Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
VIEWED: 562266
PAGE 494 of 1104
Quote:We are not the same species, Mr Wombat.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
We're barely even in the same species.
Russia's Crimean Red Line Has Been Erased by Ukraine
Claims about the territory’s spiritual status have been revealed to be fiction.
By Casey Michel, October 4, 2023.
In December 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin stood in the middle of the Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall, delivering his annual address to the country’s Federal Assembly. Nine months removed from his formal annexation of Crimea, the Russian president unspooled a historical overview of Crimea’s supposed importance to the Russian body politic.
Crimea, as Putin claimed, was far more than simply a wayward chunk of rightfully Russian land. Rather, the peninsula was the “spiritual source” of the entire Russian nation—a province that presented “invaluable civilizational and even sacral importance” for all Russians. The language mirrored Putin’s annexation announcement that March, when he’d claimed that “in [Russians’] hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia.” As Putin saw it, Crimea stood as the Temple Mount of Russia—as a Russian “holy land.” And this was, Putin assured his listeners in December, “exactly how we will treat it from now on and forever.”
At the time, few in Russia appeared to disagree. Nor, likewise, did those in the West, who largely rolled over in the face of Russia’s initial invasion in 2014. Suckered by Russian propaganda surrounding the peninsula’s supposedly pro-Russian tilt and convinced that any Ukrainian assault on Crimea could spark potential military escalation, Western voices largely shied away from backing any attempts at returning the peninsula to Kyiv’s control. This was seen perhaps most spectacularly last month, when news emerged that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had undercut Ukrainian efforts to target the peninsula because of concerns any attack “could lead to a nuclear war.”
Those concerns were perhaps understandable, insofar as Russian officials have continually rattled a nuclear saber about protecting Crimea from any Ukrainian reclamation efforts. But now, as Ukraine unleashes near-daily assaults on the peninsula, the notion that Crimea presents some kind of Temple Mount—or even any kind of red line—for Russians has crumbled.
In the face of continued drone attacks, long-range missile fires, sabotage operations, and annihilation of military assets across Crimea, Russians have hardly treated the Ukrainian peninsula as some kind of sacred land. Rather than rushing to protect Crimea, Russians have instead begun fleeing the region en masse. Rather than seeing Russians lining up to enlist to aid the Kremlin’s defense of the peninsula, Moscow continues mooting the potential of a second, and far broader, forced mobilization. And rather than resulting in any kind of nuclear conflagration, Russians’ subdued reaction to the continued bombardment of Crimea has dissolved Putin’s claims that the peninsula is some kind of special, sacrosanct land. As McGill University professor Maria Popova recently posted on X (formerly known as Twitter), “Crimea isn’t special, let alone a red line.”
Indeed, with few even noticing, Ukraine’s continued shelling and strikes on the peninsula have illustrated one clear lesson: The idea that Crimea is some kind of holy land that Russians will race to defend—an idea that far too many in the West previously swallowed—is dead. And in that death, a wealth of new opportunities has opened up for Kyiv and for the Western partners who are suddenly realizing Crimea is hardly the sacral land Putin once claimed.
For those familiar with the region’s history, the notion that Crimea was always some kind of “spiritual center” for the Russian nation, or that it was perpetually inseparable from Moscow, was always a rickety proposition. While there were historical links tethering the peninsula to the imperial center in Moscow—not least the peninsula’s outsized role in the eponymous Crimean War of the 1850s or World War II—Crimea is hard
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Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined on Thursday when his country would use nuclear weapons. The Russian leader escalated his nuclear rhetoric at an annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, declaring that Moscow has successfully tested the nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable Burevestnik cruise missile—a claim Kremlin officials had denied just days earlier.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-russia-nuclear-weapons-war-1832586
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a new "bizarre explanation" for Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin's death, which pins the blame on Prigozhin himself.
Putin was particularly quiet in the days following Prigozhin's death, and the ISW previously assessed that the Kremlin was "almost certainly" to blame. Wagner-associated Telegram channels also claimed that Prigozhin's plane had been hit by Russian anti-air defenses.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-has-bizarre-explanation-yevgeny-prigozh
ins-death-isw-1832556
If Putin does use a tactical nuke in Ukraine, he will blame the US for nuking Ukraine, for this is the Russian way.
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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This Is How Ukraine War Could End, According to Putin's Exiled Foe
"It is not possible to preserve Putin and stop the war," said Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Once Russia's richest man when he headed the energy company Yukos, Khodorkovsky was jailed for a decade on what was considered politically motivated charges after he criticized corruption. He was pardoned by Putin in 2013.
His book How to Slay a Dragon, released later this month in the U.S., describes how a revolution is required to usher in democracy and break the cycle of Russia's history of autocracy.
https://www.newsweek.com/putin-khodorkovsky-russia-ukraine-war-1832403
Download his free books from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Mikhail+Khodorkovsky
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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Compromises on territory, legal order, and world peace: The fate of international law lies on Ukraine’s borders
By Maksym Vishchyk and Jeremy Pizzi | October 6, 2023
Contemporary international law does not accept anything less than an agreement respecting Ukrainian territorial integrity within its 1991 borders. Any form of territorial concessions in the present environment would be legally void and contrary to duties imposed on States to deny manifest attacks on the international legal regime. Most of all, such concessions would deliver a fatal and final blow to the contemporary world order, while inevitably paving the way to further armed conflict in Ukraine and beyond. It risks being a catalyst for rapacious aggressors who seek to satiate their insatiable appetites on smaller countries and on the international community as a whole.
International law will not accept anything less than a treaty respecting Ukrainian territorial integrity in its entirety. Allowing otherwise will send the international order back to when aggressive war was legal and territorial conquest was legitimate. It will send a clear signal to (potential) aggressors suggesting that they may attack States that are less mighty militarily or politically, subjugate them, and despite international law prohibitions, enjoy the fruits of their unlawful conquest and the crimes committed along the way.
To prevent this and in furtherance of the prohibition of aggression, international law also imposes several duties on the international community and third States that make the grant of territorial concessions by Ukraine even more untenable. They include the obligations to refrain from any explicit or implicit recognition of a situation created by an act of aggression or rendering aid or assistance to maintain such a situation, as well as the duty to enact measures and/or collective action to bring the violation to an end. As discussed below, these duties are the foundation of the contemporary world order, guaranteeing that the preservation of world peace and security remains a matter of community interest for all States, without leaving the victim of aggression facing its consequences alone.
More at https://www.justsecurity.org/89216/compromises-on-territory-legal-orde
r-and-world-peace-the-fate-of-international-law-lies-on-ukraines-borders/
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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The West Armed Ukraine for a Caricature of Modern War
By Phillips Payson O’Brien | October 5, 2023
An outdated view of warfare helps explain why the U.S. was slow to supply long-range missiles.
The United States is finally getting around to supplying Ukraine with some of the long-range weaponry that the Ukrainians have been requesting for months. For far too long, Ukraine’s Western allies have largely been arming that country to fight a caricature of modern war, not the real thing.
The results of that decision are evident on maps that, more than 500 days after Russia’s invasion, show only small, incremental changes in the front line. The Ukrainians started a much anticipated counteroffensive almost four months ago and have pushed the Russians back in a few places in the Zaporizhzhia region but have not achieved a full-scale armored breakthrough. By contrast, Ukrainian missile strikes behind enemy lines have produced noteworthy successes in recent months—most notably in forcing Russia to withdraw major elements of the Black Sea Fleet from its base in the port of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea.
When Russia prepared to invade Ukraine in February 2022, many military analysts imagined tank-led columns advancing rapidly and overwhelming the Ukrainian army—a vision of war that has continued to shape Western policy now that Ukraine is trying to reclaim territory. The U.S. and other NATO countries have provided armored vehicles and combined-arms-warfare training, mainly to help Ukraine make direct attacks on Russian front lines. But making a decisive breakthrough at the front, always difficult, has become extremely challenging. The Russians, for their part, spent five months attacking the small Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, taking a tiny parcel of ground at an enormous cost in casualties. Defensive weaponry has made even the best tanks and vehicles vulnerable to damage from a variety of cheaper, more numerous types of equipment. If vehicles mass together in preparation for an attack, they can be destroyed or at least slowed down in many different ways—with mines, artillery, handheld rocket launchers, or, in more and more cases, drones.
The one successful breakthrough exploitation of the past 16 months happened when Ukraine was able to attack a very lightly defended part of the Russian line in the Kharkiv region. This underscores how forward advance is possible only if Ukraine can identify weak points—or create them by striking military installations and logistics deep behind the front, so that Russia cannot move personnel, weaponry, and supplies to the front. This is why Ukrainian officials have been so insistent on obtaining the U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS (pronounced “attack-ems”). This ammunition, which can be fired from the vehicle-mounted High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, has a much longer range—up to about 190 miles—than conventional artillery and even the Western-supplied Multiple Launch Rocket System that Ukrainian forces used to great effect in the first year of the war. Unfortunately, the U.S. has offered Ukraine only a limited diet of long-range weapons. As I argued earlier this year, the West’s approach to military aid was preparing Ukrainian forces to fight the hardest possible campaign.
Only when the United Kingdom supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which typically are fired from aircraft and have a range of more than 150 miles, and France followed with SCALP missiles (its version of the same weapons system) could Ukraine begin hitting high-value targets—bridges, supply depots, anti-aircraft systems—deep in Russian-occupied areas, including Crimea. The most consequential attacks have been on the Russian navy base in Sevastopol. Using just a handful of the British and French missiles, the Ukrainians have destroyed two major Russian warships, including a new Kilo-class submarine that the Russians have used to fire on Ukraine, and seriously damaged the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet itself. Yet the U.K. and France have a modest supply of the missiles. Ukraine has
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:We are not the same species, Mr Wombat.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
We're barely even in the same species.
I really need to tell you something...
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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So, scrolling up thru your posts just on this page, SECOND, I see that you post a lot of fiction!
I thought this was... yanno... supposed to be about the real world.
"Helping Ukraine win the war as quickly as possible" - Not possible.
"...legally void and contrary to duties imposed on States" - Since when has the USA followed international law?
"... a revolution is required to usher in democracy and break the cycle of Russia's history of autocracy." - Not gonna happen any time soon. And, Russia is already a democracy.
"If Putin does use a tactical nuke in Ukraine.." - Why would Russia bother, since they're winning? (Besides, that's not what Putin said. He told western leaders, essentially ... you can run to Patagonia or New Zealand and try to hide but our missiles will find you.
[everything about Crimea]
"American and European leaders worked together to fashion post-war European security, economic, and political institutions that were mutually beneficial to all" - Except Russia. Oh, and the rest of the world.
"Signym, you didn't realize that it is easy to check that you lied." - NOPE! That was you.
"... analysts are sceptical that the Kremlin will secure all the extra revenue it says it needs." - Well! AHEM! Russia's current debt (2022) is 17%. The USA's is almost 130%. Read it and weep.
"Julian Assange is a front for a hostile non-state intelligence service and a fugitive Russian asset" - NO, he isn't.
How anyone can pack their head so full of crap ... or would even want to... is beyond me.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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The West Armed Ukraine for a Caricature of Modern War
By Phillips Payson O’Brien | October 5, 2023
An outdated view of warfare helps explain why the U.S. was slow to supply long-range missiles.
The United States is finally getting around to supplying Ukraine with some of the long-range weaponry that the Ukrainians have been requesting for months. For far too long, Ukraine’s Western allies have largely been arming that country to fight a caricature of modern war, not the real thing.
The results of that decision are evident on maps that, more than 500 days after Russia’s invasion, show only small, incremental changes in the front line. The Ukrainians started a much anticipated counteroffensive almost four months ago and have pushed the Russians back in a few places in the Zaporizhzhia region but have not achieved a full-scale armored breakthrough. By contrast, Ukrainian missile strikes behind enemy lines have produced noteworthy successes in recent months—most notably in forcing Russia to withdraw major elements of the Black Sea Fleet from its base in the port of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea.
When Russia prepared to invade Ukraine in February 2022, many military analysts imagined tank-led columns advancing rapidly and overwhelming the Ukrainian army—a vision of war that has continued to shape Western policy now that Ukraine is trying to reclaim territory. The U.S. and other NATO countries have provided armored vehicles and combined-arms-warfare training, mainly to help Ukraine make direct attacks on Russian front lines. But making a decisive breakthrough at the front, always difficult, has become extremely challenging. The Russians, for their part, spent five months attacking the small Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, taking a tiny parcel of ground at an enormous cost in casualties. Defensive weaponry has made even the best tanks and vehicles vulnerable to damage from a variety of cheaper, more numerous types of equipment. If vehicles mass together in preparation for an attack, they can be destroyed or at least slowed down in many different ways—with mines, artillery, handheld rocket launchers, or, in more and more cases, drones.
The one successful breakthrough exploitation of the past 16 months happened when Ukraine was able to attack a very lightly defended part of the Russian line in the Kharkiv region. This underscores how forward advance is possible only if Ukraine can identify weak points—or create them by striking military installations and logistics deep behind the front, so that Russia cannot move personnel, weaponry, and supplies to the front. This is why Ukrainian officials have been so insistent on obtaining the U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS (pronounced “attack-ems”). This ammunition, which can be fired from the vehicle-mounted High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, has a much longer range—up to about 190 miles—than conventional artillery and even the Western-supplied Multiple Launch Rocket System that Ukrainian forces used to great effect in the first year of the war. Unfortunately, the U.S. has offered Ukraine only a limited diet of long-range weapons. As I argued earlier this year, the West’s approach to military aid was preparing Ukrainian forces to fight the hardest possible campaign.
Only when the United Kingdom supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which typically are fired from aircraft and have a range of more than 150 miles, and France followed with SCALP missiles (its version of the same weapons system) could Ukraine begin hitting high-value targets—bridges, supply depots, anti-aircraft systems—deep in Russian-occupied areas, including Crimea. The most consequential attacks have been on the Russian navy base in Sevastopol. Using just a handful of the British and French missiles, the Ukrainians have destroyed two major Russian warships, including a new Kilo-class submarine that the Russians have used to fire on Ukraine, and seriously damaged the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet itself. Yet the U.K. and France have a modest supply of the missiles. Ukraine has
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Quote:Julian Assange is in legal trouble because he has flamboyantly lived out his character defects instead of correcting himself. Here is one defect out of many defects: In some of the messages, obtained by The Atlantic, WikiLeaks reportedly offered damaging information on Hillary Clinton in exchange for Donald Trump Jr.’s help appointing Assange as U.S. ambassador to Australia if the elder Trump won the election. A lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. has said the president’s son did not know the specifics of the material being offered, and Donald Trump Jr. has not been charged by U.S. law enforcement officials in the matter.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
"Julian Assange is a front for a hostile non-state intelligence service and a fugitive Russian asset" - NO, he isn't.
How anyone can pack their head so full of crap ... or would even want to... is beyond me.
There is plenty more about Assange at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-charges-against-julian-assange-
explained
Russia deserves all the troubles it has because its leaders are highly defective and aren't ashamed to display their defects. There have been many history books written about Russian defects in character displayed by the top men. Historians industriously make the connections between the fate of a country and the worst ideas implanted in the minds of leaders by their country's culture.
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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Russia has nearly exhausted stockpile of up to 15 million shells; Ukraine to surpass Russian shell usage by year-end
October 7, 2023
"Our numbers are increasing: we can now use about 10,000 shells a day. The Russians still use about 15,000. But there is actually parity ahead. In terms of the number of shells . . . " But Russia may increase its production of shells to about 2 million a year, Reuters reported earlier.
https://english.nv.ua/nation/seven-thousand-a-day-artillery-shell-limi
t-is-looming-over-russia-50358916.html
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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