Ukraine Conflict - Drei Kameraden

[BruceVC]

18 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Maybe Corona got out of Ukraine?

That would be funny and ironic  I must admit 

[Sarex]

https://www.c-span.org/video/?518355-1/secretary-state-political-affairs-testifies-ukraine&live&vod

40:20 is the mark where they discus the biolabs.

[Amentep]

7 minutes ago, Sarex said:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?518355-1/secretary-state-political-affairs-testifies-ukraine&live&vod

40:20 is the mark where they discus the biolabs.

Arent these the Ukraine biolabs that the US put monet towards for research or containment of Soviet era biostuff?

[Sarex]

13 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Arent these the Ukraine biolabs that the US put monet towards for research or containment of Soviet era biostuff?

That isn't making it sound any better to be honest.

[213374U]

43 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Hey eastern European friends, you guys just need to keep Putin off your backs for a couple more years. We Americans are pivoting from counter-insurgency and counterterrorism ops to fighting a land war against a major peer enemy. We just need a couple of years to retool. After our retool, we'll have your backs

Very nice. Would be great if you could fight that war on your own country instead of shooting up other people's places, for a change.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Man, I go to work and come back to biolabs. **** is crazy.

16 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Very nice. Would be great if you could fight that war on your own country instead of shooting up other people's places, for a change.

Maybe during the next batch of uprisings.

[Lexx]

The ruble is dead.

 

[ShadySands]

Long live the ruble?

Poutine is delicious and if you have the wrong opinion and disagree then it's nukes at dawn. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Long live the ruble?

Poutine is delicious and if you have the wrong opinion and disagree then it's nukes at dawn. 

I've never had poutine, but fries with stuff on them are great.

Freedom Fries but worse

[ShadySands]

Cheese fries + gravy = good if done even half way decent.

[rjshae]

21 minutes ago, Lexx said:

The ruble is dead.

 

The ruble is dead; long live the rubble.

 

Sorry.

[Zoraptor]

20 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Most likely afraid of Russian retaliation.

While most armament supplies aren't considered a legitimate reason for retaliation flying combat aircraft into a war zone makes their base a legitimate target, because the presumption is that they're ready for combat* and constitute an imminent threat launched from another country. There have been a few examples where that's been ignored- eg the Korean War where a lot of nominally 'Korean' fighters based out of China with soviet pilots. The calculation would be that hitting a US base, in Germany, would be far more of an escalation than hitting a Polish base in Poland so would not be done.

*for a non aircraft example, if Poland armed Ukrainians and sent them into Kaliningrad they could be bombed in Poland legitimately as Poland is acting as a base. If they were already in Kaliningrad but just got delivered weapons then Poland couldn't be bombed.

4 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Confirmed by the US, Victoria Nuland saying that she is working with the Ukrainian goverment on how to stop Russia getting control of the research from those labs. China is also asking for an explanation.

Yeah, the US embassy in Ukraine also confirmed they exist(ed). The only argument is what their purpose was. The stated reasons seem... questionable, on both sides.

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

Actually they did. With the ABM Treaty the issue was not quite Russian cheating as it was Russian abuse of the giant loophole in the treaty. The treaty allowed both sides to have two ABM sites around Moscow and Washington, armed with systems developed prior to the treaty going into effect. This resulted in two problems for the US side. First, unlike Russia which only cared/cares about protecting Moscow from attack, the US as a democratic country cannot just only defend Washington. Members of Congress themselves were (correctly) demanding that any US ABM system should defend the whole country (i.e all 50 states) and not just DC. The US tried to get the Russians to agree to an amendment to the treaty to allow the two permitted sites to be anywhere in the country but Russia, understanding how this issue was screwing the US, flatly refused.

That's not an abrogation on the Russian side, they followed the treaty as negotiated. A treaty isn't broken just because it isn't considered advantageous to the US any more.

And unless I'm very much mistaken the US chose to defend, uh, North Dakota with its system, not Washington. They were originally allowed to defend Washington as well but both sides agreed to forgo the second site.

Quote

Second, the Russians replaced their original ABMs with new, much more capable systems in the late 80s and early 90s. This was not permitted under the treaty, but the way Russia argued it was that their new systems were not really new and rather were just upgrades of the old interceptors. To facilitate this argument they even gave their new interceptors the same name and designations as the old interceptors even though the missiles were indisputably brand new systems (like how in the 70s they designated their Tu-26 bombers as Tu-22M so that they could claim they were just an "upgrade" of the Tu-22 bombers and thus not a new system in violation of SALT).

...

"Article IV

The limitations provided for in Article III shall not apply to ABM systems or their components used for development or testing, and located within current or additionally agreed test ranges. Each Party may have no more than a total of fifteen ABM launchers at test ranges. "

"Article VII

Subject to the provisions of this Treaty, modernization and replacement of ABM systems or their components may be carried out. "

[Amentep]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

That isn't making it sound any better to be honest.

I ask if its the same ones because they've been the target of dis/mis/information campaigns before, iirc.

[Mamoulian War]

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

The thing that baffles me the most is that the Russian army seems to have absolutely no regard for life or decency -- not caring for the enemy is fair enough in a war, but there's no regard for their own, either. Numerous sources report that they are not taking back or minding their own dead. The troops don't appear well informed at all. And so on. It's astonishing. It's madness. However, there is ample precedent for this, dizzyingly well documented from previous wars.

It may have something to do with an imperial attitude: we've got plenty of soldiers, we can sacrifice as many as we please, the enemy will have fewer than we do. But it's astonishing beyond belief.

Yes their soldiers are just meatballs to be sacrificed to achieve their goals. It was the same for the Russia and Soviet Union few centuries... They have no issues killing ethnic Russians in Ukraine as well, if it suits them, also there are some evidence, that few of the bombings in Moscow attributed to Chechens were orchestrated by someone else, and it was happening conveniently during Putlers rallying for taking the power

[Raithe]

BBC - Ukraine: India doctor stranded with a jaguar and panther

For more than a week, an Indian doctor in war-torn Ukraine has been holed up in a basement at home with his pet big cats - a black panther and a jaguar.

Girikumar Patil, who bought the two cats from the Kyiv zoo, says he will not leave home without his pets. He has lived for over six years in Severodonetsk, a small town located in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

After the war began, Mr Giri, who is single, has been stepping out of his cramped basement only to buy food for his cats - the male jaguar is 20 months old and the female panther is a six-month-old cub - after the curfew ends early in the morning. (The jaguar is a rare hybrid between a male leopard and a female jaguar, he said.)

[Amentep]

Thread split for renewal.

Old thread - 

 

[Zoraptor]

The MiG29 deal is now... off again.

[ComradeYellow]

And so it begins.  I can see it already:  Putin steps down in 2024, the war is a distant memory at that point (Westerners have the attention span of a half stunned gnat), Zyuganov is elected and the USSR 2.0 is established.  KPRF admires China's growth and wants to emulate it but with Russian characteristics.

[kanisatha]

5 hours ago, 213374U said:

Very nice. Would be great if you could fight that war on your own country instead of shooting up other people's places, for a change.

Right, because the US is shooting up eastern Europe. Why would we fight YOUR war in our country? It's a silly thing to say. If someone ever invades the US, we would fight that war here, and very likely do it all by ourselves with no help from our "allies."

The point is that even though your countries are what will be getting attacked and not our country, we're still willing to die to help you defend yourselves. But hey, if that's something you don't want, by all means feel free to say so. I'm quite sure the American taxpayers footing that huge defense bill defending Europe will be more than happy to find things here at home to spend our money on.

[kanisatha]

4 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

"Article VII

Subject to the provisions of this Treaty, modernization and replacement of ABM systems or their components may be carried out. "

Yes, modernization and replacement with new-built systems of the same kind as what was originally deployed. Not entirely new systems. So as an example, replacing a 1975-built F-15 with a 2022-built F-15 was allowed. Replacing with an F-22 falsely designated as a "modernized F-15" was not allowed.

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, 213374U said:

Very nice. Would be great if you could fight that war on your own country instead of shooting up other people's places, for a change.

Wow you really are angry and confused, I get it your side has been proven to be the bigger liars and warmongers than the US but dont blame the rest of us 

Remember its Russia that has invaded Ukraine, not the US that has invaded Iraq so you musnt get confused when you vent and express outrage 

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by BruceVC

[Gorth]

6 hours ago, Lexx said:

The ruble is dead

It's probably still easier to hand over a bit of cash (in rubles) when buying a few vegetables and sausages, than a handful chickens and a goat

[pmp10]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The MiG29 deal is now... off again.

Some (rumored) background on this farce.

In essence 'Poland and NATO do clandestine operation'.

[BruceVC]

14 minutes ago, Gorth said:

It's probably still easier to hand over a bit of cash (in rubles) when buying a few vegetables and sausages, then a handful chickens and a goat

Also the Russian Central Bank can print Rubles to create a semblance of consistency within Russia and citizens can at least draw money in Rubles. Yes the currency is almost worthless but for a while people can  still buy goods within Russia using the Ruble

But the risk is this could lead to more inflation and hyperinflation like we saw in Zimbabwe but we still some way off as long as Russia can continue to sell commodities in $

But overall the Russian economy is looking bleak and disastrous 

[ComradeYellow]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Wow you really are angry and confused, I get it your side has been proven to be the bigger liars and warmongers than the US but dont blame the rest of us 

He's right though but for different reasons, it's more probable that the U.S. would fight some kind of fancy new "retooled" land war on U.S. soil due to political polarization rather than against the evil Bear here or there.  Not to mention a direct engagement with Russia means, uh, you know, nuclear annihilation.  Again short attention spans in the West, nothing has changed since 1945 in regards to WWIII, it means aArmageddon.

Edited March 9, 2022 by ComradeYellow