Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
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Ukraine is building up its forces for an offensive
It has received a bonanza of Western arms in the past few months
On September 22nd 1941 Britain declared “tanks for Russia” week, with factories churning out armour to “repel the savage invaders”. The wife of the Soviet ambassador in London christened the first tank personally: “Stalin”. The first Leopard tank to arrive in Ukraine, a gift from Poland in February, has remained anonymous. But it is the vanguard of a substantial arsenal coming Ukraine’s way. While all eyes are now on the battle for the eastern town of Bakhmut, attention will soon turn to an expected counter-offensive that could start as early as April.
The German-made Leopard has been at the heart of tricky debates among Ukraine’s partners. On January 25th Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, ended weeks of dithering by promising to send the Leopard 2A6, an advanced variant. Many thought that would unleash a torrent of donations from the dozen other European countries which operate Leopards. It has been more of a trickle. So far, the coalition has pledged just two battalions of the most modern Leopards (a Ukrainian tank battalion is supposed to have 31 tanks). Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands are also purchasing at least 100 older, but refurbished, Leopard 1A5s for Ukraine, making up another three battalions.
The Leopards are being supplemented with a motley collection of other tanks. Britain is sending a company of 14 Challenger 2s. America has promised 31 M1A2 Abrams, the most advanced tanks in its arsenal, though it looks likely that they will not arrive for months. Poland, which has promised 14 Leopards and has already sent around 250 Soviet-designed T-72 tanks to Ukraine, will send 60 modernised T-72s. A variety of infantry fighting vehicles, from the ageing Soviet-era BMP-1 to America’s Stryker and Bradley vehicles, will pad out the armoured brigades.
Yet the fixation on tanks has distracted from a more important shift in strategy. In December America and Britain realised that a protracted war was not in the West’s interests. Russia, moreover, was even weaker than previously thought. The mood, says one official involved in those discussions, was: “If we want something to change, we need to change something.” The turning-point came on January 20th at the eighth meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, an American-led meeting of defence ministers held roughly monthly at a big American air base at Ramstein in Germany. There, allies agreed to equip Ukraine with more than a division’s worth of kit, with the aim of having much of it in place by the end of March.
The flow of arms has accordingly turned from a trickle to a flood. Of all the military aid pledged by the Pentagon since the war began, 40%—costing over $8bn—has come in the three months since December 9th (see chart). One European defence official says that the infusion of arms agreed on in Germany in January alone amounts to two-thirds of the total sent to Ukraine in all of 2022. Most of the donations are not as sexy as tanks, but are still crucial—the latest American package includes armoured bridge-laying vehicles, for instance, which would be vital for any offensive in the south or east.
Ukraine’s army is being transformed as a result. The bulk of its hardware is still of Soviet origin. But whereas the ratio of Soviet-standard to Western kit stood at five to one at the end of last year, that is expected to fall to five to two as the aid flows in. In other words, almost a third of Ukraine’s army will soon have NATO-standard equipment. General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top officer, hopes that he will eventually have three new army corps at his disposal, each with six brigades, and each comprising more than 20,000 men.
A Russian offensive that began in late January was intended, in part, to force Ukraine to commit these reserves, thereby making it much harder to mount a counter-of
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James Olson, CIA former chief of counterintelligence, said he believes the sharks are now circling for Putin.
"It is not going well at all. I believe Putin is in a no-win situation now," Olson told The Sun Online.
"If Putin stays in power, there will be a long war because he will not give up - but I do not think that Putin is going to stay in power. I believe that he will be removed from power.
"I believe that there is a strong undercurrent of opposition to Putin in the military, in the intelligence services, among the oligarchs."
Putin is known to live in fear of an uprising or internal coup - allegedly being obsessed with the toppling and subsequent killing of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Olson went on: "Putin is destroying Russia. I believe there are some
good Russians, some patriotic Russians who will decide enough is
enough.
"I think Putin will be taken out. I would not rule out assassination.
"I think it is actually likely that some patriotic Russians will decide they need to eliminate Putin.
"And that would be the end of the war. Because the Russian people are suffering and they are losing people. Putin is bleeding Russia and he cannot do that forever."
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21882127/putin-dead-man-walking-killed-c
ia-chief/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Interview with Mikhail Shishkin: ‘The main enemy of Russian culture is the Russian regime’
The revered Russian writer and Putin critic on how the war in Ukraine has divided his nation, and why culture is the only cure
Mikhail Shishkin was born in Moscow and is one of the most lauded writers in contemporary Russian literature, and the only one to receive all three of Russia’s most prestigious literary awards. An outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin and what he calls his “criminal regime”, he has lived in exile in Switzerland since 1995. In My Russia: War Or Peace?, his most recent book to be translated into English, he surveys the violent contours of Russia history and examines the troubled relationship between the Russian state and its citizens.
You’ve spoken in the past of a civil war in Russian literature between nationalists and liberals. Has that deepened since the invasion of Ukraine?
Twenty years ago we were all together in Kyiv at the literary festival – writers and poets writing in Russian in Ukraine. And I had the feeling that finally we are building the future Russian culture, where mutual understanding is important. And then later the Crimea annexation came and I saw people I’d been sitting at the table with shouting: “Crimea is ours! Crimea is ours!” It was like the famous play by [Eugène] Ionesco, Rhinoceros, where people turn into rhinoceroses. It wasn’t possible to talk to them. It was impossible to talk to my brother who lives in Moscow. So we became strangers. There is something like a civilisation gap between us in Russian culture. I can understand why people who don’t read books support this war. But it’s impossible for me to explain why cultured people support this war.
Putin has the psychology of all dictators: ‘If I leave this world, the world must go with me’
In your book you say it’s the mission of all Russian writers and artists to show that not all Russians support this war. But as you say, many artists and writers don’t think that’s their mission.
It’s a mission for me now. All my life I felt very solid ground under my feet. It was Russian culture. And now it’s blown away. One hundred years ago Russian immigrants were not ashamed of speaking Russian on the streets of Berlin or Paris. But now they are ashamed to speak their language. And my mission now is to do everything to return dignity to the Russian language. And that is possible only with the victory of Ukraine in this war against our common enemy, the Russian regime, because the main enemy of Russian culture is the Russian regime.
You write that Russia will have a future only if it passes through total defeat. Is that a viable option for a nuclear power?
Putin has the psychology of all dictators: “If I leave this world, the world must go with me.” They don’t have empathy. They don’t love people. They hate people. And so I’m sure he would press the red button. But nobody will fulfil his order to destroy the Earth. Nobody. And you know why? Because in Russia the main question is not like in Russian classical literature of 19th century: who is to blame? What is to be done? No, the main question is: is the tsar real or false? And you can prove that you are real by winning a war. Stalin killed millions of people but he is beloved by the population. Gorbachev was beloved in the west, but he lost the Afghanistan war and the cold war against the west. [So] he’s despised. Putin’s generals told him they would take Kyiv in three days, and he miscalculated. He failed. And now he is a false tsar. Nobody will fulfil an order from a false tsar.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/02/mikhail-shishkin-my-russ
ia-war-or-peace-interview-letter
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I read what he wrote and it stood up well and didn't need me saying "Ditto!" like the Dittoheads who once listened to the Rush Limbaugh show. Before that fat lying sack of shit Rush Limbaugh died from smoking (get the message, 6ix) the fat lying sack of shit Trump gave Rush the Medal of Freedom for being the biggest asshole on talk radio.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Let's talk about how it's Mika Brazenski's job to control what you think, worm.
Meanwhile... It looks like Second ignored you again. The only guy left here that agrees with anything you think and he won't even acknowledge that you exist.
That's got to sting, huh?
Whatever dude. You've never once acknowledged that Ted even exists.
Mark this as the first time that you ever have, and it only happened because you're doing it to argue with me about something. Don't lie. You know it's true. We all know it's true.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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You gotta love it, but not really. Sig would have all believe Russia invaded Ukraine because America wanted him to. We are so powerful we forced Putin to do it.
And further, it's the worlds' fault Putin's soldiers are raping Ukrainian men, women and children. Bombing hospitals and schools and the general population overall. Just as he did in Syria.
Signym not only shows she condones this behavior by shilling for Putin, but by doing so exposes herself to the Firefly community to be trash. A Russian troll. A Russian piece of shit.
T 
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Let's be blunt. The US Army and the Russian Army have much in common because the soldiers in both are inadequate for their jobs. The Russian Army is grossly incompetent, which is why it failed spectacularly when it invaded Finland in 1939, struggled when Germany invaded, why it lost in Afghanistan, why it is performing badly in Ukraine, and why it is always threatening to sidestep its fundamental incompetence and just nuke everything. The Russian Army knows it isn't anything more than dummies who compensate for their inadequacies as soldiers with an overabundance of artillery.
The US Army is not particularly more competent than the Russians because it is full of Trump-loving people who think like Confederates, stupid ones at that. The Confederates lost but still gravitated toward the US Army for careers after the Civil War. How did the US Army win in WWII? It dragged in millions of highly competent people who would have never wanted a career in the military and never would have voted for an obvious fraud such as Trump. These capable people, just temporarily fighting WWII, were in no way similar to the Confederate losers who controlled the US military before and after WWII.
The US Army has lost again and again because it is loaded up with the same kind of people who would fit in very well with the stupid Russians. The US Army does have a distinct advantage given to it by superior engineering of weapons compared to the Russians. The US Army does spend a fortune on each soldier in order to train them to not devolve into Trumptards in the middle of combat. And the US Army does not threaten to sidestep the fundamental incompetence of its soldiers and just nuke everything, unlike Russians who cannot go a week without saying they will nuke the US.
U.S. Military Voting Intention in 2016 and 2020
https://www.statista.com/chart/22761/us-military-voting-intention-in-t
he-november-election/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Yep, you got it. Finally.
Originally posted by THG:
You gotta love it, but not really. Sig would have all believe Russia invaded Ukraine because America wanted him to.
We've been provoking them into war in Ukraine since 2014 by supporting anyone who was anti-Russian, including full-on Nazis. The rest of your post is bullshit.
And we're trying to do the same to China in Taiwan.
We also funded Islamic jihadists in Chechnya, Syria. and Libya and death squads in Central America.
We're not "peacekeepers" or "world cops", or "democracy-lovers", we're nation-destroyers. No better than Russia.
Glad you finally figured that out.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Thousands of Russian casualties in the Ukraine war are linked to alcohol consumption by troops, according to UK officials.
They said army commanders had been forced to accept the problem as “part of military life” because of the culture of heavy drinking in Russian society.
Moscow has suffered up to 200,000 casualties since the invasion of its neighbour in February last year.
According to the latest intelligence update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), “a significant minority of these have been due to non-combat causes”.
The MoD said a report by the Russian Telegram news channel last month said there had been an “extremely high numbers of incidents, crimes, and deaths linked to alcohol consumption” among their forces.
“Other leading causes of non-combat casualties likely include poor weapon handing drills, road traffic accidents and climatic injuries such as hypothermia,” the MoD said.
“Russian commanders likely identify pervasive alcohol abuse as particularly detrimental to combat effectiveness.
“However, with heavy drinking pervasive across much of Russian society, it has long been seen as a tacitly accepted part of military life, even on combat operations.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/thousands-of-russian-casualties-i
n-ukraine-linked-to-alcohol-consumption-says-uk-intelligence/ar-AA19mTbR
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Anyone who predicates their argument with "200,000 Russian dead" is a retard.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
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Quote:Signym, where did you get the idea that Russians make competent soldiers? They aren't even competent at being humans:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Anyone who predicates their argument with "200,000 Russian dead" is a retard.
Russia is quite literally drinking itself to death. It’s difficult to overstate how serious Russia’s alcohol problem is. More than 30% of all deaths in Russia in 2012 were attributable to alcohol, according to WHO data crunched by the OECD. That’s by far the highest among the nations it tracked. Russian drinkers die a variety of deaths. Alcohol poisoning. Cirrhosis. Accidents. Suicide.
https://qz.com/403307/russia-is-quite-literally-drinking-itself-to-dea
th
Before you go all wacko, Signym, drinking alcohol is optional. It is a choice. Clearly, even in this extremely simple-to-understand area of life, Russians aren't competent when they make their choices.
How Alcohol Conquered Russia. A history of the country’s struggle with alcoholism, and why the government has done so little about it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/how-alcohol-
conquered-russia/279965/
Signym, look at Russian agriculture and their history of famines. Look at their factories with low productivity. Look at their home lives with low birth rates and high divorce rates. Russians are highly defective people. It is completely unsurprising that in battle the Russians are mowed down like grass. Luckily for Russia, it is Ukrainians doing the mowing. Ukrainians aren't particularly competent soldiers, either, or else there wouldn't be a Russian Army.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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