[Skynet]

Russia has begun a full scale invasion of Ukraine.

[Saeko]

This piece of fucking shit.

[Rugoz]

Europe will never forgive Russia for this. Ukrainians are not some obscure people for many of us.

[Skynet]

Europe will never forgive Russia for this. Ukrainians are not some obscure people for many of us.

I think on Western Ukraine (Catholics) can expect a further Holdomor.

The West can just give sanctions.... because the West is much weaker then the East (China and Russia)... The East has hypersonic rockets, the West no... The East would win with this rockets a nuclear war!!! Therefore the west has to be quiet until the West has also such weapons...


Taiwan is the next.

[MadMonk]

I think on Western Ukraine (Catholics) can expect a further Holdomor.

The West can just give sanctions.... because the West is much weaker then the East (China and Russia)... The East has hypersonic rockets, the West no... The East would win with this rockets a nuclear war!!! Therefore the west has to be quiet until the West has also such weapons...


Taiwan is the next.

No one wins if it escalates to that level and fuck your 'has to be quiet' and shove it right up your ass.

Yes, I have and we have been complacent. Time to remobilize.

[Skynet]

No one wins if it escalates to that level and fuck your 'has to be quiet' and shove it right up your ass.

With hypersonic rockets is the reaction time too short to strike back for the west...

The Russians threatened the western leaders if the west directly supports Ukraine:

0m 27s

Yes, I have and we have been complacent. Time to remobilize.

:-)

[colliric]

Admin Edit: Russia is reporting: It looks like Russia hit their air and naval bases in coordinated massive air strikes destroying both their air and naval power. They've basically crippled Ukraine in less than a few hours. Russian forces crossing into Ukraine enmasse from Belarus and Crimea. Footage of Paratroopers mass dropping in(not sure where exactly, but they claimed it was near Kiev).

I won't post the footage or articles(things are moving too quickly), but you can find it all easily on Twitter or wherever you're following things. Martial law has been declared in Ukraine. Looks like a Blitzkrieg again, like Afghanistan ended up being.

By the time western forces arrive, Ukraine will probably have fallen. The Russians planned this meticulously.



Admin Edit:

------------------

In other unrelated news that do not confirm the above Russian claims:

Al Jazeera:

[noemon]

[noemon]

Ukraine downs 5 Russian warplanes and a helicopter.

[wat0n]

There is no chance that Australia or anyone else will go to war with Russia over Ukraine.

Indeed.

A few things:

1. A Russian victory is almost inevitable.

In the conventional war, yes. But can Russia occupy all of Ukraine indefinitely?

2. A genocide in Ukraine seems very likely.

Doubt so, but I agree the civilian population will suffer.

3. Ukraine will not be the last.

Indeed.

4. Russia is on its way to becoming the new North Korea.

In what sense?

5. There is a possibility that Russia may declare war on the US in retaliation to sanctions (if they are severe enough) by the international community.

Not gonna happen.

[Unthinking Majority]

NATO should send Putin more angry letters.

[Potemkin]

NATO should send Putin more angry letters.

Yeah, I've heard they're running short of toilet paper in the Kremlin because of the sanctions. Every little helps. Lol.

[Scamp]

[late]

Yeah, I've heard they're running short of toilet paper in the Kremlin because of the sanctions. Every little helps. Lol.

The Soviet Union collapsed due to sanctions. It took a very long time, but they worked.

Guns are dramatic, but they are also an admission you've run out of ideas. There are a number of things we could do that Putin wouldn't like. The big one is to come up with an emergency procedure for bringing countries into NATO.

If the EU and the USA combined, we could put a lot of pressure on China. China wants to have it both ways, we should tell them that is going to change.

[colliric]

The Soviet Union collapsed due to sanctions. It took a very long time, but they worked.

Only because the damn nuclear power plant went and blew up in their face and they had to redirect funds to the 10000 year clean up.

Star Trek 6 dramatised the fall of the Soviet Union rather accurately.

Things are different this time because they've got a powerful China and quite a few other smaller allies. Imran Khan is literally meeting Putin for a cup of tea right now as if it's business as usual. Pakistan is backing The Taliban in Afghanistan and Putin in Ukraine.

China wants to have it both ways, we should tell them that is going to change

They will invade Taiwan and forge a closer relationship with North Korea.

Best thing is for the US to divert it's foreign aid from that "Officially Labelled Apartheid" State and give it to Taiwan instead. Unlike that country, Taiwan actually needs US support.

[Scamp]

[Istanbuller]

I hope that things will be more bloody and everyone shifted their focus to Ukraine. This might be helpful to weaken Russian positions in Syria and Libya. Turkey should enter Russian and the US areas in Syria when they do not pay attention.

[Rugoz]

The Soviet Union collapsed due to sanctions. It took a very long time, but they worked.

Not really.

[late]

Only because the damn nuclear power plant blew up in their face and they had to redirect funds to the 10000 year clean up.

Star Trek 6 dramatised the fall of the Soviet union rather accurately.

I'm a Trekkie, but using Star Trek as a substitute for history/reality???

Don't think so.

The USSR had a command economy. The oil shocks of that era hit them esp. hard. At the same time oil income was falling, their economy had to adapt to those changes. We did, in a million ways. But their bureaucracy simply couldn't keep up, and things just kept getting worse.

"By some measures, the Soviet economy was the world’s second largest in 1990, but shortages of consumer goods were routine and hoarding was commonplace. It was estimated that the Soviet black market economy was the equivalent of more than 10 percent of the country’s official GDP. Economic stagnation had hobbled the country for years, and the perestroika reforms only served to exacerbate the problem. Wage hikes were supported by printing money, fueling an inflationary spiral. Mismanagement of fiscal policy made the country vulnerable to external factors, and a sharp drop in the price of oil sent the Soviet economy into a tailspin. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, the Soviet Union ranked as one of the world’s top producers of energy resources such as oil and natural gas, and exports of those commodities played a vital role in shoring up the world’s largest command economy. When oil plunged from $120 a barrel in 1980 to $24 a barrel in March 1986, this vital lifeline to external capital dried up. The price of oil temporarily spiked in the wake of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, but by that point the collapse of the Soviet Union was well under way."
https://www.britannica.com/story/why-did-the-soviet-union-collapse

There are serious studies of the collapse. I've read a few of them. You need to look at food production, or should I say the decline of food production. They were already importing a lot of food, despite having massive area for farms. But, again, the bureaucracies could not adapt, and things went to hell. You remember the say 'For the want of a nail, the horse was lost"? How do you harvest when you can't get parts to repair your equipment?

[colliric]

I'm a Trekkie, but using Star Trek as a substitute for history/reality???

Don't think so.

An artistic metaphor, not a substitute. Basically "dumbed down for kids" version, kinda like how Return Of The Jedi and Revenge Of The Sith were metaphors, for his feelings towards Vietnam and The War On Terror respectively, according to George Lucas himself.

There was many causes, but ultimately the Chernobyl disaster is the one people remember the most.