Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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PAGE 52 of 111
And now, for some real news:
ZALUZHNY: admits "counteroffensive" has failed. But if we give him a whole new army with innovative weapons like better electronic warfare, he could win
Quote:
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, says the battlefield reminds him of the great conflict of a century ago. “Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he says. The general concludes that it would take a massive technological leap to break the deadlock. “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
. . .
he urges innovation in drones, electronic warfare, anti-artillery capabilities and demining equipment, as well as in the use of robotics.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/11/01/ukraines-commander-in-chie
f-on-the-breakthrough-he-needs-to-beat-russia
ZELENSKY: HERO TO ZERO
Last year, Time magazine named Zelenskiy "Man of the Year". This year, he's described as delusional and messianic, a man who gives crazy orders that commanders are afraid to follow
Quote:
‘Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do.’ Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight
https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/
REGIME CHANGE IN UKRAINE (AGAIN)?
ARESTOVYCH: Meanwhile, altho opposition political parties and the Russian Orthodox Church has been banned, Zelenskiy's former advisor, co-star, and bff is allowed to criticize Ukraine's (Zelenskiy's) counteroffensive:
Quote:
Ukraine Will Lose Avdiivka, Zelensky's Former Aide Predicts
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-avdiivka-donetsk-1837675
Some say that Arestovych is protected by the west, who want to keep him around as a possible Zelenskiy replacement.
Quote:
Opinion: Zelensky’s inescapable new reality
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/18/opinions/zelensky-israel-palestine-ukra
ine-russia-ghitis/index.html
Quote:
U.S., European officials broach topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine, sources say
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-european-officials-broach-topic-
peace-negotiations-ukraine-sources-rcna123628
Just keeping it real, folks.
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"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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Quote:The Russians threatened on many occasions to nuke the USA if a Red Line Was Crossed. Russia has so many Red Lines but nothing happens when crossed. That is reality. Nothing happens. It is time for the USA to destroy the Crimean Bridge because Russia's Red Lines are not real.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Just keeping it real, folks.
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:The Russians threatened on many occasions to nuke the USA if a Red Line Was Crossed. Russia has so many Red Lines but nothing happens when crossed. That is reality. Nothing happens. It is time for the USA to destroy the Crimean Bridge because Russia's Red Lines are not real.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Just keeping it real, folks.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Well, since you constantly misquote (i.e. lie) about Kremlin policy, you will constantly be confused about what's happening.



-----------
"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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Quote:There have been so many Russian Red Lines that have been crossed without consequences that a Wiki article was written to keep track:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, since you constantly misquote (i.e. lie) about Kremlin policy, you will constantly be confused about what's happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_lines_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
It is time for the USA to destroy the Crimean Bridge because Russia's Red Lines are not real.
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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Nah.
Fuck Ukraine.
--------------------------------------------------
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:Russia built a bridge on Ukrainian real estate in Crimea. The Ukrainians have tried to knock it down and failed because their military is as dumb as the Russians'. The USA could demolish that bridge on the first try. The USA should try in order to show Trumptards and Chinese that Russia's Red Lines are not real, that the USA experience is all too real for Trumptards, Chinese, and Russians to handle straight up, undiluted.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nah.
Fuck Ukraine.
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:Oh, so you want to provoke a USA war with Russia?
Originally posted by second:Quote:There have been so many Russian Red Lines that have been crossed without consequences that a Wiki article was written to keep track:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, since you constantly misquote (i.e. lie) about Kremlin policy, you will constantly be confused about what's happening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_lines_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
It is time for the USA to destroy the Crimean Bridge because Russia's Red Lines are not real.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
You're as delusional as Zelenskiy.
Ukraine joining NATO was a red line, and -in your delusional state- you misjudged Russia badly. You CONTINUE to misjudge Russia bc you haven't learned. Now you want to try again, with the USA in the balance?
Yanno, there are ignorant people and stupid people. Stupid people are those incapable of learning. That's you, SECOND.
-----------
"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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Quote:I guess you failed to notice that Ukraine did NOT join NATO, therefore joining NATO was NOT the cause of Russia invading Ukraine. But some other Russian Red Lines really were crossed, and Russia did NOT nuke the USA. If Russia wants to commit suicide by cop, rather than nuke itself, Russia can nuke the USA. Russia keeps bringing up Hiroshima and Nagasaki because it fears that the USA will kill Saint Petersburg and Moscow if Russia makes a stupid move. Russia should continue to fear it because nuking the USA is the most real Red Line in the World, totally unlike Russia's many, many fake Red Lines.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ukraine joining NATO was a red line, and -in your delusional state- you misjudged Russia badly. You CONTINUE to misjudge Russia bc you haven't learned. Now you want to try again, with the USA in the balance?
Ukraine asked the USA for ammo and explosives to destroy Russian property parked on Ukrainian land. Russia responded by threatening to nuke the USA. In the future, when Ukraine asks the USA to destroy the Crimean Bridge because the Russians built it on Ukrainian property without permission, Russia will threaten, as it always does, to nuke the USA. It is another Russian Red Line, but those Red Lines aren't real:
Red lines in the Russo-Ukrainian War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_lines_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#Rus
sian_red_lines
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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US officials have no indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to negotiate with Ukraine or doubts that Russia can continue its war until Western aid for Ukraine falters.[5] ISW has also not observed any indications that Russia is prepared to enter peace negotiations with Ukraine in good faith. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov expressed the Kremlin’s disagreement with the characterization of the war in Ukraine as a “stalemate” on November 2, stating that the war in Ukraine “has not reached a dead end” and that the Russian military continues to conduct offensive operations.[6] Russia’s offensive operations around Avdiivka indicate that the Kremlin continues to believe that it is possible to achieve its objectives with military force and is unlikely to enter peace negotiations with Ukraine, except to buy time to reconstitute for future offensive operations. Pressure on Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war will likely remain meaningless if not harmful as long as Putin believes that he can achieve his objectives on the battlefield.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-4-2023
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 must not prevaricate when it comes to seizing Russian reserves
Confiscating and deploying them for Ukraine’s benefit is the morally obvious next step
By Martin Sandbu | Nov 5, 2023
https://www.ft.com/content/42f1669f-15a4-4d02-869b-1561115c12d9
Within days of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, western capitals acted with remarkable determination in blocking Russia’s access to more than $300bn of foreign exchange reserves. In the 20 months since, however, the western sanctions coalition has got itself into ever more contortions trying to avoid the morally obvious next steps: seizing the reserves and deploying them for Ukraine’s benefit.
The ostensible justification is legal obstacles. But if those were really the reason for such timidity, western governments would have been doing all they could to overcome them: pursuing compensation claims under existing law, pushing legislative changes (as Canada, uniquely, has done), and endorsing prominent lawyers’ arguments that Moscow has no legal recourse against asset seizures after its violations of international law.
That this is not happening reveals the legal qualms as vicarious arguments for more self-interested objections to seizure. The most important is the fear that confiscating Russia’s assets will make other non-western countries pull their own reserves out of the west, in case one day the same treatment could be meted out to them.
The concern is that this could destabilise the global financial system and in particular diminish the dollar’s and the euro’s captive investors among central bank reserve managers. The European Central Bank has issued a strong warning to European policymakers against even taxing EU companies making windfall profits on blocked Russian assets — which seems the most that the sanctions coalition is currently willing to contemplate.
The argument looks superficially sound. But it unravels upon a closer look at the facts. If non-western governments were to react to seizure by pulling out their reserves, that horse would have already bolted on at least two occasions: the blocking order itself, and the G7 announcement that accounts will not be unblocked until Russia compensates Ukraine for its destruction.
Yet IMF data shows no subsequent shift of reserves out of the western fold. Where would they go? The largest reserves belong to Beijing, and reflect accumulated Chinese trade surpluses with western commercial partners. Claims on the west will remain denominated in western currencies and governed by its laws. If Beijing wanted to sell out of western assets altogether, it would struggle to find alternatives. The rest of the world is too small to house the scale of claims China wants to rack up.
Other large reserve holders do at least have an alternative to the west, namely to place their official savings in China. That would come at an economic cost: a non-convertible currency is no choice for prudent reserve management. Nor would it make much sense politically. However hypocritical or self-serving emerging countries may find the west, surely no one believes Xi Jinping is less tempted to weaponise financial dependence.
The only realistic prospect is that non-western economies decide not to accumulate such large reserves in the first place, and marginally diversify those they retain. There is some sign of the former. In 2022, global reserves fell by 8 percent in dollar terms before recovering somewhat. Excessive surpluses being a source of international instability, this is not something to fear. And slow diversification is bound to happen anyway as the global economy changes.
The supposed cost of seizing Russia’s reserves, then, is limited. It must in any case be held against the economic gains. They include giving Ukraine the financial means to win, recover and become fit to join the EU. It would also set a salutary precedent, suggesting that a country that flagrantly attacks the international order cannot expect to enjoy its protections.
Other economic arguments are harboured in private. O
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
US officials have no indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to negotiate with Ukraine or doubts that Russia can continue its war until Western aid for Ukraine falters.[5] ISW has also not observed any indications that Russia is prepared to enter peace negotiations with Ukraine in good faith. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov expressed the Kremlin’s disagreement with the characterization of the war in Ukraine as a “stalemate” on November 2, stating that the war in Ukraine “has not reached a dead end” and that the Russian military continues to conduct offensive operations.[6] Russia’s offensive operations around Avdiivka indicate that the Kremlin continues to believe that it is possible to achieve its objectives with military force and is unlikely to enter peace negotiations with Ukraine, except to buy time to reconstitute for future offensive operations. Pressure on Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war will likely remain meaningless if not harmful as long as Putin believes that he can achieve his objectives on the battlefield.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-4-2023
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
When the west is willing to negotiate in good faith, Russia will.
The problem is that since the west broke all of its contracts with Russia, blew up Nordstream, backed out of most previous treaties, diddled Russia on Minsk I and Minsk II - and openly bragged about it afterwards - and reneged on the agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine, which was initialed last March... is there ANY indication that the west is "agreement capable" now?
No, there isn't.
The west will do only what it's forced to do, and abide by its agreements only if forced to.
That leaves Russia the only option: demilitarize Ukraine and setv up a puppet government (or take over Ukraine completely) and demilitarize NATO.
DOOD, just like the two (potentially four) aircraft carrier groups in the Mideast couldn't POSSIBLY be there for Hamas.. I mean, that would be overkill X20-40 ... Russia is not building up it's military and nuclear deterrence just for Ukraine!
Once again, you're wallowing in complete misjudgement of Russia. Ya gotta stop reading and re-posting boneheads.
-----------
"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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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized that the war in Ukraine is not a “stalemate” in a comment to the media about Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s essay on the positional nature of warfare in Ukraine.[1] Zelensky stated during a joint press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on November 4 that the current situation on the frontlines is “not a stalemate” even if “time has passed” and “people are tired.” Zelensky emphasized that Ukraine prioritizes the safety of its servicemen and needs US F-16 fighter aircraft and air defenses to gain an advantage over Russian forces.
Zaluzhny’s long essay, “Modern Positional Warfare and How to Win It,” outlines Zaluzhnyi’s consideration of the changes Ukraine must make to overcome the current “positional” stage of the war more clearly than the shorter op-ed and the Economist article it accompanied.
https://infographics.economist.com/2023/ExternalContent/ZALUZHNYI_FULL
_VERSION.pdf
Zaluzhnyi wrote that the war “is gradually moving to a positional form” and noted that Ukraine needs to gain air superiority; breach mine barriers in depth; increase the effectiveness of counter-battery; create and train the necessary reserves; and build up electronic warfare (EW) capabilities to overcome positional warfare.[2] Positional warfare refers to military operations that do not result in rapid or dramatic changes to the frontline despite both sides‘ continuing efforts to improve their positions. Zaluzhnyi notably did not say that the war was stalemated in his essay or suggest that Ukraine could not succeed. His essay focused, rather, on explaining that the current positional character of the war was a result of technological-tactical parity on the battlefield and the widespread use of mine barriers by Russian and Ukrainian troops. Zaluzhnyi considered the opportunities presented to Ukraine by Russia’s challenges, including the significant losses suffered by Russian aviation; Ukrainian use of Western missile and artillery weapons; and Russia’s failure to take advantage of its human mobilization resources due to political, organizational, and motivational issues. Zaluzhnyi argued that to avoid World War I-style “trench war” and move to maneuver warfare, Ukraine must develop new approaches including technological and other changes, some of which depend on Western support and others require adaptations within the Ukrainian military, state, and society. Zaluzhnyi concluded that positional warfare benefits Russia as it prolongs the war and could allow Russia to achieve superiority in certain areas. Zaluzhnyi argued that Ukraine or Russia could return to rapid maneuver warfare under the right circumstances, which for Ukraine must include Western-provided military resources. Zaluzhnyi’s essay was all about how to restore maneuver to a positional war, not an argument that the war has reached a stalemate.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-4-2023
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:Signym, how many Russians did Russia kill because of politics if the number is not 64,000,000? How many Ukrainians did Russia kill because of politics if the number is not 4,000,000?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
When the west is willing to negotiate in good faith, Russia will.
The problem is that since the west broke all of its contracts with Russia, blew up Nordstream, backed out of most previous treaties, diddled Russia on Minsk I and Minsk II - and openly bragged about it afterwards - and reneged on the agreement to end the conflict in Ukraine, which was initialed last March... is there ANY indication that the west is "agreement capable" now?
No, there isn't.
The west will do only what it's forced to do, and abide by its agreements only if forced to.
That leaves Russia the only option: demilitarize Ukraine and setv up a puppet government (or take over Ukraine completely) and demilitarize NATO.
DOOD, just like the two (potentially four) aircraft carrier groups in the Mideast couldn't POSSIBLY be there for Hamas.. I mean, that would be overkill X20-40 ... Russia is not building up it's military and nuclear deterrence just for Ukraine!
Once again, you're wallowing in complete misjudgement of Russia. Ya gotta stop reading and re-posting boneheads.
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:
Signym, how many Russians did Russia kill because of politics if the number is not 64,000,000? How many Ukrainians did Russia kill because of politics if the number is not 4,000,000?
Seriously dood, who the fuck CARES? That was then. This is now.
You keep harping on historical grievances, like you can change the past. It's like you keep trying to revive Wash.
Not gonna happen. The people responsible for whatever happened in the past are DEAD and you are beating a truly dead horse.
Russia was a monarchy, then a revolutionary government, then a tyranny, then a stultified bureaucracy, then a gangsta capitalist nation, and now... believe it or not... a multiparty democracy with a mixed economy. The people in charge today are not the same as before.
So stop grinding on and on, and stop trying to derail the topic with your off-kilter obsessions.
-----------
"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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Quote:Many empires have foundations built on mounds of corpses, as do the last three empires in the land now called "Russia".
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Seriously dood, who the fuck CARES? That was then. This is now.
Originally posted by SECOND:
Signym, how many Russians did Russia kill because of politics if the number is not 64,000,000? How many Ukrainians did Russia kill because of politics if the number is not 4,000,000?
You keep harping on historical grievances, like you can make somebody "pay". Not gonna happen. The people responsible for whatever happened in the past are DEAD and you are beating a truly dead horse.
The people in charge now are different. Russia was a monarchy, then a revolutionary government, then a tyranny, then a stultified bureaucracy, then a gangsta capitalist nation, and now... believe it or not... a multiparty democracy with a mixed economy.
So stop grinding on and on, and stop trying to derail the topic with your off-kilter obsessions.
The Inevitable Fall of Putin’s New Russian Empire
What history tells us about collapsed empires trying to restore their former possessions.
November 5, 2023, 7:00 AM
By Alexander J. Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/05/russia-ukraine-empire-imperialism
-war/
The Russian Federation is the product of the Soviet empire’s collapse, just as the Soviet Union was the product of imperial Russia’s collapse. Looking at the long history of empires, it’s not at all surprising that today’s Russia has embarked on a project of re-imperialization — the attempt to recreate as much of its former empire as it can. Equally unsurprisingly, Russia’s effort will fail.
The vast majority of seemingly stable empires decay over time until all that is left is the imperial center. The Byzantine and Ottoman empires are perfect examples of this dynamic: Each lost more and more territory until all that remained of the former was greater Constantinople and of the latter the lands that became Turkey. Neither rump state attempted to re-imperialize. The same was true of the European overseas colonial empires: The British withdrew from most of their possessions more or less voluntarily and without firing too many shots, whereas the Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Spanish tried harder to hang on but lost to national liberation movements. All subsequently refrained from re-imperialization.
Russia falls into a different, more volatile category of imperial decline. At the height of their power, some empires fall apart suddenly and comprehensively, usually as the result of cataclysms that rip apart the formal ties between core and periphery. Imperial Russia, Wilhelmine Germany, and the Soviet Union all met this fate. Up to the moment of sudden collapse, the structural and institutional ties between the core and periphery were still vibrant. More importantly, the imperial ideology remained alive and well after the collapse, leading to attempts by the imperial center’s elites to recreate all or parts of their former empires.
Thus, the Bolsheviks — who never concealed their desire (and supposed right) to reconquer all of the Russian Empire’s territories, which even Vladimir Lenin rejected as Russian imperial chauvinism — recreated the empire in the form of the Soviet Union, brutally snuffing out more than a dozen newly independent states who’d seized the chaos as an opportunity to escape Russia’s colonial grip. The Nazis, on the other hand, tried but failed to regain Germany’s lost lands and build an even bigger Reich.
Success or failure of re-imperialization generally depends on the balance of power among the core, periphery, and any intervening states. The Bolsheviks were militarily and economically stronger than most of their neighbors and could revive the Russian Empire. The Nazis took on too many opponents and failed. Here, post-Soviet Russia’s trajectory is highly similar to interwar Germany’s: The German collapse
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Russia Builds New Railway Amid Fears of Ukraine Attack on 'High-Risk' Bridge
By Kaitlin Lewis | Nov 06, 2023 at 2:42 PM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-railway-ukraine-bridge-crimea-1841302
Construction is underway for a new railway to connect the Crimea Peninsula to mainland Russia amid Ukraine's consistent attacks on the Crimean Bridge, according to Russian reports.
Yevgeny Balitsky, Moscow's appointed head of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine, told reporters Monday that the new railway has begun near the city of Donetsk and will run from Yakymivka, a settlement in Zaporizhzhia, to Rostov, according to the Russian state-owned outlet RIA Novosti.
"By building a railway line...we will solve the problems of the military," Balitsky said.
In recent months, Ukraine has increased its attacks on the Kerch Strait Bridge that links Crimea — which was annexed by Russia in 2014 — to the rest of Russia. Crimea has served as a hub for Russia's military since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Balitsky noted to reporters Monday that the new railway will help Russia export goods like grains, iron and coal to the rest of the country. He also said that the project would help Moscow's military by avoiding the Kerch Strait Bridge.
"Because it is not only far to drive across the Crimean Bridge, but today the bridge is also a high-risk object," Balitsky said, reported RIA Novosti.
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin's press team via email for more information.
U.K.'s defense ministry previously assessed that the Kerch Strait Bridge has become a significant security burden for Moscow. Ukraine struck the 12-mile structure in October 2022 and again in July, causing significant damage to the road and railway.
"Although fully operational, use of the bridge remains restricted due to procedures enacted following the first Ukrainian attack in October 2022. Trucks and fuel supplies continue to be moved by ferry," British defense officials said in October.
On Wednesday, footage circulated online of smoke billowing from the Crimean Bridge after Russian authorities in the area warned of aerial attacks on the peninsula. According to local reports, an air raid alert sounded for roughly two hours and traffic on the bridge was brought to a halt.
Kyiv has vowed that its war with Russia will not end until the Crimea peninsula is returned to Ukrainian control.
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:
Signym, how many Russians did Russia kill because of politics if the number is not 64,000,000? How many Ukrainians did Russia kill because of politics if the number is not 4,000,000?
SIGYN: Seriously dood, who the fuck CARES? That was then. This is now.
You keep harping on historical grievances, like you can make somebody "pay". Not gonna happen. The people responsible for whatever happened in the past are DEAD and you are beating a truly dead horse.
The people in charge now are different. Russia was a monarchy, then a revolutionary government, then a tyranny, then a stultified bureaucracy, then a gangsta capitalist nation, and now... believe it or not... a multiparty democracy with a mixed economy.
So stop grinding on and on, and stop trying to derail the topic with your off-kilter obsessions.
SECOND: Many empires have foundations built on mounds of corpses, as do the last three empires in the land now called "Russia".
The Inevitable Fall of Putin’s New Russian Empire
What history tells us about collapsed empires trying to restore their former possessions.
Russia is not trying to create an "empire", it's trying to secure its border.
So the whole article is a waste of words.
Now, if you want to talk about the dangers of a crumbling empire trying to remain world hegemon, just look at our foreign and military policies, which are equal parts flailing, stupidity and arrogance.
Exemplified by your posts.
-----------
"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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And in real news...
20 Brigade officers and commanders were killed, and an additional 20-30 were injured when they gathered to celebrate their regiment's founding with a celebration not far from the front line.
Quote:
Ukrainian military officers investigated over awards ceremony at which 19 soldiers were killed
Ukraine on Monday launched a criminal investigation into military officers who organized a troop-honoring ceremony that was hit by a Russian missile strike, killing 19 soldiers in one of the deadliest single attacks reported by Ukrainian forces.
The State Bureau of Investigation said it aims to hold military officials accountable for the Rocket Forces and Artillery Day event held Friday near the front line in Zaporizhzhia, where Russian reconnaissance drones could see them
The carnage sparked a wave of criticism among Ukrainians who questioned on social media the planning of an event so close to the battlefield. President Volodymyr Zelensky lamented the deaths of the men of the 128th Separate Mountain-Assault Brigade of Zakarpattia as a “tragedy that could’ve been avoided.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ukrainian-military-officers-inves
tigated-for-holding-awards-ceremony-at-which-19-soldiers-were-killed/ar-AA1jtEmj
There was speculation that the Russian military was tipped off the the gathering by a traitor. Another their is that Russia noticed a concentration of cell phones at the location. This article insinuated it was a drone.
-----------
"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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Quote:If what you say is true, Americans would be fleeing to Russia. But they are not. Instead, it is Russians fleeing Russia.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Russia is not trying to create an "empire", it's trying to secure its border.
So the whole article is a waste of words.
Now, if you want to talk about the dangers of a crumbling empire trying to remain world hegemon, just look at our foreign and military policies, which are equal parts flailing, stupidity and arrogance.
Exemplified by your posts.
5 Million Russian Citizens Left Russia Under Putin
Young, well-educated Russians are seeking a better life abroad.
By Uliana Pavlova, Updated: Oct. 13, 2021
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/10/13/5-million-russian-citizens-l
eft-russia-under-putin-a75246
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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Nah ...
Even as Rome crumbled, not many people fled Rome. As the British Empire dwindled, who fled Britain? Anyone flee France, or Spain, as THEIR empires broke?
As long as you an convince people that theirs is the best, people won't leave, no matter how horrible it is.
BTW, I see youre trying to derail the topic from the fact that Russia is beating NATO in Ukraine.
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"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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I'm struggling these days to even understand the point of Second's existence.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:Trumptards are self-destructive but it is not my problem when they suffer and die in vain. The same goes for Russians killing themselves. It is their problem. Godspeed them to their doom.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm struggling these days to even understand the point of Second's existence.
Ardent nationalist and former Russian officer Igor Girkin argued that Russian forces will be “even less capable of offensive operations than they are now” by spring 2024 given the current nature of Russian offensive operations along the frontline.[1] Girkin’s wife, Miroslava Reginskaya, published a hand-written letter from Girkin dated October 26, in which he summarized the frontline situation in Ukraine for the month of October. Girkin claimed that the situation for Russian forces is “gradually deteriorating” and that Russian forces are showcasing “growing weakness (compared to [Ukraine’s] capabilities,” despite Russia’s “generally successful repulsion” of the Ukrainian offensive over the summer and fall of 2023. Girkin argued that Russian forces were not only unable to start broad offensive operations at the beginning of the fall season but were also unable to complete even limited offensive operations to achieve operationally significant goals – namely around Kupyansk, Lyman, and Avdiivka. Girkin claimed that Russian forces failed to advance in the Kupyansk direction and are now impaled in battles on “the distant approaches to the city,” while also failing to change the situation in the Lyman direction. Girkin added that tactical advances around Avdiivka led to significant losses in Russian manpower and equipment and did not lead to the further development of the Russian offensive. Girkin observed that the Avdiivka offensive demonstrated Russian forces’ inability “to achieve superiority on a very narrow sector of the front” despite Russia’s careful preparations, good coordination of strike forces and means for the initial stage of the offensive, and the abundance of ammunition “unheard of since the assault on Bakhmut.”
Girkin suggested that Russian efforts to repel Ukrainian localized attacks across the frontline and simultaneous fall-winter offensive operations will likely degrade Russian offensive and defensive potential by spring 2024. Girkin noted that Russian forces would need to spend the rest of the fall-winter campaign on the defensive to try to eliminate emerging operational crises – such as the Ukrainian presence in the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast. Girkin argued that Russian forces will continue to be “incapable of any broad offensive actions” even if Ukrainian forces are unable to “knock out” Russian frontline units, fail to achieve a breakthrough over the fall-winter season, and are exhausted. Girkin, however, added that such a “positional scenario” is not guaranteed and that he fears that Ukrainian forces may be successful in breaking Russian forces that have already been exhausted by months of combat. Girkin’s suggestion that ongoing Russian offensive operations are harming the prospects for future Russian operations is notable because Russian forces still must repel Ukrainian offensive operations while attempting to initiate their own offensives. The timing of current Russian offensives around Avdiivka was also somewhat odd and suboptimal because the rainy and muddy weather has predictably hindered Russian operations.[2] ISW continues to assess that fall and winter weather conditions are unlikely to preclude Russian or Ukrainian offensives.[3]
Girkin implied that additional Western military aid to Ukraine and the lack of mobilization in Russia could allow Ukraine to end positional warfare and conduct successful offensive operations in 2024. Girkin stated that Ukrainian forces are continuing to use Western-provided materiel to target the Russian rear and even destroy the Berdyansk airfield in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast against the backdrop of Russian offensives in Avdiivka. Girkin implied that Ukrainian forces would continue to devastate the Russian rear over the
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Quote:The essay contrasted the smart move of the British (leave your colonies with minimal bloodshed) and the dumb move (Tsar Nicholas II fell and then the Bolsheviks killed millions in Ukraine to gather up the fallen pieces of Tsar Nicholas' Empire). Signym, you are stupider than you can understand about the history of Empires, including the three different Empires on the land called "Russia". Putin's Empire is killing hundreds of thousands, eventually maybe millions, trying to gather up the fallen pieces of the Soviet Union's Empire.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Nah ...
Even as Rome crumbled, not many people fled Rome. As the British Empire dwindled, who fled Britain? Anyone flee France, or Spain, as THEIR empires broke?
As long as you an convince people that theirs is the best, people won't leave, no matter how horrible it is.
BTW, I see youre trying to derail the topic from the fact that Russia is beating NATO in Ukraine.
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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If Putin really desired land, he would have gone 'all in' on obliterating Ukrainians. As it is, he's being very sparing of civilians. Unlike Israel.
You have many fixations, and they're leeping you from seeing the truth.
I think you're a lost cause. Not even reality will wake you up.
-----------
"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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https://sonar21.com/meanwhile-back-in-ukraine-desperation-sets-in/
Some pretty disturbing images coming out of Ukraine. A video appeared on Telegram today (Sunday) that shows two English speakers (they sound American) coming out of a bunker and trying to persuade two retreating Ukrainian soldiers to return to their lines. The Ukrainians execute the English speaking soldiers.
you need Rumble to watch it
-----------
"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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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trumptards are self-destructive but it is not my problem when they suffer and die in vain. The same goes for Russians killing themselves. It is their problem. Godspeed them to their doom.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm struggling these days to even understand the point of Second's existence.
You say that, but boy do you talk about it a lot for a guy who says it isn't his problem.
One might even call it an obsession.

Get some help.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:Obliterating Ukrainians? How, short of nuking Ukraine? But Putin did blow up the Kakhovka Dam, which is as close to obliteration as Russia can achieve, short of blowing up a nuclear power plant in Ukraine:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If Putin really desired land, he would have gone 'all in' on obliterating Ukrainians. As it is, he's being very sparing of civilians. Unlike Israel.
You have many fixations, and they're leeping you from seeing the truth.
I think you're a lost cause. Not even reality will wake you up.
A disaster in photos: Nova Kakhovka dam breach in Ukraine
https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/news-stories/st
ories/disaster-photos-nova-kakhovka-dam-breach-ukraine_en
Signym, you said Ukraine blew up its own dam, but that is a patented falsehood:
Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam Responsibility
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Kakhovka_Dam#Responsi
bility
Signym, I almost forgot that Russia murdered civilians by the thousands, torturing some to death, but you also said that wasn't Russia. Instead, it was the Ukrainians torturing and killing Ukrainians according to you. That is so false of you, Signym, but what's new about that?
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 Formally Quits Post-Cold War Arms Treaty With Europe
Russia has formally withdrawn from a key conventional arms control treaty with Europe decades after suspending cooperation over NATO expansion, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) placed limits on the number of conventional weapons that could be deployed by NATO and Warsaw Pact countries west of the Ural Mountains.
The collapse of the Soviet Union changed strategic balances, leading to Russia’s ratification of a revised CFE in 1999.
In 2007, Russia imposed a moratorium on participating in the CFE and halted participation in its consulting group in 2015, blaming NATO countries for failing to ratify the updated treaty.
The United States and other NATO members called on Russia to first withdraw forces from separatist territories in Georgia and Moldova before signing the updated CFE.
“At 00:00 on Nov. 7, 2023, the procedure established by the CFE for Russia’s withdrawal from the treaty was completed,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“Thus, the international legal document... has finally become history for Russia.,” it said in a statement.
In May, President Vladimir Putin signed a law formally exiting CFE, with the Kremlin saying at the time that the Russian leader's signature was a formality because the treaty was “already dead.”
The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that “even the formal preservation of CFE has become unacceptable from the standpoint of Russia’s fundamental security interests.”
It noted that Moscow’s move stemmed from NATO bearing “direct responsibility” in fomenting the invasion of Ukraine, as well as the U.S.-led military alliance accepting Finland's membership and considering Sweden’s application.
NATO has placed the blame on Russia for failing to comply with CFE obligations and said Moscow’s exit would undermine Euro-Atlantic security.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/07/russia-formally-quits-post-c
old-war-arms-treaty-with-europe-a83017
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:Have you stopped smoking, 6ix? Rush Limbaugh died of smoking, but he said in the end that it wasn't his fault he got lung cancer. Trump agreed and gave Rush the Medal of Freedom. When Trumptards die young, it is never their fault. Just ask a dying Trumptard and they will tell you it was the Democrats' fault. Those warning labels about cigarettes are part of a plot by Democrats to take away the freedom to kill yourself, or as Trumptards formulate it: The Right to Live As You Please Without Government Interference. Even the high taxes on cigarettes is a plot by Democrats.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trumptards are self-destructive but it is not my problem when they suffer and die in vain. The same goes for Russians killing themselves. It is their problem. Godspeed them to their doom.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm struggling these days to even understand the point of Second's existence.
You say that, but boy do you talk about it a lot for a guy who says it isn't his problem.
One might even call it an obsession.
Get some help.
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:Have you stopped smoking, 6ix? Rush Limbaugh died of smoking, but he said in the end that it wasn't his fault he got lung cancer. Trump agreed and gave Rush the Medal of Freedom. When Trumptards die young, it is never their fault. Just ask a dying Trumptard and they will tell you it was the Democrats' fault. Those warning labels about cigarettes are part of a plot by Democrats to take away the freedom to kill yourself, or as Trumptards formulate it: The Right to Live As You Please Without Government Interference. Even the high taxes on cigarettes is a plot by Democrats.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trumptards are self-destructive but it is not my problem when they suffer and die in vain. The same goes for Russians killing themselves. It is their problem. Godspeed them to their doom.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm struggling these days to even understand the point of Second's existence.
You say that, but boy do you talk about it a lot for a guy who says it isn't his problem.
One might even call it an obsession.
Get some help.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...
There's more of that worrying about shit that doesn't matter to you again.

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...
There's more of that worrying about shit that doesn't matter to you again.![]()
You smoke. Not a surprise.Medicare can't be expanded to people younger than 65 because the Trumptards overuse the healthcare system. How? Well, since Trumptards believe what they do is nobody's business but their own, the Trumptards are gluttons, smokers, drunks, drug addicts, rotten teeth, etc. Name a bad lifestyle and Trumptards will make doing it their Flag of Freedom. And the result is a tragedy for everybody who is not a Trumptard and can't get the low-priced healthcare that those 65 and older get.
Since Trumptards hang out mostly with other Trumptards, they see tragedy as "normal" and the fault of Democrats, who wisely avoid contact with those assholes. I'm an exception since I work with them all the time, but these asshole Trumptards are grossly increasing my costs for providing health insurance.
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:Medicare can't be expanded to people younger than 65 because the Trumptards overuse the healthcare system. How? Well, since Trumptards believe what they do is nobody's business but their own, the Trumptards are gluttons, smokers, drunks, drug addicts, rotten teeth, etc. Name a bad lifestyle and Trumptards will make doing it their Flag of Freedom. And the result is a tragedy for everybody who is not a Trumptard and can't get the low-priced healthcare that those 65 and older get.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...
There's more of that worrying about shit that doesn't matter to you again.![]()
This is stupid talk from a stupid person.
Nobody in the world believes that Democrat voters aren't equally to blame for having self-destructive habits. Even Ted doesn't believe that.
Quote:
Since Trumptards hang out mostly with other Trumptards, they see tragedy as "normal" and the fault of Democrats, who wisely avoid contact with those assholes. I'm an exception since I work with them all the time, but these asshole Trumptards are grossly increasing my costs for providing health insurance.
Yeah. Uh huh.
Remember this? You posted it just a few hours ago:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trumptards are self-destructive but it is not my problem when they suffer and die in vain. The same goes for Russians killing themselves. It is their problem. Godspeed them to their doom.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm struggling these days to even understand the point of Second's existence.
Oh. So it IS your problem then. I see.
That wasn't hard. You are so easy to manipulate.
That's a character trait of stupid people.

Maybe if you actually did work at your fake company that you don't own, it wouldn't be failing financially. You spend far too much time posting on FFF.net to an audience of one when you should be figuring out why your business is going bankrupt.
Might I suggest just firing all the Trumptards? You've said in the past you fire people based off their political beliefs all the time. I don't understand what the problem is. Why are there even still any Trumptards working at your fake company in 2023?
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:This is why creatures like you or the Russians are trouble for people. Your kind is just so thickheaded and slow. Talking to you is worthless. Instead, you have to be trained like a Dog and Pony show in a Circus. Methods used on dogs are what works with non-humans such as Trumptards and Russians. It is pretty hard to train a dog or Trumptard to be financially responsible, for example, which is why most Trumptards have money problems and most dogs have no money at all.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Oh. So it IS your problem then. I see.
That wasn't hard. You are so easy to manipulate.
That's a character trait of stupid people.
Top 10 Effective Dog Training Methods: A Complete Guide on Dog Training
https://theanimalcare.org/dog-training-methods/
Method 8, Negative Reinforcement, is being used on Russians to train them to stay off the Ukrainians' lawns and, instead, poop back in Russia where their owner, Vladimir Putin, can pick up their dog do-do.
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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I'm done embarrassing you this morning.
I have shit to do and naps to take.
Have fun jerking your war boner today, bitch.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If Putin really desired land, he would have gone 'all in' on obliterating Ukrainians. As it is, he's being very sparing of civilians. Unlike Israel.
You have many fixations, and they're leeping you from seeing the truth.
I think you're a lost cause. Not even reality will wake you up.
SECOND: Obliterating Ukrainians? How, short of nuking Ukraine?
Jeez, you're stupid! How about carpet-bombing Kiev, Karkhiv, Odessa, and Lvov? Russia can do it. You know they can, but they haven't .
Quote:
But Putin did blow up the Kakhovka Dam,
Stupid again!
The Dneiper is -or was- part of Russia's defenses against attack from the west in Kherson. With the river at low levels Ukrainian troops can cross the river more easily, which is what they're doing now.
-----------
"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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BTW, I know you toss Trump! and TRUMPTARDS! and Stalin! as distractions from the ever-preent reality that Ukraine is getting it's ass handed to it.
So, back to real news...
-----------
"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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Quote:Do you think the world is deterministic? That Russia's win is predetermined? Given a few more months/years, it is all over for Ukraine? I think it is not. That doesn't mean that Putin could have done differently than he did. Perhaps he doesn't have free will.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
BTW, I know you toss Trump! and TRUMPTARDS! and Stalin! as distractions from the ever-preent reality that Ukraine is getting it's ass handed to it.
So, back to real news...
From a review of the book Determined: Life Without Free Will by Robert Sapolsky
If our actions are “determined” in this way, the moral implications are dizzying. It becomes hard to see how to blame a Harold Shipman or Charles Manson – or a Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump – for anything they do.
Perhaps because denying free will feels so counterintuitive – while talk of inner ghosts is plainly unscientific – a majority of philosophers are “compatibilists”. They believe our actions are in fact determined, but that we nonetheless have free will. In a free-will sceptic such as me, this is apt to prompt murmurings about having one’s cake and eating it.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/24/determined-life-without-
free-will-by-robert-sapolsky-review-the-hard-science-of-decisions
It just so happens that you can read that Robert Sapolsky book for free by downloading from https://libgen.is//search.php?&req=Robert+Sapolsky&phrase=1&am
p;view=simple&column=def&sort=year&sortmode=DESC
". . . when you behave in a particular way, which is to say when your brain has generated a particular behavior, it is because of the determinism that came just before, which was caused by the determinism just before that, and before that, all the way down. The approach of this book is to show how that determinism works, to explore how the biology over which you had no control, interacting with environment over which you had no control, made you you. And when people claim that there are causeless causes of your behavior that they call “free will,” they have (a) failed to recognize or not learned about the determinism lurking beneath the surface and/or (b) erroneously concluded that the rarefied aspects of the universe that do work indeterministically can explain your character, morals, and behavior."
Well, well, well. That gives me an unpleasant picture of just how inflexible, or maybe preprogrammed people are. They are not free. 6ix has got to smoke. Putin has got to lie and kill. Trump has to be a crook. They have no choice.
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:No. And no. Russia controlled that dam when it broke. There were no Ukrainians to move tons of explosives into the concrete-lined passages inside the dam. And Russia cannot fly a bomber over Ukrainian cities because the bombers will be shot down. Ukrainian air defenses can hit subsonic planes even more easily than hitting supersonic missiles.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If Putin really desired land, he would have gone 'all in' on obliterating Ukrainians. As it is, he's being very sparing of civilians. Unlike Israel.
You have many fixations, and they're leeping you from seeing the truth.
I think you're a lost cause. Not even reality will wake you up.
SECOND: Obliterating Ukrainians? How, short of nuking Ukraine?
Jeez, you're stupid! How about carpet-bombing Kiev, Karkhiv, Odessa, and Lvov? Russia can do it. You know they can, but they haven't .Quote:
But Putin did blow up the Kakhovka Dam,
Stupid again!
The Dneiper is -or was- part of Russia's defenses against attack from the west in Kherson. With the river at low levels Ukrainian troops can cross the river more easily, which is what they're doing now.
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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So, since Russia controlled the dam, WHY would they blow it up?? It's the same argument as Nordstream: if they wanted to release water all they would need to do is open the gates!
SECOND, you overlook the most basic things!
And Russia doesn't have to bomb distant cities, they have lots and lots of missiles of all kinds.
Unlike you I've been following the day-to-day with geolocated videos. So far, Russian strikes have been strictly at military or logistic targets
When you know what's going on let me know. Until then? STFU.
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"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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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack (October 10th):
Not a lot of news about Russia or Ukraine today, huh?
Poor Zelensky. I hope he stocked up his bunker and has his go bag ready. That dude is a dead man walking now.
I'm pretty sure that October 10th was the first time I made that prediction. I made it at least that far back, anyhow.
Putin is About to Kill Zelensky as Money Laundering Scam Comes to End
Look at Child Rapist Zelensky begging the US for cash.
He's even asking Donald Trump for money now.
Come on, man! Give the brother some money. He even promises that he'll pay it back after the war is over.

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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A prominent pro-war Russian milblogger who is typically optimistic about Russian capabilities expressed a relatively pessimistic assessment of the war and emphasized the need for the Kremlin to fully mobilize the Russian economy and defense industrial base (DIB) to a wartime footing to win. The milblogger claimed on November 7 that Ukraine is committed to an “exhausting war” against Russia and that Russia needs “enormous combat potential” and an “accurate calculation” of its capabilities to beat Ukraine.[11] Another Russian milblogger expressed surprise that a milblogger who was previously so positive in his assessments of the Russian offensive campaign in Ukraine would openly admit to the need for a wider mobilization of the Russian economy in the face of a long war.[12] The Kremlin has largely appeared unwilling to conduct wider economic mobilization, and the milblogger's call to change this line is noteworthy.[13] Yet another Russian milblogger claimed that Russia is “paying terribly” for the Kremlin’s unwillingness to commit to the war fully.[14] The milbloggers’ suggestion to further mobilize the Russian economy appears to be part of recent discussions in the Russian information space about operational changes that could help Russian forces overcome challenges in Ukraine, likely in response to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s recent essay on the subject of “positional warfare.”[15] Zaluzhnyi’s essay appears to have prompted even the most positive Russian milbloggers to make more straight and honest assessments of the Russian war effort.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-7-2023
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:
A prominent pro-war Russian milblogger who is typically optimistic about Russian capabilities expressed a relatively pessimistic assessment of the war and emphasized the need for the Kremlin to fully mobilize the Russian economy and defense industrial base (DIB) to a wartime footing to win. The milblogger claimed on November 7 that Ukraine is committed to an “exhausting war” against Russia and that Russia needs “enormous combat potential” and an “accurate calculation” of its capabilities to beat Ukraine.
Zaluzhny may be committed to a positional war, but he's limited by munitions and, more importantly, manpower. He's as delusional as Zelensky, just in a different way. The west using Ukraine as a proxy protects the west from large manpower losses, but it also limits the west to Ukraine's transportation, anti-air, air, and (especially) manpower resources. As a chemist, like chemical reactions, I think of war as having a "rate limiting step" or potentially several rate limiting steps. There are many things you need to successfully wage war. And war can only be waged at the rate that you can apply resources to the front. If you can't replace X, Y, and Z faster than you're losing them, or you can't move them to where you need them, then ultimately you'll lose the war.
A blogger, Andrei Martyanov, who has attended Soviet war college, explains that at upper military levels the Soviets, and now Russians, can model war as a series of differential equations. I don't know what the terms would be in those equations, but I can "get" how that would work.
-----------
"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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Military Summary Channel today:
Russian successfully issues a deepfake video of Zaluzhny saying that Zelenskiy has started a genocide of the Ukrainian people, soldiers should pick up their guns and head to Kiev. There's more, you'll just have to watch the video yourself. It's really convincing.


Also, Kiev ordered a war crime to be committed. Ukraine military shelled Dontesk city civilians with cluster munitions. AGAIN.
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"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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Quote:There is an abundance of chemicals that can fall into Ukraine and cause every Russian to burst into flames and burn to ashes. Every European country can fight on Ukraine's side. Russia's threats to go nuclear? It made that too many times. Russia's threat to invade countries coming to help Ukraine? Russia can't even handle Ukraine. But fortunately for Russia, most Europeans are cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Russians can model war as a series of differential equations. I don't know what the terms would be in those equations, but I can "get" how that would work with frightened monkeys.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Zaluzhny may be committed to a positional war, but he's limited by munitions and, more importantly, manpower. He's as delusional as Zelensky, just in a different way. The west using Ukraine as a proxy protects the west from large manpower losses, but it also limits the west to Ukraine's transportation, anti-air, air, and (especially) manpower resources. As a chemist, like chemical reactions, I think of war as having a "rate limiting step" or potentially several rate limiting steps. There are many things you need to successfully wage war. And war can only be waged at the rate that you can apply resources to the front. If you can't replace X, Y, and Z faster than you're losing them, or you can't move them to where you need them, then ultimately you'll lose the war.
A blogger, Andrei Martyanov, who has attended Soviet war college, explains that at upper military levels the Soviets, and now Russians, can model war as a series of differential equations. I don't know what the terms would be in those equations, but I can "get" how that would work.
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:There is an abundance of chemicals that can fall into Ukraine and cause every Russian to burst into flames and burn to ashes. Every European country can fight on Ukraine's side. Russia's threats to go nuclear? It made that too many times. Russia's threat to invade countries coming to help Ukraine? Russia can't even handle Ukraine. But fortunately for Russia, most Europeans are cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Russians can model war as a series of differential equations. I don't know what the terms would be in those equations, but I can "get" how that would work with frightened monkeys.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Zaluzhny may be committed to a positional war, but he's limited by munitions and, more importantly, manpower. He's as delusional as Zelensky, just in a different way. The west using Ukraine as a proxy protects the west from large manpower losses, but it also limits the west to Ukraine's transportation, anti-air, air, and (especially) manpower resources. As a chemist, like chemical reactions, I think of war as having a "rate limiting step" or potentially several rate limiting steps. There are many things you need to successfully wage war. And war can only be waged at the rate that you can apply resources to the front. If you can't replace X, Y, and Z faster than you're losing them, or you can't move them to where you need them, then ultimately you'll lose the war.
A blogger, Andrei Martyanov, who has attended Soviet war college, explains that at upper military levels the Soviets, and now Russians, can model war as a series of differential equations. I don't know what the terms would be in those equations, but I can "get" how that would work.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Every European nation COULD, but they haven't yet and, most likely, won't. European nations have given Kiev as many weapons as they can spare, and sometimes more.
They shot themselves economically in the foot by cutting themselves off from cheap Russian energy and the USA blowing up Nordstream kind of blew up Germany s economy.
So popular feeling is drifting against further involvement in Ukraine. How far the governments will go is anyone's guess, but I expect we'll see a few electoral "regime changes" over the next 6-9 months, and by then the war will be over.
*****
Quote:
;Marching Toward a Night of the Long Knives in Ukraine
In fact in an article from only a couple months ago, Politico seemed to be laying the groundwork of who would take control if Zelensky’s presidential tenure happened to suffer an ‘unscheduled rapid disassembly’:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/marching-toward-a-night-of-the-lon
g
-----------
"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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Quote:Editorializing about the feckless Europeans, or as I call them, cheese-eating surrender monkeys:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Every European nation COULD, but they haven't yet and, most likely, won't. European nations have given Kiev as many weapons as they can spare, and sometimes more.
They shot themselves economically in the foot by cutting themselves off from cheap Russian energy and the USA blowing up Nordstream kind of blew up Germany s economy.
So popular feeling is drifting against further involvement in Ukraine. How far the governments will go is anyone's guess, but I expect we'll see a few electoral "regime changes" over the next 6-9 months, and by then the war will be over.
Opinion: Who a ‘stalemate’ in Ukraine really benefits
By Jade McGlynn | 6:20 AM EST, Wed November 8, 2023
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/08/opinions/ukraine-russia-stalemate-nato-
mcglynn/index.html
Editor’s Note: Jade McGlynn is a non-resident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of two books, “Russia’s War” and ”Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia.”
Responses to the recent statements by the commander in chief of the Ukrainian military, Valery Zaluzhny, warning of a stalemate war between Ukraine and Russia, have been varied and revealing.
In last week’s lengthy interview with The Economist, Gen. Zaluzhny set out — and proposed solutions for — problems that anyone who has spent time on the front, or with soldiers and instructors recently returned from frontlines, already knew.
His interview is not a revelation or admission. It is an intervention on behalf of Ukraine, a call for honesty.
Not everyone welcomed Zaluzhny’s call, let alone heeded it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied the war had reached a stalemate, while his chief diplomatic adviser, Igor Zhovka, even questioned the wisdom of participating in the interview at all.
Some Western military analysts, confusing a pro-Ukrainian stance with wishful thinking, rebutted the general’s conclusions. On the other side, skeptics of Western support for Ukraine gloatingly cited the interview as evidence that Ukraine should have capitulated at some imagined earlier opportunity.
Speaking of active imaginations, it has been widely rumored that a number of Ukraine’s Western partners have been trying to force Ukraine towards a ceasefire. If so, they have failed to understand Zaluzhny’s argument — not for lack of intelligence but for lack of willingness to accept the context and motivations accompanying this intervention.
The Russian and Ukrainian word for ‘stalemate’
Dmitry Peskov, Russian presidential spokesman, is on hand to help reacquaint Western leaders with reality. In response to the essay, Peskov claimed it was “wrong to say the war was moving in the direction of stalemate” and insisted Russia would achieve all of its stated war aims.
Peskov’s remarks serve as a timely reminder that Ukraine is not the intransigent party here. It is not Ukraine that is desperate to continue war despite plentiful options to stop the bloodshed — it is Russia.
In Russian, and some variants of Ukrainian, the word for a stalemate is rendered as ‘tupik.’ The word carries connotations of blindness and stupidity. In all senses, Russia is certainly not in a tupik. The Kremlin can see a clear way forward, grinding down Ukraine while it waits for Western resilience and supplies to dry up.
The West, on the other hand, certainly is in a tupik. There is little to gain from pointing fingers about the delayed supplies and what difference they might have made in autumn 2022 or even early spring 2023, even if the thousands of Ukrainians who consequently died deserve at least this.
There is however plenty to gain from examining the attitudes that informed this reluctance and will continue to hamper Ukraine’s self-defence unless radically re-examined.
Perhaps the most glaring deficiency is stale western thinking. It is as if the West refuses to have a s
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Meanwhile, Zelenskiy extends martial law for another three months. If he extends it for another three months after that, he will have delayed Presidential elections beyond its scheduled date.
-----------
"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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Quote:Wrong person to "blame" or whatever it is you are doing, Signym. It is the members of the Verkhovna Rada who have voted for the ninth time to extend martial law and general mobilization in Ukraine for another 90 days.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Meanwhile, Zelenskiy extends martial law for another three months. If he extends it for another three months after that, he will have delayed Presidential elections beyond its scheduled date.
https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukrainian-parliament-extends-martial-law-
mobilization-until-february-2024-as-war-continues-50366744.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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A Russian milblogger claimed that the Russian General Staff uses battlefield maps that differ from tactical reality in response to another milblogger who questioned why Russian forces were not striking alleged large Ukrainian force concentrations close to the frontline.[6]
The Russian milblogger claimed that Russian personnel on the front have access to the “real” map and that Russian commanders order Russian forces to conduct routine assaults to make gains that align the “real” map with the Russian General Staff’s map.[7]
A separate milblogger claimed that there had been previous individual cases of Russian battalion and regiment-level assault operations aimed at achieving compliance with inaccurate maps of the frontline but that this is the first time that he has heard of a wider operational imperative to make advances that comply with a reported General Staff map.[8]
A milblogger claimed that Russian commanders are incentivized to make the tactical gains depicted in the General Staff’s maps because the General Staff increasingly requires positive reports from frontline commanders.[9]
Russian milbloggers have routinely criticized Russian commanders throughout the chain of command for delivering false and overly positive reports to their superiors and have identified the Russian General Staff as fostering this widespread institutional dishonesty.[10]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-8-2023
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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I think these Russian milbloggers - assuming that they're actually Russian - don't take their MoD stated goals seriously. They make the same mistake that Dima (Military Summary Channel) makes: they interpret everything in terms of territory taken or lost.
There`s a reason why the MoD recounts a list of Ukrainian losses every day on every active part of the front, and NOT meters gained or lost: they're trying to reduce the Ukrainian military, NOT take territory. Once the Kiev army collapses, the Russian army can roll thru as much of Ukraine as they want, almost without opposition.
At the moment Russians are pushing on most of the front because the Ukrainian army has gone mostly on defense. It's almost like a cat pawing a mouse to make it run some more. Ugly and brutal, but nobody ever said war was was fun, especially when your side is doing most of the dying.
-----------
"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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Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual live "Direct Line" forum and annual press conference will occur in tandem on an unspecified date by the end of the year, potentially to set conditions to cancel the events as the Kremlin sees fit.[23] The Kremlin canceled Putin's annual press conference in December 2022, which ISW assessed was likely in order to preempt the informational risks of Putin addressing difficult questions about the war and international situation live.[24] Similarly, in early June of 2023, Putin postponed the "Direct Line" until November or December 2023.[25] The vagueness with which Peskov announced the two live events suggests that the Kremlin may desire to have the flexibility to cancel them if they deem the informational risks of holding them to be too great. The Kremlin may hope for a wider operational victory in Ukraine to frame both the "Direct Line" and the press conference in a positive light and is likely trying to leave itself room to mitigate if Russian forces cannot secure meaningful battlefield success in Ukraine in the coming month.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-9-2023
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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Ukraine’s Getting Nearly 200 Leopard 1A5 Tanks. Now It Needs New Tank Tactics.
By David Axe | Nov 9, 2023, 10:16pm EST
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/11/09/ukraines-getting-near
ly-200-leopard-1a5-tanks-now-it-needs-new-tank-tactics/?sh=3f4e9a74dbe5
The Leopard 1s just keep coming.
In the nine months since a German-Danish-Dutch consortium announced it would donate to Ukraine’s war effort an initial batch of 100 German-made Leopard 1A5 tanks, the consortium—as well as Denmark acting alone — have added 95 Leopard 1s to the total.
The most recent pledge, by Germany last week, includes an extra 25 tanks. The first 20 or so Leopard 1A5s already have arrived in Ukraine, where they apparently equip a company within the new 44th Mechanized Brigade.
Ukraine now is set to receive no fewer than 195 of the lightweight, 1980s-vintage Leopard 1A5s. They by far will be Ukraine’s most numerous Western-style tanks, and will be outnumbered in the Ukrainian inventory only by Ukraine’s homemade T-64s and by various T-72 models that Ukraine either inherited from the Soviet Union in 1991 or recently has acquired from its European allies.
All those Leopard 1A5s represent an opportunity, albeit a risky one. Five months into its widely-anticipated counteroffensive, Ukraine has lost at least 13 of its best Leopard 2 tanks out of just 85 of the heavy tanks its allies have pledged, and 71 that they’ve delivered.
Something must replace those tanks. There are no indications any of NATO’s allies are willing to part with any more of their Leopard 2s; nor are there are any signs the United Kingdom will add to the 14 Challenger 2 tanks it has donated to Ukraine — one of which the Ukrainians already have lost.
Yes, the United States easily could double, triple or multiply by 10 the 31 M-1 tanks it has pledged, but Republicans in the U.S. Congress — increasingly apologists for the regime of Russian president Vladimir Putin — could slow or even block additional U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
Unless and until Ukraine can resume construction of its own tanks — an unlikely prospect given the massive investment that would be necessary — German Leopard 1s, Czech T-72s and various Soviet-style tanks from Poland are the only tanks Ukraine can count on receiving in large numbers.
Which means Kyiv must figure out how best to use these tanks: mitigating their weaknesses and leveraging their strengths. For the nearly 200 Leopard 1A5s, enough for three battalions, that means deploying the tanks where they can move quickly, stay behind cover and shoot at range.
“The advantage of the Leopard over, for example, the T-64 is in accuracy, range and speed,” a Ukrainian tank gunner named Oleksiy told ArmyInform.
It’s true: the 40-ton, four-person Leopard 1A5 is a fast and accurate shooter. It’s not for no reason that one Danish tank instructor advised his Ukrainian trainees to fight while on the move. The Leopard 1 “is made for driving and shooting,” the instructor said.
German tank-maker Krauss-Maffei Wegmann gave the Leopard 1A5 what was, at the time, one of the world’s leading tank guns: the rifled 105-millimeter L7 from Royal Ordnance in the United Kingdom. Forty years later, the L7 still is an effective weapon, if a bit less powerful than the latest 120-millimeter guns are.
But it’s not the gun itself that makes the Leopard 1A5 such an excellent shooter. It’s the tank’s whole integrated combat system, which includes the gun and its stabilizers, the gunner’s optics and the tank’s computerized fire-control system.
On ex-German and ex-Danish Leopard 1A5s, the FCS is the EMES-18, which also equips the much heavier Leopard 2. Ex-Belgian Leopard 1A5s, which account for 30 of Ukraine’s pledged Leopard 1s, have unique SABCA fire-controls.
The EMES-18 after all these years still is one of the best tank fire-controls. It combines a laser rangefinder with a ballistic computer. To aim the gun while stationary, the gunner — peering through his optics — uses a joystick to lay his crosshairs on the target, fires the laser
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Putin’s New Story About the War in Ukraine
How Russian Propaganda Went From “Denazification” to Fighting the West
By Mikhail Zygar | November 10, 2023
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/putins-new-story-about-war-ukra
ine
Since invading Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has changed the story it tells itself about the war. In the beginning, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained to the Russian public and the world that he considered an invasion of Ukraine justified because there was a need to “denazify” the country. Putin claimed that a Nazi junta had seized power in Kyiv and was terrorizing the people, especially those who spoke Russian. To rescue Ukraine, Putin argued, Russian troops had once again been dispatched to save the world from Nazis.
But today you don’t hear much talk about Nazis. After the Russian military suffered a series of defeats at the outset of the war, the Kremlin quickly adjusted its propaganda. It was no longer helpful to assert that Moscow was fighting Ukrainian Nazis after the Russian military failed to take Kyiv. Being defeated by Ukrainians was too humiliating for Putin’s propagandists. Therefore, Russia changed the enemy it was fighting: the Kremlin began to say that Russia was at war with NATO and even the United States. In this telling, the war in Ukraine was a proxy war, and the Ukrainians were in the hands of “overseas puppet masters.” For Russians, this was a familiar story, reawakening the Cold War mindset of us versus them.
As the message has changed, so has the audience. Putin is no longer speaking only to his people, trying to justify an ill-conceived war. Today, he is competing with the West for allies across the developing world, where his allegations of Western hypocrisy are resonating. And in recent weeks, Putin has found new material to exploit: the United States’ unconditional support for Israel in its war in the Gaza Strip.
DENAZIFICATION
When Putin announced his goal of denazifying Ukraine, it was not the first time he and his propagandists had described Ukrainian nationalists as fascists. In 2014, when a popular uprising forced Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from office, Putin and his supporters on Russian television claimed that there had been an armed coup in Kyiv, launched by radical nationalists. It was a laughable falsehood: if an anti-constitutional junta had seized power, why did the new government in Ukraine hold democratic elections in 2019, and how could the incumbent, President Petro Poroshenko, lose if he was an autocratic leader? And if the government in Kyiv was made up of Nazis, why did it have a president who was Jewish, Volodymyr Zelensky? But Putin doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.
In 2022, in the early months of the war, denouncing the Ukrainian “Nazis” was mandatory for Russian officials and news anchors. Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most odious Russian propagandists, established a tradition: every day in his Telegram channel, he would add “Denazification is inevitable!” as the final sentence for the Russian army’s daily report about the casualties on the frontlines.
But it soon became clear that the Russian public wasn’t buying this message. On June 16, 2022, at a pro-war rally organized by the authorities of Dalnegorsk, a small provincial town in the far east, the mayor, Alexandr Terebilov, tried to quote Putin, but stumbled three times on the Russian word for “denazification,” at one point unintentionally calling for the “denazification of Russia.” As the crowd broke into laughter, he corrected himself, but it was too late: the video went viral online. The furious mayor tried to punish the journalist who uploaded the video by sending him to the army, but the journalist left the city before he could be caught.
After this scandal, the Kremlin conducted a special study that revealed that the majority of Russians neither understood the term “denazification” nor believed that it applied to Ukraine. The study revealed that post-Soviet society is very pragmatic, if not cynical. The Russian public does
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So it doesn't get lost in SECOND'S blizzard of shit.
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I think these Russian milbloggers - assuming that they're actually Russian - don't take their MoD stated goals seriously. They make the same mistake that Dima (Military Summary Channel) makes: they interpret everything in terms of territory taken or lost.
There`s a reason why the MoD recounts a list of Ukrainian losses every day on every active part of the front, and NOT meters gained or lost: they're trying to reduce the Ukrainian military, NOT take territory. Once the Kiev army collapses, the Russian army can roll thru as much of Ukraine as they want, almost without opposition.
At the moment Russians are pushing on most of the front because the Ukrainian army has gone mostly on defense. It's almost like a cat pawing a mouse to make it run some more. Ugly and brutal, but nobody ever said war was was fun, especially when your side is doing most of the dying.
-----------
"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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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin’s New Story About the War in Ukraine
How Russian Propaganda Went From “Denazification” to Fighting the West
By Mikhail Zygar | November 10,
Yanno, if I'm trying to convince you that blue is brown, or that something isn't happeing when it is, and you're an "educated" crowd, i may have to spend pages and pages torturing logic to convince you.
But I don't have to spend pages and pages on tortured logic about this. If this war was just a case of Russia v Ukraine that would be one story. But since the west has gone "all in" - until now, when we ran out of weapons and money- it's obvious to everyone except the most dunderheaded that it's now The Collective West v Russia. The story has chnaged bc the facts on the ground have changed. "WE" that is, the collective west, have moved closer and closer to a state of open warfare with Russia.
Capisce?



-----------
"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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Quote:Signym, it is pretty obvious that neither you nor the EU nor the USA knows much about winning a war. When was the last time any of them won? You don't win by gradually increasing the pressure on your enemy. You win by hitting your enemy as hard as you can at their weakest spot with no warning. Politicians like the idea of being a good sport as if war is a contest at the Olympics. If you decide to conserve your strength by slowly increasing force until you win in a sportsmanlike fashion, you are gonna be in deep trouble unless you can keep increasing force for decades. See just about every war that lasted more than 2 years at how elected politicians screw up wars. They never want to hit anything really hard because that might offend the voters by educating them at how brutal war is.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Putin’s New Story About the War in Ukraine
How Russian Propaganda Went From “Denazification” to Fighting the West
By Mikhail Zygar | November 10,
Yanno, if I'm trying to convince you that blue is brown, or that something isn't happeing when it is, and you're an "educated" crowd, i may have to spend pages and pages torturing logic to convince you.
But I don't have to spend pages and pages on tortured logic about this. If this war was just a case of Russia v Ukraine that would be one story. But since the west has gone "all in" - until now, when we ran out of weapons and money- it's obvious to everyone except the most dunderheaded that it's now The Collective West v Russia. The story has chnaged bc the facts on the ground have changed. "WE" that is, the collective west, have moved closer and closer to a state of open warfare with Russia.
Capisce?
Sergej Sumlenny @sumlenny tweeted
Nico is right. This war can be swiftly won by Ukraine if we finally started to deliver enough weapons, not hoarding them. If we supported Ukraine with 10% of what we’ve sent to the USSR during WW2 to defeat Hitler (10,000s planes, tanks etc), Putin would have been in jail by now.
https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1610192222095396865
Stalemate in Ukraine Is the Hesitant West’s Fault
By Boris Bondarev, Russian diplomat who resigned in protest at the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/09/stalemate-in-ukraine-is-the-
hesitant-wests-fault-a83049
The commander of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, admitted in a recent interview with The Economist that expectations of a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive were, to put it mildly, overly optimistic. The Ukrainians have run into a powerful line of Russian defense, and the war has finally turned into one of attrition. Ukraine urgently needs new solutions, a new strategy and a ready supply of high-tech weaponry to advance its position.
This sad situation has not come as a surprise to anyone following the course of the war. The Ukrainian army learned a lot and achieved impressive victories in 2022. Since then, they have been unable to repeat those successes. To a large extent, the problem lies in the chronic under-equipping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which stems from the indecisiveness, and often cowardice, of Kyiv's Western partners to supply the desperately needed arms and equipment.
As has been said many times — and what Western leaders themselves recognize — President Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine is not a local conflict rooted in territorial disputes between two neighboring states. It is an attack on the very foundations of the existing world order, and an aggressive attempt to rewrite the rules that underpin it.
Putin's ideal world is one of “war of all against all,” where might makes right and powerful nations form spheres of influence, ensconcing themselves within an entourage of satellite states. This forms the basis of multipolarity, a concept that Russian diplomacy has peddled for decades. In this effort, Moscow finds support among allies like China, Iran and N
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Quote:How many times has Russia threatened to nuke the USA? Thousands of times. How many years has Russia threatened war against the USA? Every year. That is the blizzard of shit-talking from Russia.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So it doesn't get lost in SECOND'S blizzard of shit.
Putin Wants the West to Give Up on Ukraine
By Anne Applebaum | November 10, 2023, 7:30 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/us-ukraine-support-p
utin-defeat/675953/
The West Must Defeat Russia
Putin hasn’t given up his plans. He thinks Ukraine’s allies will lose interest.
They planned to take Kyiv in three days, the rest of Ukraine in six weeks.
More than 21 months later, Russian forces have withdrawn from half the territory they occupied in February of last year. At least 88,000 Russian soldiers are likely dead — a conservative estimate — and at least twice as many have been wounded. Billions of dollars worth of equipment, Russian tanks, planes, artillery, helicopters, armored vehicles, and warships have been destroyed. If you had predicted this outcome before the war — and nobody did — it would have seemed fanciful. No one would have believed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a professional comedian, could lead a country at war, that the democratic world would be united enough to help him, or that Russian President Vladimir Putin would endure such a humiliation.
Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union have achieved something remarkable: Working together, they have not only preserved the Ukrainian state, but stood up to a bully whose nihilism harms the entire world. Putin backs far-right and extremist movements in Europe, provides thugs to support African dictatorships, and colludes with China, Iran, Venezuela, and other autocracies. From the beginning, Putin hoped the war would demonstrate that American power and American alliances can be defeated, not only in Ukraine but everywhere else. He still does, and for this purpose the war remains useful to him.
The fighting creates food shortages in Africa, thereby generating more unrest and more demand for Russian mercenaries. The war stokes discontent in Europe as well, giving pro-Russian parties a boost. Americans and Europeans view turmoil in country after country as a series of isolated conflicts, but Putin doesn’t think that Ukraine and the Middle East belong to different, competing spheres. On the contrary, since the conflict in Gaza erupted, he has intensified his relationship with Iran, invited leaders of Hamas to Moscow, and attacked Israel because of its links with the U.S., hoping that the spread of violence will decrease Western support for Ukraine. Iranian drones have terrorized Ukrainian cities; Iran, in turn, distributes Russian weapons to its proxies. Hezbollah is thought to have Russian anti-ship missiles that it could use against U.S. warships in the Mediterranean at any minute.
The allied fight against Russia in Ukraine has damaged Russia’s ability to project negative power in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. But despite his extraordinary losses, Putin still believes that time is on his side. If he can’t win on the battlefield, he will win using political intrigue and economic pressure. He will wait for the democratic world to splinter, and he will encourage that splintering. He will wait for the Ukrainians to grow tired, and he will try to make that happen too. He will wait for Donald Trump to win the 2024 U.S. presidential election, and he will do anything he can to help that happen too.
Right now, Putin’s bets are on the Republicans who repeat Russian propaganda — Senator J. D. Vance, for example, echoes Russian language about the Ukraine war leading to “global disorder” and “escalation”; Representative Matt Gaetz cited a Chinese state-media source as evidence while asking about alleged Ukrainian neo-Nazis at a congressional hearing; Vivek Ramaswamy, a GOP presidential candidate, has also called Zelensky, who is Jewish, a Nazi. Putin will have been cheered by the new
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Quote:Russian forces continue to struggle with low morale and poor discipline. The Russian State Duma is considering a bill that would impose the same harsh criminal penalties on Russian military volunteers as on Russian mobilized personnel for refusing to comply with orders, voluntarily surrendering, damaging weapons, or deserting.[80] The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that a group of mobilized personnel of the 20th Motorized Rifle Division (8th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) beat their regiment’s deputy commander, ”Lieutenant Muserbekov,” in occupied Simferopol on November 1 and that Muserbekov died from his injuries on November 7.[81] The GUR stated that the mobilized personnel subsequently fled to Krasnodar Krai dressed as civilians.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Capisce?![]()
Russia continues to form new irregular formations to support combat operations in Ukraine. A Russian milblogger claimed on November 10 that the newly-formed “Volga” volunteer artillery brigade reinforced the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) 2nd Army Corps in an unspecified area of Ukraine.[82]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-10-2023
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Zelensky is a dead man walking.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Zelensky is a dead man walking.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
So are you.
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Zelensky is a dead man walking.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
So are you.
T
So are we all Ted. So are we all.
"As soon as you're born you start dying, so you might as well have a good time"

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Russian opposition outlet Meduza discredited the Kremlin narrative that falsely accuses Ukrainian authorities of trafficking organs from military personnel on the black market.[68] Kremlin-affiliated actors, such as Adviser to the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Ovchinsky, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova, and Russian State Duma Deputy Speaker Anna Kuznetsova, have recently promoted this narrative.[69] Meduza explained that Russian narratives that Ukraine transports organs to NATO countries, such as Turkey, via ground transportation is improbable as the route from Odesa City to Istanbul alone is 17 hours – much longer than most organs can survive outside of the body.[70] Meduza also noted that Ukraine’s healthcare system lacks doctors who can perform mass organ removals and that Ukrainian law dictates that military personnel and civilians who die in hostilities cannot be organ donors.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-11-2023
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Russian opposition outlet Meduza discredited the Kremlin narrative that falsely accuses Ukrainian authorities of trafficking organs from military personnel on the black market.[68] Kremlin-affiliated actors, such as Adviser to the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Ovchinsky, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova, and Russian State Duma Deputy Speaker Anna Kuznetsova, have recently promoted this narrative.[69] Meduza explained that Russian narratives that Ukraine transports organs to NATO countries, such as Turkey, via ground transportation is improbable as the route from Odesa City to Istanbul alone is 17 hours – much longer than most organs can survive outside of the body.[70] Meduza also noted that Ukraine’s healthcare system lacks doctors who can perform mass organ removals and that Ukrainian law dictates that military personnel and civilians who die in hostilities cannot be organ donors.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-11-2023
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Well... Now we know how Zelensky is getting his money ever since McCarthy was ousted.

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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Why does Ukraine fight Russia? No reason more complicated than Russians murder Ukrainians for fun and profit:
Wyoming becomes 32nd US state to recognize the Holodomor as genocide
November 13, 2023
On Nov. 2, Washington, Maryland, and Arizona had also recognized the Holodomor as a genocide against the Ukrainian people.
In addition to U.S. states, several countries have also recognized the Holodomor as a genocide – a change that has long been advocated by both Ukrainian historians and Ukrainian diaspora communities abroad. These countries include, among others: the UK, Slovenia, Belgium, Ireland, Romania, Moldova, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iceland, France, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, and Croatia.
On Dec. 15, 2022, the European Parliament voted for a resolution recognizing the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as genocide against the Ukrainian people.
The Holodomor is the name given to the Soviet policy of deliberately confiscating foodstuffs from Ukrainians in the early 1930s. From 1932 to 1933, Ukraine’s National Holodomor Museum estimates that approximately 7 million people were killed via intentional famine during this period.
https://english.nv.ua/nation/wyoming-s-historic-acknowledgment-holodom
or-recognized-as-genocide-50367847.html
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Fuck Ukraine.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Vladimir Putin cannot keep funding his war for ever
But after winning Russia’s presidential election in March, he will try
In March Vladimir Putin will hold a presidential election designed to demonstrate support for his regime’s invasion of Ukraine two years earlier. His achievements in those two years should not be underestimated. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions displaced. Most of them are Ukrainians fleeing Russian missiles. But as many as 1m educated Russians may have fled their country, fearful of repressions and mobilisation.
Mr Putin has strangled Russia’s nascent civil society, isolated the country from the West, made it more dependent on China and strengthened NATO. Russia’s budget for 2024 shows a 70% increase in military spending, to 6% of GDP and a third of all spending. He has long framed his war in Ukraine as part of Russia’s struggle against the West, so even if fighting were to get less intense, spending will not go down.
So far, money has not been an issue. Re:Russia, a think-tank, reckons that in the war’s first year Russia received $590bn in export revenues, mostly from oil and gas. That is $160bn more than the annual average over the previous decade. In the second year, revenues were still some $60bn above that average. War costs are estimated at over $100bn a year. Turmoil in the Middle East, which could push up oil prices, would benefit Mr Putin.
This income lets him keep up the appearance of normality at home. But the longer the war goes on the harder this will be. To fight a long war, Russia needs more men, officers and weapons. That in turn will require mass mobilisation and central planning of military production. Neither is easy in a country with Russia’s poor demography and pervasive corruption.
Mr Putin will not have a problem declaring himself winner of the election. His problems may start afterwards, as the futility of his war exposes the hollowness of his triumph. That is by no means a given. But if Donald Trump does not return to the White House, and Ukraine continues to receive support, his problems will only mount. In the past Mr Putin dealt with any decline in his approval rating by starting a war. That option has already been used.
Arkady Ostrovsky, Russia editor, The Economist
https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2023/11/13/vladimir-putin-ca
nnot-keep-funding-his-war-for-ever
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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A guest on Russian state television program was slapped down by the show's host after saying that Moscow had far less to offer those living in occupied regions of Ukraine than the EU.
The comments on the NTV channel by political commentator Viktor Olevich follow the decision by the European Commission that accession talks should start for Kyiv to join the EU, pending agreement from other members, four months after being granted candidacy status in June.
The Kremlin has pitched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a proxy battle between Moscow and the West and a fight to keep Kyiv within its orbit. But Olevich said that residents in regions Russia has annexed would be far more attracted to what EU membership would provide.
"There's a carrot the West offers to Ukraine," Olevich told Mesto Vstrechi (Meeting Place). "The carrot is entry into the EU and NATO, some time in an uncertain future. It gives them the prospect of living, maybe not like the Germans or the French but at least like Eastern Europeans, like the Slovaks, Czechs," Olevich said. "For Ukrainians, of course, it is a positive prospect."
"What carrot does Russia offer? 10,000 roubles ($108) to people who live in the Kherson region? The prospect of being unable to travel without a visa ever? That they won't be able to go anywhere and won't see millions of their relatives in Europe?" Olevich said.
The anchor Andrei Norkin interrupted, rejecting his guest's claims, saying that "we won't compare how poorly people live in Russia and how well they do in Europe," before adding, "because your statement is untrue."
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-olevich-ntv-eu-nato-1843101
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
A guest on Russian state television program was slapped down by the show's host after saying that Moscow had far less to offer those living in occupied regions of Ukraine than the EU.
Oh, I personally think that whatever is left of Ukraine should become an albatross around the EU's economic neck.
Let's see the EU reconstruct it.

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"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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Quote:Is that "albatross" the EU cleaning up the destruction left by the Russians after they withdraw from Ukraine? The Russians are soreheads and poor losers. Can't expect Russians to clean up anything. Their strength is in stealing, killing civilians, destroying property, and lying about history.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, I personally think that whatever is left of Ukraine should become an albatross around the EU's economic neck.
Let's see the EU reconstruct it.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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November 13, 2023 | Ukraine War Marks 'Moral Bankruptcy Of The Russian Imperial Myth,' Says Exiled Journalist
Mikhail Zygar is a Russian journalist who publicly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and fled into exile days later. Before that, he was the founding editor in chief of TV Rain (Dozhd TV), an independent news and current affairs channel. He authored the 2016 book All The Kremlin's Men: Inside The Court Of Vladimir Putin, a bestseller in Russia that has been translated into over 20 languages. His latest book is an overview of Putin's purported plans for Ukraine titled War And Punishment.
He spoke to RFE/RL's Georgian Service about the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine, collective conscience and responsibility, and whether Putin needs this war to keep Russia.
More at https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-war-russia-moral-bankruptcy-mikhail-zy
gar/32683064.html
Mikhail Zygar's books can be downloaded for free from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Mikhail+Zygar
Quote:The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
Introduction to War and Punishment (2023)
This book is a confession. I am guilty for not reading the signs much earlier. I, too, am responsible for Russia’s war against Ukraine. As are my contemporaries and our forebears. Regrettably, Russian culture is also to blame for making all these horrors possible.
Many Russian writers and historians are complicit in facilitating this war. It is their words and thoughts over the past 350 years that sowed the seeds of Russian fascism and allowed it to flourish, although many would be horrified today to see the fruits of their labor. We failed to spot just how deadly the very idea of Russia as a “great empire” was. (Of course, any “empire” is evil, but let different historians judge other empires.) We overlooked the fact that, for many centuries, “great Russian culture” belittled other countries and peoples, suppressed and destroyed them.
So that Russian culture may live on, we must act. We must start by looking inside ourselves and telling the truth about our past and our present.
Russian, Ukrainian, and indeed any history is made up of myths. Alas, our myths led us to the fascism of 2022. It is time to expose them.
This book is about myths and about people. People who lived one hundred, two hundred, three hundred years ago, and then turned into mythological figures. They died physically; then historians stripped away their human qualities: their weaknesses, their passions, their doubts, their true motives. They were subjected to the inexorable “logic of history,” which serves the needs of those in power.
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Neuralgic:
1) causing or feeling very strong, painful emotions
2) involving short, severe pains felt suddenly along a nerve, especially in the neck or head
Regardless of the causes and circumstances of the TASS and RIA Novosti reports, the reaction to them suggests that events in Kherson Oblast continue to be highly neuralgic in the pro-war information space and emphasizes that the Russian media space still has not coalesced around a singular rhetorical line about what is happening on the east bank of the Dnipro. The published reports use relatively neutral language and notably do not announce a "retreat" or "withdrawal," instead discussing a "transfer" and "regrouping."[15] The Russian media frenzy that followed, including the immediate retraction of the statements, a direct response from the Kremlin, and emphatic milblogger refutations, reflects the fact that any mention of the Russian grouping in Kherson Oblast generates near-immediate information space neuralgia.[16] It also appears that the Russian information space has not yet determined how to discuss the operational situation on the east bank of the Dnipro, and that any inflection in the situation there can generate an informational shock. The Russian MoD falsely framed the Russian retreat from Kharkiv Oblast in early September of 2022 as a "regrouping," and that word and general concept apparently remains highly neuralgic for the Russian information space.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-13-2023
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:Nah. That albatross is "rump" Ukraine: whatever part of Ukraine that Russia leaves for the Ukies. Probably Galicia Ukraine. Possibly not even that.
Originally posted by second:Quote:Is that "albatross" the EU cleaning up the destruction left by the Russians after they withdraw from Ukraine? The Russians are soreheads and poor losers. Can't expect Russians to clean up anything. Their strength is in stealing, killing civilians, destroying property, and lying about history.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, I personally think that whatever is left of Ukraine should become an albatross around the EU's economic neck.
Let's see the EU reconstruct it.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

I noticed that your posts really veer away from current events and that you're maundering on about drivel. Again.
Please, give us another discourse about the Confederacy or centuries -old events or someone's theory about theories, or something. All that wordiness adds so much to the discussion!



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"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 cheese-eating surrender monkeys would gladly help Ukraine but for the strict rules preventing such help. The monkeys suggest the Americans, who have no rules, help.
EU will not supply promised 1 million ammunition rounds to Ukraine by March – Foreign Minister
Mon, November 13, 2023 at 3:32 PM CST
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said that the European Union will not be able to carry out its plan to supply one million rounds of artillery to Ukraine by March 2024 due to the state of defence production and bureaucratic obstacles.
Source: European Pravda, citing Kuleba during the national joint 24/7 newscast
Details: The minister was asked to comment on a Bloomberg report that the EU has informed member states that the pledge to provide Ukraine with 1 million artillery rounds by March 2024 is "unlikely to be fulfilled".
"Unfortunately, Bloomberg is telling the truth. There are questions, and we are doing a lot of loud ringing of alarm bells," Kuleba replied.
He added that the reason for this problem is not a lack of political will in the EU, but the "lamentable state of the defence industry", as well as "a lot of unsynchronised things, a lot of bureaucracy".
"The European Union is working to remedy these problems, and that is why, while in Berlin, I called on the European Union to develop a coherent policy in the field of defence industries," the Foreign Minister stressed.
He said the EU has already begun to take certain steps to rectify the situation.
"But we need faster actions, and more of them. And we do really appreciate the support of the European Union, but we will push them [on this]. Because, as ever, we can see a Ukrainian infantryman standing right in front of us, and he needs ammunition," Kuleba concluded.
The provision of ammunition to Ukraine is becoming increasingly urgent as Russia has been able to increase its own production and obtain supplies from North Korea.
At the end of October, Bloomberg reported that the EU was falling behind in its plans to provide Ukraine with one million rounds of artillery. Meanwhile, NATO is pushing its member states to overcome protectionist tendencies and agree on a single standard for artillery ammunition so that production can be increased.
https://news.yahoo.com/eu-not-supply-promised-1-213219892.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:
Is Zelensky Being Prepped to Join the Friends of the U.S. Club?
If you have any doubts that Ukraine’s President Zelensky is expendable if Joe Biden decides to change course, just take a gander at the following photo essay.
When the CIA Director comes for a visit it is time to check your six (i.e., military slang for seeing if anyone is sneaking up on you from behind).
Here is one of my favorites. During the 1980s the Reagan Administration was supplying arms and military technology to both Iran and Iraq, who were engaged in a brutal war. With friends like Washington, who needs enemies. No wonder Saddam thought he could invade Kuwait and the United States would not care.
How about Muammar Gaddafi getting the old bamboozle from Barack Obama?
Are you picking up a theme here? It does not matter if it is a Republican or Democrat, once a foreign leader is no longer useful to the United States, he gets bent over the log like Ned Beatty in Deliverance and learns the “joy” of buggery. Henry Kissinger was not bullshitting when he quipped:
“it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
Looks like Volodomyr Zelensky is going to learn that truth over the coming weeks. If he survives to see the New Year it will be a miracle.
One critical point I failed to make in yesterday’s article regarding the competing narratives regarding Zelensky and General Zalushny — it looks like the Brits are backing Zalushny while the CIA is trying to save Zelensky and dump Zalushny. I base that conclusion on the fact that the Economist, a British publication with close ties to MI-6, gave Zalushny the celebrity treatment, while the Washington Post, the go-to rag for the CIA, blamed Zalushny for Nord Stream.
Simplicius the Thinker has another great piece out regarding this modern version of Game of Thrones now underway in Kiev. Worth your time.
https://sonar21.com/is-zelensky-being-prepped-to-join-the-friends-of-t
he-u-s-club/
******
SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER...
Quote:
From Rezident_UA channel:
" Ukrainian sources write that Andriy Ermak will allegedly try to coordinate with the Biden Administration the replacement of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Zaluzhny, who is not satisfied with the Office of the President.
It was Zaluzhny who refused to begin the second stage of the counter-offensive with crossing the Dnieper and proposed to go on the defensive instead of offensive actions."
So Yermak/Zelensky are trying to coordinate with Biden [Yermak, Zelensky's money man, recently traveled to Washington] to get rid of Zaluzhny, while other forces coordinate with Zaluzhny to boot Zelensky?
In fact the drama and intrigue is coming to such a boil as to reach levels of absurdity most of us have never seen. A People’s Deputy in the Ukrainian Rada, Oleksandr Dubinsky—who happens to be in a major quarrel with the above Mosiychuk, as well—released this statement today on his official social media accounts. He openly calls Yermak “the real president of Ukraine,” begging Tucker Carlson to intervene, and even confirms yesterday’s wild theory that Zelensky is trying to contact Trump in order to get him to “unblock” Ukrainian aid via the Republican party which Trump is perceived to control:
"I am publicly addressing journalist Tucker Carlson, who will not be afraid to cover the topic of political persecution of the only politician and former journalist in Ukraine, who openly spoke about corruption of the country’s senior officials and the facts of theft of US financial assistance through the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, in which deputies of the Servant of the People Party and officials of the Office of the President are involved.
Now the real president of Ukraine named Yermak is in the United States trying to convince the American gNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
To Free The Baltic Grid from Russian control, Old Technology Is New Again
Spinning mega-machines will safeguard the Baltic power grid as it desynchronizes from Russia
Peter Fairley | 11 Nov 2023
https://spectrum.ieee.org/baltic-power-grid
The Baltic countries — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — recently accelerated a plan to cut the electrical chains that keep them tied to Russia. A technical lynchpin to their planned escape from the Moscow-controlled synchronous AC power zone is a constellation of synchronous condensers: free-spinning and fuel-free electrical generators whose sole purpose is to stabilize and protect power grids.
The Baltic states, all of which are members of the European Union and NATO, started freeing themselves from Russia’s electrical embrace almost a decade ago with the construction of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) connections to Finland, Sweden and Poland. Those alternative sources of electrical support ended the Baltics’ dependance on imported power from Russia and Belarus.
Now stabilizing equipment is preparing the grid to be able to physically separate from the giant grid to the East, and to synchronize instead with the continental European grid to the South. In 2019, funding from the European Union jumpstarted the required grid-strengthening upgrades required, and synchronization with Europe was scheduled for the end of 2025.
“Being on the Russian electricity grid is a risk for Estonian consumers.”
Cost increases have delayed a crucial second link with Poland and thus Europe to 2028, but the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s aerial assaults on the Ukrainian grid boosted pressure on the Baltics to break away faster. In August the Baltic states reached consensus on a plan to switch grids no later than February of 2025.
As Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas explained: “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and its use of energy as a weapon proves that it’s a dangerous and unpredictable country, and therefore being on the Russian electricity grid is a risk for Estonian consumers.” The prime ministers, she said, agreed to, “leave the Russian network as soon as the technical capacity is in place.”
This is where synchronous condensers step in. Synchronous condensers (also called synchronous compensators) are essentially generators that, in normal operation, are spun by an AC grid’s power and synced to its frequency (rather than driven by their own fuel). When power plants and/or transmission lines shut down unexpectedly, the momentum in their spinning mass offers an instantaneous supply of energy that cushions the blow, thus protecting equipment and preventing outages.
The first of three synchronous condensers for Estonia, installed early this year south of its capitol Tallinn, provides grid support that will be crucial when the Baltic states disconnect from Russia.
“It’s like an airbag for the power grid,” says Ana Joswig, Portfolio Lifecycle Manager for synchronous condensers for market leader Siemens Energy, supplier for the nine synchronous condensers scheduled to be operating in the Baltics by the end of next year.
Joswig says the spinning machines provide three crucial grid-stabilizing services:
• Frequency regulation: When grid power crashes or surges, the device immediately releases or absorbs energy to minimize fluctuation in the AC frequency;
• Short circuit power: When the grid experiences a short circuit, the crashing voltage releases a tripling or more of current from rotating machines which signals breakers on the grid to activate and quickly isolate the fault; and
• Voltage support: Producing current and voltage that are out of phase generates so-called reactive power that pushes the local grid’s voltage up or down to stabilize system voltage and/or increase the flow of real power.
Synchronous convertors were first deployed in the early 20th century, but they were rarely used because grid stabilization could be supplied by power plants with big spinning generators. But plants with steam and turbine-driven generators are incre
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Yermak, the gray eminence and power behind Zelensky's throne?
Quote:
Andriy Yermak
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Borysovych and the family name is Yermak.
Andriy Borysovych Yermak (Ukrainian: ?????? ????????? ?????; born 21 November 1971)[2] is a Ukrainian film producer, lawyer and the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed him on 11 February 2020.[1] He is also a member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, as well as the chairman of the Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian and Social Affairs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Yermak
Quote:
For instance, many believe that Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s head of the presidential office, is the man who really runs the country and was responsible for the “hit” on Zaluzhny’s aide. Yermak is the ‘gray eminence’ always shadowing Zelensky, who cowers before him like a chastened student. Many will remember the infamous video that made it clear who tucks whom into bed:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/marching-toward-a-night-of-the-lon
g
Unfortunately I can't seem to grab the video URL which is probably on X or Rumble, you'll have to go to Simplicius and, if you want to find it quickly, do a word seatch for "tucks".
Yermak holds phone talks with US, UK national security advisers (Nov 12)

https://news.yahoo.com/yermak-holds-phone-talks-us-114900210.html
Yermak meets with Blinken in Washington (Nov 13)
https://news.yahoo.com/yermak-meets-blinken-washington-055152852.html
Andriy Yermak discussed with American businessman Alexander Soros the restoration of infrastructure and investments in the Ukrainian economy
https://odessa-journal.com/andriy-yermak-discussed-with-american-busin
essman-alexander-soros-the-restoration-of-infrastructure-and-investments-in-the-ukrainian-economy
-----------
"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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Nov 14, 2023 at 10:47 AM EST |
Svyatoslav Golikov, an instructor of Russia's Storm-Z penal units, took to his Telegram channel on Tuesday to outline the impact the weapons are having on troops in combat. He said ATACMS, which are capable of reaching targets 100 miles or more away, are creating large-scale casualties, and this is disrupting the execution of Russian operations.
"It is cluster shells that are now knocking out a huge mass of our infantry with the layering of a number of negative factors," wrote Golikov. "The infantry suffers heavy excess losses directly on the battlefield, as a result of which the execution of combat missions is disrupted, and in addition to this there is an overstrain of evacuation logistics and an overload of the military medical infrastructure."
Russian troops are returned to the front lines in Ukraine with shrapnel still stuck in their bodies, Golikov said. Golikov added: "The rapid depletion of infantry units, coupled with the overload of hospitals, leads to the fact that people are massively returned to the battle, primarily underrated, and often with small damaging elements in the soft tissues not removed."
Golikov said that, while there are no radical shifts in the front line, and little breakthroughs from Ukraine, Russia is also having little success in the war. "And there is a price. [A] very high and sad [price]," he added.
"Exhausting and bleeding the enemy on the defensive, and then collapsing the front with powerful counterattacks would be an excellent plan if implemented," Golikov said. "But in fact, along the way, we ourselves were pretty exhausted and bled dry."
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-troops-atacms-bombs-ukraine-war-18435
83
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Quote:
Ukraine's Fate Will Be Decided In Coming Year, Top Zelensky Aide Admits
Tuesday, Nov 14, 2023 - 11:20 AM
In surprisingly blunt words, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the coming year will essentially decide the fate of Ukraine and its war with Russia.
"A turning point in the war is approaching," Andrii Yermak, who serves as chief of staff for the Office of the President of Ukraine, said Monday. "The next year will be decisive in this regard." He issued the words while appealing for more urgent aid from Washington in an address to the hawkish DC-based Hudson Institute think tank.
Yermak sought to assure the audience that Zelensky has "a clear plan" forward even as Western media has by and large soured on Kiev's prospects for success. Much of this is about Zelensky sending envoys to do damage control in Washington at a moment the US administration's focus is off Ukraine and on Gaza events instead.
MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraines-fate-will-be-decided-c
oming-year-top-zelensky-aide-admits
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Loving America is like loving an addicted spouse - SIGNYM
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Russian convicted over journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s murder pardoned after fighting in Ukraine
Former police officer had been serving a 20-year sentence over his role in the killing of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Politkovskaya, who was well known for reporting on abuses in Russia’s war in Chechnya early in Vladimir Putin’s presidency, was shot dead outside her flat in Moscow in 2006.
The killing triggered an outcry in the West and underlined the growing dangers of reporting in Russia as Putin gradually clamped down on independent media. Khadzhikurbanov was convicted along with four other men from Chechnya where Russia crushed a rebellion, under Putin, in 1999-2009.
In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg found that, while the authorities had found and convicted a group of men who had directly carried out the contract killing, they had “failed to take adequate investigatory steps to find the person or persons who had commissioned the murder”.
Politkovskaya, who did much of her work for the independent investigative magazine Novaya Gazeta, now banned in Russia, won more than a dozen international prizes for reporting on abuses committed in Chechnya by Russian forces, despite repeated detentions and death threats.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/14/russian-convicted-over-journ
alist-anna-politkovskayas-murder-pardoned
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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Watching Military Summary Channel day to day, I noticed a pattern: Russia is for the most part is still fighting an attritional war. They are willing to take ground as long as it's relatively cost- free (in terms of manpower) but imposes disproportionate losses on Ukraine. But Russia is willing to let the front be elastic: they will take and give back the same line over and over, as long as it costs Ukraine a lot more than it costs them.
There's ONE place where Russian MoD is willing to take losses, and that's Avdiivka. Russians have probably lost 30 armored vehicles in the past three weeks, maybe more. Ukraine has a prioritized list of equipment to kill or disable, starting with demining equipment.(I know for a fact they destroyed two special distance-demining pieces, and one tank outfitted with a demining front end.)
But when the demining equipment is disabled, Russians are willing to use tanks to demine a path; they'll just run the tank as far as it'll keep running and then bail out once the tank stops moving.
Ukraine has used cluster rounds here, but mostly they seem to use FPV drones and the occasional HIMARS or artillery strike. Cluster munitions seem to be used at random points on the frontline, mostly where the action is infantry- intensive. Which makes sense.
Unlike Ukraine, Russia doesn't use cluster munitions altho it has them. They use thermobaric weapons instead, possibly even more deadly but at least there are no unexploded munitions laying around for their own soldiers to stumble over should they advance into Ukrainian held territory.
It surprises and - in a way, saddens- me, to see how much of the fight is treeline to treeline and trench to trench.
Simplicius addressed this as follows:
Quote:
Much of the Ukrainian conflict has its closest comparison in the Normandy campaign of World War 2, just after the famed D-Day landings. The Normandy region is known as ‘hedgerow country’, populated with an endless sprawl of fields and pastures called bocages.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/battle-for-avdeevka-close-study
It is a region of relatively small fields, each surrounded by a "treeline" (planted I assume as a boundary marker and windbreak). The kind of landscape that requires detailed, dangerous clearing, by both sides. All those lives lost, for a treeline or trench.
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Quote:Ukraine uses cluster munitions because it is the artillery equivalent of shotgun shells. Ukrainians couldn't aim worth a damn, but since clusters spread the shrapnel over a wider area the Ukrainian gunners are more likely to kill something other than earthworms.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Unlike Ukraine, Russia doesn't use cluster munitions altho it has them. They use thermobaric weapons instead, possibly even more deadly but at least there are no unexploded munitions laying around for their own soldiers to stumble over should they advance into Ukrainian held territory.
Reuters reported on November 12 that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition has agreed in principle to double Germany’s military aid to Ukraine next year to €8 billion.[17]
Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba highlighted the importance of speeding up the EU’s plan to supply Ukraine with one million shells by March 2024 during a meeting with the EU Council of Foreign Ministers on November 13, but Politico reported on November 14 that German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius expressed doubt that the EU would be able to meet this target.[21]
Politico also reported that EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell stated that the European defense industry is exporting about 40 percent of its current production to third countries and urged European countries to shift exports to Ukraine as “priority one.”[22] Borrell stated that the EU’s ability to supply Ukraine with one million shells “will depend on how quickly orders come to the industry and how quickly the industry reacts.”[23]
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated on November 14 that NATO has put in place framework contracts worth €2.4 billion, including €1 billion worth of firm orders, and stated that NATO countries are increasing production in order to reach the target of one million shells by March 2024.[24] Politico reported that Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur also announced that Estonia offered five European companies a procurement offer for €280 million worth of 155-mm artillery ammunition.[25]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-14-2023
All these billions don’t actually buy very many shells.
The German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has recently announced the conclusion of a contract with an unnamed European customer for 155-mm L15 shells. In total, 10,000 155 mm artillery rounds were ordered and the value of the announced deal was about 33 million euros. This puts the cost of one 155 mm shell at around 3.3 thousand euros. The current market situation is very different from what it was just a couple of short years ago. In 2020-2021 one artillery shell of this caliber cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 thousand euros.
https://www.technology.org/2023/01/05/how-much-do-155-mm-artillery-rou
nds-cost-now-and-how-many-are-fired-in-ukraine/
The $402 million contract could buy as many as 800,000 155mm shells at $500 apiece, though George cautioned that shipping, packaging, and other services would likely drive the per-unit cost higher.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2023/07/us-paying-contractor-quietl
y-supply-bulgarian-155mm-shells-ukraine/388480/
I have seen how Ukrainians expend their artillery shells. At a cost of between $500 and €3,300 per shell, Ukrainian artillerymen need to actually hit something other than the ground every time they fire. May I suggest they take aim before firing? Or is that too much to expect from tired and fearful men? Pointing their weapons in the general direction of the Russians is not the same as aiming. If they don’t start aiming better, they will lose, which means all their fear and weariness was for no purpose. The Ukrainians should make the extra mental effort to not fight dumber than the Russians do.
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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Ukrainians have taken back half the land Russia took. And they for sure can shoot straight. As for using cluster bombs, they are using them on their own soil. And yes, Russia has used them in Ukraine. Along with other illegal munitions. Like thermobaric bomb (also called a vacuum or aerosol bomb - or fuel air explosive)
The Russians are getting their asses kicked.
T
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Quote:To be blunt about this, neither Ukrainians nor Russians are competent at anything other than dying for their country. There are a small number of exceptional people on any side who are doing most of the actual work of killing the enemy. As for the rest? All they usefully do is maintain equipment and carry ammo and food to the real warriors. How has the ratio of rounds per kill in war shifted over time and why? It's often reported that 300,000 rounds have been fired for each rebel killed in Afghanistan, though this includes training. This says that it took 100 bullets to inflict each casualty at Gettysburg, which would require 99.97% of shots in Afghanistan to be outside combat to have equal rounds per kill.
Originally posted by THG:
Ukrainians have taken back half the land Russia took. And they for sure can shoot straight. As for using cluster bombs, they are using them on their own soil. And yes, Russia has used them in Ukraine. Along with other illegal munitions. Like thermobaric bomb (also called a vacuum or aerosol bomb - or fuel air explosive)
T![]()
Is the Gettysburg figure right? Is it representative of musket warfare in general? How do modern wars compare? If it takes many more rounds in modern warfare to kill one enemy, what is the chain of causality that caused the shift? Much more at https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/d5d237/how_has_the_ratio_
of_rounds_per_kill_in_war/
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:I imagined that you might get SOMETHING right in one of your posts, but this isn't the one.
Originally posted by THG:
Ukrainians have taken back half the land Russia took. And they for sure can shoot straight. As for using cluster bombs, they are using them on their own soil. And yes, Russia has used them in Ukraine. Along with other illegal munitions. Like thermobaric bomb (also called a vacuum or aerosol bomb - or fuel air explosive)
The Russians are getting their asses kicked.
T![]()
A) Cluster rounds aren't universally banned. They are banned by 100 nations, but since there are about 200 nations across the globe... Signifincantly, cluster rounds aren't banned by the USA or Russia. https://www.npr.org/2023/09/05/1197578353/a-new-study-examines-the-tol
l-of-cluster-munitions. It is a war crime, however, to fire cluster munitions at civilian areas, which Military Summary Channel has documented Ukraine doing a few times in the past couple of months.
B) Thermobaric warheads aren't banned either. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon Their use against civilian targets hasn't been legally tested, but is probably illegal
C) Russia hasn't used cluster munitions. There was an allegation that someone did (a village where people were apparentky killed by cluster munitions that used flechettes) and Ukraine, of course, blamed Russia. But Ukraine has a proven habit of blaming Russia for something that it did (like Ukraine's S300 that landed in Poland, immediately blamed on Russia https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/ukraine-missile-poland
-nato-russia/ )
D) Ukraine has not taken back 'half" the land that Rusia took. Look at a map, willya?
E) Russia is taking losses. This is war, after all. But Russia is not "getting its ass kicked" .
How you get so much wrong in one short post is astonishing. It's jam packed with errors.
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"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 USA can scrape Ukraine off and try to memory- hole it, but the EU has to live with Russia on its border AND with the political, financial, and economic mess it made for itself in trying to destroy Russia.
Consequently the pro- war faction (those that participated in the summit where Biden* urged them to join the "destroy Russia" campaign, and they climbed on board. That includes Scholz, Macron, BoJo, and Stoltenberg & Co, and probably Ursula van der Crazy and "Jungle Jim" Josep Borrell) have to have this succeed, no matter how irrational a plan they come up with.
Two ex- NATO heads (Rasmussen and an ex- admiral) have both recently witeen articles promoting the plan to include Ukraine in NATO NOW!! And the EU is talking about accession of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and NOW!!
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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:I imagined that you might get SOMETHING right in one of your posts, but this isn't the one.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Ukrainians have taken back half the land Russia took. And they for sure can shoot straight. As for using cluster bombs, they are using them on their own soil. And yes, Russia has used them in Ukraine. Along with other illegal munitions. Like thermobaric bomb (also called a vacuum or aerosol bomb - or fuel air explosive)
The Russians are getting their asses kicked.
T
A) Cluster rounds aren't universally banned. They are banned by 100 nations, but since there are about 200 nations across the globe... Signifincantly, cluster rounds aren't banned by the USA or Russia. https://www.npr.org/2023/09/05/1197578353/a-new-study-examines-the-tol
l-of-cluster-munitions. It is a war crime, however, to fire cluster munitions at civilian areas, which Military Summary Channel has documented Ukraine doing a few times in the past couple of months.
B) Thermobaric warheads aren't banned either. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon Their use against civilian targets hasn't been legally tested, but is probably illegal
C) Russia hasn't used cluster munitions. There was an allegation that someone did (a village where people were apparentky killed by cluster munitions that used flechettes) and Ukraine, of course, blamed Russia. But Ukraine has a proven habit of blaming Russia for something that it did (like Ukraine's S300 that landed in Poland, immediately blamed on Russia https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/ukraine-missile-poland
-nato-russia/ )
D) Ukraine has not taken back 'half" the land that Rusia took. Look at a map, willya?
E) Russia is taking losses. This is war, after all. But Russia is not "getting its ass kicked" .
How you get so much wrong in one short post is astonishing. It's jam packed with errors.
Ukrainians tied to Biden probe face treason charge
Three Ukrainians who aided the Donald Trump campaign's efforts to discredit the Biden family have been charged with treason.
The 2019 drive was led by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was Mr Trump's personal lawyer at the time.
It centred on unproven allegations that Joe Biden had corrupt dealings with Ukraine as vice-president.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukrainians-tied-to-biden-probe-fa
ce-treason-charge/ar-AA1jXZrK?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d53b6c200da4428f8c0c229982696999&ei=54
And again claims of collusion with Russia are shown to be true. Go figure, aye comrade signym.
T
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The Zelenskiy regime banned opposition parties, banned the Russian Orthodox Church (and stole their assets), jailed a critic for "treason", is pilfering hundreds of thousands of dollars from military and monetary aid, and is dragooning men off the streets.
So, you take the word of a lying, corrupt, undemocratic regime (Zelenskiy) for anything?
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Quote:
HOW THE United States and Its NATO Allies Sabotaged Peace Between Russia and Ukraine
14 November 2023 by Larry Johnson
We now know that the United States played the primary role in sabotaging the March 29, 2022 tentative peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine thanks to the recently published article by Hajo Funke and Harald Kujat, HOW THE CHANCE WAS LOST FOR A PEACE SETTLEMENT OF THE UKRAINE WAR — AND THE WEST WANTED TO CONTINUE THE WAR INSTEAD. The United States persuaded its NATO allies that pursuing the war against Russia, using Ukraine as a proxy, offered a legitimate opportunity to destroy Russia. You want a definition of evil? This is it. Instead of helping end the war between Russia and Ukraine, the United States and its NATO puppets condemned hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to death in a war with Russia they could not win.
In the course of strong arming Ukraine’s Zelensky into rejecting the peace agreement, the West prepared and launched a propaganda campaign that claimed that Ukrainian military forces defeated the Russian forces and compelled them to retreat. It was a lie. As you will read in the timeline below, Putin ordered the withdrawal of Russian forces starting on April 1, 2022 as a good faith gesture about Russia’s seriousness in complying with the 29 March Istanbul Agreement.
So now we know what happened to the cease fire agreement between Ukraine and Russia: Same thing that happened to the Grain Deal and Minsk I and Minsk 2
-----------
"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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Quote:Your story comes from https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/11/how-united-states-its-nato-al
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
HOW THE United States and Its NATO Allies Sabotaged Peace Between Russia and Ukraine
14 November 2023 by Larry Johnson
We now know that the United States played the primary role in sabotaging the March 29, 2022 tentative peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine thanks to the recently published article by Hajo Funke and Harald Kujat, HOW THE CHANCE WAS LOST FOR A PEACE SETTLEMENT OF THE UKRAINE WAR — AND THE WEST WANTED TO CONTINUE THE WAR INSTEAD. The United States persuaded its NATO allies that pursuing the war against Russia, using Ukraine as a proxy, offered a legitimate opportunity to destroy Russia. You want a definition of evil? This is it. Instead of helping end the war between Russia and Ukraine, the United States and its NATO puppets condemned hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to death in a war with Russia they could not win.
In the course of strong arming Ukraine’s Zelensky into rejecting the peace agreement, the West prepared and launched a propaganda campaign that claimed that Ukrainian military forces defeated the Russian forces and compelled them to retreat. It was a lie. As you will read in the timeline below, Putin ordered the withdrawal of Russian forces starting on April 1, 2022 as a good faith gesture about Russia’s seriousness in complying with the 29 March Istanbul Agreement.
So now we know what happened to the cease fire agreement between Ukraine and Russia: Same thing that happened to the Grain Deal and Minsk I and Minsk 2
lies-sabotaged-peace/
What is your website known for? The Gateway Pundit (TGP) is an American far-right[2] fake news website.[1] The website is known for publishing falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateway_Pundit
Signym's fake stories are well-know at this website which keeps track of Russian lies:
https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_
developpement/response_conflict-reponse_conflits/crisis-crises/ukraine-fact-fait.aspx
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:
March 15-19, 2022 — Only a month after the outbreak of the war, Ukraine and Russia agreed on the broad outlines of a peace settlement. Ukraine promised not to join NATO and not to allow military bases of foreign powers on its territory, while Russia promised in return to recognize Ukraine’s territorial integrity and to withdraw all Russian occupation troops. Special arrangements were made for the Donbas and Crimea.”
March 24, 2022 — NATO decided at a special summit on March 24, 2022, not to support these peace negotiations.
March 27, 2022 — Zelensky defended the results of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in public before Russian journalists
March 28, 2022 — Putin, as a sign of goodwill and in support of the peace negotiations, declared readiness to withdraw troops from the Kharkov area and the Kiev area
29 March, 2002 — Turkiye’s President Erdogan hosted a Ukrainian-Russian peace conference in Istanbul and an armistice agreement was approved in principle.
April 1, 2022 — Putin orders Russian troops to initiate withdrawal from Kiev and Kharkiv in show of good faith in accordance with the armistice agreed to in Istanbul.
April 5, 2022 — NATO was firm in its position that continuing the war is preferred to a cease-fire and negotiated settlement: “For some in NATO, it’s better for Ukrainians to keep fighting and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too soon or at too high a price for Kiev and the rest of Europe.”
April 6, 2022 — Russia completes withdrawal from Kiev suburbs and Kharkiv.
April 9, 2022 — Boris Johnson arrived unannounced in Kiev and told the Ukrainian president that the West was not ready to end the war.
April 25, 2022 — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. wants to use the opportunity to permanently weaken Russia militarily and economically in the wake of the Ukraine war.
April 26, 2022 — Meeting with defense ministers from NATO members and other countries convened by Austin in Ramstein, Rhineland-Palatinate/ Germany, the Pentagon chief declared the military victory of Ukraine as a strategic goal.
April 28, 2022 — According to Britain’s Guardian, PM Johnson “instructed” Ukrainian President Zelensky “not to make any concessions to Putin.”
Nice try. NOT the Gateway Pundit
From https://sonar21.com/how-the-chance-was-lost-for-a-peace-settlement-of-
the-ukraine-war/
Summary of
Michael von der Schulenburg, Hajo Funke, Harald Kujat – Peace For Ukraine
https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-funke-hara
ld-kujat-peace-for-ukraine
Michael von der Schulenburg is a former UN Assistant Secretary-General, who worked for over 34 years for the United Nations, and shortly for the OSCE, in many countries in war or internal armed conflicts often involving fragile governments and armed non-state actors
Hajo Funke is Professor Emeritus for political sciences of the Otto-Suhr-Institute/ Freie University Berlin
General (ret.) Harald Kujat was the highest ranging German officer of the Bundeswehr and at NATO



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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The Zelenskiy regime banned opposition parties, banned the Russian Orthodox Church (and stole their assets), jailed a critic for "treason", is pilfering hundreds of thousands of dollars from military and monetary aid, and is dragooning men off the streets.
So, you take the word of a lying, corrupt, undemocratic regime (Zelenskiy) for anything?
No source aye comrade?
T
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Oh, PLENTY of primary sources, THUGR. Yanno, from Ukraine announcements and everything. But you won't bother to look at them so why should I bother to post them?


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Quote:Signym, I will show you how that works: "I, Donald J Trump, am guilty of tax evasion, rape, and treason." - signed Donald J Trump. Now we have conclusive evidence that Trump is a tax cheater, rapist, and betrayer of America from the well-known fireflyfans.net. In real life, the Russians executed millions of Russians by providing fake evidence to courts that ruled those who had beliefs that annoyed Stalin should die, but the paperwork had to be properly filed with the correct authorities. Stalin needed paperwork to show history that he wasn't arbitrary and capricious about who died.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh, PLENTY of primary sources, THUGR. Yanno, from Ukraine announcements and everything. But you won't bother to look at them so why should I bother to post them?
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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I have no idea what your point is.
If the Ukrainian parliament says they've banned opposition political parties, should I disbelieve that opposition political parties have banned?
-----------
"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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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I have no idea what your point is.
If the Ukrainian parliament says they've banned opposition political parties, should I disbelieve that opposition political parties have banned?
SOCEND'S point, is probably that he did not source what he just said. Did he just pull what he posted out of thin air? Only he knows.
T
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Quote:Obviously you and the Russians create imaginary stories to "legally" prove Russians are NOT murderous thieves who starve/torture their victims before killing them. Unfortunately, Russians have murdered Russians by the tens of millions. See every story ever written by a Russian who survived about how Russia's Gulag Archipelago killed off their political opposition.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I have no idea what your point is.
If the Ukrainian parliament says they've banned opposition political parties, should I disbelieve that opposition political parties have banned?
Russia is still murdering people, moving its operations into Ukraine, where Russians are stealing land and killing the previous owners who complain about the unfairness of Russians. Russia is run by people who are fundamentally absurd. It is no surprise what a huge effort such people will go to convince themselves they aren't crazy, evil, or stupid and that their hard lives are not their fault. Blame the Ukrainians, instead, lamenting about the unreasonable Ukrainians not surrendering to Russians' tender mercy and goodness!
Personally, I think the Ukrainians could teach the Russians about what Russians truly are, but the Russians will forget the lessons as soon as possible, protecting themselves from such revelations about Russian character and motivation.
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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You had to swallow that you were wrong about USA/UK hand in cratering a Ukrainian peace deal.
And that you were wrong about not believing what the Rada passed.
So now you drag out that moldy old trope about what Russians did a century ago? That's like blaming "Germans" for the Holocaust and "Japanese" for WWII internment camps.
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I have no idea what your point is.
If the Ukrainian parliament says they've banned opposition political parties, should I disbelieve that opposition political parties have banned?
SOCEND'S point, is probably that he did not source what he just said. Did he just pull what he posted out of thin air? Only he knows.
T
. Educate yourself, THUGR. You're the only one who can. Do a search on "Ukraine bans political parties" for example.
-----------
"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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Recent Russian opinion polls indicate that roughly half of Russians maintain support for the war in Ukraine and for Russia to engage in peace negotiations. The Levada Center – an independent Russian polling organization – reported on October 31 that 55 percent of respondents to a recent poll believe that Russia should begin peace negotiations while 38 percent favor continuing to conduct the war.[13] The Levada Center observed that while these numbers slightly increased between September and October by four percent, they have largely remained consistent since July 2023.[14] The Levada Center added that support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine remained high with 76 percent of respondents stating that they support Russian military operations in Ukraine. The Levada Center reported that 62 percent of surveyed Russians believe that the full-scale invasion is progressing well, while 21 percent of respondents believe that the war is going reasonably or very poorly for Russia.[15] The Levada Center reported on November 14 that two-thirds of respondents believe that Russia is headed in the right direction and of those who believe the opposite, 45 percent cited the war in Ukraine.[16] Opposition-leaning Russian research organization Russian Field reported similar numbers supporting negotiations on November 15, noting that 48 percent of respondents said that Russia should engage in peace negotiations and that 74 percent would support Russian President Vladimir Putin if he signed a peace agreement “tomorrow.”[17] Russian Field stated that 36 percent of respondents believe that the war is going well for Russia whereas 25 percent believe that the war is going poorly for Russia and that respondents who trust Telegram channels are twice as likely to believe that the war is going poorly for Russia as those who rely on Russian television.[18]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-15-2023
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 report makes no sense as reported
Quote:So, to be clear... half of Russians want Russia to do both? Engage in war AND negotiate?
Originally posted by second:
Recent Russian opinion polls indicate that roughly half of Russians maintain support for the war in Ukraine and for Russia to engage in peace negotiations.
Quote:funded mostly by the USA..
The Levada Center – an independent Russian polling organization
Quote:Not to be nitpicky, but this conflicts with the first statement that a majority wants Russia to continue the war AND negotiate. So is this an either/ or? Or are there more than two choices? (Eg: fight and negotiate, fight don't negotiate, negotiate don't fight, don't know.) There's a missing 7%, so I expect there's at least a third choice and possibly a fourth.
– reported on October 31 that 55 percent of respondents to a recent poll believe that Russia should begin peace negotiations while 38 percent favor continuing to conduct the war.
If that's the case, and one choice is "fight and negotiate" (55%) while the other choice is "fight, don't negotiate" (38%) then the vast majority [93%] want Russia to continue fighting.
Quote:which numbers? They quote two sets
The Levada Center observed that while these numbers
Quote:Well, THAT is an unusual way to report the results! How can we tell how many people think the war is going "poorly"? WE CAN'T. Maybe 62% think it's going well, 20% think it's going "reasonably" and only 1% think it's going "poorly". Since whoever authored this report seems intent on hiding that "poorly" figure, my bet is that it doesnt tell the story that the author wants
slightly increased between September and October by four percent, they have largely remained consistent since July 2023.[14] The Levada Center added that support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine remained high with 76 percent of respondents stating that they support Russian military operations in Ukraine. The Levada Center reported that 62 percent of surveyed Russians believe that the full-scale invasion is progressing well, while 21 percent of respondents believe that the war is going reasonably or very poorly for Russia.[15]
Quote:Since most opinion polls give more than two choices (right direction, wrong direction, neutral, don't know) this report seems intent on hiding that "wrong direction" figure as well. Again, probably bc it doesn't tell the story that the author wants
The Levada Center reported on November 14 that two-thirds of respondents believe that Russia is headged in the right direction and of those who believe the opposite,
Quote:This report fails on thoroughness, transparency, and logic. Or maybe its a language problem. In any case, clear as mud. Very poorly written.
45 percent (of... 10%?) cited the war in Ukraine.[16] Opposition-leaning Russian research organization Russian Field reported similar numbers supporting negotiations on November 15, noting that 48 percent of respondents said that Russia should engage in peace negotiations and that 74 percent would support Russian President Vladimir Putin if he signed a peace agreement “tomorrow.”[17] Russian Field stated that 36 percent of respondents believe that the war is going well for Russia whereas 25 percent believe that the war is going poorly for Russia and that respondents who trust Telegram channels are twice as likely to believe that the war is going poorly for Russia as those who rely on Russian television.[18]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-november-15-2023
Oy!!
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"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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