Russian Strikes Sap Ukraine Mobile Network of Vital Power (wsj.com) 139
Russia's attacks on Ukraine's electrical grid are straining the war-torn country's mobile-telephone network, leading to a global hunt for batteries and other equipment critical for keeping the communications system working. From a report: Ukraine's power outages aren't just putting out the lights. The electricity shortages also affect water supplies, heating systems, manufacturing and the cellular-telephone and internet network, a vital communications link in a nation where fixed-line telephones are uncommon. Consumers can charge their cellphones at cafes or gas stations with generators, but the phones have to communicate with base stations whose antennas and switching equipment need large amounts of power. With rolling blackouts now a regular feature of life in Ukraine, the internet providers are relying on batteries to keep the network going.
The stakes are high, since Ukrainian officials are using positive news of the war, speeches by President Volodymyr Zelensky and videos distributed by cellphone to maintain popular support for fighting Russia. First responders and evacuees rely on the mobile network, and a long-term loss of communications in major cities would compound the existing problems of electrical, heating and water outages, the companies say. Labor shortages have exacerbated the mobile-network issues as many Ukrainians have been displaced by the war or gone to the front to fight. In December, the chief executive of Ukraine's Lifecell mobile operator, Ismet Yazici, went into the field himself to wheel in a generator and restore backup power at a cell tower, according to the company. But the biggest problem is power equipment.
The stakes are high, since Ukrainian officials are using positive news of the war, speeches by President Volodymyr Zelensky and videos distributed by cellphone to maintain popular support for fighting Russia. First responders and evacuees rely on the mobile network, and a long-term loss of communications in major cities would compound the existing problems of electrical, heating and water outages, the companies say. Labor shortages have exacerbated the mobile-network issues as many Ukrainians have been displaced by the war or gone to the front to fight. In December, the chief executive of Ukraine's Lifecell mobile operator, Ismet Yazici, went into the field himself to wheel in a generator and restore backup power at a cell tower, according to the company. But the biggest problem is power equipment.
The United States and Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
The point is Russia is going to start facing increasingly better equipment while their own equipment gets increasingly worse. Their ploy to force Europe to let them run over Ukraine in exchange for the gas needed to make it through the winter didn't work. The United States pumped oil and gas into the markets and drop the price. We sold huge amounts of cheap oil to China so they wouldn't buy from Russia forcing Russia into a corner.
The only reason this war isn't already over is Putin's grip on his population is so much that he could ignore public opinion. Unfortunately that means this stupid war is going to drag on until that bastard drops dead of the bowel cancer that's currently working its way through him
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The United States pumped oil and gas into the markets and drop the price.
really? what's your source? the u.s. energy information administration might want a word:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hi... [eia.gov]
We sold huge amounts of cheap oil to China so they wouldn't buy from Russia forcing Russia into a corner.
how's that working out? bc russia is selling more gas to china than ever before. actually, china is reselling part of that gas to europe. shhhhh, don't tell joe! :')
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USA hasn't shipped a SINGLE tank to Ukraine yet, damn fool.
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USA hasn't shipped a SINGLE tank to Ukraine yet, damn fool.
We haven't, but Great Britain is sending 14 Challenger 2 tanks [yahoo.com] in the extremely near future. This is in addition to 30 more self-propelled howitzers, 100,000 rounds of artillery shells, advanced missiles, at least 100 armored vehicles, UAVs and parts for all the above.
And they are only the first country to do so. You can be guaranteed Poland and other Nordic countries will be doing so as well, including Germany once it gets its head out of its ass. France is already sending armored vehicles [businessinsider.com] to Ukraine wh
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Depends on what you call a tank (Score:2, Insightful)
Weird how many Russian stooges there are on
You don't have the votes in the House to do anything though. You got your ass handed to you
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nobody calls people carriers tanks, they armored vehicles and they can do fuck all to a tank, including a T72 or even worse.
As to your nonsense about GOP, I am in Ukraine right now, since the 30th of December, 2022, visiting my offices in all cities where we have them, I personally supplied about 500K USD of cash and equipment for the fight against the ruzzian agression, as to you, you are a dickwad.
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I mean at one point we had generals pleading with senators to stop sending them more tanks.
We have only very recently agreed to send them any tanks at all.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/14... [cnn.com]
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Equipment is worthless without people who use it.
The modern stuff needs training. Specialized and long training (months). We're laughing about Russia throwing 80s stuff on the battlefield, but there are advantages to that (first, they still have a lot of the stuff just rusting away from Cold War times, but second the stuff is much easier to train on).
In WW2, Germany made the mistake of thinking Russia is a push-over and the war will be over soon. Lost them the war, that thinking. Russia moved entire factori
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Your point is?
Yes, the US sent stuff to Russia during WW2, just as they did with the UK before and with Ukraine today.
Are you trying to make a point? If so, please spell it out. Also look up actual war numbers of WW2 and how many percents those US supplies made up. For example, 13,000 tanks is a lot of tanks, but Russia produced 29,000 tanks on its own just in the last full year (1944) of WW2.
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Don't take it from me, take it from your hero...
I'm done feeding this troll. I have more intelligent discussions to attend to. Go sit under your bridge.
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The only way Russia stood a chance was because, drumroll, The US supplied them with so much equipment. Guess who the US is supplying equipment to this time...
That's complete bullshit.
The US was instrumental to the UK not falling. And to opening the western front with D-Day and all that, no questions asked.
On the eastern front, US supplies certainly helped, but were far from decisive. See my response to the other comment.
It's the Russians who are throwing in troops with no training. Ukraine gets plenty of training for their new equipment.
I know. Exactly because what I write is true: Equipment is worthless without people to use it.
Re:The United States and Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
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Conscripts are better off surrendering than getting shot for deserting. At least they get treated like humans that way.
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i concur we are fighting this war wrong because there is no way on earth to win
Of course there is. Kill, capture, or drive out every Russian soldier and mercenary from Ukrainian soil. Russia's the one who started this and Ukraine, with the West's help, will end it.
we should never have messed with ukraine in the fist place.
We didn't do anything. Russia did. Russia is the one who violated the Budapest Agreement [harvard.edu]. Russia is the one who invaded Ukraine in 2014. Russia is the one targetting civilians across Ukr
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yeah, we've been there, quonset. next you will tell me that the 2014 coup that started the civil war was a spontaneous popular revolt. nazis for freedom and democracy! ok, ok ;-)
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yeah, we've been there, quonset. next you will tell me that the 2014 coup that started the civil war was a spontaneous popular revolt. nazis for freedom and democracy! ok, ok ;-)
Congratulations on trying to keep the lie alive. To use your dear leader's phrase, whatever Ukraine does on its own soil is of no concern to anyone else. The people spoke. They wanted the freedom of the West rather than the oppression and repression of Russia. End of story.
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End of story.
easy there, hotshot. winners write history but you gotta win this first. easier said than done.
also, stop the nonsense, you know perfectly i'm not pro-putin and not even russian. i'm just a critical european citizen. you are welcome to disagree.
Re:The United States and Europe (Score:5, Informative)
Citation needed. According to the english-language version of wikipedia, what you characterize as a 2014 coup and a civil war was anything but. Wikipedia instead states that the facts on the ground were an outraged Ukranian electorate and parliament calling out then-president Yanukovych for reneging on his platform promise to have join Ukraine the European Union. Following election, Yanukovych was pressured by Russia into unilaterally doing a180 switch to support of joining the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia's knockoff version of the EU) instead. Completely against the country's wishes and his own promises. Following that nearly economically suicidal bait and switch, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0. Following that vote, Russia declared (without any legit standing) that said sovereign vote was null and void ... and then went on to annex Crimea / splinter the Donbass / etc / for good measure.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That's when the gloves came off.
Or perhaps you would be more comfortable with the Russian version of the page, which completely omits the above and spins a pro-Yanukovych narrative:
https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.tra... [translate.goog]
Interesting to see that the Russian version of the same article is totally different (almost zero overlap with the english language version and much much longer.
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citation needed. :-)
you won't find the word "coup" in the wiki entry. but you haven't even read it, lest you wouldn't have written that paragraph that absolutely misrepresents what the wiki actually says. right?
please read your own links. i mean actually read and let the meaning of the words sink in. try it, it's not hard, it only requires attention. also don't forget to follow the hyperlinks as they can provide crucial context.
actually ... yeah, thanks for the links! if people actually read through that th
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The "civil war" was started by a FSB operative:
https://www.bbc.com/russian/ro... [bbc.com]
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Re:The United States and Europe (Score:4, Informative)
We in the west broke our promise not to expand NATO. Those who joined NATO really didn't like the idea of having to stand alone against russia because of russia's past. russia wanted that buffer because of Germany's and France's past.
There was no promise [brookings.edu]. That's another lie [harvard.edu] brought up Putin in an attempt to justify his invasion of Ukraine.
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If Russia followed European norms, it too would be welcome to join NATO, and was offered the opportunity to do so in 1992 - though now it would have to show it has truly free elections and complies with the same requirements as all other NATO countries.
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there is zero gain for europe and high risk of trouble
The point of the war is to do two things, in theory:
russia's aim is to prevent NATO expansion, but NATO wouldn't keep expanding if russia didn't keep having special military operations with its neighbors
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You must be joking. Things aren't looking so hot when the military gets rid of the recruiting age limit. https://www.reuters.com/world/... [reuters.com]
How about using prisoners and conscripts for fighting? https://www.thedailybeast.com/... [thedailybeast.com] What can possibly go wrong?
Afghanistan likes their shitty backwards ways. We leave and literally overnight the Taliban takes over like nothing happened. 20 years spent training the locals to fight (one complete generation) and look where they ended up.
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Re:The United States and Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what Ukraine's goal is here.
Don't know either, Ivan. What was Britain's goal in WWII?
It's costing Russia very little to keep fighting this war.
Congratulations. You won the stupid award for the day. Russia's finance minister said the sanctions imposed on the country, including a cap on the price of puchased oil, have created a budget deficit for 2022 [cnbc.com], and 2023 is looking to be even worse. As a result, Russia is using its rainy day fund to sell foreign currencies which makes the ruble stronger, but also punishes their exports [reuters.com]. This could lead to a death spiral as Russia has to keep selling more foreign funds to prop up the economy.
They are fighting based on emotion and indignation, but not on the strategic level.
The West isn't doing any fighting. The Ukrainians are. The only thing the West is doing is provided Ukraine with weapons to defend itself from Russia's invasion. The strategy, which is working well, is to bleed Russia dry. Their military has been shown to be a paper tiger and the casualties they are suffering are enormous for so little. Russia has lost more troops in less than a year than they lost in a decade trying to occupy Afghanistan. And this doesn't take into account the absolute decimation of military equipment. Russia has lost, by conservative estimates, half of all its main battle tanks [thehill.com], down to the level of T-62. It's resorted to buying artillery shells and rockets [go.com] from North Korea because their own stockpiles are running so low.
We're clueless on how to play 4D-Chess.
You mean like when we beat the former Soviet Union into submission the last time? Putin's goal of resurrecting the Russian "empire" has failed at every level. His army, such that it is, won't recover for nearly two decades after this drubbing. He's sacrificed tens of thousands of working age men for nothing, and hundreds of thousands more have left the country. Nor will Europe ever forgive them. You can forget about trying to appease Russia by having Western countries invest in it. As we've seen, Europe doesn't need Russian oil or natural gas. As a result of Putin's hubris, Russia will remain the backwater country it is for decades to come, if not forever.
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We didn't beat the Soviet Union. The USSR leadership realized they didn't need to fight us.
Unfortunately, a later leader took power and wanted to fight again. Although tbh being in power for 15 years can make you a little crazy, he might not have wanted to fight when he took power.
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We didn't beat the Soviet Union. The USSR leadership realized they didn't need to fight us.
That is literally how a cold war works. Except you were far too generous towards the soviets. What actually happened is that they realized they couldn't afford to fight us. They could barely afford to even keep up the pretense that they could fight a war. Just pretending broke them financially.
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t's not something the average russian feels.
And that's what needs to be fixed.
the west has lost so many wars to militarily weaker opponents we haven't adopted a single one of the strategies we've lost to.
Too much time and effort trying to not upset the opponent. Use common sense: we'll attack anything you attack, but you'll have to attack it first. If you don't want it attacked on your side, don't attack it on our side. Start with a nice wave of drones attacking critical russian infrastructure.
It would be nice... (Score:1)
...if we could just Thanos-snap Russia out of existence. Of all of history and reality. That entire landmass has *always* been problematic to others near it.
Re:And the west want to continue the war (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not to seek a diplomatic solution? The suffering are the Ukrainians... #ProxyWar
Why doesn't Russia stop the war they started and get out of Ukraine? The diplomatic solution was the Budapest Memorandum [harvard.edu] which Russia violated.
The suffering are the Ukrainians...
When the terrorist state of Russia deliberately targets civilians, yes, Ukrainians will suffer. Once Russia is defeated and its armies wiped from Ukrainian soil, the suffering will stop.
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Re:And the west want to continue the war (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia want to negociate a war end,
Russia's the one who started the war. They don't get to set the conditions another country must follow. If Russia wants the war to end, they can leave Ukraine at any time. Do you think Great Britain would have negotiated with Germany?
but the Ukraine president/puppet, backed by entire west, don't want to...
Why should Ukraine negotiate with terrorists who already violated an agreement? Funny how you Russians never mention that. Russia is the only one to blame in all of this. They are the agressor. They are the ones who have violated previous agreements. They are the ones targetting civilians and infrastructure. They are the ones whose troops are committing mass rapes and torture. You don't negotiate with people like that. You kill them.
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Re:And the west want to continue the war (Score:4, Informative)
Sort of. We expanded NATO eastward even though we'd agreed not to.
Nope. Another lie [brookings.edu]. No one made [harvard.edu] any such promise. That's all in Putin's head.
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When the terrorist state of Russia deliberately targets civilians, yes, Ukrainians will suffer. Once Russia is defeated and its armies wiped from Ukrainian soil, the suffering will stop.
funny how this works. zelensky could bring the suffering to a full stop too. even if it were with, say, atrocious concessions, the suffering would cease just the same, right? at the very least temporarily, while stuff is talked out. so is this about suffering or about claiming you're right? wanting to wipe out the enemy first and then talk is a funny way to understand diplomacy and you don't even consider any other option. speaks volumes.
Re: And the west want to continue the war (Score:2)
Good point. People want the war to stop, but want it to stop 'their way'. Peace does not work like that.
Stop. Freeze the conflict at the current line of contact. Leave it for a future generation of leaders to resolve. The 'sunken cost' fallacy must stop.
Lots of conflicts have been frozen - Korea, Kashmir, India-China, Israel-Palestine, Taiwan; and recently Nagarno-Karabakh - that's some of the chief unresolved ones.
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Freeze the conflict at the current line of contact. Leave it for a future generation of leaders to resolve. The 'sunken cost' fallacy must stop.
What assurance does Ukraine have that if they freeze the conflict, Putin won't just use the time to replenish his depleted armed forces and restart the war in a year or two? The only way I see this making sense of Ukraine if they're effectively put under the NATO mutual defense umbrella. That would infuriate Putin to the point that I doubt he'd accept the terms, and I don't think anyone relishes the idea of teeing up such a risk of direct NATO v. Russia conflict.
That's also entirely ignoring the questio
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When the terrorist state of Russia deliberately targets civilians, yes, Ukrainians will suffer. Once Russia is defeated and its armies wiped from Ukrainian soil, the suffering will stop.
funny how this works. zelensky could bring the suffering to a full stop too. even if it were with, say, atrocious concessions, the suffering would cease just the same, right? at the very least temporarily, while stuff is talked out. so is this about suffering or about claiming you're right? wanting to wipe out the enemy first and then talk is a funny way to understand diplomacy and you don't even consider any other option. speaks volumes.
Like Transnistria? South Ossetia? The DPR and LPR? Russia's playbook is use the military to carve of a bit of land then freeze the conflict to destabilize the victim. Hardly a behaviour you want to keep rewarding.
And even you wanted this outcome there's no indication that Russia is willing. They've currently annexed large sections of Ukrainian territory they haven't even occupied. Every indication is that Russia wants a ceasefire only so they can regroup and hopefully wait for international support to drop
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Russia's playbook
yeah, my point was that everyone here has a playbook. you keeping pointing at the western villain doesn't help.
so they can regroup and hopefully wait for international support to drop off before resuming the conflict.
with "international" you mean "the usual party and some friends" of course, but anyway their support will drop the moment it is no longer is in their interests. imo the main business is done and fatigue is already setting in. they're waiting for an excuse for the next freeze. and, know what? that's a good thing.
Re:And the west want to continue the war (Score:4, Insightful)
Russia's playbook
yeah, my point was that everyone here has a playbook. you keeping pointing at the western villain doesn't help.
Huh?
so they can regroup and hopefully wait for international support to drop off before resuming the conflict.
with "international" you mean "the usual party and some friends" of course, but anyway their support will drop the moment it is no longer is in their interests. imo the main business is done and fatigue is already setting in. they're waiting for an excuse for the next freeze. and, know what? that's a good thing.
You think this is a good thing [youtube.com]? Or this [wilsoncenter.org]?
You know what Russian occupation looks like?
It starts with the soldiers being told out to go out and "relax", ie, go raping.
Then filtration camps, finding the people resistant to occupation and torturing or simply murdering them.
Then you start indoctrinating the kids, putting a Russian curriculum in at school and forcing everyone to speak Russian.
You take the orphans (including the ones you created) and adopt them out to Russian families. And you send the other kids off for "vacation" or "medical treatment" to Russia (never to return).
And you loot the museums, and houses, and everything else.
And of course you justify it with a fake referendum.
That's what continued Russian occupation means. Every day they remain is just more atrocities.
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You think this is a good thing [youtube.com]
no, that's just propaganda. that you cite such sensationalist narrative as material for discussion is really tiresome.
don't get me wrong, i'm not disputing that russian troops, mercenaries and "security" services have done nasty some stuff. just like the ukranian nationalist and fascists have don on russians or their fellow nationals. this stuff happens in wars, it's exactly one of the multiple reasons why wars are something to avoid. there is no such thing as a just faction in war and everyone does it. usa
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You think this is a good thing [youtube.com]
no, that's just propaganda. that you cite such sensationalist narrative as material for discussion is really tiresome.
don't get me wrong, i'm not disputing that russian troops, mercenaries and "security" services have done nasty some stuff. just like the ukranian nationalist and fascists have don on russians or their fellow nationals. this stuff happens in wars, it's exactly one of the multiple reasons why wars are something to avoid. there is no such thing as a just faction in war and everyone does it. usanians and brits did it in irak and afghanistan, russians did it in afghanistan, syria and ukraine, and ukranians did it against their own people.
of course you won't see that on the bbc. specially not that last bit, and not precisely now.
I'm sorry, but I can't understand how what kind of stuff you're seeing/reading that leads you to believe that.
For one, "Ukrainian nationalists and fascists" are not nearly as extreme as Russian propaganda claims. There was some really nasty stuff in their history, and post WWII there were definitely some Nazi sympathizers (Nazi's had just kicked out the Russians, who starved millions of Ukrainians to death, so not too shocking). But in current Ukraine fascists aren't really any more common than they are any
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you ask for diplomacy, and to stop the war, and you are downvoted "troll".
good vibes!!
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Re:And the west want to continue the war (Score:5, Informative)
you ask for diplomacy, and to stop the war, and you are downvoted "troll".
good vibes!!
Yes, disingenuously blaming the victim of an invasion for not seeking a diplomatic solution while simultaneously suggesting that 3rd parties who are trying to save the victim are responsible for the aggression does indeed deserve a modding of "troll".
More absurdly, a real "diplomatic solution" has not even been offered. Russia's "offers" involved not only keeping the land they occupied at the start of the invasion, but the new territory they've occupied since!!
At some point, it's likely that Ukraine will have liberated all the territories occupied in this invasion and they'll be preparing to take the territories occupied in 2014. At which point Russia will likely offer a "peace treaty" based on the post-2014 border.
I hope the world remains united when Ukraine tells them to shove it.
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Yes, disingenuously blaming the victim of an invasion
i'm replying only out of respect since our viewpoints are obviously very distant. just to say that i wasn't being disingenuous, at all. reality is complex, and i really do not buy the conventional story about this conflict. i have done my research. i understand (from another post) you have ties to that region. well, my understanding is that that region isn't really a cultural monolith. it has been maybe one of the most polarized countries in the world for a while. i can guess which side you come from. i agr
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Yes, disingenuously blaming the victim of an invasion
i'm replying only out of respect since our viewpoints are obviously very distant. just to say that i wasn't being disingenuous, at all. reality is complex, and i really do not buy the conventional story about this conflict. i have done my research. i understand (from another post) you have ties to that region. well, my understanding is that that region isn't really a cultural monolith. it has been maybe one of the most polarized countries in the world for a while. i can guess which side you come from. i agree that ukraine is very much a victim, but not only of russia, but of several powers that be that are using this polarization for spurious interests. and none of them does give a fuck about human suffering, don't fool yourself. let's hope for the best but your narrative is just fueling their game. lets just ask them to stop.
The friends I have are from the Russian speaking eastern half of the country. The consider themselves Ukrainians and have zero interest in becoming Russian, as do the vast majority of Russian speaking Ukrainians both before and after 2014.
There were tensions between the "pro-EU" west and "pro-Russia" east just like many countries have local divides, but even in Crimea the east never wanted to actually BE Russian. Nor was Eastern Ukraine going to have a civil war the west any more than the southern US is goi
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The friends I have are from the Russian speaking eastern half of the country. The consider themselves Ukrainians and have zero interest in becoming Russian, as do the vast majority of Russian speaking Ukrainians both before and after 2014.
There were tensions between the "pro-EU" west and "pro-Russia" east just like many countries have local divides, but even in Crimea the east never wanted to actually BE Russian. Nor was Eastern Ukraine going to have a civil war the west any more than the southern US is going to have one with the north.
i respect your opinions but your hearsay may not necessarily accurate or representative of the whole. i've seen polls that do show the polarization very clearly, consistently and over time. these polls do correspond with electoral results pretty neatly. so i beg to disagree.
As for "other powers" I find there's an (obnoxious) tendency among Americans to assume they're at the centre of everything.
with that i completely agree! :-D
Sure US diplomats were poking their noses around in things like they do everywhere. But the story of the change of governments in 2014 was a corrupt pro-Russian leader getting thrown out by the people, not by Americans.
it's not so simple. it did start with a spontaneous protest but the us as been meddling in ukraine (and all other russian border states) since the 90s, and they very much were in connection then. however
Re:And the west want to continue the war (Score:5, Informative)
The friends I have are from the Russian speaking eastern half of the country. The consider themselves Ukrainians and have zero interest in becoming Russian, as do the vast majority of Russian speaking Ukrainians both before and after 2014.
There were tensions between the "pro-EU" west and "pro-Russia" east just like many countries have local divides, but even in Crimea the east never wanted to actually BE Russian. Nor was Eastern Ukraine going to have a civil war the west any more than the southern US is going to have one with the north.
i respect your opinions but your hearsay may not necessarily accurate or representative of the whole. i've seen polls that do show the polarization very clearly, consistently and over time. these polls do correspond with electoral results pretty neatly. so i beg to disagree.
They voted for the "pro-Russian" party, but they never wanted to be Russian.
Sure US diplomats were poking their noses around in things like they do everywhere. But the story of the change of governments in 2014 was a corrupt pro-Russian leader getting thrown out by the people, not by Americans.
it's not so simple. it did start with a spontaneous protest but the us as been meddling in ukraine (and all other russian border states) since the 90s, and they very much were in connection then. however i don't think we are going to agree on this so ... let's just agree to disagree?
You can disagree, but Ukrainians held mass protests in 2008 to get a fair election, then again in 2014 when the President (who did win fairly) was trying to rig the system and become leader for life, and then when they were dissatisfied with the pro-west but deeply corrupt Oligarch leaders they overwhelmingly elected Zelensky.
They've shown over and over that they're capable and willing to decide their own fate, why this insistence in claiming Ukrainians were somehow being played by the west?
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they overwhelmingly elected Zelensky.
yes they did. one of zelensky's main campaign lines was figuring out a peaceful agreement with russia and diplomatic closure to the civil war in donbas. he actually "tried" but failed, the verdict is up to anyone, but he did get involved in talks for the first years (or at leas he pretended to). it didn't work out, but anyway as soon biden and johnson called he went full berserk with the nato story, all the way into war.
i mean, zelensky is THE guy that made all ukranians legal military targets the moment he
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they overwhelmingly elected Zelensky.
yes they did. one of zelensky's main campaign lines was figuring out a peaceful agreement with russia and diplomatic closure to the civil war in donbas. he actually "tried" but failed, the verdict is up to anyone, but he did get involved in talks for the first years (or at leas he pretended to).
Oh come on, of course Zelensky tried to end the conflict, as did Poroshenko before him. The only person who had any interest in keeping the conflict going was Putin.
Think about it, what could Ukraine possibly have accomplished by keeping the conflict going? Trying to actually retake the "separatist" territories would just result in re-engagement by the full Russian army (which no one thought Ukraine could withstand). On the other hand, it perfectly served Putin to keep the conflict going to try and alienate
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yes, i might be confused. but the fact is that half of ukraine is being sent back to stone age as we speak so it is irrelevant and nato can gladly have the remains. this was russia's point all along: "stop with the nato bullshit or we will wreck the country". so far so good, albeit ordinary people has to suffer for the elite's power games. the other chunk (which represents most of ukraine's production potential by the way and overlaps with russian cultural distribution) is still occupied and it will take a
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yes, i might be confused. but the fact is that half of ukraine is being sent back to stone age as we speak so it is irrelevant and nato can gladly have the remains. this was russia's point all along: "stop with the nato bullshit or we will wreck the country".
I'm sorry you're waaaay out to lunch here.
Post-2014 Ukraine was never getting into NATO. Finland is barely going to get in, you think there was a possibility of them admitting a country that was literally under partial occupation by Russia?
That was likely one of the motives for the 2008 invasion of Georgia and 2014 invasion of Ukraine, to create disputed borders so NATO membership was impossible.
That's why Romania is a fairly prosperous NATO member while Moldova is much poorer and a non-member, Transitsia m
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russia has already asked to stop ... uninformed anonymous person.
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Conventional story is that russian invasion into Ukraine is a blatant land grab. Even Kremlin stopped denying that for quite some time, roughly since annexation of four ukrainian oblasts. Your alternative facts are long outdated.
conventional story in the west, and it is wrong and dangerous.
educate yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: And the west want to continue the war (Score:4, Informative)
The real question is why do you care so much? There were many invasions of countries in the last 10 years and you did not give a shit about any of them.
How do you know my feelings about prior invasions? I was against the Iraq War and even skeptical of the invasion of Afghanistan. I was against Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008 and their prior invasion of Ukraine in 2014. I was against ISIL fighting in Iraq and Syria and many other conflicts.
You were against the others? Why are you so eager to roll over and let Russia conquer Ukraine?
But since the warmongers and their MSM allies have promoted this particular war you are in favor of it. Why? What do you get out of war? You should be pushing for peace.
Me?
Well:
1)
I have friends in Ukraine, they'd rather not be left with the choice of fleeing their country or being raped & murdered by Russian occupiers.
2)
I have friends with family in neighbouring countries, they'd also rather not be left with the previous choice as they may be if Putin was left to succeed and expand his ambitions to more of the former USSR (ie, Moldova).
3)
This conflict is unusually clear cut in good vs bad. Conflicts that the US instigate are usually against countries run by bad people (Saddam, the Taliban), it doesn't make them good ideas, but you can make a good-faith argument that it will lead to a long term improvement for the people themselves. Conflicts in the developing world tend to involve long-standing issues, it's often unclear who started it or who is less in the wrong.
Russia on the other hand is run by a brutal dictator fond of robbing and murdering his own people, and he's invading Ukraine in a pure war of conquest. There's no "western coup", there's no "oppression of Russians", there's just a dictator mad that a neighbouring country has moved out of his sphere of influence so....
I just realized you're a troll impersonating another account [slashdot.org], now I feel dumb for replying.
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now I feel dumb for replying.
yet you still did. comedy gold.
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comedy gold.
Congrats, you sure are owning the libs.
It will be a lesson to not give up nuclear weapons (Score:2)
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Especially dont give them up if you share a border with Russia.
The incorrect policies (Score:2)
In human history a new weapon always ended up being widely used in a war. The nuclear weapons quite probably are not an exception at all.
In my opinion, the policies of the political elites on both sides of the conflict are not correct. This is not a soccer game, so the attempts to outwit, to humiliate, to knockout, to ridicule each other should be stopped.
A new European or even global
KGB / FSB mind virus everywhere (Score:2)
Reading comments online it is truly scary how far the KGB mind virus has made it and people would rather crawl on the floor than face the truth: the whole Western world and our way of living in freedom and peace has been attacked. We have to defend it, not just for Ukraine but also because Chyna is watching every second and they are biding their time. It wonâ(TM)t be long now, if it comes it has to happen before 2030⦠they know it, we know it.
We have to be a strong and united West against th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah let’s spend it on banning women from wearing short sleeves. https://thehill.com/homenews/s... [thehill.com]
Every day it’s increasingly difficult to tell the religious right from the Taliban.
Re:Hey now! (Score:4, Insightful)
Every day it’s increasingly difficult to tell Republicans from the Taliban.
Fixed it for you.
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You don't appear to have been IED'ed or tossed off a building or beheaded...
We don't intend to let them get to that point, but they're working on it daily. When a supreme court justice is citing a judge who presided over witch burnings, you know what's up. And you like it, because otherwise you'd not be supporting it.
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I'm sorry that you're this far gone into oppression fantasy.
Hopefully, some day, you'll recover from it.
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how are they different?
They really aren't that far apart [imgur.com].
Re:Hey now! (Score:4, Funny)
How about casual? The difference being NASCAR advertising rules take effect. Everyone has to wear a vest with the logos of the campaign donors. The logo sizes are proportional to the contributed percentage.
Re: Hey now! (Score:2)
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Re:Hey now! (Score:5, Insightful)
That money's been invested!
It's earning the US Democrat party a healthy interest rate!
Maybe try not turning a country's attempt to defend itself against genocide into a partisan issue?
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Not when I'm being forced to support it with MY tax dollars.
Welcome to every country.
ESPECIALLY when the country is doing shit I, as an American, would never countenance.
That's not a thing that ever happened. In fact, it didn't happen so much, it un-happened things which actually happened. You have funded America doing much worse here at home and in other countries, you didn't stop paying taxes then in protest, you don't get to be taken seriously for crying about it now.
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Way to deliberately misunderstand what was said.
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Woot! First response is a ruzzian troll-bot with a standard crap-meme.
The most intriguing thing for me is that these imbeciles (including TFA) seem to genuinely think that cringe propaganda and shit slinging does something positive for them.
It's clear that they somehow avoided the historical lesson that Lord Hawhaw and Tokyo Rose brought. Talking shit just makes the west more determined. The pictures of Mariupol and Grozny are somehow supposed to scare the people into submission whilst in reality it just
Re:Money is there (Score:4)
They should use some of our $100 billion dollars for batteries if it all hasn't been stolen yet.
I think the priority is spending money on defences to shoot down the damn missiles in the first place.
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Parent isn't wrong, you know? A lot of both stuff and money sent to Ukraine has gone missing. Not a surprise given that before the war, Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. Heck, Selensky himself became popular with a TV series that's essentially a parody on the widespread corruption. At least some of those oligarchs, politicians and bureaucrats will have kept to their own ways and filled their own pockets instead of or in addition to helping their country.
A real estate agent I spoke
Re: Money is there (Score:2)
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Most the corruption was russian plants trying to destabilise the country.
Any evidence for that claim?
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Europol release a statement about firearms proliferation alongside existing smuggling routes from Ukraine in July last year. Is that authoritative enough for you?
Finnish authorities have found weapons originally sent to Ukraine in the hands of local biker gangs.
In the US, the Cato Institute - not an entity suspect of being a Russian troll - is concerned that US weapons sent to Ukraine are unaccounted for.
So I recommend you grow up and realize that the world is more dirty and complex than your simplified fai
We spent trillions on the Cold War (Score:5, Interesting)
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The risk is russia responding by building new modern weapons as much of their arsenal has been destroyed.
Welcome to Earth! I can see you haven't been here long.
Right now Russia is fielding tanks so old they don't have reactive armor, you can literally kill them with a recoilless rifle. They are doing this in part because they cannot build the last tracked vehicle they designed (The T-14/T-15 Armata) because they are dependent on foreign parts. And even if they did build them, their APS is worthless against top-attack ATGMs, so a $7.1M T-14 can reliably be killed with a $200k Javelin.
The idea that we have to wo