Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
PAGE 164 of 1104
Die for Putin and you shall receive an eternal reward in heaven was the sermon preached by Putin's personal friend, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-orthodox-church-argues-th
at-sacrificing-life-in-war-against-ukraine-washes-away-sins/ar-AA12eAS2
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Putin is taking a maddening risk which could result in the collapse of his regime, but – just as likely – could lead to Russia drowning Ukraine in a sea of blood and by extension defeating the US-led West in this conflict.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/25/putins-suicidal-gamble
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Dangers of Desperation
RUSSIA/ UKRAINE
The once-vaunted, now-demoralized Russian military could be on the brink of collapse – a retired British Air Marshal put the odds at 35 percent in a recent interview with Sky News.
By now, seven months after the invasion of Ukraine, this mighty military was to have overthrown the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and “cleanse the country of Nazis.” But the Russians’ lightning-quick strike on the capital of Kyiv failed in what the Associated Press described as a “defeat for the ages,” and they scaled back the invasion to focus on the south and east.
After withdrawing from Kyiv, the military held firm for a while in eastern Ukraine where they had previously established separatist regions or puppet states years ago, as Politico wrote, even as Ukraine managed to reclaim a large swathe of territory in Russia’s supposed strongholds in the east, National Public Radio reported.
As a consequence, four separatist regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – began holding referendums over the weekend to join Russia, sometimes forcing voters at gunpoint to go to the polls, to give Russia the excuse that it is defending its own territory, the Washington Post reported. The outcomes of the votes are a foregone conclusion, as is the switching of tactics the sign of a desperate dictator, the newspaper added.
“These are the hypocritical, backpedaling words of a dictator who badly miscalculated by seeking to destroy Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and who finds himself in need of a new rationale for war,” it wrote, referring to a speech Wednesday by Russian President Vladimir Putin, explaining the referendums, the instituting of a partial draft and the penalties for avoiding military service.
Putin has boxed himself into a corner; he needs more soldiers and equipment, but asking for them highlights his failure to protect the ones he has already deployed. Meanwhile, military experts doubt it will make a difference in the war.
It did, however, make a difference to the imposed peace within Russia itself, the Canadian Broadcasting Company wrote, noting the draft’s unpopularity among ordinary Russians. As men began receiving call-up orders, protests erupted around the country on Wednesday and again over the weekend with more than 2,000 people being arrested because protests are illegal. Meanwhile, Russians scrambled to find flights out of the country as tickets quickly sold out, and “how to leave Russia” searches began spiking on Google, Business Insider reported.
Meanwhile, it’s no secret to many Russians what the 300,000 being called up will face.
Letters left behind by Russian soldiers detailed their demoralization and sorrow, the Washington Post wrote, explaining also why some soldiers are refusing to fight after “humiliating losses on the battlefield,” according to the Daily Beast. This could explain the fast pace of Ukrainians’ advances against Russian troops, added the Kyiv Post, a Ukraine-based English-language newspaper.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations this week, Zelenskyy mocked Putin and demanded a peace plan on Ukraine’s terms, maybe following a script that bloodying the bully’s nose reduces his menacing aura. “A crime has been committed against Ukraine, and we demand punishment,” Zelenskyy told delegates at the UN in a virtual address in his trademark combat fatigues, CNN reported.
Zelenskyy also called for the UN to strip Russia of its veto power in the Security Council, a move that would pave the way for significant action in the council that presumably only China could stop. China is the only non-Western, veto-wielding Security Council member. The other three veto-power countries are the US, Britain and France.
But Chinese leaders are reportedly not very happy with Russia, either. As Newsweek wrote, Chinese President Xi Jinping is not sending weapons nor making public proclamations in support of the war, a stunning silence for two ostensible allies. And Xi has recently expressed concerns over the war. Putin acknow
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Author of "Putin's Wars" says the Russian president is doomed — but the West's anti-Russian rhetoric is dangerous
After the debacle in Ukraine, what comes next for Russia and its president? I recently spoke with Mark Galeotti, one of the world's leading experts on Russia, transnational crime and military affairs. He is the author of many books, including "The Weaponisation of Everything," "A Short History of Russia" and "We Need to Talk About Putin." His forthcoming book, to be published in November, is "Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine."
In this conversation, Galeotti explains how Vladimir Putin has put himself inside an information echo chamber that encourages his worst impulses.
Galeotti also offers his analysis of why the Russian military has failed in Ukraine and why so many military experts were so deeply wrong in their initial assessments. He shares his thoughts on the early lessons to be taken from the war in Ukraine about the future of conventional warfare and other high-intensity conflicts. Although victory appears to be in sight for the Ukrainians, Galeotti cautions that the U.S. and Western allies cannot take such an outcome as a given. He argues that the Ukrainians must receive more support and not less in order to ensure a final victory.
In the end, Galeotti warns that the endgame of the Ukraine conflict will be critical for global security and peace. If the Russian people feel humiliated by the U.S. and the West that may lead to even more aggressive nationalist forces taking control of their county in the future.
Q: Given the war in Ukraine and all of the other global crises, how are you feeling? How do you make sense of all this?
On a personal level, I'm deeply depressed by what happened. As of June, I was actually banned from entry indefinitely by the Russian government. I like Russia as a place to visit. I have friends and colleagues there. Putin has obviously been terrible for 40 million or so Ukrainians. He has been pretty terrible for the Russians too. But for those of us who study Russia, he has been very good for business. There is a sense at times of being some type of hyena, feasting on the entrails of the global body politic. But I try to put such feelings aside. I'm very busy and am just trying to keep some perspective amidst all this extraordinary madness.
Q: How do you maintain perspective? Pundits and commentators are often rewarded for sensationalism and "hot takes." But most such claims will mostly be disproved by history — and may even be disproven in the present by more serious and careful thinkers. Do such people simply not care? Is it all about making an impact and getting paid, and only secondarily the truth?
This is one of the problems caused by Twitter and other forms of social media and 21st-century media more generally. People can make a name for themselves by delivering "hot takes" that are a bit more exciting, a bit more strident and frankly a bit more lunatic than even the ones that came before. It would be nice to believe that there was some kind of grand karma at work, where at the end such people who are playing that game would be found out.
It's a very depressing aspect of modern society because we now get to curate our own individual information bubbles, an echo chamber where we just hear the same things that confirm our beliefs. That means delusions can be maintained quite successfully, independent of reality on the ground. I predate the real internet age. I started studying Russia when it was still the Soviet Union. So from the phenomenal upwelling of optimism of the Gorbachev years, I saw the system collapse amidst chaos and recrimination. There was the gangster 1990s, and then the period in which Putin did seem to be, in his own brutal and ugly way, doing good for Russia and the world. He brought stability to that chaos.
Q: How are the Russian people going to deal with this national humiliation?
Most Russians don't really
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lol
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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Quote:
Congress Stuffs $12BN In Ukraine Aid Into Stopgap Funding Bill
How about spending some of that money here, Nancy and Joe*?
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Ukraine Confirms Receipt Of Longer-Range Missiles It's Long Sought From US
Tuesday, Sep 27, 2022 - 02:00 AM
Despite this past week which has seen US officials echo growing concerns over Moscow's ratcheting nuclear rhetoric - which Ukraine too has said it is taking seriously - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is now boasting his country has received a new, advanced US missile system.
He confirmed in a fresh interview with CBS’s "Face the Nation" that the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) has been long sought after by Kyiv, but previously in the war repeatedly denied:
* Zelensky thanked the U.S. for the system as well as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems it’s received, but added that his troops "absolutely need the United States to show leadership and give Ukraine" additional air defense systems it has requested.
MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-confirms-receipt-longer
-range-missiles-its-long-sought-us
Kiev talks a lot of smack. But if our government is hiding this, it's only hiding this from us, citizens of the USA. I'm sure the Kremlin knows all about it.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Putin is a dead man walking.
And one of these days, he will die.
But then, one of these days your clock will stop ticking too.
Tick tock
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60433
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Putin is a dead man walking.
SIGNY: And one of these days, he will die.
But then, one of these days your clock will stop ticking too.
Tick tock
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60433
I thought that was rather funny!
Also, true.
Life isn't a reward for paying your taxes or being virtuous, and death isn't a punishment for being a sociopath.
We all die some day.
Tick tock
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Referendums: Early Turnout Numbers on Joining Russia Revealed
September 25, 2022 By NEWS WIRE Leave a Comment
Preliminary results on the third of five voting days reveal that the required threshold of voter participation for a viable referendum been reached in Donbass and Zaporozhye, and nearly met in Kherson.
Despite the high turnout, Ukraine and its Western allies are claiming that the referendums have ‘no legal force’ and that the votes are nothing more than ‘an illegitimate attempt by Moscow to seize Ukrainian territory’.
MORE AT
https://21stcenturywire.com/2022/09/25/referendums-early-turnout-numbe
rs-on-joining-russia-revealed/
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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