Meanwhile troops from Donetsk arrive into Ukrainian Melitopol to serve as police force.
That is likely to be a pattern for the rest of Ukraine; Russian army cleans up military and then LNR/DNR keep dissenters down.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
It's also laughable.
Pacifying Ukraine would require the deployment of the entirety of its army including reserves. It's not doable with the economy in freefall and domestic dissent on the rise, let alone by a bunch of fascists being funded as proxies.
There are no winners in this situation. Besides China and the US.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
I don't think it's been linked here, but there's a guy on Reddit who was a Russian conscript a couple years ago and did an AMA (his proof of claims is his own Reddit post history from when he was drafted; take that as you will):
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/...n_unfantry_in/
He paints a very clear picture of a military designed for form over function, to look good to the higher-ups rather than to actually be an effective force. One example he gives is when Russia dictated that a million rubles should be spent purchasing new winter coats for their soldiers. Of that million, nine hundred thousand was skimmed by various higher ups and middle men, leaving only a hundred thousand for coats... And what a hundred thousand buys is not brand new coats, but old coats that are stained, patched, and tattered from their previous owners, may or may not fit right, and aren't even had in sufficient quantities for everyone.
because he's not planning on invading Taiwan??? how many times does it need to be explained to you; if China was planning on a conventional invasion of Taiwan, we'd have known about it by now.. because you can't hide an entire invasion force from satellites... stop, just stop jerking that WWIII boner, it's so disturbing.
Let's also not forget the FSB leak.
From (sic) the cynical, I will only add that I do not believe that VV Putin will press the red button to destroy the whole world.
Firstly, there is more than one person making a decision, at least someone will jump off. And there are a lot of people there - there is no "one-man red button".
Secondly, there are some doubts that everything is functioning successfully there. Experience shows that the greater the transparency and control, the easier it is to identify shortcomings. And where it is not clear who controls and how, but always bravura reports - everything is always wrong there. I'm not sure if the red button system works as advertised. In addition, the plutonium charge must be changed every 10 years.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
how different would the world be now if, after the surrender of Imperial Japan, America forcibly absorbed China and Russia after all three parties were exhausted? People might say "this is crazy fucking shit, America is a democracy!" But we knew what both regimes were like even then under Stalin and Mao. We were never friendly. Look what's come out of it since then. Genocides, suppression of free will, possible WW3
While watching Shalcker having meltdown from impotent rage can be satisfying, I think its time mods do their job and ban his sorry ass.