I could see where some countries may say they don’t have the supplies to give without those countries themselves having issues defending themselves if Russia comes after them next. I don’t know.
Of course its a possibility this guy is bat shit crazy. A strong possibility
I don't think anyone has grounds for theorizing about and/or calling it "a strong possibility".
How isnt it? He has loads and is backed into a corner. And mad
Not arguments... strong enough... to make it "a strong possibility" or not.
My opinion. As are all of these. Opinions only
Sure. My opinion is no one, especially in here, have enough data or knowledge to draw the conclusion on whether Putin is one to use a first-strike nuke or not being a strong possibility.
History tells us no one has used one since the two in 1945.
Except Russia's military nuclear doctrine allows for a "first strike" and tactical battlefield usage upon threats of overwhelming force, inclusive of economic sanctions and providing arms. The West's nuclear strategy is based on deterrence and MAD from a defensive posture. Hence, why NATO or western nations are not putting boots on the ground or creating no fly zones.
There's a first time for everything.
Yes ofc. Pearl Jam played Help Help for the first time in Europe in 2018.
"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
Somebody elsewhere brought up the issue of sanctions and how they affect people in Russia who are not to blame for Putin's atrocities . What do others here think? Could sanctions do more harm than good? If
the roles were reversed and our economy was crashing and our bank
accounts worthless, toward whom would we direct our displeasure and
anger? I wonder how much this has been taken into consideration? I am
HUGELY against the Russian invasion, but I also have a lot of concern
for that average Russian citizen who is just trying to get by. That's
gotta be really rough right now.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Some don't seem to recall the history of putin on the ritz's highest placed "intelligence" asset. Each point, and the point in general, is further defined and explained in the link.
Opinion: Five vile things Trump did to Zelensky and Ukraine that you forgot about
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine getting more horrific, Donald Trump and his allies are franticallyerasing the truth about Trump’s relations with Ukraine. Trump absurdly claims that as president, he stood strong behind Ukraine and NATO, even as his spinners comically downplay his corrupt and deeply malevolent betrayal of our ally.
1. Spread propaganda about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election
As early as 2017, Trump began voicing the conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 presidential election. This was one of the things Trump pressured Zelensky to “investigate” while withholding military aid.
It’s complete nonsense, and crucially, it echoed Russian propaganda that had a geopolitical purpose. Putin himself reportedly put this idea in Trump’s head. And Fiona Hill, then a top national security official, testified that this propaganda helped Russia by deflecting attention from Russia’s own interference in 2016 and by dividing the United States from an ally.
2. Ousted the well-regarded U.S. ambassador to Ukraine
Trump pushed out Marie Yovanovitch in 2019, after his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani mounted a smear campaign against her. Yovanovitch was perceived as disloyal to Trump.
3. Froze military assistance to Ukraine
Well before extorting Zelensky, Trump alarmed officials by freezing military aid to Ukraine that Congress had appropriated, but without meaningful policy justification. Crucially, officials subsequently testified that granting this aid was important in dissuading Russian aggression, which would be in European and U.S. interests.
4. Withheld a White House meeting from Zelensky
In 2019, Trump communicated in various ways to Zelensky that a much-sought-after White House meeting would be conditioned on doing his corrupt dirt-digging on Joe Biden.
5. Turned Ukraine policy over to Giuliani
This was one of the most shocking subplots: Trump repeatedly instructed Zelensky to contact Giuliani to discuss what Zelensky would be required to do to please Trump. Giuliani’s circumvention of national security protocols deeply alarmed officials.
Somebody elsewhere brought up the issue of sanctions and how they affect people in Russia who are not to blame for Putin's atrocities . What do others here think? Could sanctions do more harm than good? If
the roles were reversed and our economy was crashing and our bank
accounts worthless, toward whom would we direct our displeasure and
anger? I wonder how much this has been taken into consideration? I am
HUGELY against the Russian invasion, but I also have a lot of concern
for that average Russian citizen who is just trying to get by. That's
gotta be really rough right now.
I'm not sure how I feel about it Brian. But maybe part of the point of these sanctions is to squeeze the support out of Putin' grasp as well.
Somebody elsewhere brought up the issue of sanctions and how they affect people in Russia who are not to blame for Putin's atrocities . What do others here think? Could sanctions do more harm than good? If
the roles were reversed and our economy was crashing and our bank
accounts worthless, toward whom would we direct our displeasure and
anger? I wonder how much this has been taken into consideration? I am
HUGELY against the Russian invasion, but I also have a lot of concern
for that average Russian citizen who is just trying to get by. That's
gotta be really rough right now.
It's a horrible situation any way you look at it. I can't imagine living in either of those countries right now.
Hopefully someone in Russia will realize if we leave these people alone our daily lives wouldn't be fucked up right now, then they go and tell the government to stop bothering those people. I guess there's the rub.
Somebody elsewhere brought up the issue of sanctions and how they affect people in Russia who are not to blame for Putin's atrocities . What do others here think? Could sanctions do more harm than good? If
the roles were reversed and our economy was crashing and our bank
accounts worthless, toward whom would we direct our displeasure and
anger? I wonder how much this has been taken into consideration? I am
HUGELY against the Russian invasion, but I also have a lot of concern
for that average Russian citizen who is just trying to get by. That's
gotta be really rough right now.
That's on Putin. If he decides to invade a country on his own he should be able to figure out a way to keep his people happy.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Somebody elsewhere brought up the issue of sanctions and how they affect people in Russia who are not to blame for Putin's atrocities . What do others here think? Could sanctions do more harm than good? If
the roles were reversed and our economy was crashing and our bank
accounts worthless, toward whom would we direct our displeasure and
anger? I wonder how much this has been taken into consideration? I am
HUGELY against the Russian invasion, but I also have a lot of concern
for that average Russian citizen who is just trying to get by. That's
gotta be really rough right now.
I think it's a tough thing to wrap my head around. Seeing people line up in Russia to get cash, their lifes being disrupted and in cases destroyed. While obviously the ones causing this mess will never have to worry about a thing. But what other way is it. No one has come up with an alternative. And it is a way, however crude, to remove the veil from peoples eyes.
I think the war has 70% support in Russia, afterall.
And at the same time, Back in the 00s I think the world should have joined together and sanctioned the US to shit, even with some of you teddybears getting affected by it.
Post edited by Spiritual_Chaos on
"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
Somebody elsewhere brought up the issue of sanctions and how they affect people in Russia who are not to blame for Putin's atrocities . What do others here think? Could sanctions do more harm than good? If
the roles were reversed and our economy was crashing and our bank
accounts worthless, toward whom would we direct our displeasure and
anger? I wonder how much this has been taken into consideration? I am
HUGELY against the Russian invasion, but I also have a lot of concern
for that average Russian citizen who is just trying to get by. That's
gotta be really rough right now.
I'm not sure how I feel about it Brian. But maybe part of the point of these sanctions is to squeeze the support out of Putin' grasp as well.
Somebody elsewhere brought up the issue of sanctions and how they affect people in Russia who are not to blame for Putin's atrocities . What do others here think? Could sanctions do more harm than good? If
the roles were reversed and our economy was crashing and our bank
accounts worthless, toward whom would we direct our displeasure and
anger? I wonder how much this has been taken into consideration? I am
HUGELY against the Russian invasion, but I also have a lot of concern
for that average Russian citizen who is just trying to get by. That's
gotta be really rough right now.
It's a horrible situation any way you look at it. I can't imagine living in either of those countries right now.
It is a tough one, for sure. No easy answer.
OK, friends, off I go for some fun dental torture. Will look forward to catching up more here tonight.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
There washpo editorial today about how Apple was on the sidelines. Sounds like they read the paper. However part of the pressure was to disable apps and disable the app store.
I saw a tweet a couple of days ago about a group heading to do the assassination. No way to know what's true and what isn't so I didn't post it. It may have been true. We know Putin has a history of eliminating people.
I saw a tweet a couple of days ago about a group heading to do the assassination. No way to know what's true and what isn't so I didn't post it. It may have been true. We know Putin has a history of eliminating people.
I think the force being in Kyiv is absolutely true. I was wondering if the until was mostly eliminated over the weekend, including their general, which is what Ukrainian media reported. https://www.jpost.com/international/article-699032
The Ukrainian embassy in Sweden says that it is looking for volunteers with military training and refers all questions to the Swedish coordinator Philip Brännvall.
- About 400 have been in contact with us. Some of them leave on Thursday and then more go. I do not want to tell more details for the sake of security, says Brännvall who is the coordinator between the embassy and the brigade group.
The Swedes will fly to Krakow in Poland and are then expected to fly to Ukraine.
- They will be employed by the Ukrainian army and sign a contract with it, this is not a mercenary job.
The background is checked
The background of the volunteers is checked before they get the go-ahead to leave for the brigade, according to Philip Brännvall.
- They can do personality tests and a political test. And then we check that they have not been convicted of a crime. All religions and political opinions are welcome as long as they are not extreme, he says.
- We check them out on Facebook and Twitter as well. As we see it now, there are many ordinary guys who go.
Post edited by Spiritual_Chaos on
"Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
The battle for
Ukraine unfolding before our eyes has the potential to be the most
transformational event in Europe since World War II and the most
dangerous confrontation for the world since the Cuban missile crisis. I
see three possible scenarios for how this story ends. I call them “the
full-blown disaster,” “the dirty compromise” and “salvation.”
The
disaster scenario is now underway: Unless Vladimir Putin has a change
of heart or can be deterred by the West, he appears willing to kill as
many people as necessary and destroy as much of Ukraine’s infrastructure
as necessary to erase Ukraine as a free independent state and culture
and wipe out its leadership. This scenario could lead to war crimes the
scale of which has not been seen in Europe since the Nazis — crimes that
would make Vladimir Putin, his cronies and Russia as a country all
global pariahs.
The wired, globalized
world has never had to deal with a leader accused of this level of war
crimes whose country has a landmass spanning 11 time zones, is one of
the world’s largest oil and gas providers and possesses the biggest arsenal of nuclear warheads of any nation.
Every
day that Putin refuses to stop we get closer to the gates of hell. With
each TikTok video and cellphone shot showing Putin’s brutality, it will
be harder and harder for the world to look away. But to intervene risks
igniting the first war in the heart of Europe involving nuclear
weapons. And to let Putin reduce Kyiv to rubble, with thousands of dead —
the way he conquered Aleppo and Grozny — would allow him to create a
European Afghanistan, spilling out refugees and chaos.
Putin doesn’t
have the ability to install a puppet leader in Ukraine and just leave
him there: A puppet would face a permanent insurrection. So, Russia
needs to permanently station tens of thousands of troops in Ukraine to
control it — and Ukrainians will be shooting at them every day. It is
terrifying how little Putin has thought about how his war ends.
I
wish Putin was just motivated by a desire to keep Ukraine out of NATO;
his appetite has grown far beyond that. Putin is in the grip of magical
thinking: As Fiona Hill, one of America’s premier Russia experts, said
in an interview published on Monday by Politico, he believes that there is something called “Russky Mir,”
or a “Russian World”; that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people”;
and that it is his mission to engineer “regathering all the
Russian-speakers in different places that belonged at some point to the
Russian tsardom.”
To realize that
vision, Putin believes that it is his right and duty to challenge what
Hill calls “a rules-based system in which the things that countries want
are not taken by force.” And if the U.S. and its allies attempt to get
in Putin’s way — or try to humiliate him the way they did Russia at the
end of the Cold War — he is signaling that he is ready to out-crazy us.
Or, as Putin warned
the other day before putting his nuclear force on high alert, anyone
who gets in his way should be ready to face “consequences they have
never seen” before. Add to all this the mounting reports questioning Putin’s state of mind and you have a terrifying cocktail.
The
second scenario is that somehow the Ukrainian military and people are
able to hold out long enough against the Russian blitzkrieg, and that
the economic sanctions start deeply wounding Putin’s economy, so that
both sides feel compelled to accept a dirty compromise. Its rough
contours would be that in return for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of
Russian troops, Ukraine’s eastern enclaves now under de facto Russian
control would be formally ceded to Russia, while Ukraine would
explicitly vow never to join NATO. At the same time, the U.S. and its
allies would agree to lift all recently imposed economic sanctions on
Russia.
This scenario remains unlikely
because it would require Putin to basically admit that he was unable to
achieve his vision of reabsorbing Ukraine into the Russian motherland,
after paying a huge price in terms of his economy and the deaths of
Russian soldiers. Moreover, Ukraine would have to formally cede part of
its territory and accept that it was going to be a permanent no man’s
land between Russia and the rest of Europe — though it would at least
maintain its nominal independence. It would also require everyone to
ignore the lesson already learned that Putin can’t be trusted to leave
Ukraine alone.
Finally, the
least likely scenario but the one that could have the best outcome is
that the Russian people demonstrate as much bravery and commitment to
their own freedom as the Ukrainian people have shown to theirs, and
deliver salvation by ousting Putin from office.
Many
Russians must be starting to worry that as long as Putin is their
present and future leader, they have no future. Thousands are taking to
the streets to protest Putin’s insane war. They’re doing this at the
risk of their own safety. And though too soon to tell, their pushback
does make you wonder if the so-called fear barrier is being broken, and
if a mass movement could eventually end Putin’s reign.
Even for Russians staying quiet, life is suddenly being disrupted in ways small and large. As my colleague Mark Landler put it:
“In Switzerland, the Lucerne music festival canceled two symphony
concerts featuring a Russian maestro. In Australia, the national swim
team said it would boycott a world championship meet in Russia. At the
Magic Mountain Ski Area in Vermont, a bartender poured bottles of
Stolichnaya vodka down the drain. From culture to commerce, sports to
travel, the world is shunning Russia in myriad ways to protest President
Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
And
then there is the new “Putin tax” that every Russian will have to pay
indefinitely for the pleasure of having him as their president. I am
talking about the effects of the mounting sanctions being imposed on
Russia by the civilized world. On Monday, the Russian central bank had
to keep the Russian stock market closed to prevent a panicked meltdown
and was forced to raise its benchmark interest rate in one day to 20
percent from 9.5 percent to encourage people to hold rubles. Even then
the ruble nose-dived by about 30 percent against the dollar — it’s now worth less than 1 U.S. cent.
For
all of these reasons I have to hope that at this very moment there are
some very senior Russian intelligence and military officials, close to
Putin, who are meeting in some closet in the Kremlin and saying out loud
what they all must be thinking: Either Putin has lost a step as a
strategist during his isolation in the pandemic or he is in deep denial
over how badly he has miscalculated the strength of Ukrainians, America,
its allies and global civil society at large.
If
Putin goes ahead and levels Ukraine’s biggest cities and its capital,
Kyiv, he and all of his cronies will never again see the London and New
York apartments they bought with all their stolen riches. There will be
no more Davos and no more St. Moritz. Instead, they will all be locked
in a big prison called Russia — with the freedom to travel only to
Syria, Crimea, Belarus, North Korea and China, maybe. Their kids will be
thrown out of private boarding schools from Switzerland to Oxford.
Either
they collaborate to oust Putin or they will all share his isolation
cell. The same for the larger Russian public. I realize that this last
scenario is the most unlikely of them all, but it is the one that holds
the most promise of achieving the dream that we dreamed when the Berlin
Wall fell in 1989 — a Europe whole and free, from the British Isles to
Vladivostok.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Comments
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2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
I think the war has 70% support in Russia, afterall.
And at the same time, Back in the 00s I think the world should have joined together and sanctioned the US to shit, even with some of you teddybears getting affected by it.
www.headstonesband.com
The Wagner Group, I think Zelensky himself talked about had been disrupted at least. Some taken prisoners by Ukraine.
Thomas L. Friedman
I See Three Scenarios for How This War Ends
The battle for Ukraine unfolding before our eyes has the potential to be the most transformational event in Europe since World War II and the most dangerous confrontation for the world since the Cuban missile crisis. I see three possible scenarios for how this story ends. I call them “the full-blown disaster,” “the dirty compromise” and “salvation.”
The disaster scenario is now underway: Unless Vladimir Putin has a change of heart or can be deterred by the West, he appears willing to kill as many people as necessary and destroy as much of Ukraine’s infrastructure as necessary to erase Ukraine as a free independent state and culture and wipe out its leadership. This scenario could lead to war crimes the scale of which has not been seen in Europe since the Nazis — crimes that would make Vladimir Putin, his cronies and Russia as a country all global pariahs.
The wired, globalized world has never had to deal with a leader accused of this level of war crimes whose country has a landmass spanning 11 time zones, is one of the world’s largest oil and gas providers and possesses the biggest arsenal of nuclear warheads of any nation.
Every day that Putin refuses to stop we get closer to the gates of hell. With each TikTok video and cellphone shot showing Putin’s brutality, it will be harder and harder for the world to look away. But to intervene risks igniting the first war in the heart of Europe involving nuclear weapons. And to let Putin reduce Kyiv to rubble, with thousands of dead — the way he conquered Aleppo and Grozny — would allow him to create a European Afghanistan, spilling out refugees and chaos.
Putin doesn’t have the ability to install a puppet leader in Ukraine and just leave him there: A puppet would face a permanent insurrection. So, Russia needs to permanently station tens of thousands of troops in Ukraine to control it — and Ukrainians will be shooting at them every day. It is terrifying how little Putin has thought about how his war ends.
I wish Putin was just motivated by a desire to keep Ukraine out of NATO; his appetite has grown far beyond that. Putin is in the grip of magical thinking: As Fiona Hill, one of America’s premier Russia experts, said in an interview published on Monday by Politico, he believes that there is something called “Russky Mir,” or a “Russian World”; that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people”; and that it is his mission to engineer “regathering all the Russian-speakers in different places that belonged at some point to the Russian tsardom.”
To realize that vision, Putin believes that it is his right and duty to challenge what Hill calls “a rules-based system in which the things that countries want are not taken by force.” And if the U.S. and its allies attempt to get in Putin’s way — or try to humiliate him the way they did Russia at the end of the Cold War — he is signaling that he is ready to out-crazy us. Or, as Putin warned the other day before putting his nuclear force on high alert, anyone who gets in his way should be ready to face “consequences they have never seen” before. Add to all this the mounting reports questioning Putin’s state of mind and you have a terrifying cocktail.
The second scenario is that somehow the Ukrainian military and people are able to hold out long enough against the Russian blitzkrieg, and that the economic sanctions start deeply wounding Putin’s economy, so that both sides feel compelled to accept a dirty compromise. Its rough contours would be that in return for a cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian troops, Ukraine’s eastern enclaves now under de facto Russian control would be formally ceded to Russia, while Ukraine would explicitly vow never to join NATO. At the same time, the U.S. and its allies would agree to lift all recently imposed economic sanctions on Russia.
This scenario remains unlikely because it would require Putin to basically admit that he was unable to achieve his vision of reabsorbing Ukraine into the Russian motherland, after paying a huge price in terms of his economy and the deaths of Russian soldiers. Moreover, Ukraine would have to formally cede part of its territory and accept that it was going to be a permanent no man’s land between Russia and the rest of Europe — though it would at least maintain its nominal independence. It would also require everyone to ignore the lesson already learned that Putin can’t be trusted to leave Ukraine alone.
Finally, the least likely scenario but the one that could have the best outcome is that the Russian people demonstrate as much bravery and commitment to their own freedom as the Ukrainian people have shown to theirs, and deliver salvation by ousting Putin from office.
Many Russians must be starting to worry that as long as Putin is their present and future leader, they have no future. Thousands are taking to the streets to protest Putin’s insane war. They’re doing this at the risk of their own safety. And though too soon to tell, their pushback does make you wonder if the so-called fear barrier is being broken, and if a mass movement could eventually end Putin’s reign.
Even for Russians staying quiet, life is suddenly being disrupted in ways small and large. As my colleague Mark Landler put it: “In Switzerland, the Lucerne music festival canceled two symphony concerts featuring a Russian maestro. In Australia, the national swim team said it would boycott a world championship meet in Russia. At the Magic Mountain Ski Area in Vermont, a bartender poured bottles of Stolichnaya vodka down the drain. From culture to commerce, sports to travel, the world is shunning Russia in myriad ways to protest President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
And then there is the new “Putin tax” that every Russian will have to pay indefinitely for the pleasure of having him as their president. I am talking about the effects of the mounting sanctions being imposed on Russia by the civilized world. On Monday, the Russian central bank had to keep the Russian stock market closed to prevent a panicked meltdown and was forced to raise its benchmark interest rate in one day to 20 percent from 9.5 percent to encourage people to hold rubles. Even then the ruble nose-dived by about 30 percent against the dollar — it’s now worth less than 1 U.S. cent.
For all of these reasons I have to hope that at this very moment there are some very senior Russian intelligence and military officials, close to Putin, who are meeting in some closet in the Kremlin and saying out loud what they all must be thinking: Either Putin has lost a step as a strategist during his isolation in the pandemic or he is in deep denial over how badly he has miscalculated the strength of Ukrainians, America, its allies and global civil society at large.
If Putin goes ahead and levels Ukraine’s biggest cities and its capital, Kyiv, he and all of his cronies will never again see the London and New York apartments they bought with all their stolen riches. There will be no more Davos and no more St. Moritz. Instead, they will all be locked in a big prison called Russia — with the freedom to travel only to Syria, Crimea, Belarus, North Korea and China, maybe. Their kids will be thrown out of private boarding schools from Switzerland to Oxford.
Either they collaborate to oust Putin or they will all share his isolation cell. The same for the larger Russian public. I realize that this last scenario is the most unlikely of them all, but it is the one that holds the most promise of achieving the dream that we dreamed when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 — a Europe whole and free, from the British Isles to Vladivostok.