Yup, really good theories.
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What we have sent in terms of offensive weapons is a pittance compared to what they need and we are still screwing around by - yet again - holding up on those surface to air Stinger missiles. Given that Russia is currently bombing the shit out of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, those Stinger missiles are sorely missed right now and potentially could have saved civilian lives.
Like I said before, political theatre for the masses. The Administration cares about the Ukraine, just not that much. We partially remove them from SWIFT, but not completely. We apply other economic sanctions, but won't employ a fossil fuel embargo that would cripple Russia more than anything else we have done combined. We will send them weapons, but nothing that will cause too much offensive damage because we fear that Russia will retaliate.
Most of the Russian army has low morale. The average soldier has no idea why they are going into Ukraine. Reportedly they are sabotaging their own vehicles and deliberately running out of gas. Most of the damage to Kharkiv has been done by missiles and smart bombs i.e. push button weapons. Add in the ferocious resistance by the Ukrainians and it is not surprising that Russia has not just rolled into Kyiv.
That said , the Ukrainians need more help than they have been getting . Especially Stinger missiles. We can't establish a No-Fly zone over Ukraine as Zelensky wants . That would guarantee a shooting war between NATO and Russia which absolutely must be avoided.
The best idea I have heard , out of very , very few , would be to send Angela Merkel and maybe Obama to see Putin and try to work out a way for him to declare victory and get out. Merkel speaks Russian , lived in East Germany when Putin was assigned there as a KGB agent and has had a good relationship with him. Putin would probably see Obama as close enough to an honest broker ( seeing as how he never punished him for his past aggressions ) . Hopefully they can work out a face saving way for Putin to agree to a cease fire and withdrawl.
Anyone hoping for a Ukrainian "victory" should shut up and be careful what they wish for. That is a pipe dream given the current military situation and Putin's mental state.
The Russian oligarchs are starting , just starting to feel the pinch and have looked ahead and do not like what they see in the near future. Hopefully they will pressure Putin to agree to a truce. That itself raises an interesting and very important question : Are they rich and powerful because of Putin i.e. they owe him or is he in power because of their support ? My guess is that it is both.
Ukraine had already received Stingers from Lithuania before Russia invaded.
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-englis...from-lithuania
We've sent them plenty of weapons, which is why they've been able to hold out for so long. Russia's economy is already wrecked. You're just making stuff up to bash Biden. Ukraine is getting more military support than anyone expected them to, from the US and other NATO countries, and Russia is getting hit with sanctions far worse than anyone was expecting, or at least far worse than Putin was expecting.
OK Eagle. Why not follow your own playbook and tone down the politics ? If I can resist blaming and criticizing Biden then you ought to restrain yourself from mentioning Trump.
This is actually a rare case where I think Biden is being justifiably cautious and is taking an incremental approach. It's a delicate balance to maintain whereby we help Ukraine without crossing one of Putin's "red lines". He has tolerated shipments of "defensive " weapons. He would not do so with anything that has a serious offensive capability like fighter jets and the like. A lot of doubts have been raised about Putin's mental state and how far he is really willing to go. Putin obviously wants to restore as much of the old Soviet empire as he can. The question is : At what cost ? Assuming he is able to crush organized resistance in Ukraine then he is certain to have a long running insurgency on his hands. Ukraine is a LOT bigger with a LOT more people than Chechnya.
You are correct that Russia's economy is wrecked EXCEPT for sales of fossil fuels. Primarily to Western Europe and the U.S. The average Russian is feeling the pain but Putin and his oligarch pals are definitely not. They are even moving their luxury yachts to safer waters to keep them from being seized.
I didn't mention Trump. Poland is sending fighter jets to Ukraine. I don't think there is any amount of weapons that can be sent to Ukraine that can prevent Russia from taking over their country, unless Putin chooses to withdraw. Russia's military is just so much bigger than Ukraine's. It's all a matter of how many losses Putin is willing to accept. If the Russian military loses enough tanks and armored vehicles, aircraft, and men, Putin may eventually decide the costs aren't worth it, and there is also the remote possibility that Putin could be removed from power.
When Biden was asked if there was any chance we would stop buying Russian oil, he said nothing is off the table. Even if they're able to sell oil, there's not much they can do with the revenue. Russia airlines are banned from Western countries' airspace. Many container ships are refusing to sail to Russia. Western companies are pulling out of Russia. Oligarchs can't travel to Western countries. Their apartments and assets in Western countries are being seized. Maybe they can look for some beach front property in North Korea.
https://youtu.be/QnevpbkFrPE
All I know is innocent people shouldn’t suffer
https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1499138624104849412
Quote:
CNN: US has delivered hundreds of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine for the first time over the last few days, including over 200 on Monday via @ZcohenCNN and @kylieatwood
Just saw on the news that the US has imported zero barrels of oil from Russia over the past 2 weeks.
Germany just seized a $600 million yacht from a Russian billionaire.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomo...h=2975d33652dd
I definitely feel there is something off about all of this. The staged videos of the Russian troops crying saying they didn’t know what they really came for, it’s all just, so staged. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were actually Ukrainian soldiers in disguise. The whole thing seems so off I can’t help feeling uneasy about it all.
The photos of Zelenskyy dressed in army gear as if he’s fighting on the street, of course he isn’t, he’s tucked away in a safe bunker of course - otherwise he’d be dead by now. It literally seems like it’s all set up for the media. I’m not a conspiracy theorist at all, but this is….. strange.
Well during war times both sides create propoganda to some extent but I have a friend and their family sat in the basement of their apartment block with 50 other people and cold tinned food scared out of their f*cking minds. Since Saturday the Internet has been patchy and every time I hear from them I wonder if its going to be the last.
This is not a set up for the media. This is the terrifying reality for millions of people right now.
How did Maksim Chmerkovsky (on the DWTS show) get a flight back to LAX from the Ukraine? I thought they weren't allowing flights to/from Ukraine and USA?
What's sad is that he was told while he was there to get a gun and watch youtube videos on how to use it. Good god. That must be terrifying to even sleep at night. How could anyone sleep through the possibility of being blown up or shot at?
Thank you for the thought. This concern and helplessness is totally alien to me. My fiance was in the army for the first half of our relationship but it was his choice to be acting on the whims of the politicians and presidents. What's going on now to the civilians, known and strangers is just horrible.
Interesting. I remember that woman’s photo. She was all over the western news.
Attachment 56801
Those pics have been confirmed as from April 2021 when he visited the front line in East Ukraine, obviously before any military conflict. A quick reverse image search showed this days ago.
Still a powerful image for Ukrainians. My own leader (Johnson) prefers to promise sanctions "sometime soon" and hide in fridges, rather than wear military garb.
If we sent them plenty of weapons they probably wouldn't be begging for more. We have also not sent enough of the right weapons - stuff that could actually help Ukraine control its own airspace against bombers and fighter jets.
As far as the sanctions, boloney. As long as Russia can buy and sell from/to China and certain other countries it has a pipeline to the financial markets. Most of those sanctions are more inconveniences than destructive. If we truly wanted to firebomb them, we would embargo their fossil fuels now and completely cut them off from all financial markets. But we won't because Europe is afraid to go that far.
Eagle, I understand your need to post apologist fluff - you like you're guy. I get it. But I'm a little disgusted at the dog and pony show, where we claim to be with the Ukraine people with loud and bold proclamations, but in practice sit back as they get slaughtered. We could have provided much more in a more timely manner. There is also a whole range of other weaponry that we and our allies could have provided to make the Ukraine too costly to invade, but we didn't.
I bet Biden and some EU leaders are secretly hoping that Russia will hurry up and finally knock out Ukrainian communications so that the images of civilians being slaughtered will stop flowing and Zelensky's pleas start to go unheard. That way they could stop feeling backed into corners and discontinue the ridiculous hypocritical political theatre that they are currently being compelled to perform.
Just wanted to mention on here if you want to help the people of the Ukraine, donate to Doctors Without Borders or the International Red Cross
I don't think he's remotely unbalanced. Indeed I think that this has all been carefully choreographed.
I already outlined my opinions on the timing re: waiting until the U.S. and EU firebombed their local fossil fuel production, thereby ensuring both greater EU dependency and dramatically increased funding for his opps. I also outlined how I believed he was testing the waters during that multi-week troop buildup and found conditions quite tolerable.
But now let's look at what has happened since. He started with an initial force that was rather more restrained. In response we (US and allies) supplied more modest weaponry and funding to the Ukraine and put in place sanctions, but nothing that Putin couldn't live with. So emboldened even more, he dramatically ramped up his attacks, but right before he did so he made the nuclear readiness announcement. This is yet another example of his calculated brilliance. He froze us into place right before he got serious and our tepid response, some additional partial sanctions and a few more Stingers to the Ukraine, was as good as he could have hoped for.
Until a few days ago I was actually more onboard with the incremental approach. But over these past few days, my opinion has altered as I've seen what Putin is truly capable of and the masterful way that he has played us along the way. IMHO he is a monster with imperialistic ambitions and it's getting to be about time that someone said "fuck Putin's red lines." Sometimes the only thing a bully understands is a baseball bat to the teeth.
When my kids come home from school each day they keep asking me why the U.S. and the world is letting this happen. We are watching a free democracy get destroyed. We are watching women and children getting killed en masse by bombs and artillery indiscriminately used against them. The longer this goes on and the worse this gets, the more I have been running out of good answers to give them.