senior official with the U.S. Department of Defense said that Russia appears to now be relying more on so-called "dumb" bombs than on precision-guided munitions in its full-scale offensive against Ukraine—something that could indicate Russia could be suffering shortages and sustainment issues.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Poland to formally propose peacekeeping mission in Ukraine

 

Poland will formally propose a peacekeeping mission in Russia-invaded Ukraine at the next NATO summit, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki confirmed Friday, per Reuters.

 

The idea for an international mission was initially shared Tuesday, after leaders from Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Reuters notes.

 

The officials, who arrived via train "in a show of high-level backing" for Zelensky, were briefed on the war and were the first foreign leaders to visit Kyiv since Russia's attack began

 

"I think that it is necessary to have a peace mission — NATO, possibly some wider international structure — but a mission that will be able to defend itself, which will operate on Ukrainian territory," Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said at a news conference. "It will be a mission that will strive for peace, to give humanitarian aid, but at the same time it will also be protected by appropriate forces, armed forces," he added.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[skinsmarydu]

The whole "situation" with Brittney Griner's detention in Russia is really bothering me.  I just saw that they're denying her access to the US Consulate, and none of our people have been able to see her or speak with her yet...and the Russians have decided to keep her there until (at least) late May. 

[DCSaints_fan]

Might be time for Operation Crossbow

 

 

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

Good thread:

 

[visionary]