World Politics

[HardCoreBlue]

2 hours ago, Tracker said:

Reports are coming that Russian troops are not being paid and entire battalions are refusing to engage their targets.

If these reports are true, this is where NATO's funds should be offered to Russian soldiers to drop there arms and be offered asylum to them and their families a country of their choosing.

*with conditions of course depending on the actions of the soldier to date. ie genocide

Edited April 13, 2022 by HardCoreBlue

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

2 hours ago, Tracker said:

Reports are coming that Russian troops are not being paid and entire battalions are refusing to engage their targets.

SOurce?

[Tracker]

1 hour ago, wanna-b-fanboy said:

SOurce?

Ukrainian News who also posted today:

Ukraine has hit Russian missile cruiser "Moskva" in the Black Sea, Odesa regional governor Maksym Marchenko said. 'Russian ship is severely damaged', he claimed

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

2 hours ago, Tracker said:

Ukrainian News who also posted today:

I mean reporting service. just want to do a little source checking

[Fatty Liver]

8 hours ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Finland opting to join NATO can only be deemed a provocation to Russian leadership, its brainwashed populace, and the uninformed.

You fail to explain what's irrational or unreasonable about a sovereign nation's aspirations or doing what's best for its own interests, while then making your own irrational comments. You should go tell the Ukrainians fighting for their country that resolve is worthless and see how that goes. It's easy to make such a remark from relative comfort and safety and I'm sure your tune would be different if you were in their place.

Russia is the way it is because of its leadership, which obviously includes Putin. That group of greedy, delusional narcissists haven't accepted the fact that the USSR failed, the golden age of Russian influence in Eastern Europe is over, and that it collapsed by its own hand. They've been blaming the West ever since, lacking any introspection as to the internal factors that led to the USSR's ultimate demise. They whine about NATO as though it is somehow a threat to Russia's existence. Meanwhile, Russia actually threatens the existence of other nations. That's garbage.

They whipped up false narratives and propaganda for years to unjustly invade a country, destroy its towns and cities, and terrorize and murder its people. After having already done something similar eight years previous, annexing Crimea and spurring conflict in the Donbass Region. It's evident Russia is not interested in peace with anyone unless it's on their terms; that's not diplomacy. You can't ask for peace or neutrality with your neighbours by bullying them and then play the victim when they don't bend to your will, and even less so when you invade them. This is what's wrong with Russia: this fabricated persecution complex created by an old boys club who can't accept reality, so they send impoverished, impressionable young men to do their bidding, many to their deaths, while denying any wrongdoing and skirting accountability. It's such a callous disregard for human decency.

As for Finland, it isn't some feeble country: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/hybrid-underdog-russia-should-be-scared-finlands-military-innovation-191333

Russian forces already appear to have their hands full in Ukraine, to the point they had withdraw and refocus on the eastern regions. That's pretty telling and doesn't bode well with regard to conducting another "military operation" on its border with Finland.

Russia exposed itself on Feb. 24th. And it's not a good look.

If I was in the Ukraine, I'd get the hell out and wouldn't come back, as an estimated 4.3 million Ukrainians refugees have already fled the country, as well as an additional 6.5 million who have been displaced from their homes.  Change in regimes/govt. doesn't mean much to the average citizen, of course there is corruption at all levels, but for the average person life goes on much as it would, that is until your city, home and all infrastructure are destroyed.

You're welcome to egg on the fight or join in if you like, but there won't be anything left to celebrate when it's over win or lose except blood and destruction.  If you have children all the worse, as their lives will never rise to the level of normalcy again.  It took decades to rebuild Europe after WW2, and that was with the generous assistance of the Marshall Plan.  Where are the funds to repair Ukraine going to come from once Russia claims title to the land?  There are still blocks in St. Petersburg that lay in ruin after the Germans shelled them in WW2, eventually they'll get around to clearing them up, once funds allow....Ukraine will have to wait in line.

I've spent several months in both Russia and Ukraine and honestly as an observer couldn't tell the difference between the two countries, people are mostly engaging, friendly and hospitable.  Both countries are a bit shambolic, but so are most non-Western countries, yet they retain values we as a society had in the past, but abandoned well over 50 years ago, so it's not all bad.

As for Finland being a sovereign nation operating in its own best interest, how do you think the US would react if Canada decided to nationalize it's oil and gas sectors or attempted to take ownership of the water within our borders?  Until the US, China and Russia are chopped into smaller bits, we will always be subject to their influence. 

I ain't much for arguing, so I'll leave the last word to you.

Peace out.

 

[bustamente]

It's time for Finland and Sweden to call Putin's bluff and join NATO, he keeps trying to play the Nuclear card but if his Army and Navy are any indication his Nukes will probably detonate before they leave their silo's.

[Tracker]

15 minutes ago, bustamente said:

It's time for Finland and Sweden to call Putin's bluff and join NATO, he keeps trying to play the Nuclear card but if his Army and Navy are any indication his Nukes will probably detonate before they leave their silo's.

There is every reason to believe that Sweden and Finland will join NATO in weeks, not months. Putin can huff and puff all he wants, but he has lost about 20% of his army so far in Ukraine, and there is a maxim that if a military loses even 10% of its personnel or materiel, its confidence takes a massive hit.

And More Bad News For Putin:

Edited April 14, 2022 by Tracker

[WildPath]

30 minutes ago, Tracker said:

There is every reason to believe that Sweden and Finland will join NATO in weeks, not months. Putin can huff and puff all he wants, but he has lost about 20% of his army so far in Ukraine, and there is a maxim that if a military loses even 10% of its personnel or materiel, its confidence takes a massive hit.

And More Bad News For Putin:

Has Finland not said that they will be meeting in summer to strategize about when/if to join NATO? I thought I read that somewhere. I would agree that they should do it sooner than later as well.

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

43 minutes ago, WildPath said:

Has Finland not said that they will be meeting in summer to strategize about when/if to join NATO? I thought I read that somewhere. I would agree that they should do it sooner than later as well.

I think Finland is weeks away and Sweden is in the summer.

[do or die]

19 hours ago, Tracker said:

Ukrainian News who also posted today:

Ukraine has hit Russian missile cruiser "Moskva" in the Black Sea, Odesa regional governor Maksym Marchenko said. 'Russian ship is severely damaged', he claimed

Just to flesh this out a bit.....

Moskava is a Slava class Guided Missile Cruiser.......that earlier carried out the well-publicized attack on Snake Island
It is currently the sole vessel in the Russian fleet equipped with wide-area air defences, providing cover to other vessels during their operations, which have included coastal bombardments and amphibious feints.   In the absence of the Moskva,  Russia will find it more risky to conduct similar operations.

After the Russian takeover of Crimea, the Ukrainians invested in a number of Neptune anti-ship systems, which has the R-360 anti-ship cruise missile, capable of striking targets at reported ranges of up to 180 miles and has the capacity to fly at sea-skimming altitudes to evade radar detection. It also uses GPS guidance in tandem with inertial guidance to improve its accuracy and uses an onboard active radar seeker to detect its target in its final stages before impact.

The Ukrainians claim 2 hits on Moskava with this weapon.  If true, this is a crippling blow to operations in the Black Sea.

1 hour ago, Tracker said:

There is every reason to believe that Sweden and Finland will join NATO in weeks, not months. Putin can huff and puff all he wants, but he has lost about 20% of his army so far in Ukraine, and there is a maxim that if a military loses even 10% of its personnel or materiel, its confidence takes a massive hit.

And More Bad News For Putin:

Or Shoigu fell out of a open window.......

[bustamente]

Ukrainians, we sunk a ship

Russians, small fire nothing to see here

Americans, we know the truth but aren't saying anything

Russian moving their ships farther from the coast, wonder why

Edited April 14, 2022 by bustamente

[FrostyWinnipeg]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14/

[Tracker]

1 hour ago, do or die said:

Just to flesh this out a bit.....

Moskava is a Slava class Guided Missile Cruiser.......that earlier carried out the well-publicized attack on Snake Island
It is currently the sole vessel in the Russian fleet equipped with wide-area air defences, providing cover to other vessels during their operations, which have included coastal bombardments and amphibious feints.   In the absence of the Moskva,  Russia will find it more risky to conduct similar operations.

After the Russian takeover of Crimea, the Ukrainians invested in a number of Neptune anti-ship systems, which has the R-360 anti-ship cruise missile, capable of striking targets at reported ranges of up to 180 miles and has the capacity to fly at sea-skimming altitudes to evade radar detection. It also uses GPS guidance in tandem with inertial guidance to improve its accuracy and uses an onboard active radar seeker to detect its target in its final stages before impact.

The Ukrainians claim 2 hits on Moskava with this weapon.  If true, this is a crippling blow to operations in the Black Sea.

Or Shoigu fell out of a open window.......

Shoigu suffered the type of heart attack which is pretty much 100% fatal and is usually caused by a massive sudden ingestion of lead.

[17to85]

1 hour ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14/

Russian threats seem so laughable after their special operation in Ukraine. Like the school yard bully who got punched in the face and is now holding back tears with a bloody nose still trying to appear tough

 

[JCon]

6 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Russian threats seem so laughable after their special operation in Ukraine. Like the school yard bully who got punched in the face and is now holding back tears with a bloody nose still trying to appear tough

 

I'm more worried about the haymakers as they try to fight their way out of this. 

[do or die]

43 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Russian threats seem so laughable after their special operation in Ukraine. Like the school yard bully who got punched in the face and is now holding back tears with a bloody nose still trying to appear tough

 

Putin's reserve call up of 150,000 conscripts, aged 18-65...... speaks volumes 

These guys might be ok driving a truck or getting the General his coffee................but up front, against battle hardened veteran Ukrainian units.....simply more cannon fodder to throw into the meat grinder.

[JCon]

1 minute ago, do or die said:

Putin's reserve call up of 150,000 conscripts, aged 18-65...... speaks volumes 

These guys might be ok driving a truck or getting the General his coffee................but up front, against battle hardened veteran Ukrainian units.....simply more cannon fodder to throw into the meat grinder.

[bustamente]

Confirmed the Russian cruiser has sunk

 

[do or die]

9 minutes ago, bustamente said:

Confirmed the Russian cruiser has sunk

 

Actually, the Russian Navy has 2 more ships of that class, but Turkey has implemented an international convention on naval passage (Montreux Convention)through two of its strategic straits, which limit the movement of Russian warships between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

So, the Russian Black Sea navy has lost their main amphibious ship, their Missile Cruiser flagship, and top naval commander (killed earlier in the conflict)

According to plan.

[bustamente]

Fox News Russian style, this people are crazy either that or Putin is off camera

 

[Tracker]

                                                    

[SpeedFlex27]

On 2022-04-03 at 11:52 PM, Fatty Liver said:

Why now?  There have been hundreds of such events in the last hundred years, the US killed an estimated 151,000 civilians in Iraq and 71,000 more in Afghanistan within the last 20 years alone, and that's just a WAG as they can't be bothered to keep track or report the actual body count.  What for and why?

Ukraine is just the flavour of the day.

War crimes???  I still can't figure out why dropping a bomb out of an aeroplane is not considered a war crime, and yet humans have been doing it regularly for over a hundred years.

I find the bombing of Hamburg during WW2 to be particularly disturbing as I had 2 uncles that participated in these raids.

 

As part of a sustained campaign of strategic bombing during World War II, the attack during the last week of July 1943, code named Operation Gomorrah, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in World War II,^[2] killing an estimated 37,000 civilians and wounding 180,000 more in Hamburg, and virtually destroying most of the city.

Hamburg was selected as a target because it was considered particularly susceptible to attack with incendiaries, which, from the experience of the Blitz, were felt to inflict more damage than just high explosive bombs. Hamburg also contained a high number of targets supporting the German war effort and was relatively easy for navigators to find. Careful research was done on behalf of both the RAF and USAAF to discover the optimum mix of high explosives and incendiaries. Before the development of the firestorm in Hamburg, there had been no rain for some time and everything was very dry.^[3] The unusually warm weather and good conditions ensured that the bombing was highly concentrated around the intended targets, and helped the resulting conflagration create a vortex and whirling updraft of super-heated air which became a 460 meter high tornado of fire.

 

Sure sounds like the pre-meditated murder of civilians.  Lots more grisly details to be found here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II

The Germans exterminated 6 million Jews along with another 5 million POW's so let's just stop there. Whatever Hell was brought down on them from the sky was as a result of Adolph Hitler's & his fascist Nazi party along with military & genocidal policies that had the full support of the German people.

Same with the Japanese. They were butchers in occupation & killed millions of innocent civilians & POW's in Asia. Whether it's one bomb that killed a hundred thousand or 2000 bombs that killed 50 people each, war is an atrocity. But we reap what we sow. History has shown time & time again that it seldom turns out well for the conquerors. In this case, the German & Japanese.

[Tracker]

Russian Soldier Tells Wife Putin’s Troops Bombed Their Own People, Ukrainian Intel Says ‘THAT WAS OURS’

A Russian soldier in an occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region was caught telling his wife back home that Putin’s own troops were the ones who bombed a Russian town on the border this week, according to Ukrainian intelligence. In an audio clip of an intercepted call released Friday by Ukraine’s Security Service, a woman can be heard expressing concern about the attack on the town of Klimovo that Moscow blamed on Ukrainian forces, which reportedly left seven people wounded. “That was ours ******* stuff up,” the purported soldier quickly responds. “It’s necessary. They do that to provoke the [Ukrainians]. And that’s why they hit it,” he said. “We talked to the bosses and they said that’s how it is. The same **** was happening in the Chechen War, they blew up apartments in Moscow, as if it were terrorists. It was really the FSB,” he said, referring to the series of bombings in September 1999 that helped bring Vladimir Putin to power. Prominent Kremlin critics and defectors like Alexander Litvinenko have long accused Russia’s security services of orchestrating the bombings themselves to drum up support for the Chechen War and Putin. The unnamed soldier in the intercepted call goes on to say there was “no way” the Ukrainians could have reached the town of Klimovo, in the Bryansk region, from where they were, and tells his wife he plans to “refuse” to go further with the war in Ukraine.

 

[SpeedFlex27]

5 hours ago, Tracker said:

Russian Soldier Tells Wife Putin’s Troops Bombed Their Own People, Ukrainian Intel Says ‘THAT WAS OURS’

A Russian soldier in an occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region was caught telling his wife back home that Putin’s own troops were the ones who bombed a Russian town on the border this week, according to Ukrainian intelligence. In an audio clip of an intercepted call released Friday by Ukraine’s Security Service, a woman can be heard expressing concern about the attack on the town of Klimovo that Moscow blamed on Ukrainian forces, which reportedly left seven people wounded. “That was ours ******* stuff up,” the purported soldier quickly responds. “It’s necessary. They do that to provoke the [Ukrainians]. And that’s why they hit it,” he said. “We talked to the bosses and they said that’s how it is. The same **** was happening in the Chechen War, they blew up apartments in Moscow, as if it were terrorists. It was really the FSB,” he said, referring to the series of bombings in September 1999 that helped bring Vladimir Putin to power. Prominent Kremlin critics and defectors like Alexander Litvinenko have long accused Russia’s security services of orchestrating the bombings themselves to drum up support for the Chechen War and Putin. The unnamed soldier in the intercepted call goes on to say there was “no way” the Ukrainians could have reached the town of Klimovo, in the Bryansk region, from where they were, and tells his wife he plans to “refuse” to go further with the war in Ukraine.

 

That will be the last time she will have talked to him.

[Tracker]

14 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

That will be the last time she will have talked to him.

No doubt the soldier will suffer a mineral-induced heart attack very soon.