Ukraine Conflict - "There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare"

[xzar_monty]

Russian soldiers handling ammunition. Note: male life expectancy in Russia has traditionally been very short.

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Lexx]

You know, after seeing videos like that, maybe those exploding depots deep in russian occupied territory really weren't attacks by Ukraine after all.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Lexx

[xzar_monty]

Here's a video of a liberated house in the Kherson region. The Russian occupiers have clearly treated it particularly well.

This reminded me of a contact I had with a surgeon in the very early 2000s; he had been involved in the Chechen war in a medical capacity, mostly performing amputations, and one of the things he had to remind the Russian soldiers of was not leaving excrement all over the bathrooms (that were on their side in the war, but not in their homes). I am not kidding, and neither was he.

 

[Chilloutman]

I have been reading some topwar.ru site and comments on it and its hilarious and chilling at the same time. These people are nuts. They are so stuck in the past its unbelievable. And they are delusional as well. If anyone wants to have insight into Russian mind I tell you go there and use google translate. The crap you can read there is mindblowing. I don't know if I should be angry at them or pity them

[BruceVC]

The end to Putins War will be accelerated by this type of real  dire economic news about the Russian economy and the military successes we all witnessed around the Kherson\Kharvic offensives.

https://www.businesslend.com/news/russias-budget-surplus-evaporates-as-energy-revenues-shrink/ 

[xzar_monty]

15 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

I have been reading some topwar.ru site and comments on it and its hilarious and chilling at the same time. These people are nuts.

Russia, as an entity, is nuts. Here's a current example: there will be elections in Italy on September 25. The two right-wing parties, Fratelli d'Italia and La Lega, are beginning to have more and more fascistic overtones about them (Fratelli in particular). Russia is all for the success of the right, and the more extreme the better. Indeed, there was recently a cartoon with two people speaking. One of them says, "The Kreml is not interfering with the elections in Italy." The other replies, "The Kreml is one of the candidates."

What's nuts about this is that Russia is deliberately and forcefully going for the thing Italy that it has very vocally declared to go against in Ukraine, namely the (extreme) fascist right. This is just one example of the many contradictory positions that Russia has assumed.

Russia wants to conquer Ukraine and destroy the Ukrainian culture and people, and at the same time it wants to create as much chaos in the EU as possible. That's clear, I get that. But its rhetoric concerning all this is poor beyond belief: the attempted deceptions are astonishingly crude, the contradictions are clear for all to see, and so on.

[Chilloutman]

I mean who the hell use word 'propagandist' about their own 'journalists' unironically and think its a good thing? They use phrases like 'military-political'. One guy in one sentence called people of Ukraine nazis and called for holocaust. You just can't make that $hit up! No wonder 1984 is banned in russia, double-speak and double-think is so strong in them

Edited September 13, 2022 by Chilloutman

[xzar_monty]

24 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

One guy in one sentence called people of Ukraine nazis and called for holocaust.

That is an instant classic! Deserves to be discussed in classes dedicated to (at least) logic and good use of language.

If Russia was hit by a Great Depression, he would probably try to commit suicide by jumping from his janitor's apartment up to street level. (Joke stolen from Woody Allen.)

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Russian soldiers handling ammunition. Note: male life expectancy in Russia has traditionally been very short.

 

Assuming that is ammunition, anyway. And off some Twitter accounts in this war, might not even be from now.  Is always fun to see how unverified clips are taken, and then people conclude big things.

Like the footage of the T-72 getting ambushed and hitting the tree, that indicated by itself a panicked rout. Or more funnily, the ferris wheel being immobile for a brief while but being announced as broken down.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Malcador

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Assuming that is ammunition, anyway. And off some Twitter accounts in this war, might not even be from now.  Is always fun to see how unverified clips are taken, and then people conclude big things.

Like the footage of the T-72 getting ambushed and hitting the tree, that indicated by itself a panicked rout. Or more funnily, the ferris wheel being immobile for a brief while but being announced as broken down.

Speaking about hilarious stuff in Russia, there is one about that ferris wheel. Two Russian hacking groups have claimed responsibility and demand repercussions at Russian government for the failed defence of Kharkiv Oblast, else they would destroy it

And believe me, if there is someone ****posting some Russian doing utterly stupid and hilarious things, it’s most likely truth

Like this one  

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Mamoulian War]

This one article is very interesting. You just need to put it through Google Translate from Czech, to your prefered language.

Exclusive interview with Ukrainian SBU officer, about Kharkiv counter-offensive and more.

https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/zahranicni-spion-popsal-taktiku-jak-presne-ukrajinci-pracuji-na-osvobozeni-od-okupantu-214010

[Malcador]

8 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I dont know, its hard to think of someone much worse than  Putin. Normally when autocratic leaders who endup weakening there country get replaced the person who comes after them  is better, not much necessarily much better but definitely better because he has to change things and " fix " the issues that caused his predecessor to be replaced

Look at Zimbabwe and Venezuela? The new leaders are better than the previous autocrats  

I disagree it's hard to think of someone much worse than him, but sort of how you can see Putin as a reaction to that clown Yeltsin, people might want someone more extreme, hence the humour.  Media here pushes the idea Navalny is the great alternative, although I believe even he thinks Crimea is Russian, no ?

As for Venezuela, why would you say Maduro is better than Chavez ?  Seems less capable or at least the same level of "bad".

[BruceVC]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/11/putin-loyalist-kadyrov-criticises-russian-armys-performance-over-ukraine-retreat

When Putin loyalists like the criminal autocrat Ramzan Kadyrov criticize you know you have a problem 

[BruceVC]

11 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I disagree it's hard to think of someone much worse than him, but sort of how you can see Putin as a reaction to that clown Yeltsin, people might want someone more extreme, hence the humour.  Media here pushes the idea Navalny is the great alternative, although I believe even he thinks Crimea is Russian, no ?

As for Venezuela, why would you say Maduro is better than Chavez ?  Seems less capable or at least the same level of "bad".

Maduro is slightly better than Chavez because he hasnt nationalized any foreign oil companies....not that any are left

And his anti-Western rhetoric is not as bad as Chavez but he is a terrible leader I agree 

[Malcador]

Just now, BruceVC said:

Maduro is slightly better than Chavez because he hasnt nationalized any foreign oil companies....not that any are left

And his anti-Western rhetoric is not as bad as Chavez but he is a terrible leader I agree 

Those are some pretty funny criteria for a bad leader. 

27 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

And believe me, if there is someone ****posting some Russian doing utterly stupid and hilarious things, it’s most likely truth

It seems so, heh.

[Mamoulian War]

12 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I disagree it's hard to think of someone much worse than him, but sort of how you can see Putin as a reaction to that clown Yeltsin, people might want someone more extreme, hence the humour.  Media here pushes the idea Navalny is the great alternative, although I believe even he thinks Crimea is Russian, no ?

As for Venezuela, why would you say Maduro is better than Chavez ?  Seems less capable or at least the same level of "bad".

Navalny is also a Russian nationalist, but I think some of his “nationalism and racism” could be attributed to the similar Russian rhetorics, as they are using against Ukraine. …yada, yada, Ukraine, yada, nazi, yada, special military operation…

But I have seen at least one article about him on Washington Post, where he was quoted speaking very dirty about Georgians… 

[xzar_monty]

24 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I disagree it's hard to think of someone much worse than him

Yeah, it's actually easy. For instance, if you simply combine Putin with a Hitlerian hysteria and sense of impending personal demise, you'd have a pretty awful leader without any reservations about killing everyone everywhere. Of course it's uncertain whether such a person were stable enough to end up as a leader. (Well, Caligula would suggest that stability is not necessary.)

Realistically speaking, someone like Patrusev would appear to be even worse than Putin, though it's debatable whether he'd qualify as "much worse", and I hope we don't get to find out.

[BruceVC]

39 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Those are some pretty funny criteria for a bad leader. 

It seems so, heh.

Yes, destroying any FDI in your country because you stole the assets of foreign investors would be considered bad leadership by most 

[Malcador]

 

[pmp10]

According to Goldman Sachs EU gas prices have already peaked.
Pretty surprising as the EU discussions on market intervention are not going terribly well.

Edited September 13, 2022 by pmp10

[BruceVC]

20 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

According to Goldman Sachs EU gas prices have already peaked.
Pretty surprising as the EU discussions on market intervention are not going terribly well.

Great news for our EU friends if its proven to be true, the sooner the EU gets over any Russian dependency on energy the better 

[alanschu]

5 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

If anyone wants to have insight into Russian mind I tell you go there and use google translate. The crap you can read there is mindblowing. I don't know if I should be angry at them or pity them

Reading this just be mindful to not generalize too much (seemed a concern when I saw "Russian mind") any more than Canadian Trucker Convoy is an insight into the "Canadian Mind" or Jan 6th is an insight into "American Mind." A good chunk of the information that I get comes from friends from Russia that are very much not fans of Putin and are still more than able to be critical of their country. No shortage of bat **** "true believers" that will support Russian actions, though I think that unfortunately it's a pretty human condition (I wish I had solutions to combat this).

5 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

What's nuts about this is that Russia is deliberately and forcefully going for the thing Italy that it has very vocally declared to go against in Ukraine, namely the (extreme) fascist right. This is just one example of the many contradictory positions that Russia has assumed.

I'm not sure that they are "nuts" any more than others that conveniently will say/justify things in one particular way if they feel it is in their best interests, and can (and will) say and do the opposite if in that context they feel it is in their best interests. IME it's commonly associated with fascistic tendency, where they will openly demand that we play by our own rules (HEY MAN FREE SPEECH) only to absolutely not hold themselves to those same rules (Show me a fascist nation that didn't suppress free speech).

[Lexx]

48 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

According to Goldman Sachs EU gas prices have already peaked.
Pretty surprising as the EU discussions on market intervention are not going terribly well.

Article sounds like someone trying to say "no intervention is necessary! Prices are all good! Pinky swear!"

[Gorgon]

^^ 

Goldman Sachs is big a player in the European energy market and are making money hand over fist.  So, yeah it's "Give us all your money, it's fine, it will only be for a while"

rule of thumb, when in doubt - yes they are behaving crooked. 

 

[HoonDing]

Isn't literally every .ru site malware?