Russia and Ukraine

[Leonardo17]

1) Yes. During his term, because he was afraid of being poisoned, Donald Trump regularly ate McDonalds food because it was the safest. I remember hearing that on CNN.

Yeah, that part's uncontroversial.

2) The line “The great shameless, audacious bawler... will be elected governor of the army” is seen to refer to Trump, the US commander in chief. And, he says, “la fausse trompette” will spark the destruction of Israel.
https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/...w-sees-war

Yes. This was also meant as a joke. As in Trump – French: La Trompette (La Trompette in French means “The Joker” or “a very funny person”) 

The French verb tromper means to trick or fool. As in trompe l'oeil, a flat picture that appears to have depth. I'm glad you referred to Nostradamus as a joke.

/ I meant that I see Both Hillary Clinton and her Husband (despite his famous scandal that shook the world back in the days) as a more serious alternative to Donald Trump because they have this culture of politics in their family and I think both of them are quite respectable people too

They are not respectable people. It's true that compared to Trump they are more presentable in public.

It's impossible to say how things would have gone if Hillary had campaigned properly and won the election. Given her record as senator and Secretary of State, it might well have been more war-like than Trump's time.

- You guys know US politics better than me. But still: Trump is the Guy who contradicted Doctor Anthony Fauci during the pandemic. I mean no one contradicts a Scientist while he/she is right there beside you. + No one is ever going to forget his “Dallas” soap opera style way of displaying his entire family.
   So Donald Trump is not some George W. Bush style personality. Bush (+ his father) also had their extreme decisions in their time. But who storms the capitol of his own country (or incites mobs to storm the capital of his own country)?
   And I think that without all those scandals, Hillary could have been elected as the next president after Obama. But whatever, this is all speculation

[Leonardo17]

Reminder - This thread is about Russia and Ukraine.  It's not about Hillary or Trump's fetish for McDonald's food.

Let's get back on topic.

Yes this is why I came here in the first place. War causalities of Russia has exuded 200,000 in just one year.
 
The number of US causalities between 1965-1975 in Vietnam was about: 282,000 according to Wikipedia. The Total number of US causalities in WWII is around 400,000. So they are headed to a figure close to the causalities of the British Army in WWII (Around 800,000 men)

[The Grand Nudger]

The russian admin has made it clear that they're willing to sacrifice 27 million. The official line is that this is a full on ww2 style existential battle for -their- nations survival. If so, it seems like ukraine is on to something when it notes that the russians have leveled residential buildings and town after town after town..but have never even taken a shot at the refineries fueling the ukranian military. You certainly could waste 27 million of your countrymen's lives if that's your idea of defeating the enemy forces.

Meanwhile, back in russia, more companies are deciding that they need their own private armies. Maybe it's the siren call of profit, maybe it's all of the people falling out of windows, but something sure does have the russian owner class in a frenzy. Hell, maybe it's both? Perhaps russia is leveling towns so it can pickup rebuilding contracts to create a windowless city where all russians are finally safe?

[Leonardo17]

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that:

Some Ukrainian soldiers are starting to question why they are being asked to fight for Bakhmut when the city is nearly surrounded and a retreat, at some point, appears inevitable.

One special forces soldier who recently fought in Bakhmut said the Ukrainians are taking heavy casualties, including some of there best and most experienced soldiers; morale is taking a hit as a result.

"The city is almost surrounded. It's incredibly hard to protect. Casualties are huge. What's the point?" he said. "For all the soldiers who are holding these positions -- at least the ones I spoke to -- all of them say we have to withdraw. No one understands what so many troops are dying for."

(I'm assuming the Wall Street Journal will be acceptable to Leonardo, as it isn't social media.)

The reporting here seems like a change to me, as earlier reports tended to downplay Ukrainian losses and mention only Russian casualties. Earlier on I don't think they would have quoted discouraged Ukrainians.

I suppose the purpose is to motivate the US to hurry up and provide more weapons. The promised tanks are still many months away; the US tanks likely won't arrive until next year, if at all. The Germans are saying that the tanks they have promised to give ceased manufacture in 1984, and they are having trouble finding enough ammunition.

At the same time, realistic reports about how Ukraine is in bad shape, and the Russians continue to advance, may be preparing public opinion for a negotiated settlement. Until recently we were told that the Russians have no more weapons, that the remaining soldiers are elderly quadriplegics, that they only shoot each other, etc. Now that this fiction can no longer be maintained it may allow some realism to creep in to mainstream media.

As far as I know the Ukrainians really want everything back. And there are reports that if Putin dies (as some people say he is already dying of cancer) his successor may be someone like Eugeny Pirozhin who can act without any limitations etc. So this war is very likely to go on for another year and will probably end when all those tanks and fighters arrive to Ukraine.
 
As I said before. Nations who broke out of the Soviet bloc in the early 90’s tend to be patriotic and they have a sense of the value of their individual freedoms. If there was a chance for peace that was last year this month when all the world leaders attempted to talk to Putin and Zellensky even offered a pledge for his country not Joining NATO. Now they have also lost 200,000 man (probably) have suffered all this destruction and from what I know from the post-WWI War of Independence in my country, most soldiers will want to take back everything they see as “theirs”. But that’s my own humble opinion

[The Grand Nudger]

There was no chance for peace then. Putin wasn't communicating in good faith, and hadn't been for years by that point. The chance for peace evaporated when he decided to annex crimea. It;s absurd that anyone even considers it. If russia occupied texas there would be no peace, and no talk of peace. No possibility for peace.

Personally, I think this could go on for years, especially if we keep slow walking support for ukraine. Imagine their thunder run from last year if they had the full suite of western combined arms. You know they can't help but imagine it.

[Leonardo17]

1. The Wall St Journal is a Republican Rag 

2. The opinions of some randos they talked to say nothing about Bakhmut.

3. The Russian army is still in terrible shape.

Your attempt at spinning the war isn't going to work.

But I hear they are pushing hard this time. And they do this which a great human cost (about 1000 Russian soldiers in the last 24 hours). But this “push back” is no very likely to go beyond the entirely razed city of Bakhmut. What is meant by Zellensky is that troops are really exhausted. But still I don’t see the handling of F-35’s (which require a three year training program for pilots) as realistic.

   Right now it’s more immediately deliverable weapons + ammunitions that they are needing. Their fire-power is also very weak in comparison to Russians.

[Leonardo17]

Sanctions on Russia are not necessarily to crush its economy but because the US and some other countries find it immoral to trade with a country that is actively performing genocide on people of another country. They don't want their money to be used to kill women and children - as Russia is doing.

But when it comes to the Russian economy, I have heard that the sanctions will come into full effect this year.

Russia's export revenues are set to come under fresh pressure in 2023 as Western and Japanese sanctions on Russian oil come into full effect.

The Group of Seven major economies will expand an oil embargo beyond crude to include Russian oil products from Feb. 5.

Analysts say this could lead to a reduction in Russian oil output of up to 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2023.

An official forecast sees Russia's output of oil products falling sharply this year to 230 million tonnes from 272 million, according to a senior Russian source.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/rus...023-01-17/

- I’ve heard it’s a policy of strangling Russian economy slowly. The effect will be felt gradually and this mostly by the ordinary people (as it was the case of Irak in the 90’s or Iran in the last 20 years). So everyone agrees that sanctions alone won’t do it. But reminder: They are still scavenging civilian planes for devices they want to use in their missiles or more modern fighter planes.

   And what they are selling is crude oil. Even China / India doesn’t want their refined oil because they have their own refineries. The idea is simply to decrease the money to be used in this war effort by as much as possible.  

[Leonardo17]

Do we really constantly have to refute bulshit like this, just because this troll has not been shown the door and sent back to his bridge?

Russia invades Ukraine, Russia is waging war against ukraines civilian population, which is a fucking WAR CRIME. Russia has threatened to expand this war to central Europe, has threatened with nucear war.

Do we really need to elaborate on why it is reasonable to NOT support Russias economy?

+ Putin's Chechen Ally Ramazan Kadyrov is even talking of attacking Poland after Ukraine.

[Leonardo17]

Genocide scholar Timothy D. Snyder has stated that "kidnapping children en masse and seeking to assimilate them in a foreign culture is genocide according to Article 2 Section E of the 1948 genocide convention."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abdu...eportation.

But, but.......they were forced to genocide, by....USA, "the west", you know, the usual suspects. This genocide is definitely not the fault of the genociders, but, someone......someone else, you know. Poor genociders, if we´d just a bit more nice to them.

Oh, and by the way: Its no genocide at all

- This kind of autocratic regimes have a different perception of reality (believing in their own lies etc.) I just know by direct experience

[Leonardo17]

Genocide scholar Timothy D. Snyder has stated that "kidnapping children en masse and seeking to assimilate them in a foreign culture is genocide according to Article 2 Section E of the 1948 genocide convention."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abdu...eportation.

They've gotta do something about russian men's low t and russian womens low fertility rates, eh?  It's not like those casualties are gonna replace themselves!

One thing about Russian culture is that they value men a lot. Male prisoners have in most cases a female “someone” who is there to bring them things like cash, cigarettes, clean clothes, food etc. seemingly without even expecting anything in return (women in my country don’t do that). That’s because of their culture. The government being authoritarian, the wars becoming permanent (since many centuries), so male citizens have had what I would call this added-value that is not present for instance in Mediterranean cultures.