Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Kaleredar]

Those people do exist, and they are very jarring to meet in person, but some of these internet characters are neither paid propagandists or trolls.

Stupidity IS free, after all.

[Breccia]

Ukraine reportedly recaptures two towns as US says Russia ramping up Donbas attacks

Also US is sending forces to Germany's NATO, Ukraine shot down 17 more aircraft, and FOX News continues to hammer in "Biden said something crazy" after 6 years of backing Trump. After the break, weather, sports, and can koalas cross the Mexican border and rape your white children?

[Kallisto]

Ukraine reportedly recaptures two towns as US says Russia ramping up Donbas attacks

Also US is sending forces to Germany's NATO, Ukraine shot down 17 more aircraft, and FOX News continues to hammer in "Biden said something crazy" after 6 years of backing Trump. After the break, weather, sports, and can koalas cross the Mexican border and rape your white children?

Let's face it. With Fox News, Biden (or anyone to the left of Mussolini) could find the cure for cancer and their headline would be "Biden destroys your right to grow cells uncontrollably."

[Kaleredar]

Ukraine reportedly recaptures two towns as US says Russia ramping up Donbas attacks

Clearly, this is all part of Putin's master 5 dimensional chess.

Take a town and likely lose hundreds of men and pieces of equipment in the process, then LOSE it along with more men and equipment, then... profit?

[Mihalik]

Surprise, surprise...

Czech Republic on the shores of the Moskva river.

[Zaydin]

So, do any of our resident Putleristas want to continue defending Russia with this story about a Ukrainian woman who says she was sexually assaulted by two Russian soldiers right after they murdered her husband?

This was after Russian troops had already allegedly shot and killed the family dog according to the woman, btw. They also allegedly threatened to kill her and show her corpse to her four year old son.

[Corvus]

Also US is sending forces to Germany's NATO, Ukraine shot down 17 more aircraft, and FOX News continues to hammer in "Biden said something crazy" after 6 years of backing Trump. After the break, weather, sports, and can koalas cross the Mexican border and rape your white children?

Don't be messing with koalas, man. Sure they may look cute and cuddly and spend most of their lives eating and sleeping but they will fuck you up. Not only do they have really strong claws (used to climb trees with) but they practice biological warfare. About half the population suffer from highly contagious chlamydia and their attacks can spread it to people.

[Mihalik]

So, do any of our resident Putleristas want to continue defending Russia with this story about a Ukrainian woman who says she was sexually assaulted by two Russian soldiers right after they murdered her husband?

This was after Russian troops had already allegedly shot and killed the family dog according to the woman, btw. They also allegedly threatened to kill her and show her corpse to her four year old son.

Russian military being rapey is literally a defining feature of the Russian military.

[PhaelixWW]

Don't be messing with koalas, man. Sure they may look cute and cuddly and spend most of their lives eating and sleeping but they will fuck you up. Not only do they have really strong claws (used to climb trees with) but they practice biological warfare. About half the population suffer from highly contagious chlamydia and their attacks can spread it to people.

Poor drop bears are now officially an endangered species, though.

[Iphie]

Russian military being rapey is literally a defining feature of the Russian military.

Indeed, I'd be surprised if there were NO reports of this or if there were widespread reports of officers punishing this behaviour.

edit: that's not to say I condone this behaviour of course.

[Zaydin]

Russian military being rapey is literally a defining feature of the Russian military.

Oh, I have no reason to doubt her story. I'm just wondering how our resident Putleristas will try to spin this.

[Fantomen]

I'm just wondering how our resident Putleristas will try to spin this.

Full Whataboutism, US troops did rape in Afganistan/Iraq and the Ukraine army is raping ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

[Corvus]

This site I've found really good for tracking what is going on on the ground. As can be seen by the day to day updates, Russia's advances are really strung out and you can see the problems they are having with their supply lines.

And if you look down south near Mykolaiv there seems to be a bunch of Russians in a pocket which has been shrinking the last few days.

All reports for the last 24 hours seem to agree that no Russian attacks have actually succeeded but for taking a bit more of Mariupol and have lost ground elsewhere.

[tylenol]

Just a reminder that a "superpower" is having trouble wiping the floor in a matter of days with a military that has to take in actual donations and sells NFTs to secure military equipment to fight said "superpower"

[Deus Mortis]

News flash - Russians do not bomb us. They target Ukrainian military. I do not what they expect would happen if you set up an ammunition storage and hangar for grad launchers in a shopping mall in a densely populated area, but that is "using civilians as a shield" in my book.
If Russians really wanted to bomb the shit out of us, they would have glassed this whole area. I witnessed Retroville Mall blowing up. It took real effort to put a missile directly into the missile storage. It would have been much easier to just level the entire thing using unguided artillery. And they are not shy of using it outside of a built up area. I get it, Russians are pure evil, they drink human blood every morning. Putin personally makes sacrifices to Satan on a daily basis. If you are content with this charade - go ahead, knock yourself out.
PS. If you open your eyes for just a minute and actually look at the photos, you might notice that the truck is on fire on both pictures.

What fire? First link is the one is the one you and @Thekri are talking about.

Now for some more of the same vehicles, still no fires.

[Polyxo]

That would be the Night Wolves? The one chock full of FSB/GRU/Police/Mafia members?

I think so, yes. It had some dumb name like that.

[Kaleredar]

Just a reminder that a "superpower" is having trouble wiping the floor in a matter of days with a military that has to take in actual donations and sells NFTs to secure military equipment to fight said "superpower"

Turns out giving over leadership positions to corrupt, unqualified and incompetent oligarchs who operate without any overhead and use their positions solely to enrich themselves is not a great way to run a country.

I'm curious to know if:

1) Putin knew this, but thought Ukraine would fold anyway
2) Putin knew this, but didn't know how bad it was
3) Putin legitimately thought the money was going where it needed to and had no idea his military was in such a bad state.

None of those look very good for him.

[Breccia]

Japan tells businesses not to do business in rubles. Calls out energy sector in particular not to do that.

Related: many Asians are complying with trade restrictions to avoid being sanctioned.

"The restrictions have been in place for roughly a month, a little bit over a month, and we certainly haven't seen any indication that there's non-compliance, in fact we've seen the reverse," Matthew Borman, U.S. Commerce Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Export Administration, told a teleconference when asked about Asia's response.

"I think there's also a fair amount of additional self-sanctioning, if you will, by multinational companies operating in Russia," he added.

Major players know there is a significant risk to their business if they don't comply because of actions the United States could take, including fines or criminal penalties, Borman said.

"We know that Russia is quite dependent upon foreign supplies for some key inputs like semiconductors so I think it will be relatively readily apparent if there is non-compliance and the task will be to trace that back to its origin."

I'm still not sure where China stands on this, seems to be mostly fence-straddling, but since Russia is pushing rope I doubt they're saying "yeah, after all these attempts that failed and these weak excuses from Putin, let's go all-in on that" now of all times. I don't think their love for Russia and their hatred of the US are either/together strong enough to spend significant time, effort, or resources backing the side that is both objectively in the wrong and also losing. I'm not expecting them to shut down trade or anything, but they won't be fencing stolen goods or hiding dead Ukrainian children either.

[Elenos]

Turns out giving over leadership positions to corrupt, unqualified and incompetent oligarchs who operate without any overhead and use their positions solely to enrich themselves is not a great way to run a country.

I'm curious to know if:

1) Putin knew this, but thought Ukraine would fold anyway
2) Putin knew this, but didn't know how bad it was
3) Putin legitimately thought the money was going where it needed to and had no idea his military was in such a bad state.

None of those look very good for him.

How about this. All three at the same time.

He knew to a degree and thought Ukraine would collapse, he also didn't realize that it was this bad, and also he expected that the money stolen wasn't messing his military that badly.

[PhaelixWW]

How about this. All three at the same time.

He knew to a degree and thought Ukraine would collapse, he also didn't realize that it was this bad, and also he expected that the money stolen wasn't messing his military that badly.

I mean, all three of those choices are basically the same, anyway. #3 is just one end of the sliding scale of #2, and regardless of where on the sliding scale you figure Putin was, #1 likely applies as well.