Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly invoking the Kremlin's pre-invasion pseudo-historical rhetoric to cast himself as a modern Russian tsar and framing the invasion of Ukraine as a historically justified imperial reconquest. Putin addressed the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) Collegium on December 19 and largely reiterated boilerplate Kremlin rhetoric on the war in Ukraine by blaming NATO and the collective West for encroaching on Russia's borders and exculpated himself for issues faced by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine by deflecting the blame towards the Russian MoD bureaucracy.[1] Putin additionally lauded Russian battlefield operations and Russia's defense industrial base’s net output in 2023, furthering several of his standard talking points. Putin once again invoked the concept of "compatriots abroad" when discussing residents in "southeastern Ukraine" who, he asserted, have historical, cultural, and linguistic attachments to Russia, in order to justify the invasion of Ukraine on ideological grounds. ISW previously assessed that Putin rhetorically contextualized Russia's maximalist objectives in Ukraine within a wider framing of Russian "sovereignty" at Putin’s “Direct Line” event on December 14.[2] Putin notably claimed that while Russia is the sole guarantor of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, Russia will also not interfere in "territorial disputes" in western Ukraine, where he claimed that many residents want to return to either Poland, Romania, or Hungary, concluding that "history will put everything in its place."
Putin's claim that Russia can be the only true guarantor of Ukraine's sovereignty is not a new narrative. In a 2021 essay entitled "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians," Putin similarly claimed that "true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible precisely in partnership with Russia."[3] In the same essay, Putin also utilized a pseudo-historical framework of Ukraine’s and Russia's relationship that essentially defines the lands of modern, sovereign Ukraine as either part of Malorossiya (Little Russia), Novorossiya (New Russia), or fragments of other historical empires.[4] This essay dismissed Ukraine's historical claim to its own sociocultural development, historical sovereignty, and territorial integrity, which the Russian Federation formally recognized and, indeed, guaranteed, in 1994.[5] During the December 19 Collegium Address, Putin further engaged with this pseudo-historical framing to suggest that western Ukraine is also not truly Ukrainian and claimed that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin "gave it away" to Ukraine from pieces of Poland, Romania, and Hungary following the Second World War.[6] Putin baselessly claimed that people living in western Ukraine want to return to their "historical homeland," suggesting that western Ukraine could feasibly return to 17th-century conceptions of state borders and become parts of Poland, Romania, or Hungary. This statement suggests that Putin is selectively weaponizing facets of Eastern and Central European history as they suit his ideological line to further rhetorically strip Ukraine of its internationally recognized sovereignty.
Putin's MoD Collegium claims are rife with rhetorical contradictions and are dependent on tenuous historical allegories that fall apart when considered in different historical contexts. During a November 28 speech at the World Russian People's Council, Putin defined the concept of the "Russian World" (Russkiy Mir) as "all other peoples who have lived and are living in [Russia]," geographically defined as what belonged to Ancient Rus (Kyivan Rus), the Kingdom of Muscovy, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the contemporary Russian Federation, which suggests that Putin was broadly including parts of eastern European states such as Poland and Romania in this conception of the Russian World.[7] During the December 19 Collegium Add
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Putin remains committed to the fantasy that the old Russian Empire can be recreated. That means neither Ukraine nor the rest of Europe will have peace until he and his political project are soundly defeated.
By Carl Bildt | Dec 19, 2023
Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to 2014 and prime minister from 1991 to 1994
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/putin-russia-must-be-defe
ated-for-ukraine-and-europe-to-enjoy-peace-by-carl-bildt-2023-12
STOCKHOLM – In his annual press conference, Russian leader Vladimir Putin made it clear that he will be ready for a peace settlement with Ukraine only after he has achieved his goals, which have not changed since he launched his full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. He wants Ukraine to be demilitarized, meaning subjected to Russian military and security control of its territory; and he wants “denazification,” meaning Ukraine would be put under Russian political control. In other words, Russia would absorb Ukraine so that the latter ceases to exist as an independent nation-state.
Time and again, Putin has declared that there is no historical justification for Ukraine, since it comprises territories that were long held by the Russian Empire. But something similar can be said of countries across Europe today. Many previously fell under the yoke of the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Wilhelmine, or Russian empires. And globally, the vast majority of the 193 countries that make up the United Nations became independent only in the aftermath of World War II. In the historical period that preoccupies Putin, many of today’s countries did not exist even in people’s imaginations.
The problem, for Putin, is that the age of empires is long gone. He stubbornly refuses to accept that we now live in the age of nation-states, with an international order organized around the UN Charter’s principle of territorial integrity, which prohibits any redrawing of national borders by force. Instead, he fantasizes about recreating the Russian Empire by swallowing up Ukraine and Belarus (followed, perhaps, by many other neighboring countries).
More at https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/putin-russia-must-be-defe
ated-for-ukraine-and-europe-to-enjoy-peace-by-carl-bildt-2023-12
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 heard they found Putin crying in a closet.
T 
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
I heard they found Putin crying in a closet.
How old are you?
Four?
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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 heard they're going to find Zelensky dead in the closet... (yanno, because he's a closeted homosexual and child rapist)
Defying Biden’s plea, Congress skips town without passing aid for Ukraine, Israel
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/dec/20/defying-bidens-plea-c
ongress-skips-town-without-pa/
Fuck Ukraine.
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:6ix, did you graduate from a Russian University class on how to write falsehoods? Or are you just naturally this way?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I heard they're going to find Zelensky dead in the closet... (yanno, because he's a closeted homosexual and child rapist)
Moscow State University (MGU) is reportedly ending its master's program in “information and hybrid warfare” aimed at teaching students how to create information operations and conduct hybrid warfare, generating outrage from Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov. MGU Higher School of Telecommunications Dean Vitaly Tretyakov defended MGU’s decision to discontinue the master’s program on Solovyov’s show on December 18 because students graduating from the program would face difficulties finding employment abroad.[23] Tretyakov also argued that the master’s program, which offers a course in “special propaganda” (a Russian term for information and psychological operations), would threaten MGU’s reputation.[24] Solovyov dismissed Tretyakov’s explanations and questioned the patriotism of MGU’s students and faculty.[25] Solovyov praised the now-closing master’s program and noted that Russian universities need to teach “special propaganda” and combat Western narratives of history.[26] Former Duma Deputy Elena Panina echoed Solovyov’s support for the program and claimed that the Russian government should fund similar programs at various universities.[27] MGU announced the creation of the master’s program in 2022, the same year it admitted its first class of students, reportedly to teach and promote Russian objectives for the war in Ukraine.[28] MGU also is reportedly closing the program due to the low salaries of the professors teaching its courses and an ongoing scandal regarding faculty bribery.[29]
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-december-20-2023
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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To overstress the Kremlin’s training establishment and trigger a downward spiral in Russian military readiness, Ukrainian forces need to kill or maim at least 100,000 Russian troops in 2024, according to a recent assessment by the Estonian defense ministry.
“If undisrupted, Russia has the capacity to train approximately 130,000 troops every six months into cohered units and formations available for launching operations,” the Estonian defense ministry concluded.
260,000 fully-trained new recruits a year sustain a deployed force of around 420,000 troops. “Additional troops can be mobilized and pushed into Ukraine as untrained replacements, but these do not provide effective combat power,” the ministry in Tallinn estimated.
Kyiv should aim to inflict so many losses on Moscow that the Russian training system must increase output, by speeding up basic training. The less training a new recruit or draftee gets, the less value they have on the battlefield and the more likely they are themselves to become casualties.
Page 11 of https://kaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/files/setting_transatlanti
c_defence_up_for_success_0.pdf
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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When Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive ended this fall and Russia’s attempt to capture the eastern city of Avdiivka slowed to a bloody grind, a war of maneuver in Ukraine became a war of attrition.
It’s apparent neither Ukraine nor Russia possesses the excess combat power it would need to achieve a major breakthrough that swiftly and radically could alter the course of Russia’s 22-month wider war on Ukraine.
Instead, the ultimate winner might be the country that attrits enough of the enemy’s forces to cause a military-wide collapse. According to the Estonian defense ministry, Ukraine can ensure Russia’s defeat in 2025 by killing or maiming 100,000 Russian troops in 2024.
That’s a lot of Russians. But then, the Ukrainians have been killing ... a lot of Russians. According to the best estimates, Ukrainian troops so far have killed or wounded 315,000 Russian troops. That’s 172,000 per year.
“If undisrupted, Russia has the capacity to train approximately 130,000 troops every six months into cohered units and formations available for launching operations,” the Estonian defense ministry concluded.
260,000 fully-trained new recruits a year sustain a deployed force of around 420,000 troops. “Additional troops can be mobilized and pushed into Ukraine as untrained replacements, but these do not provide effective combat power,” the ministry in Tallinn estimated.
Kyiv should aim to inflict so many losses on Moscow that the Russian training system must increase output, by speeding up basic training. The less training a new recruit or draftee gets, the less value they have on the battlefield and the more likely they are themselves to become casualties.
This dynamic is on bloody display around Avdiivka, where the Ukrainian garrison has killed or wounded an estimated 13,000 attacking Russians—many of them minimally-trained draftees—in just two months.
Replacement troops with less preparation fight worse and die faster, requiring the training base further to speed up training. That in turn could lead to more losses, more quickly. Killing at least 100,000 Russians in 2024 could decrease the Russian training base’s output to just 80,000 fully-trained new recruits a year, according to Tallinn. Forcewide erosion could become irreversible.
This feedback loop of dead and injured Russians might be the most direct path to a Ukrainian victory. “By redoubling our military support efforts, the attrition pace of Russian manpower and particularly the associated military equipment is bound to accelerate to unsustainable levels for Russia,” the Estonians wrote.
Of course, the Ukrainians must kill 100,000 Russians while mitigating their own losses.
“Ukraine’s army expanded from 150,000 ground forces to over 700,000 in 2022,” according to the Estonian defense ministry. But Ukrainian forces have suffered nearly 200,000 casualties—dead and wounded—in 22 months.
“There was heavy attrition among experienced field officers and soldiers alike,” the Estonian ministry explained. With too few experienced staff officers, the Ukrainians have been unable to organize complex operations.
“The effective span of control of a brigade for offensive operations is therefore approximately two companies,” according to the Estonians. “The result is that the [Ukrainian military] plans and executes operations with a horizon of exploitation limited to approximately 1,200 meters.”
Ukraine’s foreign allies have trained more than 100,000 Ukrainian troops since Russia widened the war in February 2022. But the standard course for a Ukrainian trainee is just five weeks long. Basic training for U.S. Army recruits is 10 weeks—and those new soldiers also get months of additional training for their particular speciality.
“It is time for us to set new objectives, a new pace and a new standard of quality in training” for Ukrainian recruits and draftees, the Estonians advised. Expanded foreign training of Ukrainian troops should include intensive, 10-week courses for staff officers, so that Ukrainian brigades finally can begin fighting as brigades.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, did you graduate from a Russian University class on how to write falsehoods? Or are you just naturally this way?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I heard they're going to find Zelensky dead in the closet... (yanno, because he's a closeted homosexual and child rapist)
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Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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Quote:6ix, every time you or Signym post a comment, or Trump opens his mouth, you are showing me why you have so many personal problems. You think you are only expressing "opinions" or "facts," but you are only showing the malfunctionality that is causing your personal problems. Please don't deny you have a myriad of problems. I don't think you can make the connection (or don't want to because it's too painful) between what you are and what inevitably happens to you. You're all malfunctioning all the time.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:--------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, did you graduate from a Russian University class on how to write falsehoods? Or are you just naturally this way?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I heard they're going to find Zelensky dead in the closet... (yanno, because he's a closeted homosexual and child rapist)
Political correctness is just tyranny, with a smiley face.
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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