Cal88 said:

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BearGoggles said:

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Cal88 said:

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BearGoggles said:

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movielover said:

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Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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movielover said:

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dimitrig said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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Countries like Finland and Austria, who have maintained their neutrality for decades, managed to have excellent peaceful relations with Russia throughout the postwar era.

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How does Finland feel now?

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Emphasis on "feel", the policies pushed by their disco queen prime minister are based on superficial feelings driven by propaganda, and do not reflect their own best interests, which lie in an agnostic position maintaining economic relations with Russia, where companies like Nokia can dominate that large Russian market and they get the cheapest energy in the West in return.

Like Germany and the rest of western Europe, they are taking an antagonistic position promoted by NATO that hurts their own economic interests and actually greatly increases the risk of war.

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Nothing is ever Russia's fault, got it.

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Everything is Russia's fault.

Boris & Natasha, Ivan Drago, Red Dawn etc...

These people are so evil, they even blew up their own pipeline! It would be funny, except half the people on this board actually believe it was the case.

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Ukraine didn't invade Russia. I think it is very clear who the aggressor is in this instance

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So you're OK with Russia setting up military bases and large airstrips in Cuba?

Don't forget, we have 400 military bases around the world, not Russia. We've recently used military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to name a few.

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How many of the military bases are in Ukraine?

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Our arms.
We trained them for 9 years.
Our military satellites, logistics and CIA.
We're sending tanks.
We're paying the military and government over $100 Billion.
We run NATO.
Our advisors and trainers in Poland.

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Did something happen approximately 9 years ago to cause the US to train and supply Ukrainians?

And Poland is a NATO country in close proximity to Russia (and its proxy Belarus). Of course there are US/NATO troops there.

While we're on the topic, since 1945, how many NATO countries have invaded their neighbors seeking to expand their borders and annex territory by force? Now compare that to Russia and the former Soviet Union.

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NATO member Turkey has invaded the territory of NATO members Cyprus and Greece in 74, causing Cyprus to leave NATO.

Turkey has territorial disputes with Greece along its Aegean Sea littoral, and the risk of renewed conflagrations there is very real. Part of the reason Greece has had the highest defense budget spending as a percentage of its GDP in Europe at over 4%.

There are also border disputes in the former Yugoslavia involving NATO members Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia that could flare up.

Hungary and Poland have land claims over Ukraine, which annexed Polish and Austro-Hungarian territories, often followed by genocidal ethnic cleansing of formerly Polish and other minorities, and Hungary has claims over Roumania, which has gobbled up Hungarian-speaking regions, and Roumania has claims over Moldova.

Western Europe has been very stable, the only reason there haven't been any border disputes there is that the borders there have long been set. These borders are often geographical in nature, most of them haven't moved in centuries, but it's not because NATO has sprinkled magical peace dust over the continent.

Russia has invaded neighbors twice since 1990, once against Georgia, and last year against Ukraine. Both instances featured NATO egging on and arming these two countries along with Russian minorities being attacked.

In that time, the US has invaded, attacked or couped at least a dozen countries.

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Did history start in 1990? Seems to me Russia invaded and/or dominated a whole host of countries after WWII (East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslolakia, Afghanistan, not to mention the USSR republics that became independent post 1991). But you ignore that history which of course is directly relevant to why Nato exists and why countries want to join Nato.

In term of more recent history, you have conveniently overlooked Russian invasion of Chechnya and the invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Must have slipped your mind.

Yes - the US has invaded and attacked other countries post WWII - notably not any of its neighbors. Fair point. Has the US retained territory and annexed any of its conquered territories? The "marketplace" of independent countries seem to have a lot of clarity on this issue - small independent countries want to join Nato or align with the West, but very few countries are allied with Russia (and those are mostly pariah states like N. Korea, Iran and Syria).

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Russian history restarts in 1990, time when the Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia became the Russian Federation. Over the course of the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks viewed Russian nationalism as their main enemy, killing off around 20 million Russians, along with millions of Ukrainians during the Holodomor. Still the Soviets have culled more Russians than people of all other origins combined.

A lot of people in the West tend to completely conflate the USSR with Russia, this error is partly based on ignorance of Russian history, and partly on russophobia.

Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation. since 1859. The US backed fanatical salafist jihadis in the 1990s who were the primary opposition to Russia in the Chechen Wars. Since the 00s, the Chechens have turned the page and have had a good relation with the rest of Russia.

Remnants of the Chechen jihadis were integrated into ISIS and AlQaeda, spreading terror and chaos in Syria. And now these elements have been fully integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces...

Quote:

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Has the US retained territory and annexed any of its conquered territories?

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The US has 800 bases all over the world, no need to annex foreign territories when we militarily control them, especially when that control extends to economic and monetary control. We complain of Russia occupying one fifth of Ukraine when we occupy one third of Syria, the third with all the oil and wheat, "take the oil" paraphrasing Trump, and deprive the rest of the country from these vital resources.

And deny international aid for reconstruction and earthquake relief to Syria through the same kind of sanctions that have killed over half a million Iraqi children in the 1990s.

---

Ah - Russian history starts in 1990. Very interesting perspective. Not shared by the many European countries that are in NATO or want to be. Apparently they believe the 1990 reborn Russia remains a threat.

Why is the US in Syria? Because ISIS was and is there. The US literally just killed the most recent ISIS leader in . . . Syria. That is the same ISIS you claim to find intolerable because of a patch (allegedly) on a Ukrainian soldier's arm. The same ISIS where the bad Chechnyan's went.

If you really think ISIS is so terrible, then why would you object to the US fighting ISIS in Syria. This is just more faux outrage (like your claimed dislike of Nazis).

By most accounts, the US has approximately 900 troops in Syria. The US does not "occupy" one third of Syria with 900 troops. You're just making things up.

And for the record, Russia also has troops in Syria - far more than the US does. Do you have a problem with that? Of course you don't.

*popcorn*

NATO was days away from invading Russia and so Putin had no choice but to proactively invade Ukraine to eliminate the Nazis. What is so hard for you people to get?

BearGoggles said:

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Cal88 said:

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Russian history restarts in 1990, time when the Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia became the Russian Federation. Over the course of the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks viewed Russian nationalism as their main enemy, killing off around 20 million Russians, along with millions of Ukrainians during the Holodomor. Still the Soviets have culled more Russians than people of all other origins combined.

A lot of people in the West tend to completely conflate the USSR with Russia, this error is partly based on ignorance of Russian history, and partly on russophobia.

Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation. since 1859. The US backed fanatical salafist jihadis in the 1990s who were the primary opposition to Russia in the Chechen Wars. Since the 00s, the Chechens have turned the page and have had a good relation with the rest of Russia.

Remnants of the Chechen jihadis were integrated into ISIS and AlQaeda, spreading terror and chaos in Syria. And now these elements have been fully integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces...

Quote:

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Has the US retained territory and annexed any of its conquered territories?

---

The US has 800 bases all over the world, no need to annex foreign territories when we militarily control them, especially when that control extends to economic and monetary control. We complain of Russia occupying one fifth of Ukraine when we occupy one third of Syria, the third with all the oil and wheat, "take the oil" paraphrasing Trump, and deprive the rest of the country from these vital resources.

And deny international aid for reconstruction and earthquake relief to Syria through the same kind of sanctions that have killed over half a million Iraqi children in the 1990s.

---

Ah - Russian history starts in 1990. Very interesting perspective. Not shared by the many European countries that are in NATO or want to be. Apparently they believe the 1990 reborn Russia remains a threat.

Why is the US in Syria? Because ISIS was and is there. The US literally just killed the most recent ISIS leader in . . . Syria. That is the same ISIS you claim to find intolerable because of a patch (allegedly) on a Ukrainian soldier's arm. The same ISIS where the bad Chechnyan's went.

If you really think ISIS is so terrible, then why would you object to the US fighting ISIS in Syria. This is just more faux outrage (like your claimed dislike of Nazis).

By most accounts, the US has approximately 900 troops in Syria. The US does not "occupy" one third of Syria with 900 troops. You're just making things up.

And for the record, Russia also has troops in Syria - far more than the US does. Do you have a problem with that? Of course you don't.

---

America's hidden war in Syria
"U.S. troops will now stay in Syria
indefinitely, controlling a third of the
country and facing peril on many fronts "

Story by Liz Sly

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/syria/us-troops-in-syria/

We're also "taking the oil", Syrian oil from the third of that country controlled by the US.

End America's Illegal Occupation of Syria Now
"Our presence there is a violation of domestic and international law that's made a horrible civil war even worse. "
https://www.cato.org/commentary/end-americas-illegal-occupation-syria-now#

The US/NATO has been propping up jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria, the same as was done in Chechnya in the 90s and before that in Afghanistan in the 80s.

Russia intervened in Syria at the behest of the Syrian government in 2013 when ISIS was on the verge of conquering the capital Damascus. Russia came in and destroyed the entire ISIS oil tanker fleet in one week, a job that somehow the USAF hadn't managed. Russia is ISIS' #1 enemy, one of the reasons why ISIS is embeded within Ukraine's army today.

If you have a hard time believing something as clearcut as the US destroying Nordstream, you're not going to get very far understanding the byzantine geopolitical manipulations that have been taking place in a place like Syria, which was a US/NATO war project, so there is almost no point going over this subject in more detail here.

blungld said:

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NATO was days away from invading Russia and so Putin had no choice but to proactively invade Ukraine to eliminate the Nazis. What is so hard for you people to get?

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Ukraine had amassed 60,000 troops ready to overrun DPR and LPR positions in the Donbass last January, with the stated goal of reconquering Crimea after crushing the Donbass rebellion. Without the land bridge through Mariupol, Crimea's defense would have been untenable.

Protecting the Donbass rebels would have been reason enough for Russia to go in, but Crimea is even more vital, so the Russians had to go in.

Other strong signals that prompted Russian intervention was the stated intent of Zelensky to acquire nuclear weapons, all the while Ukraine was being built into the largest army in Europe.

Unit2Sucks said:

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Cross-posting my response yesterday to ML's request because I'm sure any minute now ML will want to address Minsk.

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Still waiting for your source that Putin said he wasn't going to honor Minsk.

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Sure. Looking forward to your propaganda spin since you were unwilling to go on record earlier.

https://tass.com/world/1334327

Quote:

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Diplomat reminds US, Ukraine that Russia is not a party to Minsk agreements

Maria Zakharova stressed that the Package of Measures was mandatory for the parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict: Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk

MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stressed that Russia is not a party to the Minsk agreements and urged the US Embassy in Moscow to inform the US diplomatic mission in Kiev about that.

Zakharova was commenting on reports saying that the US Embassy in Ukraine had called on Russia to fully honor its commitments under the Minsk accords. "I did not know that the US Embassy in Ukraine also performed the functions of the American diplomatic mission in Russia. Is that how they are optimizing or what?" she wrote on her Telegram channel.

"As long as we do not know anything about that, I urge the US Embassy in Russia to tell the US Embassy in Ukraine that Russia is not a party to the Minsk agreements. At the same time, the Package of Measures is mandatory for the parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict: Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk," she stressed.

---

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This sounds like Russia was treating the Donbass itself as a party to the Minsk Agreement, as opposed to Russia being a direct party to the agreements. The document was signed by Separatist Leaders Zakharchenko and Plotnisky (not agents of Russia), an OSCE rep, and a Ukranian Rep.

I don't see anything there saying Russia will break the agreement. Rather, they weren't direct parties to it (unlike Ukraine, who was arming itself through NATO to get strong enough to break it and take back territory it felt was theirs).

Cal88 said:

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blungld said:

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NATO was days away from invading Russia and so Putin had no choice but to proactively invade Ukraine to eliminate the Nazis. What is so hard for you people to get?

---

Ukraine had amassed 60,000 troops ready to overrun DPR and LPR positions in the Donbass last January, with the stated goal of reconquering Crimea after crushing the Donbass rebellion. Without the land bridge through Mariupol, Crimea's defense would have been untenable.

Protecting the Donbass rebels would have been reason enough for Russia to go in, but Crimea is even more vital, so the Russians had to go in.

Other strong signals that prompted Russian intervention was the stated intent of Zelensky to acquire nuclear weapons, all the while Ukraine was being built into the largest army in Europe.

---

So Ukraine was about to overrun Russian-backed separatists in its own country and Russia was also concerned that Ukraine might want to later retake the land that it already illegally seized and so the only logical choice was to land paratroops in Kyev and start an open war with Ukraine.

I know that the Russians don't believe any of the propaganda they spew but I don't understand how the guys on this board can parrot it back to us with a straight face. This pro-Russia cheerleading is embarrassing no matter where your politics lie.

Putin has killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers defending their country, if you believe some reports, and thousands of Russians as well. Instead of condemning Putin some people here blame Ukraine and even NATO for this.

Russian troll farms earn money for spewing hate, but what do you guys get out of it? This has gone beyond wanting to play devil's advocate or presenting an alternate viewpoint to educate. It is outright cheering for Russia to destroy Ukraine and even NATO. It is reposting Russian propaganda in the guise of news. It is pretty disgusting, actually.

This war needs to be stopped now and the only one that can stop it on fair terms is Putin. If and when Ukraine surrenders to Russia on the battlefield it will be because Russia has made them pay a terrible price for their freedom. That's not something to look forward to and I pray for the day when Russian troops finally go home to their families instead of risking their lives in Ukraine to help a dictator further his personal agenda.

Ukraine and NATO were never a military threat to the Russian motherland. This invasion is uncalled for and a waste of lives. It is upsetting to think about all the people killed, homes destroyed, pets, livestock, and wildlife killed or suffering, and
orphaned children.

My parents grew up in the aftermath of WW2 and my takeaway from hearing their experiences is how senseless it all was. This is equally senseless and I hope that in a decade or two Russians look back at what a terrible mistake their leadership made. I know some posters here should be ashamed already but they have no shame.

Wagner PMC reportedly near the center of Bakhmut.

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇷🇺🇺🇦The US has information indicating that the China is considering the possibility of assisting Russia [in Ukraine], Washington warns Beijing not to do this - Antony Blinken.

— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) February 23, 2023

🇨🇳🇺🇸China FM spokesman Wenbin: US has not fought in just 16 years of its 240-year history.After the end of WW II,the US tried to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments,violently interfered in elections in at least 30 countries and tried to kill more than 50 foreign leaders pic.twitter.com/GAAx0tgdCU

— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) February 23, 2023

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇺🇦🇷🇺"US expects China to present its peace plan for Ukraine on Friday, they[USA] want to get acquainted with it" - Victoria Nuland

— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) February 23, 2023

dimitrig said:

---

Cal88 said:

---

blungld said:

---

NATO was days away from invading Russia and so Putin had no choice but to proactively invade Ukraine to eliminate the Nazis. What is so hard for you people to get?

---

Ukraine had amassed 60,000 troops ready to overrun DPR and LPR positions in the Donbass last January, with the stated goal of reconquering Crimea after crushing the Donbass rebellion. Without the land bridge through Mariupol, Crimea's defense would have been untenable.

Protecting the Donbass rebels would have been reason enough for Russia to go in, but Crimea is even more vital, so the Russians had to go in.

Other strong signals that prompted Russian intervention was the stated intent of Zelensky to acquire nuclear weapons, all the while Ukraine was being built into the largest army in Europe.

---

So Ukraine was about to overrun Russian-backed separatists in its own country and Russia was also concerned that Ukraine might want to later retake the land that it already illegally seized and so the only logical choice was to land paratroops in Kyev and start an open war with Ukraine.

I know that the Russians don't believe any of the propaganda they spew but I don't understand how the guys on this board can parrot it back to us with a straight face. This pro-Russia cheerleading is embarrassing no matter where your politics lie.

Putin has killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers defending their country, if you believe some reports, and thousands of Russians as well. Instead of condemning Putin some people here blame Ukraine and even NATO for this.

Russian troll farms earn money for spewing hate, but what do you guys get out of it? This has gone beyond wanting to play devil's advocate or presenting an alternate viewpoint to educate. It is outright cheering for Russia to destroy Ukraine and even NATO. It is reposting Russian propaganda in the guise of news. It is pretty disgusting, actually.

This war needs to be stopped now and the only one that can stop it on fair terms is Putin. If and when Ukraine surrenders to Russia on the battlefield it will be because Russia has made them pay a terrible price for their freedom. That's not something to look forward to and I pray for the day when Russian troops finally go home to their families instead of risking their lives in Ukraine to help a dictator further his personal agenda.

Ukraine and NATO were never a military threat to the Russian motherland. This invasion is uncalled for and a waste of lives. It is upsetting to think about all the people killed, homes destroyed, pets, livestock, and wildlife killed or suffering, and
orphaned children.

My parents grew up in the aftermath of WW2 and my takeaway from hearing their experiences is how senseless it all was. This is equally senseless and I hope that in a decade or two Russians look back at what a terrible mistake their leadership made. I know some posters here should be ashamed already but they have no shame.

---

I agree completely with the sentiment about the wanton waste of this war, 100%.

Where we disagree is in the general level of understanding about geopolitics, and about internal dynamics in Ukraine and the exploitation of thereof by NATO for cynical geopolitical goals. We knew what Russia's red lines were, and went after them deliberately, leading Ukraine down the primrose path.

Do you think John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs or Noam Chomsky should also "be ashamed" of having the same position as mine? Or perhaps they have a better understanding of the situation.

-Who do you think blew up Nordstream? There are 50 million people in Europe right now who have to choose between heating their homes and buying food, their economic situation worsened significantly as a result of this act of state terrorism.

-Why aren't Crimeans allowed to decide their own self-determination, the same way Slovakia, Scotland or Quebec are allowed? Or the Donbass people for that matter?

Cal88 said:

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Do you think John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs or Noam Chomsky should also "be ashamed" of having the same position as mine?

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Yes.

Racism?

movielover said:

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Wagner PMC reportedly near the center of Bakhmut.

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Ukraine, being heavily PR-driven, is desperately holding on to Bakhmut at huge costs before the 1-year anniversary of the war and Biden's visit. They will probably bail out in March.

movielover said:

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Racism?

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Russophobia. The mostly Russian inhabitants of Crimea can't possibly want to join Russia, despite all the polls and referenda that proved otherwise, overwhelmingly so. They must have been forced to vote for Russia at gunpoint, with the threat of their babushka being sent off to Siberia.

sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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Do you think John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs or Noam Chomsky should also "be ashamed" of having the same position as mine?

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Yes.

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I'd rather be on the side of Mearsheimer, Sachs and Chomsky than on the side of Lindsey Graham, John Bolton or Bill Kristol.

Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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Do you think John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs or Noam Chomsky should also "be ashamed" of having the same position as mine?

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Yes.

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I'd rather be on the side of Mearsheimer, Sachs and Chomsky than on the side of Lindsey Graham, John Bolton or Bill Kristol.

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I'd rather not be on the side of Vladimir Putin.

sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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Do you think John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs or Noam Chomsky should also "be ashamed" of having the same position as mine?

---

Yes.

---

I'd rather be on the side of Mearsheimer, Sachs and Chomsky than on the side of Lindsey Graham, John Bolton or Bill Kristol.

---

I'd rather not be on the side of Vladimir Putin.

---

I'd rather not be of the side of ISIS and neo-nazis.

I admit I bought into the first Gulf War. How 'experienced' military said the ME would unfold, didn't.

Then Colin Powell and the State Dept / MIC lies surfaced. I wasn't for the second war.

Now I notice how everybody is Hitler. Sadaam. Bashar al-Assad. Putin. It's old. President Trump unleashed our energy supplies, and we were energy independent. Obviously, some people don't want that.

Now China is going to play statesman?

movielover said:

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Wagner PMC reportedly near the center of Bakhmut.

---

24 hours and you still haven't responded on Minsk. After pressing for weeks in response to your repeated posting that Ukraine et al never believed in Minsk and that somehow that was responsible for Russia's unprovoked invasion, you are now strangely silent. You refused to ever look into or even acknowledge Russia's claims about it's own involvement in Minsk, yet you accepted all of their other Minsk propaganda without any skepticism. So I provided my source - which as I always maintained - was a high level Russian official and you still have nothing.

In case you are wondering if I will forget, I won't. I will remember the next time you post something stupid about Minsk and I will continue to press you on this.

Unit2Sucks said:

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Cross-posting my response yesterday to ML's request because I'm sure any minute now ML will want to address Minsk.

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Still waiting for your source that Putin said he wasn't going to honor Minsk.

---

Sure. Looking forward to your propaganda spin since you were unwilling to go on record earlier.

https://tass.com/world/1334327

Quote:

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Diplomat reminds US, Ukraine that Russia is not a party to Minsk agreements

Maria Zakharova stressed that the Package of Measures was mandatory for the parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict: Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk

MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stressed that Russia is not a party to the Minsk agreements and urged the US Embassy in Moscow to inform the US diplomatic mission in Kiev about that.

Zakharova was commenting on reports saying that the US Embassy in Ukraine had called on Russia to fully honor its commitments under the Minsk accords. "I did not know that the US Embassy in Ukraine also performed the functions of the American diplomatic mission in Russia. Is that how they are optimizing or what?" she wrote on her Telegram channel.

"As long as we do not know anything about that, I urge the US Embassy in Russia to tell the US Embassy in Ukraine that Russia is not a party to the Minsk agreements. At the same time, the Package of Measures is mandatory for the parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict: Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk," she stressed.

---

---

---

Since ML is afraid to respond to my post on Minsk, I will use this opportunity to post a link to an article about Russian shills on twitter.

New by me: Russian propaganda accounts have bought Twitter blue checks, helping them spread lies about Ukraine to millions of English speakers. Gift article here: https://t.co/6om6Oimst4

— Joseph Menn (@josephmenn) February 22, 2023

Here is an excerpt calling out a few of them (which no doubt we've seen our own Russian shills share here over the past year) but there are plenty more.

Quote:

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The verified pro-Russian accounts identified by Reset take a variety of approaches. Some style themselves as independent media outlets. Another, called @LogKa11, created in February 2022, shares mainly pro-Russian war content in English to its more than 30,000 followers, including stories from war correspondents embedded with Russian troops and videos of successful attacks. It has repeatedly linked Ukrainians to Nazis, writing in December that "Modern Ukraine has had a strange obsession with Nazism." That echoes one of President Vladimir Putin's primary justifications for the invasion.

One, called @PutinDirect, posts videos of comments from the Russian leader with English captions and links to full speeches.

Among the most popular is @Runews, which was around for over a decade before getting a blue check. Describing itself as a "citizen journalist," it reaches 260,000 followers with sometimes heavy-handed propaganda, such as its repeated recent suggestions that Ohio "should really declare itself part of Ukraine in hopes of receiving aid from Biden administration." (The statement omitted the word "the," which is a common mistake by native Russian speakers.)

The account "is regularly engaging with content coming from Russian state media such as RT International @RT_com or editor in chief Margarita Simonyan @m_simonyan. It is also sharing videos from Russian media or other pro-Russian channels with content deriding the E.U., NATO, Ukraine, the West as a whole and clearly supporting Russia's actions in the war," Reset wrote. "It also produces content geared toward the U.S. Republican Twitterverse."

Runews got a blue check in mid-January. On Feb. 6, Musk boosted the account's profile by responding to its claim that 157,000 Ukrainian soldiers and 2,458 NATO soldiers have died in the war with the comment: "A tragic loss of life."

---

Search for logka11 and guess what comes up first? Remember when ML told us that he knows how to evaluate media sources? Gotta give the Kremlin credit for continuing to leverage useful idiots even decades after it was a known tactic.

movielover said:

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Ukrainian Nazis doing a Nazi salute.

To anyone who denies that the Ukraine army isn’t rife with Nazism, show them this video.

They’re nothing more than a bunch of extremists who are only good at begging for money pic.twitter.com/X0VzvWbJzh

— LogKa (@LogKa11) February 16, 2023

---

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Wagner PMC reportedly near the center of Bakhmut.

---

24 hours and you still haven't responded on Minsk. After pressing for weeks in response to your repeated posting that Ukraine et al never believed in Minsk and that somehow that was responsible for Russia's unprovoked invasion, you are now strangely silent. You refused to ever look into or even acknowledge Russia's claims about it's own involvement in Minsk, yet you accepted all of their other Minsk propaganda without any skepticism. So I provided my source - which as I always maintained - was a high level Russian official and you still have nothing.

In case you are wondering if I will forget, I won't. I will remember the next time you post something stupid about Minsk and I will continue to press you on this.

Unit2Sucks said:

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Cross-posting my response yesterday to ML's request because I'm sure any minute now ML will want to address Minsk.

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Still waiting for your source that Putin said he wasn't going to honor Minsk.

---

Sure. Looking forward to your propaganda spin since you were unwilling to go on record earlier.

https://tass.com/world/1334327

Quote:

---

Diplomat reminds US, Ukraine that Russia is not a party to Minsk agreements

Maria Zakharova stressed that the Package of Measures was mandatory for the parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict: Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk

MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stressed that Russia is not a party to the Minsk agreements and urged the US Embassy in Moscow to inform the US diplomatic mission in Kiev about that.

Zakharova was commenting on reports saying that the US Embassy in Ukraine had called on Russia to fully honor its commitments under the Minsk accords. "I did not know that the US Embassy in Ukraine also performed the functions of the American diplomatic mission in Russia. Is that how they are optimizing or what?" she wrote on her Telegram channel.

"As long as we do not know anything about that, I urge the US Embassy in Russia to tell the US Embassy in Ukraine that Russia is not a party to the Minsk agreements. At the same time, the Package of Measures is mandatory for the parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict: Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk," she stressed.

---

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---

---

Everything about Minsk has already been discussed on this thread, several times, mainly that all the protagonists on NATO's side (Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko) publicly admitted that it was used as a stalling tactic to rearm Ukraine, and that they had no intention of abiding by it in the long run.

The only thing that wasn't discussed about Minsk is that city being the final destination of a young girl's strange, erotic journey that started out in Milan.



(come to think of it that tagline sounds a bit creepy)

Minsk, which BOTH sides didn't fulfill, Minsk 2, failed talks. Meanwhile, Donbas citizens continued to die.

NATO Targets Yugoslavia: An anti-war documentary

https://www.liberationschool.org/nato-targets-yugoslavia/

movielover said:

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Minsk, which BOTH sides didn't fulfill, Minsk 2, failed talks. Meanwhile, Donbas citizens continued to die.

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You've posted multiple times about how the problem with Minsk 2 was entirely the fault of a string of people not named Russia because, apparently, you didn't know that Russia claimed not to be a party to or bound by Minsk 2, despite me having told you that numerous times.

Now that I provided the proof that Russia claims it was not a signatory to or bound by Minsk 2 you chalk it up to "failed talks"? What does that mean for your numerous other posts (past and future) on Minsk 2?

Was Russia a party to Minsk 2? Were they bound by it? Do they share any responsibility for the failure of Minsk 2 to have an impact? If you want to engage in conversations beyond just amplifying Russian propaganda, like you do with logka11 and who knows how many other state run Russian propaganda outlets, now's your chance.

movielover said:

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Yale MacMillian Center

Frustrated by refusals to give Russia security guarantees & implement Minsk 2, Putin recognizes pseudo-states in Donbas and invades Ukraine

"Frustrated by the continuing refusal of the U.S. and NATO to provide Russia the security guarantees it requested in December and by the refusal of Ukraine to fully implement the measures agreed by the Russian, Ukrainian, French and German leaders at Minsk in February 2015 to end the conflict between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine that began in the spring of 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin went on television at 6 a.m. this morning, local time, and announced a "special military operation" in that region. ..."

"...In his address to the Russian people, Putin said the purpose of the "operation" was to protect people in Donbas (Donbass in Russian) "who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev (Kyiv in Ukrainian) regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation." "

"...More than anything else, it was the refusal of Ukraine to implement the provisions of Minsk 2 especially the provision that would give the predominantly Russian-speaking regions a special constitutional status that caused Russia to threaten military action against Ukraine. Time after time in recent weeks, Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov made it clear in meetings and press conferences that the key to resolving the situation in and around Ukraine was the full implementation of Minsk 2,..."

"...Among the key stumbling blocks [at Minsk 2, 12th hour negotiations] were Kyiv's refusal to negotiate in the Contact Group with the leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics and its strong opposition to enacting a constitutional reform that would grant those regions a substantial degree of autonomy, ..."

"...Putin said, "Kiev is not complying with the Minsk Agreements and, in particular, is strongly opposed to a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk. Kiev is essentially sabotaging the agreements on amending the Constitution, on the special status of Donbass, on local elections and on amnesty on all the key items in the Minsk Agreements. ..."

Putin and Macron talk for 2 hours. " "It was emphasized once again that Kiev is only imitating a negotiating process and continues to refuse to implement the Minsk agreements, as well as the agreements reached as part of the Normandy format."

https://macmillan.yale.edu/news/frustrated-refusals-give-russia-security-guarantees-implement-minsk-2-putin-recognizes-pseudo

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Is there any daylight between Putin's propaganda on Minsk 2 and your personal views? You requested multiple times for me to share with you Putin's official view because it appears you were unable to find it yourself. Now that I've done so, it's reasonable for me to ask you to actually tell us what you think.

Do you agree with his view that Russia wasn't a party to Minsk 2?

Do you think that Russia's actions with respect to Minsk 2 matter or is it only Ukraine/Boris Johnson/NATO/CRT/BLM/UNICEF/PETA that matters?

Do you agree with Putin that Ukraine's failure to abide by an agreement that (Putin says) Russia wasn't a party to or bound by?

You obviously think Minsk 2 was an important agreement (or at least enjoy sharing Putin's propaganda which makes it seem that way). I'm asking you what you think. It appears that before I proved to you that Putin claims Russia wasn't a party to Minsk 2 that you had believed the opposite. Now that you have your marching orders and know that Russia's official position is different from what you expected, I imagine that must change how you feel but perhaps it just changes what propaganda you amplify?

I promise to explain to you in detail where I disagree and I won't just use Putin's propaganda to do it (although I did link to Putin's propaganda to show what Putin's official position is). I'll even link the actual Minsk 2 agreement (which you could find if you cared to do anything other than mindlessly parrot agitprop you find).

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Final hit for today - Prigozhin has publicly accused the Russian defense minister and chief of staff of Treason. Much of Russia's limited military success in Ukraine has been delivered by Wagner, including Soledar which the Russian shills claimed was a major strategic victory, but it appears Wagner is on the outs and it's hard to imagine this internal battle between Russian miltary and their own mercs is good for Putin's goals. Prigozhin also acknowledges that Wagner mercs are "dropping like flies" but I'm sure the Russian shills on BI who claim otherwise based purely on Russian propaganda know more than Prigozhin about his losses.

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Quote:

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Outspoken Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the country's top brass on Tuesday of deliberately starving his Wagner fighters of munitions in what he said was a treasonous attempt to destroy his private military company.
...
[url=https://www.reuters.com/world/live-video-us-president-joe-biden-speaks-warsaw-after-kyiv-visit-2023-02-21/][/url]Prigozhin has also forged an informal alliance with fellow hardliners, including the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, and accused the defence ministry of trying to take credit for Wagner successes in eastern Ukraine.

But his star appears to be waning. He was this year stripped of the right to recruit prisoners amid some signs of a Kremlin move to curb his influence.

On Tuesday, he appeared to publicly bridle against that pressure, losing his temper and shouting at one point.

"There is simply direct opposition going on (to attempts to equip Wagner fighters)," Prigozhin said in a voice message posted on his Telegram channel. "This can be equated to high treason.

"The chief of the general staff and the defence minister are giving orders right and left, not just not to give Wagner PMC (private military company) ammunition, but not to help it with air transport," Prigozhin alleged.

He said that senior officials had also declined Wagner's requests for special spades to dig trenches.

His voice rising to a shout, Prigozhin accused the military top brass of deciding that "people should die when it's convenient for them", and said that Wagner fighters were "dropping like flies" in the absence of necessary supplies.

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Looks like Prigozhin might not be the only one having trouble receiving ammo.

First - detailed thread on Prigozhin's recent interview with that Russian milblogger I also recently called out (as a die-hard, long-time, pro-Kremlin milblogger who has questioned the Kremlin a few times of late). Prigozhin complains about how the ammo starvation of the Wagner group is leading to massive fatalities. I mentioned this recently (see above), but this is a pretty good detailed breakdown for anyone interested.

Apparently, the regular Russian army is also ammo starved in Eastern Ukraine and a lot of what they've been provided is unusable, due to poor logistics, improper storage or or any other number of reasons. Just like we saw with their tanks early in the war, Russia's decades of kleptocracy and corruption haven't done their soldiers any favors. Given that they have trouble housing, clothing, feeding and otherwise logistically supporting their forces, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

Despite the breathless defenders and promoters of Putin and the Kremlin, any reasonable observer would have to wonder why it is that Russia has failed so badly to win against an overmatched opponent 1 year into the war. The answer, of course, is that the propaganda is incredibly false and Russia's is failing for all of the reasons people have called out. That doesn't mean that Russia won't be able to throw enough bodies and metal at the meat grinder to eventually grind out a pyrhhic victory, but it does mean that Russian military and its command are bad at war.

2/ After complaints from Yevgeny Prigozhin about Wagner fighters being denied ammunition, Alexander Khodakovsky of the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion has written that the situation is the same for everyone – indicating an extreme case of 'shell famine'.https://t.co/CX5YGnTqWs

— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) February 22, 2023

4/ The supplies include "cases of inadequate quality ammunition, including category 2 and 3 (with defects or generally unsuitable for combat use)". As can be seen from the pictures, the ammunition now is unusable and probably unsafe, likely resulting from poor storage conditions.

— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) February 22, 2023

Cal88 said:

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BearGoggles said:

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Cal88 said:

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Russian history restarts in 1990, time when the Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia became the Russian Federation. Over the course of the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks viewed Russian nationalism as their main enemy, killing off around 20 million Russians, along with millions of Ukrainians during the Holodomor. Still the Soviets have culled more Russians than people of all other origins combined.

A lot of people in the West tend to completely conflate the USSR with Russia, this error is partly based on ignorance of Russian history, and partly on russophobia.

Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation. since 1859. The US backed fanatical salafist jihadis in the 1990s who were the primary opposition to Russia in the Chechen Wars. Since the 00s, the Chechens have turned the page and have had a good relation with the rest of Russia.

Remnants of the Chechen jihadis were integrated into ISIS and AlQaeda, spreading terror and chaos in Syria. And now these elements have been fully integrated into the Ukrainian armed forces...

Quote:

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Has the US retained territory and annexed any of its conquered territories?

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The US has 800 bases all over the world, no need to annex foreign territories when we militarily control them, especially when that control extends to economic and monetary control. We complain of Russia occupying one fifth of Ukraine when we occupy one third of Syria, the third with all the oil and wheat, "take the oil" paraphrasing Trump, and deprive the rest of the country from these vital resources.

And deny international aid for reconstruction and earthquake relief to Syria through the same kind of sanctions that have killed over half a million Iraqi children in the 1990s.

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Ah - Russian history starts in 1990. Very interesting perspective. Not shared by the many European countries that are in NATO or want to be. Apparently they believe the 1990 reborn Russia remains a threat.

Why is the US in Syria? Because ISIS was and is there. The US literally just killed the most recent ISIS leader in . . . Syria. That is the same ISIS you claim to find intolerable because of a patch (allegedly) on a Ukrainian soldier's arm. The same ISIS where the bad Chechnyan's went.

If you really think ISIS is so terrible, then why would you object to the US fighting ISIS in Syria. This is just more faux outrage (like your claimed dislike of Nazis).

By most accounts, the US has approximately 900 troops in Syria. The US does not "occupy" one third of Syria with 900 troops. You're just making things up.

And for the record, Russia also has troops in Syria - far more than the US does. Do you have a problem with that? Of course you don't.

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America's hidden war in Syria
"U.S. troops will now stay in Syria
indefinitely, controlling a third of the
country and facing peril on many fronts "

Story by Liz Sly

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/syria/us-troops-in-syria/

We're also "taking the oil", Syrian oil from the third of that country controlled by the US.

End America's Illegal Occupation of Syria Now
"Our presence there is a violation of domestic and international law that's made a horrible civil war even worse. "
https://www.cato.org/commentary/end-americas-illegal-occupation-syria-now#

The US/NATO has been propping up jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria, the same as was done in Chechnya in the 90s and before that in Afghanistan in the 80s.

Russia intervened in Syria at the behest of the Syrian government in 2013 when ISIS was on the verge of conquering the capital Damascus. Russia came in and destroyed the entire ISIS oil tanker fleet in one week, a job that somehow the USAF hadn't managed. Russia is ISIS' #1 enemy, one of the reasons why ISIS is embeded within Ukraine's army today.

If you have a hard time believing something as clearcut as the US destroying Nordstream, you're not going to get very far understanding the byzantine geopolitical manipulations that have been taking place in a place like Syria, which was a US/NATO war project, so there is almost no point going over this subject in more detail here.

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That article is from 2018 - over three years ago. The US does not currently control a third of the country with 900 troops. You further discredit yourself by so clearly taking old information and presenting it as currently accurate.

And you're similarly wrong about Russian involvement in Syria. That began in 2015 - not 2013.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/14/russias-military-action-in-syria-timeline

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

That was one year after the US had started attacking ISIS

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-us-policy-isis

And I have no idea what you're alleging about Nordstream. Very early on (right after it happened) I said I thought it was the US that did it (or perhaps a US proxy).