Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Makabreska]

Right?

If you guys aren't the Soviet Union anymore, how is Chernobyl (the miniseries) a condemnation of your government?

I mean, Soviet Union is dead, but it's spirit and methods are alive, as we have seen for decades. Plus it's venerated among so many Russians. And no dictatorship will simply take the blame.

[Zaydin]

Last time they went for "destruction of ukrainian national identity" they purposefully starved millions of them to death.

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Right?

If you guys aren't the Soviet Union anymore, how is Chernobyl (the miniseries) a condemnation of your government?

I think part of it is Putlers propaganda trying to portray 'his' Russia as the rightful successor to Soviet Russia and anything that showed just how corrupt the Soviet government was is an attack against modern Russia.

Pretty sure Russia still insists that the Holodomor was a natural famine and not an attempted genocide by Russia against Ukraine.

[Makabreska]

I think part of it is Putlers propaganda trying to portray 'his' Russia as the rightful successor to Soviet Russia and anything that showed just how corrupt the Soviet government was is an attack against modern Russia.

Pretty sure Russia still insists that the Holodomor was a natural famine and not an attempted genocide by Russia against Ukraine.

Actually Putler has been infatuated by Tzars and their rule. It's just the fact that he has also been molded by Soviet era.

[Adam Jensen]

Mountains of gold, the fuck? Who the hell are these people, conquistadors?

Honestly that sounded like an idiom, like he was promised to be paid well but now knows it to be a lie. That's how I took it anyways

[Gorsameth]

And since then we’ve progressed a shit ton. Pretending access to information in Russia is at pre-internet levels is just supid. Yes, there’s a ton of propaganda, no they weren’t cut off from reality until recently.

1/3 of America thinks Trump won the election, Covid both isn't real and a Chinese virus and horse dewormer is an effective cure for it.

I don't think you can look at the bullshit of the last few years and the freedom of press in the West and then tell Russia, who doesn't have press freedom that they can't believe X after having it spoon fed to them 24/7.

[Forogil]

Honestly that sounded like an idiom, like he was promised to be paid well but now knows it to be a lie. That's how I took it anyways

For some Russian soldiers there are indications that they aren't even paid their normal salaries:

Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) separately reported that it acquired a document signed by Deputy Southern Military District commander Pyotr Gibert indicating that Russian officers are compensating their troops with the promise of additional leave days due to the inability to pay promised monthly salaries in cash

https://www.understandingwar.org/bac...ssment-april-4

[PhaelixWW]

I laughed.

[Kaleredar]

For sure, it’s just a false equivalence. Some choose to accept the propaganda, but it’s not nearly the same as only having access to lies. If ANY Russian’s thought Ukraine was a rich country with piles of gold waiting they haven’t been paying attention.

It may have been thought that Ukraine was a “receiver of prosperous western decadence” that they thought held an untold wealth of treasure that had been handed to Ukraine by western interests.

I’d ask the resident Russians around here if that were true or not… but they’re either banned or strangely quiet What with the revelation that Russia committed mass and heinous warcrimes against an innocent civilian population.

[Breccia]

NATO discusses the next phase of Putin's war.

We now see a significant movement of troops away from Kyiv to regroup, re-arm and re-supply, and a shift in focus to the east.

In the coming weeks we expect a further Russian push in the east and southern Ukraine, to try to take the entire Donbas and to create a land bridge to the occupied Crimea. So this is a crucial phase of the war.

Our allies are determined to provide further support to Ukraine, including anti-tank weapons, air defense systems and other equipment.

Russia risks default as it loses both the ability and desire to pay its bonds.

The U.S. measures froze the government's stockpile of $300 billion in foreign currency reserves held abroad.

The Treasury official called the sanctions targeting Russia's Central Bank as "one of the most potent actions of the 700+ sanctions we've imposed."

Major ratings agencies have downgraded the country, saying the risk of a debt default is rising.

Russia last defaulted on its foreign currency debt in 1918, when Bolshevik revolution leader Vladimir Lenin refused to recognize the obligations of the deposed tsar's regime.

But the government missed payments on domestic, ruble-denominated debt in 1998 amid a financial crisis.

In the wake of that crisis, Moscow amassed about $600 billion in reserves, largely from oil and natural gas sales.

The government owes about $40 billion in dollar- or euro-denominated debt, though only half of that is held by foreign creditors — a relatively small amount given the size of the economy and its oil earnings.

I'm not sure I get why Russia would own a bunch of US money, leave it in our hands, commit war crimes, and expect this to not happen.

Andrew Wood talks to Sky News.

Andrew Wood, who was the UK's ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1985 to 1989 and its ambassador to Russia from 1995 to 2000, made the comments to Sky News on Tuesday.

"It has been a shock for the Russians to reveal themselves as being so inept militarily," he said.

He added that Russians would have thought their military would be able to quickly seize Ukraine and that Russia could then rule over it — a scenario that has not played out about 40 days later.

"It is also a complete contrast to what they not only expected but relied on — it wasn't just the speed of their victory, they supposed, but also that it would be possible thereafter for them, in effect, to rule Ukraine," he said.

"Okay fine, but that's old news. We already knew that."

Wood added that he thought many Russians believed the war-crime accusations against Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite state censorship around the invasion.

"I think a large proportion of the Russian people will suspect that it's true and that all sorts of emotional forces will be making them very, very anxious to deny it," he said. "They had great trust in their armed forces, greater trust in them than the government in general. And this is such a terrible shock for them."

A Ukrainian historian writes for TIME magazine on the topic of "do we blame the Russian people for this?"

Spoiler alert: Yes.

There is something in Russian culture today making most Russians—even highly educated people—incapable of simple manifestations of human solidarity.

In a recent interview on Ukrainian television, Viktor Shenderovich, a Russian critic of Putin who escaped to Israel, urged us not to judge all Russians too harshly, as they are nothing but hostages. And it is not right to blame hostages.

If this is true, it is only partially so. The whole truth is that Russians surrendered and became hostages voluntarily. Before Putin came to power in 2000, opinion polls in Russia showed that most Russians were ready to trade freedom for order, were openly hostile to the West, and dreamed of a strong hand—primarily of a military force that would be respected and feared by the world.

Yeah...two out of three ain't bad, right? The world is no longer frightened of the Russian military force.

In other words, behind the real Vladimir Putin stands the collective Putin of the Russian people. Moreover, Putin is not just collective—he is repetitive. Over the past two hundred years, Russia has gone through several periods of liberalization. Each of these periods was followed by another of repression. Suffice it to say that Putin came to power after the reforms of Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

Historians call this phenomenon the Russian pendulum. Due to its swings, Russia never managed to form a society of citizens. Russians remain largely a community of subjects with low public trust and solidarity. If they lack these when it comes to their own relations, why should they show solidarity with their neighbors?

It seems that buried deep behind Russian megalomania is an inferiority complex. Russians cannot fathom how, after emerging victorious over Napoleon and Hitler, they are now living worse than the French and the Germans. Similar to Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes, the constant failure to “catch up and overtake the West” pushes many to conclude that “the West” is not for them. Russia is no country, but a separate Civilization, to which “Western rules” do not therefore apply. Accordingly, many Russians are prepared to suffer privations themselves or inflict equal suffering on their neighbors, if it proves Russia’s greatness to the world.

We've talked about the bolded and blue before, but from Putin's perspective and how he's attacking Ukraine because of this attitude.

Now the author goes on to say other things, but his point is clear: Putin now is the embodiment of what Russia asked for in 2000 and beyond. They wanted everyone to be as miserable as they were, and were okay sacrificing their freedom and advancement to get that goal. Well congratulations, the 100+ million people of Russia have now taken an objectively worse standard of living to inflict that on 40+ million Ukrainians...and basically nobody else.

I hope it was worth it. Oh, wait, no I don't. I'm not a sociopath.

[Elegiac]

We've talked about the bolded and blue before, but from Putin's perspective and how he's attacking Ukraine because of this attitude.

Well the grapes were Russophobic anyway. /s

[PhaelixWW]

I'm not sure I get why Russia would own a bunch of US money, leave it in our hands, commit war crimes, and expect this to not happen.

Because they didn't expect the invasion to last long enough to get to the un-cover-up-able war crimes portion.

I mean, we have government plans for concealable mass graves and mobile crematoriums in the support train for the invasion. People can take the existence of these things with a grain of salt, but it's obvious that Putin never expected this to last so long. I'd be willing to bet that they expected to take over quickly, hide any damaging evidence, then have the new puppet regime "thank and welcome" Russian troops while "forgiving" them for anything that was too obvious to hide while Ukraine was being "liberated from the Nazis".

It would have all been a fait accompli before any real sanctions were firmly in place, and then you'd have the "rightful" government of Ukraine demanding an end to international interference in Russia's business.

Faced with that, I'm sure Putin was expecting US banks to back down.

[Breccia]

Because they didn't expect the invasion to last long enough to get to the un-cover-up-able war crimes portion.

I'm sure Putin was expecting US banks to back down.

Actually that makes a lot of sense. The US didn't do nearly this much for Crimea. There's a "War Crime-a" joke in there somewhere but I'm not in the mood.

fait accompli

You watch your mouth!

[Jastall]

NATO discusses the next phase of Putin's war

We've talked about the bolded and blue before, but from Putin's perspective and how he's attacking Ukraine because of this attitude.

Now the author goes on to say other things, but his point is clear: Putin now is the embodiment of what Russia asked for in 2000 and beyond. They wanted everyone to be as miserable as they were, and were okay sacrificing their freedom and advancement to get that goal. Well congratulations, the 100+ million people of Russia have now taken an objectively worse standard of living to inflict that on 40+ million Ukrainians...and basically nobody else.

I hope it was worth it. Oh, wait, no I don't. I'm not a sociopath.

Don't forget about the people in North Africa and the Middle East who are very much also victims of this, especially in Yemen. This war has fucked over probably close to half a billion people. Obviously Ukraine has the worst of it by far, but potential food shortages across a good portion of the world, and outright famine in some places, is hardly a picnic either, and they'll receive far less Western support sadly.

[PhaelixWW]

Fuck Putin. Fuck any Russian soldiers still in Ukraine.

NYTimes: Russian soldiers opened fire on a cyclist in Bucha, new video shows.

New video has emerged that adds to mounting evidence of atrocities carried out in March while Russia’s military occupied the suburban town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv.

The video shows a cyclist moving along a street in Bucha, dismounting and walking a bicycle around the corner onto a street occupied by Russian soldiers. As soon as the cyclist rounds the turn, a Russian armored vehicle fires several high-caliber rounds along the thoroughfare. A second armored vehicle fire two rounds in the direction of the cyclist. A plume of dust and smoke rises from the scene.

The video is aerial footage recorded by Ukraine’s military in early March, when Russian forces still held the town. It has been independently verified by The New York Times.

Weeks later, after Russia withdrew from Bucha, a body in civilian clothes was filmed beside a bicycle in this precise location in a second video verified by The Times. The body, with one leg mangled, lies behind a concrete utility pillar that has collapsed from an apparent strike. The damage to the pillar is consistent with high-caliber ammunition. The person’s clothing — a dark blue top and lighter pants — matches the cyclist’s attire.

In the aerial footage, the Russian armored vehicles visible on the street appear to be BMD-4 infantry fighting vehicles, which are commonly mounted with a 100-millimeter gun and 30-millimeter cannon, according to a Times analysis of the video. More than 20 Russian military vehicles are positioned near the two vehicles that fired, both on the same street and stretching for blocks along a cross street.

The military convoy is stationed at an intersection on Yablonska Street, where The Times on Monday documented more than a dozen dead bodies. Satellite images confirmed that the people were killed in March while Russia controlled the town; the new video confirms that a Russian convoy was situated where many of those bodies were found.

Video proof is in the link.

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More evidence.

CNN: 'We're not finding soldiers, just innocent people': The horror of Russian occupation revealed in Borodianka

Not going to bother quoting anything from the article. It's nothing that hasn't been seen and heard plenty of times over the last week, just more of the same in a different Ukrainian city.

[Xyonai]

Fuck Putin. Fuck any Russian soldiers still in Ukraine.

NYTimes: Russian soldiers opened fire on a cyclist in Bucha, new video shows.


Video proof is in the link.

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More evidence.

CNN: 'We're not finding soldiers, just innocent people': The horror of Russian occupation revealed in Borodianka

Not going to bother quoting anything from the article. It's nothing that hasn't been seen and heard plenty of times over the last week, just more of the same in a different Ukrainian city.

I'm really glad that the Trump years seems to have weeded out the most belligerent and aggressive Contrarian Shitposters because I don't think my blood pressure could take seeing whatever stupid as fuck takes some of those people would've had about this situation, when the people who are still around are bad enough.

[zorkuus]

I think it's fair to say Russia has lost its face for decades to come. There's no returning back from this to the international stage anytime soon. They need to be totally isolated.

[Bakis]

That is like 50m~ and clear unobstructed view including clear weather from where the armored verhicle is positioned to the cyclist.
Sickening.

I hope to see Lavrov who spit out daily bullshit about no war crimes being comitted hanged or in jail for life some day.
Not likely cos he would swallow a pussy pill before but a lovely thought nevertheless.

[Dadwen]

I don't do Twitter but posted on another site I visit Freudian slip

"The corpses in Boutcha that didn't exist before the Russian troops arrived ... er, er, left, sorry - before they left ..."

[Bakis]

Russians cannot fathom how, after emerging victorious over Napoleon and Hitler, they are now living worse than the French and the Germans.

Hah, that part of the article. Wonder how russians would feel if global warming fucked up their harsh winters, without its help its no chance in hell for a 3rd time.

[Poopymonster]

That is like 50m~ and clear unobstructed view including clear weather from where the armored verhicle is positioned to the cyclist.
Sickening.

I hope to see Lavrov who spit out daily bullshit about no war crimes being comitted hanged or in jail for life some day.
Not likely cos he would swallow a pussy pill before but a lovely thought nevertheless.

He had a bomb. They fired in self defense. Didn't you see the way he exploded? Obviously carrying some sort of explosive device.
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