Quote:Russia has attacked Ukraine despite the ongoing and agreed-upon “Easter truce,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.

“As of Easter morning, we can state that the Russian army is attempting to create the general impression of a ceasefire, while in some areas still continuing isolated attempts to advance and inflict losses on Ukraine,” Zelensky said in a post on X.

Zelensky noted that in various regions, Russian forces conducted artillery strikes and his forces had to ward off many assaults by Russian troops, including drones.

Most attacks, using “heavy weaponry,” were carried out in the Pkrovsk and Siversk directions and along the frontline, Zelensky said.

https://thehill.com/policy/international...-zelensky/

This article from the BBC puts the Ukrainian military death toll to 72,000 and the Russian military death toll to 230,000.
 
Here are some quotes on the expansion of NATO:

Quote:Putin's grievance against Nato dates back to 1990, when he claims the West promised not to expand "an inch to the East".

However that was before the Soviet Union collapsed and it was based on a limited commitment made to then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev said "the topic of Nato expansion was never discussed" at the time.

 
While it is true that almost all East-European countries joined NATO (and the EU) in the 1990’s, you cannot blame “Western Imperialism willing to surround Russia with Nuclear missiles” for that.
 
No, these are countries who lived under Soviet domination after WWII. All of them know about the DNA of the Russian state. Russia invaded Georgia in 2005 and Crimea in 2014. Before that there is the Chechen war. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Russian Federation had a window of opportunity to become a westernized, economic and geopolitical power in the world. But it became a mafia state in the 1990’s and an autocratic / imperialistic / expansionist state after the election of Putin in 2002. So you cannot blame NATO if all of Russia’s neighbors are looking for ways of not being within Moscow’s “sphere of influence”.
 
/ This works for all countries: Turkey was recently banned from the F-35 program and Europe is refusing to sell us Eurofighters. We are currently unable to go beyond our aging fleet of F-16’s.
 
That’s simply the sort of things that happen when you have no regard for the existing world order and the basic interests of countries surrounding you.
 
So it’s not / cannot be the fault of NATO. Putin is a liar. Everything he says is a lie and he is a disaster for the Russian people.  
 
Complete BBC article:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-did-putin...30503.html

(April 22, 2025 at 7:32 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: While it is true that almost all East-European countries joined NATO (and the EU) in the 1990’s, you cannot blame “Western Imperialism willing to surround Russia with Nuclear missiles” for that.

Utterly absurd, on the face of it. Always was, is and will be. Whoever suggests such crap it utterly delusional, full of shit, or flat out a liar. Yes i am looking at people like our resident wannabe intellectual sitting at the slopes of Fujisan.

Since i am intensifying my ties to relatives in Lithuania, i am learning more and more about its culture and historic background. Let me give you a very brief (!) summary of its relationship with Russia since ca. 1800, and then you tell me how much motivation Lithuania needed to join NATO (and EU for that matter).

Until 1795 it was part of the once mighty Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, stretching from the Baltic Sea to Crimea. In 1795 it was annexed by Russia under the infamous "third partition". The lithuanian language was then immediately forbidden, even the latin letters. Russian language and cyrillic letters were enforced in order to "assimilate" Lithuania by destroying its heritage and culture. Only after 1905 (a century later!) this was taken back.

In 1918 it gained independence, only to be annexed again in 1940. It was forced into the CCCP and remained until 1990, being the first Soviet republic to secede after the collapse of CCCP, followed by a failed putsch by CCCP forces, OMON and KGB in 1991. After 1945, partisans were fighting the 1945 annexation. 20.000 were killed, another 20.000 arrested and 300.000 Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians deported to Siberia, out of a total population of ca. 6mio today! (couldnt find historic data from 1945. Make your own guess).

My cousin sends me regularly pictures of areas that still are "shithole" remains of the reign of Russia over its republics, more than 30y after Lithuania's independence. Thats how thoroughly Russia fucked up and exploited territories under its control.

Now, you tell me how much fucking "manipulation from The West" these people need to turn to .....ANYone but Russia for preserving peace, freedom and independence.

I also cannot keep looking at issues like this without getting a little philosophical. Thomas Hobbes has a very nice book called “The Leviathan”. In this book he compare humans to hedgehogs with a need for proximity (all the human relations that we have) and also defenses (that will always hurt us whenever we come near). So his solution is to destroy all defenses of society except for one individual (The Leviathan) who is allowed to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.




I think all of those "impredictable" /* Leviathan-like politicians around the world should be replaced by some sort of AI. Call me futuristic but I don’t see any other solution

(April 23, 2025 at 3:43 pm)Leonardo17 Wrote: I think all of those "impredictable" /* Leviathan-like politicians around the world should be replaced by some sort of AI. Call me futuristic but I don’t see any other solution

That is a ferociously bad idea. It really deserves its own thread, so I won't clutter this thread up with further debate on it.

Russian banks getting bailed out...

(April 22, 2025 at 12:43 pm)Deesse23 Wrote: 20.000 were killed, another 20.000 arrested and 300.000 Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians deported to Siberia, out of a total population of ca. 6mio today! (couldnt find historic data from 1945. Make your own guess).

IIRC Lithuania's population in 1940 was ~2.3 million. (I had occasion to look it up earlier this week.)

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20241...ght-groups

Quote:Although he didn’t name names, Merezhko’s words clearly struck a nerve. Dmytro Kucharchuk, a commander in the Third Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces, took to social media to call the deputy a far-left coward. Another brigade commander, Maksym Zhorin, accused Marezhko of having no idea what he was talking about, saying in no uncertain terms that yes, in fact, negotiations on Russia’s conditions would always be seen as capitulation.

“As for the right wing, they are the basis of the country's security,” he added.

It’s not hard to see why both men would feel that Merezhko had been talking about them. The Third Assault Brigade was created by veterans of the far-right Azov Battalion as a volunteer unit following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, before being folded into the nation’s armed forces. It is led by Azov Battalion founder and far-right politician Andriy Biletsky, who in 2010 reportedly called for Ukraine to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade” against what he described as “Semite-led Untermenschen” – or subhumans.

As for the formal successor to the Azov Battalion itself, now absorbed into Ukraine’s National Guard as the 12th Azov Assault Brigade – or Azov Brigade – it has publicly tried to distance itself from its white supremacist roots.

Now there is a piece on the board I did not expect - that the neo-Nazis would be telling the Jewish president of Ukraine that if he stops fighting they will march to Kyiv and overthrow him - now armed to the brim with US and European made weapons since they were removed from the US's terrorist sanctions in mid-2024.

What a shit show.

Quote:Now there is a piece on the board I did not expect - that the neo-Nazis would be telling the Jewish president of Ukraine that if he stops fighting they will march to Kyiv and overthrow him - now armed to the brim with US and European made weapons since they were removed from the US's terrorist sanctions in mid-2024.

What a shit show

1. Giving Ukraine weapons was good / Russia is 100% bad guy here 

2. Trumps a Russian puppet and doesn't rule fairly 

3. Russia is a fascist state and army is full of neo Nazi's

4. The Azov battalion can't overthrow shit 

5. The war isn't ending and Trump has totally failed at making peace and has made things worst through his own incompetence

Given the conditions laid down by both sides, I don't think any negotiations will last more than the time it takes to have a coffee and introductions.