Matt Damon
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Don't worry - the major media outlets will be happy to "curate" the war for you and tell you exactly which wholesome 100 keanu chungus side you should be rooting for.
Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022): Thread 1 - Ukrainian Liars vs Russian Liars with Air and Artillery Superiority
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Butter Keks
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Russia's nukes, stored in Ukraine.
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Didn't they just kill a Ukrainian mayor for surrendering? No trial, no appeal?
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I don't think China will invade Taiwan militarily. The Taiwanese economy is based on electronics products and information services with armed conflict being very bad for both economic sectors. The Mainland Chinese will be willing to wait even a century or so to slowly undermine not only Taiwan but it's allies. It's all about containment and isolation.
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You can't just snap your fingers and will divisions into existence. The US spends months prepping a unit for combat. Even with all our spending on logistics only a single Brigade of the US Army is ever prepped for immediate deployment. I imagine it's even harder for Russia as they have to work with huge distances and poor infrastructure.
It would take at least a few months to activate more divisions and move them to the Front. Which are not months Putin has. Remember, it takes 4 weeks to train a Rifleman. If after a month the Ukrainian Army is still in the field and Zelenskyy is still in charge those civilian auxiliary troops will have begun their transformation from pawns into actual units that can cause damage. Ukraine is very busy spinning them up in the western regions out of the way of the fighting and enough weapons and ammunition is pouring in from NATO to equip them.
Putin has 150,000 soldiers with limited fuel supplies. In a month he could be up against 250,000 Ukrainians wielding Javelines, Stinger Missiles and way more ammunition. He does not have time to throw more troops at this. That is why things started going full Grozny today.
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Just in time for Lent!
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Agreed - and at least one commentator says the same thing should be happening on the diplomatic level right fucking now.
Stop The Momentum Pushing Us Toward World War III
By Jared PetersonAcross the entire political spectrum, America and the West generally have swallowed the “Putin is Hitler” bait even more completely than the covid bait. Western governments, politicians, and grossly ignorant celebrities are now deliberately engendering and inflaming intense hatred of anything and anyone Russian.
This attitude toward a nuclear-armed nation, whose political and military leaders, within the memory of living man, experienced Nazi Germany’s war of annihilation against them, is foolhardy in the extreme. It is not only productive of immense danger to the entire planet, it is unjustified when the unfolding Ukraine tragedy is viewed in light of pertinent recent history.
Without a doubt, Putin is a ruthless dictator whose invasion of Ukraine is to be condemned. The destruction and carnage of World War II should have settled once and for all that the horror of modern weaponry has rendered war obsolete as an arbiter of either national interest or national borders.
Agitprop tweeted by Ukraine
That said, what world leaders should be striving for now is a prompt end to the Ukraine war, the most perilous for humanity since World War II. World War I, in effect the prelude to World War II, arose out of events that at the time, and still in retrospect, seem far less momentous and threatening than those now unfolding in Ukraine today.
The real danger is that Russia, highly aggrieved by the conduct of the West since the Soviet Union’s demise (whether its aggrievement is justified or not), and increasingly isolated, may be tempted to resort to weapons far more destructive than any yet employed in the unfolding war; or that the West’s military leaders believing that it might do so, might urge preemptive action.
The danger of the present circumstances can’t be emphasized too strongly. One rogue colonel, one mistakenly targeted missile, a single false flag Chinese Communist operation, or simple Russian fatigue at casualties caused by Western weapons – any of these events, and two generations of history-ignorant Western adults could quickly learn how easily wars can enlarge and spin out of control.
But instead of working to promptly end the conflict, Western, especially American, leaders are demonizing Putin and Russia -- as if the Russian attack were an utterly unforeseen and inexplicable act of wanton thuggery. Though utterly to be condemned, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was in fact motivated by an accumulating sense of grievance and threat, all caused by the West’s persistent refusal to acknowledge Russia’s security concerns, born of both its historic and more recent bitter experiences.
The Russian attack was entirely foreseeable, and the events that produced it are known to every Western diplomat with an IQ that exceeds double digits; justifiably or not, Putin and Russia have felt misled and lied to, and that Russia’s legitimate security interests have been ignored by a pattern of Western behavior going back to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
An end to the Ukraine conflict, and the avoidance of something much worse, is possible only by honestly recognizing how we got to this point.
And that recognition starts with acknowledging that since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the West, led by the United States, has rubbed the loser’s nose in its defeat, and has consistently ignored the psychology of a country that eighty years ago was the object of a massive aggressive war of conquest and annihilation initiated by a western nation.
Instead of respecting Russia’s historically driven fears, and doing all we could to bring this immense, slightly paranoid, and heavily armed country, with an exclusively authoritarian past, into the community of nations, significant Western interests -- the Pentagon, Western arms producers, and intelligence communities -- have pursued their own goals of maintaining Russia as an enemy. They have tormented the bear for at least 15 years and the Ukraine war is the result.
Consider the history:
The Eastward Expansion of NATO
Consider the 1990 talks leading up to the Soviet Union’s acceptance of German reunification and ultimately to the 1991 collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union’s eastern European empire and of the Soviet Union itself, talks led by Secretary of State James Baker for the first President Bush. Soviet leaders claim they were given to understand that there would be no eastward expansion of NATO, an alliance formed explicitly to counter the perceived Soviet threat, hence, an alliance perceived by newly shrunken Russia as at least potentially hostile.
There is debate whether these assurances were formal, or were given at all. But that debate is beside the point: Any western diplomat would have known that in 1991, and for the then near future, any eastward expansion of NATO would be somewhere between highly unwelcome and overtly threatening to Russia. Given Russia’s history, this psychology was and remains understandable.
In view of this reality, in the decades after 1991, if the West had been genuinely desirous of peacefully integrating Russia into Europe, it would have avoided expanding the NATO alliance toward Russia’s borders. A period of undisputable independence for the former eastern European satellites and westernmost ex-Soviet republics, accompanied by their balanced relations with east and west, would have been the prudent course for all concerned.
The opposite occurred. In 1999, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were all admitted to NATO. Russia grumbled but did nothing. In March of 2004, still worse from Russia’s standpoint, seven more European nations were folded into NATO: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Russia objected more vigorously (its parliament condemned the action), but still simmered without action. A month after the second NATO accession, April of 2004, western-supplied F-16s were patrolling the skies over the Baltics from bases that had been Soviet a few short years earlier. This is rubbing a former enemy’s nose in its defeat.
Then, in April of 2008 NATO met in Romania and, further affronting Russia, gave assurance to both Georgia and Ukraine of eventual membership. “Eventual membership” was a compromise with then-US President George W. Bush’s urging that the two countries be fast-tracked into NATO. European leaders resisted the United States’ more aggressive position explicitly to avoid excessively antagonizing Russia. Revealing that the assurance of eventual NATO membership for Ukraine was not only resented by Russia but controversial in Ukraine itself, there were demonstrations in several Ukrainian cities against NATO membership.
Shortly after NATO’s provocative 2008 promise of membership to Georgia and Ukraine, war broke out between Georgian pro-Russian separatists and Georgia. The offer of NATO membership to Georgia almost certainly played a role in August of 2008, when Russia intervened on behalf of the Georgian separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, resulting in a humiliating defeat for the leader of Georgia.
From then on, August of 2008 at the latest, no one at Foggy Bottom could credibly claim not to know of Russia’s resentment and hypersensitivity to the previous, and threatened further, eastward expansion of NATO. From then on, to non-brain dead diplomats it should have been clear that Russia simply would not tolerate NATO membership for either Georgia or Ukraine -- both former Soviet Republics, both directly bordering Russia, and, in the case of Ukraine, a nation bound up historically with Russia’s sense of its own founding -- in the 9th through 12th centuries Kievan Rus was the cradle of Russian Christianity and civilization -- until the catastrophic arrival of the Mongols destroyed everything, and Russia, now farther to the east and north, had to begin all over again.
The 2010 Election and The Maidan
But the two eastward expansions of NATO, in 1999 and 2004, followed by the offer of “eventual” membership to Georgia and Ukraine were not to be the West’s last affront to Russia. Roughly six years later came a momentous development that, in retrospect, probably sealed Russia’s absolute unwillingness to countenance further (i.e., Georgian or Ukrainian) expansion of NATO.
In 2010, in an election generally acknowledged as fair, Ukraine elected a moderately pro-Russian President by a clear margin. Victor Yanukovych received just about 49% of the vote, to 45.5% for pro-Western Yulia Tymoshenko. Unsurprisingly, Yanukovych received strong support in the eastern and southern parts of largely Russian-speaking Ukraine, while Tymoshenko’s support becomes ever more overwhelming as one moves west on the Ukraine map. The blue-red 2010 Ukraine electoral map is reminiscent of the 2016 and 2020 US presidential election maps of, say, Illinois, all blue in the northeast around Chicago, all red elsewhere. In sharp political and cultural divisions, Ukraine makes a pair with America.
In the late fall of 2013, Yanukovych’s wariness of the west and pro-Russian sympathies became more apparent, as he refused to sign a trade accord with the EU and seemed headed for an agreement with Russia. It was at this point that the “Maidan” broke out, a series of ever more violent demonstrations, in Kyiv and elsewhere, with violence on both sides and no indisputably clear villain (except to partisans). There was a real atrocity in Odessa, a largely pro-Russian city, when over 40 pro-Yanukovych demonstrators were trapped in a large public building and died, either from the fire that was started by someone or in trying to jump from the flames to safety. Russia was further enraged.
What is clear in the 2013/14 Maidan is that the US, both elected and bureaucratic officials, as well as shadowy US organizations and personalities, sympathized with and encouraged the anti-Yanukovych demonstrators. John McCain, ever an enthusiastic supporter of US power projection and well-known detractor of Putin, gave an inflammatory speech in Kyiv supporting the anti-Yanukovych forces in which he said, “We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently.” McCain neglected to mention that Ukraine, without his help, had already voted to “determine its own destiny” by electing Yanukovych in the 2010 election, a “free and independent” decision that McCain was helping to overturn. And US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland worked largely behind the scenes for the same, anti-Yanukovych side.
The upshot was that Yanukovych, democratically elected in 2010, was driven from office and fled to Russia.
Russia itself has always claimed to believe, with more than slight justification, that the US and its allies sponsored and assisted the movement that drove Yanukovych from office. There is absolutely no doubt that Yanukovych was unpopular in western Ukraine and popular in eastern and southern Russian-speaking Ukraine. There is equally no doubt that the US, at minimum in the persons of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Senator John McCain, but also probably with assistance from other individuals and organizations, mixed into this ugly and violent conflict on behalf of those seeking to oust the elected president.
Russia watched all this interference by the West on its doorstep and seethed.
This event unquestionably made a deep impression on Putin, and shortly after these events, fearful of losing the long-standing Russian naval base at Sevastopol on the Black Sea to the newly installed pro-Western government, Russia marched into Crimea. Shortly thereafter Crimea voted overwhelmingly to become part of Russia (which, prior to Nikita Khrushchev’s quixotic 1954 gifting of Crimea to Ukraine, Crimea always had been). That plebiscite has been overwhelmingly seen as accurately reflecting the will of those living in Crimea.
Also, shortly after the Maidan events, the easternmost provinces of Ukraine, Luhansk, and Donetsk, where Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians overwhelmingly predominate and had overwhelmingly supported Yanukovych, sought more independence from Kyiv. Kyiv’s response was to send the Ukrainian army into those regions, leading to a civil war that has never really stopped. That war has been costly in physical destruction and lost lives. At various times Russia has provided military and humanitarian aid to the separatist regions and has sent military “volunteers” to aid the populations of both provinces.
Just prior to invading Ukraine, Russia recognized the independence from Ukraine of both Luhansk and Donetsk, both of which the day before had declared their independence.
What can be made of all this history? How does it relate to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and to the tragedy that is now enveloping that country? And to the risks to civilizational survival inherent in this war?
Let me suggest a few conclusions:
First, nothing in the foregoing historical narrative justifies Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an invasion that is rightly receiving worldwide condemnation, and that inevitably will make acknowledgment of Russia’s security concerns -- if any such acknowledgment is appropriate or possible -- more difficult because such acknowledgment would now be denounced as rewarding aggression.
Second, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not the willful, mad, brutish act of a Hitlerite thug bent on conquest. It was the act of a national leader who -- rightly or wrongly -- actually perceived a threat to his own nation from a series of acts by the West that placed a government, troops, and weapons systems on his nation’s border that he perceived hostile to his nation.
Third, the West for thirty years has understood, but been indifferent to, the understandable psychological makeup of a nation with Russia’s recent history and, as a result, has acted in a way guaranteed to bring about Russian perceptions of encirclement and threat that led to the ongoing invasion.
Fourth, the danger to the security of the world inherent in what is occurring now in Ukraine cannot be overestimated – the near-universal, over-the-top Western condemnatory rhetoric directed at all things Russian, combined with the unprecedented coordinated isolating measures, is likely to heighten Russia’s sense of injustice and threat and to magnify the risk of a general, catastrophic war.
Fifth, ending the fighting quickly, and getting the parties to the negotiating table, are the urgent needs of the moment; this goal cannot be achieved in an environment of total denunciation of Russia and absolute refusal to recognize the legitimacy of any of its concerns.
Sixth, I have no idea what the terms of a comprehensive resolution of Ukrainian and Russian concerns would be, but I’m convinced Vladimir Putin will not allow his country to be defeated on the battlefield; and that the longer the conflict goes on the greater the risk of a general war through desperation or accident. To say that this is in no one’s interest is to state the obvious.
Western diplomats should be burning the midnight oil now, searching for ways to bring this conflict to a speedy halt and to fashion a final agreement acceptable, if not pleasing, to the parties. They should be restraining, not encouraging, the uninformed and overheated rhetoric that impedes any opportunity for negotiation. In July and August of 1914, their great-great-grandfathers had a chance to avert a general war that no Western leader wanted. They failed, and World War I (and World War II) resulted. The descendants of those failed diplomats have a chance today to redeem their offices if not their ancestors.
The alternative looks increasingly grim.
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Protistology
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Again, imagine how the Japanese felt being told for years that the war would never come to Japan when the firebomb fell on the family's ancestral house.
Status-6.
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how will this impact the EU?View attachment 3042464
Fucking hell. So earlier today Russia stated they were banning exports of fertilizers, which will cause food prices to explode, and now Hungary is banning all grains exports.
This is not a drill.
(Update 1:25pm ET) - Those who have it, are no longer giving it away, and those that don't will soon find themselves in the middle of an epic food crisis.
Just hours after we reported that Russia effectively banned exports of fertilizers, moments ago Hungary - one of Europe's most grain rich nations - has circled the wagons and realizing which way the wind is blowing, just announced that it will banning all grain exports effective immediately, in a statement .
Expect wheat prices, already at record highs, to promptly double from here in the next few weeks as the world realizes the extent of the global food crisis that is coming.
Our suggestion: buy flour, rice, barley and any other grains you can now, rather than waiting one month to buy them because you have to.
* * *
Earlier
This morning we listed some of the countries that are dangerously (and almost exclusively) reliant on Russia and Ukraine for their wheat imports, highlighting Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and others...
... which are facing an "Arab Spring" style food crisis (and potential uprising) in the coming weeks unless the Ukraine conflict is resolved.
And unfortunately, we can now confidently predict that the coming food crisis will strike every country that is using food fertilizer - which is all - because moments ago, Russian Interfax reported that as part of Moscow's countersanctions, Russia has recommended fertilizer makers to halt exports, a move which will sent not only fertilizer prices orbitally higher, but all food prices will soon follow.
Worse still, natural gas is required in the manufacturing process for most nitrogen/fertilizer products and so the recent surge in European NatGas prices to record highs will only exacerbate the cost of fertilizer from any halt from Russia...
- *RUSSIA RECOMMENDS FERTILIZER MAKERS TO HALT EXPORTS: IFX
- *RUSSIAN MINISTRY CITES LOGISTICS ISSUES ON FERTILIZERS: IFX
And with wheat prices already at all time highs...
... all hell is about to break loose not only among food producers, but soon, in your local grocery store once US consumers realize that food prices are about to double, triple and x-ple more.Food Crisis Imminent: Hungary Bans All Grain Exports Effective Immediately | ZeroHedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zerowww.zerohedge.com
Edit: updated the archived article version so it is current
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burntwater
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A couple of articles in Romanian I think saying that Transnistria is demanding independence from Moldova.
www.libertatea.ro
www.digi24.ro
Transnistria cere recunoașterea independenței ca răspuns la cererea Republicii Moldova de aderare la UE
Regiunea separatista Transnistria cere sa-i fie recunoscuta independenta, dupa ce Republica Moldova a depus cerere de aderare la UE.
Tiraspolul cere recunoașterea independenței Transnistriei ca răspuns la cererea Republicii Moldova de aderare la UE
Autoritățile separatiste de la Tiraspol au anunțat vineri, printr-un comunicat de presă, că nu sunt de acord cu cererea Republicii Moldova de aderare la UE și au cerut recunoașterea independenței Transnistriei. Așa-numitul minister de Externe de la...
www.digi24.ro
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You boys know how in 1990 NATO and the US assured the Russians that there would be no further expansion east?
Well...
Again, this is the Cuban missile crisis with the players essentially flipped.
Well...
Again, this is the Cuban missile crisis with the players essentially flipped.
Most EU countries could and I say could bc of how much import export shenanigans go on support themselves. Price raises are a given but farmers have been critizising low prices for years. It would take a bit of restructuring but a famine in the EU ain't gonna happen
Spicey McHaggis
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With Moldova wanting NATO membership again, I can't help but wonder if they'll actually let them break away, just to remove the border dispute.A couple of articles in Romanian I think saying that Transnistria is demanding independence from Moldova.
Transnistria cere recunoașterea independenței ca răspuns la cererea Republicii Moldova de aderare la UE
Regiunea separatista Transnistria cere sa-i fie recunoscuta independenta, dupa ce Republica Moldova a depus cerere de aderare la UE.Tiraspolul cere recunoașterea independenței Transnistriei ca răspuns la cererea Republicii Moldova de aderare la UE
Autoritățile separatiste de la Tiraspol au anunțat vineri, printr-un comunicat de presă, că nu sunt de acord cu cererea Republicii Moldova de aderare la UE și au cerut recunoașterea independenței Transnistriei. Așa-numitul minister de Externe de la...
No we just told the SOVIETS that we wouldn't have stationed troops in East Germany. Warsaw pact was still in full effect at the time, the idea that they would want to join nato wasn't even considered. There was also no formal treaty or anything, just a gentleman's agreement at best.
ColtWalker1847
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I believe they are using them to destroy equipment once they have captured it. Like thermite grenades. Someone would have to be suicidal to use them as a weapon.
The Russians are using gun trucks charging ahead of convoys doing recon by fire (shooting at anything that could hide an enemy) meaning they don't really have the super-awesome thermals fielded in sufficient numbers to root out bushwhackers. Especially for low priority troops like logistics units.
Picking a fight with small arms and molotovs is a death sentence against combat troops. But for rear echelon soft-skins, it could work. That's what most of the Ukie propaganda of destroyed shit is.
Random Internet Person
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Is that even a possibility? Outside of a /pol/ fever dream?
it’s like….they want China to take over the world.While this seems like it's mostly just a symbolic gesture there's yet another country off the table, ensuring Russia's fate of being Xi's special pay bitch
Switzerland triggers wide range of sanctions against Russia
Switzerland hits Russia with sanctions, including a ban on many industrial exports and a wide range of financial activities.www.swissinfo.ch
I don’t understand why people think Xi will do a military invasion of Taiwan. His MO has been to make it where the government and anyone worth a damn in the major industries and infrastructure in is in his pocket and on his puppet strings so if the army comes in, the red carpet is rolled out so they can help the cops crush any protests about the new closer ties to Beijing.
I heard Hannity in the car. Hes not just looking for the assassination of my brother Vlad he's saying that we absolutely have to do something because the Chechnyans are "mining" the reactor so they can blow it up and cause the evacuation of all of Europe. No hysteria there
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Lol. American Marines, being only 1% of the population, consume 25% of the nation's alcohol. Maybe they are germophobes.American soldiers aren’t allowed to drink. They don’t want another Robert Bales
Robert Bales - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
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Not only that, the Boers actively encouraged importing ENORMOUS amounts of Bantu labor from all over Southern Africa because Afrikaners (like all lazy middle class whites) couldn't be bothered to mine their own gold but still wanted to maintain their freakishly high standard of living (white Rhodesians and South Africans had a higher standard of living than even white Americans at one point). They promptly shipped all of these new arrivals onto the shittiest plots of real estate in poorly constructed matchbox housing and treated them like shit, not to mention the Bantus who were actually born in South Africa having their private property seized and being shipped to the Bantustans. Modern day South Africa is a shithole but the Apartheid government was garbage in its own respects and was doomed by its monumental arrogance.
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