Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 21:09
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With the deplorable support of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, the president has elevated what he insists on calling his “limited military offensive” into an existential struggle between a spiritually ordained Great Russia and a corrupt and debauched West.
But Russians are aware that Ukraine was not widely perceived as an enemy, much less a mortal enemy, until Mr. Putin seized Crimea and stirred up a secessionist conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Until then, Russians and Ukrainians traveled freely across their long border, and many of them had family, acquaintances or friends on the other side.
And after all the poverty, repression and isolation under Soviet rule, Russians need to remember that until Mr. Putin began trying to change Ukraine’s borders by force in 2014, they were finally enjoying what those in other industrialized countries had long considered normal — the opportunity to earn decent salaries, buy consumer goods and enjoy vastly expanded freedoms to travel abroad and speak their mind.
The West they visited was not the caricature of depravity presented by Mr. Putin or Patriarch Kirill. And their Russia was hardly a pure and spiritual model, with the alcoholism, corruption, drug abuse, homophobia and other sins so familiar to all Russians.
In the end, the question is whether any of Mr. Putin’s lectures on history really provide a justification for the death and destruction he has ordained. Russians know the horrors of all-out war; they must know that nothing Mr. Putin has concocted remotely validates the leveling of towns and cities, the murder, rape and pillaging, or the deliberate strikes against power and water supplies across Ukraine. Like the last great European war, this one is mostly one man’s madness.
If Ukraine was not an enemy before, Mr. Putin has ensured it is one now. Battling an invader is among the most potent methods of forging a national identity, and for Ukraine, Russia as its enemy and the West as its future have become indelible elements. And if the West was indeed divided and indecisive on how to deal with Russia or Ukraine before, Moscow’s invasion has unified the United States and much of Europe in relegating Russia to a threat and an outcast and raising a heroic Ukraine to a friend and ally.
Claiming to champion Russian greatness, Mr. Putin has turned Russia into a pariah state in many parts of the world. He claims Russia has everything it needs to withstand the cost of the war and sanctions. But according to a report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank, Russia faces decades of economic stagnation and regression even if the war ends soon. ( https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88664 ) Industrial production, even military, is likely to continue falling because of its reliance on high-tech goods from the West that it can no longer get. Many Western companies have left, trade with the West has dwindled, and financing the war is draining the budget. Numerous foreign airlines have ceased service to Russia. Add to that the millions of Russia’s best and brightest who have fled, and the future is bleak.
The true scope of Russia’s casualties is also being kept from its people. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in November that Moscow’s casualties were “well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded.” About 300,000 men have been pressed into cannon-fodder duty in the army and many more may follow.
It is possible that Mr. Putin might eventually seek a negotiated settlement, though that becomes ever more remote as the Ukrainians suffer ever greater destruction and loss, and as their determination not to cede an inch of their country deepens. For now, Mr. Putin seems to still believe he can bring Ukraine to its knees and dictate its fate, cost be damned.
In his public appearances, Mr. Putin still cultivates the image of a self-confident strongman. Where there are failures, it is the fault of underlings who do not obey his will. He played out that scene on Jan. 11, i
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Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?
Certainly not anything that the professional liars at NYT have to say about, well... anything.
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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.
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Quote:A military coup in Russia is likely as President Vladimir Putin is starting to look like a "second-rate dictator," his former aide said on Thursday.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Do you think anyone actually reads your walls of gibberish, SECOND?
In an opinion column for the Russian media outlet Mozhem Obyasnit, Abbas Gallyamov wrote that Russian military generals are growing increasingly frustrated as their troops continue to suffer defeats on the Ukrainian front.
Gallyamov is a political consultant and ex-speechwriter to Putin. He has been living in exile in Israel since 2018. Gallyamov first worked in Putin's speech-writing team from 2000 to 2001, and then from 2008 to 2010.
"It must be understood that the vast majority of commanders in the army of an authoritarian nation are not staunch supporters of the authorities, but run-of-the-mill opportunists," Gallyamov wrote in the column, according to a translation from The Daily Beast.
"As problems pile up in the country and the army, that the authorities are unable to solve, Putin is more steadily transforming in people's eyes from a great strategist to an ordinary, second-rate dictator," he said.
Commanders will fight on the side of whoever seems most likely to win, he predicted.
Gallyamov also argued problems on the battlefield are creating rifts among Russia's military leadership, specifically with Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose troops fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine.
"Prigozhin has completely discredited the regime in the eyes of service members with his rhetoric, and anger at the authorities for allowing a criminal to walk all over them is growing stronger," Gallyamov said.
"The longer the war drags on, the clearer its pointlessness becomes," he added.
Since the start of Putin's invasion last year, Gallyamov has regularly commented on the state of the war and Russian politics in general.
Last month, the former speechwriter said that Putin likely already has an escape plan in the event he loses the war in Ukraine, citing unnamed sources.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-military-chiefs-are-losin
g-patience-with-putin-and-could-soon-turn-on-him-in-a-coup-former-aide-predicts/ar-AA16OxpJ
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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Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán said former U.S. President Donald Trump is the only person who can end the war in Ukraine.
Speaking at a panel event in Berlin, Orbán proposed that the U.S. should conduct peace talks with Russia and that Trump should lead the negotiations on the American side.
“Now what I'm saying is going to sound brutal. But hope for peace is called Donald Trump,” he said.
https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/10/29230548/putins-key-ally-says-dona
ld-trump-is-the-one-to-end-war-in-ukraine-this-is-going-to-sound-brutal-but
Trump agrees with Viktor Orbán that Trump is the greatest:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
IF I WERE PRESIDENT, THE RUSSIA/UKRAINE WAR WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED, BUT EVEN NOW, IF PRESIDENT, I WOULD BE ABLE TO NEGOTIATE AN END TO THIS HORRIBLE AND RAPIDLY ESCALATING WAR WITHIN 24 HOURS. SUCH A TRAGIC WASTE OF HUMAN LIFE!!!
Jan 26, 2023, 6:06 PM
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109758248712795394
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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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Rickards: Has World War III Begun?
Friday, Jan 27, 2023 - 06:45 PM
via DailyReckoning.com,
Has World War III already begun?
That’s a serious question and deserves serious consideration by investors. A wave of analysts and commentators have warned that the war in Ukraine could spin out of control and escalate into World War III.
One variation on that theme is that the war could escalate into a nuclear war with tactical nuclear weapons deployed. Most point a finger at Russia as the party that will launch a nuclear strike out of desperation at a failing campaign in Ukraine.
Actually, the opposite is true.
The Russian campaign is not failing (it has been on hold for several months awaiting the right conditions to launch a winter offensive). You just don’t hear about it in the mainstream media, which is essentially a propaganda outlet for Ukraine.
And the party most likely to use nuclear weapons first is the U.S. in order to save face and destabilize Russia once Ukraine is on the brink of collapse.
Reality Check
Many people have a hard time believing that. They’ve been told that Putin is the devil incarnate and would probably like to destroy the world. We like to think that in modern times we’re sophisticated and above falling prey to propaganda. Unfortunately, it isn’t true.
The fact is the U.S. did wage the only nuclear war in history from Aug. 6–9, 1945 and had a successful outcome. I’m not getting into the morality of it here, one way or the other. I’m just being objective.
Either way, another nuclear war could not be contained and it would be tantamount to World War III. It amounts to the same thing.
But my point is different. It’s not that we may be headed to World War III; it’s that we’re already there. The issue of when wars in general and world wars in particular begin and end is not as clear cut as many believe. There are many examples.
When Does a War Officially Begin? It’s Complicated
When did World War I begin? There were many precursors including the Agadir Crisis in Morocco (1911), the Italian-Turkish War (1911–12) and the Balkan Wars (1912–1913).
Clearly, the First World War was in a countdown phase as early as 1911.
More specifically, did World War I begin with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914? The Austria-Hungary declaration of war on Serbia on July 28, 1914? Germany’s declaration of war on Russia on Aug. 1, 1914?
The fact is the beginning of World War I (then called the Great War) was a series of blunders. There were many other mistakes in addition to those just mentioned. Of course, the U.S. did not enter World War I until April 6, 1917.
The end of World War I was also a muddle. Most students recite Nov. 11, 1918, as the day the war ended. That’s not quite right. That is the day an armistice was signed and the shooting stopped. But an armistice is a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. The actual Versailles Treaty that ended the war was signed on June 28, 1919.
There’s nothing new about blurry lines on when wars begin and end. The Korean War stopped with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953, but it’s still technically not over; there has never been a peace treaty.
The most interesting case (and the one most pertinent to the war in Ukraine) is the beginning of World War II.
When Did World War II Really Begin?
Most Americans reflexively date this from Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. That’s the right date for U.S. entry, but of course, the war began on Sept. 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. The U.K. and France declared war on Germany on Sept. 3.
Yet did World War II actually begin much earlier?
Japan invaded Manchuria on Sept. 18, 1931. They established a puppet regime there called Manchukuo led by Emperor Puyi (the infamous “Last Emperor” of China, and a descendant of the Qing Dynasty). This was followed by a full-scale invasion of China by Japan in 1937 and the hNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Russian Host Explodes
"World War Three is already underway," he said in the clip, tweeted by journalist and founder of the Russian Media Monitor, Julia Davis. "And the West has returned to its Nazi roots."
He said that he had previously warned that Adolf Hitler would be "rehabilitated" as he referred to the widely dismissed "denazification" justification for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, adding "this is where everything is heading."
Solovyov blamed Russia for allowing this to happen and questioned why Moscow had not conducted strikes against New York or Washington, D.C.
He said this should have been the least response to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines last September, which Moscow and the West have blamed each other for.
"They blew up our pipelines...they're delivering heavy tanks," he said. "Stop talking about red lines—it's a totally empty phrase."
"Berlin, Paris, Madrid, London, Washington should be on fire," he said and asked, "Why wasn't Kyiv wiped off the face of the earth" after the "Nazi nation" of Ukraine was blamed for strikes on Russian territory, such as in Belgorod.
"Why do Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk [Dnipro] still exist?" Solovyov questioned, also condemning "the silence" from Moscow about the impending delivery of Western weapons to Kyiv.
"Did we destroy a single base on NATO territory? No. Did we conduct strikes against the vile Polish dogs? We didn't do a damn thing," he said.
Solovyov, who has regularly said on his evening television show that Moscow should use its nuclear capabilities against the countries that back Ukraine, said: "How are we planning to respond?"
"By howling that avoiding nuclear war is the most important thing? Then why the heck do we have a stockpile of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons? To be afraid to use it?"
"We have strategic nuclear weapons, why aren't they put on high alert?"
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-host-explodes-over-us-help-ukraine-vl
adimir-solovyov-1777264
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 realistic scenarios of Russian collapse we should be prepared for
By Hryhoriy Riy
https://english.nv.ua/opinion/the-realistic-scenarios-of-russian-colla
pse-we-should-be-prepared-for-50300393.html
General Ben Hodges said that the world must be ready for the collapse of the Russian Federation, comparing its potential collapse with the disintegration of the USSR, for which the West was not ready. At the beginning of January 2023, several leading publications at once (Politico, Foreign Policy, The New York Sun, The Sunday Guardian) devoted articles and comments to the issue of Russian disintegration.
A recent survey of 167 experts by the Atlantic Council showed 40% of respondents expected Russia’s collapse within the next decade due to revolution, civil war, political disintegration, or other reasons.
Let's consider Russia's potential disintegration from a historical perspective.
The key issue, in my opinion, in the process of the collapse of the Russian Federation is the strength and influence of national movements (that is, those forces that seek to gain independence for their ethnic groups or autonomous entities) within modern Russia. In addition, there is the influence of legal, economic, and security factors, in particular the support of Western democracies for the disintegration aspirations of the peoples of Russia.
From the point of view of the policy of imperial Moscow, all levers have been used to suppress such movements in the past few decades, as, in principle, has been done for centuries before. Despite the fact that Tatarstan, Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Karelia, Yakutia (Sakha), Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, like some other subjects of the federation, are republics and have their own constitutions with the established right to national self-determination, this is not evidence of these national communities’ free democratic development. Rather the opposite.
We know from the history of Ukraine that in June 1917 the Ukrainian Central Rada (UCR) proclaimed its First Universal Declaration, and on November Third, about the formation of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). The situation was similar in other regions of the former empire. In December 1917, the Republic of Tatarstan was proclaimed. From this period originates the formation of the Turkic state of Idel-Ural, which spanned the lands of the modern Chuvash Republic, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and a number of nearby regions of Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, and Samara Oblasts. In February 1918, the Kuban People's Republic was created, and in June, the Siberian Republic.
All these entities eventually ceased to exist under the pressure of the Red Army. The nations that managed to proclaim and maintain their independence were those that had strong national movements, a relatively recent tradition of having their own state, as well as support among officials from the United States, Great Britain, and France – the countries that won the First World War and created a new world order. Thus, independence was successfully proclaimed by the Poles, Finns, Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians.
During this period, the Russian Empire experienced a half-collapse, but over time it was restored by the Bolsheviks. In their new empire, the Bolsheviks could not ignore national feelings, and therefore, with the policy of so-called “indigenization," they tried to have these conquered peoples “become their own,” temporarily giving the population of these territories certain features of real national entities, as paraphernalia. Thus, the Russian Empire was transformed from a monarchical state into a federation of socialist republics - the USSR. However, imperialism did not go away, and the "independence" of the national republics was conditional.
An attempt at another restructuring of the "old" Russian empire in the mid-1980s in the midst of military failures in Afghanistan and the democratization of public life failed and led to another half-collapse. First, the Central European countries broke aw
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To Fix Its Problems in Ukraine, Russia Turns to the Architect of the War
by Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt
President Vladimir V. Putin is on his third overall commander in Ukraine. But his military’s fundamental issues have not been addressed, Western officials say.
WASHINGTON — Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the architect of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, took over the day-to-day running of Russia’s war effort this month by convincing his boss that his predecessor was too passive, American and European officials say.
But General Gerasimov’s turbocharged strategy is what led to Russia’s problems to begin with, and Moscow still does not have the troops, ammunition or equipment that military officials say it needs to mass the big offensive promised by the country’s senior military leader.
Since General Gerasimov replaced Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was in the job for only three months, Russia’s military leadership has focused on tactical issues like whether troops should travel in civilian vehicles and the dangers of their cellphone use, Western officials say. But while those matters have certainly bedeviled service members, there is no evidence that the Russian military has begun to address its fundamental problems, like shortages of ammunition and well-trained troops, despite the musical chairs of generals, according to these officials.
In Washington, where military and defense officials walk the halls of the Pentagon with lists of the steadily growing number of Russian generals who have been fired or demoted during 11 months of war (nine so far), the latest installment of who’s in charge is viewed as part of a drama with an ever-evolving cast of characters who have not gotten the job done.
“It’s kind of like a reality TV show,” Colin H. Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters last week. “And I think it’s more indicative that the Russians have still not figured it out about how they intend to command the fight, and I think the dysfunction among Russian commanders is pretty profound.”
Now on his third overall war commander, Mr. Putin has accomplished few of his goals. Russian troops have failed to seize Kyiv, the capital; President Volodymyr Zelensky is still in power; Ukraine has closer ties to the West than ever; and despite signs of some cracks, NATO remains united. Even Russia’s more limited goal of taking over the entire eastern region of Donbas remains elusive.
To fix this mess, Mr. Putin has turned to none other than General Gerasimov.
For 10 years, General Gerasimov was believed to be working to modernize the Russian armed forces as the chief of general staff for the military — the equivalent of the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He had studied American misadventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the former Yugoslavia and Libya, and aimed to incorporate those insights into the plans.
But evidence of that effort has yet to emerge on the Ukrainian battlefield.
General Gerasimov, 67, comes complete with contradictions that characterize senior Russian leaders: His counterparts in the West say he has personal integrity, but that he pushes the lies of his government. He told Western officials early last year that Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine; weeks later, Russian troops had crossed the border. He has also remained close to Mr. Putin, who appointed him head of his military more than a decade ago.
In rare public comments, mimicking Mr. Putin’s propaganda, General Gerasimov portrayed Russia as a victim of Western aggression, without explaining his strategy to neutralize the perceived threat.
“Our country and its armed forces today are opposing practically the entire collective West,” he said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Arguments and Facts published on Jan. 24, adding that NATO is “using Ukraine for a hybrid war against our nation.”
As he sought to overhaul the Russian military, General Gerasimov elevated the irregular warfare tactics that he falsely believed that Americans were conductin
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