FIFA kicking out every Russian team from international games, according to Reuters.
FIFA kicking out every Russian team from international games, according to Reuters.
Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.
Ukrainian defenders who told Russian warship to 'Go f--- yourself' survived
The Ukrainian border guards who defended the country's Snake Island against a Russian warship, telling the Russians on the craft to "go f--- yourself," are still alive, according to Ukrainian military officials.
The Ukrainian Navy on Monday confirmed that the border guards are "alive and well," but were forced to surrender to Russian forces due to a lack of ammunition.
It was reported last week that the border guards defending Snake Island, or Zmiinyi Island, had been killed after a Russian warship bombed it. After telling the guards to surrender or risk being killed, the soldiers could be heard responding, "Russian warship, go f--- yourself."
"We are very happy to learn that our brothers are alive and well with them! But Russian propaganda tries to twist the 'news' about the fact that the Ukrainian authorities 'forgotten', 'buried' their fellows," said Ukraine's Navy.
It's not, but they're competing on behalf of their nation. It's like when the Olympics banned Russian athletes for a massive state-sponsored doping scandal...and then just let them compete anyways, just not under the Russian flag.
It sucks for anyone not cheating and shit but like, the shitty actions of a country have a lot of downstream impacts.
Unfortunately, the time to think about Russian players/normal citizens has past long time ago. Situation is so fucked up and serious that pressure and bans on every possible front are needed. You wont hit hard if you try to spare Russians not participating in the conflict.
Last edited by Makabreska; 2022-02-28 at 05:23 PM.
Sometimes, the light of the moon is a key to other spaces. I've found a place where, for a night or two, the streets curve in unfamiliar ways. If I walk here, I might find insight, or I might be touched by madness.
Early word is that the negotiations didn't go great. Then Ukraine formally applied for EU membership today, and Erdogan announced that he is implementing the Montreux convention power which likely means closing the strait to Russian naval vessels. This is the first time it has ever been put into effect since it was signed in 1937. Not very good signs for a peace deal unfortunately.
So here's my 2 cents after I got banned for flaming Putin fan boys.
A lot of people here who weren't and aren't necessarily pro-Russian but more armchair generals, international policy and Russia and Ukraine experts have predicted on the first days of the invasion on how the Russian will inevitably steamroll the Ukrainians, how Kiev will fall, how there will be no civilian resistance, how the Russian can easily occupy the country, especially the east by co-opting local police forces and whatnot, how the Europeans will never impose harsher sanctions, how the Germans will block any attempt to use the "nuclear" option of cutting off Russia from SWIFT, how Putin will not be sanctioned, how Russian assets won't be seized etc.
Yet here we are.
I understand the notion of preparing for the worst, and broadly I agree that the Russians can still beat the Ukrainians in the field...eventually.
But this has clearly escalated way past what Putin thought it would cost him and occupation will probably cost him more than he can literally afford, nor is a puppet regime any way viable without a massive occupation force and yes the Ukrainian people are fully willing to do mass protracted insurgency.
Even I didn't think the civilian resistance will be as fierce as it turned out to be.
The Russian invasion today resembles more a Mongol raid than an invasion or occupation. Huge Russian columns operating deep inside Ukraine, they are attacking population centers and can win most conventional engagements, but they have absolutely no support among the locals, their logistical lines are contested the moment their main forces move past them, any objectives they take seem to revert to Ukrainian control the moment they most past etc.
The main strategic objective of the Russians right now seems to be little esle than "Kill Zelensky" because frankly an occupation or a puppet government looks like a non starter.
Here we are almost a week into this "invasion" and the Russians are still almost exclusively just fighting the Ukrainian conventional military, which everyone, myself included really expected to have either long folded or been overwhelmed.
I mean for fuck sake.... The Ukrainian Airforce is still flying. How the fuck did that happen? What degree of epic fail had to happen on the Russian side for that to come about?
Again. I fully expect the Russian military to have its "Mission Accomplished" moment, eventually if they throw enough stuff at Ukraine. But that will sure as shit won't be any kind of victory.
Last edited by Mihalik; 2022-02-28 at 05:29 PM.
Yeah true and i can see the team understanding this too.
- - - Updated - - -
Hehe yeah i read our swedish team did not want to play them either.
- - - Updated - - -
I do what i please thank you and thinking this does not make me feel any less disgusted on what's going on.
- - - Updated - - -
Yeah true and i understand actions need to be taken to show support and whatnot.
- - - Updated - - -
Hehe yeah well this is a pretty small problem overall anyways and i think they understand why no one wants to play them.
Last edited by ParanoiD84; 2022-02-28 at 05:33 PM.
Do you hear the voices too?
It sucks that regular people gets affected by this... but at the same time the country kind of have to receive repercussions on a nation level.
More pressure for the country being declined to do something and can even spark more pressure from it's people to stop this war.
It's less about stopping them because they are russians and more about "if you want to play talk to your nation".
Error 404 - Signature not found
One way this shitshow ends is if Russian population demands it. Just like anti war movement in the USA helped to end the Vietnam war.
These players get told in no uncertain terms why they can't compete anymore, so let's hope a couple of them use their popularity to shape Russian public opinion anti war.
Not a great comparison. US went into Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 united the nation in a temporary jingoistic stupor. The Bush administration waited a month before going into Afghanistan and spent a year and a half selling the war on Iraq to Congress and the public with bad intel. Both wars were initially popular, and helped Bush get reelected, but his numbers tanked shortly after that as the reality of the wars set in and an economic downturn began.
There are some strong parallels to be made, sure. Mostly the part where it turns out to be a costly military quagmire.
The difference is that the US was better able to justify its wars and had broad support domestically and internationally (for Afghanistan at least), including a sizeable international coalition. There was also a greater imbalance of force, with the coalition being armed with the latest military tech and the opposition mostly being armed with surplus gear from the 80s.
This invasion has been poorly justified, and while some of that propaganda might work in Russia and Belarus, it's not working on the world stage. The war is already unpopular domestically, and it hasn't even been a week. They have virtually no international support, no coalition to help share the load. To the contrary, the Western world is actively impeding them with increasingly severe sanctions, while supporting the Ukrainian resistance with a flood of high grade weapons.
So, yeah. Afghanistan and Iraq were initially popular wars that quickly became unpopular, and were ultimately considered massive mistakes. Russia's invasion is going way worse. Any victory they achieve is going to be a Pyrrhic one. The damage to their reputation has already been done.
Last edited by Kathranis; 2022-02-28 at 05:42 PM.
Fuck, it's intense, at least the driver has a slight chance of surviving while also avoiding actual shell shock or even death upon direct hit if it happens.
Small fraction of Kharkiv attacks as well this morning. Twitter post claims 11 lives and tons injured https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video...8M-.mp4?tag=12
switzerland is on board for sanctions now, freezing assets from those blacklisted by EU. russian oligarchs will seethe![]()
Russian security guarantees became worthless back in 2014 when they violated the Bucharest Memorandum by annexing Crimea.
And don't read to much into FIFA going against Russia, they were basically forced to by the 3 other teams (Poland, Sweden, Czech Republic) in the qualifier pool coming together and stating they would all refuse to play Russia.
Last edited by Gorsameth; 2022-02-28 at 05:50 PM.
It ignores such insignificant forces as time, entropy, and death