Russian Invasion of Ukraine Megathread

[UVB-76]

Iraqi's resisting the American forces in Iraq.

It's important to consider who exactly was resisting American forces in Iraq.
One of the biggest blunders (admittedly, in hindsight) was the disbanding of the Iraqi Army. The belief at the time was that there were far too many Ba'athists/Saddam loyalists in the existing structure so the obviously solution was to tear it all down. Guess they threw out the baby with the Ba'ath water. This put a ton of trained fighters and commanders out of work and willing to join Sunni militias. IIzzat al-Douri, Saddam's successor in the Ba'ath leadership, was actually initially aligned with ISIS. But I'm skipping ahead - due to the mess created by the fighting between tribes and Al-Qaeda there was a movement to bring stability to Iraq through the coalition of tribal militias and former Iraqi army officers. Due to sect alignment they initially cooperated with Al-Qaeda but the violence and terrorism caused a rift between the Sunni alliance. This was called the Anbar Awakening.
Now the Iraq government had a problem, because they feared that this movement would become armed Sunni opposition. So what did they do? Disband the groups. The Ba'ath party leader resurfaced and called for Sunni protests against the PM Nouri al-Maliki, helped ISIS take Mosul, then broke off from ISIS and shifted the focus to the fight against Iran-backed militias.
What's the meaning of all of this? The tale of a unified Iraqi people fighting against US occupation is misleading. This was the result of a policy blunder that upended the status quo and primarily affected Sunnis. Fighting age males struggling with unemployment took paying militia gigs where they cooperated with terrorists, to the detriment of their own country. The Ba'ath party while in power tried to maintain cohesion but after being ousted resorted to sectarian violence. The country was somewhat pacified by having former insurgents just get paid militia gigs protecting Iraq rather than fighting against it, but yet again Iraq was in the position of having to arm and pay people who could become the opposition - so the government disbanded them effectively creating the opposition through self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Garm]

I think there might be some non conspiracy theory mode explanation.
It could simply be because of Ukraine being more integrated and connected, in a sense, with the western world, just like Iraq in the Arab world. It also has more historical and cultural connections to Europe and the western world, just like Iraq has with the Arab world.
And perhaps Ukrainians also being more common immigrants to the west and more established.
Preferential treatment happens everywhere. The EU and Schengen are already kind of an example of preferential treatment, where there's unrestricted travel between EU and Schengen countries, where at most you need your ID card, while those from 3rd party (I think that's the term?) countries do need a passport and possibly a visa.

We are having such a nice chat that I think we will leave it here.

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Archive
While Russian generals are engaged in an actual war and are yet accused of being some combination of: incompetent, corrupt, misinformed, delusional, or dead, U.S. generals are busy. . . raping their sisters-in-law.
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It's good to know that if the system deems you important enough, they're still willing to bail you out of a rape case. As the saying goes, "the rot starts at the top." Honestly, with the way the US military has evolved over the past couple decades I'm surprised it was a woman he was caught raping and not some twink private he nabbed fresh out of basic.

Part of the reason why I think NATO won't mobilize. Entire upper echelons are political choices and would get out armies butchered in short order.

It's important to consider who exactly was resisting American forces in Iraq.
One of the biggest blunders (admittedly, in hindsight) was the disbanding of the Iraqi Army. The belief at the time was that there were far too many Ba'athists/Saddam loyalists in the existing structure so the obviously solution was to tear it all down. Guess they threw out the baby with the Ba'ath water. This put a ton of trained fighters and commanders out of work and willing to join Sunni militias. IIzzat al-Douri, Saddam's successor in the Ba'ath leadership, was actually initially aligned with ISIS. But I'm skipping ahead - due to the mess created by the fighting between tribes and Al-Qaeda there was a movement to bring stability to Iraq through the coalition of tribal militias and former Iraqi army officers. Due to sect alignment they initially cooperated with Al-Qaeda but the violence and terrorism caused a rift between the Sunni alliance. This was called the Anbar Awakening.
Now the Iraq government had a problem, because they feared that this movement would become armed Sunni opposition. So what did they do? Disband the groups. The Ba'ath party leader resurfaced and called for Sunni protests against the PM Nouri al-Maliki, helped ISIS take Mosul, then broke off from ISIS and shifted the focus to the fight against Iran-backed militias.
What's the meaning of all of this? The tale of a unified Iraqi people fighting against US occupation is misleading. This was the result of a policy blunder that upended the status quo and primarily affected Sunnis. Fighting age males struggling with unemployment took paying militia gigs where they cooperated with terrorists, to the detriment of their own country. The Ba'ath party while in power tried to maintain cohesion but after being ousted resorted to sectarian violence. The country was somewhat pacified by having former insurgents just get paid militia gigs protecting Iraq rather than fighting against it, but yet again Iraq was in the position of having to arm and pay people who could become the opposition - so the government disbanded them effectively creating the opposition through self-fulfilling prophecy.

Unfortunately the APNews story left out that nuance.

 

[Gay_nig_from_outer_space]

Spoiler: Love and War

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I had this image but lost it, thanks. It's fucking terrible, Ukrainian males fighting and dying while their women run for the Polish border. They're perfectly safe West of the Dnieper for the most part is the reality, it's just an excuse to leave their country for wealthier EU countries and the wealthier men within them.

 

[MadStan]

I think it was nice of Russia to wait to cut the gas to Poland once winter had passed.

How thoughtful of him! And gutless...

 

[AnotherOne]

I had this image but lost it, thanks. It's fucking terrible, Ukrainian males fighting and dying while their women run for the Polish border. They're perfectly safe West of the Dnieper for the most part is the reality, it's just an excuse to leave their country for wealthier EU countries and the wealthier men within them.

A curated selection of tinder profiles by a Zed doesn't mean much, but the longer this goes on the more Ukrainian women will latch on to foreign men. The average salary in Ukraine was like 5000 Euro a year before the war, it won't take too much to impress them.
That also remind me to check up on that one Ukrainian girl who went viral on reddit (u/Olya_roo) posting her escape from Ukraine with her mother and sister. One month on she's apparently in Portugal with her family and back to posting shit about Fire Emblem. Good thing she didn't have a dick or she would have gotten her ass dragged out of the car and sent to die on the fields of Kherson. Ukrainian vets are going to be a bitter bunch. In hindsight Russia getting demonized and cut of from SWIFT might have been a blessing because fewer people can jump ship.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

Unfortunately the APNews story left out that nuance.

Because Arab society/politics are very foreign to Westerners. There's a Bedouin saying: "I and my brother are against my cousin, I and my cousin are against the stranger" and I would add that they are all with their clan against an enemy, keeping in mind larger tribes, like the Dulaimis, while predominantly Sunni, also include Shias, and a large tribe can have millions of members all over the ME/Persian Gulf. As tribes are not confined to the areas as defined by the West, Arabs from different countries, but members of the same clan/tribe, support one another in conflicts, if ordered by their sheikh. A sheikh's loyalty can be very fluid, so appealing to patriotism is almost laughable.

America has developed a sense of hubris in the past several decades because I distinctly remember they were warned to tread carefully by people who did understand the complexities of the ME, but thought their shiny toys made all that irrelevant. The people in charge of GWOT never suffered any repercussions and are still in control so expect more disasters in the future.

 

[Almighty Bukhanka]

I don't understand why there are still people thinking sending weapons and/or providing real-time intelligence etc are not escalations. It's like arguing sending weapons etc to facilitate warfare and achieve a desired military objective is actually "anti-war".

https://nitter.net/mtracey/status/1518862549760069632#m

Besides, what's the strategic/tactical value of ALLEGEDLY shelling village in Russia? Ukraine is presumably giving Russia the perfect excuse to say that the Ukraine backed by US/NATO, sharing extensive border with Russia, is existential threat to Russia.

It really feels like US/NATO firmly believe Russia won't use tactical nuclear weapons regarding the war, or US/NATO think Russia using tactical nuclear weapons is a beneficial outcome for them.

If a nation's sovereignty, territorial integrity and self-determination must be defended in the eyes of the "international community", why is Building Chinese military base in Solomon Islands, a sovereign nation "voluntarily entered into a security agreement with China to help preserve civil order", a "red line" for Australia/US?

These things don't matter at all unless a nation can enforce them.

 

[Gay_nig_from_outer_space]

but the longer this goes on the more Ukrainian women will latch on to foreign men.

This was already a problem in the former Warsaw pact before, as well as just unisex brain drain but Ukraine was always infamous for mail order bride whoring/scamming/creepy shitbag sex tourists as was Russia to a slightly lesser extent because the Putler government cracked down on it pretty hard. In the ex-yugo countries for example the most intelligent men and women who aren't part of the elite either work in Western Europe or they do online work for Western European firms. Work like this is viable for fluent English speakers and people in IT or even more creative fields like video production or web design. A friend of mine who also speaks English fluently teaches English to Chinese people over Zoom for example.

Even the village idiot (and the village rapist as well) can always work construction in Germany and come back to his Vojvodina village looking like a wannabe gangbanger.

edit: gangbanger not gangbanner

 

[Cycleye]

I had this image but lost it, thanks. It's fucking terrible, Ukrainian males fighting and dying while their women run for the Polish border. They're perfectly safe West of the Dnieper for the most part is the reality, it's just an excuse to leave their country for wealthier EU countries and the wealthier men within them.

It fucks me right off when people don't stay and fight to make their country better. If needs be then get the kids out of risky areas, like the uk did during ww2, but ALL the adults should stay and fight. That can be anything from picking up weopons to picking up rubbish and building walls around water sources so animals can't piss and shit it up. It aint rocket science, but peoples will either wait for another country to build the wall, or will jump at the first offer of live somewhere else.

Alot of refugees are not desireable people. There are plenty who will be good for the society they move into but the sad fact is that the majority will not be.
Ukrainian refugees have only been coming into the UK for a tiny amount of time yet I already know people who have had trouble with them. Stealing clothes and shoes has been a trend along with random shoplifting. Kids picking pockets has been another.
They get nicked and plead all sorts of bullshit and turn on the tears and pinch their kids to get them to cry too. It is odd that in their terribly oppressed and needy condition they always go for the fashionable brand named stuff. They know exactly what they are doing and what they can get away with. There has also been some coaching as the pleading has been pretty much word for word, at one place.
I think there has also been some fishy shit going on at the ukrainian end. A chap i know works at a car dealership and two women come in with kids all looking gypsy as fuck. He greets them to find out they are fresh from ukraine and are there to pick their cars. He is like, WTF, and they tell him they were told that the uk shops will give them food and they don't have to pay and they can also get free cars because refugee status.
They got pretty upset with the truth but didnt kick off. He thinks they may well have been 100% genuine and were so sad and angry that they had been lied to. Mind boggling they beleived it to be true, if they were genuine, but mix poor education, desperation and propaganda together and it happens. Could have easily just been all part of the grift , though, and expected my mate to run down the street, after them, with keys to new cars.

On the ither side of the fence, in west ukraine, i know a cyclist or two. They say it is now easier to get tank busting rocket launchers than it is to get some high end cycling equipment. They would rather it was the other way around, but ho hum.
Apparently, as is the way in slavlands, equipment/weapons might already being disappeared and in a bizarre twist might end up being sold, over the border, so the russians will end up using the kit against the ukrainians.
Pretty sure those providing stuff are fully aware this could happen and maybe it is all part of a plan to keep things going ,for as long as possible, till russia and ukraine are fucking ruined with almost nill loss of nato military persons. It is body counts that plebs can identify with and that costs votes. The telephone number prices of kit means fuck all to alot of people.

 

[Uncle Buck]

"How come when a Palestinian (or insert which ever ethnic group) makes a Molotov cocktail, it's "terrorism", but Ukrainians make a Molotov cocktail and it is "patriotism."

You best be careful with that kind of dangerous talk, lest you cause an independent thought alarm and we get our colored chalk taken away.

 

[Irrational Exuberance]

Fucking suck a big one, you can.
Pun was: "Так точно" - "Соси сочно". It rhymes.

From the context and the words, it seems like it could be translated as "...like hell you do/can!" - so basically just another way of calling the guy a moron.

Or, if the impact of the phrase comes from its crudeness, you could use "You don't know shit about fuck!"

 

[Lookie-lou]

supposedly Mykolaiv front. Hope this isn't a repost

Spoiler: Not fun, dead people.

I don't even bother posting what's going on in the eastern front or what remains of azov in maryo-/pol/ anymore unless its more than just gore.. But it seems that same meatgrinder has hit that pitch in the south west where its starting to flood telegram.

elaboration on the earlier,

 

[bread n circuses]

Still waiting to see why this is some kind of horrifying existential threat to Russia. Are they beeg stronk bear with vodka bottle for cock or are they so pathetic they're scared of a few thousand inbred nazis? Nigga you have nukes and like 6x the landmass. This is like the US declaring war against Mexico because they have paramilitary cartels and the concept of Aztlan. Because that means obviously the meanies in Mexico are planning to invade the US.

Slavs are all insane but Russians are the peak of insanity. They seemingly operate on a reverse version of fascist thought. The fascist says their enemy is both utterly pathetic and weak but also all powerful. Meanwhile the Russians seem to jerk off about being both the most bullied ;_; people on the planet but also the strongest who will fuck your mom in a CoD lobby.

If Mexico was on the verge of joining a military pact with China that could see Chinese weapons systems moved there to reconquer the rightful Mexican clay of California I think the American military would have something to say about it.

It’s a threat to Russian security interests in Europe that the largest non-Russian European military has been built up and trained by Russia’s chief geopolitical rival for half a decade. Russia now has a militarized anti-Russia American puppet on its border that is aggressively derussifying and increasingly hostile to Russia. I can’t believe this needs to be explained to people.

 

[Gay_nig_from_outer_space]

supposedly Mykolaiv front. Hope this isn't a repost

Poor boys, may they have more peace in the next life then they had in this one.

 

[Farmer Y]

"Welcome to Ukraine bitch"

Ukrainian fighters fire from the self-propelled artillery installation 2C1M 'Carnation'

 

[White_N]

People do shame USSR over Czechoslovakia, albeit due to the USSR rolling tanks in Czechoslovakia.
If you support that Kosovo is Serbian territory, does that also mean you support that Donbas and Crimea are Ukrainian territory?

My dude, this discussion was in relation to the Munich Agreement when Czechoslovakia was sacrificed to Germany, and the double standard when it came to the USSR and Poland.

In a perfect world where Nato wasn't a bunch of bloodthirsty thugs and intervened while ignoring the UN and Kosovo remained Serbian, I would be more inclined to say that the Russian Donbass thing was a stupid idea.
But this is not a perfect world.

You could make an argument one of the major reasons the Baltic and other Eastern Europe countries flocked to NATO and joined in 2004 was because of The Second Chechnian War, which is now a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point, Russia invades another country over the excuse of "Muh Russian minorities!", other countries with significant Russian minorities get worried (major reason they have Russian minorities anyways is thanks to the USSR's deportation policies) and join NATO to ensure they won't be next, and now look at it, Finland and Sweden are joining NATO, which only had moderate at best support before the invasion.

What is it with westerners and their desperate need to support radical Islamists and make heroes out of them?
Yes, "Muh Russian minorities were a concern" as they were genocided there. Ichkeria was not a fucking Wakanda. It at best it was Afganistan, with the usual fun stuff like terrorist training camps, drug and weapon trade, and human trafficking.

What a nice country to support.

Seriously, 9/11 led to the nuking of the entire Middle East other than the countries that actually funded the terrorist act, and here people are talking about how the fucking Chechen war was unjustified.

But that's apples to oranges.
Kosovo was a SAP (Socialist Autonomous Region) within SR (Socialist Republic) Serbia and not a Socialist Republic, while Ukraine was an SSR within the USSR.
Doneck and Luhansk never had any special autonomous region status even in the Soviet era.

Donbas region could be realistically be kept in Ukraine if it was given greater autonomy. Such appeasement worked in Crimea, but for whatever reason, it was utterly ignored in Donbass.

"I and my brother are against my cousin, I and my cousin are against the stranger"

Yes

Arab society/politics are very foreign to Westerners

very foreign

 

[KonradCruise]

There is reason why Germany and some other countries are so reliant on gas is they have this fancy thing called renewable energy. And honestly, it is great, it produces cheap energy ans so on. But sun sometimes shines, sometimes hides behind clouds. Wind sometimes is strong, sometimes weak. However in energy sector, you have to ALWAYS supply exactly as much energy as it is demanded. And if the demand changes you have to increase supply. So in order to keep economy running you have to have some other, reliable energy source.

The problem is with this energy source. Nuclear produces constant amount of energy, so when demand changes you can't really increase or decrease to fill it. You could start coal power plant in hours, but to make it economically viable you have to keep it running for like three days or so. Also it produces quite a lot CO2 for energy unit so not ideal. However, you can start gas turbine near instantly, and have it shut down in next 5 minutes if you want so. Also, of all fossil fuels gas produces the least amount CO2 per energy unit. Amazing! Less amazing when Putin shuts down gas pipe.

However, Poland have like jack shit of solar panels and windmils. Entirety of Poland runs on greenest energy source - coal And all coal needed to produce energy is mined in country. Also Germany was able to produce their energy comparatively cheaper than Poland because biggest part of energy price in Poland is co2 tariffs. However, what was weakness before is strength now, because energy prices in Poland increases less than in Germany because co2 tariff is constant.

>nuclear always produces a constant level of energy that can't be increased or decreased.

Do you think the control rods exist just so someone can cause an international incident by raising them fully?

 

[JosephStalin]

Interesting, but no surprise at all.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-intel-helped-ukraine-protect-air-defenses-shoot-down-russian-plane-carrying-hundreds-of-troops/ar-AAWCex0?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBnbfcL

https://archive.ph/RxcKl

 

[Based Boy]

Suspected attacks at Belgorod and Kursk by Ukrainian Forces.
Ammunition depot has been hit in Belgorod.

Explosion heard at Kursk.

Method of attack unknown, but there are reports, that Russian Anti-Air was working this night(without any proof that i can find).

 

[SomethingProblematic]

You guys I have a Schizo theory about why places like reddit support Ukraine. But first I will have to take you back to the old days of 4chan, where a particularly popular shipost, would be using a gif of Piccolo (a character from a popular anime series "Dragonball Z") having anal sex with Vegeta (another character from the same series). The intention was to post this everywhere, and eventually 4channers dubbed it "the daily dose" as they would see it almost every day. They eventually developed a Pavlovian response to the simple color combination of green and purple.

Now this brings into question: What does this have to do with Ukraine? Well take a look at the flag colors.

Now what popular media would have these same colors?

This is a character from the popular children's game "Animal Crossing" specifically from a nsfw animation of the character "Ankha" created by a degenerate animator named "Zone". It was made in tribute to a similar animation from a pedophile named "Minus8".

However after a while, it randomly surged in popularity, and it seemed like nobody could escape this "Ankha Zone" which it was dubbed. Very similar to the daily dose in a way, both are porn gifs, and both would be realized with a simple phrase and some pixels....yellow and blue...

Notice how the tail, is almost reminiscent of a waving flag.

I believe that coomers are supporting Ukraine more so than they would normally, due to the Pavlovian connection of the cartoon cat porn, and the Ukraine flag, subliminally entranced as they subconsciously think of the cartoon porn cat every time they see the flag.