Ukraine Conflict

[Gfted1]

Luckily you dont care or youd have to charge BVC rent for your headspace! r00fles!

 

[BruceVC]

10 minutes ago, majestic said:

Definitions taken from Merriam-Webster. Yes, this post does indeed pertain to the discussion at hand. In which way I'll leave to the reader to figure out.

This one is for @BruceVC, but it is problematic because it only defines the less revelant section (1) of the above definition.

 

No idea what you talking about, instead of trying to sound clever why dont you just say what you mean?

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

49 minutes ago, majestic said:

Definitions taken from Merriam-Webster. Yes, this post does indeed pertain to the discussion at hand. In which way I'll leave to the reader to figure out.

This one is for @BruceVC, but it is problematic because it only defines the less revelant section (1) of the above definition.

 

You funny majestic

But context doesn't matter in Putin's War ?

[Zoraptor]

11 hours ago, Lexx said:

Yup, that's what I meant in the past. There is no reason to throw all that stuff into the ukraine thread, thus attempting to devalue its issues. It can pretty well be its own thread, or the general politic thread if it's recent events. I'm sure nobody around here, from the evil west, would protest or cry about it. Hell, we'd probably chime in with how terrible event x is or was.

And yet you're absolutely fine with such 'whataboutism' when you agree with it. Not a peep about MW bringing up Kosovo, and not even with respect to Ukraine but to Artsakh. Funny that. Almost like it isn't the 'whataboutism' you don't actually like.

Let's also not be revisionist, your ultimate wobbly was thrown at me for... quoting the definitions used in an international treaty showing that it excluded dual use incendiary systems. Which was 100% relevant to Ukraine, but something you just plain didn't like being told.

In the spirit of what's good for the goose is good for the gander maybe you should make a Ukraine circlejerk thread for all the high quality posting about how Russians are intrinsically evil instead of trying to back seat moderate this one?

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Luckily you dont care or youd have to charge BVC rent for your headspace! r00fles!

 

One potential reading... One could argue the first definition as well: just because you care nary a thing for someone's thoughts or well-being doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself by dunking on them when they readily present the opportunity, though that's admittedly a near constant with BruceVC.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Gfted1]

"He who seeks out butthurt has a 100% success rate." Gfted1 2022 Anno Domini

[Malcador]

One can take precautions and still end up with cancer, though.

[Gorth]

6 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Interesting story. According to Russian investigation, A man responsible for mobilization commits suicide at his supervisor office shooting himself with 4 different weapons not aiming at vital parts of his body. And his wife writes to Putin, that he should investigate his dead, as he surely wanted to show the shortcommings of mobilization by performing self-execution… Not a single thought had been made, that this maybe could have been something different, than a successful suicide attempt

 

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/28/7378346/

Implying 4 shots at close range and no single vital organ of the target hit in 4 attempts... making up for it with the sheer amount of ammunition (and lives) spent sounds like the Russian army alright

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

One potential reading... One could argue the first definition as well: just because you care nary a thing for someone's thoughts or well-being doesn't mean you can't enjoy yourself by dunking on them when they readily present the opportunity, though that's admittedly a near constant with BruceVC.

Barti the most important thing is that you guys  care enough to read my posts and comment, even dunking is better than no attention

I just dont want to end up a recipient of being on your script, thats cold and its not a place I want be. Always be honest in life, emotional honest is best 

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

And yet you're absolutely fine with such 'whataboutism' when you agree with it. Not a peep about MW bringing up Kosovo, and not even with respect to Ukraine but to Artsakh. Funny that. Almost like it isn't the 'whataboutism' you don't actually like.

Let's also not be revisionist, your ultimate wobbly was thrown at me for... quoting the definitions used in an international treaty showing that it excluded dual use incendiary systems. Which was 100% relevant to Ukraine, but something you just plain didn't like being told.

In the spirit of what's good for the goose is good for the gander maybe you should make a Ukraine circlejerk thread for all the high quality posting about how Russians are intrinsically evil instead of trying to back seat moderate this one?

Thats not the issue from my side and you exaggerating now. I dont want people just agreeing with anti-Russian posts and sentiment. Thats an echo-chamber, I appreciate and like robust debate and that  includes disagreement. But lets focus on the issues which is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia

We have also more or less moved beyond debating the actual reason for the  invasion so topics like the constant war crimes, Russian military retreats\successes and overall Russian actions  on the global arena is what most people comment on

And if you disagree with something lets hear it but you must also accept we not all going to agree with what you say. Thats the nature of debate and then some general empathy and sensitivity is recommended considering the carnage that Putin has inflicted on Ukraine. So for example suggesting  that the Russians are only targeting  hospitals and schools because Ukrainians soldiers are using these places to fight from or suggesting the massacres at Bucha is fake news is never going to go down well because it comes across as incredibly insensitive and callous

But most important, lets stay on point. Lets focus on this conflict. You guys have had 20 years or more to discuss conflicts like Kosovo and Iraq and I dont see how they relevant to Putins War?

 

 

[xzar_monty]

Another interesting bit of discussion from Russia, with some of the top propagandists involved. We know that the most recent constitution, from 1991, makes even the Duma meaningless (it's just for show), so discussions like these are likely to be even more meaningless when it comes to directly affecting power. But I suppose we can view this as a barometer of sorts.

 

 

EDIT: This piece of news about the Bat Phone being used is also very interesting:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-russia-have-used-deconfliction-line-once-so-far-during-ukraine-war-source-2022-11-28/

Edited November 29, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Mamoulian War]

9 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Thats not the issue from my side and you exaggerating now. I dont want people just agreeing with anti-Russian posts and sentiment. Thats an echo-chamber, I appreciate and like robust debate and that  includes disagreement. But lets focus on the issues which is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia

We have also more or less moved beyond debating the actual reason for the  invasion so topics like the constant war crimes, Russian military retreats\successes and overall Russian actions  on the global arena is what most people comment on

And if you disagree with something lets hear it but you must also accept we not all going to agree with what you say. Thats the nature of debate and then some general empathy and sensitivity is recommended considering the carnage that Putin has inflicted on Ukraine. So for example suggesting  that the Russians are only targeting  hospitals and schools because Ukrainians soldiers are using these places to fight from or suggesting the massacres at Bucha is fake news is never going to go down well because it comes across as incredibly insensitive and callous

But most important, lets stay on point. Lets focus on this conflict. You guys have had 20 years or more to discuss conflicts like Kosovo and Iraq and I dont see how they relevant to Putins War?

 

 

Speaking of targets of RU missiles, here is a pretty nice summary, what has been hit in last 9 months.

 

 

 

In other news, we will probably never know, what is going on inside Russia politics, but there is something definitely brewing, and someone is starting to be afraid of Prigozhin’s rising influence. The follow up in the tweet thread explains, what such accusation means in Russia…

 

[xzar_monty]

I'm happy they use the term "rooster" there. I've read of this culture before in English, and sometimes they use the word cóck instead of rooster, which obviously leads everyone's mind astray.

If Prigozhin really was a rooster in the prison, he slept next to the toilet (i.e. in the filthiest possible place) and he was free-for-all as far as raping was concerned. Even if he wasn't, there's no doubt he can be portrayed that way by someone powerful enough with a reason to do so.

Edited November 29, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

Another interesting bit of discussion from Russia, with some of the top propagandists involved. We know that the most recent constitution, from 1991, makes even the Duma meaningless (it's just for show), so discussions like these are likely to be even more meaningless when it comes to directly affecting power. But I suppose we can view this as a barometer of sorts.

 

 

EDIT: This piece of news about the Bat Phone being used is also very interesting:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-russia-have-used-deconfliction-line-once-so-far-during-ukraine-war-source-2022-11-28/

What would they be charged with at the Hague ? Luckily for them, stuff like the ICC only applies to small, weak nations. 

Wonder what the deconfliction line was used for, maybe the nuclear plant.  Had thought that was the "red phone" I recall from Cold War times but that's a different one.  Always wonder how conversations with say, Milley and Gerasimov go.

[pmp10]

In an interesting twist NATO reaffirms that Ukraine can join at some unspecified point.
The subject was entirely avoided on the last NATO summit and the matter seemed to be settled.

[Malcador]

49 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

In an interesting twist NATO reaffirms that Ukraine can join at some unspecified point.
The subject was entirely avoided on the last NATO summit and the matter seemed to be settled.

Is that actually a twist ?

"Estonia’s foreign minister, Urmas Reinsalu, went a step further than most, calling on his NATO partners to pledge 1% of their GDP to Ukraine in military support, saying it would make “a strategic difference.”

[BruceVC]

Another Medvedev rant about evil Western, NATO countries  and more bombast  about the  "civilized "world

So he considers Russia " civilised " and the West outside of that 

Russian propaganda makes me laugh

 

[xzar_monty]

The British writer Keir Giles, who has a new book out (Russia's War On Everybody) makes some interesting claims. Such as:

- Russia does seriously believe that NATO forces other countries to join the alliance and that the countries actually have no interest in joining. This stems from Russia's own history of forcing other countries to join the Warsaw pact and following a similar policy in other ways as well. It would be good for "the West" to know this.

- Because all talk about democracy, human rights and the rule of law are just words without meaning for Russia, Russia seriously believes that everthing concerning all this is also just a show in "the West". This is related to the fact that Moscow's inability to engage in (what we in "the West" regard as) any normal co-operation has remained constant not only for decades but centuries.

One main point is that there are extremely severe misunderstandings on both sides and that the enormous differences between Russia and "the West" should be understood much more clearly. (This made me think of the oft-repeated claim that "the West" is slow to understand that Russia only understands force; negotiations are meaningless for Russia, and there is no cultural pressure of having to adhere to what has been agreed.)

Whether Giles is correct or not, I don't know.

Edited November 30, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Lexx]

At least the point of the misunderstanding makes sense, imo, since a "nazi" in russia is not what we see as a nazi. For us it's right wing authoritarian etc. etc. but for them, a nazi is everyone who is against russia. Basically, west and russia are talking about two completely different things.

[xzar_monty]

2 minutes ago, Lexx said:

At least the point of the misunderstanding makes sense, imo, since a "nazi" in russia is not what we see as a nazi. For us it's right wing authoritarian etc. etc. but for them, a nazi is everyone who is against russia. Basically, west and russia are talking about two completely different things.

Yes. This was one way for Stalin to betray the west after WW2. He promised to only be nasty towards the nazis. But for him, everyone who wasn't a communist was a nazi.

[BruceVC]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/11/28/most-common-us-gas-price-now-299-as-prices-keep-plunging/?sh=60315b434c46

 

US gas prices are now at pre-war levels, great news for the global economic recovery  

[pmp10]

16 hours ago, Malcador said:

Is that actually a twist ?

It is to me.
When big organizations like NATO avoid that elephant in the room it's because everyone is on-message that it doesn't exist.
For some reason that message has changed since last summit.

[BruceVC]

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/1130/1339160-euro-zone-inflation-falls-for-first-time-in-17-months/

More good economic news but this time for our EU friends 

 

[Malcador]

6 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

This is related to the fact that Moscow's inability to engage in (what we in "the West" regard as) any normal co-operation has remained constant not only for decades but centuries.

Centuries ago is strange to refer against, considering how everyone operated.  Reminds me of that "article" where some Estonian spies brought up the Mongols and the Great Northern War, heh.  But at least the author didn't say "they only respect force".

3 hours ago, pmp10 said:

It is to me.
When big organizations like NATO avoid that elephant in the room it's because everyone is on-message that it doesn't exist.
For some reason that message has changed since last summit.

Fair enough, they're saying it openly.

[Mamoulian War]

6 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Yes. This was one way for Stalin to betray the west after WW2. He promised to only be nasty towards the nazis. But for him, everyone who wasn't a communist was a nazi.

For him, even the communists were nazis