Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
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Russian state media and official discourse argue that Ukraine and its culture must be wiped out
The tradition of Russian hostility to Ukrainian aspirations comes in two strands. One simply denies the existence of Ukrainians as a people distinct from Russians. That was the line adopted by the Russian Empire for much of the 19th century, when it banned books in Ukrainian and the very term Ukraine, calling the region “Little Russia” instead. Another strand holds that while Ukrainians do in fact have their own identity and speak their own language, at least half the territory of present-day Ukraine really belongs to Russia and was unfairly pried away by the Soviet Union’s founder Vladimir Lenin.
That was the view of the Russian novelist and former political prisoner Alexander Solzhenitsyn, another Nobel laureate, who was exiled by the Soviets in 1974 and returned to Russia in 1994. He initially expressed understanding of Ukrainian suffering. “We should prove the greatness of our nation not by the sheer size of our territory and the number of peoples in our care, but by the greatness of our actions,” he wrote in his 1968 classic, “The Gulag Archipelago,” describing encounters with Ukrainian political prisoners.
But after Ukraine’s independence turned from a distant and unlikely prospect to reality, Solzhenitsyn adopted a different tone, one that Mr. Putin replicated in his essay last year. In a 2006 interview with Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper, Solzhenitsyn argued that southern and eastern Ukraine, the Crimea and Donbas have never belonged to historical Ukraine, and that the country was being dragged into NATO against the will of the inhabitants of these areas. “Under all these conditions, Russia can under no circumstances dare to betray the multimillion Russian population of Ukraine, renounce our unity with them,” he said.
Mr. Putin paid a visit to Solzhenitsyn in his country home in 2007, a year before the novelist’s death, and gave him one of Russia’s highest prizes. Some of the Kremlin’s policies, Mr. Putin said at the time, were inspired by the writer.
In 2014, Mr. Putin seized Crimea after Ukrainian protesters ousted Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who had reversed the country’s longstanding policy toward integration with the European Union and sought a customs union with Russia. Mr. Putin also promoted the concept of Novorossiya, “New Russia,” for the regions of southern and eastern Ukraine that he said rightfully belong to Moscow.
The annexation of Crimea was almost universally applauded in Russia. Even the imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is now protesting vociferously against Mr. Putin’s war on Ukraine, said at the time that Crimea should remain part of Russia. “Crimea is not a sausage sandwich to be given back,” he told a radio interview.
Until the invasion began on Feb. 24, Kremlin statements challenged Ukraine’s right to govern what Mr. Putin described as historic Russian lands in so-called Novorossiya but grudgingly acknowledged the existence of a Ukrainian state. According to Russian propaganda, the problem was a Western-installed clique that supposedly seized power in 2014, and whose removal would be welcomed by ordinary Ukrainians yearning to resume their brotherly kinship with Russia.
Once the fierce Ukrainian resistance showed that hardly any Ukrainians greeted Russian soldiers as liberators, the tone shifted. Now Russian state media and official discourse argue that Ukraine and its culture must be simply wiped out—an idea that explains the killing spree in towns like Bucha during the Russian occupation.
A commentary published by Russia’s RIA state news agency on April 3 under the title “What Russia Must Do to Ukraine” argued that ordinary Ukrainians must be made to “atone for the guilt” of hostility to Moscow, the name Ukraine should be abolished once again and the country split into several pieces. Ukrainian elites should be physically liquidated and the remaining population re-educated and “de-Ukrainized.”
Russia’s former
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Quote:Bernie Madoff went to jail for a Ponzi scheme. By your reckoning, Madoff was tarred for Charles Ponzi's bad reputation. Actually, Madoff was jailed because he and Ponzi had the same crooked ideas living inside their brains. There are many criminal ideas living inside the brains of Russia's top hierarchy, ideas that were taught in Russia for centuries.
Originally posted by SignyM:
I don't believe in tarring people with what historical figures have done.
But the people who lied to you then are the people lying to you now.
Suggests you're too stupid to know when you're being lied to.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:It goes without saying (but it seems I have to say it to you!) that Bernie Madoff went to jail for what Bernie Madoff did, not what Ponzi did. There was a trial with evidence and everything. Jeez, you're stupid.
SignyM:
I don't believe in tarring people with what historical figures have done.
But the people who lied to you then are the people lying to you now.
Suggests you're too stupid to know when you're being lied to.
SECOND: Bernie Madoff went to jail for a Ponzi scheme. By your reckoning, Madoff was tarred for Charles Ponzi's bad reputation.
Quote:Unsuccessful mind-reading by SECOND, again.
SECOND: There are many criminal ideas living inside the brains of Russia's top hierarchy, ideas that were taught in Russia for centuries.
If you're going to indict, indict on what someone DOES, not on what you think they think. And if you're going to indict, you better find some credible evidence, not bullshit that you've swallowed and vomited up again here.
You're a bigger idiot than THUGR bc he was born that way. You have to work at it.
Well, I have better things to do.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:You have nothing to do and I don't have to be a mind-reader to know it. Bernie Madoff was convicted because his sons turned him in and testified against him. Without them, and people who were rich, cheated by Madoff, and pressured the prosecutors to do something to Madoff, he would would have gotten away with all the money. The justice system is a piece of malfunctioning crap in the USA and has been since at least Vice-President Aaron Burr got away with treason and killing Alexander Hamilton because in this legal system justice is easily thwarted by highly paid defense attorneys far better skilled than prosecutors. For comparison, the International Criminal Court in The Hague will not get to a decision about Putin, unless it has about 20 years to litigate. Putin won't live that long.
Originally posted by SignyM:
Well, I have better things to do.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Oh, just checked in to see what bullshit SECOND posted while I was away busy doing my "nothing to do" and I see SECOND is wrong on both counts... AGAIN!
I see he's trying to deflect from his stupid point that Madoff was convicted bc of what Ponzi had done. But, in reality, Madoff was jailed because he made off (Get it? Made off?) with other people's money.
Being so consistently wrong... It must be SECOND'S special talent!
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Nobody cares about Russia or Ukraine. Now all they think about is how bad they want to kill babies and how much they love killing babies.
Duh. Dur. Uggggg. pffffffft
--------------------------------------------------
Me: "Remember Covid?"
Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"
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SECOND, what does Signym do when it is negative news about Putin, she changes the subject. This is G's thread about Russia invading Ukraine. It has nothing to do with Bernie Madoff.
Once your point is made, she will make you repeat it over and over again. You really should not let her spin you about so. You are wicked smart compared to her.
T
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Quote:Pope Francis warns pro-war Russian patriarch
Originally posted by SignyM:
Oh, just checked in to see what bullshit SECOND posted while I was away busy doing my "nothing to do" and I see SECOND is wrong on both counts... AGAIN!
I see he's trying to deflect from his stupid point that Madoff was convicted bc of what Ponzi had done. But, in reality, Madoff was jailed because he made off (Get it? Made off?) with other people's money.
Being so consistently wrong... It must be SECOND'S special talent!
"I spoke to him for 40 minutes via Zoom," the Pope told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published Tuesday. "The first 20 minutes he read to me, with a card in hand, all the justifications for war."
"I listened and told him: I don't understand anything about this," said the Pope. "Brother, we are not clerics of state, we cannot use the language of politics but that of Jesus."
"The Patriarch cannot transform himself into Putin's altar boy," the Pope said.
Francis said the conference call with Kirill took place on March 16, and that both he and the Patriarch had agreed to postpone a planned meeting on June 14 in Jerusalem.
"It would be our second face-to-face meeting, nothing to do with the war," the Pope said. "But now, he too agrees: let's stop, it could be an ambiguous signal."
In March Kirill Patriarch Kirill said that the conflict was an extension of a fundamental culture clash between the wider Russian world and Western liberal values, exemplified by expressions of gay pride.
Experts say that Kirill's comments offer important insights into Putin's larger spiritual vision of a return to a Russian Empire, in which the Orthodox religion plays a pivotal role.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pope-francis-warns-pro-war-russia
n-patriarch-not-to-be-putin-s-altar-boy/ar-AAWUi4V
I wasn't invited into the Zoom meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, but I know the Pope was opposed to killing women and children while on the other hand the Patriarch was very supportive of killing women and children to advance Russia's goals. "Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" is the Patriarch's wisdom. The Pope would reply, "Don't make an omelette." For those who need explanations, Ukraine is the omelette Putin is eating. Killing women and children is breaking eggs.
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:Pope Francis warns pro-war Russian patriarch
Originally posted by SignyM:
Oh, just checked in to see what bullshit SECOND posted while I was away busy doing my "nothing to do" and I see SECOND is wrong on both counts... AGAIN!
I see he's trying to deflect from his stupid point that Madoff was convicted bc of what Ponzi had done. But, in reality, Madoff was jailed because he made off (Get it? Made off?) with other people's money.
Being so consistently wrong... It must be SECOND'S special talent!
"I spoke to him for 40 minutes via Zoom," the Pope told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published Tuesday. "The first 20 minutes he read to me, with a card in hand, all the justifications for war."
"I listened and told him: I don't understand anything about this," said the Pope. "Brother, we are not clerics of state, we cannot use the language of politics but that of Jesus."
"The Patriarch cannot transform himself into Putin's altar boy," the Pope said.
Francis said the conference call with Kirill took place on March 16, and that both he and the Patriarch had agreed to postpone a planned meeting on June 14 in Jerusalem.
"It would be our second face-to-face meeting, nothing to do with the war," the Pope said. "But now, he too agrees: let's stop, it could be an ambiguous signal."
In March Kirill Patriarch Kirill said that the conflict was an extension of a fundamental culture clash between the wider Russian world and Western liberal values, exemplified by expressions of gay pride.
Experts say that Kirill's comments offer important insights into Putin's larger spiritual vision of a return to a Russian Empire, in which the Orthodox religion plays a pivotal role.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pope-francis-warns-pro-war-russia
n-patriarch-not-to-be-putin-s-altar-boy/ar-AAWUi4V
I wasn't invited into the Zoom meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, but I know the Pope was opposed to killing women and children while on the other hand the Patriarch was very supportive of killing women and children to advance Russia's goals. "Can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" is the Patriarch's wisdom. The Pope would reply, "Don't make an omelette." For those who need explanations, Ukraine is the omelette Putin is eating. Killing women and children is breaking eggs.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
A great post Two. It shows the need for the separation of church and state. The need for duly elected officials to have the ability to contradict the head of state when needed.
T
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Quote:https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pope-admits-putins-invasion-lik
Pope Admits NATO Likely Provoked Putin's Invasion: "Barking At The Gates Of Russia"
Tuesday, May 03, 2022 - 08:45 AM
Pope Francis has said that he's ready to meet President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in hopes of brokering an end to the war in Ukraine, according to the Vatican news agencies. He said in an interview published Tuesday by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, "I am not going to Kyiv for now; I feel that I must not go. First I must go to Moscow. First I must meet Putin. But I am also a priest, what can I do? I do what I can. If Putin would only open the door...".
The Roman Catholic leader's criticisms of Russia's actions in Ukraine were made clear throughout the interview, but among the more interesting and surprising lines came when he addressed the roots of the invasion and war which started on Feb.24. He told the newspaper that "the barking of NATO at the gates of Russia" is likely what motivated Putin to attack Ukraine.
Below is the relevant section of the interview, according to a machine translation from the Italian:
Pope Francis' concern is that Putin, for the moment, will not stop . He also tries to think about the roots of this behavior, about the reasons that push him to such a brutal war. Perhaps the "barking of NATO at Russia's door" prompted the head of the Kremlin to react badly and unleash the conflict. "I can’t say if it was provoked, but perhaps, yes."
Also interesting is that Francis came close to condemning the international weapons transfers now pouring into Ukraine, led by the US which has lately authorized an unprecedented billions in military aid to Ukraine's government.
"And now those who care about peace are faced with the great question of the supply of weapons by Western nations to the Ukrainian resistance," the Pope began with his thoughts on this question. He admitted the question is controversial even within the Catholic world.
"I can't answer, I'm too far away, to the question of whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians," he said, before taking a swipe at the weapons industry. "The clear thing is that weapons are being tested in that land. The Russians now know that tanks are of little use and are thinking of other things. Wars are fought for this: to test the weapons we have produced."
"This was the case in the Spanish Civil War before the Second World War. The arms trade is a scandal, few oppose it." He then invoked the case of the years'-long Saudi-US war on Yemen, describing that "Two or three years ago a ship loaded with weapons arrived in Genoa which had to be transferred to a large freighter to transport them to Yemen. The port workers did not want to do it. They said: let's think of the children of Yemen. It's a small thing, but a nice gesture. There should be so many like that."
Pope Francis' words have already provoked an angry reaction among some American Catholic clerics...
On the question of how quickly the war could wind down, Francis recalled an April 21 meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the Vatican. Orban relayed that Putin told him of plans to end the war by May 9, which is the commemorative 'Victory Day' in Russia.
ely-motivated-barking-nato-gates-russia
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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