Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[sjinhan]

54 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

That sounds good until it’s your cities getting destroyed and your children getting killed.

 

That is probably part of Russia’s strategy.  Ukraine should fight as long as they want to fight, but I wouldn’t think less of them for reaching a peace deal like I mentioned.  
 

I would think less of the world though, if such a deal was reached and the sanctions were lifted.

 

This i agree with you 1000%.  Its much easier to talk about fighting to last man until its actually your families and neighbor's lives on the line...

 

If Ukraine can reach a peace deal that they can acceptable to them then they don't owe a thing to rest of the world in agreeing to it.  Now the question is.. will there ever be a peace deal with Russia if the peace deal doesn't come with condition that significant part of sanctions will be lifted.   

 

With sanctions in place (and I am fully supportive of them), this peace deal unfortunately wont be between Russia and Ukraine but instead it will be between Russia, Ukraine, and rest of the world.  My gut tells me... this war will be prolonged and I don't want to imagine what will be left of Ukraine when all this is over.

Edited March 23, 2022 by sjinhan

[visionary]

 

 

 

[mcsluggo]

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

That sounds good until it’s your cities getting destroyed and your children getting killed.

 

That is probably part of Russia’s strategy.  Ukraine should fight as long as they want to fight, but I wouldn’t think less of them for reaching a peace deal like I mentioned.  
 

I would think less of the world though, if such a deal was reached and the sanctions were lifted.

yes.  they should make all sorts of deals to stop the fighting.

 

and the crushing sanctions should stay 100% in place until an oligarch or general puts a bullet in putin's head, and serious negotiations can begin

[RansomthePasserby]

12 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Why? The rest of the western world won’t step up. Zelensky isn’t like Putin. He cares about his people, and his country. The longer the war drags on the more people die and the more of his country gets destroyed.
 

Every time a children’s hospital gets bombed, Putin wins and Ukraine looses. 

 

 

I don’t think the Ukrainians trust that the Russians will stop the atrocities after a deal is reached. The Russians aren’t kind or fair.

 

And yes, people die every day the war drags on, but the Ukrainians have a chance to win and drive the Russians out and live in freedom. They’re willing to fight and die now instead of living now and dying slowly for decades under the rule of a pawn shop super power.

[China]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Not Seen for 12 Days

 

uestions have been raised about the whereabouts of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu following reports that he has not been seen in public for nearly two weeks, despite being in charge of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

 

Agentstvo [The Agency], a Russian independent investigative news outlet which aims to expose government corruption, reported on Telegram how one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies last appeared on state-run television on March 11.

 

Agentstvo, citing an unnamed official, speculated that Shoigu may be unwell and suffering from heart problems although the agency could not confirm that.

 

In a lengthy post on the messaging service app, Agentstvo reported that Channel One aired a story on March 18 about Shoigu presenting at an awards show that day. However, the photo used to illustrate the story allegedly came from a video posted on Russia's Ministry of Defense website on March 11.

 

Shoigu, 66, is said not to have been seen with Putin since he attended a meeting with the Russian president and chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov in Moscow on February 27, just days after the Ukraine invasion began.

 

On Tuesday, Dmitry Treschanin, a Russian journalist at independent outlet Mediazona, also noted that the last article about Shoigu to appear on Russian state news agency RIA was on March 11.

 

"Listen, the great PR minister Shoigu has been out of public space since March 11th. ELEVEN DAYS OF WAR, we do not have the head of the Ministry of Defense," Treschanin tweeted.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[tshile]

Yes, Ukraine has the right to agree to whatever terms they are willing to, in order to stop the massacre of its people. Even if the terms are garbage in the sense that they’ve done nothing to provoke this and shouldn’t have to give up land (or anything else) 

 

and I would suggest that the decisions of other countries on how to handle this, plays a role. When you declare you won’t give involved militarily, then you have no say in such a deal. 
 

I do think, and there are people writing about this, that the natural gas reserves and pipeline tariffs create the possibility that this was all about eastern and coastal areas of Ukraine, and putin just wanting to control the gas deposit and not pay tariffs to ukraine on the pipeline. 
 

If that’s what this comes down to then the international community needs to send in troops, neutralize the Russian threat, and there needs to be no negotiations accepted that involve Russia keeping this land. 
 

if putin successfully acquired this land and resources by playing a bs game about having nukes, the international community has failed. 

[visionary]

 

 

 

[Riggo-toni]

17 hours ago, spjunkies said:

Can someone please punch this witch in the throat?

 

 

 

Someone in my neighborhood put out a MTG sign in their yard...it includes the message "Stop Communism Now!"

Scary how people get brainwashed by the braindead.

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[FrFan]

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by FrFan

[Riggo-toni]

The man known as ‘Putin’s brain’ envisions the splitting of Europe — and the fall of China

Dugin’s intellectual influence over the Russian leader is well known to close students of the post-Soviet period, among whom Dugin, 60, is sometimes referred to as “Putin’s brain.” His work is also familiar to Europe’s “new right,” of which Dugin has been a leading figure for nearly three decades, and to America’s “alt-right.” Indeed, the Russian-born former wife of the white nationalist leader Richard Spencer, Nina Kouprianova, has translated some of Dugin’s work into English.

 

In his magnum opus, “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,” published in 1997, Dugin mapped out the game plan in detail. Russian agents should foment racial, religious and sectional divisions within the United States while promoting the United States’ isolationist factions. (Sound familiar?) In Great Britain, the psy-ops effort should focus on exacerbating historic rifts with Continental Europe and separatist movements in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Western Europe, meanwhile, should be drawn in Russia’s direction by the lure of natural resources: oil, gas and food. NATO would collapse from within.

 

 

Putin has turned to the pages of Dugin’s text in which he declared: “Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia,” and “without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.”

 

Full article at link.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/22/alexander-dugin-author-putin-deady-playbook/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3662efe%2F623b46093e6ed13ade36ae29%2F5972cc04ae7e8a1cf4afaedb%2F17%2F68%2F623b46093e6ed13ade36ae29

[visionary]

 

 

 

[China]

The bodies of Russian soldiers are piling up in Ukraine, as Kremlin conceals true toll of war

 

The first warm, sunny days of spring in the southern Mykolaiv region are ushering in a grim new reality: the smell of the dead.

 

As the frost melts and ground thaws, the bodies of Russian soldiers strewn across the landscape are becoming a problem.

In his nightly video address on Saturday, Vitaly Kim, the region's governor, called on local residents to help collect the corpses and put them in bags, as temperatures rise to above freezing. "We're not beasts, are we?" he implored residents, who have already lost so many of their own in this war.

Mykolaiv was among the first regional capitals to be attacked after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. After pushing into the urban center, Russian troops have been forced out by Ukraine's military, leaving a trail of blackened combat vehicles and tanks in their wake. But the battle for the city, a cornerstone in Russia's westward quest along the Black Sea coast to Odesa, is still raging and it's unclear how long Ukrainian forces will be able to fend off the assault.

 

Referring to them as "orcs"— the evil, monstrous army in J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" — Kim said that the Russians had retreated and left their colleagues' charred bodies behind on the battlefield. He sent CNN pictures of the abandoned corpses, adding: "There are hundreds of them, all over the region."

The governor has called for the bodies to be placed into refrigerators and sent back to Russia for identification through DNA testing. But, a month into the war, it is still unclear how or if the remains of soldiers are being repatriated to Russia, where reports about the death toll have largely been silenced. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Putin wants ‘unfriendly countries’ to pay rubles for gas

 

President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday that Russia will demand “unfriendly″ countries pay for Russian natural gas exports only in rubles from now on.

 

Putin told a meeting with government officials that “a number of Western countries made illegitimate decisions on the so-called freezing of the Russian assets, effectively drawing a line over reliability of their currencies, undermining the trust for those currencies.”

 

“It makes no sense whatsoever,” Putin added, “to supply our goods to the European Union, the United States and receive payment in dollars, euros and a number of other currencies.”

As a result, he said he was announcing “measures” to switch to payments for “our natural gas, supplied to so-called unfriendly countries” in Russian rubles.

 

The Russian president didn’t say when exactly the new policy will take effect. He instructed the country’s central bank to work out a procedure for natural gas buyers to acquire rubles in Russia.

 

Economists said the move appeared designed to try to support the ruble, which has collapsed against other currencies since Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and Western countries responded with far-reaching sanctions against Moscow. But some analysts expressed doubt that it would work.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

[FrFan]

 

[China]

So Putin wanted Ukraine to go back to the USSR.  Be careful what you wish for...

 

‘We’re going back to a USSR’: long queues return for Russian shoppers as sanctions bite

 

The lines for sugar in Saratov were hard not to compare to the Soviet era, part of a recent run on Russian staples that have revived fears that the Kremlin’s invasion in Ukraine will lead to a virtual slide back to the shortages or endless queues of the Soviet Union.

 

Bags of sugar and buckwheat began disappearing from local markets in early March, just a week after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. And when the local mayor’s office announced that it would hold special markets for people to buy the staples last week, hundreds showed up.

 

“People are sharing tips about where to get sugar. This is crazy,” said Viktor Nazarov, who said that his grandmother had tasked him with visiting the special market last weekend to stock up. “It’s sad and it’s funny. It feels like a month ago was fine and now we’re talking about the 1990s again, buying products because … we’re afraid they’ll disappear.”

 

After an hour and a half waiting at the city’s main square, he was limited to buying one bag of five kilograms, he said.

 

Other videos shared on social media have shown fights for sugar in markets in other cities in Russia, all while officials have maintained that the shortage is part of an artificial crisis.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[FrFan]

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by FrFan

[China]

Putin has committed 75 percent of Russia's total military to the Ukraine war, Pentagon estimates

 

Most of Russia's military offensives in Ukraine continue to be stalled amid fierce Ukrainian resistance, but Russia's military continues to fire dozens of missiles and rockets at Ukrainian civilian and military targets every day, a senior U.S. defense official said at a briefing in Brussels on Wednesday. 

 

The U.S. estimates that Russian President Vladimir Putin has "around 75 percent of his total military committed to the fight in Ukraine," the official said, clarifying later that the 75 percent figure mostly refers to "battalion tactical groups, which is the units that he has primarily relied upon." 

 

"At the height of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were about 29 percent committed," former U.S. Army Europe commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges noted Tuesday at the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank. "And it was difficult to sustain that."

 

Britain's Ministry of Defense said Tuesday that given Putin's significant "personnel losses" in Ukraine, "Russia is redeploying forces from as far afield as its Eastern Military District, Pacific Fleet, and Armenia. It is also increasingly seeking to exploit irregular sources such as private military companies, Syrian and other mercenaries." 

 

The U.S. official said the Pentagon has seen the Russians "deliberate and discuss the possibility of resupply to include replacement troops," and given the deaths, injuries, and defections they are suffering every day, "it certainly stands to reason that they would want to be exploring options to replenish those losses." However, "we haven't seen any indications that anything is moving right now outside of what they have already in Ukraine," the official said, cautioning that "we still assess that they have the vast amount of their combat power available to them" in Ukraine.

 

"It's pretty clear that Russian generals are running out of time, ammunition, and manpower,"  CEPA's Hodges wrote. "There is no suggestion that the Russians have big units lurking in the woods somewhere," and "it's apparent that the notional 900,000 strength of the Russian military is a hollow number. " Russia will call up another 130,000 conscripts on April 1, he added, but while "the Ukrainian diaspora is flocking home to help the fight; Russians are not coming back home — and indeed, many are leaving to avoid Putin's fight."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[DogofWar1]

Well hello everyone.  Been a while.  I hope you're all well.

 

I've been doom scrolling on twitter for the past month and need somewhere to dump my thoughts that isn't my brain, it's cluttered up here.

 

Anyways recent developments have me wondering if the war will sort of slant southeastern.

 

Kyiv advance is halted and it sounds like R forces west of the city are about to completely fall apart (possibly nearly encircled).  Kharkiv isn't much better, latest briefings suggest R forces still about 15km from city center.  R advance west of Kherson towards Odesa looks hardstuck too, can't get past Mykolaiv.

 

However it sounds like there is some success in the DPR->Kherson corridor.

 

So the question is, will Russia refocus over the coming days/weeks on the south/Donbass area, or will they escalate around Kyiv.

 

Kharkiv may also become more focused upon, as it would give them a northern thrust to try and get towards Dnipro and cut off a large chunk of east Ukraine.  But so far that isn't succeeding.

 

The thing that has stumped me is that this was supposed to be a special operation to liberate the Donbass, a very important region in Russian Orthodoxy, and yet, thus far, despite battlefield failings, little refocusing on that area has happened.  I suppose the religious crusade aspect can meld with the geopolitical aspect but one would think they'd fall back a little faster on the "land bridge from Crimea and liberate Donbass" part of the plan faster instead of just being straight stalled around Kyiv for 3 weeks hoping Belarus sends their 10k troops in to "help" (by presumably deserting and then overthrowing Lukashenko).

[Renegade7]

8 hours ago, sjinhan said:

 

This i agree with you 1000%.  Its much easier to talk about fighting to last man until its actually your families and neighbor's lives on the line...

 

If Ukraine can reach a peace deal that they can acceptable to them then they don't owe a thing to rest of the world in agreeing to it.  Now the question is.. will there ever be a peace deal with Russia if the peace deal doesn't come with condition that significant part of sanctions will be lifted.   

 

With sanctions in place (and I am fully supportive of them), this peace deal unfortunately wont be between Russia and Ukraine but instead it will be between Russia, Ukraine, and rest of the world.  My gut tells me... this war will be prolonged and I don't want to imagine what will be left of Ukraine when all this is over.

 

If Ukraine agrees to never join NATO, that's a huge part to Russia ending their invasion, they said that.

 

Having said that, Ukraine might not agree to that, because even if Russia agrees to leave, it could be jus to buy time, regroup, and invade again into future. 

 

This isn't jus about NATO, it includes a working democracy in their border that could still join the EU.  The propaganda machine can only go so far if you can go across the street and see that it's BS.

 

Russia already promised not to invade Ukraine after they gave up their nukes, look where that got them.  I agree with supporting their decision and would say if Russia ends their invasion the sanctions put in place because of it should be lifted.  But I do believe Ukraine should continue to try to join NATO as an alternative to seeing Russia keeps their word, which didn't didn't work the last time.

 

Edit: right now it's a stalemate at best, Ukraine promising to never join NATO would be a Russian victory, to Putin, it would be worth it.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Renegade7

[DCSaints_fan]

2 hours ago, DogofWar1 said:

The thing that has stumped me is that this was supposed to be a special operation to liberate the Donbass, a very important region in Russian Orthodoxy, and yet, thus far, despite battlefield failings, little refocusing on that area has happened.  I suppose the religious crusade aspect can meld with the geopolitical aspect but one would think they'd fall back a little faster on the "land bridge from Crimea and liberate Donbass" part of the plan faster instead of just being straight stalled around Kyiv for 3 weeks hoping Belarus sends their 10k troops in to "help" (by presumably deserting and then overthrowing Lukashenko).

Thats what I thought Putin was going to do it, just roll tanks into the Donbas and force Ukraine to displace them.  He might have even gotten away with it too. 

But the more I've been reading about this, the more I think the essential problem was Zelinsky.  Because if my sources are correct Zelinsky, unlike Poroshenko (and obviously Yanukovych before him), was starting to reform the Ukranian government to elminate corruption.  It wasn't just the problem of having a "pro-Russia, pro-West" government in place.  Even a pro-West government could be exploited, as long it was corrupt.  And would assure that Ukraine did not join NATO and probably not the EU.   Because those organizatons (with the exception of Turkey I guess, which is sort of a grandfather thing, like the Green Bay Packers ) don't accept members with the level of corruption Ukraine had.  Which is why it took the Baltics so long to join.

This may turn out to be, quite ironically,  Putins "invade Russia" moment, like Hitler and Napoleon before him.

Edited March 23, 2022 by DCSaints_fan

[Larry]

1 hour ago, China said:

President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday that Russia will demand “unfriendly″ countries pay for Russian natural gas exports only in rubles from now on.

Uh, Vlad, you really sure you wouldn't prefer to get paid in, well, a currency that isn't toilet paper?  

[CousinsCowgirl84]

2 minutes ago, Larry said:

Uh, Vlad, you really sure you wouldn't prefer to get paid in, well, a currency that isn't toilet paper?  

The countries buying natural gas will have to buy rubles with their own currency. So the net effect is to export rubles which aren’t worth much and import foreign currency.

it also creates demand for the ruble which should stabilize its exchange rate a little…

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by CousinsCowgirl84

[China]

45 minutes ago, DogofWar1 said:

 

 

The thing that has stumped me is that this was supposed to be a special operation to liberate the Donbass, a very important region in Russian Orthodoxy, and yet, thus far, despite battlefield failings, little refocusing on that area has happened.  I suppose the religious crusade aspect can meld with the geopolitical aspect but one would think they'd fall back a little faster on the "land bridge from Crimea and liberate Donbass" part of the plan faster instead of just being straight stalled around Kyiv for 3 weeks hoping Belarus sends their 10k troops in to "help" (by presumably deserting and then overthrowing Lukashenko).

 

It was never really about Donbass and the separatists there.  That provided some cover.  Putin wants Ukraine to try and restore former USSR territory, but more importantly he wants the oil fields in the west and in the Black Sea between Crimea and Odessa, as well as control over the pipelines.  Russia is a petro-state.  That's where most of their country's GDP is derived.  They want to reinforce their economic viability with control over more oil regions.

Edited March 23, 2022 by China