tsar4 Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 One of the most facepalmy facepalms in the history of facepalms 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seight Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 8 hours ago, tsar4 said: One of the most facepalmy facepalms in the history of facepalms 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 23 Author Share Posted February 23 Two years of War... "According to a recent poll, 59% of Russians support the idea of Russia joining the European Union…" I wrote on 17 May 2001. "Nato and Russia are actively seeking closer cooperation: a sign to both sides that the real threat to world peace lies not with each other…" [20 November 2001] So, where did it all go wrong? I'm not the only person wondering. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 23 Author Share Posted February 23 Fun with PsyOps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icarus27k Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 2 hours ago, tsar4 said: Two years of War... "According to a recent poll, 59% of Russians support the idea of Russia joining the European Union…" I wrote on 17 May 2001. "Nato and Russia are actively seeking closer cooperation: a sign to both sides that the real threat to world peace lies not with each other…" [20 November 2001] So, where did it all go wrong? I'm not the only person wondering. We were treating Russia as a normal country, an aspiring liberal democracy. And then, a candidate for the president of Ukraine gets poisoned and then an anti-Putin Russian writer gets murdered. And we thought, "huh, that's weird but it's not enough to make a big case out of". This continues till 2014 when we were alarmed by the Russian annexation of Crimea but still thought "okay that's bad but hopefully that's all". 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icarus27k Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 The plan now is to keep Russia at bay until Putin leaves power. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 23 Author Share Posted February 23 7 minutes ago, Icarus27k said: We were treating Russia as a normal country, an aspiring liberal democracy. And then, a candidate for the president of Ukraine gets poisoned and then an anti-Putin Russian writer gets murdered. And we thought, "huh, that's weird but it's not enough to make a big case out of". This continues till 2014 when we were alarmed by the Russian annexation of Crimea but still thought "okay that's bad but hopefully that's all". "Ah, just give Hitler the Sudetenland. It will shut him up and nobody will care." 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icarus27k Posted February 23 Share Posted February 23 7 minutes ago, tsar4 said: "Ah, just give Hitler the Sudetenland. It will shut him up and nobody will care." There are nuanced differences though. Nazi Germany was definitely the strongest army in the world at the time. Putin's Russia is not. It's being held in place by a smaller country that it just tried to absorb but failed at doing that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 23 Author Share Posted February 23 Scratch another Russian A-50 (Russia's version of the AWACS) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seight Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 *ding* Reminder, we are currently entering year 3 of a "2-week military excursion" by Russia into Ukraine. That is all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 25 Author Share Posted February 25 Putin: "Oh my!...anyway..." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 25 Author Share Posted February 25 "There will be surprises!" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptorpat Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Navalny was apparently on the cusp of being exchanged in a prisoner swap immediately before he died. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/navalny-was-close-being-freed-prisoner-swap-says-ally-2024-02-26/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 28 Author Share Posted February 28 With Navalny out of the way, there was an opening... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 28 Author Share Posted February 28 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master-Debater131 Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 11 hours ago, Master-Debater131 said: Saw this a few days ago. I swear Putin was playing the 'long game', having Russians relocate to European countries to start enclaves. Later, they either request assistance or claim they're systemically being hassled by the host country's Gov't. allowing Putin to start another "special operation". 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 2 Author Share Posted March 2 To put it in simple terms, there was only one Rus – the Kyiv one, of which Moscovy was just a province (and the most backward one by the way). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 5 Author Share Posted March 5 Ukraine gained access into Russian Defense Ministry's servers 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 Ukrainian Custom Shop converts another Russian Surface Ship into a Submersible 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 9 Author Share Posted March 9 Please tell me none of this is true... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
André Toulon Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 13 minutes ago, tsar4 said: Please tell me none of this is true... ....I mean, it's sad but seems par for the course 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 13 Author Share Posted March 13 Russian partisan groups attacking the Russian army within Russia Claims are that they've captured a couple of villages. If they could cut some of the supply lines, that would be great. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 Putin takes Mao literally 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 14 Author Share Posted March 14 New mandatory class in Russia 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 Macron: "I decide!" Wonder if he's talking about sending troops to Ukraine? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 15 Author Share Posted March 15 Q: Why did he "hang himself"? A: It was "necessary" because he lived on the ground floor! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 16 Author Share Posted March 16 Meanwhile, at the Russian polls...https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68581214 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 16 Author Share Posted March 16 Russian couple found with baby of Ukrainian woman murdered in Germany. You may need to translate the story. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icarus27k Posted March 17 Share Posted March 17 Periodic perspective: Russia has dedicated practically its entire army to conquering Ukraine, and it's still not enough. They have to mobilize Russian men and change the entire Russian economy into a defense industry focused on the war. And they can't take over the Donbass, much less all of Ukraine. The USA was able to dedicate only a portion of its army to two theaters of war (Afghanistan and Iraq) for 10-20 years. And average Americans never saw any change in their daily lives the entire time. Also, Russia has had hundreds of thousands of fatalities while the USA had like 10,000. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 17 Author Share Posted March 17 Another Russian Freedom fighting success 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptorpat Posted March 17 Share Posted March 17 Putin wins election with 87% of the vote. Also: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwimOdin Posted March 18 Share Posted March 18 13% of the voting public will be suddenly dying from falls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 Nearly a Bingo! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 19 Author Share Posted March 19 Could Russia be using US satellite images to target Ukraine? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 21 Author Share Posted March 21 TIL... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master-Debater131 Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Remember that the US State Department warned of an imminent attack not that long ago. My first thought is this is a false flag attack that Putin is going to blame on Ukraine and use as an excuse to escalate the war. Theres plenty of video already online of inside the concert hall during the attack. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master-Debater131 Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jman Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 News is specifically blaming Islamic extremists. Which has nothing to do with Ukraine, but does fit the “false flag to horrify the domestic population” theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master-Debater131 Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Just started seeing that reported as well. Chechnya maybe? There was talk at the very start of the Ukraine war that Chechnya might start acting up because so many Russian forces had to be removed from there to fight in Ukraine. Wouldnt be shocked at all if it turns out this came from there. Or that its a false flag. Im still banking on false flag. Putin has a history of using false flag attacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master-Debater131 Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Theres a video floating around now purportedly showing an attacker being arrested. It looks staged as hell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icarus27k Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icarus27k Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winter_Rain Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 On 2/22/2024 at 9:24 PM, Icarus27k said: We were treating Russia as a normal country, an aspiring liberal democracy. And then, a candidate for the president of Ukraine gets poisoned and then an anti-Putin Russian writer gets murdered. And we thought, "huh, that's weird but it's not enough to make a big case out of". This continues till 2014 when we were alarmed by the Russian annexation of Crimea but still thought "okay that's bad but hopefully that's all". The thing is that Putin showed his ass pretty much from the beginning of his time in power, everybody just chose to ignore it. He was suppressing dissent from the beginning. And after more than 20 years, well...not super shocking that there's not much open dissent anymore. 20 years in politics is a very long time. Invading a neighbor? Putin did it already in 2008, in Georgia, with almost no consequences. So then he decided to get more bold and try to grab Crimea. Still few meaningful consequences. So was him launching a full invasion of Ukraine really shocking, or a natural progression? He'd already showed his ambition. The lack of humanity, the destructiveness, the brutality of the Ukraine war? Putin did all of it already in Chechnya. Before there was Mariupol, there was Grozny. Then after Putin crushed them he installed a strongman loyalist to rule them. Chechnya was a brutal, savage conflict that cast a long shadow over Russia and it's neighbors. It destabilized the whole North Caucasus, showed very low value for human life, killed or displaced large numbers of people, and was a major generational trauma for multiple assorted ethnicities of Russia, yet it's rarely mentioned by Western analysts unless it's politically convenient to do so, which is kind of amazing to me. Eastern Europeans though...they paid attention and didn't forget. Ukraine actually gave refuge to Chechens who didn't want to live under Putin, and now some of them/their children are returning the favor by fighting in the Ukrainian army. Chechnya has cast a very long shadow over the whole region. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 22 Author Share Posted March 22 (edited) When I first heard of this attack, I was afraid it was some group doing it in Ukraine's name or that Putin would claim Ukraine was behind it. Instead, it was ISIS & the US warned Russia something was brewing... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68642162 Edit: as much distain as I have for Russia, it's for the Government & cronies, not the general populace. No one should have to suffer this. Edited March 22 by tsar4 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winter_Rain Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 On 2/28/2024 at 8:27 PM, tsar4 said: Saw this a few days ago. I swear Putin was playing the 'long game', having Russians relocate to European countries to start enclaves. Later, they either request assistance or claim they're systemically being hassled by the host country's Gov't. allowing Putin to start another "special operation". Nah, this population mess goes back to before Putin was even born. A lot of it can be blamed on Stalin, population transfers were one of his common tactics to deal with nationalists and assorted other "troublemakers". He would remove the ethnic group to Siberia or Central Asia or whatever and bring ethnic Russians into their lands (this was not always consensual for the Russians either). In the later Soviet era some of these ethnic groups were allowed to move back to their homelands, but authorities still had a heavy hand on the situation and heavily suppressed nationalism. But it backfired, and instead surged across almost the whole former commie bloc once the boot on their necks was gone, leading population movements, ethnic cleansings, religious revival, xenophobia, etc. Transnistria is a difficult problem to solve because wtf do you even do with those people? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winter_Rain Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 On 3/17/2024 at 9:50 AM, Icarus27k said: Periodic perspective: Russia has dedicated practically its entire army to conquering Ukraine, and it's still not enough. They have to mobilize Russian men and change the entire Russian economy into a defense industry focused on the war. And they can't take over the Donbass, much less all of Ukraine. The USA was able to dedicate only a portion of its army to two theaters of war (Afghanistan and Iraq) for 10-20 years. And average Americans never saw any change in their daily lives the entire time. Also, Russia has had hundreds of thousands of fatalities while the USA had like 10,000. Putin has been reluctant to fully mobilize Russian men because he knows there's going to be massive negative effects to that. Just look at what happened with the first (partial) mobilization, millions of men fled the country, and a significant proportion of those were exactly the kind of men Russia didn't want to lose --- men with money and assets, educated professionals, men with valuable skills, working-and-starting-families age men. So far the Russian army has been disproportionately composed of ethnic minorities, criminals, poor provincial alcoholics, and foreigners (they have been intentionally targeting Africans and Central Asians for recruitment, as well as targeting illegal migrants). Undesirables, pretty much. Casualty numbers mean much less when the majority of your population doesn't really care if they die. (Which sounds harsh to say, but...) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winter_Rain Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 1 hour ago, Icarus27k said: Russian security services already claimed to have thwarted one planned attack by ISIS-K not far from Moscow earlier this month. Moscow also has a significant minority population of Central Asians, the main demographic of ISIS-K recruits. And Central Asians are in general disliked by Russians. So...we'll see how all the threads come together and what the bigger fallout will be here. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winter_Rain Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Regarding today's terrorist attack. According to my husband, the general common opinion on Russian social media right now seems to be that this was most likely a false flag attack and/or an attack that was known but was "allowed" to happen to serve a greater goal. Some of their evidence: that mall usually has police. There was no police presence at the time the attack started. Police took 90 minutes to respond to the scene, and the perpetrators escaped. Husband said even some of the people he knows who are very stupid and don't normally question anything are suspicious. You can take from that what you will. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsar4 Posted March 23 Author Share Posted March 23 In the words of Kenny Rodgers - "Something's Burning" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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