Putin: "Stick to the timeline!"

[discolé monade]

something about all of this rubs the wrong way. 

it's not actually 'covert' if yahoo is reporting it. (?)

While President Biden has made clear that U.S. troops won’t deploy to Ukraine to help defend the country from an unfolding Russian attack, the U.S. has provided other types of overt — as well as secret — security and intelligence support to Ukraine.

The support has included billions of dollars in military aid; enhanced intelligence sharing between the CIA, the National Security Agency and Ukrainian spy agencies; anti-corruption assistance; and enhanced cybersecurity coordination.

[Raptorpat]

I would assume that's the overt support, and that they kept the covert support off the list.

[Raptorpat]

23 minutes ago, 1pooh4u said:

I’m having a discussion with someone right now that is siding with Russia “100%” because this is the US fault and we don’t know the full context of what’s going on.  Also NATO something something 

Donald Trump?

[bnmjy]

25 minutes ago, discolé monade said:

why, in the absolute fuck, do YOU need to work on a salute? 

jfc dude. 

Well, latrine cleaners still need to respect the chain if command, yaknow.

[discolé monade]

Just now, Raptorpat said:

I would assume that's the overt support, and that they kept the covert support off the list.

no no, i get that. but the headline. 

eh, i'm just sick of media, and all that jazz

[Raptorpat]

I've just been tracking a reddit live feed that is crowdsourcing updates, so I don't gotta see any media nonsense beyond actual scoops.

https://www.reddit.com/live/18hnzysb1elcs

[Ginguy]

4 hours ago, scoobdog said:

China doesn't need to do business with anybody in Russia.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-china-tell-nato-stop-expansion-moscow-backs-beijing-taiwan-2022-02-04/

Yeah, about that....

4 hours ago, Poof said:

Basically as china does that we give the ukrainians bigger guns in proportion to that but the nuances of the realities of proxy wars is yucky for press events and the specific actions get into classified things which is why you heard "no comment" today. None of it is really a secret tho. It's just polite not to speak about it

Yes, we can arm the Ukrainians, and we should with anti-tank and anti-air weapons that are man-portable. The reason to impose sanctions however is to cut off the economic ability to pursue military operations on the part of Russia. When China ignores those sanctions with impunity, the sanctions lose their effectiveness.  Given the "no limits" partnership announced at the Beijing games, and China's refusal to classify Russia's invansion as an invasion, while blaming the U.S., I doubt China is going to be going along with sanctions. 

1 hour ago, Raptorpat said:

lol this timeline

 

Game over....

[1pooh4u]

7 minutes ago, Raptorpat said:

Donald Trump?

Lol I wish it was at least then it would make sense. Their stance is against US Imperialism and I guess I don’t know enough about NATO cuz I don’t understand how becoming a NATO partner Nation is American Imperialism and justifies being invaded.  It’s the weirdest exchange ever. 

[Raptorpat]

What is their opinion on Russian imperialism? Perfectly ok then?

[tsar4]

45 minutes ago, 1pooh4u said:

I’m having a discussion with someone right now that is siding with Russia “100%” because this is the US fault and we don’t know the full context of what’s going on.  Also NATO something something 

Why?  You don't know who they really are, might be part of the disinformation group.  r/Russia scared me until I realized the same. 

Some on r/Ukraine said they just went on r/Russia to lurk and were almost immediately banned without posting a thing.

RT is down according to r/Ukraine.  Captured Russian soldiers are claiming, "We thought we were just in a training exercise!" BS.

[tsar4]

[1pooh4u]

20 minutes ago, tsar4 said:

Why?  You don't know who they really are, might be part of the disinformation group.  r/Russia scared me until I realized the same. 

Some on r/Ukraine said they just went on r/Russia to lurk and were almost immediately banned without posting a thing.

RT is down according to r/Ukraine.  Captured Russian soldiers are claiming, "We thought we were just in a training exercise!" BS.

I don’t think it’s anything as nefarious as that although it could be that this person came to believe what they do based off of disinformation 

[stilgar]

1 hour ago, 1pooh4u said:

I’m having a discussion with someone right now that is siding with Russia “100%” because this is the US fault and we don’t know the full context of what’s going on.  Also NATO something something 

I know who you are talking about.

[1pooh4u]

36 minutes ago, Raptorpat said:

What is their opinion on Russian imperialism? Perfectly ok then?

Like I said “weirdest exchange ever” they even referenced East Germany. Very weird shit. Like a bullshit edge lord take that goes no further than “us imperialism bad. NATO bad”

[1pooh4u]

2 minutes ago, stilgar said:

I know who you are talking about.

It’s a little crazy, right?

Edited February 25, 2022 by 1pooh4u

[Raptorpat]

24 minutes ago, tsar4 said:

r/Russia scared me until I realized the same. 

Some on r/Ukraine said they just went on r/Russia to lurk and were almost immediately banned without posting a thing.

That was embarrassing to look at. All sorts of accounts claiming that Russia isn't going to invade Ukraine juxtaposed with a pinned thread that says "CRIMEA IS OURS" - and then as soon as the invasion happened, they banned all political commentary.

loooooooooooooooooooool

[stilgar]

11 minutes ago, 1pooh4u said:

It’s a little crazy, right?

It really is, plus he is pretty much completely wrong about so many things but he isn't gonna listen to anyone.

[tsar4]

10 minutes ago, Raptorpat said:

That was embarrassing to look at. All sorts of accounts claiming that Russia isn't going to invade Ukraine juxtaposed with a pinned thread that says "CRIMEA IS OURS" - and then as soon as the invasion happened, they banned all political commentary.

loooooooooooooooooooool

A few days ago, when I first looked at it, I was reminded of this side of the Atlantic & the disinformation after the election.

[discolé monade]

exactly how concerned are 'you' about the events unfolding?

Spoiler

except you ghost, we already fucking know. 

 

[katt_goddess]

21 minutes ago, discolé monade said:

exactly how concerned are 'you' about the events unfolding?

 

Anyone who claims to be happily excited over 'being part of history' has an inflated sense of personal self and an unrealistic grasp of their own ability to survive said history should they actually be a part of it.

I've lost all contact with anyone in the area. We don't know if that's because they are running, hiding, or communication disruptions in general. These were not government or military, they were pure civilians. 

[helpme]

The more I read into this the more I hear about trump supporting putin 

Makes me realize he really needs to be place in a jail cell 

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/02/colbert-is-shocked-shocked-to-hear-trumps-support-of-putin

[scoobdog]

1 hour ago, Ginguy said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-china-tell-nato-stop-expansion-moscow-backs-beijing-taiwan-2022-02-04/

Yeah, about that...

Not sure what your point is.  That was from before Russia invaded and before China also voiced its preference of diplomatic resolutions.  Of course China is happy to have Russia invade and pull attention away from Taiwan.  Doesn't mean they're going to come to Russia's defense or support the invasion itself, which they won't.

[tsar4]

1 hour ago, 1pooh4u said:

Like I said “weirdest exchange ever” they even referenced East Germany. Very weird shit. Like a bullshit edge lord take that goes no further than “us imperialism bad. NATO bad”

So you were conversing with Putin himself!

[1pooh4u]

1 minute ago, tsar4 said:

So you were conversing with Putin himself!

Maybe 😆

[tsar4]

1 minute ago, 1pooh4u said:

Maybe 😆

[bnmjy]

Pussy Riot was right about Putin.

Spoiler

 

[bnmjy]

Protest in St Petersburg (looks like Russians are more serious about masks than Americans too)

[Poof]

That fan I posted about who wanted to buy me the playstation works at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in ukraine. I hope he's ok but working at the biggest plant in ukraine has gotta be a dangerous job to have during this. His friend was already killed in Donbass in the earlier invasions too. 

I saw there's videos of helicopters fighting there, explosions have been heard, and one news report says the russians set up howitzers aimed at the plant and were threatening to fire? The howitzer part sounds made up.

I messaged him yesterday but he hasn't responded. If anyone happens to see anything about Zaporizhzhia, post it please?

[Poof]

4 hours ago, Ginguy said:

Yes, we can arm the Ukrainians, and we should with anti-tank and anti-air weapons that are man-portable. The reason to impose sanctions however is to cut off the economic ability to pursue military operations on the part of Russia. When China ignores those sanctions with impunity, the sanctions lose their effectiveness.  Given the "no limits" partnership announced at the Beijing games, and China's refusal to classify Russia's invansion as an invasion, while blaming the U.S., I doubt China is going to be going along with sanctions. 

We have been, and other countries have too. It can be hard to find news on weapons deliveries since it can be politically unpopular in the donor country to give stuff away. Or they don't want the enemy to know what our allies have. So a lot of the time it's hush hush and when it is reported on, the quantity of whatever was delivered can be reported as less or even a different weapon.

Heres a quick list from wikipedia of some of the things we've donated. This isn't something I've researched at all tho so idk. 

Quote

The deliveries of the US lethal aid to Ukraine included .50 BMG caliber ammunition, M141 Bunker Defeat Munition and FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles.^[829] US also intends to transfer Mi-17 helicopters to Ukraine, previously used by Afghan Air Force.^[830] In January 2022, the Biden administration approved deliveries of U.S.-made Stinger surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine.^[543] On 21 January 2022, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated that "In the last year alone, we committed $650 million in security assistance to Ukraine; in total, since 2014, we've committed $2.7 billion. These deliveries are ongoing, including today there's more deliveries coming."^{[831][832][833][834]}

See to me that dollar amount isn't enough but it could be a lot less than what we actually sent.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Poof

[bnmjy]

Brandenburg Gate in Germany with Ukrainian flag colors

Edited February 25, 2022 by bnmjy

[tsar4]

10 minutes ago, bnmjy said:

Brandenburg Gate in Germany with Ukrainian flag colors

Buildings in Dallas, the Cincinnati sign & Toronto's CN tower as well.

Edited February 25, 2022 by tsar4

[Jman]

 

As pointless as this whole war is, it's clear Ukraine isn't going down without a fight.  I'm just disgusted it's gotten to this point.

[Poof]

Cleveland

[Master-Debater131]

 

Good.  This was one glaring omission from our sanctions package announced yesterday.

[Master-Debater131]

 

 

Its absolutely wild that we have been able to watch movements like this throughout the invasion. There have been Global Hawks off the coast of Crimea the entire time, and you can watch them on websites just flying in circles monitoring whats going on. 

[Master-Debater131]

 

 

Russia is making a lot of noise, but I still think China is the #1 threat posed to freedom and democracy in the world.  They are not a friendly nation, and its about time we start treating them as such.

[discolé monade]

5 minutes ago, Master-Debater131 said:

 

 

Russia is making a lot of noise, but I still think China is the #1 threat posed to freedom and democracy in the world.  They are not a friendly nation, and its about time we start treating them as such.

if that happens, i think china would call in it's 'chips' and cripple the u.s. economically. if that doesn't already happen during this 'invasion', 'war', 'coflict' 

[discolé monade]

UEFA strips Russian of Championship League final....

[Master-Debater131]

8 minutes ago, discolé monade said:

if that happens, i think china would call in it's 'chips' and cripple the u.s. economically. if that doesn't already happen during this 'invasion', 'war', 'coflict' 

China needs us way more than we need them though.

 

Anyone can build cheap shit and ship it to the US.  We've already seen some companies shift out of China into places like India.  The Chinese economy is a paper tiger still. The middle class there isn't as robust as ours. Their government is also a lot more unstable if their economy crashes. They have total control now because people are happy, but if suddenly 1 billion people are pissed off because the economy crashes then they will have a real problem on their hands.

 

Im not saying it wouldnt hurt, but we would wind up in better shape after the rupture than they would.

[bnmjy]

10 minutes ago, Master-Debater131 said:

China needs us way more than we need them though.

 

Anyone can build cheap shit and ship it to the US.  We've already seen some companies shift out of China into places like India.  The Chinese economy is a paper tiger still. The middle class there isn't as robust as ours. Their government is also a lot more unstable if their economy crashes. They have total control now because people are happy, but if suddenly 1 billion people are pissed off because the economy crashes then they will have a real problem on their hands.

 

Im not saying it wouldnt hurt, but we would wind up in better shape after the rupture than they would.

The worrying thing about China is cyber warfare. Remember that one Pentagon senior official stepped down and said China is well ahead of us in that regard, mostly because tech giants, mainly Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, aren't helping the government as much as he feel they should.

As much as I'm worried about Taiwan right now, I think it's too early for China to do anything about it. Unlike Ukraine, a poor mostly flat country, Taiwan is a rich mountainous island. Invasion there will be much harder. Not to mention all the American bases nearby in the Ryukyu islands, along with the Japanese navy. Chinese warfare would affect the global economy, and like you said it would probably be more a detriment to them because of their reliance on cheap exports.

Still, Taiwan has raised their caution alert. They were the first to raise concern about coronavirus back in December 2019, and nobody really listened to them. I think for now, China is gonna slowly embolden themselves by sending more convoys of ships here and there, just as provocative measures.

[Vamped]

Is anybody else thinking about how differently they would probably be spinning this if Trump was still president ?

 

[Master-Debater131]

5 minutes ago, bnmjy said:

The worrying thing about China is cyber warfare. Remember that one Pentagon senior official stepped down and said China is well ahead of us in that regard, mostly because tech giants, mainly Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, aren't helping the government as much as he feel they should.

As much as I'm worried about Taiwan right now, I think it's too early for China to do anything about it. Unlike Ukraine, a poor mostly flat country, Taiwan is a rich mountainous island. Invasion there will be much harder. Not to mention all the American bases nearby in the Ryukyu islands, along with the Japanese navy. Chinese warfare would affect the global economy, and like you said it would probably be more a detriment to them because of their reliance on cheap exports.

Still, Taiwan has raised their caution alert. They were the first to raise concern about coronavirus back in December 2019, and nobody really listened to them. I think for now, China is gonna slowly embolden themselves by sending more convoys of ships here and there, just as provocative measures.

I do worry about cyber warfare, but I also suspect that we have fairly robust weapons as well. Theres been talks about what we can do against Russia, and its pretty significant. I bet we could do the same thing to China. Again, it would hurt both of us, but I dont think we are quite as helpless as people may think.  We can be better though, thats absolutely true.

Like you said, Taiwan is very different. China would have to float their army across open water to get to Taiwan. They cant just roll tanks across open fields like you can in Ukraine. Thats a lot of easy targets for missiles, subs, and anti-ship weaponry. China just doesnt really have the capability to land massive numbers of soldiers yet.  They could devastate Taiwan with missiles, but not really land the required forces needed to capture and maintain Taiwan.

Different ballgame, but one that China does want to play at some point.

[Raptorpat]

The Russian Foreign Ministry threatened Finland and Sweden with "military and political consequences" if they join NATO.

[Master-Debater131]

1 hour ago, Raptorpat said:

The Russian Foreign Ministry threatened Finland and Sweden with "military and political consequences" if they join NATO.

Alternative headline: Sweden and Finland rush to join NATO

[Jman]

Unconfirmed but the US is noting that Russia’s advance is going slower than their initial estimates had.  Meanwhile everyone male 18-60  is barred from leaving the country and has been conscripted.

[Master-Debater131]

 

[bnmjy]

Tangential, why is it being spelled as Kyiv now? I know it's the more correct pronunciation, but I remember it being spelled as Kiev for the longest time, including the conquest of Crimea in 2014.

Edit: Oh, I see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KyivNotKiev

Edited February 25, 2022 by bnmjy

[scoobdog]

I had not realized the "red washing" of Ukraine dates back as far as the early nineteenth century with the changing of native Ukrainian language place names.

Edited February 25, 2022 by scoobdog

[bnmjy]

If any of you need something to pass the time, check out the Russia subreddit. They seem to be going through an existential crisis right now . . . lawl

[Raptorpat]

Which one, r/Russia?