Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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Quote:Michelle Goldberg: Why Ukrainians believe they can win (and prove the Bible Prophesy Wrong about the King of the North, aka Putin)
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
Y2K. 2012. Now this.
I'd better go and watch Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas and give my apologies to Jesus while I still have time.
I met Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher and the chief editor of UkraineWorld, an English-language news site, in Kyiv in 2019.
I’d gone there to report on how Ukrainians felt about Donald Trump’s attempts to extort their president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and on the American right’s demonization of Ukrainians who’d worked against corruption. Yermolenko spoke, then, of Ukraine as a front line in the global battle between democracy and authoritarianism, with Europe on one side and Vladimir Putin’s Russia on the other — and the role of the United States under Trump confusing and ambiguous.
“It’s about whether democracy, rule of law, are spreading farther to the east,” he said of the conflict over Ukraine’s future. “It’s a long story how it spread to Eastern Europe — first it was Eastern Europe, Central Europe, then there was Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova. We hope it will someday reach Russia.” But it was possible that the ideological tide would go the other way. “There is a new authoritarianism going westward,” said Yermolenko. In this view, the fate of Ukraine’s nascent democracy was a sort of weather vane for the world.
I spoke to Yermolenko again Sunday, as Russian troops besieged his country. “The spirit is very strong,” he said. “There is no fatalism, no willingness to negotiate on Russia’s terms. There is decisiveness.” Ukrainian self-defense, he said, was chiefly a matter of patriotism, of people defending their home and way of life against a cruel foreign power. But he also saw it as part of the great ideological contest we’d discussed 2 1/2 years ago.
“There is a strong feeling that if Ukraine wins — and I’m sure it wins — that can bring the end of both Putin’s and Lukashenko’s regimes,” he said, referring to Alexander Lukashenko, the strongman president of Belarus, who is reportedly preparing to send troops to Ukraine to fight alongside Russia.
His confidence amazed me, but it appears to be widely shared across the country: According to a recent poll, 70% of Ukrainians outside of Russian-occupied territories think they will prevail against Russia. Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament who is in Washington working on diplomatic outreach, said that Putin thought he could easily seize control of her country. “Ukrainians have proved that we’re not going to go down, and we do believe that we will win this war,” she said.
I have no idea if she’s right, though obviously I hope she is. Russia appears to have stumbled in the opening days of the invasion, but Ukraine’s army is still enormously overmatched, and Putin has the power to rain hell on the country. The Ukrainians’ stalwart faith in their ability to resist Russia, however, is an important political fact, one that people who predicted a quick Russian victory didn’t fully account for. It’s a faith that has stirred much of the world to unite against Russia, reinvigorating a liberal internationalism that until recently seemed spent and flaccid.
As inspiring as Ukrainian determination has been, it’s perhaps not that surprising. Anyone who’s visited Kyiv in recent years could see how much pride people took in the 2014 revolution that forced Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin-backed kleptocratic president, to flee to Russia. In Kyiv’s Independence Square, a monument to the revolution included photos, mounted on giant copper-colored plinths, of demonstrators burning tires to repel a crackdown and getting ready to pelt the riot police with cobblestones. Nearby, a vendor sold toilet paper with Putin’s face on it.
More at https://www.berkshireeagle.com/opinion/columnists/michelle-goldberg-wh
y-ukrainians-believe-they-can-win/article_da6ff2c4-99a8-11ec-9cef-ff065d9fcaad.html
The Joss Whedon
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
You want to talk about woke? Europe has been woke. Reminded why they stand united as NATO. It’s one of the biggest consequences of Russia’s behavior. NATO now has a huge new commitment to sustaining, improving and expanding.
Sides are definitely coming into sharper focus. At this point it's starting to look like there's Russia and everybody else:
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-russia-iphone-ukraine-traffic-maps-r
t-sputnik-app-store/
Apple Stops Sales in Russia—and Takes a Rare Stand
ON TUESDAY, APPLE said it was pausing all product sales and limiting the functionality of some of its services in Russia in response to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. iPhones and other Apple products are currently not being sold through Apple Stores in Russia, and Apple Pay and other services have been limited.
The company has also removed Russian news apps—including the app for the Kremlin-backed news services Russia Today and Sputnik—from its App Stores in countries outside of Russia and said it has disabled traffic patterns and live incident reports in Apple Maps in Ukraine in order to deter the tracking of Ukrainians’ movements.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/01/energy/exxon-russia-sakhalin-project-ex
it/index.html
New York CNN Business —
ExxonMobil pledged Tuesday to leave its last remaining oil-and-gas project in Russia, and it will not invest in new developments in the oil-rich country.
By moving to discontinue its Sakhalin-1 project in Russia, Exxon joins a growing list of energy companies, including BP (BP) and Shell, that have announced their intention to leave Russia. Other Western companies including Apple (AAPL), Ford (F) and General Motors have also distanced themselves from Moscow in recent days.
“ExxonMobil supports the people of Ukraine as they seek to defend their freedom and determine their own future as a nation,” the company said in a statement. “We deplore Russia’s military action that violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine and endangers its people.”
At some point you'd think Putin would do the math. Or maybe he's ok with, "if I can't have it no one can."
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Michelle Goldberg: Why Ukrainians believe they can win (and prove the Bible Prophesy Wrong about the King of the North, aka Putin)
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
Y2K. 2012. Now this.
I'd better go and watch Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas and give my apologies to Jesus while I still have time.
There's nothing biblical about any of this, you dolt.
--------------------------------------------------
Me: "Remember Covid?"
Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"
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Russia can’t access its stockpile of money, and freezing the ruble will also give China second thoughts about its own territorial and economic ambitions
The decision to block Russia’s central bank from international financial markets (effectively freezing the country’s foreign-exchange reserves) is arguably a masterstroke.
Insufficient funds
True, Russia has diversified its reserves away from the dollar in recent years. But judging by the scale of the international response and its immediate impact on the Russian economy, this strategy appears to have been insufficient to maintain access to the financing it needs. Even Switzerland has announced that it will participate in the new sanctions regime by freezing Russian assets.
Unless Russia has considerable reserves held in Chinese renminbi or currencies issued by other countries that still support it, the squeeze on its economy will be unavoidable.
It doesn’t take a deep thinker to appreciate that China must be alarmed and displeased by the audacity of both Russia’s war and the Western reaction to it. If China were to pursue military action against Taiwan, it, too, could expect to lose much of its access to the global financial system.
Many emerging economies will reconsider the textbook approach to building up foreign-exchange reserves to protect against economic crises. The need for such self-insurance was the big lesson from the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. But now that Russia’s central bank has lost the ability to convert its foreign currencies into rubles, the strategy would appear to come with some new risks.
This is particularly true for countries whose aspirations might run afoul of the Western democratic world’s prevailing norms—as threatening and then invading a smaller neighbor obviously does.
More at https://web.archive.org/web/20220302172255/https://www.marketwatch.com
/story/sanctioning-russia-is-a-masterstroke-that-will-cement-the-dollars-dominant-role-in-world-affairs-11646237194
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
“ExxonMobil supports the people of Ukraine as they seek to defend their freedom and determine their own future as a nation,” the company said in a statement.
Oh. That's nice.
Still feeling guilty about this, huh?
Or is it this?
https://www.sierraclub.org/los-padres/blog/2021/10/recent-oil-and-fire
-disasters-say-its-time-for-exxon-dismantle-its-hardware
Maybe this?
https://www.courthousenews.com/4-workers-injured-by-explosion-and-fire
-at-exxon-refinery/
The Guardian didn't buy it when you sent your "thoughts and prayers" to Hurricane Ida victims last year or when you sent your "thoughts and prayers" to victims of Huricane Harvey in 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/03/big-oil-hurricane-
ida-flood-victims-thoughts-prayers
We're not buying your bullshit in 2022 either.
Go fuck yourself, Exxon.
The only thing you got going for you is that you're not BP.
--------------------------------------------------
Me: "Remember Covid?"
Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"
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Quote:You know nothing about American Bible Thumpers. Pat Robertson, biggest Bible Thumper in America, is a serial doomsday cheerleader. In the 1970s, he predicted a 1982 ending of the World. In the 1990s, he predicted a 2007 ending of the World. In 2020, he predicted Donald Trump would win reelection “without question” and it would lead to the end of the World. (In that case, it wasn’t a war that would end the World, as he is currently predicting about Russia vs Ukraine, but something a lot more natural, like an asteroid.)
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Michelle Goldberg: Why Ukrainians believe they can win (and prove the Bible Prophesy Wrong about the King of the North, aka Putin)
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
Y2K. 2012. Now this.
I'd better go and watch Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas and give my apologies to Jesus while I still have time.
There's nothing biblical about any of this, you dolt.
“It’s sudden destruction. It’s not going to be some nuclear war,” Robertson said, per USA Today. “We’re not going to be allowed to blow this earth up.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pat-robertson-putin-ukraine_n_621dbaf4e
4b06e1cc59426e5
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You know nothing about American Bible Thumpers. Pat Robertson, biggest Bible Thumper in America, is a serial doomsday cheerleader.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Michelle Goldberg: Why Ukrainians believe they can win (and prove the Bible Prophesy Wrong about the King of the North, aka Putin)
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol
Y2K. 2012. Now this.
I'd better go and watch Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas and give my apologies to Jesus while I still have time.
There's nothing biblical about any of this, you dolt.
Yeah. I do.
I just don't understand why the hell you keep bringing that dumb shit up.
Jesus my savior. My favorite flavor. I prefer God to my kids.
--------------------------------------------------
Me: "Remember Covid?"
Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"
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Quote:6ix, all the Bible Thumpers I know are loony Trump supporters. But don't get confused. I don't mean that all of Trump's loony supporters are Bible Thumpers.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I just don't understand why the hell you keep bringing that dumb shit up.
Jesus my savior. My favorite flavor. I prefer God to my kids.
(I also don't mean that all Trump supporters who superficially appear to be sane are Bible Thumpers, so long as you don't put them under real world stress or hardship. They will crack up and go crazy under stress since all people with hidden mental instabilities are fundamentally wacko enough to vote for Trump.)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Centuries-old religious divide sharpens between Ukraine and Russia
President Putin’s battle to control the “Russian world” includes a religious front: a centuries-old spiritual and nationalist struggle within the Orthodox church – a part of the consciousness of average churchgoers worldwide.
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, supported by the diaspora in North America, broke free from Moscow in 2019 – winning official recognition from the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, based in Istanbul.
As a consequence of the autocephaly, Mr. Putin cut off all ties with Constantinople, a move that has split the Orthodox world over who has primacy to grant independence and where allegiances lie politically, says Frank Sysyn, a Toronto-based religious historian at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta.
“Putin’s battle for dominance in Ukraine is also what he would view as a spiritual struggle,” Dr. Sysyn says. “Putin has had to search for an ideology to replace communism for Moscow to be the center of what he calls the ‘Russian world,’ all the people who speak Russian or used to be part of the Russian Empire, and for him they should be part of this fortress that’s going to oppose the West and take over the Orthodox world.
“He argues the reason that Ukraine cannot be separate from Russia is they are one nation, one people, and should have one religion and one faith.”
The Orthodox churches in Ukraine had been under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church since 1686. The fight for an autocephalous, or independent, church is a long and divisive history.
The Orthodox independence movement gained force in Ukraine after the fall of the officially atheist Soviet Union and, once again, after Mr. Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. When Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko was elected that year, he saw an opportunity to appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, for autocephaly, which was finally granted in 2019.
It was a huge event in the Orthodox world – and a major blow to Mr. Putin, who claims his own post-Soviet Orthodox religious awakening after his family narrowly escaped a fire at their dacha.
The issue has been more complex inside Ukraine than within the North American diaspora. By and large, the Orthodox diaspora in Canada and the U.S. identifies with an independent Ukrainian church, rather than the church that remained loyal to Moscow, and takes some credit for its new independence. When autocephaly was granted, Ukrainian Orthodox bishops from Canada and the U.S. were consulted – bolstering Mr. Putin’s claim that the independence movement was Western-backed.
Canada has one of the largest shares of the Ukrainian diaspora in the world, with 1.3 million people of Ukrainian descent, according to census figures. The U.S. Census Bureau identifies over 1 million people of Ukrainian descent in the U.S. And while the Ukrainian diaspora identifies primarily as Orthodox and Ukrainian Greek Catholic, which had its roots in western Ukraine, Mr. Putin invoked the Orthodox faith as one justification for invasion.
Ukrainian Orthodox churches outside Ukraine were not granted autocephaly; they remain under Constantinople. But most align and identify with the independence movement in Ukraine.
Claiming historical justifications for war in a Feb. 21 speech, Mr. Putin alleged that Kyiv was preparing “the destruction” of the Russian-backed Orthodox church in Ukraine – a Western attempt to betray Ukraine’s true, Russian, identity. But even that Russian-backed church’s leader has since compared the invasion to “the sin of Cain.”
The autocephaly issue is viewed on both sides as a reflection of the bigger struggle for Ukrainian independence that goes well beyond a distinct political or theological moment.
“By pursuing relentlessly the path of independence, this was clearly a way for the church to remove any semblance of subordination to Moscow. It was really, in a certain sense, a firm and f
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, all the Bible Thumpers I know are loony Trump supporters. But don't get confused. I don't mean that all of Trump's loony supporters are Bible Thumpers.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I just don't understand why the hell you keep bringing that dumb shit up.
Jesus my savior. My favorite flavor. I prefer God to my kids.
(I also don't mean that all Trump supporters who superficially appear to be sane are Bible Thumpers, so long as you don't put them under real world stress or hardship. They will crack up and go crazy under stress since all people with hidden mental instabilities are fundamentally wacko enough to vote for Trump.)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
You do realize that nobody takes a lunatic like you seriously when you're giving out your mental health opinions, don't you?
Why don't you tell us how you're going to murder Trump and feed him to the pigs again, or tell us how everybody needs to rise up and murder their bosses and steal everything they own, Arthur.
I've got a very, very long list of archived posts of yours that would show anyone who read them everything they need to know about you.
--------------------------------------------------
Me: "Remember Covid?"
Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"
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