[Tainari88]

@Beren the best propaganda on planet Earth has always been the USA propaganda. People believe that shit like if it is written as Gospel truth.

The Russians are amateurs at cheap ass propaganda to brainwash the populace. Why? They do not respect intellectual property as sacred.

They sue people in the USA for not respecting name brands and being ripoff of the sacredness of the name brand.

Look at what these disrespectful Russian greedy people did to Starbucks?

[Rich]

@ingliz You sound just like those morons who thought that millions would die facing Sadam Hussein in Iraq. Clueless.

Sorry I'm struggling to remember now, did Saddam have nuclear weapons? Did he have ICBMs that could reach the united States.

China and the USA both had to make ignominious withdrawals from Vietnam. Both the USA and the Soviet Union have been forced to pull out of Afghanistan. But as far as I'm aware since nuclear weapons invented in 1945, no nuclear power has suffered a defeat of the magnitude that would be equivalent to Russia losing Crimea. It has a population of 2.4 million, that would suffer considerably if the land bridge was cut and the Kerch bridge was blown up. And these two events would be the almost inevitable prerequisites of any successful invasion of Crimea.

No one knows for certain but my guess would be that Putin would almost certainly be prepared to use nuclear weapons rather than lose Crimea. in such a war it seems to me almost inevitable that Ukraine will commit acts that inflame the Russian population. But even of they don't, it is not beyond Putin's ken to make some false flag attacks to whip up the Russian population to the point where they are demanding the use of nuclear weapons.

I've no doubt that for many western liberals an all out nuclear war would be a small price to pay in order to punish Putin for supporting Trump in 2016. But many of the rest of us take a somewhat dimmer view of this attempt to destroy Russia.

[Rancid]

7 months to take bakmut. How many for Kyiv?

[Potemkin]

You see Potemkin Nicola Sturgeon the Fishmonger lady wants independence. You need a quick exit out of English United under class snobbery. LOL.

Te quiero mucho Señor Potemkin.

Liberation is at hand from Scotland. You got to stop gardening over there...without me. Haha.

I already have my quick exit from the oppression of the English snobs, querida. My personal liberation is indeed at hand….

Te quiero mucho Doña Tainari. Te extraño mucho.

[Rich]

So is this rumour true that the Russian pilot was listening to Blue Oyster Cult at the time of the incident?

[noemon]

You see Potemkin Nicola Sturgeon the Fishmonger lady wants independence. You need a quick exit out of English United under class snobbery. LOL.

Te quiero mucho Señor Potemkin.

Liberation is at hand from Scotland. You got to stop gardening over there...without me. Haha.

Someone needs to make a thread about Scotland as a lot have happened since then.

Sturgeon is gone btw and her replacement is looking even more hard-core.

[Politics_Observer]

@Rich

You are forgetting the fact that the universe doesn't revolve around Russia. Russia attacked Ukraine first. Russia is the aggressor here. Moreover, Ukraine has legitimate national security concerns and Crimea rightfully belongs to Ukraine. Ukraine has every right to take Crimea back. In addition, many of the attacks against Ukraine have been launched from Crimea by Russia, which further justifies Ukraine taking back Crimea. This is also for the safety and security of their citizens.

You can't seriously think that the Ukrainians should not bother taking Crimea back, given the situation today and how Russia has used Crimea to further attack Ukraine. They have a right to be safe and secure too and to defend themselves from Russian attacks. Lastly, if Russia does use nuclear weapons to stop Ukrainian from taking back territory that Russia used to attack Ukraine and territory that rightfully belongs to Ukraine anyway, I am pretty sure you will see the U.S. and NATO intervene decisively with conventional forces against Russia. Should Russia turn it's nuclear weapons on NATO in response, NATO will in turn nuke Russia back.

Nearly one year ago, a 40-mile-long column of tanks rolled toward Kyiv on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He intended to conquer Ukraine in a few days but instead exposed the weaknesses of his own military. Rather than a further expression of Russian imperialism, the war may now represent a stunning reversal of those ambitions, as Ukraine increasingly considers making an effort to retake Crimea, which Putin seized nearly a decade ago and has since absorbed into Russia.

In March 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was open to discussing “compromises” on Crimea if that ended the war and saved his cities from destruction. This January, however, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zelensky said, “Crimea is our land, our territory,” and asked the West for weapons to retake the strategic peninsula.

Successes on the battlefield have emboldened the Ukrainian president to seek military victories before any negotiated settlement. The fact that Russia has routinely used bases in Crimea to attack Ukrainian infrastructure has cemented the belief in Kyiv that regaining Crimea is essential to putting a decisive end to the threat posed by Russia.

One Ukrainian analyst told Foreign Policy that there is credible talk among government officials in Kyiv about attempting to retake Crimea even before fully capturing the Donbas region, where most of the fighting is now taking place. Alina Frolova, the deputy chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies in Kyiv and a former deputy defense minister of Ukraine, said Ukrainian political and military elites have increasingly signaled over the last few months that the reclamation of Crimea is their explicit goal. She added that the government is supported in its quest by some parts of the Biden administration.

“Earlier, our Western allies would say, ‘Yes, it is your territory, yes, we know, but maybe we [can] find a different solution.’ They wanted to discuss Donbas and put Crimea aside. But now we don’t hear any such things,” she told Foreign Policy from Kyiv. “Now the talk is that if we retake Crimea, the front line will change substantially and as will the political process. Moreover, it will give easier access to the east.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of U.S. Army Europe, has been among the most vocal advocates of the idea. “Crimea is the decisive terrain—that’s what matters. If Ukraine liberates Crimea, which I believe is possible this year, then everything else will follow,” he told Ukrainian media this month.

Crimea had been relegated to the bottom of the pecking order in the battle plans, the last item on the list to be resolved and perhaps even reserved as a peace offering for Russia. But over the last few months, it has appeared on the radar of the U.S. government as a possible path to end the war this summer and deny Russia a war of attrition. There are concerns in Washington that if the war does not have an end date, then it might be hard to sustain public support for the Ukrainian cause.

There are arguments both for and against Western support to a Ukrainian mission in Crimea, and it is still unclear which way the United States would finally lean, but the Biden administration has reportedly softened its stand and is war-gaming the option.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/22/uk ... take-back/

[Godstud]

7 months to take bakmut. How many for Kyiv?

3 Days.... but since they must be speaking in biblical terms, that probably means a few million years.

You are daft, @Rich Russia doesn't even know how to use the weapons it has, let alone 50 year old ones that are neglected. No one is suggesting invading Russia, either.

(Edit = Fixed Quote)

[Patrickov]

No one is suggesting invading Russia, either.

IMHO countries whose people can't / don't stop their dictators deserve invasion. If anything, invasion provides the necessary instability for decent people to turn the table.

[ingliz]

@Godstud

Now one cannot deny that America has played a blinder - Ukraine fucked and ripe for picking; Russia fucked over; EU fucked (Getting Germany to cut its own throat was magical); China dithering - but they seem to be getting drunk on their success.

Keep pushing, and it can only end badly.

Russia is not Iraq.

Russia: 5,977 nuclear warheads

Saddam: 0

[Patrickov]

Leftards like ingliz simply refuse to accept that many of them (maybe not all) deserve to be fucked because they unjustly assert superiority when they are actually inferior. At least Russia, China and to a lesser extent Germany fit my perspective. Meanwhile Ukraine is the one being helped not fucked.

[litwin]

Moldova, Romania with Ukraine's help should take out Moscow occupiers in Moldova ( so called - "Transnistria" ). The Muscovites are not in a position to stop it....

[litwin]

It was on pressure from US Secretary of Trade, the linked article says

[litwin]

Moscow’s relations with China ahead of Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, Outer Manchuria "back " to China ?
China is happy to buy lots of super cheap Moscow gas and oil. They also will gladly sell Moscow anything they want, within certain limits that do not upset relations with other trading partners. in the same time, Han- China wants back its Siberian colonies so China is by no means a trusted ally for Moscow empire
.

[litwin]

[litwin]

[litwin]

[litwin]

[litwin]

About half of these MIGS are upgraded to NATO standards. Meaning they have improved radar, can carry AIM air to air missiles, HARMs and ER-JDAM bombs. They will have an impact. bad news for the horde.....


​OTHER EU/NATO STATES WILL FOLLOW !

[litwin]