The Ukraine Crisis

[Caribbean Hen]

Anyone still seeing ignorant wackos with their Ukraine flags out?

Please explain how displaying a UKR flag is ignorant. Thank you.

Why do you think displaying one is cool

[kalm]

Please explain how displaying a UKR flag is ignorant. Thank you.

Why do you think displaying one is cool

I didn’t. But supporting UKR is.

[UNI88]

Anyone still seeing ignorant wackos with their MAGA flags out?

Not as many since the economy when in the toilet and trump started another war in the middle east but there are still ignorant wackos flying MAQA flags.

[Caribbean Hen]

Anyone still seeing ignorant wackos with their MAGA flags out?

Not as many since the economy when in the toilet and trump started another war in the middle east but there are still ignorant wackos flying MAQA flags.

And where have you personally seen these MAGA flags? I haven’t seen any unless your talking about

[UNI88]

Not as many since the economy when in the toilet and trump started another war in the middle east but there are still ignorant wackos flying MAQA flags.

And where have you personally seen these MAGA flags? I haven’t seen any unless your talking about

donald himself said that ""MAQA is Trump".

[Caribbean Hen]

And where have you personally seen these MAGA flags? I haven’t seen any unless your talking about

donald himself said that ""MAQA is Trump".

I look at that picture and I see the American flag

Can you pick it out

[SeattleGriz]

Why do you think displaying one is cool

I didn’t. But supporting UKR is.

You think supporting one of the most corrupt countries that willingly killed its own citizens is cool? Ukraine fucked around and found out the harsh geopolitical realities.

You still don't know/understand/accept Russia stepped in because Ukraine was preparing to go into the Donbas and kill more citizens with a huge offensive.

[kalm]

I didn’t. But supporting UKR is.

You think supporting one of the most corrupt countries that willingly killed its own citizens is cool? Ukraine fucked around and found out the harsh geopolitical realities.

You still don't know/understand/accept Russia stepped in because Ukraine was preparing to go into the Donbas and kill more citizens with a huge offensive.

Yeah those rescuers of democracy and peace over violence… the Russians.

[UNI88]

You think supporting one of the most corrupt countries that willingly killed its own citizens is cool? Ukraine fucked around and found out the harsh geopolitical realities.

You still don't know/understand/accept Russia stepped in because Ukraine was preparing to go into the Donbas and kill more citizens with a huge offensive.

Yeah those rescuers of democracy and peace over violence… the Russians.

I love the irony of a russia lover criticizing Ukraine for being corrupt and killing it's own citizens.

[kalm]

Yeah those rescuers of democracy and peace over violence… the Russians.

I love the irony of a russia lover criticizing Ukraine for being corrupt and killing it's own citizens.

Lack of self awareness or no longer concerned with being a hypocrite?

[UNI88]

I love the irony of a russia lover criticizing Ukraine for being corrupt and killing it's own citizens.

Lack of self awareness or no longer concerned with being a hypocrite?

Utter lack of self awareness is a requirement for MAQA membership.

[SeattleGriz]

You think supporting one of the most corrupt countries that willingly killed its own citizens is cool? Ukraine fucked around and found out the harsh geopolitical realities.

You still don't know/understand/accept Russia stepped in because Ukraine was preparing to go into the Donbas and kill more citizens with a huge offensive.

Yeah those rescuers of democracy and peace over violence… the Russians.

Way to show you don't understand the inner workings if why this happened. Remember Pedo Joe, the idiot you voted for, saying Russia would be "invading soon". Why? Because he knew Ukraine had a huge invading force on the border.

Only you could blow off the fact the absolutely worst ethical country in Europe thought NATO and the US would back them and now us getting it's ass handed to it. Not to mention the politician grift, but there you are, asking for more.

[UNI88]

Yeah those rescuers of democracy and peace over violence… the Russians.

Way to show you don't understand the inner workings if why this happened. Remember Pedo Joe, the idiot you voted for, saying Russia would be "invading soon". Why? Because he knew Ukraine had a huge invading force on the border.

Only you could blow off the fact the absolutely worst ethical country in Europe thought NATO and the US would back them and now us getting it's ass handed to it. Not to mention the politician grift, but there you are, asking for more.

russia is "the absolutely worst ethical country in Europe", but I wouldn't say it's is 'getting it's ass handed to it".

[kalm]

Yeah those rescuers of democracy and peace over violence… the Russians.

Way to show you don't understand the inner workings if why this happened. Remember Pedo Joe, the idiot you voted for, saying Russia would be "invading soon". Why? Because he knew Ukraine had a huge invading force on the border.

Only you could blow off the fact the absolutely worst ethical country in Europe thought NATO and the US would back them and now us getting it's ass handed to it. Not to mention the politician grift, but there you are, asking for more.

Well gersh! I didn’t know UKR was on the cusp of invading Russia! NATO shoukd have supported Putin in his 3 day war instead!

[SeattleGriz]

Way to show you don't understand the inner workings if why this happened. Remember Pedo Joe, the idiot you voted for, saying Russia would be "invading soon". Why? Because he knew Ukraine had a huge invading force on the border.

Only you could blow off the fact the absolutely worst ethical country in Europe thought NATO and the US would back them and now us getting it's ass handed to it. Not to mention the politician grift, but there you are, asking for more.

Well gersh! I didn’t know UKR was on the cusp of invading Russia! NATO shoukd have supported Putin in his 3 day war instead!

Of course you didn't, even after I gave you the OSCE report.

[UNI88]

Putin is running out of money to wage war on Ukraine

The Kremlin’s war machine is short on money and fuel as Ukrainian drones wreak havoc on Russian supply lines.

More than four years after Vladimir Putin failed to seize all of Ukraine in a full-scale invasion, analysts say Kyiv’s forces have turned the tide with improved drones and tactics.

At the same time, Russia is reeling as casualties reach staggering heights; recruitment of replacement troops wanes; and areas far from the front lines come under attack.

[UNI88]

Russia’s Economy Is Ailing. Its Influence Campaign Isn’t.

Call it a tale of two Russias. On the one hand, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Russia’s war of choice against Ukraine is turning into a financially unsustainable venture – one that risks bankrupting the country and may even end up imperiling President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power. On the other, Moscow is now mounting a massive propaganda offensive designed to show off Russia’s softer side, woo gullible Westerners and reset the terms of the international conversation. And those two trends are intimately linked.

To understand the connection, it’s necessary to start with the Russian economy. At home, after years of Western sanctions and economic pressure, the Kremlin is at long last facing serious fiscal headwinds. Top officials in the country’s Finance Ministry and Central Bank are now reportedly warning that the cost of the Ukraine war in Ukraine has become unsustainable and proposing cuts to defense spending.
...
But if Putin isn’t prepared to give up on his efforts to dominate Ukraine, he’s certainly trying to reframe how they are perceived – particularly in the West. Recent days have seen a veritable deluge of pro-Russian commentary on social media platforms like X extolling the welcoming environment in Moscow and ridiculing the idea that Russia is seeking conflict with the United States or Europe. Some of this is organic, a byproduct of high-profile events like the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and the Kremlin’s courtship of influential “influencers.” But some of it is clearly inauthentic, aimed at convincing the West to lessen Russia’s its international isolation – and, by extension, to alleviate its economic problems.

[kalm]

Well gersh! I didn’t know UKR was on the cusp of invading Russia! NATO shoukd have supported Putin in his 3 day war instead!

Of course you didn't, even after I gave you the OSCE report.

Yeah I’m sure the OSCE agrees with you.

[kalm]

Isn’t a great that we’re being regarded in the same light as Russia?

A strongman president, self-styled redeemer of national glory, is trapped in a conflict he can’t win but doesn’t know how to end without looking like a loser. A cult of infallibility prevents the leader admitting a strategic blunder even to himself. It could be Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin; Iran or Ukraine.

The conflicts and the regimes involved are also dissimilar in important ways. Russia’s campaign to eradicate a neighbouring democracy is nastier in conception and bloodier in execution than the bungled US effort to dislodge a dictatorship in Tehran. It has also gone on much longer. The first world war was shorter than a “special military operation” that was supposed to capture Kyiv within weeks. The Soviet Red Army repelled Nazi invasion and marched on Berlin in less time than it has taken Putin’s forces to occupy a tranche of eastern Ukraine, and they are not making any significant advances. The war has burned trillions of roubles and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives for no discernible dividend in national greatness……………

Any internal Russian lobby for ending the war runs into the problem that Putin sees the conflict as an existential struggle to avenge national honour against the perfidious west. He casts himself as the incarnation of national destiny, reaffirming Russian civilisational supremacy over borderlands to which it is historically entitled. Such a man doesn’t easily accept the prospect of dealing with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on equal terms as legitimate president of an independent country.

Trump’s worldview is less cluttered with antique mythology, more pumped with celebrity narcissism, but the effect is the same. He shares Putin’s concept of alpha powers whose interests override any sovereignty claims of lesser nations in their neighbourhoods. He was easily persuaded that Ukraine’s cause was hopeless and that Putin held all “the cards” because it would have offended his own sense of majesty to believe that someone in Zelenskyy’s geopolitical class could be a winner.

If the US president had been interested in the reality of Ukraine’s defensive campaign he might have observed the levelling effect of drones, allowing a smaller force to thwart an apparently overwhelming onslaught. He might even have considered the relevance of that asymmetry when judging whether Iran could be bombed into unconditional surrender. He might then have taken advice from people in the state department and CIA who had war-gamed an all-out campaign against the Islamic Republic under previous administrations. They concluded that regime change couldn’t be achieved from the air and that closure of the strait of Hormuz was a viable Iranian countermeasure with devastating economic consequences.

That would have required a capacity for strategic analysis that recognised practical constraints on what the US can achieve. Since Trump sees no boundary between himself and his country’s power, and treats every interaction in zero-sum terms, factoring Iranian advantages into the military equation would be like admitting limits to his personal potency. Intolerable.

Like Putin, Trump is marooned on an island of autocratic delusion, surrounded by advisers and ministers who are too cowardly or too blinded by ideology to survey the distant shore of reality and suggest a way back. For the Russian president there might be some compensation in seeing the US humbled in the Middle East, but the gains are fewer than they appeared at the start of the war. The revenue boost from higher oil prices has been largely cancelled out by the costs and logistical impediment of Ukrainian drones landing on industrial infrastructure.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... SApp_Other

[Silenoz]

Russians are so tired of winning, and definitely not reduced to sending out their men one at a time so that the drones can't kill them all at once













Glad to see all these years later that Seattle has quadrupled down on the stories he tells himself

[Caribbean Hen]

Impressive

Just wait until someone somewhere orchestrates a drone attack on innocent civilians out on the beach or walking Central Park

[BDKJMU]

Isn’t a great that we’re being regarded in the same light as Russia?

A strongman president, self-styled redeemer of national glory, is trapped in a conflict he can’t win but doesn’t know how to end without looking like a loser. A cult of infallibility prevents the leader admitting a strategic blunder even to himself. It could be Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin; Iran or Ukraine.

The conflicts and the regimes involved are also dissimilar in important ways. Russia’s campaign to eradicate a neighbouring democracy is nastier in conception and bloodier in execution than the bungled US effort to dislodge a dictatorship in Tehran. It has also gone on much longer. The first world war was shorter than a “special military operation” that was supposed to capture Kyiv within weeks. The Soviet Red Army repelled Nazi invasion and marched on Berlin in less time than it has taken Putin’s forces to occupy a tranche of eastern Ukraine, and they are not making any significant advances. The war has burned trillions of roubles and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives for no discernible dividend in national greatness……………

Any internal Russian lobby for ending the war runs into the problem that Putin sees the conflict as an existential struggle to avenge national honour against the perfidious west. He casts himself as the incarnation of national destiny, reaffirming Russian civilisational supremacy over borderlands to which it is historically entitled. Such a man doesn’t easily accept the prospect of dealing with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on equal terms as legitimate president of an independent country.

Trump’s worldview is less cluttered with antique mythology, more pumped with celebrity narcissism, but the effect is the same. He shares Putin’s concept of alpha powers whose interests override any sovereignty claims of lesser nations in their neighbourhoods. He was easily persuaded that Ukraine’s cause was hopeless and that Putin held all “the cards” because it would have offended his own sense of majesty to believe that someone in Zelenskyy’s geopolitical class could be a winner.

If the US president had been interested in the reality of Ukraine’s defensive campaign he might have observed the levelling effect of drones, allowing a smaller force to thwart an apparently overwhelming onslaught. He might even have considered the relevance of that asymmetry when judging whether Iran could be bombed into unconditional surrender. He might then have taken advice from people in the state department and CIA who had war-gamed an all-out campaign against the Islamic Republic under previous administrations. They concluded that regime change couldn’t be achieved from the air and that closure of the strait of Hormuz was a viable Iranian countermeasure with devastating economic consequences.

That would have required a capacity for strategic analysis that recognised practical constraints on what the US can achieve. Since Trump sees no boundary between himself and his country’s power, and treats every interaction in zero-sum terms, factoring Iranian advantages into the military equation would be like admitting limits to his personal potency. Intolerable.

Like Putin, Trump is marooned on an island of autocratic delusion, surrounded by advisers and ministers who are too cowardly or too blinded by ideology to survey the distant shore of reality and suggest a way back. For the Russian president there might be some compensation in seeing the US humbled in the Middle East, but the gains are fewer than they appeared at the start of the war. The revenue boost from higher oil prices has been largely cancelled out by the costs and logistical impediment of Ukrainian drones landing on industrial infrastructure.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... SApp_Other

By who? Some lib at the Guardian?

[kalm]

Isn’t a great that we’re being regarded in the same light as Russia?



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... SApp_Other

By who? Some lib at the Guardian?

By the rest of the world including our former allies.

[Caribbean Hen]

By who? Some lib at the Guardian?

By the rest of the world including our former allies.

That’s a narrow and biased perspective, but everyone knows that’s what you do

[UNI88]

By the rest of the world including our former allies.

That’s a narrow and biased perspective, but everyone knows that’s what you do

No more narrow and biased then your perspective, "but everyone knows that’s what you do".